But if there was no Roman patriarch present, there was the new patriarch of Constantinople, Eutychius, and the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, while he of Jerusalem sent proxies. To the decisions of the council a hundred and sixty-four signatures were affixed. Theologians still contest as to whether it was a free and open council; but it was accepted beyond question, though after some years, by the whole Church. It did its work: it safeguarded the Catholic faith by stripping bare the meaning of statements which indirectly attacked the Divine and Human Natures of the Incarnate Son. It condemned these subtle suggestions, and it preserved to the Church the real Christ of Whom she had learned. These theological questions stand out, it may seem to some to-day, too boldly in the history of the New Rome: but they know little of the capital of the East who do not know how close to its life lie these matters of dogma and definition. The very tradesmen at their work talked of them, as they talked in the time of Gregory; and there was nothing which the crowds who thronged the markets and the basilicas in the days of Justinian more readily or more constantly discussed. Constantinople in these first centuries of her life had the theological interest closest to her heart; as the years went on the needs of defence brought the military interest to the top. The city in Justinian's days was rich and full of bread. All the glory of the world seemed there to be gathered together, and with it the vice, which stern laws and the charitable institutions, founded by the imperial sovereigns, endeavoured as best they could to conquer or to heal. The thronged markets sold every kind of goods, for commerce or luxury. The monks who brought the silkworm from China to the Emperor's court enabled him to found an industry which added greatly to resources of his empire and the prosperity of his people. The mosaics, which glittered on the walls of the churches, were made by skilled artists in the city itself--carved work, images (the icons which the Greek Church has never ceased to love), jewellery, beautifully wrought, were among the manufactures of the great trading centre of the East; and the military engines for which the Eastern army was renowned were made within the walls of the capital itself. The pages of Procopius and Agathias, of Lydus and John of Ephesus, show a busy hurrying life, elaborate administrative arrangements, official classes greedy and exclusive, popular agitations hasty and fickle, an accumulating luxury with all its accompaniments of oppression, avarice, and vulgar show. The millionaires of the sixth century, with their gout, their costly equipages, and their summer palaces on the Bosphorus or at Chalcedon, were a prominent feature in the life of the great city. Beside them were the dusky traders from the far East, the hordes of bearded monks ever ready to join in the logical squabbles or