A more peremptory assertion cannot be made than this, and it is made by a Pope to an emperor, on the occasion of calling a General Council. It is carried by his legates, as ambassadors carry the commission of their sovereign. The answer(123) which the Council sent at its conclusion to the Pope shows how it was received. It ascribes to the Pope in fullest terms the position which he claimed, beginning in these words: “Greatest diseases require the greatest remedies, as you, most Blessed, know; and therefore Christ our God, whose power created, whose wisdom provides all things, has appointed your Holiness as a skilled physician to meet the contagion of heresy by the force of true belief, and to impart the vigour of health to the members of the Church. We then, having read through the letters of a true confession sent by your paternal Blessedness to the most gracious emperor, leave to you what is to be done; to you who hold the first see of the universal Church, standing on the firm rock of faith. We recognise your letters as written from the supreme head of the apostles. By them we have cast out the heretical sect which has lately set up its manifold error. According to the sentence previously passed upon them, we have cast out Theodore, bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Paul, Pyrrhus, and Peter. We have sent what we have done, and these things will be learned from those who represented you, Theodore and George, priests; John, deacon; and Constantine, sub-deacon. They state accurately the doctrine which they have approved, which we beseech your paternal Holiness to set your seal upon by your honoured rescript.” Is it possible to accept in more express terms the authority claimed by the Pope in his letter to the emperor, including that descent from Peter, to whom the promise made by our Lord is made the source and the guarantee of the authority? Is it possible more fully to acknowledge his right to confirm, in their own words, “to set his seal” on their proceedings? But the Council also congratulated the emperor on the work over which as sovereign he had presided. Its success they attribute to the Pope in these words: “The highest of all,(124) the first apostle fought with us; for we had for our supporter, who by his writing set forth the mystery of theology, his imitator and the successor of his chair. The city of Rome the elder presented to you a confession dictated by God, and caused the daylight of belief to rise from the West. Paper and ink it seemed, but Peter spoke by Agatho.”