It is to be noted also that the patriarch of Constantinople, John VI., who had been put into the place of Cyrus by Philippicus, had joined in the emperor’s acts against the Sixth Council, and led the council which rejected it, now wrote to Pope Constantine to excuse himself for having yielded to force. He began the letter with these words:—(157) “God, who has constructed the magnificence of visible things as a mark of His own Godhead and power, has specially in the formation of man, the most honoured of the sensible creation, shown His glory and wisdom, so that the prophet cried out, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for me’. Now, the Maker of our nature, designing the head to be over the whole body, placed in it the most important of our senses, and caused all the movement and perfection of the other limbs to spring from it, and be preserved in it. If one of these meet with loss or injury, it is not left without care, but the head shows a natural sympathy even to the extremest parts of the body, and heals the local suffering by the hand’s ministry and the eye’s guidance, the aid of which it does not refuse as useless. With this we can compare your own apostolical pre-eminence, counting you, according to the canons, as the head of the Christian priesthood.(158) And so with reason we ask of you to be released from the discouragement which has fallen on the body of the Church by the pestilent exercise of tyrannical power.” The patriarch further beseeches the Pope to pardon his fault that under this stress he had rejected the doctrine of the Sixth Council, in the words: “Since you are the disciple and the successor of him who heard from the Lord, ‘Simon, Simon, behold Satan has sought to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou when thou art converted confirm thy brethren,’ you are a debtor to supply what is needed for the correction which confirms, and also to show a sympathetic kindness”.