holy fathers clothed and adorned them you have left them bare and tattered. And that, too, when you had no less a pontiff than the lord Germanus, our brother and fellow priest. You should have taken his counsel as that of a father and teacher, as aged and experienced in matters both of Church and State. He is ninety-five years old: he has served one after another patriarch and emperor. He was never dispensed with, for his utility in both these services. You disregarded him and called to your side that transgressing fool the Ephesian, the son of Apsimar, and his like. For the lord Germanus and the then patriarch George, having informed and persuaded Constantine, the son of Constans, the father of Justinian, to write to us at Rome, he wrote to us under sanction of an oath, and proposed to us fitting men that there should be an ecumenical Council. ‘Nor will I,’ said he, ‘sit with them as emperor, nor speak as having control, but as one of them; and as the pontiffs enact I will execute. And those who hold the right we will receive, and those who hold the wrong we will cast out and banish. If my father perverted anything in the pure and blameless faith, I will be the first to lay him under anathema. For it was by the grace of God that we sent to you; and the Sixth Council was held in peace.’ O emperor, you know that the dogmas of holy church belong not to kings but to pontiffs, and require to be infallibly determined. For this reason pontiffs have been set over the churches, who abstain from secular matters, and kings equally abstain from matters of the Church and take charge of what is in their hands. The agreement of Christ-loving kings and of faithful pontiffs is one power when their administration is ruled by peace and charity.