From the witness by Arius in 325 to the witness by the next special messenger of the Church was the long period of 835 years; and during all that time the Papacy was slowly rising, pushing itself higher and higher. “The first ecumenical council of Nice (325), in its sixth canon, makes only an incidental mention of the Roman bishop. The first pope, in the real sense, was Leo I (440‐461). The bishops of the African and the Spanish churches submitted to his demands, and he gained an important foothold even in the East. In Gaul, however, he met with a most determined resistance. Gregory I (590‐604) saw that the bishops of Rome could not enjoy the ecclesiastical supremacy at which they aimed until they threw off their political dependency. The triumph of the Catholic Church over Arianism in Spain greatly promoted his plans; but he did not as yet actually possess the power of the mediaeval popes. In the seventh and eighth centuries a series of important events gave the popes a high and influential position among the secular governments of the world. The actual power was, however, for several centuries, not commensurate with their claims and aspirations. In 1073, Hildebrand (Gregory VII), after being for about twenty‐five years the guide of the Papal policy, boldly set forth the theory of a theocratic rule of the pope over all the nations of the world. The period from Gregory VII onward is an almost continuous conflict between the popes and the secular governments, during which the former, with an iron firmness, endeavored at first to destroy the direct influence of the princes upon the church, and secondly, to subject all secular governments to the church. This conflict was ended by the Concordat of Worms (1122), by which Emperor Henry V, after the precedence of the governments of England and France, surrendered ‘to God, to St. Peter and Paul, and to the Catholic Church, all right of investiture.’ ” (McC.) The Pergamos (“earthly elevation”) era ended in A. D. 1160, as will be shown. Write.—Arius’ writings were destroyed by Constantine. These things saith He which hath the sharp sword with two edges.—How the sharp sword, God’s Word, wielded by Arius before the Emperor and his brother elders at the Nicean Council, must have cut some of them to the heart when they saw the gentle and aged man (Arius was old at the time the controversy arose) banished into the Balkan mountains, one of the most inhospitable places in the world!—Isa. 11:4, 49:2; Hos. 6:5; Eph. 6:17; 2 Thes. 2:8.