Now, as to the government of which St. Leo had the ideal before him, I must first remark that it was _new_. He says himself to the Bishop of Thessalonica: "The government of Churches in Illyricum, which we commit in our stead to your affection, following the example of Siricius of blessed memory, who to your predecessor Anysius of holy memory _then first committed with a certain charge_ the supporting of the Churches of that province, which he desired to be maintained in discipline."[73] That is, it was scarcely sixty years since Pope Siricius had selected the Bishop of the Metropolis to keep a watch over the maintenance of the canons. And now Pope Leo was already requiring the Metropolitans to consecrate no Bishop without first consulting the Bishop of Thessalonica as his vicar. Secondly, this proceeding on the part of the Popes was not submitted to generally, even throughout the West. The "Codex Ecclesiae Africanae" is full of prohibitions against even appealing to "Bishops beyond the sea," _i.e._ the Pope. In St. Augustin's time, as we have seen, they positively forbad the Pope's interference with their internal government, and only submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption of the Vandals. Thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the imperial authority. The process, in fact, of centralizing in the Church, ran completely parallel with that in the State. The law of Valentinian, above mentioned, is a strong proof of this. Of course the object of the emperors was to control the action of the Church through one Bishop made the chief. But it is somewhat remarkable that that Church which maintains a standing protest against the interference of the State with spiritual matters, (a protest for which she is worthy of all respect and admiration,) should owe to the support of the State, in different periods of her history, very much more of her power than any other Church. It may be that God rewards the fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the grant of that very temporal power which threatens them with destruction.