[58] Adoptionism, the heresy that Jesus was the Son of God by adoption only, caused much disturbance in the Spanish and Frankish Churches in the latter part of the 8th century. It was promulgated chiefly by Felix, bishop of Urgel, and by Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo; it was resisted by Alcuin and by Charlemagne. It was condemned by the council at Ratisbon in 792, at Frankfort in 794, and at Aix-la-Chapelle in 799, and soon disappeared. [59] The festival of the Robigalia was said to be instituted by Numa for the purpose of worshipping Robigus, or Robigo,--for it is uncertain whether the divinity was masculine or feminine,--in order to avert the blight of too great heat from the springing grain. With the ancient Romans the cereal festivals were held at the time of planting, and not, like our thanksgiving, after the harvest. [60] See p. 230, note. [61] Melan-Chthon is merely the Greek translation of the German Schwarz-Erd, or Black-Earth; and Œco-Lampadius is the Greek equivalent of the German Hans-Schein which in turn was substituted for Hussgen or Heussgen. [62] The ambo was an elaborate pulpit or reading desk placed in the choir of the church and having two ascents--one from the east and the other from the west. [63] In this case the purple cope, a vestment of the pope. [64] The description of the coronation by Bryce is added for its picturesqueness:--“On the spot where now the gigantic dome of Bramante and Michael Angelo towers over the buildings of the modern city, the spot which tradition had hallowed as that of the apostle’s martyrdom, Constantine the Great had erected the oldest and stateliest temple of Christian Rome. Nothing could be less like than was this basilica to those northern cathedrals, shadowy, fantastic, irregular, crowded with pillars, fringed all round by clustering shrines and chapels, which are to most of us the mediæval types of architecture. In its plan and decorations, in the spacious sunny hall, the roof plain as that of a Greek temple, the long row of Corinthian columns, the vivid mosaics on its walls, in its brightness, its sternness, its simplicity, it had preserved every feature of Roman art, and had remained a perfect expression of Roman character. Out of the transept, a flight of steps led up to the high altar underneath and just beyond the great arch, the arch of triumph, as it was called: behind in the semicircular apse sat the clergy, rising tier above tier around its walls; in the midst, high above the rest, and looking down past the altar and over the multitude, was placed a bishop’s throne, itself the curule chair of some forgotten magistrate. From that chair the Pope now rose, as the reading of the gospel ended, advanced to where Charles--who had exchanged his simple Frankish dress for the sandals and the chlamys of a Roman patrician--knelt in prayer by the high altar, and as in the sight of all he placed upon the brow of the barbarian chieftain the diadem of