The saint, in spite of his earnest entreaties to be excused, was sometimes compelled, both by loyalty and courtesy, to appear at the royal table. For a while he would join in the general conversation, soon to be withdrawn by his inward thoughts. Once, at dinner, after a long silence, he smote the table smartly, exclaiming, "That is an overwhelming argument against the Manichæans." His superior bade him remember that he was in the king's presence. Thomas apologised for his absence of mind. But the king, smiling, requested him to dictate to one of his secretaries the argument which had engrossed his attention, that it might lose none of the force which marks the thoughts of genius at their first conception. The Dominican Chapter, held at Valenciennes, in 1259, appointed Thomas, Albertus Magnus, and Pierre de Tarentaise as a commission to establish order and uniformity in all schools of the Dominicans. Alexander IV. died at Viterbo, on May 25th, 1261. Jacques Pantalèon, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, who was at Viterbo imploring protection for the Christians of the East, was, to his surprise, raised to the pontifical throne, under the title of Urban IV. Wishing to unite into one the divided portions of east and west Christianity, he summoned S. Thomas to Rome to help him in realising his project. It was in the same year that S. Thomas came to Rome in answer to this appeal. His general gave him at once a chair of theology in the Dominican college at Rome, where he obtained the like success that had gained at Cologne and Paris. Here he wrote his literal commentary on Job, and the Catena Aurea. The chain of comments from the fathers is so perfect, the links of gold in it are so well rivetted to one another, that a biographer says that, "He speaks with all, and all speak and explain themselves by him." It was dedicated to the Pope, at whose solicitation it had been undertaken. In the midst of the toil these works must have cost him, he did not forget the purpose for which he was summoned. All the time he was thinking out and penning his treatise, "Contra errores Græcorum." In his hands, and by the force of his irresistible logic, he showed that the ancient Greek fathers unanimously agreed with those of the Latin Church.[33] [33] It is necessary to point out here that S. Thomas was misled by forgeries in this treatise. A Latin theologian, who had resided among the Greeks, composed a catena of spurious passages of Greek Councils and Fathers, and in 1261 it was laid before Urban IV., who, entirely deceived thereby, sent it to S. Thomas, who also accepted it without the least suspicion of its not being genuine.