The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 685

is found first in a Parisian manuscript (Codex lat. 2777) of probably
the beginning of the ninth century. Since the eleventh century it has
been used as a powerful argument in favor of the papal claims, and
consequently since the twelfth it has been the subject of a vigorous
controversy. At the same time, by rendering it possible to regard
the papacy as a middle term between the original and the medieval
Roman Empire, and thus to form a theoretical basis of continuity for
the reception of the Roman law in the Middle Ages, it has had no small
influence upon secular history.”—The New

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