&©'-Kt:'i'»'.$(i ''4- " ■■■• ■ •'■■ ^::v' '-fSC'^^^^i- /<9. 2-^.2-3 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. BX 955 .R58 189A Rivington, Luke, 1838-1899 The primitive church and th€ See of Peter 1 310 Rivington (Rev. Luke) The Primitive | Church and the See of Peter. 8vo, 10s 1894J t^ The Primitive Church AND THE See of Peter fli\)il oBsitat. SYDNEY F. SMITH, S J. Impnmatitr. HEKCERTUS CARDINALIS VAUGHAN, ARCHIEPISCOPUS WESTM0NASTERIENSI8 IHe 19 ilartii, 1894. The Primitive Church AND THE See of Peter / V { 001 9P 1^03 BY THE REV. ^- " LUKE RIVINGTON. M.A. MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST i6i' STREET 1894 All rights reserved INTEODUCTION BY THE CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP OF WESTMINSTER Of course we desire to convert all men — especially our own countrymen, as loving them best — to the Catholic Eeligion. Could it be otherwise ? We believe the Catholic religion to be the one only true religion, founded by Jesus Christ upon the Eock. We should fail, then, in love for God did we not strive to extend His Kingdom, which is His Church upon earth ; and in love for our neighbour, did we not endeavour to per- suade him to become one of God's liegemen and a sharer with us in the Divine life of the Faith and of the Sacra- ments. It is no matter of doubt or of indifference that is at stake, but absolutely the most vital, the most per- sonal, the eternal interest of man. But any kind of conversion will not do. The con- version must be real, genuine, and based on solid grounds. That is to say, it must rest not only upon conviction, but upon a right conviction, a conviction rooted in the right fundamental principle. To come into the Catholic Church simply on account of the beauty of her ceremonial, the reasonableness of this or that set of doctrines and practices, or her venerable antiquity and her attractive traditions, or as a mere VI INTRODUCTION. refuge from persons or systems that have bred dis- satisfaction and distrust, is to enter the Church without a conviction rooted in the right fundamental principle. Wliat is that principle ? Simply this : that the CathoUc Church is the Divine Teacher, set up in the world by Jesus Christ, and that our attitude towards her must be that of a Disciple. The Disciple does not pick and choose according to his taste, nor, when the Divine Teacher is once accepted, can he be ruled by private judgment and understanding. Our Lord Himself shows us this by His own method of procedure. When He had announced, 'My Mesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink indeed,' many said, 'This saying is hard, and who can hear it ? And after this many of His Disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Then Jesus said to the twelve, " Will you also go away ? " And Simon Peter answered Him, " Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life. We have believed and have known that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God"' (John vi.). Christ, therefore, gave no countenance to those who would believe only that which was agreeable to their notion of fitness or possibility. He gave them no explana- tion of how His riesh and Blood were to be eaten and drunk. He demanded this, and this alone, that they should recognise the Divine Teacher, and having found Him, that they should take up their due position as learners or disciples. There was no compromise, no halting; if unwilling to accept this fundamental principle, the position of a Disciple, they might all go away, aye, even the twelve. The vital question, then, INTRODUCTION. Vll is, Where is the Divine Teacher ? Some, prompted by- private motives, with subtilty and sophistry, evade the question, or answer it in a way to leave themselves an escape from the plain obligation of a disciple. Their aim is to stay as they are. To them the Church is a vast organisation incapable of articulate speech, or it is made up of branches, each of which has an independent voice, but without any one living, visible, audible authority to control the whole. Now it is best, in this matter, to come to close quarters, and to deal with a definite member of the Church — namely, with the Head. If the Church is visible at all, it must have a visible Head, at least as visible as the body itself. It is the essential business of the head to speak and direct. It controls the body, according to certain divine laws. It secures to the whole unity of thought and of action. Without its presence and influence the members must either fall into dissolution or destroy one another. Where, then, is the visible Head of the Catholic Church ? For a thousand years the English people professed, with one accord, the Pope to be their religious Head. They acknowledged one centre of authority, the See of Peter ; were led by one Supreme Shepherd, the successor of Peter ; and they were consequently united, by the pro- fession of the same Faith and Sacraments, in one re- ligion, with the whole of Christendom. There is one passage, so aptly setting forth the doc- trine of the Catholic Church, in a letter from King Edward H., a.d. 1314, directed to the Sacred College of Cardinals, during the vacancy of the Holy See, that I VIU INTRODUCTION. quote it not only for its own intrinsic merit, but as showing the belief of the English nation. ' When Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, had consummated the mystery of man's redemption, and was about to return to His Father, lest He should leave the flock He had bought with the price of His Blood bereft of the government of a shepherd. He de- livered over and entrusted the care of it, by an immu- table ordinance, to blessed Peter the Apostle, and in his person to his successors, the Eoman Pontiffs, that they may govern it in succession. He willed that the Eoman Church, who, for the time, presiding as the Mother and Mistress of all the faithful, holds, as it were, the place of God upon earth, should by salutary teachings direct the peoples of the said flock, scattered over the whole world, in the way of salvation, and show them at all times how they should behave them- selves in the house of God ' (Wilkins, vol. ii. p. 450). Three hundred years earlier King Edward the Con- fessor notifies in a solemn charter the extraordinary devotion which the English people had ever had towards St. Peter and his successors : ' summam devo- tionem quam habuit semper gens anglorum erga eum [Petrum] et vicarios ejus ' (Wilkins, vol. i. p. 319). And three hundred years before that, again, Bede was teaching and writing that ' Whosoever shall separate himself in any way whatsoever from the unity of Peter's faith, and from his communion, can neither obtain pardon of his sins nor admission into heaven ' [Horn, xxvii. Giles). The lesson of history teaches unmistakably that the INTRODUCTION. IX unity of the visible Church can be preserved only by its normal union with its visible Head. The Churches, planted among different and antago- nistic races and tongues — for instance, the French, the German, the Italian, the English Churches — are all one in Faith and the Sacraments, through their submission to the See of Peter. So long as the spiritual authority and headship of the Pope was recognised by the English people, they remained united in creed and religion. It was not Canterbury, but Eome that was the source and the touchstone of unity. Though after the apostacy of the sixteenth century the names of the old sees were re- tained, with their accumulated wealth, their extensive patronage, their State protection, Canterbury and the rest of them were unable to hold the English people in unity of faith and practice for a single generation. Though backed up by the sovereign and the whole legislative power of England, and by a code of the most drastic penal laws, they were speedily reduced to the pitiable condition of seeing the people fall away from them in all directions. The nation that had been conspicuous for its religious unity during a thousand years became, from the moment it rejected the authority of the Holy See, a by-word throughout Europe for re- ligious rebellion and sporadic dissent. Had there been, as we are assured by some, no essential change in religion, but only a healthy reform and a purifica- tion from errors and abuses, how came it to pass that this purified and perfected religion began its career by falling into discredit with the people of England, X INTRODUCTION". and to such an extent tliat religious dissent has be- come quite as characteristic of the last oOO years in England, as religious unity and peace had been of all the preceding ages of our history ? I will only add that the leaders of the Established Church need not throw the blame of this upon the English people. Had the various countries of the Continent, which are still united in one faith, withdrawn, like England, from the guidance of the Chief Shepherd, they too, like England, would long since have been similarly torn to pieces by religious strife and discord. The recent revival of Catholic doctrines and prac- tices in the Church of England is very wonderful. It is a hopeful sign. It is a testimony to the patristic dictum that the human mind is ' naturally Christian.' It exhibits a yearning, and a turning of the mind and heart towards the Catholic Church. It is a national clearinsf the way for something more, and is to be regarded as a grace from above. It may be all this ; but it is not yet obedience and submission to the Divine Teacher. A whole cycle of Catholic doctrines might be picked out one by one and strung together, and passionately pro- fessed, upon grounds of private judgment; but that is not submission. It is one thing to recognise that the pasture is sweet and wholesome, and another thing to recognise and to obey the voice of the Shepherd. Goats may enter into the pastures of the sheep, and may select at will the herbs, the grasses and clovers they most fancy, and may doubtless deem them sweet and delicious ; but this does not constitute them sheep of the fold. The sheep hear the voice of their Shep- INTRODUCTION. xi herd and they follow Him. He chooses the pastures ; He leads His sheep hito them. The relations of sheep and Shepherd correspond to those of disciple and Teacher. And hence it is clear that no one ought to be received into the Catholic Church unless he come into the fold through the gate, of which Peter, the chief shepherd, is the keeper. Indeed, I may add, that people who, through negli- gence or inadvertence, have been admitted into the Church without having mastered the fundamental doctrine that they are to be disciples and learners of a living Divine Teacher, are apt, upon encountering temptation, scandal, contradiction, or disappointment, to leave her. They had indeed been within the fold, but they were not of it, because they had never really recognised the ShejDherd. A word on two classes of difficulties raised against the Catholic Churcli by her professional opponents. First, intellectual difficulties : no doctrine is free from them, not even the existence of God and the im- mortality of the soul. Difficulties arise from the limi- tation of our faculties, from mists of ignorance, from prejudices, antipathies, and sinful conduct. The sun is shining, but we see it not while dense fogs or clouds and storms interpose between it and ourselves. We see it not when our vision has become gravely affected, or when we close our eyes. It is a common practice with the opponents of the Catholic Church to endeavour to hold souls back by arraigning before them a multi- tude of difficulties and objections against the doctrines of the Church. To this two things may be said. xii INTRODUCTION. First, it would be easy to string together a most for- midable array of difficulties quoted and examined by Catholic theologians in their great scientific works on theology. But it is obvious that it would be necessary to be a trained theologian, or to spend a lifetime in research, were it needful to give detailed answers to them all. Then there are works, like those of Dr. Littledale and others, written in order to blind and mislead : made up of calumnies, misquotations, and a calculated admixture of truth and error. These are often intended to shock and alienate the moral sense quite as much as the intellectual. If they do not finally succeed in this, at least they may succeed in creating perplexity, anxiety, and delay. Now, instead of entering into a maze of objections, into a labyrinth of difficulties, a shorter and more satisfactory course should be taken. Find the Divine Teacher, find the Supreme Shepherd, find the Vicar of Christ. Concentrate all your mental and moral facul- ties upon finding the Head of God's Church upon earth. This is the key to the situation. The learned work to which these words serve as introduction is intended to aid this inquiry, by setting forth for this doctrine various of its reasonable motives of credibility. If only you find the Divine Teacher, you may leave aU objec- tions to the doctrines he teaches to answer themselves. And if you find him not, then answers to the difficul- ties brought against his teaching will go for little. Secondly, moral difficulties have to be met — in- grained antipathies, 1 traditional prejudices, fears and anxieties : fear to offend and grieve parents, guides, INTRODUCTION. xiii and loved ones ; fear of temporal consequences, loss of station, of influence, of fortune, possibly poverty and want ; anxieties as to whether the call be of God, whether to trust Him without clear insight into the future ; perplexities as to the difference between the motives of credibility and the divine certainty of faith. All these are very real and sharp trials ; but these, or others, are to be expected, for it is said, ' Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble thy heart, and endure ; incline thy ear, and receive the words of understanding, and make not haste in the time of clouds. Wait on God with patience ; join thyself to God and endure, that thy life may be increased in the latter end ' (Ecclus. ii.). Faith is a gift of God. No man can acquire faith by study alone, as by his own skill. ' No man can come to Me, unless it be given him by My Father ' (John vi.). Or, to quote the Council of Trent : ' If any man saith that without the prevenient in- spiration of the Holy Ghost, and without His help, man can believe, hope, love, or be penitent as he ought, so as that the grace of justification may be be- stowed upon him, let him be anathema' (Sess. vi.). The motives of credibility which may be learnt by reading and study do not produce the absolute and perfect certainty of faith. They lead a man to see that the objects of faith are worthy of belief; they show^ him that lie is under an obligation to give to them the assent of faith. But it is grace, it is God, who inspires the soul with the pious inclination to believe, the 'p^a XIV INTRODUCTION. affectio ad credendum.' The certainty of faith rests, not indeed upon the motives of credibility, or upon facts or arguments that may or may not be evident in them- selves, but upon the veracity of God Who has revealed them. Or, as the Vatican Council defines it : ' Faith is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that the thincfs which He has revealed are true ; not because of the intrinsic truth of the things, viewed by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself Wlio reveals them, and Who can neither de- ceive nor be deceived.' And again : ' Though the assent of faith is by no means a blind action of the mind, still no man can assent to the Gospel teaching as necessary to obtain salvation, without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, Who gives to all men sweetness in assenting to and in believing the truth. Wherefore, faith itself, even when it does not work by charity, is in itself a gift of God, and the act of faith is a work appertaining to salvation, by which man yields voluntary obedience to God Himself, by assenting to and co-operating with His grace, which he is able to resist.' And further on the same Council declares : ' That we may be able to satisfy the obligation of embracing the true faith and of constantly persevering in it, God has instituted the Church . . . which both invites to itself those who do not yet believe, and assures its children that the faith which they profess INTRODUCTION. XV rests on the most firm foundation ; and its testimony is efficaciously supported by a power from on high. For our merciful Lord gives His grace to stir up and to aid those who are astray, that they may come to a know- ledge of the truth ; and to those whom He has brought out of the darkness into His own admirable light He gives His grace to strengthen them to persevere in that light, deserting none who desert not Him ' {Cap. de Fide). All this shows that the assent of faith is concerned with the will as well as with the intellect, and that a man who is seeking to come to a knowledge of that article of faith which declares that God has left a Divine Teacher to guide men safely in the affairs of salvation, must give himself to prayer and to humble repentance and contrition as much as to study and to reading. ' The prayer of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds, and he will not depart till the Most High behold' (Ecclus. xxxv.). HERBERT CARDINAL VAUGHAN, Archbishop of Westminster. AUTHOR'S PEEFACE. The particular theory opposed in this book lies at the root of the controversy which we are forced to carry on with our Anglican friends on the subject of Church government at the present moment. It is the theory of the lawful independence of National Churches. Even the Magna Charta has been enlisted in the service of this theory by so able and resj^ected a writer as Lord Selborne. The expression * Let the Anglican Church be free ' is held by his Lordship to express the deter- mination of the Church of England in that century to be independent of Papal jurisdiction.' The present jurisdiction of the See of Canterbury is referred to the general question of the independence of National Churches by so eminent a writer as Dr. Stubbs.^ Mr. Gore goes so far as to deduce from the teaching of St. Cyprian the fundamental independence of each bishop in the whole world. ^ And the present Archbishoj) of Canterbury writes that the ' individual independence of elected bishops ' was the Cyprianic doctrine, but that it is applicable only to * States which have not that intimate union with the Church which the ideal of a Christian nation requires.' •* In other words, the ideal condition, according to his Grace, is the independence, not of each bishop, but of ' A Dcfeiice of the Church of England, by Roundell, Earl of Selborne, fourth edition, 1888. He lays emphasis on the expression ' Anglican,' as though it involved independence of Rome, p. 9. - Eastern Church Association Papers, No. 1. ' R. C. Claims, p. 117, third edition. * Diet, of Chr. Biog. (Smith and Wace), art. ' Cyprian.' a 2 XVIU AUTHOR'S PREFACE. each national Church. And this was certainly the doctrine of some of the most eminent teachers in the Establishment in previous centuries, as for instance, Bishop Overall, the author of part of the Catechism in the Church of England Prayer- book.^ And this ideal of independence is asserted to be the teach- ing of history, the natural outcome of the principles which are to be discovered especially in the primitive Church. There, we are told, there was no dependence on Eome ; there was no shadow of centralisation to be seen ; there, if the Pope comes at times to the front, it is as the occupant of a See, great by reason of its relation to the empire, not because of any special relation to the Apostolic College. It was with this ideal of independence that, according to Dean Church, the Oxford movement was in special and profound sympathy.^ In the following pages, the doctrine set forth by John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his famous letter to King Edward the First, as that of the Church of England, is maintained as the teaching of the primitive Church.^ It is, of course, perfectly true that Magna Charta spoke of the Anglican Church being free ; but the freedom claimed and granted was not from the authority of the Pope, but from the lawlessness of the king — in a word, it involved, amongst other things, freedom to appeal, when necessary, to Eome."* ' The Anglican Church ' at that time signified a religious body in the closest communion with Eome, and under her obedience in spiritual matters. For in that same Charter, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury is called a Cardinal of the Holy Roman ' See the thesis of his Convocation Book. * Oxford Movement, p. 211. He also quotes (p. 47) Hurrell Froude's saying {Remains, edited by J. Keble), viz. ' Let us give up a National Church, and have a real one,' i.e. if a national Church means lack of discipline. Dean Church tliinks that the Oxford movement purged the national Church of its deeper faults. ' ^ See quotation from this letter, infra, p. 381. * Hume says that by Magna Charta 'all checks on appeals were removed.' He is speaking of appeals to Eome. AUTHOR S PREFACE. XIX Church, and the next words to those quoted by Lord Selborne proclaim the fact that the confirmation of ' the lord Pope Innocent ' had been 'obtained' for this very matter.' It is maintained in this book that the close communion with Eome which the Church of England thus avowed, and which it cherished during all those centuries from St. Augustine to the sixteenth century, is a principle deeply embedded in the life of the primitive Church. But when we say that Papal supremacy is found deeply embedded in the life of the primitive Church, what do we exactly mean ? No one who appeals to the primitive Church professes to find in her actual life a literal transcript of his own present position. National Churches certainly did not exist in Europe ; it would be hard to say what could be in- cluded under the national Church of Eome. The appeal must be to something else than a primitive presentation of the form and outward appearance of any system in the nine- teenth century. What, then, do we ourselves mean when we say that the Papal regime was in existence in the earliest beginnings of Christianity ? The question really is as to whether the alleged counterpart in the early Church differs from its successor in the present, in substance, in principle, in essential features. Is the difference, for instance, between the Papal regime of to-day and the position of the Papacy in the first four centuries of the Christian era more than between the oak and the acorn '? Does the difference between the two argue a dissimilarity of constituent elements, or is it merely the necessary difference between various stages of normal growth ? On meeting some one whom we have not seen since his childhood we are often constrained to exclaim, * I should never have known it to be you ! ' Yet it is the same person whom Almighty God brought into the world as an infant, whose powers and appearance have thus developed. This ' Viz. concerning the election of bishops. XX AUTPIOR'S PREFACE. simile of the child and the grown man, as well as that of the oak and the acorn, was adopted in regard to the Church by St. Vincent of Lerins, the author of the formula (though not of the truth) of the * always, everywhere, and by all,' as a test of truth not yet defined. And yet an idea has taken hold of many minds to the effect that when Dr. Newman wrote his book nearly fifty years ago, now called ' The Development of Christian Doctrine,' he was striking out a new theory,' instead of merely illustrating, with that force which belonged to the greatest religious genius of this country, the theory on which the Church has always proceeded in teaching Christian history. His first title may be thought to countenance the idea ; but the second corrects it. And St. Vincent of Lerins is a sufficient witness that the theory which Cardinal Newman so expanded and illustrated was not new even in the fifth century. Dr. Dollinger only reflected the general teaching of the Church when he wrote, sixty years ago, with his usual felicity of expression, the following passage : ' Like all other essential parts of the constitution of the Church, the supremacy was known and acknowledged from the beginning as a divine institution, but it required time to unfold its faculties ; it assumed by degrees the determined form in which the Bishop of Eome exercised systematically the authority entrusted to him for the preservation of the internal and external unity of the Church.' ^ And some years afterwards the same writer says of the Papacy : ' Its birth begins with two mighty, pregnant, and far- reaching words of the Lord. He to whom these words are addressed realises them in his person and in his acts, and transplants the institute to which he has been appointed into ' Cf. Canon Bright's Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers (Pre- face), where he assumes this. * Geschichtc der christUchcn Kirche (1835), vol. i. p. 305 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xxi the centre of the infant Church, to the Eoman capital itself. Here it grows up in silence, occulto reliit arbor (Evo ; and in the earliest times it manifests itself only in particular traits, till the outlines of the ecclesiastical power and action of the Bishop of Eome become ever clearer and more definite. Already even in the times of the Eoman Empire the Popes are the guardians of the whole Church.' ' I venture to call this view of the matter more in accord with history than that proposed by the respected writer to whom I have alluded,^ which in effect prescinds all real development from the action of the Papacy, if it is to be acknowledged as of divine institution. It is the repudiation of the necessity of a real development which seems to me the greatest blot in a book which appeared last year under the auspices of the Bishop of Lincoln, who has made himself responsible for its general accuracy as well as its thesis. I have incorporated in this book an answer to the main points of that work. I have not, how^ever, included an account of the Acacian troubles, because I have dealt with these elsewhere ; ^ but, in point of fact, the teaching of the Council of Chalcedon (with which this book closes) is such as to establish the fact that the law of Christian life is communion with Eome, and any seeming exceptions must be treated as such, and must not be quoted as establishing a principle of action in the future. To the history of that council I venture to draw the especial attention of the reader, because I am not aware of any English work that contams as full an account of its various acts. And it is only by seeing certain expressions in their context that their full value can be gauged, as esta- blishing, not what St. Leo claimed (though that has its value), ' The Church and tJie Churches, p. 31, Eng. trans. * Bright's Lessons, dc, ' In the Dublin Eevieiv for April 1894, where I have shown that com- munion between Eome and the East was not broken ofif at that time, but only suspended in some of its effects, and that consequently no argument can be derived from the existence of sanctity in some members of the Eastern Church. xxii AUTHOR'S PEEFACE. but what the Church at large received without consciousness of novelty or usurpation. I have sometimes referred the reader to the original of Dr. Bollinger's writings, but more often to the English trans- lation, since the former is much less accessible than the latter. I have, in conclusion, to thank his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster for so kindly enriching this volume with an introduction, and the Censor Deputatus, Father Sydney Smith, S.J., for going beyond the necessities of his office in the way of many helpful suggestions. Note. — Since the above lines were written, a book has appeared ' by the Eegius Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Oxford, containing a chapter on ' Papahsm and Antiquity,' which consists for the most part of a critique on a book of mine published in 1889.2 Lest the following pages (especially the last two hundred) should seem a miracle of anticipation, I may as well say that the chapter in Canon Bright's work, to which I allude, is a reproduction or recension of an anonymous article by that writer in the ' Church Quarterly Review ' for October 1889, characterised by much bitter- ness against the ' Church of Rome,' calling it an atmosphere of untruthfulness. I do not propose to descend into the arena of vituperation and invective. But I am able to say that the following pages contain a direct answer to most of the arguments advanced in Canon Bright's * Papahsm and Antiquity.' For after reading his article in the ' Church Quarterly,' when it appeared in 1889, I came to the con- clusion that there was need of a fuller account of the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon than has yet been given in English, with special reference to the points urged in that article, and now re- peated in Canon Bright's recension of the same. It rarely falls to the lot of a writer to be able to produce an answer to such repre- sentations of history as Canon Bright proposes in his new book, within a few weeks of their appearance. But it is my good fortune ' Waymarks in Church History, by W. Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 1894. - Depetidence ; or t)ie Insecurity of the Anglican Position. By Rev. Luke Rivington, M.A. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1889.) AUTHOR'S PREFACE. XXUl to have been able to do this through the accident of having selected the original draft for particular refutation. I would draw especial attention to the treatment of the twenty-eighth Canon of Chalcedon, on pages 437-449, as meeting one of Canon Bright's chief points.' But I feel bound to add a few words here on one passage in Canon Bright's chapter on Papalism, referring to this very subject.-^ The Eegius Professor says (p. 234), 'When Mr, Rivington tells us that " nothing more transpired concerning the canon, and it was omitted from the authorised collection of canons even in the East," he omits, and it is no small omission — it is a real suijpressio veri — to say after Hefele that the Greeks did not adhere to the profession made by Anatolius, and that his successors continued to act as patriarchs under the terms of the new canon, with the full approval of their emperors, and in despite of the protests of Rome.' Will it be believed that Canon Bright has altered my words by a most important, nay, crucial omission ? My words are (' Depen- dence,' p. 60), 'Nothing more transpired concerning the canon. No further apjjeal was made to it at that time, and it was omitted from the authorised collection of canons even in the East.' Now this statement is absolutely true. Hefele, to whom Canon Bright ap- peals, says the same : ' From that time Leo continued to exchange letters with Anatolius, and his successor Gennadius, but there was nothing more said between them on the subject of the twenty-eighth Canon' ('Hist, of the Councils,' § 207). But Canon Bright has omitted the all-important words, which I have placed in italics, and thus made my statement refer to the future instead of the present only. The strangest part of the matter is that in his anonymous article, of which he calls this chapter a ' recension ' (cf. Preface, p. vii), the words I have italicised above appear in their right place, and he there accuses me only of ' going near io suppressio veri ' (' Church Quarterly Review,' October, 1889, p. 133) ; whereas now, havmg in his ' recension ' omitted the crucial words of my statement, he accuses me downright of that form of Hterary dishonesty. But, further, I had actually said on the same page, ' What Con- stantinople did was to continue its encroachments.' And on the next page but one (p. 62) I have given an instance of an attempt to revive the canon, and of the emperor's fruitless endeavour to induce Rome to recognise it. How, then, can Canon Bright say ' This canon is cherished as suggesting that Rome's primacy was due to her secular position alone. - His accusation of ' carelessness ' on p. 227 will be seen by reference to p. 409 infra to be based on a misinterpretation of the passage as a whole. xxiv AUTHOR'S PREFACE. that I even suppressed this ? Nor is this writer correct in saying, ' It is all very well to talk of " the canon invalidated," i.e. from the Papal stand-point, but it is the canon which has practically pre- vailed.' The canon was invalidated from the high AngUcan stand- point; for as Le Quien (' Oriens Christianus,' p. 51) points out, a canon, to be a canon of the whole Church, must be accepted by the West. This was repudiated by the West. Even the Ill}T.'ians did not sign. And when, centuries after, Constantinople was allowed to take precedence of other Eastern sees, it was not on account of this canon ; and in the previous centuries it was not the canon that prevailed, but unjustifiable encroachments. Does Canon Bright imagine that a canon passed under such disgraceful circum- stances as I have described below (cf. p. 440) — dropped by the arch- bishop and emperor in whose reign it was proposed — could override the Nicene settlement ? The Pope said, No. And when Acacius came on to the scene and acted on the canon, it was to place heretics, who opposed the doctrine of the Incarnation, as defined at Chalcedon, in the Eastern sees — heretics like Peter the Fuller at Alexandria. Canon Bright, in the same paragraph, quotes Libe- ratus against me ; but my account altogether agrees with that of Liberatus, who in the same chapter speaks of the ' usurpations ' of AnatoHus, and in the passage quoted by Canon Bright is stigma- tising the Erastianism and encroachments that went on under the pretext of that canon, and in the following chapter describes the usurpations of the heretic Acacius (' detectus hereticus ').' In fact this whole passage in Canon Bright's book is, I regret to say, a tissue of misrepresentations, his accusation of suppressio veri being actually supported by omitting the very line which confines my statement to the present, whilst the truth supposed to be suppressed is concerned with the future. ' Breviarium, cap. xviii. L. R. The Presbyteuy, Spanish Place, London, W. March 30, 1894. CONTENTS Introduction by the Cardinal Archbishop op Westminster . . v Author's Preface xvii PEEIOD I. A.D. 96-300. CHAPTEE I. THE EPISTLE OF ST. CLEMENT ; OR THE TYPE SET. § 1. The Church of Rome intervenes in the Schism at Corinth, p. 1. § 2. Reasons why St. Clement omitted his Name, 2. § 3. The authoritative Tone of the Letter, 7. § 4. Probably a Case of Appeal, 8 . pp. 1-10 CHAPTER 11. THE CLEMENTINE ROMANCE. § 1. St. Clement's Personality, p. 11. § 2. The Clementine Literature, 12. § 3. Its Use by the Tubingen School, 13. § 4. Use by anti-Papal Writers to account for the Expression ' See of Peter,' 13. § 5. Impossibility of this Supposition, 15. § 6. The List of Hegesippus anterior to the Romance at Rome, 17. § 7. Irenaius on the See of Peter, 22. § 8. The Clementines at Rome later than Tertullian, 25. § 9. Historical Results, 29 . pp. 11-31 CHAPTER m. ST. IREN^US, OR THE SOVEREIGNTY OP THE CHURCH OF ROME. § 1. His Statement of the Rule of Faith, viz. Agreement with Rome, p. 32. § 2. Protestant Endeavours to wrest his Meaning : e.g. (a) Rome's Orthodoxy secured by the Confluence of Strangers, 34 ; (b) her ' principalitas ' only Primitiveness, 35 ; or (c) due to her secular Position, 36 ; [d) umligtie, not = everywhere, 86 ; (e) in qud, not = in communion with, 37 . pp. 32-38 CHAPTER IV. ST. VICTOR, OR THE GUARDIAN OF THE COMMON UNITY. § 1. The Modes of observing Easter, p. 39. § 2. St. Victor's Attempt to pro- duce Uniformity, 40. § 3. St. Irena-us' Intervention, 42. Note on Mr. Puller's Interpretation, 44 • PP. 39- XXVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. THE DOCTBINE OF ST. CYPEIAN ON UNITY. § 1. St. Cyprian on the Authority of St. Peter, p. 47. § 2. The Occasion of his Treatise on Unity, viz. (o) Danger to the Episcopal Authority, 50 ; (/3) an unlawful Bishop at Eome, 55. § 3. Teaches Papal Supremacy inci- dentally, 57. § 4. St. Peter in the Treatise on Unity, 60. § 5. Corollaries, 62 pp. 47-64 CHAPTER VI. ST. CYPBIAN ON APPEALS TO ROME. § 1. Edsumd of the Saint's Teaching on Unity, p. 65. § 2. Fortunatus de- nounced for going to Eome, but not the Principle of Appeal, 67. § 3. Case of Marcian referred to Eome, 70. § 4. Spanish Bishops may be, but do not deserve to be, restored by the Pope, 72. Note on Mr. Puller's Interpre- tation pp. 65-76 CHAPTER Vn. ST. CYPRIAN'S ERROR ON BAPTISM BY HERETICS. § 1. Doctrine of Unity misapplied ; his threefold Error, p. 77. § 2. Convokes a Council on the Subject, 81. §3. Second Council and Letter to Jubaianus, 84. § 4. Eefers the Matter to Eome, 86. § 5. Meanwhile holds third Council and decides in favour of Eebaptising, 88 . . . pp. 77-93 CHAPTER Vin. Rome's decision and cyprian's irritation. § 1. St. Stephen's Decision, p. 94. § 2. St. Cyprian's Legation to Eome, 97. § 3. Letter to Pompeius and Firmilian, 97. § 4. Firmilian"s passionate Eeply, 100. § 5. Did St. Stephen actually excommunicate St.Cj-prian? 105. § 6. Did St. Cyprian retract ? 111. § 7. Corollary as to Papal InfaUibility, 114 pp. 94-116 CHAPTER IX. ROME, ALEXANDRIA, AND ANTIOCH, SEES OF PETER. § 1. Only Peter left a Successor of his Apostolate, p. 117. § 2. Eome the Eallying-point from the first, 118. § 3. The three Sees of Peter, 120. § 4. Eelationship of Eome to Alexandria, 121. § 5. Eelatiouship of Eome to Antioch, 122. § 6. Why these three Sees chosen, 125. Appendix on the Popes' witness to their Office, 127 PP- 117-136 CONTENTS. XXvii PEEIOD II. A.D. 300-384. CHAPTEE X. THE DONATISTS AND THE COUNCIL OF ARLES. § 1, The Origin of the Donatist Schism, p. 139. § 2. The Donatists appeal to the Emperor, who refers them to Kome, 140. § 3. The Papal Sentence, 141. § 4. Final in the Eyes of Augustine, as that of Peter's See, 142. § 5. Case reheard to sift additional Facts, 144. § 6. British Bishops at Aries, 146. § 7. Donatist Erastianism, 147. § 8. Archbishop Laud's Mistranslation, 148 pp. 139-152 CHAPTEE XI. THE COUNCIL OF NIC^A. ' Part I. — Beasons of its Meeting. § 1. The good Eesults of Heresies, p. 153. § 2. Need of a Council compatible with Papal Infallibility, 154. § 3. The Circumstances, 155, § 4. Papal Consent, 157. § 5. Why the Pope desired a Council, 159. Part II. — The Cozmcil itself. § 1. The Pope presided, p. 161. § 2. Papal Jurisdiction not in Question, therefore not directly mentioned, 164. Part III.— The Sixth Canon. § 1. The three Sees of Peter, p. 166. § 2. Alexandria's Jurisdiction rested on Eome's Example, 167. § 3. Or on her Arrangement, 169. § 4. The ori- ginal Beginning of the Canon, 170 pp. 153-172 CHAPTEE XII. THE POPES THE GUARDIANS OF THE NICENE CANONS. Part I. — St. Julius. § 1. The Post-Nicene Struggle, p. 173. § 2. Pope St. Julius and Alexandria, 175. Part II. — The Sardican Canons. § 1. Canon III. not concerned with Appeals to Rome, p. 179. § 2. Canon IV. supposes Appeals, 180. § 3. Canon VII. leaves it to Rome to decide the Mode of Appeal, 180. § 4. Received in the East, 181. § 5. Honouring the Memory of St. Peter, 182. Note on these Canons . . pp. 173-184 XXviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. THE REIGN OF LIBEEIUS. Part I. — His Personal Grandeur. § 1. Defends St. Athanasius, and is exiled, p. 185. § 2. His supposed Fall, 186. § 3. His Stand after the Arimiuian Catastrophe, 188. Part II. — Tlie Meletian Scandal at Antioch. § 1. The Consequence of Meletius' Election, p. 190. § 2. The Council of Alexandria on the same, 194. § 3. The precipitate Action of Bishop Lucifer 198. § 4. Eusebius of Vercellffi settles nothing, 199 . . pp. 185-202 CHAPTER XIV. ST. DAMASUS. § 1. His Sanctity, p. 203. § 2. His Election, 207. § 3. His central Position, 208. § 4. His Condemnation of Heresies, 211. § 5. St. Basil looks to the West, 213. § 6. St. Damasus differs as to the best Eemedy, 215. § 7. Sides with Paulinus at Antioch, 218. § 8. St. Basil's Irritation, 219. § 9. His petulant Expression not Disbelief, 222. § 10. Believed in Rome's Jurisdic- tion in the East, 224. § 11. St. Damasus neither approved nor repudiated St. Meletius, 226. § 12. St. Jerome's Witness, 227. § 13. St. Meletius and Paulinus come to Terms, 229 pp. 203-232 CHAPTER XV. THE HOMAGE OF KINGS ; OR GRATIAN's RESCRIPT. § 1. The ideal Eelation between Church and State, p. 233. § 2. Realised for awhile under Gratian, 234. § 3. Relationship between Gratian and St. Ambrose, 235. § 4. Gratian gives civil Facilities for the exercise of Rome's Supremacy, 235. § 5. Mr. Puller's Theory as to Gratian's Rescript refuted : (i.) by the Absence of any Protest, 238 ; (ii.) and by the Words of the Rescript compared with the Letter of the Roman Synod, 239 pp. 233-242 CHAPTER XVI. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (a.D. 381). Part I. — Theodosius and the Imperial City. § 1. Theodosius made Emperor, p. 243. § 2. Issues a Law defining the Term ' Catholic,' 244. § 3. Gregory and Maximus in Constantinople, 245. § 4. Theodosius resolves upon a General Eastern Council, 240. Part II. — TJie Council. § 1. St. Gregory's Election confirmed, p. 248. § 2. St. Meletius dies, 249. § 3. Flavian elected to Antioch, 250. § 4. St. Gregory resigns, 253. § 5. Nectarius appointed in his Place, 255. § 6. How the Council came to be oecumenical, 250. CONTENTS. XXIX Part III. — New Rome ; or the Third Canon, p. 258. Part IV. — The Western Disapinoval of Flavia^i's Election, p. 263. Note on Mr. Puller's Proof that St. Meletius was out of Communion with Rome, p. 267. Conclusion of Second Period. Councils of a.d. 382 at Eome and Constantinople, 269 243-279 PEEIOD III. A.D. 400-452. CHAPTER XVII. THE CHUECH OP NORTH AFRICA IN THE DAYS OP ST. AUGUSTINE. Part I. — The Letters of St. Innocent. § 1. Coelestius, condemned in Africa, appeals to Rome, p. 284. § 2. The Synods of Carthage and Milevis write from Africa to Rome, 286. § 3. St. Inno- cent's Rescripts — their Doctrine on St. Peter's See, 288. § 4. Their Recep- tion by the African Fathers — its Witness to African Belief, 289. Part II. — St. Zosimtis' Support of the Faith, § 1. Did not sanction Pelagian Statements, p. 291. § 2. Cautiousness of the Pope, 293. § 3. St. Augustine and Dr. Pusey, 293. § 4. St. Zosimus' En- cyclical ' confirming the Brethren,' 295. Part III. — Apiarius and Papal Jurisdiction. § 1. A Canon quoted of which the Africans ignorant, p. 297. § 2. Legates a latere deprecated, 298. § 3. The whole Matter a Question of Procedure, not of Principle, 300. § 4. The Genuineness of the chief Letter open to Ques- tion, 303 pp. 283-304 CHAPTER XVIII. THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS — ITS PRELIMINARIES. § 1. The Matter in Dispute, p. 305. § 2. St. Cyril's Action, 306. § 3. The Papal Intervention, 306. § 4. St. Cyril asks the Pope for Judgment, 307. § 5. St. Celestine appoints Cyril his Plenipotentiary, 309. § 6. Conclusions as to the Pope's Position, 311. § 7. Anglican Writers on the above, 313. § 8. Cyril's Action as Plenipotentiary, 315. § 9. Nestorius, having the Emperor's ear, makes for a Council, 316. § lO.Meets at Ephesus, without the Bishop of Antioch, 319. § 11. Celestine (Pope) the real, Cyril the acting President, 321 pp. 305-328 XXX CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XIX. THE ACTS OF THE COUNCIL. § 1. Nestorius refuses to appear, p. 329. § 2. The Eelation of the Bishops' Judgment to that of the Pope, 330. § 3. The Action of the Council, 332. § 4. The Council's Sentence, 333. § 5. Anglican Writers on the Council's Sentence, 336. § 6. The immediate Result of the Sentence, 836. § 7. The Arrival of Legates from Rome, 338. § 8. The schismatic Synod, 341 PP- 329-343 CHAPTEE XX. THE SEE OF PETEE ' CONFIRMING THE BBETHKEN.' § 1. The Papal Legates' Judgment, p. 344. § 2. The Council's Witness to the Supremacy of the Pope, 345. § 3. John of Antioch condemned by the Synod, but referred to the Pope, 350. § 4. The Pope's fatherly Care, 354. § 5. The Case of the Cyprians, and Canon Bright on the Expression ' worldly Pride,' 356. Conclusions, 361 pp. 344-361 CHAPTER XXI. THE FOURTH GENERAL COUNCIL — PRELIMINARIES. § 1. Introductory Remarks on the Council of Chalcedon, p. 362. § 2. The Origin of the Council — Eutyches' Perversion of St. Cyril's Writings, 364. § 3. Eutyches condemned at Constantinople, 365. § 4. Eutyches appeals to Rome, 365. § 5. St. Leo blames Archbishop of Constantinople for not sending Report, 367. § 6. Eutj'ches makes for a Council, 368. § 7. Arch- bishop of Constantinople prefers a Papal Brief to a Council, 369. § 8. The Position of the Pope in the Thoughts of Christendom, 371. § 9. The Tome of St. Leo, 372. § 10. Revises the Acts of the Synod of Constantinople, 873. § 11. Leo consents to a Council to convict Eutyches, 874. § 12. De- scribes his Tome as an ex CatJiedrd Pronouncement, 875. § 18. Describes the Office of the Council, 376 pp. 362-377 CHAPTER XXII. THE LATEOCINIUM, OR ROBBER COUNCIL. § 1. Its uncanonical Composition, p. 378. § 2. Eutyches is acquitted, Leo's Tome suppressed, Flavian condemned, 379. § 8. The Inadequacy of a Primacy of Honour to meet the Case, 380. § 4. The Supremacy exercised by Leo, 382. § 5. Flavian's Appeal to Rome, 883. § 6. Leo insists on another Council, 384. § 7. Demands the Enforcement of the Niceno-Sardi- can Canon, 385. § 8. The Emperor and Empresses write to Theodosius, 388. § 9. Leo describes his Duty to the whole Church, 890. § 10. The new Emperor decides on a Coimcil, 391. § 11. Anatolius, Archbishop of Constantinople -his Antecedents, 392. § 12. Leo requires his Profession of Faith in accordance with his Tome, 898. § 18. Anatolius sends it and receives Directions, 896. § 14. St. Leo's Tome signed by Anatolius and other Bishops, 397 .' pp. 378-398 CONTENTS. xxxi CHAPTER XXIII. THE DEPOSITION OF DIOSCOBUS. § 1. The Work before the Council, p. 399. § 2. Dioscorus condemned, 400 § 3. The Sentence pronounced in the Name of the Pope, 403. § 4. On the Matter of Faith nothing new needed after Leo's Tome, 408. § 5. The so- called Review of Leo's Tome, 409 pp. 399-418 CHAPTER XXIV. THE DEFINITION OP FAITH. The Bishops in Danger of adopting an insufficient Formula, p. 419 ; are kept right by the Commissioners and Papal Legates, 420. They have to answer the Question of Obedience to Leo's Decision, 421 ; Principles that emerge, 424 pp. 419-425 CHAPTER XXV. THEODORET AND MAXIMUS. 1. Theodoret appealed to the See of Peter, p. 427 ; the Sentence against him annulled, 429 ; his Presence objected to at Chaleedon, 430 ; allowed the Position of Bishop, 431 ; acted as such in the Council, 431 ; compelled to anathematise Nestorius, 432 ; not a Review of Leo's Judgment, 482. IL Maximus of Antioch irregularly ordained, 433 ; condoned by Leo, ib. ; his Position accepted on that ground, 434 .... pp. 42G-436 CHAPTER XXVI. THE BYZANTINE PLOT ; OK THE TWENTY -EIGHTH CANON. The Ambition of Constantinople, p. 437 ; Rebuff at Chaleedon, 440 ; Opening for a Move, 441 ; some Bishops passed a Canon, 442 ; the Papal Legates protest, 443 ; Imperial Commissioners side with the Bishops, 445 ; Value of the Canon, 447 pp. 437-449 CHAPTER XXVII. THE easterns' RECOGNITION OF PAPAL SUPREMACY. The Bishops write to Leo, p. 451 ; express full Doctnne of Papal Supremacy, 452-454 ; Anatolius does the same, 455 ; Leo and the West repudiate the Canon, 458 pp. 450-460 CONCLUSION [pp. 459-460] XXXll CONTENTS. APPENDICES I'AGE I. Rev. F. W. Puller's Interpketation of St. Cyprux . 461 II. Are the Sardican Canons Nicene? 407 III. Rev. F. W. Puller on St. Ambrose 475 IV. The Apostolic See ; Meaning of the Phrase .... 479 Index 483 E BEAT A P. 188, lines 10, 9, 8 from bottom : for but its numbers after an interval . . . belied its beginning read but its numbers fell off as it continued its sessions after an interval, at the emperor's command, and its end belied its beginning- P. 189, line 2, for mission read minion. PEEIOD I. A.D. 96-300. CHAPTEE I. THE EPISTLE OF ST. CLEMENT OR THE TYPE SET. I. In the very first document belonging to Christian his- tory, outside the pages of Holy Scripture, the Church of Rome steps to the front in a manner that is suggestive of supreme authority, and that tallies with her whole future attitude towards the rest of the Church. The occupant of the See of Eome comes before us, speaking in the name of his Church, within the lifetime of the Apostle St. John, and settles a dis- turbance in a region naturally more nearly related to that Apostle than to the Church of Eome. And he comes before us both as in possession of a tradition of divine truth, and as its authoritative exponent to a distant Church. He lays down the law of worship and government for the whole Church as of Divine institution. The circumstances were as follows : — The Church in Corinth had for some time been torn by dissensions, and had caused the utmost scandal on all sides (§ 47).^ A few fiery spirits, with a considerable following, had succeeded in extruding probably their bishop and some of his presbyters, if not, indeed, one or more bishops in the neighbourhood, from their sacred office {sirLaKOTri], § 44).'^ The Church of Eome came to the rescue. The persecutions under Nero and Domitian had alone prevented her from intervening earlier (§ 1). But as soon as possible St. Clement wrote a letter entitled, ' Tlie ' The references to St. Clement's letter are from Dr. Liglitfoot's edition — the second, posthumously published in 1890. * St. Clement calls it a schism (§ 46). B 2 ROME INTERVENES AT CORINTH. a.d. 96 Church in Eome to the Church in Corinth,' which Dr. Light- foot characterises as ' ahnost imperious ' ' in tone, and which St. Iren^eus spoke of as * most powerful,' or ' most adequate.' - In this letter St. Clement speaks of the tradition which the Church of Eome had received from the Apostles themselves (§ 44), as to a succession of rulers in the Church, to prevent strife ' ahout the name [i.e. dignit}'] of the office of bishop {ETriaKOTr's).'' Speaking of this government of the Church, he finds its type in the Old Covenant, in the High Priest, Priests, and Levites. He says that the Apostles, in order to obviate strife, ordained as successors in the ministry {XsiroupyLas) bishops and deacons. He magisterially reproves the ring- leaders of the disturbances in Corinth for attempting to extrude such successors of the Apostles,-^ and says that ' it will be a sin in us ' to depose them from their ' sacred office {sTTiaKOTrys).' Further on, in a passage only discovered of late, he claims their * obedience unto the things written by us through the Holy Spirit' (§ 63), as he had said a little previously : ' If any disobey the things spoken by Him through us, let them know that they will involve them- selves in transgression and no small peril ' (§ 59). The letter concludes with saying that they hope soon to receive back again the legates whom they have sent, with a report from Corinth that the peace, which they desire, has been restored. Such was the first recorded act of the Church of Rome. And it is spoken of in terms of enthusiasm by St. Irenaeus, from whom we gather that the Corinthians amended their ways, and the desired result was achieved. It is also alluded to with commendation by St. Ignatius on his way to his martyrdom. II. Dr. Lightfoot lays great stress on the fact that the name of St. Clement does not appear in this letter, but only 1 St. Clement of Eome, vol. i. p. C9. 1890. ■'' iKavwTd.Tr)v, Adv. Hcvr. iii. 3, 3. 3 rovs . . . KaraaTadfvTas vn eKelvaiy [i.e. the Apostles] fj ixera^h v HcBr. lib. iii. 3, 2. —300 ACCORDING TO ST. IREN^US 33 Churches must have recourse to, or agree with her, so that in her, by union with her, the faithful everywhere have preserved the deposit of revealed truth. Such is the plain teaching of our saint, who united in himself such special qualifications for expressing the Church's rule of faith. St. Irenpeus combines the experience of East and West, and unites the second century with apostolic times. He was an Eastern and had been trained by St. Polycarp, who himself had sat at the feet of St. John. And he was a Western bishop. In the treatise from which the summary of his teaching, just given, is taken, he is engaged in pointing out the way in which the Christian faith may be known. Dr. Lightfoot observes that, in this second century, ' the episcopate is re- ga,rded now not so much as the centre of ecclesiastical unity, but rather as the depositary of apostolic tradition.' The two things, however, go hand in hand. St. Irenseus himself men- tions them together in specifying the effects of St. Clement's letter as 'compelling them to unity and renewing their faith.' ^ It was as the guardian of the faith that the Church of Eome presided over the Universal Church. St. Ignatius sj^eaks of her as ' presiding in the place of the region of the Romans ' (an expression which indicates not the extent, but the centre of her presiding authority) , and says that she presides ' over the [covenant of] love.' Dr. Lightfoot translates this ' in love ' instead of ' over the love,' and understands the love, not as the supernatural gift of the Holy Ghost, but as ' practical goodness,' in a word, philanthropy, instancmg her great gene- rosity in alms. But Dr. Dollinger appears to be right in regarding ' the love ' as the equivalent of ' the Church.' ^ And it was as the guardian of the faith that the Church of Rome presided over the covenant of divine love. This involved her ' Ha-r. lib. iii. 3. ■^ ' Gleich darauf nennt er sie TrpoKadr^/xepr) rf/s aya-rrri^, was nicht wie die alte lateinische Uebersetzung hat, praisidens in caritate heisst, sonst hiitte Ignatius «V ayairfj gesagt ; ayairi] bedeutet wie iKKKrjaia bald . . . audi die grosse auf Liebe gegiiindete und durch Liebe zusammengehaltene Gemcinschait aller Gliiubigen,' etc. Cf. for the use of the genitive with TrpoHa6r)ix4vn Theodoret's letter to St. Leo ; he uses wpoKadrjfifvn t^j oiKovfjLitrris (presiding over the world) of the Holy See. D 34 ROME THE NECESSARY a.d. 96 being the centre of unity ; for it is of the essence of the guardianship of the faith that those only should be admitted into the one teaching body, or remain in it, who hold the one faith, and this involves a central authority and source of decision. Now this is what also results from the famous passage of St. Irenreus quoted above. The Church of Kome has a sovereignty, and it is connected with the preservation of the faith. II. But, as Dr. Dollinger sajs, 'For three hundred years there have not been wanting writers who have endeavoured to wrest these words from their evident meaning.' • I shall here only deal with such as have been adopted by writers in this country. But first, I will give the translation ordinarily adopted by Catholic writers, amongst whom I am glad to be able to number Tillemont and Bossuet. ' It is necessary that every Church, that is, the faithful who are everywhere, should agree with this Church ; in which that tradition which is from the Apostles has been preserved by those who are everywhere.' To this rendering exception has been taken in the follow- ing particulars : — (a) It is said that St. Irenaeus does not say that every Church must agree ivith the Church of Eome, but must resort to it, and that by every Church is meant the individuals amongst the faithful who find their way to the city of Rome.^ Now, it may be admitted that the words convenire ad may mean physical recourse, but it must be remembered that it is to the Church, not to the city of Eome that this centripetal movement is said to be * of necessity.' And it is every Church which must resort to the Church of Rome. The following words — * those who are from all sides ' — explain, but must not be allowed to explain away, the word Church. It is as organised communities, not as individual men of business, that every Church must resort to the Church of Rome. The necessity also can hardly be that which arises from the fact that Rome was the centre of secular life. Men who came to ' GcschicMe der christlichen Kirchc. Landshut, 1833, B. 1, p. 355. « Prim. SS. p. 36. Gore's B. C. Claims, p. 97. —300 CENTRE OF UNITY 35 hawk their wares, or consult the market, or plead their civil causes, are hardly the persons likely to promote the integrity of the faith. Whilst such men as Hegesippus found their way to Eome, men like Alexander of Apamaea did the same. And, as a rule, it is either the wealthy, or the secular-minded, or the ne'er-do-wells of a community who bend their steps to the metropolis, and this would not contribute to the preserva- tion of the faith. The mere fact of a confluence of streams will not keep the waters sweet ; there must be some preserva- tive power in the centre. Nor is there any need to see in the word ' necessary ' anything more than a deep-seated attraction which drew men to the Church of Eome on another ground. The word used by St. IrenfBus is the regular word in ecclesiastical Latin, as is the corresponding word in Greek, for such necessity. St. Cyril uses it as expressing the obligation under which he lay of writing to the Pope about Nestorius.' It is, therefore, more natural to translate convenire ad as ' agree with,' - and to understand necesse est of that necessity which arose from the commanding position of the Church of Eome and the supernatural operation of the Holy Ghost. But even if we translate convenire ad ' resort to,' it must be borne in mind that a necessary resort of all Churches to the Church of Eome implies supremacy in the latter. {h) To what was the commanding position of the Church of Eome due according to St. Irenaeus ? Our answer is, to its superior sovereignty, as not only an apostolic but, as in after times it was called, the Apostolic Church ; to its having, as St. Irenfeus puts it, been founded by the two most glorious Apo- stles, to which we must add the fact that one of those two most glorious xipostles was he to whom our Lord had said, ' Thou art Peter,' which signifies a special association with the Eock of Ages. ' Cf. infra, p. 308. And also see the letter of the Council of Ephesuq to St. Cclestine : (XPV airapra els yviKTiv rr\s a9)s dcrtdTTjros avevtxdrjvai ra wapaKn- \ov6i](ravTa ■ypa(pojxev avayKaiois (Labbe, t. iii. p. 119G). ■-' This is Canon Bright's translation in The Roman Claims tested by An- tiquity, p. 8. D 2 36 BECAUSE OF HER a.d. 96 Dr. Pusey and Mr. Keble understood by the word * sove- reignty,' merely _2«v/»?f/re«e.ss or origin. They saw that the words must apply to the Church, and not to the city. Dr. Dollinger completely shattered to atoms this same translation, as given b}' Gieseler. ' Die Haretiker wiirden natiirlich emen Beweis fiir diese absolute Nothwendigkeit einer Uebereinstim- mung, die bios auf den Yorzug des Alters beruhen soil, gefordert, sie wihxlen erwiedert haben, dass jiingere Gemem- den aller dings von dem Glauben der alter n abweichen konnten.' He scouts the idea that such an ' illogical conclusion ever entered the mind of St. Irenseus ; ' and he shows that the word ' principalitas ' means in Irenseus' writings ' supreme authority,' and pomts out that Eome was not the oldest Church.' Indeed, it may be added that St. Irenaeus ex- pressly calls Jerusalem the mother Church in point of an- tiquity ('Hser.' iii. 12, 5). (c) But whilst understanding the ' principality ' as mean- ing sovereignty, others, as Mr. Puller, understand it of the imperial position of the city. But this is absolutely excluded by the context. It is the apostolic origin of any Church that gives it, according to St. Irenfeus, its commanding position ; it is the specially apostolic character of the Church of Rome that gives it its peculiar position amongst the apostolic Churches. Bossuet calls such an interpretation as that given by Mr. Puller * trifling ' with the matter ; Hefele calls it ' ridiculous ' (Idcherlich) ; Perrone, * most absurd.' For, as Bossuet says, St. Irenseus was speaking, in the previous sen- tence, of the Church of Piome as founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul, not in her imperial aspect. And the words ' more powerful ' imply comparison with the Churches (* every Cliurch ') which he has mentioned in the same breath, and with which he contrasts the Church of Piome as ' the most ancient and the most universall}' known.' (d) Some writers, as Mr. Gore and Mr. Puller, have laid great stress on the word translated ' everywhere.' It is lite- rally ' from all sides.' And they seem to imagine that this suggests the picture of an^asscmblage of the faithful from all ' Geschichte der cliristlichen Kirchc, p. 357. —300 ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY. 37 quarters in the city of Eome. But it may equally represent the view of a writer regarding the faithful as living in all quarters of the globe, and connected with the centre not by physical movement, but by the tie of a common faith. It is, however, certain that the word is used by the Latin inter- preter, and that the corresponding word in Greek was also used by St. Irenreus (for in this case we have the original in the Bodleian MS.), for ' everywhere ' simply. St. Irenseus speaks of the four Gospels as ' breathing, or blowing, incor- ruptibility evert/ichcre and revivifying men.' The word for * everywhere ' used here is the same as in the passage we have been considering ; ^ and it is obvious that it means a radiation from a centre, not vice versa. Further, St. Irenseus does not say that the apostolic tradition was preserved through these merchants, and lawyers, and appellants, and heretics, and faithful, that gathered hap- hazard to the city of Piome, but hy them — which reduces the supposition that he meant these business travellers at all to an absurdity. Once more, the interpretation given by Canon Bright {loc. cit.), viz. that the principalitas was ' a sort of " primacy," involving a moral guarantee of its soundness of belief, which led St. Irenffius to say that every Church that was itself true to apostolic tradition " must needs agree with it " ' — implies the very doctrine which he is endeavouring to exclude. For it must be asked : If all orthodox Churches are necessarily found to be in agreement with the Church of Eome, w^hat is this but ascribing infallibility to that Church ? This, indeed, is what St. Irenaeus does ascribe to Eome, an ascendency in matters of faith which makes her teaching the test and norm of the Catholic faith. And so he goes on to show that as a matter of fact other Churches, such as Smyrna and Ephesus, do agree with Eome.^ {e) Lastty, it has been objected that the words 'in which' {in qua) may refer to * every Church,' and not to the Church ' HcB7: lib. iii. cap. 11, n. 8. Gk. iravTaxodeu. Lat. undique. Cf. also •prccdicationem vcro Ecclcsicc undiguc constantcm (2-i, 1), and lincdicatio veri- tatis ubique lucet. * Mr. Puller has misunderstood this passage. 38 IN HER WE ARE SAFE. a.d. 96—300 of Rome. But this, again, necessitates the absurdity of sup- posing that every orthodox Church is necessarily in agree- ment with Eome, and yet that Eome is not infalhble, or the equal absurdity of supposing that the chance business men who found theii" way to Rome for secular purposes kept Eome right in the faith — or the people, for instance, who brought with them the Clementine Romance. The words in qua are well explained by Dr. DoUinger, as stating that the faithful throughout the world were ' in ' the Church of Eome— that is, in communion with it as the centre of unity. The corre- sponding word in Greek would be that which is used by St. Paul of our being 'in Christ,' and the exact phrase of the Latin interpreter, whose translation is all that we have of this passage in St. Iren?eus, is used by the African bishop, St. Optatus, whose work St. Augustine recommended, ^dz. • in which one chair [i.e. the chair of Peter] unity might be preserved,' i.e. that in communion with this one chair, &c.' The plain and simple meaning, therefore, of St. IrenaBus remains in possession. All Churches must agree with the Church of Eome, so that if you know the faith of the Church of Eome you know the faith of the whole Christian Church. ' ' D. h. in ihrem Schoosse, in der Gemeinschaft mit ibr als dem Mittel- punkte der Einheit ' (loc. cit. p. 358). CHAPTER IV. ST. VICTOR, OR ROME THE GUARDIAN OF ' THE COMMON UNITY.' One of the legal methods of preserving the evidence of a claim is to subject it, periodically, to a challenge j^^'o forma. And one method of discovering how far a claim holds good, such as that which Eome makes, is to see what happens under circumstances that press heavily on the obedience of those over whom it is made, leading them in the natural course of things to dispute it. Resistance does not disprove authority ; while a resistance which falls short of disputing the authority itself indicates a sense of its lawful existence. Such an oc- casion occurred in the second century of the Christian era. A portion of the East came into collision with Rome on a matter on which Rome jjroved to be right, although the Pope thought it well not to press the matter beyond a certain point. The circumstances were as follows. I. In the Asiatic Churches a multitude of Jews had entered the Christian fold, and had kept to various Jewish customs, under the eye and apparently with the sanction of the Apostle St. John. Amongst these customs was that of cele- brating the Paschal Feast on the same day as their uncon- verted brethren. In the West it was observed on the Sunday after the 14th Nisan — always on a Sunday. Amongst those who now observed the feast on the same day as the Jews were some whose belief as to the idea of the feast was the same as that of the rest of the Christian world. But there were also some whose teaching as to the idea of the festival itself was erroneous, and whose observance of it differed altogether from that of the Church.' In fact, the observance ' ' Many of the orthodox Quartodecimans thought that the main feature of the Paschal Feast lay in the commemoration of the death of Christ, of whom 40 THE DISPUTE ABOUT EASTER. a.d. 96 of this Queen of Festivals, on which St. John the Apostle ap- pears to have allowed some external difference, had come to be connected with Ebionitish teaching. It would therefore only be a matter of time for an endeavour to be made to bring the whole Christian world into unison on such an im- portant matter, for though it was not a matter of faith, it was closely connected with the faith. Kome had her observance handed down from the Apostles Peter and Paul ; and her observance was destined to be the rule of action for the entire Church. In the beginning of the century she had made an endeavour to achieve a greater uniformity, but had ended with acquiescing in the continuance of the dissimilarity of practice. Anicetus received Polycarp to communion at Piome, although Polj'carp adopted the Asiatic mode of observing the Feast. Soter went a step further and insisted on uniformity, at least in Eome itself. II. But when Victor ascended the throne matters had become much more serious, and the Asiatic observance of Easter w^as adopted by certain schismatics, who were also infected with Montanism.' It became a matter of moment to stop the dissimilarity of observance in the Church itself, or to dissociate it from false teaching. St. Victor decided upon the first, but succeeded only in effecting the second. Mosheim, the German Protestant historian, has said that the action of Victor in this matter, and the reception with which it met, prove that in that age the power of the Eoman Pontiff was not such as that he could cut off from the whole Church those of whose opinions and practices he disapproved. He has been followed in this by the author of ' The Primitive Saints and the See of Piome,' ^ who contends that the account of the matter in Eusebius shows that the loss of communion with Rome did not involve loss of communion with the rest of the Church. There is a sense in which this is true, but it is not the sense in which this writer uses the expression. There was, in early times, a measure of separation from Eome which was not intended to involve separation from the whole body. the Paschal Lamb was the type.' Cf. Jungmann, Diss. ii. G.5, who gives a short account of worse heresies into which some of the Quartodecimans were falling. ' Cf. Jungmann, D\ss. ii. 79. - Pp. 24-31. —300 ST. VICTOR'S ENDEAVOUR 41 This lesser separation was a serious loss, but was meant to fall short, by a great deal, of the excommunication under anathema.^ For the latter a distinct and formal notification of its terrible infliction was necessary. Moreover, this latter and more extreme measure might be preceded by the former. With these remarks I will proceed to narrate what actually happened, and to show that matters never came to the point which would necessitate our speaking of these Asiatics as being under anathema, and so in actual schism. St. Victor first collected the evidence of the whole Christian world,^ except Asia, and then requested Polycrates, the Bishop of Ephesus, to summon the Asiatic bishops in council, in the hope of inducing them to relinquish their purely local practice. Polycrates obeyed. The Asiatic Churches, however, came to the conclusion that they would adhere to their own custom. Polycrates, their leader, went so far in the way of exaggeration as to speak of their own practice as though it alone were ' in accordance with the Gospel,' and they pleaded the authority of St. John the Evangelist and St. Philip. They may have meant only that their custom had been permitted by the Apostle. Anyhow, if they dreamt of an Apostolic prescripilon, we are not obliged to think that they were historically correct in their assertion. The result of their answer to St. Victor was that he decided upon strong measures. The warmth with which they de- fended their custom must have seemed to him suspicious, as though they were erecting it into a matter of belief, or were really in danger of doctrinal error. For it must be carefully remembered, that the question of the Paschal observance in- volved not merely that of a day, but in many cases (known only too unhappily to the Pope) of the meaning of the feast. St. Victor, therefore, decided, or at least threatened, to ex- communicate the Asiatic Churches ' from the common unity,'* as Eusebius expresses it. He set to work to do it ; he made the endeavour ; he took the first step.'* He issued his notice of ' Cf . Dollinger's Geschichtc, Periode II. ad finem ; and quotations from De Smedt in -Jungmann, Diss. ii. 75. - Euseb. Hist. Eccl. v. 23. ' Tfjs KOivr\s et ottjtos. * ireipaTai. Euscb. in loco. The word involves no more than the endeavour which the head-master of a school might make to enforce a salutary rule, but 42 FOR UNITY FAILED. a.d. 96 excommunication, of downright excommunication, to the effect that they were cut off from the common unity (aKoivwvtjTovs) . Unfortunately we do not possess St. Victor's letter ; conse- quently it is impossible to say whether or no the excommunica- tion was contingent on their obedience at the next Easter.^ But it is most reasonable, and most in harmon}^ with what we know of such excommunications in after times, as, for instance, St. Celestine's excommunication of Nestorius — to suppose that these Asiatics were to be excommunicate if they adhered to then' custom at the following Easter. But as soon as they received the Papal injunction, or, at any rate, before the time came for compliance with it, i.e. before the following Easter, some bishops protested.- Their protest, however, consisted only of exhorta- tion or entreaty : ' they exhorted,' says Eusebius. This they did in no measured terms, but went beyond the limits of the respect due to the office of St. Victor.^ Their complaints were probably a more bitter edition of Polycra,tes' previous letter, in which that bishop pleads his own \drgin life as a reason why he should be heard, and says he cares for no threats — not a very edifying form of corresj)ondence. III. Peace, however, came from the mediation of the same saint, who wrote that ' it is necessary for every Church to agree with the Church of Rome, because of her more powerful prmci- pality or supremacy.' St. Irenpeus (the author of the words) wrote from Gaul a letter couched m more deferential terms."* He from which he might desist owing to the fear of rebellion. Mr. Puller greatly exaggerates its force (Prim. S. S. p. 30). ' So Dollinger, Gcschichte, p. 289. * ' The sentence did not please all the bishops ' are the words of Eusebius, which implies that there were some, j)robably many, who thought St. Victor in the right. ^ irX7]KTiK(tiT(pov. Mr. Puller has translated this ' very severely.' But w^^JKTl/c(5s implies bitterness — ' objurgationeacri ' isDindorf's translation of the positive. ' Severely ' is a word which suggests the tone of a superior rebuking the fault of an inferior, or of a usurper. ' Bitterly ' (the correct translation) is a word which describes the tone of a dissatisfied inferior protesting against his superior's action. And ' very severely ' misses the point of the ending of the word. It is not irK-nKriKJ^Tarov, but is in the comparative degree, implying excess, ' more than the occasion warranted ' in the judgment of Eusebius. * -irpocTTjKdvrtos. This seems to be in contrast with the TTXi^KTiKuinpov or excessive bitterness of the Asiatics. He was amongst the number of those who were displeased with Victor's determination, but differed from them in tone. —300 HIS AUTHORITY ACKNOWLEDGED, 43 agreed -with Eome about the observation of Easter, but real- ised the impossibility of bringing the Asiatics into Kne under present circumstances. Possibly also he did not realise as keenly as St. Victor did the mischievous tendency, under present circumstances, of the Asiatic ' custom, which gave it a very different colour from the same custom in the time of his predecessors. He pleaded, as he had a right to do, that it was not in itself a matter of faith, which, of course, St. Victor himself allowed. And he ' warned ' St. Victor of the con- sequences of persisting in his threat, or sentence.- The Asiatic blood was up, and a schism was possible. He referred to the precedents set by Pius the First, Hyginus, Telesphorus, and Xystus, as not having ' cast off" any merely for the sake of a form,' showing what he thought of the power possessed by the Bishops of Piome. He therefore advised ^ St. Victor with all becoming respect {irpoariKovTws) ' not to cut off' whole Churches.' The Churches, therefore, were not, to the mind of St. Irenaeus, as yet excommunicated ; but it was, according to the same saint, within the power of St. Victor to cut them off. Bossuet exactly hits the point when he paraphrases St. Irenaeus' advice as being to the effect ' that a rigorous right is not always to be used.' Not a hint is given all round that any one of the Churches disputed St. Victor's authority. Had any other portion of the Church talked of cutting off whole Churches from the common unity, it would only have made itself ridiculous. But when the threat comes from Kome the whole Church is astir ; and there is one thing that no one says — neither St. Irenaeus nor the rest of the bishops said, ' It is ridiculous, you have no such authority ; ' but they exhort, and protest, and warn, and entreat him not to do so. ' It must be remembered that Eusebius in speaking of Asia means, not the peninsula, but Asia in the restricted sense customary at that time. Cf. De Smedt, Diss. ii. cap. 1, note 1. - I have put the alternative, because I do not think it possible to determine for certain which it was. Eusebius' account, not containing St. Victor's letters, is not sufficient to enable us to decide. Catholic writers are to be found on both sides. It seems to me that the evidence, on the whole, is in favour of a threat only. " 7rapai;'€r= recommend. We have hardly an exact English equivalent for the word in the original — ' admonish ' has with us more idea of superiority, and ' advise,' perhaps, a shade more of softness than the original. 44 BUT RESISTED. a.d. 96 St. Victor's endeavour failed ; for he found the opposition to this exercise of disciplme too serious. It was a bold attempt to effect the more perfect unity of the Church, and to prevent the intrusion of heretical tendencies. He had thought to enforce, under pain of excommunication, a more uniform observance of the Festival of the Resurrection throughout the Church. The endeavour unfortunately failed, owing to the passionate tenacity with which he found the Asiatics wrongly adhered to their national custom. He found he could not persist in downright excommunication, even of the lesser kind, with any hopes of gaining the end in view. It was not a matter of faith, and therefore, whilst he showed his care for the unity of the Church and his jealousy for the faith — not directly assaulted, but indirectly endangered by a line of action which easily lent itself to error — he showed his wisdom in ceasing to contend for his point when he saw the spirit of obstinate partisanship which his endeavour evoked. He desisted from the final step, in accordance with the respect- ful remonstrance of St. Irenseus. Eventually the Universal Church settled down to the Eoman mode of observance. The whole incident discovers the actual centre of Church life in that century. St. Victor sets in motion synodical action throughout the Church, gathers up the results which are sent in to him, lays down the conditions of adherence to the common unity, and his ruling ultimately prevailed throughout the Church, as it does to this day, concerning the observance of the Queen of Festivals. Note.— Mr. Puller contends that St. Victor cut off these Churches of Asia from communion with Rome, and endeavoured to go further, i.e. endeavoured to cut them off from ' the common unity,' but that in this he failed. From which he argues that no degree of loss of communion with Rome involves loss of communion with the rest of the Church. It is to be noted that he appears to understand uKon'wvyTovi, ' separated from communion,' as meaning separated from the local Church of Rome, and not * from the common unity,' as the context in Eusebius suggests. And indeed he goes so far as to state that ' Eusebius tells us that, while Victor, si^eaking for his oivn Church, announced,' &c. ; whereas Eusebius merely says that ^'ictor an- —300 MR. PULLER ON ST. VICTOR. 45 nouncecl, &c. And to clench the matter, in summing up he inverts the order of Eusebius' words, and so draws his conclusion from them. He puts the proclamation of St. Victor (to the effect that those Churches were excommunicated) first, and the endeavour to cut them off from the common unity last.^ This is not the order in Eusebius. The endeavour was being made, and the first step was to issue the proclamation. So that unless they repented and altered their rule of observance at the following Easter, they incurred the downright excommunication {apSrjv). The next step was not what Mr. Puller states it to have been. He says, * The other bishops objected to Victor's proceeding ; they refused to withdraw their com- munion from Polycrates.' This latter sentence is not contained in Eusebius' account. What the bishops did was not to ' refuse,' but to exhort, and to reproach with some bitterness. And since their exhortations, enforced by St. Irenneus' letter of more becoming tone, availed with St. Victor, matters never came to the point of refusal on the part of the bishops. The breach no sooner opened than it closed. So that the moral to be drawn from this incident in the early life of the Church is something very different from what Mr. Puller describes it. He says (p. 31 — the itahcs are my own), ' The right way of dealing with such claims,' i.e. those of the Vatican Council, ' if we may judge by the example of St. Irensus and other holy bishops ^ of his time, is to inveigh against the claimant strongly and to upbraid him severely, and to refuse to give in to Ms claims.' On the contrary, if we take the few facts we possess, there would be ' exhortation ' to desist, there would not be the same upbraiding, for that was too bitter (TrXT^KTCKwepov), there would be 'becoming' (Trpoo-ijKoi'rws) admonition as to a too dangerous exercise of rightful authority, but there would not be (if we are to judge by Eusebius' account of the whole matter) any denial of the authority itself. Professor Karnack, the most brilliant German Protestant writer of the day, says that Victor * ventured by an edict ... to declare that any Church which did not adopt the Eoman method was excluded as heretical from the communion of the one Church. How could Victor have ventured on such an edict ... if it was not already established and recognised that it belonged to the Eoman Chm-ch, as its distinctive prerogative, to determine the conditions of ' P. 30. ^ The bishops who agree with Mr. Puller seem always to be holy. He denies the title of saint to Victor, just as he does to St. Stephen, St. Damasus, St. Gelasius, St. Celestine, St. Zosimus. These holy men were all Popes. In the same way Dupin and Tillemont are Koman Catholic divines, the Ballerini and others are only ' Ultramontane.' 46 MR. PULLER OX ST. VICTOR. a.d. 96 -300 the Koivr] evwo-is, when essential doctrines of the faith were in question ? ' (• Dogmengeschichte,' i. p. 368.) In the course of his description of this incident Mr. Puller also settles a question of translation without sufficient authority. St. Victor ' requested ' Polycrates to summon the bishops in his parts, and Polycrates did so. Mr. Puller finds in this an argument against the supremacy of the Holy See. He considers the Greek word to imply equality. But the word used by Polycrates is equally appli- cable to the request of a superior, as may be seen by consulting Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, 7th edition. It would, indeed, be hypercriticism to the last degree to lay stress upon such an ex- pression at all, for who does not know that superiors will often, out of courtesy, express their desires, as Popes usually do now, instead of issuing a peremptory demand "? But in point of fact dftow by itself implies neither superiority nor equality on the part of the person who makes the request. That must be determined by other considerations. Once more. There is no authority for saying, as Mr. Puller does, that ' everything went on as if nothing had happened.' The obstinacy of these Asiatics had received a check, and it seems not improbable that some further measure of conformity to the Eoman mode of observing the Paschal Feast followed upon the stand made by St. Victor ; if we may trust the letter of Constantine, respecting the Nicene Council, it would certainly seem as if this incident had had an effect for good. With regard to the question as to whether St. Victor actually excommunicated the Asiatics contingent upon their obedience by the following Easter, or only threatened to do so, it seems to me that Firmilian's e\adence is very strong. He says in reference to the day of celebrating the Paschal Feast, that ' there was not at any time a departure from the peace and unity of the Catholic Church on that account.' (' Ep. Cypr.' Ixxv.) Tillemont makes a poor attempt to get out of the plain meaning of this sentence. And Firmilian's position in Asia Minor makes him a specially valuable witness in this matter. It is true that I have given reasons for questioniiig his evidence in the rest of the sentence, but they do not apply to this point. Firmilian's argument is that St. Stephen, in excommuni- cating (so he asserted) the Bishop of Carthage on such a question as that of baptism by heretics, was acting contrary to St. Victor and others on the question of Easter. CHAPTER V. THE DOCTEINE OF ST. CYPRIAN ON UNITY. The teaching of St. Cyprian, and certain portions of his life, have been claimed as the special justification of the Anglican position in early history. Dr. Piisey, in his preface to the Epistles of this saint, says, ' The Epistles of St. Cyprian are the more deeply interesting to us in that he, who has been called "the ideal of a Christian bishop," has been almost involuntarily chosen as the model of our Church.' He con- siders that St. Cyprian ' maintained in act the abstract independence of Churches, which he had in theory main- tained.' ^ Mr. Puller, in his book on ' The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome,' maintains that ' both his writings and the story of his life remain as a perpetual witness against the Papal and in favour of the episcopal constitution of the Church of God,' - and even goes to the length of saying, in another place,^ ' The defenders of the English Church may safely stake their case, so far as it relates to the Papal claims, on the witness borne by St. Cyprian.' It is necessary, there- fore, to enter more fully into the teaching and life of this saint than would be otherwise natural, premising that to stake the defence of one's ecclesiastical position on a single saint is contrary to all Catholic ideas of divine faith in the Church. I. It will be admitted on all hands that St. Cyprian's eye is perpetually fixed on one saying of our Lord's when he thinks of the government of the Church. * Thou art Peter ; and on this rock I will build my Church . . . and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of Heaven,' are to ' Lib. of the Fathers. St. Cyprian, pref. p. xvii. [N.B. The references to St. Cyprian's writings are to the Oxford edition; but where the number of an Epistle differs from that in the Benedictine edition, I have referred to the latter thus, B.x.] ■■' P. 357. ' P. 303. 48 ' THE CHURCH BUILT ON PETER ' a.d. 96 St. Cyprian the all-important words in regard to Church authority.' At the same time, it is undoubtedly the case that St. Cyprian is full of the necessity of obedience to the hisltop of the diocese, and that he distinctly speaks of the Church having been ' settled on the bishops.' - The point, therefore, to be considered is the connection between the episcopate of the Church and the Apostle St. Peter — whether, according to St. Cyprian, it excludes the sovereignty of the Bishop of Eome. Some of the most brilliant German Protestant writers, such as Neander and Harnack, and, amongst Americans, Schaff, maintain that St. C}prian's teaching necessarily issued in the Papal form of government. Amongst Anghcan writers, some agree with these German historians, whilst others, such as Dr. Pusey and his followers, hold that St. Cj^prian main- tained the necessity of the episcopate, and, at the same time, its entire independence of the See of Peter. The former hold that if the episcopate be considered as a matter of necessity, by reason of its relationship to Peter, its dependence on the successor of Peter (if there be such) necessarily follows ; the latter, that if all bishops are the successors of Peter, there is no room for a special relationship to the Apostle on the part of any one see. The position maintained in the following pages is that the Papal supremacy is already there. St. Cyprian regards the saying of our Lord to Peter as the root of all authority in the Church. Other Apostles were associated with Peter ; but St. Cyprian separates him off from the rest, as well by the stress which he lays on the commission given to him (com- pared with the very rare occasions on which he mentions the rest), as by the definite expression so often repeated in his writings, that the Church was founded by Christ o/i Peter. It is to our Lord's saying to Peter that St. Cyprian per- petually recurs, which he regards also as giving the form of unity to His Church subsequently to the death of that Apostle (Ep. Iv. 6, lix. 18). St. Peter was, in the teaching of Cyprian, the beginning of a divine institution, which issued in a stream ' Cf. Ep. xxxiii. 1, Ixvi. 7, Ixxiii. 7, lix. 8, Ixx. 5, Ixxi. 2, Ixxiii. 7. Tr. on Unity, § 3. * ^P- xxxiii. B. xxvii. —300 IS THE REFRAIN OF CYPRIAN. 49 of bishops throughout the world. The Apostles founded various communities of Christians, each with their head to succeed themselves ; but the authority of all is traced, in the Cyprianic literature, to the words of Christ to Peter, repeated in part, and in part only, to the rest of the Apostles. Thus the bishops were the successors of the Apostles, but of the Apostles considered as a college, with Peter at their head. On Peter the Church was founded : it teas founded, too, on the Apostles, but on these only, I must repeat, as forming a body of which Peter was the head ; and the Church is for ever founded on the bishops, because the episcopate has suc- ceeded to the rule of Peter, ^ having come into being through the missionary initiative of the several Apostles, scattered throughout the globe, who were all of them associated with Peter. So that when St. Cyprian says that the origin of heresy and schism lies in the misfortune that * the head is not sought,' - it is not our Lord simply, but our Lord considered as the Creator of an institution, whom he contemplates. In fact when he sa}' s ' the head is not sought,' he may be said to mean broadly that the original institution is overlooked, the originating words of our Lord, who is our Divine Head, are not borne in mind.^ By these words an authority was placed on earth ; for the saint goes on to speak of Peter having re- ceived the keys. And this he insists upon by way of showing that the martyrs and confessors in their prisons were dis- turbing the unity of the Church, in overlooking the bishop of the diocese, who derived an authority from our Lord's ' Ep. xxxiii. St. Francis of Sales explains the different ways in which St. Peter and the rest of the Apostles were foundations. ' They were foundations of the Church equally with him [Peter] as to the conversion of souls and as to doctrine ; but as to the authority of governing they were so unequally, as St. Peter was the ordinary head, not only of the rest of the whole Church, but of the Apostles also ' (TJie Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis of Sales. Burns and Gates, 1886, p. 249). = De Unit. Eccl. § 3. ' Elsewhere he says that the remedy, ' when truth is in jeopardy, is to recur to the evangelical fountain, and the apostolical tradition, that the rule of our action may come thence whence both our order and origin have taken their rise.' And again, ' If we revert to the head or origin of the divine tradition, humaa error ceases ' {Ep. ad Pompciwn). E 5j0 his treatise on unity a.d. 96 words to Peter which did not belong to them, as they suffered, or awaited their crown. And, again, the Novatianists, of course to a much greater extent and in connection, not with great truths, as was the case with the confessors, but with great iniquity, were overlooking the head, who in that case was the legitimate Bishop of Rome, who, as legitimately rooted in the past, was himself, and not Novatian, the head and root of the Church. 1 II. For St. Cji^rian wrote his treatise on Unity to meet the necessities of the day, and the form which it took was determined by those present needs. It is, therefore, neces- sary to enter upon these somewhat at length, if we are to understand why St. C^'prian laid such stress on obedience to bishops.^ (a) The early part of his episcopate was occupied with the danger which had arisen to the discipline of the Church from an unintentional encroachment on the bishop's office on the part of the confessors and martyrs in the Decian persecution. The occasion of this encroachment was as follows. The Church taught that, owing to the solidarity of the Body of Christ, the suffering of one part availed to diminish the punish- ment of another. During the persecution many Christians had failed to confess the faith, and had incurred the ban of the Church. The question arose as to how and when they should be restored after their lapse. It was the custom to have recourse to the martyrs and confessors in their prisons, and to obtain from them a certificate to the effect that they desired for the applicants a release from the punishment due ' 'For this has been the very source whence heresies and schisms have taken their rise, that obedience is not paid to the Priest of God,' i.e. (as gene- rally in St. Cyprian's writings) the bishop IE}), lix. 6, B. Iv.). ■■* 'For schisms and heresies have arisen, and do arise, from the bishop, who is one and presides over the Church, being despised by tlie proud presumption of some ' (Ej). Ixvi. 4, B. Ixix.). s It is the consideration of these circumstances that gives the true answer to Mr. Puller's objection in his Prim. SS. mid the See of Rome, p. 351. He Bays, ' You may read the whole treatise on unity from beginning to end, and you -will not find one single word about Rome, or about the Pope, or about any Papal jurisdiction derived from St. Peter.' The treatise was written (so St. Cyprian tells us himself, Ep. liv. B. li.) to meet special needs, and, as will be seen, Papal authority did not come into (|aestiou. —300 WRITTEN FOR PRESENT NEEDS. 51 to their sin of apostasy. This, in the proper course of things, was presented to the bishop, who decided upon the extent to which the combined effect of the martyrs' praj^ers and the penitence of the lapsed should affect the latter. The appli- cability of the sufferings of the confessors to those who sought their intercession was admitted on all sides ; and the right of the bishop to grant an indulgence, or remission of the tem- poral punishment due to the sin of apostasy, was unques- tioned. But it lay with the bishop to decide in each particular case ; for the temporal punishment could only properly be remitted to those who gave signs of contrition for the sin they had committed ; and it also rested with the bishop to deter- mine the extent to which the martyrs' certificates should be available to shorten or dispense with the natural term of penance. In a word, the present teaching of the Church on the subject of indulgences ^ was in full vogue ; only the con- fessors had been led to give their certificates without due re- ference to the bishop. Now St. Cyprian felt that the whole discipline of the Church was at stake, through the imprudence of these imprisoned confessors, in giving certificates irrespective of the applicants' penitence and without proper authorisation from the bishop. He accordinglj^ wrote to certain persons on the subject, and sent all his letters to Rome for the inspection of the clergy there. Eome was just then without a bishop. It had been part of the plan of the persecution under Decius to weaken the body by depriving it of its head. ' He . . . persecutes the rulers of the Church that, its pilot being removed, he may .... make shipwreck of the Church.' Accordingly St. Cyprian had been compelled to flee into retirement, and the Bishop of Rome had been martyred, for there, St. Cyprian says, Decius would rather have seen a rival emperor than a bishop of God. Accordingly the election of a new bishop in the place of Fabian, which St. C^'prian calls ' the place of ' An indulgence is a discharge of the debt of temporal punishment due to forgiven sin, obtained by the application of the treasury of the Church, as TertuUian called the merits of the martyrs. Of course the merit of our Lord is the source of all other merits. 52 THE BISHOP'S OFFICE a.d. 90 Peter,' was rendered impossible for nearly two 3'ears. But the local Church of Eome was still at the head of the Chris- tian world. Although her clergy could not act with the authority of the Eoman Bishop, they were still the object of special deference and respect. The aroma of infallibility lingered in the vacant see. The Eoman clergy had already written to Cyprian in regard to his flight from persecution, in consequence of some unfavourable comments that had been made, probably by those who were preparing the way for a schism. St. C^^Drian, in no way resenting this intervention of the Eoman clergy, first wrote to know if the letter was really theirs, and then, on finding that it was, defended his conduct. ' I have thought it necessary to write this letter to you, wherein an account might be given you of my acts, dis- cipline, and diligence .... What I have done my epistles will tell you, which I sent, as occasion required, to the number of thirteen, and which I have transmitted to you.' ' No one, surely, will suppose that the Eoman clergy ever dreamt of sending an account of their ' acts, discipline, and diligence ' to Carthage. St. Cyprian then proceeds to detail his proposed method of deahng with those who had lapsed under persecution. In this portion of his letter he shows still more strongly what deference he felt to be due to the chau* of Peter in Eome, even when the administration of the Church there was in the hands of the inferior clergy. ' Nor in this ' {i.e. his attitude towards the lapsed) ' did I lay down a law, or rashly make myself its author. But whereas it seemed right that both honour should be shown to the martyrs, and yet the violence of those who desired to throw everything into confusion be checked — and, moreover, havimj read your letter lately sent to my clergy through Crementius, the archdeacon, to the effect that those should l)e helped who, having lapsed, were seized with sickness, and who, repenting, desired communion— I thought it right to abide by what was your opinion also, lest our conduct in the ministry, which ought to be united and to agree in all things, should in any respect differ.' He then speaks of referring matters to a council at Carthage after the peace, that ' Ep. XX. B. xiv. —300 WAS BEING INVADED 53 we * may with the assistance of your counsel also set in order and restore everything.' He speaks elsewhere (Ep. xxvii.) of the letter of the Eoman clergy having helped him much ; whilst the Eoman clergy, careful not to assume the prerogatives of their bishop, say that Cyprian * wished us to be found not so much judges as j)astors in counsels.' At the same time they speak of the inerrancy of the Church of Kome, its faith having been celebrated throughout the world — a fact which (they say) the Apostle would not have mentioned ' unless this vigorousness had derived its root of faith from that time and thenceforwai'ds.' But they are the more compelled to wait before giving any definitive judgment as to the lapsed, ' be- cause since the decease of Fabian, of most honoured memory, on account of the difficulties of circumstances and the times, we have no bishop yet appointed who should settle all these matters, and who might, with authority and counsel, take account of those who have lapsed.' He also mentions later on that this epistle of the Eoman clergy ' was sent throughout the world, and made known to all the Churches and all the brethren.' ' The Eoman clergy then, whilst waiting for a bishop to be appointed, who could settle matters ' with authority ' as well as * counsel,' meanwhile applauded St. Cyprian's intention of refusing to devolve the work of the bishop in the restoration of the lapsed on the confessors and martyrs. Their certifi- ficates were to be allowed their due weight ; their sufferings were to be admitted in lieu of the temporal punishment which those who obtained the certificate would have been bound to undergo ; but the whole matter was to be submitted in each diocese to the ' head ' of the Christian people therein. ' Ep. Iv. 3. It is difficult to understand how any one could twist this inci- dent, naturally sugf^estive of the authoritative position of Eome, into an instance of dissimilarity between the ' Cyprianic ' and the ' modern Roman ' theory of the Church's government. It has, however, been said (Prim. SS. p. 60) that on the latter theory ' there would probably be some reference to the fact that a pope would soon be elected who would be able to ratify what the archbishop had done.' This is exactly what the Roman clergy did say to Cyprian in regard to the archdeacon's action during the vacancy of the see. Mr. I'uller most un- justifiably substitutes the ' judgment ' of the archbishop for ' their conscience ' in that note. No ' surprise ' is expressed. 54 BY THE MARTYHS' CERTIFICATES, a.d. 96 The danger that was threatening them was, according to St. Cyprian, that of disregarding the divinely appointed head. And he finds the divine institution of a head in our Lord's words to St. Peter. He writes to the lapsed (Ep. xxxiii.), say- ing that ' Our Lord, whose precepts and warnings we ought to observe, determining the honour of a bishop and the ordering ' of his own Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter, " I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock," &c. Thence the ordination of bishops and the ordering of the Church runs down along the course of time and the line of succession, so that the Church is settled upon her bishops, and every act of the Church is regulated by the same prelates. Since, then, this is founded on divine law, I marvel that some have had the bold sincerity to write to me as if they were addressing letters in the name of the Church, whereas the Church con- sisteth of the bishop and clergy and all who stand.' St. Cyprian, therefore, distinctly understands the ' rock,' in St. Matthew xvi., to be St, Peter ; and the bishops enter into their share of the keys through succession from Peter, who is thus, in a very true sense, the ' root ' of the Catholic Church and the source of its unity. She is ' built on Peter, for an origin and for the ordering ^ of unity.' The rock which, according to St. Cyprian, is Peter, has expanded itself in * a line of succession,' and the Church consists of those bishops who flow from Peter, together with the clergy and the faithful. Included amongst those bishops is, of course, according to St. Cyprian (however mistaken he may be in the judgment of Mr. Puller ^) the occupant of the chair of Peter. The bishop is the head of the Church in each diocese, because he is part of the stream which has flowed from Peter ; and this stream is, all along its course, invested with divine right because its source is of divine institution, coming from the creative words of the Heavenly Master, * Thou art Peter,' &c. So far St. Cyprian's teaching, though not couched in the terms of modern theology, is yet in substance identical with that of the Roman Catholic Church at this hour. In the ' Ratio. Oxford translation. '•^ Batione. The same word in the letter just quoted. » Prim. SS. p. 54. —300 AND AT ROME, AN ANTI-POPE 65 district of Westminster, for instance, the ' head ' must be sought {caput qucentur), and the 'head' is the bishop who comes down from Peter, and so is part of that enduring living foundation on which Christ built His Church, and on which it will remain until the end of the world. St. Peter is not, according to St. Cyprian, as some would make him, only a sj'mbol, but he is the origin of the Church's unity, and com- munion with Peter is an essential feature of the Church's life. Consequently, the lapsed must know that their restora- tion to the Church is to be regulated by the bishop, not simply by certificates from the martyrs. And the Bishop of Carthage would not lay down a law on the rules to guide the bishop's action without consulting Piome. {h) But another event in the life of St. Cyprian turned his thoughts towards the subject of unity, and led to a further explanation of its origin and nature. An Anti-Pope arose at Piome, and St. Cyprian flew to the aid of Cornelius, the legitimate Pope. In an important passage he insists upon the regularity of Cornelius's appointment, and the consequent sin of opposing him. There cannot be two bishops over the same see, and those Vv'ho through their own fault are in communion with the wrong one are outside the supernatural sphere of the Church, and their very martyrdom would lose its merit. There was, says St. Cyprian, already a properly appointed bishop when Novatian was ordained, and consequently the Novatianists were in schism. It was not a question of what v.ere the powers or rights of the See of Rome ; St. Cyprian had no call to dwell on these. The question was as to the rightful occupant of that see. And St. Cyprian determines this question by insisting on the unity of the Church — its necessarily visible unity. Cornelius was the Bishop of Eome, received as such by the brotherhood of bishops. He was appointed, says St. C^'prian, ' when tlie place of Peter and the rank of the sacerdotal chair was vacant ' — i.e. not merely the bishopric but the ' place of Peter ' (Ep. lix. B. Iv.) ; therefore no other could, by any possibility, be the bishop of that same cit3\ The Church cannot be visibly two or three. It began with one, it was founded on one by the voice of the Lord, and it must continue one. It cannot be, like the kingdoms of 56 INVADED THE SEE. a.d. 96 Israel and Judah and the garment of Ahijah, visibly dis- united. This, he says, 'has been the very source -whence heresies and schisms have taken their rise, that obedience is not paid to the Priest of God [i.e. the bishop] ; nor do they reflect that there is for the time one high priest in the Church and one judge for the time in Christ's stead, whom, if the whole brotherhood would obey according to the divine injunc- tions, no one would stir in anything against the College of Prelates : no one after the divine sanction had, after the suffrages of the people, after the consent of our fellow-bishop, would make himself a judge, not of his bishop, but of God ; no one would by a rent of unity tear asunder the Church of God.' ' It is not difficult from a passage like this to see what St. Cyprian would have thought of ordaining an archbishop to a see, whilst the bishops of the province were in prison, in protest against the authority (which they believed to have no ' divine sanction ') under which the said archbishop was ordained, whilst the rest of the Church were not consulted or communicated with. In other words, the present Archbishop of Canterbury has no means of tracing himself to Peter, according to Cyprianic tests, and can therefore have no share in the keys of Peter. For St. Cj^prian was led to lay stress on the obedience due to the bishop in each diocese, not because he viewed the bishop as standing alone and deriving his com- mission from our Lord in such a way that he could act independently of the rest of the Church, l)ut as one of a compact brotherhood visibly united.^ And whilst he had an office to fulfil, which he could devolve on no one else, and for which he was ultimately responsible to our Lord alone, his share in the keys of the kingdom came from his being one of the numerous heads who are visibly connected throughout the world, and who are therefore in connection witJi the blessed ' EiJ. lix. B. Iv. * Episcopahis anus, episcoporum concordi nnmerositate diffusus — one epi- scopate diffused by a visibly united (concordi) multitude of bishops {Ej). ad Antonian. Iv.). The Oxford edition translates this ' thrmtghout an harmonious,' &c., as though the abstract episcopate were one thing and the visible channel another. —300 KOME, THE RULING CHURCH 57 Apostle Peter. * Our Lord built the Church on Peter ' is the refrain of the Cyprianic doctrine. Thus far, then, the circumstances under which St. Cyprian wrote his treatise on Unity would not necessarily, nor even naturally, lead him to the subject of Papal jurisdic- tion. It was the rights of bishops over the laity, and the test of a lawful occupant of any see, Eome included, which occupied his attention ; the relationship of bishops to their mother-Church, whether in Carthage or in Rome, would have been irrelevant to his theme. III. At the same time he does in this part of his life inci- dentally touch on the See of Peter and its relation to the other sees of the Church, and in so doing he shows that he held strictly, in theory, to the supremacy of the See of Eome. Peter had, according to our saint, his official representative in the Bishop of Rome. ' The place of Fabian ' (the Pope), was, according to St. Cyprian, * the place of Peter,' an expression which, as a matter of fact, he uses of the See of Rome alone. But further, in writing of Novatus who had gone from Carthage to Rome to join the schism of his all but name- sake Novatian, he describes the wickedness of the Novatians in ' setting up for themselves, without the Church and against the Church, a conventicle of their abandoned faction; ' and then he proceeds to say, ' After all this, they yet in addition, having had a pseudo-bishop ordained for them by heretics, dare to set sail and to carry letters from schismatic and pro- fane persons to the chair of Peter, and to the principal [or ruling] Church, whence episcopal unity has taken its rise.' ' Now it is obvious from these words that St. Cyprian did not regard Carthage as being the See of Peter in the same sense that Rome was, for they went, he says, from Carthage to ' the chair of Peter.' Rome was, therefore, the chair of Peter in some way differing from Carthage, for it is described simply as ' the chair of Peter.' They were not going to every see — they were not about to make a tour of the globe, but going to Rome. Again, this ' chair of Peter ' is, according to St. Cyprian, the * principal Church.' Now we have seen that this expres- sion and its Greek equivalent occurring in St. Irenseus can- ' El), lix. 18, B. Iv. 58 AND SOURCE OF UNITY a.d. 96 not mean the most ancient or the mother-Clmrch. It means the ruhng Church. Smce Irenaeus wrote those words about Iiome, TertulHan had defined the word as meaning ' that which is over anything,' ' as the soul presides over and rules the body. At one time of St. Cyprian's life hardly a day passed without some study of Tertullian ; at spare moments he would say, ' Give me the master,' by which they understood that he wished to read Tertullian. We can, therefore, be fairly sure what he meant by the principal Church, viz. the sovereign ruling Church. When, therefore, these heretics went to Rome, they went, according to our saint, to ' the chair of Peter and the ruling Church.' Again, it is the ruling Church ' whence sacerdotal [i.e. epi- scopal] unity took its rise ; ' i.e. not the College of Bishops, for that took its rise from all the Apostles, but the * unity ' of the College which took its rise from the chair of Peter, i.e. from Peter considered as the origin of a succession. ^ We have, then, here from St. Cyprian a distinct enuncia- tion of the Catholic and Pioman teaching concerning the office of the See of St. Peter. It was not directly the mother of the episcopate, regarded as a line of mechanical succession, but of its unity : that is, of the episcopate, regarded as bound together in visible communion and invested with divine authority.^ But St. Cyprian adds yet another point. The ' chair ' suggests the teaching office, as ' the princedom ' implies go- vernment. And St. Cyprian adds that the Eomans are ' they ' De Anima, c. 13. 2 Mr. Puller (Prim. SS. p. 55) considers saccrdotalis miitas to be the same as collegium saccrdotale, which is quite inadmissible, and he thus prej^ares the way for his strange contention that St. Cyprian is speaking of the chair of Peter as the mother-Church of Africa only. But St. Cyprian gives not the slightest hint that he is speaking of Africa only. And the word he translates mother (principalis) had already another signification as applied to Rome. Mr. Puller quotes a passage from Tertullian, which Gieseler quoted d propos of the passage in St. Irenreus ; but Dr. Dollinger replied to Gieseler that we must adhere to the ordinary meaning of the word as expressly defined by Tertullian {Gcschiclde, &c., loc. cit.). And St. Augustine's expression, ' in which the sovereignty was ever in force,' is a kind of echo or commentary of the same. ' At present the See of Peter is the mother of all the successions, for all have had to be replenished from her. —300 AS THE CHAIIl OF PETER. 59 to whom faithlessness can have no access.' Such is his <;round of security when he contemplates these men sailing from Carthage to deceive the chair of Peter as to the correct- ness of his teaching. At this period of his life warm words of encomium invariably spring to his lips when he speaks of Eome ; but his words, each one of them, contain serious teaching. Here the mention of Eome suggests the absurdity of these people supposing that the original source of episcopal unity will be untrue to its perpetual office on the momentous question which they wished to stir. But, after all, it may be said that the sovereignt}^ attri- buted to the chair of Peter did not amount to much, seeing that St. Cyprian goes on to deprecate these people having gone to Eome, instead of being content with having their cause tried at Carthage. But did St. Cyprian mean by his protest against their sailing to Eome to deprecate any appeal under any circumstances ? It will be seen presently that this was not his meaning. He considered that, in this particular case, the number of the bishops who had tried these men was suffi- cient to settle the matter. So that the reference of matters to Eome depended, m his judgment, on the adequacy of the local episcopate in any given case to meet the needs of the occasion.' St. Cyprian, therefore, expresses his confidence that these men will gain nothing by scuffling off to Eome, since it is the very source of unity, and the Eomans are they ' to whom per- fidy can have no access.' Unity (he says in effect) took its rise from the chair of Peter, and as it arose thence it will remain secure there. If now we compare the most recent exposition of this great passage in St. Cyprian with its Catholic interpretation, we have these results. On the one hand, Mr. Puller passes over the expression of our saint, ' the chair of Peter,' as being, in his judgment, the result of a delusion wrought into the Western Church's mind within the second century by the Clementine Eomance, a delusion which (he admits) was shared by the primitive saints for ever afterwards ! He translates ' principal ' as ' Cf. p. 69. 60 MISINTEKPRETATIONS a.d. 96 ' original,' in defiance of Tertullian's definition and St. Augus- tine's explanation. He subordinates the primary idea in the term ' episcopal unity ' to the secondary, by translating it ' the episcopal body considered as a unity,' instead of keeping * the unity ' as the substantive word ; and lastly, he narrows the contents of the word 'principal,' as though it related only to Eome and the West, and especially Africa. On the other hand, in the Catholic interpretation, the words are taken in their plain, naked simplicity. Eome is ' the chair of Peter and the sovereign Church, whence the unity of the episcopate took its rise.' Here St. Peter is seen to be not a mere symbol, but the very source and commencement of a stream of unity (which is St. Cyprian's own simile), and the Apostle is a real foundation, not detached and built, as it were, in the air — not a source separated from its stream — nor a type with no genetic relationship between him and the unity he represents, but the edifice is continuous with the founda- tion, growing up from it and on it, so that it is true, as St. Cyprian is so fond of saying, that Peter is he ' on whom the Lord built the Church.' IV. We are now in a position to understand the full mean- ing of the famous passage in his treatise on Unity, written sub- sequently to the events described above, but in reference to them. After the opening paragraph, St. Cyprian at once proceeds to state, as he had done before in his letters, the cause of heresy and discord. It proceeds from this, that men do not go ' to the origin of the truth ' (possibly ' unity ' is the true reading), nor is the head ' sought, and they do not pay attention to the heavenly ]\ [aster's teaching.' He our Master, has taught us where to find the head : namely, in the successor of Peter. ' For He said to Peter, " Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ; and I will give thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven." UjKm one He builds His Church, and although He gives to all the Apostles after the resurrection equal power, yet ' — What is the restriction introduced by the ' yet ' ? AVhat is the modify- ing truth ? It is that this gift to the rest of the Apostles does not exhaust the arrangement which Christ made for His —300 OF ST. CYPRIAN. 61 Church. This gift does not interfere with the fact that He built His Church on one, for although He gave the rest equal power (e.g. to consecrate the Eucharist, to absolve, to teach infallibly, to found Churches), * nevertheless, in order to mani- fest unity, He, by His own authority, instituted the origin of the same unity, so that it should begin from one.' Mr. Puller does not venture to translate the word 'manifest ' by 'symbolise,' but throughout he appears to understand them as equivalent. But it is one thing to symbolise and another to manifest ; and our Lord secured the manifestation of unity by 'providing' {dispusiiit^) an actual origin 'beginning from one ' (ab uno incipientem). And then, that there may be no mistake, and that none may imagine that the difference between the rest of the Apostles and this ' origin of unit}^ ' which Peter was made, amounted to a difference in the power of the priesthood, he repeats that undoubtedly ' the other Apostles were what Peter was, invested with an equal share of honour and power, hut the commencement [of the Church] starts from unity, that the Church of Christ may be shown to be one.' And this unity is a thing to be held, and ' he who holds it not, does he think that he holds the faith ? ' ^ Thus St. Cyprian traces all heresies to a neglect in looking for, or to, the head. Nee caput qiKsritur. The head is the bishop viewed as the heir of the promises made to Peter. He is in each place the link for the time being ^ of the chain which reaches down from the original head — namely, the Apostle Peter. For St. Cyprian never speaks of the Church being founded on St. James, or on St. John. He knew that they were foundations, but not in the unique sense in which Peter was. According to St. Cyprian the See of Eome was the See of Peter, and the chair of Peter was the principle of cohesion to the Christian episcopate. He was the Primate of the Christian Church, and showed his humility in not pressing this point at Antioch ; ■* and his chair inherits the Primacy ' ' Unitatis ejusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit.' Cf. the use of dispositio in Koman law for an ' edict.' Tr. on Unity, § 3. * Tr. on Unity, § 4. ^ Cf. Appendix I. * Ep. Ixxi. 2. Cf. p. 83 for the explanation of that passage. Dr. Dollinger remarks : ' Der Sinn ist : Petrus hatte sich dem Eechte nach auf seinen Vorrang berufen konnen, aber in jeuem Momente, als Paulas ihn mit gutem 62 COMMUNION WITH THE CHURCH, a.d. 9G bestowed on him, for it is the principal or governing Church. They only are lawful bishops who, ha\ang been duly elected (a matter which was subject to arrangement on the part of the Church) are built into the one foundation and form part of that visibly compacted body, which resembles, not (so he says) the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the garment of Ahijah, but the seamless robe of Christ. Such is the (strictly Papal) teaching of St. Cyprian. V. This teaching of St. Cyprian has an important bearing on the relation between orders and jurisdiction. * We have orders,' it is said ; ' is not that sufficient ? ' According to St. Cyprian it is not sufficient. We might be living in the deadly sin of schism in spite of our orders. We might be in possession of sacraments, yet without the sanctifying effects of the sacraments, from lack of jurisdiction. The Church, in St. Cyprian's teaching, is a visible kingdom ; it is a compact body, and the ceremony of episcopal ordination will not of necessity introduce a man into that network of holy organisa- tion which alone traces itself up to Peter, ' on whom the Lord built the Church.' We must be in communion with the rest of the Church in this sense, that our episcopate is acknow- ledged as a part of the succession from Peter by the compact brotherhood of bishops which comes down from the blessed Apostle Peter. Ecclesiastical intercommunion may be tem- porarily suspended, but we must be an acknowledged portion of the one Church, having inherited the legitimate succession and not forfeited our place in that one stream which, flowing from Peter, is * diffused throughout the world by a concordant multiplicity of bishops.' And as ' episcopal unity took its rise,' according to St. Cyprian, ' from the chair of Peter,' so from the chair of Peter it will always flow. To take a single instance, Nestorius and his followers forfeited their place in that compact unity, that 'concordant multiplicity.' Their decendants accordingly have no jurisdiction wherever they may be. Their episcopate is not part of the kingdom of Christ. It is not enough that they have orders, if they have ; the flaw in their title is that they cannot trace to Peter * on Grund tadelte, wiire es Ilochmutli unci Anoganze gcwesea ' (Gcschichtc, PerioJe I. p. 3G0). —300 NOT MERELY ORDERS, 63 whom the Lord built the Church.' For in the year 431 they were extruded ' from the unity of the episcopal brotherhood, just as afterwards the followers of Photius departed from the same unity. Wherever the Nestorians are, they are members of what St. Cyprian would call a ' conventicle of their own, beside the Church and against the Church.' The same would be true, according to Cyprianic principles, of the legalised episcopate in this country if its orders were admitted to be true. It never established itself in the kins- dom of Christ, according to those principles. There was no authority recognised by the Church that confirmed the election of Parker. Eleven days after his consecration he confirmed the others, who yet were supposed to have elected him to the see. What could be in more flagrant defiance of all Cyprianic teaching ? Again, according to Cyprianic principles, where there is already a bishop in communion with the rest of the Catholic Church, exercising his jurisdiction, it would be a most grievous sin to consecrate another and introduce him on to the same field of work. For instance, there was in Quebec a bishop, in communion with the Catholic Church, exercising legitimate jurisdiction. Some two hundred years afterwards one appeared with the title of bishop, with letters patent from England. It was, if this person was in other respects a bishop, the deadly sin of schism on Cyprianic principles. Eventually the whole ground occupied by the Catholic Church was mapped out into districts, to which bishops, at least in title, were ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and sent out to labour in a sphere already assigned to a Catholic bishop. * The Queen has been pleased by letters patent, under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, to reconstitute the bishopric of Quebec, and to direct that the same shall comprise,' &c. * Her Mjijesty has also been pleased to constitute so much of the ancient diocese of Quebec as comprises the district of Montreal to be a bishop's see and diocese,' &c.'^ It is clear ' For the authority with which this was done, cf. pp. 334-336. * I need hardly say that the laws of the Church of England, and not Her Gracious ?t[ajepty, are responsible. All Catholics must leel a special regard towards the present occupant of the throne. 64 IS NECESSARY. a.d. 96—300 from this, which is but one instance of a series of similar acts, that the Church of England at any rate does not proceed upon the lines of St. Cyprian's teaching. That saint must have denounced her line of action with all his fiery vehemence as destructive of his cherished principle, that there can be but one bishop and one altar. The only imaginable defence is that the Church of England is the entire Church of God on earth. The denunciation could then be left to St. Augustine, in his writings against the Donatists. CHAPTEK VL ST. CYPRIAN ON APPEALS TO ROME. I. The essential points, then, in the teaching of St. Cyprian on the Unity of the Church are these. Every Christian finds himself under the rule of one pastor, who has to give an account of his rule to the one Lord of all (Ep. Iv. B. lii.). To this one pastor or bishop the faithful in that district owe obedience in matters of faith and discipline. But this bishop is one of a compact body visibly united by intercommunion with all the rest ; and he derives his authority from the words of our Lord to St. Peter in Matthew xvi. 18. He is part of a stream whose united volume flows through the ages from that apostolic source.' He must be an accepted member of the great brotherhood of the ' one episcopate ' ^ The episcopate is one body, and when one bishop has been regularly appointed to a district, no one can come in after him and claim the authority of Peter.^ These were the two points on which it was necessary to lay unequivocal and almost exclusive stress at the time when St. Cyprian wrote his treatise on Unity, The encroach- ments of some of the martyrs and confessors on the office of the head of the diocese in which those who applied to them lived, placed that office in jeopardy in the early part of his episcopate ; in the second, the legitimate occupancy of the See of Eome was questioned by Novatus and Novatian. The question could not be determined by any reference to the ' ' De fonte uno rivi plurimi defluunt . . . unitas tamen servatur in origino ' {De Unit. Eccl. c. v.). - ' Episcopatus unus, episcoporum multorura concordi numerositate diff u- sus ' [Ep. Iv. B. Hi.). * ' Quisquis post unum qui solus esse debeat factus est, non jam secundus ille, sed nullus est ' (Ep. Iv. 6, B, lii. 8). F 66 NECESSITY OF VISIBLE UNION. a.d. 96 rights of the Bishop of Eome when once elected ; it was the legitimacy of his election which was in dispute. This St. Cyprian decided by asking who was the acknowledged bishop already in possession, legitimately elected, and in communion with the whole brotherhood of the legitimate clergy throughout the world. The Church, he maintained, cannot be likened to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.^ He expressly repudiated this state of things as a type of what could happen in the Church of Christ. The Church, he says, in effect, as he sets aside this discord under the Old Covenant, has an external visible unity of her bishops ; not because tlicij themselves are risible, but because they are visibly united. (' De Unit. Eccles.' § 6). He recurs to this contrast between the Old and New covenants in his letter to Magnus (Ep. Ixix. B. Ixxvi.), and maintains that, so far from the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah being in any typical and ecclesiastical sense like the Christian Church,^ our Lord's words about the Samaritans show that the ten tribes were not members of one kingdom in the sense in which people must be one in the Christian Church. ' The Lord ratifieth us in His Gospel, that those same who had then severed themselves from the tribes of Judah and Jerusalem, and, having left Jerusalem, had with- drawn to Samaria, should be reckoned amongst profane and heathen ' {loc. cit. § 5). The further question, as to the instrument and guardian of episcopal unity, did not at this period of his life call for any detailed treatment on the part of our saint. This question, > ' When the twelve tribes of Israel were torn asunder the prophet Ahijah rent his garment. But because Christ's people cannot be rent, His coat, woven and conjoined throughout, was not divided by those it fell to. Individual, con- joined, cocntwined, it shows the coherent concord of our people who put on Christ. In the sacrament and sign of Tlis garment He has declared the unity of His Church ' (De Unit. Eccles. § 6). '^ For the opposite contention cf. The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome, p. 227, where the writer maintains a theory of unity expressly condemned by St. Cyprian. The same position was maintained by Dr. Tusey, as where he says (speaking of St. Cyprian's words, ' as the sun has many rays,' Ac.) : ' The oneness here spoken of is, according to Eoman Catholics, fulfilled in the organisation of the toholc Church ; whereas, according to Anglo-Catholics, it is fulfilled in each bishopric, each bishop, viewed by himself, being a full repre- sentation and successor of St. Peter ' (Cyprian's Tr. on Unity, § 4, note 6). —300 ST. CYPRIAN DENOUNCES 67 however, is plainly answered in his writings. For the whole authority of the episcopate is traced to Peter, not, indeed, to the exclusion of the other Apostles, but as to their head, their representative, and summary. And allusions to the See of Peter occur precisely on those occasions when it would be natural for the topic of the centre or source of unity to come into incidental notice. When the five schismatics sailed to Rome, to try and hoodwink the Pope as to their number and importance, St. Cyprian expresses his security that they will not succeed, for they are going to the very see which is the source of episcopal unity — ' the chair of Peter and the Sovereign Church, whence episcopal unity took its rise.' And when he is persuading a brother-bishop that Cornelius is the legitimate occupant of that see, and he comes to the point where he has to insist on the fact that Cornelius superseded no one else, but that the see was vacant, he calls the see by its Christian name, ' the place of Peter.' It was at once a Chris- tian see and a special see, ' the place of Fabian, that is, the place of Peter, and the rank of the sacerdotal chair was vacant.' ' The See of Rome was thus in one respect the same as every other see, i.e., in respect to the Sacerdotmm ; it was a ' sacerdotal chair,' but it was also, in its own way, ' the place of Peter.' And his whole attitude towards that see was up to this time one of peculiar respect, deference, and veneration, as the centre of the Church's visible unity. I shall now examine his teaching on appeals to Rome. II. A fact that must strike us at once is that St. Cyprian denounced in no measured terms a certain small body of schismatics who repaired to Rome m the hope of persuading St. Cornelius, the Pope, that they were true bishops. But whilst the fact that they repaired thither showed their know- ledge of the value set on Rome's favourable judgment, their idea was not in the least that of an appeal in the regular sense of that term. The circumstances were as follows. An heretical bishop, named Privatus, who had been con- demned by ninety bishops, had come to Carthage and made one Fortunatus bishop over the Novatianists there. He had • Ep. Iv. 6, B, Hi. F 2 68 CERTAIN SCHISMATICS a.d. 96 gathered round him four men whom St. Cyprian called ^ at the outset ' desperate and abandoned.' They were Felix, made bishop outside the Church, and Jovinus and Maximus, who had been condemned first by nine bishops, and then had been excommunicated a year since by a larger council — by ' very many of us.' These were joined by one named Repostus, who had lapsed into idolatry during persecution. These five men (says St. Cyprian), joined by ' a few who have either sacrificed or have evil consciences, chose Fortunatus to be their pseudo-bishop.' It was thus a httle body which had no standing in the Church and no right of appeal. Sailing to Rome was a piece of impudence which our saint justly denounced as such. These * desperate and abandoned ' fellows, as he calls them more than once, informed the Pope that twenty-five bishops were present at the ordination of Fortunatus. They had made the boast in Carthage itself that as many as twenty- five Catholic bishops were about to assist from Nnmidia. ' In which lie,' says St. Cyprian, ' when they were afterwards detected and put to shame (five only who had made ship- wreck of the faith having met together, and these excom- municated by us), they then sailed to Rome with their merchandise of lies, as though the truth could not sail after them and convict their false tongues by proof of the real fact.' 2 Such were the circumstances under which St. Cyprian very naturally, and with no prejudice to the general principle of appeals to Rome, invoked the decision of the African bishops that causes should be heard in Africa itself. These men were condemned criminals, condemned for moral delin- quencies and heresy, and they did not repair to Rome to re- open the case of their own crimes, but to persuade Rome that they had at their back an imposing array of bishops, and that Cyprian was dealing unjustly with the lapsed.^ They said nothing about their past condemnation, of which St. Cyprian, therefore, had to inform the Pope. Their cause had been heard, and sentence had been passed against them. Fortunatus ' Ep. lix. § 12, B. Iv. ' Ep. lix. § 13. ' Cf. the latter part of the letter. —300 FOR SAILING TO ROME, 69 himself was only a jjs^wfZo -bishop ; he was, in reality, a presbyter under Cyprian's jurisdiction. As such he had no right of avpeal straight to Eome, if indeed at all, under the peculiar regulations of the African province.' Anyhow, if he wished this sentence reversed, his obvious duty was first to clear himself in Africa, and then at least to observe the proper form of appeal. Instead of this, ' having had a pseudo-bishop ordained for them by heretics, they dare to set sail and to carry letters from schismatic and profane per- sons to the chair of Peter and the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood has taken its rise, remembering not that they are the same Komans whose faith has been commended by the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access.' On one only plea, according to St. Cyprian, could such a transgression of the Church's laws be even imagined by any one to be justifiable — i.e. on the supposition (absurd enough) that the authority of the legitimate African bishops, who had tried and condemned them, was insufficient rn_/Joi«io/??w/«&ers as compared with these ' desperate and abandoned ' men. It was this on which they had laid stress. But it was false. They had been twice condemned, on the last occasion by a numerous assembly of legitimate bishops. These men them- selves were neither legitimate bishops nor numerous. They were desperate and abandoned men, and few.^ Those who judged them were sufiicientin point of number and of weight. * For,' as St. Cyprian continues,^ ' if the number of those who passed sentence on them last year * is reckoned together with ' Cf. Aug. Ep. xliii. (al. clxii.). - ' Nisi si paucis desperatis et perditis minor videtur esse auctoritas episco- porum in Africa constitutorum.' ' Unless the authority of the regular (constitu- torum) bishops in Africa seems less than [that of] a few desperate and aban- doned men.' Such an ellipse is common with Cyprian. If, however, ' paucis ' be taken as the dative governed by ' videtur,' the context still forces us to understand ' minor ' as expressing comparison in point of number — ' less than theirs.' But the immediate context suggests the first translation as the true one. * B. Iv. § 15. The Oxford edition is doubtless correct in including this sen- tence in § 14. It is probably from not reading on, that some writers have been led into the mistake of supposing that the saint is comparing the African bishops with the Pope. * The allusion is probably to the original smaller number, viz. nine. 70 BUT APPEALS TO TIIE POPE a.d. 96 the presbyters and deacons, vwre ivere then present at the judgment and trial than these same men who are now seen to be joined with Fortunatus.' St. Cyprian, in his reasoning here, in no way offends against the general principle of appeals to Kome as formulated in the A'atican decrees.' He is dealing with a particular case in which the appellants, if such they could be called, had no standing in the Church and no ground of appeal. III. On the other hand, in dealing with the case of an here- tical bishop in Gaul, St. Cyprian distinctly acted on the suppo- sition that the Pope was the proper person to set in motion the excommunication of the leading bishop in that region. It would seem that St. Stephen, who had succeeded to the throne of Peter after the martyrdom of Lucius, had been slow to use his authority to the extent required, as St. Cyprian thought, in a case that was now brought before him. Marcian, Bishop of Aries, had withdrawn from the communion of the Church and attached himself to Novatian. He boasted that he had not been excommunicated, but had himself with- drawn, and no new bishop had been aj^pointed. Application had been made to the Pope by the bishops of the province, but, for reasons which we cannot tell, he had not as yet acted in the matter. Accordingly, Faustinus, Bishop of Lyons, who belonged to the same province,^ had on his own account com- municated with St. Cyprian, whose hery nature was calculated to hasten a matter over which St. Stephen was taking his time. We often think the physician can attend to us and heal us more quickly than is perhaps possible. St. Cyprian wrote to the Pope and reminded him that the management of such a matter belonged to the episcopate,'^ and, as he implies, the requisite aid in this case could only come from St. ' The author of Tlie rrimitive Saints, &c. says : ' It is for Ultramontanes who profess to venerate St. Cyprian and the early Church to consider whether they are prepared to accept his teaching or not.' Ultramontanes are prepared to accept St. Cyprian's teaching, but not Mr. Puller's translations. 2 ' In eadem provincia ' {Ep. Ixviii. B. Ixvii.) is to be referred to Faustinus. Lyons and Vienne at that time were included in the province of Narbonne (cf. Ammianus Marcell. lib. xv.). ^ ' Cui rei nostrum est consulere et subvenire.' For Mr. Puller's mistrans- lation of these words see infra, p. 70. — 3Q0 TO EXCOMMUNICATE MARCIAN 71 Stephen himself. St. Cyprian urged St. Stephen to effect this. He therefore urged the Pope to write ' letters of plenary authority [lit. most full letters '] by means of which, Marcian being excommunicated, another may be substituted in his place.' He presses the Pope to immediate action on the ground that bishops have no ' greater or better office ' to per- form * than by diligent solicitude and wholesome remedies to provide for cherishing and preserving the sheep.' He likens the flock at Aries to sailors who need another harbour, owing to the unsafety of their present one — and this new harbour he wishes St. Stephen to provide. They are like travellers whose inn is beset and occupied by robbers, and who seek other safer inns in their journey. These safer inns and this safer harbour ought, St. Cyprian contends, to be provided by St. Stephen by letters of excommunication—' letters by which, Marcian having been excommunicated, another may be substituted in his place.' It was not advice that the bishops of Gaul needed ; St. Cyprian could give that. That, indeed, was all for which St. Cyprian himself was asked, and his reply was his urgent request to St. Stephen that he would, not advise, but direct letters of excommunication. The excommunication of a bishop was no new matter ; but as the martyrs of Vienne and Lyons had called to the Pope to aid them, so now the bishops of Gaul had appealed to the Pope, and to their think- ing had been left too long without the requisite aid. St. Cyprian, therefore, reminds St. Stephen that Marcian was trading on the lack of a formal excommunication, as though ' he had not been excommunicated by us.' It only needed, in C3q:)rian's judgment, formal letters of excommunication to be issued by Stephen, with a mandate to elect a bishop in his place. He therefore asks him to comply with his prayer, and to notify with whom they are henceforth to communicate. St. Cyprian, indeed, not only by his request to the Pope concerning letters of excommunication and letters of com- munion, but by an incidental expression also, shows what ' Or, not merely a ' Papal brief,' but also a full exposition of principles. Cf. the contrast between ' per libellum aditio ' and ' plenaria interpellatio ' in the law of Honorius and Theodosius ' de Naviculariis per Africam,' adduced by Constant. Ep. lioin. Pont. 72 AND TO ANNOUNCE HIS SUCCESSOR. a.d. 96 position St. Stephen occupied in his theory of Church govern- ment. Marcian was to be formally excommunicated because of his Novatian teaching. 'Let him not give, but receive sentence' (§ 4). Accordingly, St. Cyprian urges upon St. Stephen that his predecessors in the see (' our ' predecessors, he calls them, so full is he of the perfect unity of the Church) had given judgment on Novatian's teaching. They, he says — i.e. Popes Cornelius and Lucius, whom he has just mentioned by name — ' they, full of the Spirit of God and in the midst of ^ a glorious martyrdom, decided that communion (jmx) should be granted to the lapsed, and by their own letters they sealed their decision that the fruit of communion and i^eace was not to be denied them when penance had been done ; which we all everywhere altogether judged. For there could not be a difference of thought (diversus sensus) amongst us, seeing that there was one Spirit in us ' (in quibus unus esset Spiritus). I do not see how one could better express the mutual relations between the Holy See and the rest of the Church, and the common charisma of infallibility possessed by the Pope and the Church, than in these golden words. What do they teach ? They say that the Popes decided the question, full of the Holy Ghost ; that the whole Church agreed, and that it could not be otherwise, considering they were under the influence of the same Spirit (cf. p. 330). Accordingly, St. Cyprian says that St. Stephen is bound to honour the judgments of his predecessors by his own ' weight and authority.' ^ Marcian, therefore, will be deposed, and the name of his successor notified by the authority of the Pope. Marcian's name disappeared from the diptychs.^ IV. Once more, before the turn in his life, St. Cyprian showed his acceptance of the principle of Papal jurisdiction. I say the principle, for he objected to the particular exercise in this case. Two bishops had been deposed in Spain for ' ' Constituti.' I have for this word adopted the Oxford translation. - He had given as his reason why Stephen should excommunicate Marcian : ' Servandus est . . . Cornelii et Lucii honor gloriosus ; illi enim dandam esse lapsis pacem censuerunt ' (Ep. Ixi.), on which Dollinger remarks : ' The word honor frequently occurs in the writings of St. Cyprian with the meaning of auctoritas or potcstas ' (Hist, of Ch. Period I. cap. 3, § 4). ^ Cf. Mabillon, Annal. torn. iii. p. 452, —300 HE PROTESTS THAT BASILIUES 73 having taken out certificates of idolatry ^ during the late persecution. Their names were Basilides and Martial. More- over two bishops had been appointed in their place, Sabinus and Felix. Basilides, and probably Martial also, appealed to Rome. Obviously it was not the first time that such an ajDpeal had been made. St. Stephen, as St. Clement before him, restored them, or ordered them to be restored to com- munion, whether by reason of the irregularity with which their case had been conducted, bishops having been appointed in their place without his cognisance (which St. Cyprian's words in Marcian's case [p. 71] show to be an irregular proceeding), or whether St. Stephen was simply taken in by Basilides' state- ment, we do not know, as the necessary evidence is not forth- coming. But several bishops of the region appear to have accepted the Pope's ruling, and communicated with Basilides and Martial ; and accordingly Felix and Sabinus looked round about for help in the shape of counsel and advice as to what they were to do. Thisisexpressly stated by Cyprian. To him they naturally went for such help, considering the prominent part he had taken in the matter of the lapsed during persecution. St. Cyprian held a council and advised their people to cling to them as their real bishops. The probability is, as Baronius thought, that these two were sent to Rome with the conciliar letter to help towards their acceptance by the Pope. The important point, however, for us is the way in which our saint dealt with the authority of the Pope. He nowhere denies it as a matter of principle, but he sees some restric- tion in its claim to obedience. He considered that the Pope had been overreached, and says that although there was some fault in this in the way of negligence, the real sin lay at the door of the bishop who had deceived the Pope.- He is describing the aim of this bishop — it was *to be replaced unjustly in his episcopate from which he had been rightly deposed.' ' I.e. certificates of having sacrificed, which saved them from civil punish- ment, whether they had actually sacrificed or not. * ' Hoc eo pertinet ut Basilidis non tarn abolita sint quam cumulata delicta, ut ad superiora peccata ejus etiam fallacijB et circumventionis crimen acces- Berit ' (Bj?. Ixviii.). 74 IS UNJUSTLY EESTORED, a.d. 90 Not a word has St. Cyprian to say against the possibility of a bishop being replaced in his bishopric by the Pope. Had our saint held the view that the Pope could not restore a bishop who had been deposed by his surrounding colleagues, it must have appeared. But no, the power of St. Stephen is not for a moment questioned. It is the certainty of Basilides' crimes that is put forward as the ground for considering the restoration null and void.' The injustice consisted in the certainty of his crimes. St. Cyj)rian writes with some emotion — indeed, to some extent, without the self-restraint which one would desire ; but he does not even remotely hint at any lack of authority on the part of the Pope. He says that he is ' far away and unaware of the true state of the case' (§ 5), not that he is assuming a power which he does not possess. Instead of settling the matter by that obvious rejoinder, he holds a council and decides that St. Stephen has been deceived by false statements, and that Basilides, so far from deserving reinstatement in "his bishopric, has only added to his crimes by the falsehoods he has told the Pope. For the position of Basilides is really one, says St. Cyprian, which had been provided for by Pope Cornelius and the rest of the bishops. So that our saint is avowedly acting under the shelter of a Papal decision with which the whole Church had agreed (§ 6). It is unfortunate that we have no sufficient evidence on which to form a judgment as to the whole case. We have only Cyprian's side. And he does not exhibit a very judicial tone of mind, so far as the scanty record goes. There is no appearance of his having consulted St. Stephen on the matter at all, which, whatever the latter's position, would, to say the least, have been a matter of courtesy. We do not know on what grounds St. Stephen formed his judgment, nor what exactly his judgment was. St. Cyprian's own account is taken only from the aggrieved party. And if St. Stephen could be deceived, so could St. Cyprian. And if, as the latter says, St. Stephen was too far off, St. Cyprian was further off. The * Compare tlie case of Bishop Grossetcste, who, whilst owning himself bound to filial obedience to the Holy Father, felt that His Holiness could not be aware of the candidate proposed by him. — SOO BEING GUILTY OF CRIMES. 7o intercourse between Eome and Spain was greater than that between Spain and Carthage ; and Spain was more closely connected from a civil as well as ecclesiastical point of view, with Eome than with Carthage. And why did Felix and Sabinus go to Carthage instead of to Eome, where they might have disabused the Pope of his prejudice, if such it was, against their case ? St. Stephen's character was, according to St. Vincent of Lerins, that of a ' holy and prudent ' man. According to St. Dionysius, he assisted all parts of Arabia and Syria by his letters.' We have a right, therefore, to suspend our judgment as to his negligence, on the principle of • audi alteram partem.' What we gather for certain from the letter of Cyprian is, that in spite of some vehemence, he did not dispute the principle that the Pope could, where just cause existed, restore a deposed bishop of Spain. The editors of Migue's magnificent collection of the whole literature on the subject endorse the supposition of Baronius, that Felix and Sabinus went with the letter of the Carthaginian synod to Eome, and that St. Cyprian's intent was to move St. Stephen to sanction the deposition of Basilides and Martial. But in point of fact our materials are insufficient for under- standing the matter fully, and we do not know the sequel. It looks as if it would not be difficult for the Evil One to produce a rupture between these two saints, one of whom was full of holy vehemence, and the other of holy prudence. * Coming events cast their shadow before.' Note. — It is astonishing how anyone could fail to see in the affair of Marcian of Aries an emphatic testimony to the strictly Papal method of government as existing in the Church at that time, and taken for granted by St. Cyprian. Rigaltius, whose inaccuracy in regard to the text of this letter was pointed out by Baluze,^ has, however, been greatly followed by anti-Papal writers. He is quoted at length in the Oxford edition of the Fathers,^ but the editor (Dr. Pusey) felt compelled to add in a note that Rigaltius ' seems anxious to understate the eminence conceded to Rome. A ' Euseb. lib. vii. c. 2, 4. - Ejyistolcs S. Steplmni. S. Cypr, ad S. Stephanum (Ep. i. p. 1027, note 10. Migne, 1865). ' Vol. iii. pt. 2, p. 217 (1844). 76 'CONSULERE REI ' IS NOT 'ADVISE' a.d. 96— 300 deference does seem to be paid to him, not on account of bis near- ness only ; be exercises an eminent autbority, although only [sic] as the executive of the rules of the Universal Church.' But the most recent anti-Papal writer ' contends that it was only for the sake of obtaining St. Stephen's advice for these bewildered bishops of Gaul that St. Cyprian wrote. Our saint, however, says nothing about advice. He is, indeed, made to speak of advice by this writer's translation, according to whom the words, ' It is ours to ad\-ise and come in aid ' are the equivalent of the Latin ' cui rei nostrum est consulere et subvenire ' ! ^ It is easy after such a manipulation of the text to make out that ' St. C^^prian presses on Stephen the duty of writing a letter of counsel and help.' But, even if this writer's incorrect translation of the above words could be passed, the words could not be considered exhaustive of what St. Cyprian wished fi-om the Pope. A letter of coimsel and help is not exactly the equivalent of ' letters to the province,' whereby, Marcian being ' excommunicated, another may be substituted in his place.' Yet these are what St. Cyprian asks the Pope to send. And, again, letters to ' signify plainly to us who has been substituted at Aries in the room of Marcianus [loc. cit. § 5], that we may know to whom we should direct our brethren and to whom we should write,' are something more than mere counsel and advice. They imply an ' eminent authority.' ' Eev. F. W. Puller, Primitive Saints and tlie See of Borne, pp. 62-65. 2 Cf. Facciolati on the word consulo. ' Cum dativo significat habere rationem et curam alicujus rei, tueri, providere, prospicere.' Forcellini's edition, by J. Bailey, F.E.S. (1828). CHAPTEE VII. ST. cypeian's error on baptism by heretics. We now come to the events in St. Cyprian's life which have dimmed the splendour of his glory and led some to invoke him as the patron of their isolated position. If from his throne of glory he could shed a hurning tear of sorrow, it would, I con- ceive, be over the false views of history that can select an incident in his otherwise holy life, which his glorious mar- tyrdom threw into the shade, and indeed washed out, and which forms no proper basis of a theory of Church government. The Donatists perpetually quoted Cyprian to St. Augustine ; he replied, not by denying his error, but by pointing out his determination not to break with Eome.^ There are those in our days who are fond of quoting his quarrel with Eome (which St. Augustine calls a brotherly altercation) on a ques- tion which he considered one of variable discipline only, and treating of it as though he thought it a matter of faith and essential discipline. We will give a short summary of this unhappy episode in his career. I. It was apparently his conflict with the Novatians which led St. Cyprian into his error concerning baptism by heretics. His fundamental tenet was the sin of breaking with the society founded on Peter. It was a sacred prmciple, but he drew a conclusion which conflicted with the Church's teaching. Heretics were separate from this one society, and therefore, he added, they could not baptise, for they could not give the Holy Ghost to others, being themselves bereft of His grace. He did not reahse that heretics might nevertheless carry with them some debris of Catholic truth, and above all an indelible ' character ' with some rights and privileges stih remaining.^ Their baptism was indeed * vain and profit- ' Cf. Ep. 93, 40. 2 cf. Freppel's Saint Cyprien, 1890, p. 321. 78 ST. CYPRIAN SHOWING a.d. 96 less, having a semblance but nothing real as an aid to holi- ness,' as St. Athanasius said ;^ but although it was shorn of its sanctifying effects, it was not therefore void of all value in the supernatural sphere. But St. Cyprian had ah-eady exhibited symptoms of pressing his thesis, that outside the Church there is no salvation, to an excess of rigour. He had said in his treatise on the Unity of the Church, speaking of schis- matics, ' Their waters soil instead of purifying,' and * their illegitimate birth gives children to the devil, not to God.' His very horror of heresy and schism became a stumbhng-block to him. We cannot, moreover, but feel that the influence of his master Tertullian was not without its effect. Tertulhan had himself broached the false opinion that it was impossible to receive baptism amongst heretics ; and Agrippinus, one of St. Cyprian's predecessors in the see of Carthage, had begun to rebaptise those who had received baptism only at the hands of those in schism. Cyprian followed suit, but he met with opposition from some of the bishops of his own province. The position which St. Cyprian assumed was that those who had received baptism from heretics ought to be re- baptised, hut that it was one of those matters of discipHne about which they might disagree, without forfeiting each other's communion. It was a question which had already agitated one part of the East. Two synods, one at Iconium and the other at Synnada, had issued decrees in favour of rebaptising, and Firmilian, Bishop of Cffisarea, in Cappadocia, liad taken a prominent part in promoting this discipline. He had even gone to the length of rebaptising some who had received baptism from a bishop who had fallen into the sin of idolatry under persecution. But as in Africa so in the East the practice was novel, and if we take the East as a whole, Fir- milian had few followers. Still the matter was now assuming serious proportions, as the Novatians at Rome had begun to rebaptise Catholics when they induced them to apostatise, and the influence of Cyprian's name was a serious addition ' Mr. Puller, in quoting this passage (Prim. Saints, p. 73) seems to have misunderstood its meaning. St. Atlianasius does not deny the validity of baptism by heretics, but its sanctifying effects. —300 A LACK or PRECISION 79 to the confusion. He was consulted by eighteen bishops of Numidia as to the practice of rebaptising which his prede- cessor, Agrippinus, had introduced, and he decided in favour of the practice. This was the beginning of the disturbance in Africa. St. Cyprian alleged various reasons of minor con- sequence, such as the impossibility of the water being blessed by priests out of communion with the Church, or of the oil used in baptism being consecrated by those who being out- side the Church had neither altar nor church ; but his main reasons were derived from the oneness of the Church, the un- worthiness of the minister, and the incapacity of the subject.^ The whole of St. Cyprian's reasoning shows the truth of St. Augustine's remark, that the matter had not yet been thoroughly sifted and elucidated. And St. Cyprian maintained his point with such logical acumen and eloquence that St. Augustine says he should probably have thought the same, seeing that the matter had not then been discussed in all its bearings in a plenary council. We may gather from what St. Augustine also says that, in spite of this, he would have submitted to the ruling of the Holy See, as he evidently considers St. Cyprian should have done, and indeed thinks that he possibly did.^ St. Cyprian's three points, on which he insisted, contained each of them a separate misunderstanding.^ In insisting that because there is but one Church no baptism outside the Church could be valid, he did not realise the doctrine first expounded in all its fulness by St. Augustine concerning the * soul ' of the Church. He limited the sui)ernatural action of our Lord to the confines of the visible Church.'* Again, in denying that a heretic, being himself without the grace of God, could be the minister of that grace to others, he was ' Freppel's Sai7it Cyprien, p. 329. ^ ' Fortasse factum est ' (Be Bapt. lib. ii. cap. 4). ^ Cf. Freppel, loc. cit. p. 329 seq, * As Bishop Freppel says : ' A precise distinction between the\asible Church (or assemblage of the faithful under the government of legitimate pastors) and the invisible Church, formed of all whom divine grace has sanctified, would have sufficed to remove all difficulty.' St. Augustine answers : ' Ecclesia quippe omnes per baptisraum parit, sive apud se, sive extra se ' ( De Bapt. c. Don. i. 14). And again : ' An extra unitatem Ecclesiai non habet sua Cliristus ? ' [Ibid. iv. 9). 80 IN HIS TEACHING, a.d. 96 really establishing, what he repudiated in word, the depend- ence of the sacrament on the dispositions of its minister. He drew, indeed, a distinction between those within the Church who were li^dng in sin and those without the Church who had no share at all in divine grace. But he was again seriously trenching upon the full teachmg concerning the visible Church, and endangering the very idea of a sacrament. And in laying stress on the impossibility of men who were in rebellion against God receiving a sacrament which con- ferred divine grace, he was ignoring the difference between the reception of a sacrament and its sanctifying effects. St. Augustine points out that St. Cyprian ignored the character conferred by the sacrament of baptism which did not, indeed, involve the recipient's sins being forgiven, but which made the reiteration of the sacrament impossible. Its effects slumbered till the baptised person made his submission to the CathoUc Church. Infants baptised by heretics would, on St. Cyprian's teaching, forfeit heaven ; but St. Cyprian could never be induced to enter on that part of the subject. In fact the whole subject was one which had not, in St. Cyprian's day, formed part of the ordinary teaching of the Church, and was new to many. There was, therefore, room for question and discussion. At Kome, whither heretics always found their way only to be extinguished by the ApostoHc tradition, which it was the special province of Kome to guard, the matter had been dealt with, as St. Augustine says, in accord- ance with a traditional discipline received from the Apostles themselves. And this Apostolic tradition was destined to prevail, but not without a struggle. There was at Rome a pontiff who was, to use the words of St. Vincent of Lerins, ' a man holy and prudent.' He had, perhaps, already shown some prudence in abstaming from precipitate action in the case of Marcian of Aries, and had evinced a repugnance to proceed to extreme measures in the case of the two Spanish bishops who appealed to Rome. But his zeal for the faith committed to his charge would not permit him to act with remissness in this case. St. Stephen felt himself bound to resist this innovation on the immemorial practice of the Church with the most determined energy. It —300 IS RESISTED BY THE POPE. 81 was resisted by the Episcopate of the Church as a whole, but, says St. Vincent of Lerins, 'Pope Stephen, of blessed memory, who at that time was prelate of the Apostolic See, resisted, in conjunction with his colleagues, yet more than they, thinking it fit, I suppose, that he should surpass all others in the devotedness of his faith as much as he excelled them by the authority of his station.' This ' holy and prudent ' Pope saw that the practice of the Church on this matter of rebaptising was closely con- nected with the faith, and he had already threatened to suspend communion with Firmilian and his sympathising bishops until such time as they brought their practice into accord with what he knew to be Apostolic discipline.^ St. Cyprian, however, persisted in viewing the matter as one of pure discipline, and not involving a matter of faith, although worth maintaining at great cost. And further, as we have said, he considered all along that the practice pursued at Rome involved the admission that forgiveness of sins was conferred by the baptism of heretics in the same way as by baptism in the visible Church. 11. On being appealed to by the eighteen Numidian bishops for advice on the subject, some of their colleagues being op- posed to the practice, St. Cyprian convoked a council of about thirty bishops, and they decided in favour of rebaptising. About the same time he was applied to by a Bishop of Mau- ritania, named Quintus, on the same subject, to whom he wrote an answer which has been preserved. He emphasises ' Their actual excommunication was averted through the representations and entreaties of St. Dionysius of Alexandria. Stephen had written, says Eusebius, ' as neither about to communicate with them.' Mr. Puller's trans- lation, ' saying that he would not communicate with them ' {Prim. Saints, p. 329), which he thinks represents St. Stephen as having already effected a separation, goes beyond the Greek, which is as I have written it — ' he had written ... as not about to communicate with them either.' The Greek is simply in the future. Not possessing the letters, we could not say whether Eusebius is speaking of a scntentia fcrenda or lata — an actual or conditional excommunication — were it not for the context, which shows that the excom. munication was not actually carried into effect. St. Dionysius averted it by his prayers and enti-eaties. He gained his namesake at Rome and Philemon over to his way of thinking. They had previously thought with Stephen that the rebaptisers ought to be excommunicated. G 82 DOES NOT DEPEECIATE TRADITION, a.d. 96 t"wo j)oints — viz. that baptism is one, and therefore cannot be repeated, and that ancient customs are not always to be follo\\'ed. On the first point he adduces a passage from Holy Scripture, which he misquotes, havmg, we may presume, an in- correct copy. He relies on a passage in Ecclesiasticus (xxxiv. 30) , which he gives thus : ' He that is washed by one dead, what availeth his washing ? ' A heretic is dead, and there- fore what is the use of the washing, or baptism, administered by him ? But the passage really runs : ' He who washes him- self after having touched a dead body, if he touches it again, of what use is his ablution ? ' In dealing with the question of custom he expressed himself with more conciseness than caution, so that his words have been (wrongty) interjDreted as a depreciation of tradition. He says that we ' must not frame a prescription on custom, but prevail by reason' — words which, without proper explanation, may be said to contain the microbe of Eationalism. But elsewhere he says that ' custom without truth is only ancient error ' — which is cer- tain ; only it is equally certain that such a custom would not prevail in the Church. The Bride of Christ is incapable of the stain of adultery, as he himself teaches elsewhere ; yet she would be unchaste if she sanctioned a custom contrary to truth, to the extent that, as a matter of fact, she had taken home to herself this custom. She had, as a whole, upheld the validity of baptism conferred by heretics. One of the bishops at the third council held at Carthage on this subject said that ' Jesus Christ said " I am the truth," not " I am custom," ' which is true enough ; but it is also true that He said to the Apostles m sending them out to teach, ' I am with you all days to the end of the world,' and consequentl}^ no custom on so important a matter could attain to prevail in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.' St. Cyprian did not really disagree with the rest of the Church as to the value of tradi- tion, but as to the fact in this particular case. * A sound critic,' says Bishop Freppel, ' should pronounce judgment in accordance with the entire trend of the discussion, not abuse a word which has escaped in the heat of argument.' Both • Cf. Freppel's Ci/prien, p. 337, 1890 ; and Eohibacher, Hist, de VEglise, iii. pp. 30G-7. Paris, 1892. —300 BUT TIIIXKS HIMSELF THE SUBJECT 83 St. Cyprian and Firmilian maintained that the contrary tra- dition was a human one — one ' that had crept in amongst some' ' This was Firmilian's root mistake. He denied, or was miaware of, the antiquity and universahty of the tradition against rebaptising ; in other words, he failed to see that it had the two great marks of being a divine tradition — viz. antiquity and universality.^ Having insisted on the duty of upholding the unity of the Church, of yielding in nothing to the enemies of faith and truth, and of not laying down the law on the growth of custom, but seeking to triumph by reason, St. Cyprian appeals to the conduct of Peter at Antioch. He had begun his letter by mentioning that ' some of their colleagues ' were in oppo- sition— those, of course, who had led to the Numidian bishops consulting him on the question. And seeing that a second council was considered necessary, these African bishops who differed from their Primate, and probably thought that he was setting himself up as a sort of bishop of bishops, must have resisted the decree of the first council in the previous year. St. Cyprian, therefore, in a letter to a bishop named Quintus, deprecates the idea that he is forcing his own judgment in pressing concordant action on these African colleagues, and at the same time supplies them with a model of acquiescence in the suggestion of another. He adduces the example of the Pri- mate of the Apostles. Peter himself did not, on the ground of his Primacy,^ refuse to accept a better mode of carrying out ' Ep. ad Pompeium, Ixxiv. ^ Freppel, loc. cit. ^ St. Cyprian did not ' point out that, if in consequence of this priority ' (as the author of Primitive Saints, dc. translates pn7uaftt»i),' St. Peter had ex- pected St. Paul to obey him, he would have been guilty of insolence and arro- gance ' {Prim. Saints, p. 358). He assumed that St. Peter had a primacy which he might have pressed, but did not out of humility. St. Augustine (De Bapt. lib. ii. c. 1) quotes this passage of St. Cyprian, and speaks of ' the Apostle Peter, in whom the primacy over the Ai^ostles is pre-eminent, with such sur- passing grace,' being ' corrected by the later Apostle Paul.' And then, in com- paring St. Cyprian with St. Peter (as having erred, but as not likely to resent St. Augustine's revision of his judgment on baptism by heretics), he expresses a fear lest he should be reviling Peter by the mere comparison. He says : ' For who is ignorant ihii.i prlnclpalitij over the Apostles is to be jilaced above any episcopate ? ' But if ' there is a distance between the grace of the chairs ' {i.e. if the position of the Prince of the Apostles is beyond that of any bishop) ' their G 2 84 OF A HIGHER REVELATION. a.d. 90 their common faith, ' giving us thereby a pattern of concord and patience, that we should not pertinaciously love our own opinions, but should rather account as our own any true and rightful suggestions of our brethren and colleagues for the common health and weal.' He then quotes from i. Cor. xiv. 29, 30, as containing St. Paul's teaching ' that many things are revealed to individuals for the better ; and that we ought not each to strive pertinaciously for what he has once imbibed and held, but if anything has appeared better and more useful, willingly to embrace it. For to have what is better offered to us is not to be instructed, but to be defeated.' He then reminds them, through Quintus, that he is himself only following the judgment of one of his predecessors, Agrippinus, who had acted after ' common counsel ; ' * whose sentence, being both religious, and legitimate, and salutary, in accordance with the Catholic faith and Church, we also have followed.' Thus, earnestly and in all humility, did our saint en- deavour to bring the whole array of bishops in his own province into conformity on this practice, which, although not in his estimation a matter of necessity, yet called for harmonious action. But he treads on dangerous ground when he speaks of his discipline in the matter as a develop- ment or improvement on previous practice. III. But in the following year St. Cyprian found it necessary to call a second council at Carthage, to consider particularly, amongst other matters, this same question. For the African bishops who had dissented from his ruling were not so easily brought into line. This second and larger synod decided that ' those who have been washed without the Church and have, amongst heretics and schismatics, been tainted by the defilement of profane ivater, when they come to us and to the Church which is one, ought to be baptised ; ' and, moreover, they decided that all who had once left the Church, or had been ordained amongst the sects, could only be received back into lay communion, glory as martyrs is one.' Neither St. Augustine's nor St. Cyprian's words can be satisfactorily explained except on the supposition that they understood St. Peter's relation to the Apostles to be one which could demand obedience. St. Augustine thus explains ' primacy ' by ' principality.' —300 THINKS KEBAPTISM 85 They ought not ' to retain those arms of ordination and honour wherewith they rebelled against us. It is enough that to such on their return pardon be granted.' Closely following upon this council, St. Cyprian wrote a long letter ' to a bishop named Jubaianus, in which he uses the arguments noticed above in answer to a letter forwarded by this bishop, and remits to him the letter of Quintus and the decree of the synod. In the course of this letter he repudiates the argument drawn from the fact that Novatian the schismatic Bishop at Eome, had taken to rebaptising. It is no concern of ours, says St. Cyprian, what he may do, who, like an ape, claims to himself the authority and truth of the Catholic Church. ' We who hold to the head and root of the one Church know . . . that he hath no hallowed office.' The ' head and root ' was the Bishop of Eome, who traced to Peter (cf. p. 49), or perhaps, more strictly speaking, Peter himself, whom they reached thruiujh Stephen and not through Novatian.'^ It was in this letter also that St. Cyprian, in defining what the Church is, where it is to be found, says in effect what St. Ambrose said, ' where Peter is, there is the Church.' He deals with the question as to where and by whom remis- sion of sins can be given. And he at once says, that ' to Peter first, on whom He built the Church, and from whom He appointed and showed that unity should spring (§ 7, Oxf. transl.), was this power given.' And then he quotes the words spoken to Peter and the Apostles on Easter-night. So that, according to St. Cyprian, unity was to spring from Peter by our Lord's institution, and the power of remitting sins was ' Ep, Ixxiii. - Mr. Puller [Primitive Saints, p. 345) has mistaken the meaning of this passage through imagining that St. Cyin'ian is arguing with the Novatians- He is arguing with Jubaianus, or rather his correspondent, about Novatian. ' We ' (i.e. you and I and others) ' hold to " the head and root of the one Church " ' (i.e. the legitimate Bishop of Borne), ' and consequently we know that " nothing is lawful " to Novatian, because he is out of that one Church, sDjiarate from the head and root of the one Church.' Mr. Puller also argues that St. Cyprian could not mean Stephen by ' the head and root of the one Church,' because ' St. Cyprian was oi^posing Stephen ' (p. 346). But this is an anachronism. Stephen had not yet appeared on the scene. Moreover, even if he had, St. Cyprian would still have held that he was the head of the Church. He would have added, that although such, he was going beyond his powers in insisting on obedience in this matter. Cf. Appendix I. 86 AX OPEX QUESTION. a.d. 90 possessed in that body whicli had originated with the ApostoHc College, of which St. Peter was the head, and his chair the origin of its unity. It seems that the letter which Jubaianus had forwarded laid down the proposition that 'All, wheresoever and /er emptor y one indeed, to wit, the Chief Pontiff, that is the bishop of bishops, proclaims, " I remit to those who have done penance the crimes," &c. ; this is read in the Church, and openly announced in the Church.' (' De Pudic' c. i.y They were not, says St. Cyprian, in Africa about to issue a general edict which would control the action of every other bishop. Although Cyprian was their Primate, he was not Pontifex Maximus of the Christian religion, and he did not mean to act as if he were. ' For no one of us constitutes himself bishop of bishops, or drives his own colleagues to the accepting of obedience by the terrorising of a tyrant, since it is open to every bishop to form his own judgment, in the free use of his liberty and power, and he can no more be judged by another than he can judge another. But let us one and all look for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has the power by Himself both of setting us over (others) in the government of his Church, and of judging concerning our act.' St. Cyprian could not mean to say that a Marcian of Aries could not be judged by any bishop, nor a Privatus (cf. p. 67) be deposed from his see. He could not mean to put himself at variance with the whole practice of the Church in his own and after times. A\Tiat he disavowed was obviously either the exercise of authority on a matter which he considered to l)e merely one of variable discipline, or the use of his primacy in a tyrannical way. His words contain no judgment as to whether anyone had been divinely constituted bishop of ' Whilst there is an obvious reference to Tertullian 's words, there is no necessary reference to St. Stephen. We often say ' I will not act the Pope ' without meaning to deny that there is someone who is entitled to act as Pope. —300 IS NOT ACTING AS POPE. 93 bishops. They merely remind the African bishops that no one of themselves held such a relationship. * What,' says St. Augustine, ' can be more mild ? What more humble ? ' And he elsewhere insists upon it that St. Cyprian meant what he said, and did not use these words of meekness merely to cajole ' the bishops into speaking out their minds, with the view of afterwards bearing hardly upon them. No, the purpose of his speech was honestly to en- courage them to say what they really thought, in spite of theu- Primate's presence. St. Augustine compares with these words what St. Cyprian said to Jubaianus and to Magnus, and says that it is apparent from these just quoted that smaller things were dealt with on w^iich there had been no clear ' de- claration,' but which ' being still unlocked were being sought for with great effort.' He considers himself to be in a different position from Cyprian, ' holding now the custom of the universal Church which is to be acknowledged on every side, and which has been confirmed by general councils. The council decided that the custom of rebaptising those who had been baptised by heretics was the better way.^ ' ' Securitate captaret ' (De Bapt. vi. 7). 2 The Bollanclist Life of St. Cyprian (Fr. Suyskens, S. J.) takes the same view of St. Cyprian's use of the expression ' Bishop of bishops.' CHAPTEK VIII. eome's decision and cypkian's irritation. I. There are no means of deciding how long an interval elapsed between the dispatch of the letter to Stephen ' and the papal decision in reply. Neither have we the reply itself. The actual decision was, it would seem, contained in one short sentence. That single sentence, however, is evidence sufficient, and more than sufficient, to justify the esteem in which St. Stephen was held by all antiquity, and in particular the epithet which St. Vincent of Lerins applies to that Pope in recording this passage of Church history. ' St. Stephen,' he says, was a man ' holy and prudent.' Let us suppose for a moment that St. Stephen had been carried away by respect for St. Cyprian's great name in the Church. A false principle as to the sacrament of baptism, nay, as to the nature of more than one sacrament, would have spread like wildfire throughout the Church. It was a very natural deduction from the truth of the unity of the Church, and from a high esteem of the privileges and gifts of the Church, to suppose that these could not be conferred even in any germmant way, or dormant character, by those who were outside the visible fold. But it was a false inference, for it in- volved a wrong answer to the question as to whether the sacrament in its process of bestowal was wholly Christ's, or in fact, the gift of the instrument. So that the matter, although a question of discipline, really bordered upon the vitals of the faith. It had, however, not yet been elucidated in all its bearings. The Church, as she passed along the stream of time, was discovering more and more the meaning of her deposit of truth. But she entered into the full significance of her treasures through the gradual settlement of difficulties as ' Cf. supra, p. 88. A.D. 96—300 THE POPE INSISTED 95 they emerged, one by one, and called for patient discussion and then final settlement. The full meaning of the * character ' of the initial sacrament of the Christian covenant was now entering upon a further stage. But it could not be weighed under all circumstances ; and perchance the present were un- favourable to its calm investigation. There was no possibility of a general gathering of the Church's rulers ; at any rate a few months hence, even if the Pope had thought of a wider council, a new fiery persecution set in, during which he was destined to win the martyr's crown. What, then, did St. Stephen do ? He laid down the ancient custom, and he forbade innovation upon it. He took the side of the dissentient African bishops. He indicated the dangerous nature of the new departure, and so far from allowing the practice, which had set in, to be one on which difference could be permitted, he thought that those who persisted in it must forfeit that ecclesiastical intercourse with the rest of the Christian Church which was the sign and seal of their being true to the one faith. ' Abstinendos putat,' said St. Cyprian— ' he [Stephen] thinks they ought to be ex- communicated.' St. Stephen reminded St. Cyprian that he was the successor of that Peter, of whom he had written so well in his treatise on Unity, on whom our Lord built his Church ; that he occupied that chair of Peter of which St. Cyprian had once spoken so warmly, and was the head of that ' ruling Church whence sacerdotal unity took its rise.' He therefore put St. Cyprian on his obedience. He decided that : ' If any shall come to you from any heresy whatsoever, let there be no innovation but (let that be observed) which has been handed down — viz. that hands be laid on such in sign of penitence.' ' It will be noticed that in this decision the Pope avoided the language to which St. Cyprian demurs in his letter to Jubaianus. He does not say ' All, Jioicsoecer baptised ' — for that might be taken to include an alteration of the form of baptism — but ' whatsoever heresy.' The point in dispute was as to whether those outside the unity of the Cliurch could baptise. The adjudication of St. Stephen was that they ' Cf. Jungmann, Diss. Hist. iv. 76. 96 ox THE ANCIENT CUSTOM. a.d. 96 could, the use of the proper form being understood. So it was, as a matter of fact, always understood. Thus St. Stephen refused to enter upon the dogmatic portion of the dispute, but simply laid down the line to be followed in practice. He issued no ex cathedra definition on the matter of faith, but directed the action of the Church. He decided that the new method of dealing with the baptism of heretics was closely allied to heretical notions concerning that sacrament, and therefore authoritatively forbade its continuance. He discountenanced St. Cjq^rian's programme of letting alone those who adopted a different method of dis- cipline. It was a matter on which the Church ought to be at one. So much so that he was obliged to tell our saint that he should no longer be able to hold communion with him if he persisted in his present course. As the successor of that Apostle on whom our Lord had built His Church, he felt compelled to insist on conformity in Africa to the custom followed in Rome, which, as St. Augustine more than once asserts, had come down from the Apostles themselves. There was one point of view from which St. Cyprian's action was less dangerous than if the truth had lain the other way. He was rebaptising those who did not need it. Had he been omitting to baptise some who needed it, the case would have been one for msisting on immediate obedience ; but as it was, he only did what involved no loss to others. This action, however, might lead to false views concerning the vaUdity of the sacrament, and, indeed, was based on such false views ; and, as a matter of fact, part of St. Augus- tine's life had to be spent in refuting St. Cyprian's argu- ments, and wresting his authority from the lips of the Donatists. St. Augustine, however, was able to insist upon St. Cyprian's example as of more account than his unfor- tunate arguments against the validity of baptism by heretics. He would not break away from the Church. This was, to St. Augustine, the virtue of virtues in St. Cyprian's life. There was a stain in that life which he knew his glorious martyrdom had washed away ; ' but there was one grand ' Ep. xciii. —300 THE LEGATION TO ROME. 97 grace exhibited, the grace of charity which held him within the unity of the Church when he might have headed a schism, and had indeed every temptation to inaugurate an independent national Church. II. On receiving St. Stephen's decision, St. Cyprian seems to have immediately sent off legates to Kome with the hope of inducing the Pope to change his mind. But in vain. Nothing, indeed, could have been more inopportune than the appearance of these African bishops in the Eternal City just at that moment. The Pope was in the midst of trouble from the Novatians, and the Novatians had begun to rebaptise those whom they allured from the Catholic Church. These African bishops would find themselves at one with those pestilent heretics, and the great name of Cyprian would add to the confusion. St. Stephen determined that the Africans should not stay in Eome a single night. They were bidden to depart home at once. And judging from the number of events which crowd themselves into ' these few months, they must have left Kome immediately. The matter was not one on which St. Stephen was prepared to receive a mission, and, if we may trust what Firmilian says on the subject, Catholics were forbidden to shelter the legates a single night. If, in- deed, as is almost certain, St. Stephen knew of the third Council of Carthage, held, as that was, either with the know- ledge of his decision or, as is more probable, in view of what they knew to be the practice at Eome, he was fully justified in taking decisive measures to prevent resistance spreading. Anyhow, he would not admit them to conference ; there was, indeed, no necessity, seeing that they did not come by ap- pointment. III. These African legates, therefore, returned home, and a messenger was immediately dispatched to the East. St. Cyprian knew that he had sympathisers there, and would fain take counsel with those who had already entered upon a somewhat similar career. He wrote and told Firmilian, the great Bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, that St. Stephen — to quote the words he used to another bishop (Pompeius) — ' Cf. Doni. Maran. De Vita Cj/priani, and Tillemont's admission that every- thing must have been done with the utmost speed, infra, p. 100. H 98 ST. CYPRIAN'S IRRITATION a.d. 96 ' thinks that priests of God, defending the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, are to be excommunicated.' We may take it for granted that Firmilian had not been actually excommunicated, for it would have been contrary to all St. Cyprian's previous teaching to have sought help from him if he had. Let alone any deference to the See of Rome as the chair of Peter, she was on any view of the matter the mother-Church of Africa, so much so that St. Augustine ex- pressed his conviction that it was impossible to find an instance in which Eastern bishops communicated with African bishops except through Eome. But Firmilian was now, or at any rate had been but recently, engaged in the same dis- cussion, and accordingly St. Cyprian turned to him to see if together they could induce the Pope to reconsider his de- cision. Mere messages of sympathy would be out of the question with such earnest souls ; the question was, what was to be done ? But before we consider Firmilian's answer, it will be well to recollect the only indication of St. Cyprian's mind which we have from his own pen. He wrote about this time to a bishop, who was not present at the Council of Carthage, but who had asked to see St. Stephen's letter. St. Cyprian, judg- ing from the ending of his reply, sent him the decision of the council, at which we know from the Acts this bishop had himself voted by proxy, and at the same time poured out hi the bitterness of his soul what he thought of the Pope's letter. St. Augustine, whilst refuting one or two statements of this letter of Cyprian's, refuses to go further, on the ground that he had already dealt with similar statements, and that it would be better to pass by the rest, as it had in it ' the danger of pernicious dissent.' One would gladly do the same,' but as the letter has been dragged into the question of St. Cyprian's allegiance to Rome, one is forced to produce its statements in some fulness. It must be premised that we do not possess St. Stephen's letter itself, and that St. Augustine, with all his great love for St. Cyprian, speaks of this letter as bearing the marks of irritation. ' St. Vincent of Lerins compares the Donatists' action in brinf,'ing forward St. Cyprian so prominently in this matter to that of Ham towards his father. —300 EXPRESSED TO POMPEIUS. 99 St. Cyprian then, in this letter to Pompeius/ speaks of St. Stephen's error as that of * upholding the cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God ' — of things in the Pope's letter as ' arrogant, beside the purpose, or self- contradictory,' ' written without due instruction and caution.' He says that St, Stephen ' communicating with the baptism of all has heaped up the sins of all in one mass into his own bosom,' and that he, ' forgetful of unity, adopts the deceitful defilements of a profane immersion.' After using arguments which St. Augustine has shown to be fallacious, he pursues his declaration against the Pope thus : * Does he give glory to God who communicates with the baptism of Marcion ? Does he give glory to God who judges that remission of sins is given by those who blaspheme God ? . . . Does he give glory to God who, the friend of heretics and enemy to Chris- tians, thinks that priests of God, defending the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, are to be excommunicated ? ... let us cast aside our arms, let us yield ourselves captives, let us deliver over to the devil the ordering of the Gospel, the appointments of Christ, the majesty of God : be the sacra- mental oaths of our divine warfare loosed, the ensigns of the heavenly camp abandoned ; let the Church bow down and give way to heretics, light to darkness, faith to faithlessness, hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, charity to hatred, truth to falsehood, Christ to Antichrist.' All this, and a great deal more, which he proceeds to describe with his own fervid eloquence, was to happen if the baptism by heretics was not disallowed. All this would happen if the practice followed on all sides in this country at this day, by every con- siderable religious body in existence, is to be countenanced ! We are all of us against Cyprian in this matter, and j^et, ac- cording to Cyprian, ' if the fear of God abides with us, if regard to the faith prevail, if we keep the precepts of Clu'ist, if we ^maintain the sanctity of His spouse incorrupt and in- violate, if the words of the Lord cleave to our thoughts and hearts,' &c., we shall reverse our practice, and the Eoman ' £'2'- Ixxiv. H 2 100 FIRMILIAN'S HASTY REPLY a.d. 96 Catholic will rebaptise the Anglican/ and the Anglican will rebaptise the Eoman, and each will rebaptise the Wesleyan, and we shall generally deny to one another the name of Christian. lY. All this, however, is nothing compared with what Fir- milian poured forth in answer to St. Cyprian. Dr. Dollinger thus describes the two letters : — ' We are acquamted with the sentence of the Pontiff only through fragments which have been preserved by St. Cyprian and Firmilian : by the first m his severe and harsh letter to Pompeius, and by the second in his bitter and passionate answer to St. Stephen, addressed to St. Cyprian. Both endeavour to place the opinions of the Pope in the most unfavourable light.' - It has been argued, with much force, by the Benedictine editor of St. Cyprian (Migne's edition), that the legates must have been sent to Piome after the second council held at Car- thage on the subject of baptism, because from this letter of Firmilian's we find that St. Cyprian's messengers were to return to Africa before the winter. If they left Africa after the third council, the legates would have had within a few months to journey to Kome, and thence back to St. Cyprian, and St. Cyprian's messenger (Eogatian) must have left Cap- padocia at once and returned to Africa before the winter had set in. Tillemont admits the difficulties of this supposition, but maintains that it was, nevertheless, possible. The Bol- landist writer of St. Cyprian's Life agrees with Tillemont, as also does Hefele. We have, indeed, only to suppose that the legates, as soon as they set foot in Piome, were told that their errand was a hopeless one, and induced to return at once, and that the deacon sent by Cyprian, on their return to Cappa- docia, was detained by Firmilian the shortest jwssihle time consistent with the bishop being able to pat pen to paper and WTite off a reply. This will probably account for much of the peculiar character of that letter. Twice does Firmilian speak of being pressed for time. Eogatianus, the deacon, was wait- ing— ' Your messenger was in haste to return to you, and the ' As a matter of fact, where the right matter and form has been certainly used, this is never done. - Geschichtc, Periode I. § 29, p. 304 : ' niit Bitterkeit und Leidenschaft.' Pirmilian's letter is found amongst St. Cypriau's, Ej). Ixxv. —300 TO ST. CYPRIAN 101 \Yinter season was close at hand.' Firmilian must have read St. Cyprian's letter again and again with a certain feverish haste, and even (he says) ' committed it to memory.' He seems to have at length reached the boiling-point, and as the fire kindled, he poured forth a burning stream of indignant rhetoric against Stephen, which has hardly its equal in eccle- siastical literature for nervous eloquence, passionate indigna- tion, and bitter mvective. He opens with expressing his joy at finding the blessing of concord with his correspondent, and says that for this experi- ence of unity with the African Primate he has to thank Stephen, although, he adds, the Pope has not thereby done a good work any more than did Judas, who was an instrument of the blessings of the Passion. After a beautiful passage on unity, he excuses himself for repeating the same things as Cyprian has said, whilst he adds some things by way of accu- mulating proof, and he regrets that he has been unable to consult his annual synod. He then attacks what St. Stephen is supposed to have said ; he denies that the Apostles could have admitted those who had been baptised by heretics without rebaptising them, because there were no sufficiently execrable heretics to bap- tise— a version of history of which St. Cyprian could not have approved. He then says that Stephen, unlike his pre- decessors in such matters as the observance of Easter, has now made the first ' departure from the peace and unity of the Catholic Church . . . breaking this peace with you . . . de- faming the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, as if they had handed this down ' — the tradition is therefore human. He then protests against following heretics (as if St. Stephen meant this, when he quoted their custom to show the ancient tradition of the Church), and deposes that ' a heretic cannot lawfully ' (he means validly, or else he misrepresents St. Stephen) ' ordain, or lay on hands, neither can he baptise or do any spiritual act.' He then attacks St. Stephen for maintaining what he never did — viz. that remission of sins can follow from the baptism of heretics simply,' and scouts the idea that any ' The remission of sin followed upon conversion — the baptism then taking effect, and issuing in sanctiiication. 102 PITEOUSLY MISINTERPRETS a.d. 96 reasonable person would either maintain or believe ' that this mere invocation of the names would suffice, for the remission of sins and the sanctification of baptism ' (showing that he missed the point of the Church's doctrine in the matter), and then gives an instance in which it would be absurd to suppose this. He next emphasises the unity of the Spouse of Christ, and says that ' the s3^nagogue of heretics is not one with us, because neither is the spouse an adulteress and a harlot. Wherefore neither can she bring forth the sons of God, unless, indeed, as Stephen seems to think, heresy brings them forth and exposes them, but the Church takes them up when ex- posed, and nourishes as her own whom she did not bring forth.' His misunderstanding of the teaching of St. Stephen is here again complete. He then enters upon the subject of Apostolic Succession. ' Christ said to Peter alone, " Whatsoever thou shalt bind," &c., and again in the Gospels, when Christ breathed on the Apostles only, saying, " Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost ; whosoever sins ye remit," &c. The power then of remitting sins was given to the Apostles and to the Churches which they, sent by Christ, established, and to the bishops who succeeded them by vicarious ordination.' And then follows a passage of supreme importance as regards the Petrine prerogatives of the Bishop of Pome. * Herem,' says Firmilian, ' I am justly indignant at such open and manifest folly in Stephen, that he who thus ' boasts of the seat of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter, on whom the foundations of the Church were laid, introduces many other rocks, and esta- blishes new edifices of many Churches [i.e. admits the reality of many new Churches] whilst he defends, by his authority [the position] that baptism is there ' — amongst them. ' For those who are baptised, without doubt, till up the number of the Church.' One cannot but pause here to notice two things. First, the piteous misunderstanding of the teaching of St. Stephen into which Firmilian had fallen, which, nevertheless, has its ' ' Thus ' (sic), not ' so,' as in Primitive Sawtis.p. 84. ' So ' introduces the idea of excessive, unjustifiable boasting, which is not necessarily contained in the adverb ' thus.' -300 THE POPE'S TEACHING, 103 bright side, for if ^ this had been the teaching of Eome, he would have been justified in opposing it. Secondly, the tre- mendous witness which Firmilian's words bear to the recog- nised position of the Bishop of Eome. Firmilian is not indignant that St. Stephen put forth with such prominence his position as the successor of Peter. He has no expressions of astonishment at this, as though it were a new claim. And yet it is inconceivable that he should not have exclaimed against the presumption of such a claim had it been unwar- ranted or new. No, Firmilian is only indignant that he, in the very moment and act in which he realises and places in prominence his relationship to Peter, should be making other rocks, by admitting the validity of heretical baptism. He goes on to argue that the successor of Peter himself * in a manner effaces the truth of the Christian rock.' In fact he effaces himself. In this he is worse, says Firmilian, than the Jews. They had a ' zeal for God ; ' Stephen has none at the very moment when he (truly enough ^) proclaims that he occupies by succession the chair of Peter, ' for he concedes to them the greatest of all graces.' He might just as well go on ' to join their assemblies and mingle his prayers Math them and set up a common altar and sacrifice (§ 18). He then deals with the argument from custom, and says that the Jews clung to their old custom when Christ came, ' disregarding the new way of truth.' Firmilian, like St. Cyprian, at one moment depreciates custom, at another claims it in his own behalf. And now his passionate indignation altogether gets the better of him. His words, beginning with the mention of Ste- phen in the third person, suddenly burst into an apostrophe ; ' When thou communicatest with the baptism of heretics, what else dost thou but drink of their mire and mud, and, after ha\dng been cleansed with the sanctification of the Church, becomest defiled with the contagion of others' filth ? ' See p. 79 for the real state of the matter. ^ I have inserted these words mainly as a balance against the unjustifiable assumption made by some that Firmilian is condemning St. Stephen's claim. He does not say this : his words by themselves pass by the question of the justice of the claim, but they presuppose it. 104 AND EXAGGERATES a.d. 96 .... Yea, thou art worse than all heretics . . . thou abettest then* errors . . . and mereasest the darkness of the night of heresy. And whereas they confess that they are in sin and have no grace, and therefore come to the Church, thou withdrawest from them the remission of sins which is given in baptism, in that thou sayest that the}^ have been already baptised and, outside the Church, have obtained the grace of the Church ' (again the same misunderstanding as to the teaching of Eome), 'nor dost thou consider that their souls will be required at your hand when the Day of Judg- ment shall come, who deniedst to those atheists the drink of the Church ; and to such as long to live thou wast the cause of death. And withal thou art indignant ! See with what ignorance ' thou dost dare to blame those who contend for the truth against falsehood ; ... it is plain that the igno- rant are vehement and given to anger, whilst through poverty of counsel and argument they are easily moved to wrath, so that the Holy Scripture says of no one more than thee, "An excited man provokes '^ strifes, and an angry man heaps up sins " (Prov. xxix. 22). For what great strifes and dissensions hast thou provoked through the Churches of the whole world ! AYhat a great sin didst thou heap upon thyself w'hen thou didst cut thyself off^ from so many flocks! For thou hast cut thyself off. Do not deceive thyself, since he is truly schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the com- munion of ecclesiastical unity : for whilst thou dost think that all may be excommunicated from thee, thou hast excommu- nicated thyself alone from all. . . . What can be more louly and meek than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the world, breaking peace with them each by varying kinds of discord— now with the Easterns (which we feel confident you [in Africa] are aware of), now with your- selves, who are in the South ; from whom he received epi- scopal legates with patience and meekness enough, so that he did not even admit them to a hearing ** — nay, further, so that, ' ' Imperitia.' - ' Parat.' Some editions have ' parit.' ^ By taking the line of condemning the new practice — ' dum enim putas omnes a te abstineri posse, solum te ab omnibus abstinuisti.' It is ' posse.' It obviously refers, not to power in any, but in this, case. * ' Sermonem colloquii communis.' —300 THE SITUATION. 105 mindful of love and charity, he instructed the whole brother- hood not any one of them to receive them into his house, so that on their coming there, not only peace and communion, but roof and hospitality should be denied them ? This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, to cut himself of! from the unity of charity, and to make himself in all things strange to the brethren, and to rebel against the sacrament and the faith with the fury of contumacious discord. With such an one, can there be one body and one spirit, with whom, perchance, there is not one soul, so slippery is it, so shifting, so uncertain ? ' Here at length Firmilian comes to anchor. He proposes to return to the ' greater question.' But he can only re- strain himself for a few sentences. For he winds up with saying, ' And yet Stephen is not ashamed to give support to such against the Church, and for the sake of upholding heretics to divide the brotherhood ; nor, further, to call Cyprian a false Christ, a false Apostle, a deceitful worker. He [i.e. Stephen], conscious that all these marks are in himself, was beforehand, so as Ijdngly to object to another what he was himself deserving to be called.' This unique specimen of correspondence closes with using the plural, as though it were the opinion of several bishops.^ V. The question occurs as to how far this extraordinary letter, with its misinterpretations and obvious exaggerations, can be held to prove that St. Stephen issued a formal sen- tence of excommunication against St. Cyprian. It is necessary to repeat,^ that excommunication is a wide term, including that suspension of ecclesiastical intercourse between various portions of the Church which did not mean that either of them considered the other to be in schism. If ' I have never been able to discover on what grounds the assertion is often made that St. Cyprian published this letter himself. The mere fact of its having been ultimate!}' bound up in the collections of St. Cyprian's letters proves nothing, for those collections were subsequent to his time. Indeed, the supposition that he translated it himself into Latin (we do not possess the original) is mere conjecture. Fr. Suyskens (S. J.), the author of the Bollandist Life, does not believe that he did. The matter has not received its final settle- ment. ■' P. 41. 106 NOT SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE a.d. 96 at any time during the strife between Eome and Africa, the question had been asked at Eome, * Which is the legitimate Bishop of Carthage, Cj^prian or Fortunatus ? ' there can be no doubt that the answer would have been, * There is only one Bishop of Carthage, and that is Cyprian.' It is necessary to mention this, because the Cyprianic struggle has been pressed into the service of a theory which regards communion with Eome as a matter of perfect indifference in determining the schismatic position of a religious body. • But it is one thmg to be so separated from the chair of Peter as that another bishop could be placed by Eome in the same city as its true and legitimate bishop ; it is another thing to be only so far out of communion as that ecclesiastical intercourse is sus- pended. In these daj's of quick intercourse, when we can confer together by the flash of wire, or at any rate by the rapidity of the rail, the same state of things could not arise as in the times of Cyprian. It is the part of the inspector, in determining the alleged identity of a stream with a certain source, to examine into the elements of which the two are composed, and to decide upon the existence or non-existence of the same essential ingredients in each. So with the ques- tion of the identity alleged to exist between the Eome of to- day and the recognition of her position on the one hand, and on the other hand the Eome of Bt. Cyprian's time, and her relationship to the rest of the Church under the very dissimilar circumstances of the third century. Could the Church, as we observe her in action in that century, have developed mto a heap of independent National Churches with no sort of intercourse without parting with principles then deemed essential ? The answer that has been given is, that ' if St. Cyprian and St. Firmilian were really excommuni- cated, and if they nevertheless refused to alter cither the teaching or the practice condemned by Eome, then it is clear that neither of these saints nor their colleagues in Africa and Asia Minor could have considered that communion uith the Pope was an essential matter.' '^ In other words there can be independent National Churches. ■ Cf. Tlie Primitive Saints and tJie Sec of Eome, ch. ii. ■-' Ibid. p. 325. —300 OF ACTUAL EXCOMMUNICATION 107 It is natural, in answer to this position, to ask wliy both St. Cyprian and Firmilian were so disturbed, if their com- munion with Eome was not essential ? But the full answer is, j&rst, that the evidence for the ex- communication of St. Cyprian and Firmilian in the fullest sense of the term is not (to say the least) plain. Baronius and Mansi think that the excommunication was carried out, but it is not clear what measure of separation they under- stand by the term. They have not, however, been followed by Catholic writers in general. Pagius, Natalis Alexander, the BoUandists, Hefele, DdUinger, Freppel and Jungmann, to mention no others, do not consider that the evidence at our disposal is sufficient to justify us in saying that the excom- munication was actually carried out. The only direct evidence is Firmilian's letter. But a letter so full of misrepresenta- tions, and of bitter invective, is (to say the least) not above suspicion as evidence on such a point. Firmilian made out that all the world was against St. Stephen : St. Augustine, with greater truth, spoke of Firmilian and his sympathisers as a handful compared with the bishops who held with Stephen. It would be in perfect keeping with the rest of the letter of Firmihan if, on learning from St. Cyprian that the Pope contemplated excommunicating those who persisted in maintaining their custom, he proceeded to picture the excom- munication as actual, and forthwith declared that this would be tantamount to cutting himself off, and leaving himself with- out any in the Church to symbolise with him ; only in his rhetorical and passionate way of speaking he said, ' By doing this, you have cut yourself off and stand alone.' Of course it was ridiculously untrue to say that St. Stephen had been disagreeing with so many bishops ' throughout the whole ivorld, breaking peace with them severally in various modes of dis- cord ; ' but the expression need not be pressed, occurrmg as it does in such a letter, any more than the assertion that the Pope wished to excommunicate ' all ' should be pressed. And St. Dionysius' words referring to St. Stephen's pre- vious communication with Firmilian himself, viz. ' he wrote as not about to communicate with them either,' cannot fairly be pressed as necessarily meaning more than that he was not 108 ST. AUGUSTINE'S TESTIMOXY a.d. 96 going to communicate with them if they persisted in their own line. Certainty, Firmilian nowhere drops a hint that he and his colleagues were under actual excommunication. His wrath is reserved for the Pope's condemnation of St. Cyprian. He never says, ' We are in the same case : he has excommunicated us.' And yet it is inconceivable that he should not have said so, if it was the fact. Nor can it he successfully maintained that the case of FirmiHan and his colleagues was on all fours with that of St. Cyprian and the African bishops, in the absence of all records on the subject. Although their case was the same in substance, it does not follow that it was the same in detail. The same sentence was passed on what they did ; but not necessarily the same on those who did it. On the other hand, St. Augustine's testimony is definite and emphatic, to the effect that the peace in all essentials was kept between St. Stej^hen and St. Cyprian. • This is the point of his argument against the Donatists, viz. that St. Cyprian was, indeed, wrong in his teaching, but that he kept in communion with the Pope. Again and again he lays stress on this. He enlarges upon it in some of the most beautiful passages of his many writings against the Donatists, who claimed St. Cj'prian for their patron saint. Now it is not reasonable to suppose that St. Augustine was mistaken on this point. It was the tradition of the African Church on the subject. No Donatist replied that St. Augustine was mis- taken in his facts, as some one must have done, since it is not in one work alone that St. Augustine elaborates his point. So that the whole African Church in the following century was unaware of any such rupture having taken place between St. Stephen and St. Cyprian as is implied in the stricter sense of the term excommunication. It would be in vain to reply that St. Augustine had not seen Firmilian's letter ; for had complete excommunication taken place it must, ajMirt from that letter, have left a sufficient imi)ression on the African ' Lib. De Bapt. c. Donat. passim. In one passage St. Augustine notices the tremendous effect which a secession on the part of St. Cyprian would have had. ' If lie had separated himself, how many would follow ! What a name he would have made for himself amongst men ! . . . but he was not a " son of perdition " ' (lib. i. c. 18). —300 THE OTHER WAY. 109 Church for St. Augustine to be unable to take it as certain that these two saints did not proceed to complete rupture. It is, however, most probable that St. Augustine had seen Firmilian's letter. He had no call to refer to it directly, for he was engaged in dealing with Cyprian's authority alone; and it is not possible that such a savage production would commend itself to his sweet and gentle disposition. But some words addressed to the Donatist Cresconius seem to imply that he was at least aware of its existence ; ^ and it is to the last degree improbable that, knowing its existence, he should not have been aware of its contents. This at least seems certain, viz. that the Donatists knew of its existence ; and yet, to judge from a later work of St. Augustine's, in which he repeats his argument from St. Cyprian's remaining in peace with St. Stephen, the Donatists did not feel that anything in Firmilian's letter justified them in objecting to St. Augustine's assertion that the peace remained practically unbroken between the Pope and St. Cyprian. In his third book against Cresconius, he says, ' Whatever you have thought ought to be brought in from the letters of Cyprian and those of certain Easterns, that they decided against the sacra- ment of baptism given amongst heretics and schismatics, in no way hinders our cause, if we keep to that Church which Cyprian did not desert, although many of his colleagues would not consent to this judgment ' (against the baptism of heretics) . St. Augustine shows himself, in the following sections, thoroughly conversant with what the Easterns had written on the subject.^ It is, therefore, but reasonable to conclude that he was fully aware of the contents of Firmilian's letter, indeed of the whole history of the matter. He speaks, indeed, of • Dr. Pusey, in his note to Lih. of the Fathers, Cyprian's ExnstUs, vol. ii., says that Firmilian's letter ' is probably alluded to by St. Augustine, C. Cresc. iii. 1 (as the Benedictine Edd. also think), "whatever," &q., and De Unit. Bapt. c. Pctil. c. 14. St. Augustine probably did not notice it further because the Donatists relied on the authority of St. Cyprian, not of an Eastern bishop ' p. 269). ^ He speaks of ' letters,' not merely one letter, as is impHed in Prim. Saints, p. 332, n. 6. The plural includes St. Cyprian's, but does not limit the Easterns to one. 110 THE LEGATES' DISMISSAL. a.d. 96 some letters not having come into his possession, but that is not in reference to this particular branch of the subject. St. Augustine's evidence, therefore, to the effect that the rupture between St. Stephen and St. Cyprian was anything but complete (that it certainly did not include any actual excommunication), includes the evidence of the Donatists, and indeed gives the tradition of the African Church generally ; and his judgment seems to have been formed with a full knowledge of what took place between Firmilian and his col- leagues on the same subject. It may be asked whether Firmilian's statement about the episcopal legates is not to be taken as true, and whether, if it be true, it does not furnish a proof that St. Cj^irian was excommunicated. To which it must be answered, first, that there would be nothing surprising if there were some exaggeration in Fir- milian's description of the legates' reception, considering the character of the letter as a whole. But, secondly, the recep- tion accorded to the legates, supposing that Firmilian's words are to be taken au pied de la lettre, would not j^rove ex- communication. On another occasion legates were sent away from Piome (by Hormisdas the Pope), not, as was afterwards thought and stated, because they, or those from whom they came, were considered excommunicate, but because their presence there was certain to lead to trouble. What has hap- pened once may happen twice, and we have seen good reason for supposing that the presence in Eome of legates on so hopeless an errand as that of these African prelates was par- ticularly inopportune at that moment. So that all we can argue from their being sent back is that St. Stephen was not prepa.red to argue the question, but decided to deal with this Legatine mission most peremptorily. It would show St. Cyprian that he really meant what he said. St. Augustine's testimony to the preservation of peace in essential matters between Stephen and Cyprian, in spite of what he calls the * brotherly altercation,' in which Cyprian was unduly excited {commotius), is of greater weight than the incident described by Firmilian.' ' The student of history needs to be warned against Tillemont's article on —300 QUITE POSSIBLE THAT Hi On the whole, then, there is, to say the least, not sufficient ground for asserting that things ever proceeded beyond a threat of excommunication. It is not necessary to accuse Firmilian of deliberate falsehood. There is a great difference between telling a falsehood and indulging in exaggeration. This latter Firmilian certainly did when he spoke of StejDlien standing alone, and of the strife extending to the Churches of the ' whole world ; ' and the statement of a writer who can call the Pope ' worse than all heretics,' when, as a matter of fact, that Pope was guarding an Apostolical tradition, is not a safe foundation on which to build a theory of Church go- vernment.^ VI. But, after all, the second clause of the sentence quoted above ^ is the more important, viz. * if they [i.e. St. Cyprian and Firmilian] refused to alter either the teaching or the practice condemned at Eome.' This writer assumes that they did refuse. The historical record, so far as it goes, is all against him. St. Augustine expressly says that the Easterns altered their teaching. He blames the Donatists for separating themselves from them in consequence.^ He says of the Easterns that * they rescinded their judgment, by which they had decided that it was right to agree with Cyprian and that African council.' He then insists upon using the word * corrected ' in opposition to the Donatists : these Easterns (he says) ' corrected ' their judo-- ment, although we know from the Council of Aries that some persisted in their erroneous custom. And St. Jerome tells us St. Cyprian. He is by no means trustworthy. He says that St. Augustine would have changed his opinion if he had read Eusebius. Now, we know from St. Augustine himself that he had read Rufinus' paraphrase of Eusebius. And that translation or paraphrase is stronger on this point than Eusebius himself. Eusebius says only that Stephen ' bore it very ill,' or was very much displeased with Cyprian's resistance. Rufinus says that Ste^^hen thought that ' neither •were they to be communicated with who rebaptise.' St. Augustine did not consider that Rufinus' heightened translation justified him in concluding an actual ' excommunieatio major.' Therefore Eusebius's milder term would not have led him to such a conclusion (Cf. Bolland. Series, Aug. 2, § 4). ' Mr. Puller's accusation (Prim. SS. p. 327) against the writer of these pages is bused on a misrepresentation. Nothing is said about the African legates in Authority— the passage quoted refers to Stephen's standing alone. ^ P. 106. » C. Cresc. lib. iii. cap. 3. 112 ST. CYPRIAX RETRACTED. a.d. 96 that the African bishops themselves * issued a new decree.' They too corrected their judgments. What St. Cyprian him- self did, ^vhether he led the way (as is probable) in the direc- tion of submission, the records do not say.^ And it is in reference to this and not to the former incidents that St. Augustine speaks of some documents having perished. He thinks it ' suitable ' {i.e. reasonable) to suppose that St. Cyprian himself corrected his error ; but supposes that the records of this may have been destroyed by the Donatists. If he did not correct his error, then, says St. Augustine, there was his martyrdom, endured within the unity of the Church, which he had the grace not to leave ; and his suffering would have washed away whatever was faulty in his conduct in this matter. St. Augustine, with the most tender humility, says that he deemed it better to pass over those things which Cyprian poured out in irritation against Stephen (* ea prae- terire meHus ') .^ The whole matter is admirably summed up by a saint who has a special right to speak on such a subject. St. Vincent of Lerins,^ the author of the golden rule that when there has been no authoritative decision on a subject of debate the faithful should see what has been held ' by all, everywhere, and always,' writing in the next century, thus describes the part played by the Pope in this whole matter. » St. Augustine distinctly says that St. Cyprian not only tolerated others, but ' was himself tolerated ' (et ipse ioleratus est) (De Bapt. iv. 9). This must refer to a time subsequent to the third council. He also says that St. Cyprian ' remained in unity with him ' — i.e. Stephen— which implies that there was reconciliation, St. Augustine thinks that St. Cyprian might easily have yielded even to ' one uttering the truth ' {i.e. Stephen), 'which perhaps took place ' {De Bapt. ii. 5). 2 St. Augustine considers only three solutions possible : (1) that Cyprian did not say all that he is quoted as having said, since the Donatists were fond of forging documents ; or (2) St. Cyprian ' afterwards corrected this in unison with the rule of truth;' or (S) his great perseverance {perseverantissiine tenuit) in clinging to the unity of the Church covered this blot. Besides, he says ' there is this, that, as a most fruitful bough, the Father purged away whatever there was in him to be blotted out by the sickle of his passion '—i.e. his ' martjTdom' {Ejh xciii. ad Vincent.). ^ There is something very surprising that a book which is entitled The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome should not contain one solitary reference to St. Vincent of Lerins, who has yet generally been considered (though wrongly) the patron saint of the Anglican theory of universal consent. —300 ST. VINCENT OF LERINS' SUMMARY. 113 ' When therefore they all from every side cried out against the novelty of the thing ' (i.e. rebaptising those who had received their baptism from heretics) ' and all the bishops all round began to resist it each according to his own zeal, then Pope Stephen, Prelate of the Apostolic See, together with his col- leagues, but beyond the rest, withstood [the novelty], thinking, as I presume, that it would be proper if he excelled all the rest in devotion of faith as much as he surpassed them in authority of place.' And ' what then was the upshot of the whole business ? What but the usual and customary issue ? Antiquity was retained, novelty exploded.' ' This happy conclusion seems to have been reached under the successors of St. Stephen.'- The contest was abruptly terminated by the storm of persecution which soon broke over the Church. In a few months' time St. Stephen won his martyr's crown. He has been reckoned a saint both by the East and West.^ He is described as a 'holy and prudent man ' by St. Vincent of Lerins ; and St. Augustine was able to challenge the Donatists to find a flaw in his episcopate."* Almighty God set His seal on his sanctity by permitting miraculous effects to follow from his remains, which now lie in the church of San Silvestro in Capite in the Eternal City, a church which has been granted for the special use of our Catholic fellow-countrymen. Of what passed during the first few months of the year in which St. Stephen attained to his reward we have no record."^ But we know that St. Cyprian ' Vine. Ler. Commonit. c. 9. - Mansi, however, who is appealed to as a kind of oracle in Prim. Saints, p. 328, considers it 2'ossible that this took place in St. Stephen's lifetime. He considers Natalis Alexander more cogent in this matter than would appear from the passage quoted by Mr. Puller. ^ In the Greek Church he was invoked as a martyr on the same day as in the West, but also on the following day, or on Aug. 30 or Sept. 7. In a very ancient Constantinopolitan codex he is spoken of as ' the holy, sacred martyr Stephen, Pope of Rome.' His name occurs in the Menology of the Emperor Basil (cf. Boll. Scr. Aug. 2). It is to be regretted that the author of Tlie Primi- tive Saints and the See of Borne should have deprived of his crown one who wears it with such good credentials. * ' Episcopatum illibatum.' ■■* Some writers consider that St. Dionysius' efforts for peace were then made and were successful. They must have been made under great difficulties for the Bishop of Rome seems to have been under persecution for some months. 114 THE POPE'S PART. a.d. 96 was in full ecclesiastical intercourse with his successor ; and since both Eastern and African bishops dropped their novel custom and their resistance to the decision of Eome, we may assume that St. Cyprian did the same. VII. But why did not St. Stephen issue an ex cathedra decision on the matter of faith, and so end the contest ? It will be better to discuss this question more at large when we come to consider the Council of Nicaea. Meanwhile it may be enough to reply that possibly St. Stephen did not feel that he had at his disposal those means to which the promise of divine ' assistance ' has been made according to the Vatican decree. Infallibility is not the power of stepping forward at any moment and settling a question ; it is only the security of divine ' assistance ' when the successor of St. Peter is led to define. He does not bear definitions within his head at all times, ready to flash out at a moment's notice ; their possi- bility and their materials lie in the circumstances of the Church. St. Stephen felt that his duty lay in securing the prevalence of the right practice ; in upholding the merciful view which he did ; in risking for this purpose the attachment of a great bishop, the Primate of Africa, to the unity of the Church. He probably knew that the attachment of a Cyprian to the Catholic Church would stand the strain, as it did ; and he could leave it for others to elucidate the difficult questions which had arisen, and which were solved by the general life of the Church. The great Archbishop of Alexandria, St. Dionysius, wrote to St. Stephen's successor for guidance on this very subject, alleging as his reason for writing his wish not to go wrong} He thus testified to the confidence which was felt in the guidance of the Holy See, which, indeed, had now piloted the Church through a storm more terrible than that of persecution. It secured a mode of discipline which nearly affected the very idea of a sacrament, and it left the fuU elucidation of the matter to the thought of the episcopate in general. Papal infaUibility has its purposes in God's gra- cious mercy ; but it is not a dens ex machind under all circum- stances. The present Archbishop of Canterbury has noticed, and I fear I must say a little exaggerated, the odds against ' Eus. H. E. vii. 9. —300 GENERAL SUMMARY. 115 which St. Stephen had to contend, and, whilst considering that Cyprian was not actually excommunicated, attributes the victory of Stephen to the justice of his cause. ^ But we may see more than that. His action must have unconsciously im- pressed upon the Church the trust that she could place in her God-given pilot. Not that she could have stated the infalli- bility of the Pope in the terms of the Vatican decree, but that her belief in it was there, amidst the mass of her convictions, mixed up with her general sense of the authority of the suc- cessor of Peter. It was not yet separated off and made to live before her consciousness in distinct and clear outline, for the Church does not live by theological definitions, however much she needs them in view of emergent error. St. Cyprian fought against a particular exercise of authority, not the authority in principle ; but for aught we know he ended by recognising the security of its shelter even in this matter. His can hardly be a test case, because history deserts us at the critical point. But we may believe that ere he won his crown he may have entered more fully into the meaning of our Lord's words, ' I am with you all days,' as he contem- plated the faith of the Eomans, and the power of ' the chair of Peter and the sovereign Church, whence episcopal unity took its rise,' to bind together the Church in unity of faith, even though it involved at times the severity of a father's love. Bishop Freppel thus sums the matter up from a con- troversial point of view. A discussion arises in Asia Minor and Africa on a point of discipline, in regard to which both of the parties equally appeal to ancient custom. The question is new, and touches, on the one liand, the notion of the Church; on the other, the general theory of the sacraments. Two great bishops resolve it in an erroneous sense ; around them people adhere to their opinion ; they possess the prestige of knowledge and sanctity. Further, it must be said, their solu- tion of the question has something in it to dazzle men's minds : at first sight it seems to safeguard Catholic unity, because it traces a deeper line of demarcation between heresies and the Church. Yrell, it needs only a few lines from the pen ' Did. of Clir. Biocjr. (Smith and Wace), art. ' Cyprian.' I 2 116 GENERAL SUMMARY. a.d. 96—300 of the Pope to overthrow all that scaffolding of texts and syllogisms. The partisans of innovation may resist as they please, -write letter after letter, assemble councils ; five lines from the sovereign Pontiff will become the rule of conduct for the universal Church. Eastern and African bishops, all those who at first had rallied round the contrary opinion, will retrace their steps, and the whole Catholic world will follow the deci- sion of the Bishop of Eome. If there is in this an argument against the supremacy of the Pope, we can desire nothing better than that^^our opponents should discover many similar ones in their historical studies. CHAPTER IX. THE THREE SEES OF PETER. I. There is another incident in the Hfe of the third cen- tury which gives us an important glimpse into the relationship that existed between Eome and the rest of the Church. It occurred at a time when the Bishop of Eome and the Bishop of Alexandria were of the same name — namely, Dionysius. They were both saints, and we are indebted to a third saint for an account of the correspondence that took place between them — namely, Saint Athanasius. But to understand the full bearing of the incident to which I allude, it will be necessary to bear in mind what we know of the relationship between Eome and Alexandria from other sources. Now, no one supposes that the Holy See could have often intervened directly, at such a period as the third century, in the affairs of the various provinces throughout the world. We know, indeed, from St. Jerome that in the next century its action was felt over the whole Christian Church in various ways. But considering the nature of intercommunication in those times this could only be occasional. What actually happened was as follows. The ' keys ' were originally given to St. Peter, but the College of Apostles was presently associated with him — each one of them with immediate universal jurisdiction from our Lord, and each secure of divine assistance in promulgating the faith delivered to the Apostolic College, which consisted of Peter (then- head) ' and the rest.' ^ Their infalHbility was necessary for the function they had to perform, that of being the first founders of Christian Churches. It was not needed ' Acts ii. 37. 118 THE CENTEALISATION a.d. 96 after this, and never claimed by their successors, with one exception — viz. the successor of St. Peter. They went out into the wide world and founded sees, without occupymg them themselves. Bemg each of them confirmed in grace and infallible, the position of subordination which they occupied in regard to St. Peter was never emphasised as is the case where there is opposition or rebellion. They left to the Churches which they founded the deposit of truth which they bore with them from Jerusalem. They had no successors in their apostolate, in its fulness. Tlie apostolate — which is of the essence of the government of the Church — lapsed at length m each case into the hands of one see, which remamed for all time ' the Apostolic See.' The rest of the Apostles were succeeded by bishops, and their sees, although apostolic in origin, were no longer apostolic in the full sense of the term, having no longer that immediate universal jurisdiction, and that infallibility in delivering the deposit, which was the peculiarity of the apostolate. They could thus be called apostolic, but in a subordinate sense, and they very soon ceased to be so called at all. The whole Christian world understood what was meant by ' the Apostolic See.' St. Yin- cent of Lerins, m a passage quoted above, does not think it necessary to do more, when speaking of Piome, than to call it ' the Apostolic See.' Whilst the Apostles, as a rule, left no successors of their universal jurisdiction and of their infallibility, there was one exception. It was not St. James,' whose see occupied at the Council of Nice a subordinate position. It was St. Peter, whose see was assumed at that council to possess the Primacy.^ That primacy was, in imnciple, as has already appeared, and as will appear still more plainly when we come to the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, all that it is now in the hands of Leo XIII. II. But in point of fact the bishops who immediately succeeded the Apostles, scattered as they were throughout the ' Hegesippus says of the first Bishops of Jerusalem : irpo-nyovvTai tcdaris in- KAr](Tias i>s fidprvpes Koi ctTrb yivovs rod Kvpiov (Eus. H.E. iii. 32). He is speaking of Palestine, not of the Church everywhere. - Cf. ch. xi. p. 1C8. —300 OF THE CHURCH ROUND 119 world, enjoyed a certain measure of autonomy as a matter of necessity. It was owing to physical circumstances that they were in any measure externally separated, and not from any idea of the value of * episcopal independence.' When Africa, in the next century, pleaded for a court of first instance of a more satisfactory nature, which would diminish their attend- ance at Eome, it was not with a view of cutting themselves off from Eome but of dealing with the witnesses themselves in the first instance, at first hand and on the spot. As a matter of fact the letter in which this matter is (if it is genuine) most urgently pleaded, was signed by a bishop who had at that very time lodged an appeal at Eome against his superior bishop ; so that he could not have been supporting episcopal independence of Eome. Such an idea is, indeed, foreign to the very idea of a kingdom, such as in those days they held the Church to be. And throughout the world, however autonomous, from the stress of circumstances, distant provinces might remain, intercommunication was kept up by epistolce formatce, or letters of communion, between all parts of the Body of Christ. To be outside the circle of Christian life embraced by these literce formatcB was equivalent to being no longer within the Christian Church. There was no idea of an underlying unity when there was external separation of a formal and final character. St. Cyprian expressly repudiates the idea. They knew of one Church, one only Church, numerically one — not many, separated one from the other, and never communicating at each other's altars.' But when, through the withdrawal of the x^pia-fia of in- fallibility which the Apostles each enjoyed, any doubt arose in the Churches as to whether a bishop was handing on with accurate fidelity the deposit of truth communicated by the apostolic founder of a Church (or cluster of Churches), then St. Irenseus' rule came into force. The natural thmg would be to compare the teaching with that of the nearest Apostolic Church, and finally, if need arose (or at once, if opportunity ' Communion might be temporarily susiDended, as it was for thirty-five years during the Acacian schism, but in such cases it is clear that it was sus- pension, and not a perfected breach. 120 THE SEES OF PETER. a.d. 96 occurred, or the occasion called for it) with the Church of Eome, with which it was necessary to agree, said St. Irenfeus, ob potentiorem 'principalitatem, hecause of her more jDOwerful principaht3\ And as the lapse of time separated men from the days of the Apostles, they looked more and more to the permanent Apostle of the Christian Church, the one predestined seat of infallibility and universal jurisdiction. It required the fortunes of time to bring out the powers of her ' Apostle.' But such the occupant of the See of Eome was from the first — not as confirmed in grace, nor possessing inspiration, but as secured from error by special divine assistance under certain circumstances of his teaching. The amount, therefore, of intervention on the part of the Holy See in the affairs of the Church might be expected to increase with the growth of the means of intercommunication. Nothing in the history of the Church up to this hour has gone beyond the principle involved in St. Clement's letter to the Church at Corinth. But the principle has expressed itself more vividly and widely with the expansion of the Church. And the measure of autonomy forced upon the scattered com- munities of the early Church during the days of persecution would naturally give way to increasing centralisation, as the possibilities of exhibiting her law of unity multiplied. III. Meanwhile that external unity which is a note of the Church was being matured in the circles of Christian com- munities which were nearest to the centre of unity. The Bishop of Eome and his council of bishops formed the first and central knot. But from the first there was a wider circle, embracing a large portion of the East, distinctly gathered round this centre. Three great sees appear in the early Church, each of them counting St. Peter as the head of their catalogue of bishops. Each of them was a See of Peter, for at one (Antioch) St. Peter himself resided temporarily, and to the other (Alexandria) he had sent his disciple St. Mark, whilst he lived for a longer period, and died, at Eome. These two sees, therefore, occupied quite a unique position in Chris- tian history. In the language of St. Gregory they were, with the See of Eome, the three measures of meal which the woma.n took and leavened the whole. They appeared at —300 APPEAL TO ROME 121 Nice with prerogatives which were left untouched, as being * ancient.' Each of these sees occupied from a secular point of view a great central position, but each of them traced its real glory in the Christian covenant to its connection with the Prince of the Apostles. The Church, then, was not as many seem to imagine, all but invertebrate in that third century, but was already highly organised. There was no such thing as episcopal indepen- dence. The two commanding sees of Antioch and Alexandria, with their immense provinces of subordinate sees, as soon as they come into the full light of history, appear in a relation- ship of subordination to Rome. For instance, in the latter half of the third century Alexandria conducted herself on a most important occasion as in such a relationship, under the following circumstances. IV. The Sabellian heresy had sprung up in the region of Pentapolis, which, as we know from the 6th Nicene Canon, belonged to the ' Greater Metropolitanate ' (or, as it was after- wards called, ' the Patriarchate ') of Alexandria. The Patriarch St. Dionysius had on a previous occasion written to Pope Xystus II. on the subject of rebaptism, giving as his reason for writing, 'that I may not err' (Euseb. 'Hist. Eccl.' vii. 9). He now wrote to Xj-stus' successor, named also Dionysius, to inform him of the fact that the Sabellian heresy had emerged under his rule. And at the same time he wrote to two of the Egyptian bishops. In his letters to these bishops he laid great stress on the reality of our Lord's humanity. This caused certain persons in the Province- not merely (as Canon Bright expresses it ') 'some Africans,' but 'brethren,' probably bishops ^ of the diocese^ of Alexandria— to suspect him of leaning towards the Arian heresy. And in consequence the Arians afterwards quoted him as on their side. St. Athanasius, in a graphic account of the whole matter, indignantl}'' repudiates the accusation ' ' The a^jpeal or application to a BishoiJ of Eome on the part of some Afi'icans,' &c. (Bright's Iloman Claims tested by Antiquity, p. 9). -' It is j)ossi6Ze, but unhkely, that pure presbyters would thus appeal straight to Eome ; a^i\(Tat. Bishop Pearson's suggestion (Si^Kwaas) does not siiuare with tlic course of events as narrated in the same paragraph. And there seems no motive for the suggestion except that it gets rid of au awkward fact. - St. Athan. in Sentciitia DionysiL —300 APPEAL TO HOME 123 the obstinate resistance of its bishop to the ruling of no less than three synods. Paul of Samosata (so called from his birthplace) had denied the Divinity of our Lord and the per- sonality of the Logos. The Logos, according to this bishop's heretical teaching, was only the Divine wisdom infused into the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was therefore called the Son of God. His position as Bishop of Antioch and his great ability were sufficient to alarm and disturb the whole Eastern Church. The Bishops of Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor assembled in synod in the year 264 and condemned his teaching. Paul promised amendment in some respects, in others he denied the charges. A second synod, however, had to meet in consequence of his continued heterodoxy, and then a third, and he was ultimately deposed and excommunicated. But he refused to give up the episcopal palace to Domnus his successor, and the bishops appealed to the emperor to enforce their decision. Aurelian, who was the emperor, decided that whoever received letters from the Bishops of Italy ^ and the Bishop of Kome must have the episcopal residence. Piome gave its letters to Domnus, and Paul was extruded. Now it may be said that it was very natural for the Emperor of Piome to exalt the Bishop of Piome, and if it were not for the historical context in which this method of solving a dispute between bishops occurred, one might easily, with Gibbon, set it down to a natural desire on the part of a heathen emperor to draw all matters. Christian as well as civil, to one centre. But not even a heathen emperor would try to appease a quarrel amongst Oriental bishops by a mode of action alien to their ideas of propriety, such as this would have been on any but the Papal theory. But the imperial settlement occurred in that same second century of the Church's life,^ in which St. Victor had acted as one who had the right to determine the conditions of inherence in the common unity ; in which St. L'enaeus said that all Churches must resort to, or agree with, the Church of Eome because of her more powerful principalship ; in which an emperor had expressed his fear of a bishop at Piome as of a rival to his own position of authority ; in which the Bishop of Piome ' = the Papal Consistory : cf. p. 124. ^ Counting from Pentecost. 124 FROM ANTIOCH. a.d. 96 had temporarily settled the question of the rebaptisation of heretics, jDending a general council, relying avowedl}' on his succession to Peter ; the century in which another Bishop of Kome had received an appeal against the Bishop of Alex- andria, and the latter had proceeded at once to clear himself from the charge of heresy — all these witnessing to a general conviction on the part of bishops and Popes that the * chair of Peter ' was the normal centre of the Christian Church, and making it natural for an emperor who wished to see peace restored, to refer the matter to the Pope and his council as the recognised arbiter of Christian disputes. The emperor was just then at Antioch, after his victory over Zenobia, and seventy bishops had decided against the Patriarch Paul. It would therefore have been natural for the emperor to settle the matter at once in favour of Domnus, had he not seen that it could be settled by a higher eccle- siastical authority in accordance with the rules of the Christian community. It is reasonable to suppose that either the bishops at Antioch themselves suggested the reference to Piome as the final court, as Ballerini suggests, or, as the Galilean Fleury supposes, that ' it was sufficiently notorious even to the heathen that the true religion of the Christian body lay in communion with the Eoman Church.' ' The judg- ments of Rome were invariably passed in synod — in a synod not of all the Italian bishops, but of a select number, varying according to circumstance. They were the normal organ of Papal decisions. To this synod the emperor had the matter referred,^ for, says Bossuet, he had noticed that the Christian body was contained within the communion of the Pioman Bishop.'"' Accordingly Eusebius praises the action of the emperor as ' most religious.' ■* Thus in those primitive days no idea of the independence of national Churches seems to have entered the mind of the Christian community. The whole Church was one vast ' Hist. torn. ii. lib. 8, c. 8. * Throughout the whole history of the Church up to this clay the Popes have been accustomed to act in concert with some kind of consistory. ' Discours sur I'Hist. vniv. * Eus. H. E. vii. '60 : aio-iwraro xe^'l roii vfaKriov 5ifi\ij not as a positive proof of that doctrine, but as a reply to the various conjectures on which the writers above quoted rely, arguing from the supposed silence of the fragmentary records which we possess, and particularly of this canon. The argu- ment advanced by Dr. Bright and emphasised by the Bishop of Lincoln, to the efiect that if the Church had believed in the supremacy of the Church of Kome, it must have said so in this canon, may thus be met in two ways : first, by insisting on the precarious nature of the argument from silence, in the absence of the Acts of the Council ; and secondly, by showing that it cannot be fairly deemed bej^ond dispute that this canon was not meant to give the authority of Eome as an all-sufficient reason for these Fathers not venturmg to inno- vate on the customary relationship of Alexandria to her suf- fragan sees. There is, moreover, this indisputable fact, on which Pope Nicolas I. laid stress in his celebrated letter to the Emperor Michael, that whilst the council described the juris- diction, more or less, of Alexandria and Antioch, it did not do the same in regard to Kome. Piufinus, indeed, supplies us with some information in regard to the patriarchal jurisdic- tion of Eome, speaking of the suburbicarian churches, but as his interpretation is not generally accepted as part of the canon, we cannot say under what form mention was made of those churches. IV. This whole contention will be greatly strengthened if ■we consider the probability that this canon had for its head- ing, or rather, for its first sentence, the words read by the Eoman legates at the Council of Chalcedon, viz. ' The Church of Eome always held [or. Let the Church of Eome always hold] the primacy.' ' Aetius, the Archdeacon of Con- stantinople, is supposed to have read out a copy of the canon without this heading. But there is no suggestion in the Acts, as we have them, that this was by way of contrast to the legates' version, which came from Lilybreum. It is hardly ' The full reading is very likely ' Let the ancient custom remain that the Church of Eome should,' etc. (cf. Vincenzi, De Sacrd Moiiarchid Hebr. et Christianorum). Canon Bright is hardly fair in saying ' the Prisca Versio tries to blend the original with the Eoman gloss.' The Prisca Versio is a real authority, and from an old Greek version. — 88i AT CHALCEDON, COIIRECT. 171 conceivable that he should have read this canon at all ; for each side was asked to read the canons on which they relied. The Papal legates relied on that portion of the Sixth Canon which places Alexandria and Antioch, and not Constantinople, next to Eome ; the Easterns relied on the Third Canon of Constantinople. Aetius probably read this alone, and not the Sixth Canon, which carried on the face of it his condemnation — in fact, the bishops' resolution had departed from the canon which Aetius did read, being, as Dr. Bright euphemistically phrases it, ' more astute than candid,' ^ or, as we might put it, somewhat dishonest. The imperial commissioners, in sum- ming up, decided that from all that had gone before it was clear that Eome held the primacy, but as that was not the point in question, they proceeded to the subject of Constanti- nople's place in the order of sees. The occurrence of this Sixth Canon in what the Arch- deacon of Constantinople is supposed to have read, is probably due to the copyists, one of whom put the Sixth Canon in the margin, and another eventually introduced it into the text, a most frequent mode of corrupting the text, as all textual critics are aware. So that, so far from the legates' version of the Sixth Canon read at Chalcedon being a forgery,^ it is probably the insertion of the other version which is, I will not say a forgery, but an error in the transcriber.^ Thus the Council of Nicaea, as a whole, suggests the unique position of the Bishop of Eome as something more than that of the Duke of Norfolk to the rest of the English peerage."* It does not discuss Papal jurisdiction ; for, on the hypothesis of its truth, it would be beyond the province of a council to enter upon such a question, which neither was, nor could be, submitted to its consideration. It did not speak of Papal infallibility ; it had met together to show that the teaching of the West was also the teaching of the East, to express the ' Canons of the First Four General Councils, 1892, p. 223. ^ As the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Bright, and Mr. Puller assert (cf. Prim. SS. Preface, p. xxi.). * For a further treatment of this subject, cf. infra, on the 28th Canon. * The simile selected in Prim. SS. 172 NO ACTS EXIST. a.d. 300—384 unity of the teaching Church, and to settle a question of the first importance in regard to jurisdiction in the East, in the settlement of which it alleged the practice, or the cognisance, of the Bishop of Rome as its sufficient warrant for adhering to the long-established relationship between Alexandria and its suffragan bishops. It cannot be too often repeated, in view of the argument from silence, that the Acts of the Coun- cil are not forthcoming, having been, it may be, destroyed by the Arians when in possession of the Eastern sees. And besides the work of destruction, these heretics were busy in the work of forgery. Consequently, we have to be careful about arguing from what we do possess, and still more careful about arguing from what we do not possess. It is not until we come to the Council of Ephesus that we are able to see the Church in conciliar action in the comparative daylight of anything like adequate records.^ ' I do not forget St. Athanasius' work on the Decrees of the Nicene Synod ; but that does not validate the argument from silence. CHAPTER XII. THE POPES THE GUARDIANS OF THE NICENB CANONS. After the Council of Nicsea it seemed as if the Church had entered upon an era of triumph. But one catastrophe changed the whole face of things. A bishop with Arian sympathies gained the ear of Constantino, and henceforth the w'hole weight of imperial influence was brought to bear upon the establishment of heresy. St. A.thanasius seizing, as he once did, the bridle of the emperor's horse, and insisting upon his abating his opposition to the Catholic Faith, but in vain, was a symbol of what was going on. Constantino was persuaded that he was enforcing the Nicene Faith ; and Eusebius was victorious all along the line, in both mounting himself, from throne to throne, in the teeth of Nicene regulations, and in deposing the orthodox bishops. And the weapon that he vic- toriously opposed to the Council of Nice was a synod convoked by the emperor.' It was a line of action to be repeated in the history of the Church — viz. a synod of bishops, under the influence of the Crown, deciding as to the government of the Christian Church. And it entered upon the platform of Church histor}- under the patronage of the deadliest foe that the Church has ever known. It was the darling project of an Arianising emperor under the influence of an Arian bishop. In this case, however, the bishop was the foe, the emperor the instrument. It was not yet the theory of the independence of National Churches, but it was akin to it, and its natural parent. The supremacy of the Crown was ousting the supremacy of the Holy See. Imprisoned or exiled bishops in communion with the See of St. Peter (reminding us of ' For an interesting expansion of tluK, see The Throne of the Fisherman, by T. W. Allies, ch. vi. 174 SAINT JULIUS THE POPE a.d 300 events in the sixteenth century) were the immediate result of the alHance between Church and State which sprang up through the wily machinations of Eusebius, Bishop first of Berytus, then of Nicomedia (when the Court was there), and lastly (on the Court's removal), Bishop of Constantinople. In concert with the emperor, the whole constitution of the Church was soon further assailed by the attempt of Eusebius' successors to base the jurisdiction of patriarchs, not on their connection with Apostolic origin, but on the secular position of their city. It was the world against the Apostle ; the crown against the crozier ; Cfesar usurping the prerogatives of Peter. Constantinople, but a few years ago, was a spot all but unknown, whose bishop was suffragan to the Bishop of Heraclea. Now it was New Rome, and its bishop aspired to be a second Pope. The Pope was the successor of St. Peter, and therein his strength lay ; but that Apostle had selected the centre of the world for the base of his operations, and as the centre had shifted, why might not the new imperial city be also the centre of a new patriarchal jurisdiction ? The answer ^as, that Peter, not Cfesar, is the governor of the Christian •Church. And under the difficulties which now emerged, in some •sense the greatest that the Church had as yet had to meet, the government of Peter became the salvation of the Faith of Nicfea. As the Church entered upon her new course of alliance with the State, the Eastern bishops more and more discovered a fatal weakness incident upon their proximity to the new centre of secular power on the shores of the Bosphorus. On the other hand, the genius for government and the inherent strength and majesty of the Holy See became more and more pronounced, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulties. It is evident that the full meaning of the Nicene canons could only gradually make itself felt ; and the same is true of the guardian of those canons, viz. the Apostolic See. The history of this eventful period is orientated by a remark made by St. Gregory the Great in reference to a later Bishop of Constanti- nople : * As to what he says, that he is subject to the Apostolic See, I know not what bishop is not subject to it, if any fault be found in bishops.' When ' fault is found in bishops ' then —384 ASSERTS HIS JURISDICTION 175 the primacy develops its stores of wisdom and authority to correct the fault. This is precisely what happened in the post-Nicene period. Until then, as Mr. Allies points out in his 'Throne of the Fisherman,'' bishops had not learnt to struggle with one another for place and power, and the need of a head was not so keenly felt. But when ambition came to curse the East, then came out to view the controlling power of the Sovereign Pontiff. This, then, is the salient feature of the next fifty years after Islicsea, viz. the Holy See ' confirming the brethren ' ^ in the East. The Court bishop in the East was the new factor in the Church's life and the source of unceasing trouble. Court and bishop together did their best to deprave the Church's faith. They must have succeeded but for the unbending firmness of the Holy See, for a council could not guard its own canons. So far the Apostolic tradition had been guarded by the See of Eome ; and now the position at once occupied by that see, when the Fathers of Nicpea had dispersed to their various homes, was precisely that of guardian of the Nicene inter- pretation of the Apostolic tradition against refractory and Erastian bishops. The government of the Church was, in fact, not merely episcopal but apostolical ; episcopacy was unequal to the strain that ensued, but the Holy Apostolic See gave strength to the episcopal brotherhood. It was in the course of the struggle that now ensued between Catholic and Erastian bishops that St. Julius, the reigning Pope (who, after the short reign of St. Mark, had succeeded St. Sylvester, the president of the Council of Nicfea), wrote a letter of even exceptional importance, which has been fortu- nately preserved to us by the care of St. Athanasius. This letter has an important bearing on the Nicene canons ; it is quoted at length by St. Athanasius, and it affords irrefragable witness to the existence, in the Nicene period, of the entire claim on the part of Rome to a divinely instituted authority over East and West alike. It has, moreover, in view of modern discussions, the advantage of having been protested against by those who were opposed to the Nicene Faith. And yet its ' Ch. vi. « St. Luke xxii. .32. 176 OVER ALEXANDRIA, ad. 300 author, St. Julius, was canonised by the Church, and his name figures in St. Athanasius' Hfe and writings as the great defender of the faith. ^ His letter, which St. Athanasius gives with obvious approval, deals with a canon drawn up by a synod of Eastern bishops, which was meant to silence St. Athanasius himself. The Emperor Constantius, listening to the falsehoods by means of which the Eusebian heretics succeeded in deposing Athanasius, Eustathius, and Paul, the orthodox bishops respectively of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, had assembled a council of bishops at Antioch, who passed the following canon : — * A bishop who has been deposed by a council may not resume his office, nor be restored by any subsequent council, if, after his deposition, he has dared to execute ecclesiastical functions.' The canon was specially aimed at St. Athanasius, who had been * deposed ' by the Council of Tyre, and after his return from banishment had zealously resumed his work as bishop. This Council of Tyre was an assemblage of bishops presided over by the Arian emperor, determined to oust St. Athanasius from the See of Alexandria, and the Council of Antioch had thus stamped this sj'nod with the character of finality. ' But,' says Socrates, * Julius, Bishop of Old Rome, was not there, nor did he send a repre- sentative, although the ecclesiastical canon express^ commands that the Churches shall not make ordinances contrary to the judgment of the Bishop of Eome ' (ii. 8). And Sozomen says (iii. 10): 'Julius wrote that they had acted against the canons because they had not called him to the council, the ecclesiastical canon commanding that the Churches ought not to make canons beside the will of the Bishop of the Romans.' They had chosen to have their own council under the emperor in isolation, although, as Theodoret says, ' Pope Julius, adhering to the law of the Church, both commanded them to repair to Rome and summoned Athanasius to trial ' (*H. E.' ii. 4). 'Both they and we were summoned,' says St. Athanasius himself.^ ' Mr. Puller, in his Primitive Saiyits, dc. p. 1.38, has nothing to say against St. Julius. He even calls him saint, a title which he denies to every other Pope in that century. * Apol. c. Ariaji. n. 1. —884 ST. ATHANASIUS APPROVING. 177 These bishops, then, averred that the decision of the Council of Tyre should not be subject to appeal, on the ground that it was a council of bishops under imperial leave. It was on this point that the Eoman Pontiff at once joined issue in his celebrated letter preserved by St. Athanasius. In the course of that letter he accuses these bishops of violating the discipline of the Church. They had condemned the Bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius. But * why,' asks St. Julius, ' was nothing said to us about the Church of Alexandria in particular ? Are you ignorant that this is customary, for word to be written to us first, and then for a just sentence to be passed from this place ? If, then, any suspicion rested upon the bishop there, notice thereof ought to have been sent to the Church of this place [i.e., Eome] ; whereas, after neglecting to inform us, and proceeding on their own authority as they pleased, now they desire to obtain our concurrence in their decisions. . . . Not so have the directions of the Fathers prescribed. This is another form of procedure, a novel prac- tice. . . . What we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter, that I signify to you.' ^ It was, then, according to St. Julius, a novel practice in the middle of the fourth century for a council of bishops to proceed to censure the second Petrine See, that of Alexandria, on their own authority, instead of obtaining a just sentence from Rome. The latter, he says, was the usual course, sanctioned by antiquity. And the authority thus to decide was, he adds, derived to Piome from ' that which we have received from the blessed Apostle Peter.' And this was under the very shadow of the Nicene Council. To this the reply of the Eusebian heretics was that ' it was not his [Julius'] province to inter- fere.' The Eusebians, in their endeavours to overthrow the Nicene faith as to our Lord's Divinity, adopted the programme, as we learn from St. Hilary, that things settled by a council in the East should be simply accepted by the West, and vice versa. It was all important for their cause that they should not be interfered with by the unyielding orthodoxy of the Apostolic See. They did not dream of a province settling ' Athan. Hist. Tract., Lib. of FatJiers, p. 56. 178 THE SARDICAN CANONS a.d. 300 such things all by itself, without any communication with the rest, not even if the whole East were to be called one province — that would have been to rend the Church in twam — but they did hope to withdraw themselves from any active intervention on the part of Kome, such as had hitherto obtained as a matter of course. But, as we have just seen, both Socrates and Sozomen — Eastern historians — and Theodoret and St. Athanasius (by implication) speak of the idea of canons being made without the concurrence of the Bishop of Eome as unheard of up to that time. But what is still more important is that the Council of Sardica (if the Sardican canons were really passed by that Council) or the Nicene canon itself (if the Sardican canons are really Nicene) condemned the Eusebians in this their endeavour to settle matters of high importance without reference to Kome. It will be necessary, therefore, to devote our attention to the canons which go by the name of Sardican. § 11. — The Sardican Canons. I have elsewhere^ shown that it is quite possible that these canons represent actual decisions of the Nicene Fathers ; but whether this be so or not, they certainly embody the mind of the Church in the fourth century. Only seventeen years after Nicaea St. Julius could speak of the ' custom ' of referring judgment on the Bishop of Alexandria to Eome as one of the directions of the Nicene Fathers, with the approval of St. Athanasius, himself Bishop of that Eastern city. Let us, then, waiving the question as to whether they are actually, or only virtually, Nicene — passed, that is, at Nicaea, or an accredited appendix to that council, passed at Sardica — examine their witness on the subject of appeals to Eome. Three are of special importance in relation to this subject. I. Canon Three decides against bishops passing from pro- vince to province, * lest we should seem to close the door of charity.' If this were Sardican, it may have had special regard to Eusebius, who had passed from Berytus to Con- stantinople ; if Nicene, it may have been concerned with his passage from Berytus to Nicomedia, where he was bishop ' Cf. Appendix II. —384 CONDEMN IMPERIAL 179 when the Council of Nicaea sat. The canon further provided that in the event of a bishop having a ' case ' against another bishop the metropoHtan should convene a provincial synod. If the accused lost his case he was not to be allowed simply of himself to appeal to some neighbouring bishops, as was the tendency, but if he wished it, an aj)peal was to be arranged for him, and in the same region. There is no question here of appeal to Eome in the full technical sense. But ' Julius, the Bishop of Eome ' (if that be the true reading— for some copies have ' Sylvester,' which would be the true reading if the canon was Nicene in its origin), was to be asked to settle the judges that should form the new synod, if it was thought well for the case to be reheard. In deciding this, which consisted in asking Eome to select the judges, the unusual formula adds as a reason, * Let us honour the memory of the Apostle Peter.' Supposing this to be Sardican, it would con- tain a judgment upon the Council of Tyre. The irregularity of that council consisted in the fact that not only did the emperor call a council without consulting the Holy See, but he actually selected the judges. The Greek historian Socrates says of the Council of Antioch : ' Julius, Bishop of Old Eome, was not there, nor did he, indeed, send a representative, although the ecclesiastical rule expressly commands that the Church shall not make canons without the consent of the Bishop of Eome ' (ii. 8). It is difficult to suppose that Socrates refers to anything here but a canon of Nicaea. But be that as it may, the device of the Eusebians was a radical innovation on the constitution of the Church. Had such a course been permitted, Arianism, which was so successful in attracting to itself first Constantine, and then, still more decisively, his son Constantius, would have gained the day. Had it been allowed to the emperor to convoke councils for cases of appeal, without reference to the Holy See, as Con- stantine had done in the case of Tyre, and Constantius in the case of Antioch ; had it, moreover, been permitted to the Crown to appoint the judges, the most fundamental feature of the polity of the Church would have been destroyed. It would have ceased to be Apostolical in its government ; and, when the empire was separated into various nations, each \ 2 180 AND WELCOME PAPAL a.d. 300 tribe would have had its own independent national Church. The theory of independent national Churches would have become a fact, the unity of the Church would have disappeared, and the guardianship of the hoi}' faith been rendered im- possible. No wonder, then, that the Sardican Fathers, if the canon was theirs, determined still to honour the memory of the Apostle Peter ; or that the Nicene Fathers (whose canon we may suppose it to represent) in view of fundamental principles necessary in the immediate future, rather than of such bitter experience as the Sardican Fathers would have had, said amongst themselves, * Let us honour the memory of the Apostle Peter,' in the future as in the past ; and that the African Fathers, in this their commentary recorded these utterances of Nicene Fathers used m the discussion about the canon. II. Canon Four deals with. appeals to Kome. What was to happen in the case of bishops who, having lost their cause in the second court, had thence appealed to Rome? Their see must not be occupied by another. This was a matter which the Nicene Fathers could easily foresee would be likely to happen in the future, or if the canon be Sardican, this had already arisen ; and here it is no longer the informal utterances of members of the council, and the particular occupant of the Holy See is no longer mentioned. It is now simply • the Bishop of Rome.' III. Canon Seven, again, deals with the case of a bishop who, having been condemned in the court of first instance — viz. the synod of his province — appeals, without recourse had to a second sj'nod, straight to Rome. It will then, ac- cording to the canon, belong to ' the Bishop of Rome ' to say whether he thinks it is a case for revision ; and if he decides in the affirmative, it will rest with him either to remit the case to the bishops of the province adjoining that in which the condemned bishop lives, or to send a legate a latere, who can undertake the case, either b}- himself or in conjunction with the bishops of the neighbouring province." ' I have here adopted Jungmann's interpretation of these canons in pre- ference to Hefele's. The Ballerini have an invaluable dissertation on the —884 INTERVENTION IN 181 IV. Now these canons obtained reception eventually in the East as well as (at once) in the West. They were, strangely, unknown in Africa during the first part of the fifth century ; but the African bishops were in a small minority, and the canons were eventually incorporated even in their African code. They must, therefore, be admitted to represent the mature judgment of the Church, or, to be more accurate, the matured expression of her mind. Men cannot put themselves back into the beginning of the fourth century, and into the position of some African bishops (for the evidence is against St. Augustine having refused to receive them when fully made known) ; they cannot adopt as the basis of their permanent position an episode in the life of one portion of the Church which did not represent its maturer thought — they cannot, I say, do this — which is what some have claimed to do, and then call themselves by the name of Catholic. Constantinople and Alexandria, although their (probably corrupted) copies of the sixth Nicene canon did not contain these said provisions, had not a word, so far as history tells us, to say against the justice of the regulations contained in these canons ; whilst they certainly incorporated them even- tually, as did Africa herself, into their code. And yet these canons suppose a mode of unity which is irreconcilable with any but the Papal form of government. They barred the possibility of independent national Churches. They nipped that natural tendency in the bud. They do, indeed, condition appeals to Eome, but they assume their necessity. They do not inaugurate them. In neither of these canons is the question entertained as to whether there ought to be appeals at all. They suppose that there will. The thu'd canon does not deal with appeals to Eome at all — in the strict sense of the word, it only provides for requests to Eome for the selection of judges in a fresh local court of appeal. Hence all that has been said about the words ' Let us honour the memory of the Apostle Peter ' inaugurating appeals to Eome falls to the ground. Bubject in their unrivalled edition of St. Leo's letters, but Jungmann's treat- ment leaves nothing to be desired (Diss. Hist. Eccles. vol. ii. pp. 15-27. Ratisbon, 1881). 182 CASES OF APPEAL. a.d. 300 V. But even if this canon could be proved to deal with direct appeals to Eome, it would be fair to argue that the memor}' of the Apostle Peter may be just as much honoured by adhering to an old custom as by a new arrangement. That is to say, the words do not indicate a novelty. And the defence which has been set up, that the canon specially mentions Julius by name, and that therefore the arrangement applied to him personally, and to him alone, in his lifetime, fails to account for the previous words, ' Let us honour the memory of the Apostle Peter.' It is as successor of Peter that Sylvester or Julius is to be asked to appoint judges ; and Julius' successors were, equally with himself, the successors of the Apostle Peter. But the fourth and seventh canons do deal with the subject of appeals to Eome, and in them, at any rate, the name of the Pope is dropped, and the general term for the oflfice is used. Whether, then, Nicene or Sardican — whether already in existence or soon to be passed, these canons bear out the statement of Julius to the Eusebians that they had offended against the established order of the Church in not recognising that, in the case of ordinary bishops, the appeal lay eventually from East to West, and that in the case of the Bishop of Alexandria the appeal lay straight to Eome.' Before passing on, it may be well to notice a fallacy con- cerning the relationship of the Popes to the canons. It is often said that, for instance, St. Leo denounced the third canon of Constantinople on the ground of the Nicene canon, and it is suggested that this is a sign that he could not fall back on his own authority simply.- But the obedience to the Nicene canons, and indeed to other canons of the Church, which the Popes professed, was an act of natural justice, not ' Dr. Bright lays stress on the fact that St. Julius uses the word ' all,' say- ing that the Eusebians should have written to ' all of us.' But the word ' all ' obviously means all those bishops who were then in Home, of whom there were several from all parts. And the sequence of the letter, which contends that, in accordance with the rule of the Ciuuch, they should specially have written to Eome about Alexandria, establishes the principle of Eome's relationship to her, viz. that of judge. * Bright's Hist, of the Church, p. 417, 3rd edition. —884 WHY POPES QUOTE CANONS. 183 submission to a superior power. The canons that they guarded, and by which in many matters they considered themselves strictly bound, were passed by themselves or by their predecessors, through their assent and confirmation. They were not, therefore, a hyper-Papal power, ruling the Popes themselves, for they acquired their force from the Popes. They were, therefore, bound by them in the same way that a king is bound to respect the laws where they affect his conduct, not because they are superior to him, but because he is bound by the natural and divine law to set the example. As St. Ambrose said to the Emperor Valentinian, * What you have prescribed to others you have prescribed to yourself, for the emperor passes laws which he should be himself the first to keep.' ' And Theodosius and Valentinian themselves say, ' It is worthy of the majesty of him who reigns to profess himself bound by the laws.' '^ The Popes could dispense from the observance of the canons, as St. Leo dispensed Maximus of Antioch from the results of an irregular ordination, and the council received him as bishop avowedly on the ground of the Papal dispensation ; ^ but they were bound, in natural justice, or in supernatural charity, not to dispense without legitimate reason. When, then, a Pope quotes a Nicene canon as the ground of obedience on the part of others, he does not place the canon above himself, but avows his natural obligation to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, unless cause can be shown why he should in a particular case allow others to withdraw themselves from the operation of the general rule. Note. — That the third Sardican canon does not relate to appeals to Eome is proved by the facts that the original judges, not the guilty party, are to write to Kome, and that this canon was not mentioned in the discussion between St. Zosimus and the African bishops as to the best mode of procedure in regard to appeals. In the fourth canon it is to be noted that the effect of the appeal to Rome is suspensive. The bishop is spoken of as seeming > Ep. 32. ad Valent. " De Leg. et Const. (1. i. Cod. tit. 14) : ' Digna vox est majestate regnantis, legibus obligatum se profiteri.' ' Cf. p. 435, infra. 184 THE SAEDICAN CAXONS. a.d. 800—384 to be deposed, not actually deposed, until Kome has spoken. There IS nothmg here about the case being heard in the region in which it arose. It was obviously to be heard at Rome. The seventh canon contemplates another quite different case, and one in which the case wds to be heard in the province. Mr. Puller appears to have blended them into one ; hence his idea that no cases were to be carried to Rome (' Prim. SS.' p. 158). But the seventh canon deals with the case of a bishop passing by the regular stages of appeal, and hence the provision that the case should go back to the province, and not to Rome, as Canon Four implied.^ For the witness of Photius to the reception of these canons in the East see Appendix II. adfinem. ' Cf. Jungmann, loc. cit. CHAPTER XIII. THE REIGN OF LIBERIUS. § I. — His Personal Grandeur. I. More than half a century elapsed before the second oecu- menical council met, and even this was not convoked as such, for the ordinary government of the Church does not lie with general councils, but with the bishops in union with the Holy See. It was to Rome that men looked in the anguish of those days, and not to general councils. In one sense, indeed, the eyes of all were for a while turned to the great Bishop of Alexandria ; but St. Athanasius himself looked to Rome. Had the government of the Church rested with independent National Churches, or with an East independent of the West, the Church must have sunk under the Erastianism of imperial Christianity, and the restless activity of Eastern speculation would have wrecked the faith. Constantius, one of the most dangerous foes that the Church has had, could deal with the fickle, quarrelsome, over- subtle Eastern mind ; but with the West and its determined adherence to the Nicene settlement, and its consciousness of strength in the possession of the Apostolic tradition, he could do nothing. His success against Athanasius was at one time terrible ; it was only checked by one obstacle — he could not gain the occupant of the Holy See. That see was occupied by one whom the Greek menology in its calendar of saints calls ' the blessed Liberius, defender of the truth,' and he threw the shelter of his impregnable position round the Bishop of Alexandria. The heathen historian Ammianus Marcellinus tells us how this one exception meant every- thing, and how the emperor could not rest satisfied whilst he had left one stone unturned to win the Roman Pontiff. 186 LIBERIUS* LAPSE A..D. 300 Liberius had succeeded Julius. The latter had consoli- dated the work of the Nicene Council by his brilliant and persistent justification of Athanasius. Liberius received the mantle of Julius, and like Julius stood on the rock of Apostolic tradition. He could say, * Never was it my own statutes, but those of the Apostles which I guarded and carried out.' ' Constantius, accordingly, set to work to win Liberius, which St. Athanasius says would have been equivalent to winning the whole Church to his side. But neither threats nor bribes availed to move the aged pontiff. Firm as a rock he went into exile, ' the admiration of all,' in the words of Athanasius. St. Jerome's account, if genuine, is plainly inaccurate, and in direct contradiction to that of St. Athanasius ; for according to St. Jerome — if (I repeat) that passage is genuine — Liberius, before he set out, signed an heretical formula. We may dismiss this as certainly untrue. He went forth, says St. Athanasius, ' the admiration of all.' IL What he did towards the end of his two years' exile and ill-treatment we shall never know. We know from Sozo- men that the atmosphere was thick with Arian calumnies, and that these calumnies did not spare the Pontiffs. Li this case it would seem that calumny, which loves to shoot its arrows in the dark, availed itself of a period in the life of Liberius of which we have no authentic information, to sug- gest that his return from exile was due to his having signed against Athanasius. The formula he signed has never been produced, nor can anyone say what it was. Forgery has been busy about it; for all accurate writers now admit, as Canon Bright does in the second edition of his * Church History,' that the * Fragments of Hilary,' on which the accusations have mainly rested (as for instance in Dr. Pusey's * History of the Councils'), are, at least in great part, spurious. The passage in St. Athanasius' ' Apology,' on which Mr. Gore relies, does not speak of a fall, but merely of Liberius not having com- pleted his term of exile. The passage in the * History of the Arians ' was written before the supposed fall took place. And Father Bottalla, S.J., has completely demolished the idea that ' Ep. ad Constant, n. 3. —384 NOT PROVEN. 187 St. Athanasius added it afterwards.^ Eve7i if it were genuine, it denies tJiat the incident in Bcroca counted for anything. And there are, besides, these facts, that neither Socrates nor Theodoret alludes to the passage, although they had St. Atha- nasius' work before them as they wrote ; that Nicej)horus Callistus, whilst following Sozomen in his account of matters up to this, drops him here ; and that Eufinus, though * with his bark full of malice,' as St. Jerome describes him, was unable to find a reason in St. Athanasius' works for the return of Liberius, which confirms the idea that the passage was not at that time to be found in those works. As for St. Jerome's witness, those who take their stand on this cannot take it as it is, but are obliged to correct it on one point, which opens the door for a further correction, viz. the excision of the rest, which has no contemporary evidence in its favour. The fact is, that St. Jerome is to be revered for his knowledge of Holy Scripture and his eminent sanctity, and as a witness to the Church's teaching ; but in matters of his- tory he is sometimes at fault.- Sulpicius Severus, Socrates, and Theodoret are more to be relied on, when they agree ; and they agree in knowing nothing of any fall of Liberius. And, further, the passage about Liberius does not occur at all in the famous manuscript of St. Jerome which the Queen of Sweden gave to the Vatican, and which belongs to the sixth or seventh century. There is, however, another form of evidence which needs to be emphasised. There was in the time of Liberius an active correspondence carried on by the bishops all round. They speak of the councils held, the professions of faith adopted, the zeal of some bishops, the defection of others. There is mutual encouragement and sympathy in the distresses of the times ; but there is no mention, no distant allusion, to any idea of Liberius, the Pope, having subscribed a suspicious formula or condemned Athanasius. And j'et the principal events of the time were known to these numerous bishops. There is also correspondence between Liberius and ' AutoriU dti Pajpe, vol. i. pp. 239-41 (1877). * It is quite another matter to set aside his teaching as to the faith, as Mr. Gore and Mr. Puller do. 188 HIS STAND A.D. 300 Athanasius, but no consciousness of injury in the past nor demand for renewed affection in the future. No. What Liberius did sign for certain was all in support of Athanasius. What he did sign, as matter of history, was the condemnation of the heretical Councils of Tyre, Aries, Milan, Ai'iminum ; he did sign the confirmation of the Catholic Synods of Eome and Alexandria. The authentic acts of his pontificate include a definition of the Divinity of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity ; the reconciliation of the Macedonians ; the mission of Eusebius of Vercellfe, and of Lucifer of Cagliari to the East ; the nomination of Elfidius as legate to Sclavonia ; a letter of congratulation and encouragement to the bishops exiled for the faith, as well as general decrees touching the attitude to be maintained towards the penitent signatories of Ariminum.' III. But one of these episodes in the life of this great Confessor for the faith deserves further mention, for it stands on a level with that described by St. Athanasius, and it entitles him to be considered the special instrument of the great head of the Church for ' confirming the brethren ' at this eventful period of her history — I mean his action in regard to the Council of Ariminum.^ More than 400 bishops assembled there. The legate of the Holy See presided at the opening. It had all the conditions of an oecumenical council so far ; it would only need the final confirmation of the Roman Pontiff. It began well with excommunicating the heretics that were troubling the Church ; but its numbers after an interval, at the emperor's command, fell off as it continued its sessions, and its end belied its beginning. The legate of the Holy See withdrew, and the bishops, whose number was still very considerable, were induced to send deputies to the emperor who were completely overawed by the imperial presence. So great was the heretical emperor's anxiety to force them into accepting a semi-Arian programme, that although engaged for the onerous ceremonies of initiating new consuls on the following day, he sat up through the greater part of the night occupied with pushing on the signatures to the heretical ' Bevue des Questions Historiques, vol. i., art. ' St. Liberius.' —384 WHEN OTHERS FELL. 189 creed. The bishops of the East in the Bimultaneous Council of Seleucia were equally pliant to the emperor's mission. Eventually, scarcely more than eighteen or nineteen bishops in Christendom remained uncompromised. It was then that, in the language of St. Jerome, ' the world found itself Arian, and groaned.' The faith had suffered an eclipse in the episcopal body. Who was to save the position ? It fell to the lot of one man to stand in the breach — and that man was Liberius. The aged pontiff had once said to the emperor, in his memorable interview with his Majesty at Milan (when told that on that occasion, too, he would stand alone), 'If I am alone, the faith will not fail.' He knew himself to be the Atlas whom our Divine Lord had appointed to bear the world of Divine Revelation on his shoulders, on which the govern- ment of the Church had been laid. Another occasion for proving the truth of his courageous utterance had now come. Liberius found himself alone face to face with the triumphant Arians, who had overreached the Catholic episcopate at Ariminum and Seleucia. He saved the situation. In the tremendous troubles that beset the East, which led St. Basil to appeal so earnestly to the West for help, St. Damasus was able to point out to the Eastern bishops that 'he whose judgment was to be looked for before all others ' had deli- berately refused his assent to the Ariminian formula.' The three illustrious exiles, Athanasius, Eusebius, and Hilary, had not signed, and the bishops who had been entrapped, as St. Damasus explained, in the East and West, by the wary formula, were with them in heart. But the express repudia- tion of the formula rested, for the moment, with Liberius, and Liberius did not fail. He authoritatively rejected the proposed formula, and, in so doing, unchained afresh the emperor's wrath. He had once more to leave his beloved Eome — whether for the Catacombs or at a greater distance is not certain — but only to return and erect, through the devotion of his orthodox flock, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, and to receive the retractation of the penitent signatories of Ariminum, as one who had himself never failed. ' Cf. infra, p. 209. 190 HIS MEMORY CHERISHED a.d. 300 Such was the second Pope after the Nicene Council — * the most blessed bishop Liberius,' according to St. Basil; 'the Pontiff of blessed memory,' according to St. Epiphanius ; 'the great Liberius, the most holy Liberius,' according to Cassiodorus, and ' in all things most renowned ; ' * the thrice holy bishop,' according to St. Ambrose ; and, in the words of Theodoret, * the illustrious athlete for the faith.' In the Menology of the Greeks, he is a saint distinguished as ' the blessed Liberius, the defender of the truth,' ' whose zeal for the orthodox faith caused him to undertake the defence of the great Athanasius.' His exile is there related, and his return, but not a whisper of any defection, the account ending with saying that ' he died at Kome, after having governed his flock well.' § 11. — The Meletian Scandal at Antioch. But I am anticipating. Liberius had the conduct of another affair, which ended less happily. I. After the disaster at Ariminum — when the whole body of bishops, saving a few great saints such as Athanasius and Basil in the East, and the Sovereign Pontiff in the West, had yielded to imperial pressure and signed a semi-Arian confes- gion — the Church seemed likely to receive still heavier blows at the hand of the new emperor, an apostate from the faith. But it was Juhan's policy to let the bishops slaughter them- selves by intestine divisions ; and, accordingly, they were allowed to return from their various places of exile and re- sume their episcopal duties. Liberius, ever foremost in the faith, at once entered upon the work of pacification and ecclesiastical discipline. He pro- ceeded to lay down the rules by which the Church should be guided in reconcihng those who had in any way compromised themselves by complicity with the manifold forms of Arianism.' Antioch was naturally one of his chief cares ; and he influenced and authorised the great Bishop of Alexandria to convene a council to consider the position of affairs in that central see of the East. The council at Alexandria adoped the rules laid > Cf. Acta Sanctorum (BoUandist), Sept. 23, § 195, 6, 7. —384 ST. MELETIUS AT ANTIOCH 191 down by the Sovereign Pontiff,' and did its best to conciliate the differences that divided the-CathoHcs at Antioch. The origin of these differences was as follows. St. Eusta- thius had been exiled from Antioch through the influence of the Arians. Amongst other things they had suborned a woman to asperse his moral character, who afterwards con- fessed her perjury. After his death, Meletius had been elected bishop under circumstances which rendered his appointment open to serious objection. He had been to some extent ' led astray by the stranger's hand,' to use St. Gregory of Nazianzus' expression — i.e. he had coquetted with Arianism. According to the Arian historian Philostorgius, he had * feignedly professed the heterousion."^ According to Socrates, he had signed the semi-Arian profession of faith put forth at the Council of Seleucia.^ According to St. Epiphanius, he belonged to the party of Acacius, which, if true, was a most serious blot on his life.-* According to Nicephorus Callistus, he had been originally elected to the bishopric of Sebaste through the suffrages of the Arians.'^ Sozomen said that he was returned by the Eudoxians, the most thorough-going Arians.*' The See of Antioch being vacant, through St. Eustathius' death, he was promoted to that important post. According to St. Jerome, he was ' transferred to Antioch by the Arian bishops Acacius and George.' But it seems that St. Eusebius of Samosata was assured of his having embraced the orthodox faith. St. Eusebius was perhaps, as Bollandus thinks, the instrument of his conversion. His change was kept a secret from the Arians, but known to a certain number of Catholics in Antioch, who in consequence voted along with the Arians for his appointment to the see. In view of what might happen, when his conversion became known, the Catholics had a written document drawn up concern- ing his appointment by the Emperor Constantius, w'hich ' Cf. Letter of St. Athan.re&d at the second Council of Nicasa (Mansi, torn. vii. col. 75, 6), in which he says of the provisions for the restoration of the lapsed : ravra Kal iv "Pwf/xi fypa. Cf. Mr. Puller's contention that the Meletians were the nuclens of the Church. An expression of St. Basil's (mistranslated, as it seems to me) cannot he placed over against the definition of this council sitting avowedly as judge in the matter ; yet the position assumed in The Primitive Saints and the See of Borne involves the preference of the former to the council's judgment. —384 AT ANTIOCII. 197 the Council of Constantinople was about to declare was already taught under anathema. Liberius had already issued an authoritative decree on the subject.^ This, however, by the way. The Acts of the Council of Alexandria were eventually taken by Eusebius and Lucifer to Kome and submitted to the Pope, who confirmed and approved them.^ The point, however, that particularly concerns our present purpose is that the Synod of Alexandria emphatically en- dorsed the action of Paulinus and his party. It also relieved them of the difficulty of accepting the ministrations of Mele- tius, whilst it recognised the Eustathians under Paulinus as the really orthodox party. It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of this synodical decision. Had Mr. Puller, in his * Primitive Saints and the See of Piome,' given to it its due weight, the whole of his contention about Meletius must have been seriously affected.^ He would hardly have given us to understand that the Church of England is prepared to sink or swim with the orthodoxy and Catholic position of the Meletian party at Antioch from the beginning. He would hardly have drawn a parallel between the followers of Pau- linus and the present Church of Eome in Lngland on the one side, and the followers of Meletius and the Church of Eng- land on the other. What conciliar judgment with Papal legates has validated the election of Archbishop Parker ? And what comfort is to be drawn from the fact that the followers of St. Meletius were told by St. Athanasius and the Alexandrian synod to join themselves to Paulinus and his disciples ? But, further, the Council of Alexandria entreated the episcopal commission at Antioch not to insist on any other conditions, in the case of those who assembled at the Palsea, and also bade the party of Paulinus to put forth nothing but ' Socrates, Hist. Eecl. 2 Cf. Papebroch, Vita S. Luciferi, c. v. 45, Acta Saiictorum. ' Pp. 165-7. He seems to have been misled by the Benedictine editor of St. Chrysostom, whose words he quotes as his authority ; but the Benedictine editor is more cautious than Mr. Puller : he only speaks of the endeavour of St. Athanasius, and in terms more capable of being reconciled with the facts than are Mr. Puller's, taken with their context. 198 LUCIFER, TIIE LEGATE, ad. 300 what was put forth at Nicaea. Moreover, it decided that the question of the Three Hypostases, as between the East and West, was one of terms only ; and it recommended that they should all meet together at the customary place (not at the Palsea) and settle the future place of divine worship accord- mg to the wish of all. III. Thus the peace between the two parties seemed in a fair way to be concluded by legitimate authority. A council of Alexandria had, of course, no sort of right by itself either to purge the election of a bishop in Antioch of its irregularity or to settle matters in general for the great Oriental see by an episcopal commission, much less to elect a new bishop. And yet it seems as though the commission were to superm- tend this also, in case the Catholics in general should not select Meletius,' But the council was acting with the Papal legate ; ^ and the legate Eusebius proceeded to execute his commission in conjunction with his brother-legate, Lucifer of Cagliari, who was already on the scene. It was, however, owing to the precipitate action of this latter bishop that the proposals of the council fell to the ground. On arriving at Antioch, after leaving Eusebius to proceed to Alexandria, according, it would seem, to their mutual arrangement, Lucifer, having sent some one to represent him at Alexandria, found both parties without a bishoj). Meletius had not returned from exile, and the Eustathians had only the priest Paulinus to lead them. From all we know of St. Lucifer,'' his whole soul would go forth towards the Eusta- thians, or party of Paulinus. They had never compromised, and he was uncompromismg to a fault. They had never worshipped along with Arians, and his horror for the Arian heresy was unbounded. They had stood the brunt of the battle ; their fiery zeal for the proper Godhead of their cruci- fied Lord had stood the test of thirty 3'ears. All the exquisite beauty of Meletius' character could not now tempt them to ' Cf. Acta Sanctonim : S. Lucifer, May 20, c. 5. 2 Ibid. Vita S. Libcrii, § 195, 6, 7. ' Tillemont is mistaken in supposing that the Luciferians were so called because they followed Lucifer into schism ; they were disciples of his who went beyond him after his retirement. His retirement was not a schism. —384 COXSECKATED PAU LINUS, 199 condone the irregularity of his election, and his still (as they deemed it) too tender dealing with the Arian heresy. St. Lucifer accordingly decided to use his papal faculties, as he deemed it certain that anyone who was on the scene would feel justified in doing. He determined to act before the re- turn of Meletius, and, assisted by two bishops,' he conse- crated Paulinus, against whose character for orthodoxy and personal holiness no whisper had ever been heard, and who had been selected as leader, rather than thrust himself for- ward. But St. Lucifer had not counted on the devotion of the people of Antioch to the person of Meletius. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the panegyrist of St. Meletius, thus describes the state of matters in his eloquent discourse on peace : — ' Since, being men, we are liable to sin, our fault was that of loving our pastors to excess, and that we could not discover which of two good men was the more to be preferred, until we agreed to admire them both alike.' ^ He emphatically denies that there was any difference as to doctrine, in spite of St. Basil's assertion to the contrary. He says to the heretics : 'However much you may desire it — i.e. to find a quarrel between us as to doctrine — it is in vain ; " besides this there is nothing" — i.e. nothing but undue attachment to our several pastors.' IV. The commission of bishops, with Eusebius at its head, now arrived in Antioch with their peace-making programme, only to find that the proposals of the Synod of Alexandria had been rendered futile by Lucifer's hasty action. The Eustathians were devoted to their new bishop, and delighted to find that their prmciples in the past had received the sanction of Rome and Alexandria. The Meletians, on the other hand, were not unnaturally sore at the new conse- cration, devoted as they were to the gracious and winning personality of the bishop, whom they had with such question- able diplomacy helped to the throne of Antioch. Eusebius was naturally disappointed with his brother-legate. If ' Cf . Jerome, Chronicon, and Tillemont, Ltic. de Cagl. iv. - An endeavour has been made to connect this with another passage in St. Gregory's life. With what success cf. Merenda, De Vita ct Gestis Damasi, c. 18, § 2. 200 WHICH PROLONGED a.d. 300 Eufinus' account be taken literally, he refused to communi- cate with either party. But considering that he is found shortly afterwards in close co-operation with Lucifer, before the latter shut himself up in Sardinia, we must understand Eufinus to mean that he did not decide as to the legitimate occupant of the see. Of course, if St. Lucifer had held no legatine faculties, and if the jurisdiction of Rome over Antioch had not been acknowledged on all sides, the case would have been simple enough. His consecration of a bishop in Antioch would have been a flagrant act of schism. Neither St. Atha- nasius nor St. Gregory, nor even St. Basil, could have spoken and acted as they did, unless they recognised the right of the Apostolic See to consecrate a Bishop of Antioch. They must have called it what it would have been, the most monstrous act of interference with the rights of Antioch. But they betray no distant consciousness of any lack of validity in the appointment on the score of the consecration. All that St. Basil, the most determined opponent of Paulinus, resented was that his friend should be ousted. All he pleaded for was that he should not be ignored. All he determined was to communicate personally with Meletius, of whose orthodoxy he was sure, and not with Pauhnus, about whom he thought Eome had been misled. He had against him in this St. Athanasius and the Council of Alexandria, who had thoroughly investigated the question, besides St. Epiphanius (no mean authority), some eighty Egyptian bishops, and the entire West. But he declares that if anyone should come from heaven itself, and yet should be demonstrably not walk- ing according to the sound word of faith, he would not com- municate with him — an innocent resolve, which is that of every Catholic at this hour. Eusebius, on arriving at Antioch, expressed his disapproval of Lucifer's action, and yet felt himself unable, with his present powers, to make any amicable settlement of the diffi- culty. It was the orthodoxy of the Eustathians, and the sanction given to their position by the Council of Alexandria, that constituted the difficulty. For, although the council purged the election of Meletius of its original stain, it had made Paulinus and his party the nucleus of Catholic life —384 THE RUPTURE. 201 round which the Meletians were to gather, and over which it was hoped St. Meletius would be chosen to preside by the spontaneous action of the whole Catholic body. But now that Paulinus had been (however unwisely) ordained by one who had authority to act in the name of the Apostolic See, and had been enthusiastically accepted by the orthodox Eustathians, there was, on the one hand, a difficulty in ignor ing him, and, on the other hand, the impossibility of making him the only bishop. There is no parallel in the history of the Church to the state of things which thus arose in Antioch. And, accordingly, Eusebius, declaring it ' wellnigh incurable,' seems to have left Antioch without coming to any definite conclusion. He probably felt that the thing must work itself out, and that meanwhile he could only have recourse to Eome. Thither, with Lucifer of Cagliari, after transacting other business elsewhere, he appears to have taken the de- crees of the Alexandrian Synod for the confirmation of Libe- rius and his account of what had happened in Antioch.' The further development of the matter belongs to the reign of Damasus. Note. — It will be seen from the facts adduced above that Mr. Pul- ler in his book ' The Primitive Saints and the See of Rome,' has given a version of the history of St. Meletius which is inconsistent with the facts of the case as a whole. He has ignored the real character of St. Meletius' election. He has misrepresented the judgment of the Council of Alexandria. He says, * it recommended that the whole body of Cathohcs should unite together,' ^ whereas it said that the Meletians should unite themselves to Pauhnus and his party. He is wrong about Lucifer having ' immediately afterwards ' broken away from the Church. It is, to say the least, a moot point whether he ever broke away ; it is certain that he did not imme- diately afterwards. Paulinus was not ordained by Lucifer without assistant bishops, as Mr. Puller states. There is no discussion (which was at least needed, if not an admission) of the legatine position of Eusebius and Lucifer. Consequently his readers would ' ' Tulerunt secum Acta Concilii ambo Legati et in Latinum transtulerunt et Eomam poitaveiunt ad Liberium, qui omnia confirmavit et approbavit ' ( Vita Eusebii ex Archivio Verccllcnsi). '■' P. 105. 202 ST. MELETIUS. a.d. 300-384 gain quite a false idea, if they trusted to the version he gives, of the whole affair. There are other points in his account which will come under notice later on. It will be seen also that Dr. Pusey's assertion, quoted by the Bishop of Lincoln (Preface to ' Prim. SS.' p. xxiii), viz. ' St. Meletius, even while president of this second General Coimcil, was still out of communion with the West,' is not borne out by the facts of the case. CHAPTEE XIV. ST. DAMASUS — THE CHAMPION OF THE * CONSUBSTANTIALITY ' OF THE HOLY GHOST. I. LiBERius having attained to his reward, the great Dama- sus sat on the Fisherman's throne. Ozanam, in his graphic de- scription of the Church in the following century, says that until the accession of Leo the See of St. Peter had been occupied by saints and martyrs rather than by what we should call men of genius, and that in St. Leo the Church salutes the first genius in a Poj)e. There is some truth in this. The foundations of the Church's order were certainly laid by the hands of saints in the first three centuries, and, as we have seen, their normal end was the martyr's death. Indeed, the Popes being the infallible guardians of Divine tra- dition, there was, if we may so say, a certain fitness in their being conscientious even to sanctity, rather than learned in the world's judgment ; zeal for the faith — that divine love of truth which will not brook or comprehend in the Church's net the teacher of false doctrine — is what we should most expect in the early occupants of that see which was set for the preservation of the deposit of revealed truth. And such, as a matter of fact, was the characteristic feature of the early Popes. But in St. Damasus we have something more than this. He was a man of learning as well as of piety ; a patron of art as well as a master of the spiritual life. ' Karely, if ever, in the history of the Church ' (says Dr. Lightfoot), * has a great leader been fired with such zeal for recording the Christian heroism of the past.' ' He was, moreover, a man of prodigious activity, and at the same time of singular ' Apostolic Fathers, Part I. ' St. Clement of Home,' vol. ii. p. 444. 204 THE CHARACTER a.d. 300 caution. He was too, says St. Jerome, ' the virgin Doctor of the virgin Church.' But although St. Jerome impHes that there was an ascetic side to his hfe, he seems to have en- deared himself to every class of men. He was called by his schismatic opponents ' the friend of diggers,' in allusion doubtless to his familiarit}^ with the workers in the cata- combs and their affection for him ; he was called the friend of matrons, doubtless in allusion to the fact that the Eoman matrons saw in him an embodiment of true religion, and lavished their wealth on his schemes for the improvement of the city (of which the traces remain to-day), or for the better- ment of the poor, or the improvement of the condition of the clergy. To Samt Athanasius, who must have known him well during his stay in Eome, he was the * beloved Damasus ; ' in Theodoret's eyes, looking at him from a distance, he was the rejDroduction of the great Bishop of Carthage, and * con- spicuous for the sanctity of his life.' ' The emperor soundly scolded St. Damasus' schismatic opponents for disturbing the calmness of his ' most holy mind.' St. Ambrose, who knew him personally, speaks of him as * the holy Damasus elected by the judgment of God.' Few characters come before us with more manifold recommendations than that of Damasus. His poems are at once scholarly and touching. "S^-liat can be more exquisite than his poem on Projecta, what more touch- ing than that on his sister Irene, whom he hopes to meet in a better world, and by whose side he asked to be buried ? Half his life, he says, has gone from him on losing his sister in her twentieth year : Non timui mortem cckIos quod libera adiret, Sed dolui fateor consortia perdere vita\ But Damasus was above all a ruler. He ascended the throne at a time when firmness and prudence were, above all things, necessary ; and the Sixth General Council is witness to the one, when (with a play on his name) it calls him ' the adamant of the faith,' ^ whilst Theodoret says that * there was nothing that he was not prepared to say and do in behalf of the Apostolic teaching ; ' •' and St. Basil is a reluctant wit- ' H. E. V. 2. '^ Adfiaaos 6 aod/j-as rfjs Tn'o-reais (Mansi, t. xi. p. GGl). * H. E. V. 2. —384 OF SAINT DAMASUS. 205 ness to his caution in dealing with the East. Ambrosiaster, bearing witness to his official position (in spite of his own Semi-Pelagianism), really describes the main feature of his life when he speaks of the Church as * the house of God, of which Damasus is now the ruler.' But though a ruler, he was, to those who knew him, meek and gentle ; St. Jerome, his inti- mate at one time, was particularly impressed with his mild- ness ; and the title, ' Servant of servants,' which he adopted, which has been used by the Popes ever since, points to his humility. His position was one that needed this pivot of the Christian life, for on the one hand no man was ever more maligned by his enemies, idolised by the Christian world, or placed on a higher pinnacle by the policy of a Christian emperor.' It is not without special interest that to him also we owe the recitation of the Gloria after each Psalm in the divine office ; whilst, above all, it is to his desire and en- couragement that one of the greatest gifts of God to Holy Church is to be traced — the translation of the Holy Scriptures into what we may call the vulgar (or common) tongue of Christendom by St. Jerome. It is to be regretted that some recent writers have taken the side of schismatic and heathen authors, rather than that of the contemporary Christian world, in regard to this great Pope. Dr. Littledale has a passage on Damasus which re- produces the venom of the ' Libellus Precum,' written by two bitter schismatics, whose statements have been proved, where they could be checked, to have been shamefully false ; ^ and more recently Mr, Puller has argued from the surroundings of the saint, and from a passage from Ammianus Marcellinus, the heathen historian, to the effect that St. Damasus must himself have been guilty of a luxurious mode of life.'' Does Mr. Puller think that at a time when the throne of Peter was ' What is the real value of the saying of Prsetextatus (quoted by Mr. Puller as evidence of Papal luxury), ' Make me Bishop of Rome, and I will become a Christian to-morrow ' ? A Hindu might say the same to the Archbishop of Canterbury — would it be any reflection on his Grace ? Tertullian says that the heathen said the same of Christians in his day: which destroys Mr. Puller's application (Apol. p. 131). * He quotes them alone as his authority, » Primitive SS. pp. 140, 141. 206 HIS PREVIOUS LIFE. a.d. .'iOO taking the place of the altar of Victory, a pagan historian would be a stranger to the seductive whispers of envy ? Is a pagan historian to be trusted altogether in regard to the very Pope who, at the risk of his life, gave the death-blow to paganism in the cit}^ of Eome, and conspired to destroy its last altar ? No doubt it would be something in favour of Mr. Puller's thesis if it could be shown that pure worldliness led to the position which the throne of Peter occupied in the days of Damasus ; ' but we need something more than the sugges- tions of a heathen historian, and a petulant expression that fell from the pen of St. Basil, writing to an intimate friend, to counterbalance the unanimous witness of the contemporary Christian world in favour of the * virgin Doctor of the virgin Church.' 2 St. Damasus had a good preparation for his life's work. He must have seen St. Julius and conversed with St. Atha- nasius, and he was the secretary of St. Liberius. He followed the latter, part of the way at least, out of the city when he went forth an exile for the faith ' to the admiration of all,' as St. Athanasius describes him ; some think, but without suffi- cient ground, that he followed him to Beroea. He at one time managed the ecclesiastical affairs of the city in the absence of Liberius ; and he had a great deal to do (under the latter and in concert with Hilary, of Poictiers) with the restoration of the bishops who had lapsed at Ariminum. He was therefore a special object of aversion to the Luciferians, in whose eyes a moment's dallying with heresy was an unpardonable sin. These same men were probably the authors of the calumnies ' Cf. Primitive SS. pp. 140, 1. On p. 136 Mr. Puller says that Valen- tinian's edict ' had to be publicly read in the churches of Eome.' Damasus himself adopted this unusual course in his zeal for the reformation of his clergy. Mr. Puller's account of the bishops of the fourth century (p. 134, scq.) needs to be checked by the facts given by Thoniassinus, Disc. Eccl. t. ii. part. ii. lib. iii. cap. 101, and a grand passage in Dollinger's Hist, of the Church, Period II. cap. V. § 1 : ' The wofd bishop was synonymous with just and upright administra- tion of the law.' - St. Jerome, Ep. ad Pammachimn. Ammianus Marcellinus laid stress upon the gorgeous attire in which St. Damasus appeared in public, and con- trasted it with the robes of bishops in the country. Leo XIII. also wears the most gorgeous oflicial robes, and yet he almost lives on air —384 HIS ELECTION. 207 both against Liberius and Damasus.' But no accusation could be successfully manipulated against the faith of Dama- sus ; for there was no occasion (as in the case of Liberius) when he was removed from public ken, and when their calumnies could escape unchecked. But, in concert with the Jew Isaac, they attacked his moral character ; only, however, to draw from all sides fresh witnesses to his sanctity. II. When Liberius died, Damasus was his natural and fittest successor. He was immediately elected by the vast majority, and duly consecrated — ' elected,' says St. Ambrose, * by the judgment of God ; ' ^ only four out of the forty presbyters of Eome went with his foe. There was no com- petitor for the throne at the moment when Damasus was elected. Ammianus Marcellinus, looking at matters from the outside, sees in Damasus and Ursinus merely two rivals for a great position. But Damasus was seated on the throne when the opposition began ; he was the bishop, and the only bishop, on Cyprianic principles, ' since there cannot be a second after the first ; and whoever is made such after one who ought to be the only one, is not a second, but no bishop at all.' St. Jerome expressly says that it was after an interval, however short, that a rival bishop was started (' post non multum temporis spatium,' ' Chronicon').'' Rufinus says that before the troubles began, Damasus ' had received the episco- pate in the city by succession after Liberius.' He did not, therefore, mount an episcopal throne through streams of human blood. ^ But Damasus having been elected and consecrated, not long — it may be immediately— afterwards, Ursinus, a deacon, stirred up a party against him, and succeeded in getting him- self elected and consecrated on a single day,"^ contrary to the ' Cf. Stilting's Life of St. Liberius in the Acta Sanctorum. * We could hardly have a better judge of the matter than St. Ambrose. * 'A few days after ' (Dollinger). * Primitive Saints, dc. p. 140. It is strange that Mr. Puller should content himself with saying that ' Ammianus Marcellinus divides the blame equally between the two competitors.' Just what a heathen would do. Mr. Barmby (Diet, of Chr. Biog. iv. 1009) thinks it a merit that Ammianus ' shows no bias on the one side or the other of the contest.' * Damasus waited the usual time. 208 HIS RULE A.D. 300 canons, by the BishoiD of Tivoli, an old and rough bishop, who usurped for the occasion the office of the Bishop of Ostia. His party seized on the basiHca which Liberius had erected on theEsquihne in honour of our Lady, and in the endeavour to prevent the people, who sided with Damasus, flocking into it for their usual worship, a mvUe ensued. A savage Prefect of Corn, a considerable official, who took side with Damasus, mismanaged the matter, and a scene of bloodshed ensued. The whole matter (which included two frays) was, as Eufinus, a contemporary writer, says, ' turned to the prejudice of the good and mnocent bishop ' — i.e. Damasus. The judgment of the Prefect of Italy, a heathen, was against Ursinus as ' the author of the dissension ' — so at least we may gather from an expression of Valentinian's. And in the second fray, whilst the Prefect of Ital3% who was then, it would seem, under the influence of Isaac the Jew, sided against Damasus, the vicar of the city corrected the judgment of his co-official, and Ursi- nus was banished the city. St. Damasus built a basilica at Nola in thanksgiving for his release from the trouble. III. No sooner had the reins of government been placed * by the judgment of God ' in the hands of Damasus, than he entered upon a course of procedure which characterised his whole reign. Like others before him, but with still greater frequency, he conducted the affairs of the Church in concert with other bishops. The council was his instrument of rule. So much was this the case that presently ' The Westerns ' and Damasus presented themselves to the East as one man. St. Basil sets it down to their own sins that things were so different in the East. He and the bishops that agreed with him saw in the West a unity of faith and action which they fairly envied. But this unity was not obtained without a struggle. Milan, the imperial residence, was the scene of discord at the beginning of Damasus' reign. Ursinus seems to have suc- ceeded in stirring up the embers of Arian misbelief outside Rome, and it found a champion in Milan in the bishop Auxentius. The bishops Ursacias and Valens, the old oppo- nents of St. Athanasius, together with Auxentius, were busy in the same mischievous work. St. Athanasius looked to Ptome for the settlement of these difficulties. Already Eome —384 THAT OF A CENTRAL 209 had acted with vigour sufficient to induce St. Athanasius to say, writing to the African bishops, ' We thank him ' {i.e. ' our beloved Damasus ' as he had just called him) ' and those who met in the great city, that by casting out Ursacius and Valens, and others who thought with them, they had pre- served the peace of the Catholic Church.' But St. Athanasius imagined that not enough had been done with regard to Auxentius. Various synods had met and condemned them, but Eome, he thought, had not yet spoken plainly. Accord- ingly he expressed his surprise that Auxentius had not been ' cast out of the Church.' ' But in reality, Damasus had done more than St. Athanasius knew of. He had not only con- vened a council and reaffirmed the Nicene faith against Ursa- cius and Valens, but he had condemned Auxentius in an encyclical, in spite of the support given to him by the emperor. And he had written in the name of the synod to the Illyrian bishops, and through them to the East, a letter which was to set men's minds at rest as to the value of the Council of Ariminum, in which so many bishops had failed. This letter is of great importance as evidence of the posi- tion held by the Holy See in the mind of the Church gene- rally. It appears from St. Athanasius that nothing less than a Roman synod could authoritatively allay the disquiet abroad. But the value of a Roman synod could obviously only be rated thus by reason of its being an expression of the mind of the Bishop of Rome ; for the rest of the bishops had no more influence than an ordinary Eastern prelate. Damasus then tells the Illyrian bishops, and through them the whole East, that they must not allow their minds to be swayed by the great number of the bishops who went astray at Arimi- num. In this matter numbers do not count, ' for,' he says, ' it is evident that neither the Roman bishop ' — i.e. Liberius ' whose judgment was the one to be looked for before all, nor Vincentius, nor others, gave any consent to such decrees.' Now it cannot be supposed that Vincentius and a few others ' eavudCoyTf^, irm /i«xP' ""'' ov KadvpfBri Ka\ (K0e0Knrai ttJs 'EKKhrja-lat. In what follows I have, for the most part, followed Merenda, whose monograph on St. Damasus is to be found in Migne's edition of that Tope's letters, and seems to me a masterpiece of accurate reasoning. P 210 SOURCE OF JURISDICTION. a.d. 300 could outweigh the immense number of lapsed bishops in the disastrous Council of Ariminum. Nor could Vincentius, and a few others, jj/?/s the Eoman bishop, counterbalance such numbers, unless there were something special in the position of the latter bishop. Damasus, however, and his synod could assume in those to whom he wrote a recognition of the singular position of the Roman bishop, whose refusal to sign the Ariminian confession nullified the effect of the vast de- fection on the part of the bishops. The sjaiodal letter also speaks of the bulwark against heresy raised by the Nieene Creed. Tlie Western bishops were, be it remembered, writing to the East, and they thus described the Nieene Council : ' Our ancestors, three hundred and eighteen bishops, directed from the city of the most holy Bishop of the city of Rome, a council having been arranged at Nicrea, erected this bulwark against the de\'irs weapons.' Later on ^ the Illyrians assented to the Roman programme, condemned certain heretics, and announced their adherence to the ' Consubstantial Trinity.' But equally important from another point of view is the letter of the emperor accompanying his confirmation of the decrees of the lilyrian bishops. He warns bishops against pleading in the East the faith of their emperor, for that, he says, would be disobedience to the scriptural command, ' Render unto Caesar the things that are Csesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' There was, therefore, no confusion in theory at this time between the temporal and spiritual order— a fact to be remembered when we come to the Rescript of Gratian. The Western emperor only gave civil privilege to that which the spiritual authorities them- selves decided. So far, then, the Bishop of Rome comes before us as the centre of Christendom at a time when the imperial residence was at Milan, and when some of the greatest bishops that the Church ever possessed were engaged in the conflict for the ' The chronology here is exceedingly diiTicult. Mansi and Merenda bring in Valentinian's action here. Hefele gives reasons for supposing it to be some- what later, in the same year as his death (cf. Hefele, ii. 289 ; Merenda, Gcsta Damaai, sub anno 370). —384 Ills GUAUDIANSIIIP. 211 orthodox faith. This central position of the Bishop of Eome will appear still more clearly as we proceed. Milan, Treves, Sirmium, Thessalonica, Constantinople, possess in their turn the imperial court ; but the headship of the Church remains at Eome. There, hemmed in by an idolatrous prefect, a mixed senate (of which pagans formed the larger i)ortion), a disunited clergy, cosmopolitan heresy represented by the sectaries of Africa, Syria, the depths of Spain, organised calumny incited by the Jew Isaac, and above all, at one time, an anti-Pope at the Esquiline, Damasus proceeded with his work of ruling the Church from Great Britain to Africa, and from Gaul to Constantinople.^ No mere headship, such as the Duke of Norfolk possesses amongst the English nobility, will explain the attitude of the Church in general towards the Bishop of Eome ^ in this fourth century. IV. It was the special glory of Damasus that it fell to his lot to guard the Church's faith on two essential points, and to condemn the leaders of the two heresies that took the place of Arianism, during his long and fruitful reign. On both these questions the great St. Basil proved unequal to the task of discerning the germs of evil, and dealing with them with decision. His fight— and no words can describe the grandeur of his stand — was at the first against Arianism ; and he ended with writing one of the most magnificent treatises that the Church possesses on the Divine glory of the Third Person. But when Apollinarius started his heretical teaching the Easterns could not l)elieve that one who had deserved so \ve\l of the Church had fallen into a new heresy, and Basil least of all. Basil, indeed, thought Apollinarius 'ready to say any- thing,' but would not openly condemn his doctrine and break with him. Whilst wellnigh the whole East was resounding with his heterodox position, St. Basil would not allow him- self to think of him as the victim accused of a funda- mental heresy ; and he managed to furnish his enemies with weapons of which it needed all the dexterity of an Athanasius to turn the point. There can be no question that Basil was absolutely orthodox on the point himself; l)ut he did not see ' Damase, par I'Abbe Callen (Paris, 1871). ^ This is the iliustratiou selected by Mr. raller, Prunilive SS. p. 229. p 2 212 OF THE FAITH. a.d. 300 the danger that threatened the Church from Apollinarius. Yet this heretic had begun to organise ; he was gaining a following among the bishops, and the East was in danger of being overrun with Apollinarianism as before with Arianism. But, as the Eastern historian notes, ' Damasus, Bishop of Rome, and Peter of Alexandria, having discovered the beginning of the new heresy, condemned it in a council held at Eome as contrary to the Catholic Faith.' ' The same was the case with the Macedonian heresy which in part occasioned the Council of Constantinople. It was for a while dealt with too tenderly by the Greeks. St. Basil even incurred blame for his charitable tolerance of it. No blame, indeed, properly attaches to an individual saint for not per- ceiving the germs of heresy as they first appear ; but at this critical moment in the Church's life, when Arianism was being put to death, it is to be noticed that, as a matter of fact, the Holy See was the source of strength to the episcopate in meeting the new forms of heresy that arose upon its grave. That see might be expected to be occasionally deceived by persons who dissimulated to gain its support, as in the case of Yitalis ; but in regard to the doctrine at issue it was as a matter of fact the unerring judge.'^ And the strength of its occupant lay as well in the divine assistance which was pledged to his office as in his own perpetual consciousness of his relationship to the Prince of the Apostles. Thus he says of his promotion : Hinc mihi provecto Christus cui summa potestas Sedis Apostolicte voluit concedere honorem.' To the Easterns he wrote : ' It redounds principally to your own honour, most honoured sons, that your love pays the reve- rence which is due to the Apostolic See.' ' At the same time he is careful to remind them of his own unworthiness to hold the position. ' Sozomen, vi. 25. 2 "When St. Basil speaks of the ignorance of the West concerning affairs in the East, on which Mr. Puller lays some stress, he is alluding to cases in which the orthodoxy of particular persons was temporarily in question, not of matters of faith. lie exaggerates somewhat into the bargain. » Daviaai Carm. xxxv. ^ Ej). iii. —384 THE EAST LOOKED TO ROME 213 We have to this day the distich which St. Damasus wrote in the baptisteiy, where he seems to have placed the chair of the Apostle. It runs thus : ' One chair of Peter, one only true bath.' ' He sat, then, according to his own belief, in the chair of Peter. And nothing, as we shall see, but a recognition of this on the part of Eastern and Western Christendom can explain the action of the episcopate during his troubled reign. V. The Church in the East had been plunged into the utmost distress. St. Basil's descriptions are heartrending, and he assured St. Athanasius that, in his belief, there was no way of help but for the Western episcopate to assist. Now, what did St. Basil mean by the Western bishops ? Not certainly individual bishops acting on their own account. Neither could they all act together, except by representation. But the West throughout these times was ordinarily repre- sented by the Roman synod. And in what could the Roman synod surpass the rest of the Church, except in the position of its president, the Bishop of Rome ? St. Basil in his sixty-sixth letter is thought to allude to the action taken recently by Rome in regard to Auxentius of Milan. He seems to long for some- thing of the same kind, so that the scholiast heads this letter of St. Basil's to that effect. St. Basil tells St. Athanasius that his first idea was to mduce the West to send an imposing array of legates, commissioned by a vast synod, which would impress these perverse Easterns by its numbers. He thought that there was nothing like appearance of numbers to counter- act the impression produced by the immense array of bishops who had failed in their duty at Ariminum. But this he saw to be impracticable ; consequently he fell back '^ on the regular mode of action in the Church. ' It appeared suitable to write to the Bishop of Rome and ask him to oversee [the verb of which bishop is the substantive form] matters here in the East and to give judgment, so that since it would be difficult for any of the Westerns to be sent by a common and synodical ' See an excellent summary of Rossi's argument concerning the chair of Peter in the Abbe Fouard's St. Peter and tlie First Years of Christianity, Appendix iv. ■^ Compare Ep. Ixx. with Ep. Ixvi. 214 AS RULING ALL. a.d. 300 decree, he [the Bishop of Eome] might act on liis own authority in the matter, and choose out men equal to the task.' The work which these legates would have to do was that of persuading the Eastern hishops to accept the ruling of the "West concerning the disaster of Ariminum, which consisted essentially in the signature of the bishops having been obtained from them by force.' Now St. Basil would never have recommended a plan against which these refractory bishops could lawfully ex- claim on technical grounds— against which, that is, they could urge that the Bishop of Eome had no right on his own authority to send legates to persuade them to accept the decisions arrived at in the Eoman synod. The relation of Eome to the -East must have been recognised by St. Basil as that of a superior authority, and he must have been well assured that his Eastern co-prelates held the same view. St. Basil, however, included in his requests a verdict in favour of St. Meletius and a condemnation of Marcellus, whose followers, as a matter of fact, were at that time siding with Paulinus. St. Basil's attitude towards Marcellus was, as we shall presently see, somewhat impetuous, and it is not certain that he was justified in his expressions referring to the past. The letters were sent to Eome by Dorotheus, a cleric from Antioch belonging to Meletius, and they were graciously received. St. Damasus sent a deacon of Milan named Sabinus, and afterwards the Bishop of Placentia, with the letters previously written to the Illyrians and the acts of the synod held two years before. In these letters St. Damasus had said that the Nicene synod defined ' that we ought to believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are of one Deity and one substance,' and then that those to whom they were addressed 'ought to approve this by reciprocal letters.' Yalentinian's rescript obliged all, so far as imperial authority could go, to believe in accordance with the synod of Eome and the synods of Gaul, that 'there is one and the same substance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Three Persons.' ' i Twf e«€i0€*', auThi' auOffiTiffai irtpl rb irpayfia [Kp. Ixvi.). —384 DAMASUS AND BASIL 215 The Illyrian bishops anathematised all ' who do not hold and preach that the Trinity is consubstantiaL' I have laid stress on all this activity on the part of the Pope, because a recent writer has, as it seems to me, so thoroiifrhly misrepresented the reign of Damasus. Speaking of this period, he says that St. Basil ' over and over again had written to Damasus to ask him, living as he was in com- parative peace and quiet [sic-], to help the Eastern Churches which were suffering persecution ; but nothing was done, although much might have been done.' ^ It will be seen, however, that we can hardly talk of peace and quiet in regard to the life of Damasus, nor is it true to say that ' nothing was done.' As a matter of fact, the letters from Kome led to action on St. Basil's part, for he writes to say in a letter, wrongly headed ' To the Westerns,' that they in the East agreed to ' all that had been done by your Honour in accord- ance with the canons,' and that they had 'welcomed your Apostolic zeal concerning the true Faith.' ^ VI. But it is true that affairs were not conducted at Rome exactly as Basil would have wished. St. Damasus and his synod did not agree with St. Basil as to the best method of putting an end to the differences at Antioch. It was considered at Rome that the uncanonical character of Meletius' election needed to be taken into account, and also Rome did not feel such perfect confidence in the orthodoxy of Meletius as St. Basil did. Rome required the matter to be accurately in- vestigated before coming to a decision. St. Basil proposed a legation from Rome to the East ; Rome preferred a legation from the East to herself. Considering all that we know of Eastern intrigue, and the terrible state of things in the Eastern Church, it was surely not unnatural that St. Damasus should wish for some more personal and searching ' Pri7n. SS. dx. p. 171. St. Damasus, as a matter of fact, was in perpetual and pressing trouble in the West— not, it is true, from the emperor, but from other causes. - E2}- xc. In the same letter he calls Sabinus his ' fellow-deacon : ' the epithet expresses the brotherhood in which one was a bishop and the other a deacon. Attention to such phrases as these would have saved Mr. Puller from pressing the argument on p. 8. In the most Tapal of Papal documents, viz. Hormisdas' Formulary, the Pope was addressed as ' brother.' 216 NOT AGREED AS TO a.d. 300 investigation of the matter. St. Basil was not infallible. As a matter of fact, he had to be defended by St. Athanasius in more than one matter, and he eventually owned himself wrong in the matter of Marcellus. There would be, so DamasuB naturally thought, a better chance of an accurate decision if the case were heard at Eome, with some thoroughly trustworthy legates to give information, than if Western legates were thrown into the sea of intrigue and false-dealing which, according to St. Basil himself, characterised the East. This, then, was the state of things as described by him in a letter to Eusebius of Samosata. At Rome they were in favour of a more thorough investigation of matters, on account of which St. Basil speaks of some there being greater sticklers for accuracy than others,^ and says that these were not pleased with his letters. Accordingly they were sent back by Evagrius, and St. Basil was asked (it was almost a demand, diraiTwv) to send another letter and to authoritatively arrange for an embassy through men of position and trustworthiness, in order to give Rome a colourable pretext '^ for undertaking that quasi- episcopal ^ visitation of the East for which St. Basil had so earnestly pleaded. One cannot help seeing that St. Damasus wished the embassy from the East to repair to Rome that the whole matter of the Antiochene dispute might be gone into with care. At present he seems to have been acting on the line adopted by Eusebius of Vercellae, his legate, when he left Antioch — that of withholding express and final sanction to either party. Evagrius left Basil to consult St. Meletius at Antioch, and received a letter from the former, saying that he did not suppose that anything would come of the whole correspond- ' Mr. Puller has paraphrased Basil's words, ' the more accurate amongst those there,' as ' Pope Damasus and the Roman clergy ' (Prim. SS. p. 285), and he translates uKpi^eia ' preciseness.' It should be ' precision.' He adds that St. Gregory Naz. speaks of the Pope and the Westerns as 'the self-styled defenders of the canons.' St. Gregory does not use the word ' self-styled.' He speaks of the Westerns as being, in the matter of Meletius, ' the defenders, as they allege (is Keyoufftv), of the canons,' i.e. their ground of action is that the canons were violated. He does not treat the matter with irony, but gives in fairness their plea. ■■^ fvirpSffwTTou as twv ypaixp.cn uiv. I have adopted Merenda's interpretation, although at first sight the aKpifieia would seem to refer to Damasus and not Meletius. But I have no doubt that Merenda is right. ■^ With regard to a note in Mr. Puller's book (p. 173) concerning the head- ings of some letters that passed between St. Basil and the West, it must bo remembered that there is no more depreciation of Papal authority in calling the Pope and the rest ' the Westerns ' than there would be of the Queen's in a French statesman saying that he was going to write to ' the English,' including their sovereign. We do not expect modern styles of writing in the fourth century ; added to which there is some uncertainty about these titles. It seems quite certain that as they stand they are incorrect, and the scribe who trans- posed them may have simply headed them of his own accord. As for the title ' Bishops of Italy and Gaul,' the very idea of St. Basil was to get numbers into the proposed demonstration, and the letter was sent straight to Borne. There are occasions when the congregations, which include the Pope, are addressed. ' E^). ccxUii. * They also say that they do not write ' to inform your diligence,' aKpifieia. Clearly, therefore, the word has a good sense as applied to the We.sterns — im- plying diligent investigation— not (as Mr. Puller, p. 285) irony. 218 PAFLINUS RECOGNISED AT ANTIOCII, a.d. 300 such a purpose as that of a council, and one cannot help perceiving in them a certain un\Yillmgness to submit to the searching investigation of the matter which was desired at Eome, and which it was doubtless felt would be more impartial there than in the excited atmosphere of the East. St. Damasus seems, however, to have held a synod,' and sent them encouraging letters, and Basil's hopes forthwith rose high ; but troubles soon came which materiall}^ altered the comi^lexion of matters in his eyes. Vitalis seceded from Meletius at Antioch, and joined Apollinarius, and, it would seem, was presently summoned to Rome.^ Thither at any rate he went, and there he presented Damasus with a profes- sion of faith which St. Gregory describes as in actual words orthodox, and which, he says, accordingly deceived himself for a while. St. Damasus naturally thought him orthodox ; but was cautious enough to hand him over to Paulinus on his return to Antioch, to be dealt with as that bishop might think best. YII. This action of St. Damasus in regard to Yitahs was, to say the least, a sign of which side he took in the strife at Antioch. It was not, however, of necessity so emphatic a repudiation of Meletius as some have imagined. For Yitalis had quarrelled with Flavian, Meletius' agent at Antioch, and St. Meletius was himself in exile. It was, therefore, natural to send him to Paulinus. Still, it was an open acknowledg- ment of Paulinus as a proper person to deal with one under accusation for heresy, for St. Damasus seems almost im- mediately after Yitalis' departure from liome to have come to the conclusion that he was not quite sure of his orthodoxy, and accordingly he sent to Paulinus a profession of faith Avhich those were to sign who wished to be in communion with Piome.3 Just at this time Peter also, St. Athanasius' saintly successor at Alexandria, was in Rome, and he, too, emphatically sided with Paulinus. St. Athanasius had himself written ' Ci. Merenda (Gcsla hainasi, sub anno 574) for the evidence. - Tillemont thinks he came spontaneously ; but St. Gregory speaks of his behig required to make a profession of faith (aTraiTTjJefj), which impUes some- thing; less than spontaneity (of. Greg. Naz. Ep. ii. ad Cled.). '•' ' Qui . . . tibi, id est, nobis per to, voluerint sociari.' -384 AND ]]ASIL ANNOYED. 219 letters of communion to Paiilinus after being at Antioch. ]>efore going there he was inclined towards association with Meletius, but after being on the spot he sent letters to Paulinus. Tillemont has slipped into a mistake in supposing the reverse to have been the case, and Mr. Puller has followed him. But a careful comparison of St. Basil's letters shows that it was really after being at Antioch himself that St. Athanasius came to his final conclusion that communion should be maintained with Paulinus, although this by no means hindered him from intercourse with St. Meletius.' St. Athanasius had now won his crown in 373, and his mantle had descended on St. Peter, v/ho now followed him in siding with Paulinus. This was in the year 375 a.d.^ VIII. St. Basil was naturally aggrieved at Pome's recogni- tion of Paulinus, and his tone suddenly changes. He wrote to Count Terence at Antioch to say that he ' hears ' that the Paulinists ' are now carrying about letters from the Westerns, handing over the bishopric of Antioch to them, and ignoring the most wonderful bishop of the true Church of God, viz. Meletius.' What right, we may ask, had the Westerns to hand over the bishopric of the central city of the East to anyone ? By the Westerns St. Basil meant, according to the phraseology of the time, Rome, which he presently substitutes for 'the Westerns.' What right, then, had Eome to hand over any bishopric m the East whatsoever to anyone ? What greater act of jurisdiction could Piome perform than to decide upon the person who was to be in charge of Antioch ? Obviously Eome had the right, according to St. Basil. He never once disputes that right in itself. He had shortly before written ^ to Eusebius of Samosata, asking his opinion as to whether he (Basil) could, under special circumstances of persecution, ordain a bishop outside his province, as he had been asked to ' Cf. the Benedictine note to Basil (Ep. ccxiv. ; Migne, Basil. Opp. t. iv.). ^ Merenda seems quite conclusively to have proved this: because (1) time must be left for St. Basil's phase of pleasure with Kome before these letters to Paulinus ; and (2) Vitalis was not yet bishop (he was made bishop in 376) ; and (.S) Count Terence, to whom St. Basil at once wrote, as being in Antioch, was there only from 373 to 375. ' Ep. cxxxviii. 2. 220 BASIL COMPLAINS, a.d. 300 do, it being against the canons. But he never once questions this right in the case of Rome. PauHnus had been ordained by a Western bishop, and he was now being estabhshed in his position by the Bishop of Eome. St. Basil distinctly refuses to take the ground that the Pope had no jurisdiction over Antioch. In his indignant letter about Meletius being passed over, when expressing the extent to which he was prepared to go in the way of disagreement with Eome, he never disputes Piome's right in itself. On the contrary, he congratulates ^ the Paulinists as having received the letters of communion from Rome. He numbers them amongst the household of the faith. ^ But he is not prepared on that account ' to ignore Meletius, or to forget, for his part (sTrtXaOsa-Oai), the Church under him.' ' For this also, he says, ' is the true Church of God.' He then defines his position still more definitely, and says that * in the case of one who is not walking according to the rule [or word] of faith, he would not receive him, not even if he came from Heaven itself, much less if he was one of the sons of men with a letter of commendation.' ■* There is nothing in this to contravene the decrees of the Vatican Council itself, as has been recently supposed."^ Those decrees do not force anyone to receive a person who is de- monstrably contravening the rule of faith, whatever letters he may produce. It may be a matter of piety so to do, a question of humility whether we should take our own judg- ment as our rule, a counsel and a supernatural virtue, but it is not a matter of necessity under pain of sin, for such a decision as that of St. Damasus does not fall under the shelter ' (TvyKaipofj.ev ro7s KOfiicrafjievoii to. airh 'Pd/xrjs. - oIkhovs rf/s iricTTfwi. ^ MeAe'rioj/ ayvoi^aai f) ttjs vtt' avrhv 'EKK\ii, vi. !(!, where the word is used of persons, not of things. St. Gregory Naz. has the same idea in reference to some Easterns' jealousy of Rome. He says that if angels were to come and occupy the P^ast with their vain rivalries, he would protest {Carin. de Vita, 100i>). '• Prim. SS. pp. 238-240. —384 BUT ADMITS 221 of Papal infallibity. It was not an ex cathedra pronunciation, not something concerning the faith itself, not a decision obligatory on the whole Church. It was not even, so far as we know, an injunction on anyone. He passed no direct sentence on Meletius ; he certainly did not excommunicate him : St. Basil nowhere implies that. I do not say that what St. Basil said was commendable or exemplary. His fault was that which St. Gregory notices, that of too great affection towards Meletius. What he would have done had Rome refused her communion to Meletius, we are unable to say for certain, but we can make a fair conjecture from what followed. In the beginning of the following year Dorotheus went to Eome again with letters from St. Basil and the Easterns, and, although a cleric under Meletius, was received as a matter of course.^ It was in reference to this journey and the proposal that St. Basil's brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, should accompany Dorotheus to Piome, that St. Basil wrote one of his most petulant letters. It was a private letter to Eusebius of Samosata. He speaks 'of disdainful tempers' and 'Western superciliousness.' If the allusion is to St. Damasus, he was certainly indulging his imagination — he did not know him personally — and there is nothing in Damasus' letters to justify such an imputation, nor was it the impression which those who knew him appear to have gained. It is quite possible ^ that he does not in any way allude to Damasus, for he speaks of being ' minded ' to write to their ' head ' informally (dvsv rod kolvov cr-^rjixaTos), nothing about ecclesiastical matters except to hint that they {i.e. the Westerns, not * their head,') ' neither know the truth of what is going on amongst us, nor go the right way to learn it.' ^ St. Basil knew that there were some who differed from him, like St. Peter of Alexandria and probably St. Ambrose, who had now been consecrated at Milan, and he seems to have been 'minded ' ' Similarly, later on, Acacius of Bercea seems to have been sent from Meletius to Eome, and to have been at a synod with Damasus. This must have been before 381, when he helped to consecrate Flavian, and after 378, when he was made bishop. The date is significant. 2 Vincenzi (De Heb. et Christ. Sacr. Monarchia) thinks it certain that he did not. Cf. De Liberia et Davtaso, second edit. ' Ep. ccxxxix. 222 PAPAL SUPREMACY. a.d. 300 to write straight to Damasus and tell him that ' these and such as these were misinformed.' He was * minded,' but did not do it. In that case ' Western superciliousness ' did not include Damasus. But considering how generally ' the Westerns ' was a.t that time an expression used for ' Eome and the rest,' as ' Peter and the rest ' in Holy Scripture, I am inclined to think that he did simply, though unjustifiably, attribute St. Damasus' action to superciliousness. Baronius, however, has a beautiful remark on this subject to the effect that although a saint may be caught humanly excited and disturbed in mind, he will not be detained in such a frame. Accordingly our saint did not actually write as he felt tempted to do, but in a very different tone. He asked the ' Westerns ' to use their ' diligent accuracy,' ' to ' denounce publicly to all the Churches in the East ' certain persons whom he names, ' in order that either correcting their ways they may be in sincere harmony with us, or, persisting in their perversity, they may keep their harm to themselves, being no longer able to infect those near them through unguarded communion with them.' If this was not calling upon Eome to exercise jurisdiction in the East, it would be difficult to imagine what evidence could be proJuced that would satisfy those who see in the history of these times no indication of lordship over the universal Church. And, be it remembered, the lordship in this case did not simply come from Eome, but was attributed to her. She did not claim it here, but was asked to use it. IX. So that St. Basil had come to a better mind concern- ing ' Western superciliousness,' and the same is true of his persistent accusation of carelessness in the matter of Marcellus. The truth about Marcellus of Ancyra is one of the most difficult points in the history of this century, and I shall rot pretend to have solved it.'^ What is of importance to note here is that, whether rightly or wrongly, St. Basil modified his judgment as to the treatment of Marcellus, whose case he considered had been so inadequately dealt with at ' So I have ventured to translate aKpi^eia, which occurs again here, and is unquestionably not ironical but laudatory (cf. p. 217, note 4). * For a most careful summary of the case for and against Marcellus, see Hefele's Councils, vol. ii. p. 2!) cc'i-, Eng. tr. —384 INFALLIBILITY HAS LIMITS. 223 Rome. Ai this time and for some while he had considered that Marcehus had rejected ' all the dogmas of our hope ; ' hut in the letter to Eusehius, in which he speaks of Western superciliousness, he refers to what had been jyvPA-ionsly done in the case of ]\rarcellus.' One only hopes he does not allude, as Merenda thinks, to the action of the prelates of Sardica, whose judgment in the matter ought to have been sufficient for that period, but, anyhow, he ultimately admitted that there was another side to the matter. And as for his sup- posing that the Westerns, by whom he probably meant the Pope (though this is not certain,^ seeing that on this occasion he mentions him separately), could be guilty of 'supporting heresy,' this in no wise shows, as Mr. Puller thinks,* that * St. Basil had no conception of the Bishop of Piome being the divinely appointed monarch of the Church,' A bishop of the present day, believing ex animo m the teaching of the Vatican decrees, might say the same as St. Basil did to the Holy Father, for there are many ways (direct and indirect) of giving support to heresy. In this case St. Basil considered that the Westerns had done it through ignorance of the real state of things, and not by any actual decision, but bj' not acting in a more decisive way. He was at liberty to consider it to be so, and yet might believe in the Pope as the divinely appointed monarch of the Church, We can say this because we have the Church's teaching, especially that of the ^^atican decrees, to help us to understand that the Pope's divinely appointed position, though that of a monarch, is not that of a monarch who cannot err. There are matters and circum- stances in which the Pope cannot err, and in which absolute submission, under pain of mortal sin, is due from every child of the Church ; but there are also circumstances in which, however we might shrink from acting upon the supposition, such submission is not a matter of necessity. It is necessary to say thus much because many of the arguments contained in Mr. Puller's book derive their force from this simple truth ' 'What they ' (i.e. the Westerns) ' did before.' - Ep. cclxxi. ' Mr. Puller takes it for granted that Damasus is meant. ISut he does not seem in his whole account to take the context into consideration. * The sentence quoted from Bossuet is inaccuracy itself. 224 BASIL HOLDS THAT DAMASUS a.d. 300 being kept out of sight. They are directed against something that those whom he is pleased to call Ultramontanes do not believe.' In this instance Marcellus had at one time at least succeeded in inducing the Westerns in general to consider him orthodox, although St. Athanasius seems afterwards to have written against him without mentioning his name. At the time when he was received by St. Julius, St. Athanasius, and the rest of the Westerns, it is not certain that he was not orthodox at heart, as he certainly was in word ; but St. Basil probably knew Marcellus better than most men did, and he was at this time certain that at least in heart he was heterodox. The Pope, however, had only to do with his words and those of his followers, which was the point at issue at this present moment. Marcellus had not been condemned by any synod at the time that Basil wrote ; his case had not been formally brought before Rome. X. St. Basil, however, had calmed down before he joined in writing to the Westerns, and having appealed to their careful- ness in such matters, he says that if they will only make it clear with whom they hold communion (and, according to Mr. Puller, 'they ' must mean especially Damasus), they will be listened to, both from their being further removed from the scene of trouble, and * by reason of the grace of God conferred on you for the oversight of those in trouble.' It is difficult to see how this latter sentence can imply anything less than a belief that Eome was in possession of a charisma — that is to say, some- thing beyond a mere primacy of honour — in dealing with Eastern prelates. The West, of itself, could have no special * grace ' in this matter. ^ We can only explain the sentiment of St. Basil by that consciousness of a cliarisma attaching to the Apostolic See which made it the proper caretaker of the troubled East. He proceeds to say that if the multitude of them agree, as they did, so much the better. Their decrees would be beyond question even by these refractory Easterns. ' I know of nothing better calculated to help a diligent inquirer on this sub- ject than Mr. Wilfrid Ward's second volume of the Life of his father. I think it right to mention that some expressions in this book, almost identical with those used by that excellent writer, were in MS. before I had read that Life. ■■* We could hardly apply such expressions to the Duke of Norfolk, who is the chosen type of Papal primftcy in Priiii. SS. dc. p. 22'.>. —384 CAN EESTOKE AN EASTERN BISHOP. 225 He then mentions first the case of Eustathius of Sebaste. He had, St. Basil says, been deprived of his bishopric,' but had found a way of recovering it. He went to Eome, and was restored by Liberius ; and St. Basil says they neither know in the East what confession of faith he had put before the Pope, nor what conditions Liberius had laid down. All they know is, that * he brought with him a letter ' from Eome, * rein- stating him, and upon showing it he was restored to his position at the synod of Tyana.' No words can add to the force of this last sentence. If the restoration of a bishop by St. Damasus, on his own authority, is not an act of juris- diction, what is ? And the bishops at Tyana took it for granted that a Papal letter directing his restitution was to be obeyed, and St. Basil has not a word to say against their attitude in the matter. At the same time St. Basil is quite right in demanding, as he went on to demand, that they should now know on what conditions Eustathius was restored, not that they might criticise the conditions, but that they might know if he had fulfilled them. The right settlement ^ of the matter must come from Piome, said St. Basil, and letters needed to be written thence ' to the Churches.' He regrets that they could not hold council with the Westerns ; but in spite of that he accepts then* authoritative action as adequate. Only (he says) Eustathius has changed,'^ and consequently his restoration does not appear to remain valid. St. Basil then deals somewhat tenderly with the case of Apollinarius, and passes on to Paulinus. He has an im- portant sentence about his ordination. He says, ' If there is anything to blame concerning his ordination, they [i.e. the Westerns] would say.' Now, except on the theory of Papal jurisdiction over the East, there must have been everything to blame in Paulinus' ordination ; but St. Basil does not seem ' Viz. by the Council of Melitene. - tijv SiSpBuffiv. Ep. cclxiii. 3. ' IxeTa&XTjOfis. As a rule, the supremacy of the Holy See over the East was in those times exercised immediately only over the Patriarchal Sees, so to call them by anticipation. But this case of Eustathius of Sebaste is one of several instances in which the authority of Eome was exercised immediately over an Eastern bishop of lesser account, and it was on appeal from an Eastern synod, and the right of Kome thus to act was admitted both by the synod and by St. Basil. Q 226 ST. DAMASUS' ATTITUDE a.b. 800 to consider that he has any right to object to it. He con- siders that Hes with the Westerns, i.e. with St. Damasus. 'What grieves us,' says Basil, 'is his [Pauhniis'] symj^athy with the dogmas of Marcelkis, and admitting his followers in- discriminately to his communion.' ^ ' We ask for your careful oversight [sTnfisXsiav) of these things, which will be effectual if you will vouchsafe to write to all the Churches in the East, to the effect that those who deprave .... are, if they amend, in communion {alvai. kolvcovovs), but if they determine to persist in their novelties, you withdraw from them.' It would be difficult to put into plainer language the teaching that if people wish to be in communion with the Church, they must be in communion with Eome. XI. St. Damasus at once, on receiving these letters from Basil, held a synod (at which Peter of Alexandria was present) and Apollinarius was condemned. Merenda gives most cogent reasons for believing that this was not later than a.d. 377. St. Basil's tone towards Apollinarius at once changed. Before this synod he had said - that Apollinarius was ' not exactly an enemy ' — now in his letter to Bishop Eulogius and two other Egyptian bishops he speaks of him as outside the Church. The Roman synod had made the difference. About this time St. Basil seems to have written to St. Peter of Alexandria to express his sorrow that the latter had spoken of Meletius and Eusebius of Samosata, in presence of Damasus, as though they were tinged with Arianism. Peter was probably alluding to the document which the two had signed, addressed to the Emperor Jovian, which led St. Jerome to speak of St. Meletius as having repudiated the Homoousion, and which probably influenced St. Athanasius in his cautious attitude towards St. Meletius. St. Damasus appears to have adopted the same cautious attitude, admitting Dorotheus, Meletius' agent, to full communion and callmg him ' brother,' but not entering into close intercourse with Meletius. It must be remembered, as has been already remarked, that there was often a separation between a presbyter and his bishop, be- ' It will be noticed that Mr. Puller's version of this matter does not at all square with what St. Basil here says. * Ep. cciv. —384 TOWARD ST. MELETIUS 227 tween a bishop and his province, and again between a province and Kome, very far short of depriving them of the sacraments, but still reckoned as a serious calamity in those times. The separation would consist sometimes in the withdrawal of letters of communion, or of mutual access, or of conciliar intercourse, or other marks of that close association between bishops which was the normal state of things.^ So Sozomen, speaking of the separation between East and West on the occasion of Flavian's ordination, says the Westerns sent ' the accustomed letters ' to Paulinus, but ' to Flavian none.' It did not amount to constituting either side schismatics, although strong terms would be often used. But there was a chasm between putting a bishop outside the Church and interrupting the closer intercourse which was the ordinary result of being in communion with one another. XII. Still, anyone in the East who wished to be completely on the right side would be anxious to know who was in close ecclesiastical intercourse with ' the Westerns,' by which was meant the Pope and the bishops in communion with him, and no one unless already in the meshes of heresy would wish to be thought out of communion with the West in the sense of lacking recognition by them as the lawful bishop of a see. Accordingly, we know from St. Jerome that at Antioch Paulinus, Vitalis, and Meletius all claimed to possess the seal of Kome's recognition.'-^ Paulinus could say that he was on terms of closest intercourse, since, amongst other things, Kome had handed over Vitalis to be dealt with by him. Vitalis, having broken away from the faith, on returning to Antioch, still traded on the letters he had received from Damasus, when he had deceived the Pope by a profession of faith which was orthodox in terms, but which he understood in an heretical sense. Meletius was able to say that Eome, although not in closest intercourse with him, had never repudiated his communion. There is no fair reason for distrusting St. Jerome's state- ment here. This assertion on the part of each of the three, repeated by their adherents (which shows the general value set on communion with Eome), caused him perplexity, and he wrote to Damasus to ask him with which of the three he was ' Cf. Merenda, sub anno 376, and De Smedt, Diss. 2, p. 70. - Ep. xvi. 0, 2 228 ST. JEROME ON THE ' CHAIR OF PETER.' a.d. 300 to communicate. He conceived that he was uttering the usual sentiments of a Cathohc Christian, as indeed he was, when he said (in a previous letter) of the ' chair of Peter,' ' Upon that rock I know that the Church is built.' In this second letter he says, ' I meanwhile exclaim if anj^one be joined to the chair of Peter, he is mine. Meletius, Yitalis, and Paulinus say that they adhere to you ; if only one of them asserted this, I could believe him.' It is natural to suppose from this that all three claimed in express terms to be in communion * with the chair of Peter.' The expression could not be an idiosyncrasy of St. Jerome's. He knew well the teachmg of Rome ; he had been eleven years in the Christian Church, All parties were eager to secure his adherence, as he himself says ; his praise was already in all the Churches ; he was more than the fit age to be a bishop.* No one seems to have told him that he should not speak of Damasus as occupy- ing the chair of Peter ; all they did was to claim each one to be in communion with that chair. That Damasus himself had all along claimed to sit in the chair of Peter, in more than one sense, is certain. The inscription which he wrote about the material chair of the Apostle, preserved at Eome, showed his teaching concerning the chair of Peter in the metaphorical sense.^ St. Jerome, it ma}^ be noticed, in his first letter speaks of the use of the term Hypostasis, by some in the singular, by others in the plural, in regard to the Holy Trinity — a contro- versy which had been laid to rest at the Council of Alex- jindria, either form of speech being allowed. But now, when Damasus had shown his special favour to Paulinus, the Eustathians, as the party of Paulinus was called, began to ' St. Jerome, it has been urged, a little before had spoken of himself as ' pene puer.' But it must be remembered that St. Jerome spoke of a person as ' adolescens ' up to forty, and he was older than St. Athanasius was when, in the words of Canon Bright, ' he made himself felt as a power in the First General Council,' and older than the same saint when he was made Archbishop of Alexandria. - Mr. Puller, speaking of the Popes pleading their succession from St. Peter as a religious basis for their jurisdiction, says : ' Whether Damasus did so plead it I cannot say ' (p. 159). He may rest assured that Damasus was ' guilty ' of pleading his succession to Peter throughout his reign. —884 THE COMPACT OF ANTIOCH, a.d. 378. 229 draw the Meletians, in the absence of Meletius, towards them- selves. Consequently St. Basil thought it right to revive the controversy, and to insist upon the importance of the differ- ence between the two expressions. St. Gregory of Nazianzus on the other hand (at any rate later on) deprecated making this different way of speaking of the Godhead a ' dividing ' question, since both parties meant the same. It is clear from what St. Jerome says about some com- bining him as a heretic ' with the Westerns and the Egyp- tians' — i.e. with St. Damasus and St. Peter— that he was allowed by the former to use the Western expression of one Hypostasis in the Triune God (meaning substance) and that St. Damasus' answer led him to communicate with Paulinus, by whom he was shortly afterwards ordained priest. XIII. And now a new chapter in the affairs of Antioch begins. The law of Gratian in favour of tolerance for almost all to practise their own religion had enabled Meletius to return to his flock at Antioch. He seems at once to have set to work to bring about some kind of peace between Paulinus and himself. All, however, that they could effect was to agree that when either of them died the survivor should suc- ceed to the one throne. The churches remained as they were, the great majority in the hands of Arians, one in the possession of Paulinus, and one in the suburbs in the hands of Meletius. The flocks of the two bishops held communion with one another. Thus much seems to follow from the scene before Sapor later on. In that interview the question was, not as to whether the church owned by either Paulinus or Meletius should pass into the hands of the other, but who should have the use of the churches of the Arians, who by the law of Theodosius were now to be ejected. But we may trust Theodoret's account ' so far, that the flocks were by that time already in the enjoyment of intercommunion. If it is to be trusted any further, it would establish that Paulinus refused to go further than the compact, which was certainly ' Theodore t,'s narrative is coloured by his partisanship for Flavian. It is not altogether reliable, certainly not as to Paulinus rejecting any overtures, which is contrary to the evidence of St. Gregory. But his witness on the other points is disinterested. 230 ST. MELETIUS PROMULGATES a.d. 300 not made at that interview. Meletius, according to Theo- doret, proposed joint action during their lifetime, but this PauHnus thought unadvisable or impossible. The reasonable supposition, then, is that the compact, which we know to have been made, was entered upon on St. Meletius' return from exile, and hence came the peace, to which St. Gregory alludes as having been established for at least some little while, and the disturbance of which the Council of Aquileia so strongly denounced, upon the ordination of Flavian.^ Meletius at once set about the assembly of a council of his friends, one main object of which seems to have been to proclaim their adherence to the orthodox faitb, that the Church might be seen to be thoroughly one in the doctrines which had been recently depraved, and on which they were themselves supposed by some to be in a state of hesitation. This great council (a.d. 379), at which the letters of Damasus were read — those from the first Eoman sjmod (sent first to Illyrium and then to the Easterns) and those sent through Dorotheus from his second and third synods — accepted what was afterwards called in the Fifth Canon of Constantinople the 'Tome of the Westerns ' — the dogmatic letter drawn up by the Eoman synod under the presidency of Damasus, which proclaimed the ' one Deity and one substance ' of the Holy Trinity. Thus the entire West, the whole of Egypt, and the whole Eastern Church had embraced the decision of Damasus and the Eoman Church concerning the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. Meletius sent this important document to Eome, signed first by himself and next by Eusebius of Samosata, and it was duly registered in the archives. The entry in the * Syno- dicus Libellus ' seems an accurate summary of this event- ful inauguration of the long-desired peace. ' Meletius, in his throne of Antioch, convened a divine and sacred synod, which confirmed the divine symbol, and anathematised Mar- celluB, Photinus, and Apollinarius, and he sent the exposition (of faith) to Damasus and the Western bishops.' •^ ' C£. p. 253. - Syn. cap. Ixxiv. Tillemont labours hard to prove tliat the compact be- tween Meletius and Paulinus had not been made at this time. Blondel, the —384 THE 'TOME OF THE WESTERNS.' 231 The theory that this all-important document was not sent formally and officially to Eome, but found its way thither accidentally and privately, is so contrary to the ways of that time, so utterly unreasonable in itself, that I should not mention it here, were it not that the author of ' The Primitive Saints and the See of Eome ' has so emphatically adopted it.' The synod of Constantinople in 382, which is often con- founded with that of 381, in its letter to Damasus, assumes that he had received official notice of the adoption at Antioch of this ' Tome of the Westerns.' The formal acceptance of Meletius' subscription as ' Bishop of Antioch ' would not prove, as Mr. Puller thinks, that Piome accepted him as the only bishop. The letter of the Council of Aquileia proves the contrary.^ Neither, if we are to trust Theodoret's ac- count of the interview with Sapor at Antioch, did Meletius himself look upon himself as the only Bishop of Antioch, although he did consider that his flock had been entrusted to him by Almighty God. It was not an unknown thing for two bishops to rule in one city under anomalous circumstances by special arrangement. The Pope, St. Melchiades, gave permission to some of the Donatist bishops to retain their sees when they renounced their schism, so that there were temporarily, and by Papal dispensation, two bishops in one Protestant, and Baronins and Valesius agree that it was. Tillemont's argu- ments have been met and, as it seems to me, fully answered by Merenda, who points out (in answer to Tillemont's assertion, that a compact so public could not have been broken by the Council of Constantinople) that the very point of St. Gregory's complaint was that a public compact had been broken, and in this he was followed by the older and more reverend bishops. For the dis- graceful conduct of the bishops at that synod, which led to St. Gregory's resig- nation of the see, see pp. 252-3. The compact was disregarded at the council rather than hy the council. The saints were opposed to its breach. Mr. Puller's argument about St. Meletius hinges so much on Tillemont's indefensible line on this point, and on a misunderstanding of the interview with Sapor (cf. Prim. SS. pp. 245-7) that it may be well to remind some readers that, in spite of Mr. Puller's attempt to rehabilitate Tillemont whole and entire, and his entitUng him a ' Eoman Catholic divine ' more than once, the authority of Tillemont as a divine counts for nothing with us, and that his history has been submitted to ' corrections ' on, so to speak, a thousand points. He was, as Merenda (who frequently exposes his mistakes) called him, 'doctissimus et piissimus,' but neither his learning nor his piety have saved him from serious errors. ' P. 242. 2 Mansi, t. iii. p. 631. 232 DR. BOLLINGER'S SUJklMARY. a.d. 800—384 city.^ Dr. Dollinger's summary of the matter is perfectly accurate, viz. : ' The tico Catholic parties at Antioch had mutu- aUy agreed, in 378, that the survivor of the two rival prelates should be acknowledged by all as sole bishop.' ^ Thus far, then, the Church in the East could breathe again. The peace, of which St. Gregory spoke with real eloquence, was estabhshed. It only remained for those in Antioch to wait until one of the two bishops was taken to his reward for the perfect order of the Church to be restored. It would seem that in the same year the Church asked of the new emperor a civil confirmation of this peaceable, if ab- normal, solution of the Antiochene trouble.^ ' Until a fresh see was found. - Lclirbuch (1843), vol. i. p. 91. ^ Mansi, t. iii. p. 623. ' Partium pactum poposcimus ut . . . permanerent ' (cf. infra, p. 265, and the note on p. 267). CHAPTEE XV. THE HOMAGE OF KINGS ; OR GRATIAN's RESCRIPT. I. During the reign of St. Damasus the relation of the civil power to the Church entered upon a new phase. During the first three centuries the Church had developed her internal relations in doctrine and discipline wholly irrespective of the State ; but so soon as Constantine adopted the Christian religion as professedly his own the Church had to adjust her administrative forms to the exigencies of her new position. She had, from time to time, to decide upon what was essen- tially under her own direction, and her own alone, and what could fall under the joint action of Church and State. But the complete adjustment of her relations to the civil power could only be accomplished when the occupant of the imperial throne was (what Constantine was not) a faithful subject of the Church. Until then, she acted on the principle enunciated by St. Gregory the Great, of obtaining what was practicable and accepting the unavoidable with the best grace possible. But from the first she laid down the principle thai the typical relation of the two powers was not that of separation, leaving each to its own sphere of action, but of co-operation, in which the civil power should aid the spiritual in certain external matters, whilst the spiritual announces the laws which must govern every man's exercise of whatever power he has received from God. The Church and the State have each of them received their powers from the One God ; those powers, there- fore, cannot properly come into conflict. But not only so ; they must in the nature of things be men.ntto act in harmony and co-operate towards the one end of man, his final beati- 234 CHURCH AND STATE UNDER GRATIAN. a.d. 300 tude. Moreover, when their spheres seem to conflict, the Church is, necessarily, the judge of the limits which each is bound to observe. She has the custody of the laws which govern man in the attainment of his supernatural beatitude, and consequently wherever she may decide that a mode of action is necessary for that end, any exercise of civil authority that contravenes or hinders such action is not the use of a power given by God, but a transgression of the hmits within which the civil order was meant to act. The classical meta- phor which expresses the relation between the civil power and the Church is that of the body and the soul. The Church's action stands in relation to the civil order as the soul to the body. It was at this very time that this metaphor, which is commonly used in the theology of the Church to express this relationship, was first used by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and it was at this time that the actual relationship between Church and State approached more nearly than at any pre- vious period to its typical expression. II. Constantino used the power which the gratitude of Christians awarded him, on the whole, with moderation,^ but on coming under the influence of Eusebius he began to encroach on the prerogatives of the Church. Constantius alto- gether exceeded his powers in ecclesiastical matters, and Valens became a scourge to the Catholic Church. Yalentinian I. had espoused the orthodox faith, and gave the celebrated reply to a request that he would call a council, saying that it was not for him as a layman to decide upon ecclesiastical matters. But his attitude towards the Church was neverthe- less one of reserve ; and it was in his son, Gratian, that the Church greeted her first thoroughly filial subject amongst the line of Eoman emperors. The first to refuse to wear the robe of the Pontifex Maximus,^ he was the first to throw him- self into the arms of the Church and seek from her, in sub- mission to her laws, the power which he believed could alone make up for his desertion of the ordinary methods of obtain- ' Cf. DOllinger's Hist, of the Church, Period II. ch. v. § 1. - Tillemont and Fleury think this improbable, but cf. Broglie, L'Eglise et VEmpire Romain an IVme Siicle (3me partie, pp. 294-299, 18G6) for a juster estimate of the incident. —384 GRATIAN AND ST. AMBROSE. 235 iiig his subjects' support. ' It was not the emperor, but the empire which on that day, by his Hps, proclaimed itself Christian.' III. Gratian was, indeed, over-persuaded by his first sur- roundings to a horrible deed of vengeance on the Count Theo- dosius ; but he presently came under a new influence, which determined his line of action in future, and may be said to have been the instrument in Divine Providence for sparing the Church from the expiring efforts of Arianism. St. Am- brose had mounted the throne of Milan : a man specially qualified to deal with the new state of things, from his ac- quaintance, during his secular life, with the principles of the civil order, and from his unswerving devotion to the orthodox faith after his consecration to the episcopate. Had Milan been the see of Peter, St. Ambrose would have been the cen- tral figure of the age ; but not even an Ambrose could make Milan the centre of the Church's unity. It was, however, his to direct the mind and action of the young emperor. The re- lationship between them was, according to Gratian himself, that of father and son ; and the extant letter of Gratian to St. Ambrose is a beautiful example of filial respect in the spiritual order. IV. Soon after Gratian's accession, his uncle Valens, Ij'ing wounded in a hut, was left by his attendants to burn to death, and Gratian succeeded to the entire empire. He took with him a copy of St. Ambrose's treatise on the true faith, as he repaired to Sirmium to enter upon his new honours ; and at once proclaimed liberty of worship for all sects except those which were disturbers of the public peace, such as the Mani- c beans, or were coming into prominence, such as the Photi- nians and Eunomians. And in this he appears to have after- wards thought himself remiss, as though it became a Christian emperor to forbid any heretics to worship according to their ill-advised conscience. It must be carefully borne in mind, in this connection, that heresy had invariably itself used the civil power when possible, and with an amount and kind of persecution to which neither Gratian nor Theodosius ever stooped, and that for most of the heretics of that time the only persuasive force was that of legal compulsion ; but 236 GRATIAN'S RESCRIPT GAVE a.v. 300 some time in the early part of his reign ' Gratian appears to have adopted the measure which was of all others the best calculated to bring about the destruction of Arianism in the West. He decided upon making the exercise of spiritual jurisdiction in the West easier and more decisive by ordering that all bishops within the Western Patriarchate who rebelled against being tried by their brethren should be compelled, if cited, to appear at Rome ; and it should be the duty of the Prefect of Italy to expedite their appearance there. In the case of * the more distant parts ' (such as Africa) the duty of trying the bishop lay with the metropolitan. We cannot say for certain that the earlier rescript contained more than this. It is not open to us to argue, for instance, with any certainty that the exact provision of the later rescript about the metro- politans was contained in the earlier. Our only data for deciding the contents of the earlier rescript (which is not ex- tant) are the instances of its violation given by the synod of 378. These, it may be noticed, include Parma, which shows that the whole of Italy came under its purview, and also Africa. For both a bishop of Parma and a bishop in Africa are mentioned as having rebelled against the provisions of the earlier rescript. But the complaint against the African bishop appears to suppose a provision of the same kind as is con- tained for the regulation of matters ' in more distant parts ' in the later rescript.- Thus Gratian made the execution of episcopal judgments easier than it had hitherto been. He did not create a patri- archate, but found one in existence. The jurisdiction of Rome, in its actual exercise, differed in the East and in the West. In the East it was for the most part exercised only directly over the patriarchs ; in the West it was exerted over individual bishops more directly. The Pope stood to the West in a double relation, that of ruler of the universal Church, and that of patriarch. And Gratian supplied facilities for the ' Possibly quite at the beginning -certainly so if this famous rescript is dated 378 — for Florentius had been banished six years previously, in accord- ance, it would seem, with the earlier law. After six years ' rcpsit in civitatem ' (cf. the letter of the lloman Council to Gratian). ^ Consequently all that Mr. Puller says {Prim. SS. p. 157) about Gratian having enlarged the sphere of his earlier rescript in the later one falls to the ground. —384 CIVIL FORCE TO THE CHURCH'S ACTS, 237 exercise of the patriarchal jurisdiction in the West, which were in perfect conformity with the subordinate character of the State in ecclesiastical matters. His great object, according to the sj^nod of 378 and his own rescript, was to keep the trials of bishops to the episcopate. And in doing this he simply supplied legal facilities for executing the judgments of the episcopate, which were arranged in accordance with rules already established by its own action, as, for instance, at Sardica or Nice. Gratian's action was, we cannot doubt, inspired by St. Ambrose. The Bishop of Milan was himself interested in the new aid given to the administration of the Church. His own church came under the sway of the rescript, and, indeed, profited by it. The result was that after a few years the West was able, in the words (probably) of St. Ambrose, to report that there were not more than two Arian bishops left.' V. Now, this civil aid granted to the judgments of the Holy See was considered by Newton, when he dipped into theology (siitor ultra crepidam), to be the starting-point of Papal jurisdiction. Merenda thinks it worth while to notice Newton's theory, but does not think it worth while doing more than notice it. Mr. Puller, however, has made it part of the backbone of his argument against the divine origin of the jurisdiction of the Holy See, ' Was I not right in saying that the pontificate of Damasus forms a new point of de- parture in regard to all matters connected with the groictJi of Paixd jurisdiction / ' '^ He compares the effect of Gratian's rescript in 378 with the mode of procedure sanctioned by the Council of Sardica, and considers that it was an enlargement upon the latter without any canonical basis. He thinks that ' by one stroke of his pen the Emperor Gratian created, so far as the civil power could create, a patriarchal jurisdiction over the whole Western empire, and vested it in the Bishop of Rome,' ^ and that this was the only source of the Pope's patriarchal jurisdiction over Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa. ' During the winters of 378-381 Gratian was at Milan in closest inter- course with St. Ambrose, his spiritual guide. The rescript of Gratian must, as has been shown, be assigned to 380. ■ Primitive Saints, &c. p. 159, » p. 157. 238 AND DID NOT MAKE a.d. 300 Again and again he insists upon the paradox that the only patriarchal jurisdiction possessed by the Pope over the West came to him from the State, i.e. from this rescript — * as State-made Patriarch of the West he had a jurisdiction derived from the emperor''— 'it was in the time of Damasus that the State made the Pope Patriarch of the West.' - Now (i.)»if this was the case, where was the protest against such a violation of canon law ? \\Tiat had become of all that enormous tenacity of the saints to the spiritual and inde- pendent character of the kingdom of God ? For saints there were most certainly ; indeed, it is impossible to suppose that St. Ambrose himself was not a party to this legislation ; whilst the bishops of the Roman synod call the earlier rescript of Gratian that ' sentence unquestionably most excellent and worthy of religious princes.' ^ Is it to be supposed that the bishops of that synod, who were themselves concerned, would thus go out of their way to dignify with the title of ' excellent ' a detestable act of Erastianism which deprived them of their own liberty ? For the synodical letter speaks of the Bishop of Parma as one who had evaded the earlier rescrijit ; and Parma was outside what Mr. Puller considers the area of the suburbi- •carian churches, in which alone he thinks the Bishop of Rome liad a ' full and commanding metropolitan jurisdiction ' (p, 182). This bishop had been properly deposed at Rome by the spiritual power ('dejectus judicio nostro'),and ought there- fore (they sajO to have come under the ruling of the rescript to which they allude. In other words, their spiritual sentence ought to have had its civil effect. He ought no longer to hold his church, as they say he does, and the Bishop of Pozzuoli, although deposed, had crept back into the city ; whereas there again the spiritual sentence ought to have had its civil effect. The imperial official, the prefect, ought to have carried it out. Such instances show that according to that synod all that Gratian's rescript was meant to effect was the civil enforce- ment of spiritual judgments over an area in which those judg- ments ' ran ' by ecclesiastical custom. But (ii.), further, Mr. Puller relies on a passage in the ' P. 182. Ibid. Pncclara ista plane et religiosis principibus digna sententia.' —884 THE AVESTERX PATRIARCHATE. 239 synodical letter which he misinterprets. He thinks that ' during the pontificate of Damasus the Emperor Gratian conferred on the Pope a very large measure of jurisdiction over the bishops of the whole Western Empire,' and that 'this jurisdiction received from the emperor had no canonical basis,' and this theory he bases on a comparison of the rescript of the emperor with the letter of the Eoman synod. The emperor, he says, was asked by the Roman synod ' that contumacious bishops should be compelled by the prefect of the praetorium of Italy, or else by the vicarius of the city of Eome, to come to Rome to be tried. This mention of the officials who were to coerce the refractory prelates limits the scope of the ajyjjliccition of the enactment for which the synod petitioned to Italy and Illyricum. The emperor in his rescript brings in the prefect of the praetorium of Gaul and the proconsuls of Africa and Spain, and thus extends the system of appeals which he is establishing to the whole of the Western Empire, to Gaul, Britain, Spain and Africa.' ^ Now a careful attention to the words of the Roman synod's letter will show that it is not the case that the mention of the officials limits the scope of the synod's petition to Italy and Illyricum. The letter is addressed to Gratian and Valentinian alone, as being so entirely concerned with Western affairs.- It begins with saying that it redounds to their honour and piety that when the bishops 'almost innumerable from the various {dif- fiisis) parts of Italy had gathered together to the sublime sanctuary of the Apostolic See,^ and were considering what should be asked of the emperors on behalf of the state of the Churches, they could find nothing better to ask than what the imperial care and foresight had [already] spontaneously con- ferred upon them.' They then say that the emperors, full of the Divine Spirit ' P. 156. The italics are mine. ' It is a mistake to suppose that the omission of Theodosius' name shows that this letter was written before his accession to the throne. There are several instances in the Theodosian Code in which the name of this or that living emperor is omitted. And here thei'e is a reason for the omission, al- though it would not have been strange if it had been added. ' Mr. Puller omits these words. 240 THE KOMAN SYNOD'S LETTER a.d. 800 and having the patronage of the Apostles [Peter and Paul] in their high estate, decided— for the restoration of the body of the Church, which the fury of Ursinus, in his endeavour to snatch a dignity which was not his due [i.e. the chair of Peter] had divided in twain — that, the author of the mischief having been condemned and the rest whom he had associated with himself having been separated from him, ' the Bishop of Eome should have the trial of the rest of the bishops of the Churches, so that the Pontiff of religion should judge concerning religion together with his partners and [thus] no injury would be done to the episcopate, if a bishop were not easily subjected to the decision of a secular judge, as might often happen [before].' After enlarging on the superiority of the episcopal judg- ments, they say that they would end here were it not that Ursinus and his followers are evading the imperial sentence and wrongly remaining in their Churches, and conspiring in a rash and profane contempt, so as not to ' acquiesce in the judgment of the Bishop of Rome.' They were managing by bribes and threats of death [to the civil officials] to hold their bishoprics. ' Therefore we ask not for a new imperial decree, but the confirmation of the old.' They then instance the case of the Bishop of Parma, who, although deposed by an episcopal sentence, ' shamelessly holds his Church.' And they mention also Florentius of PozzuoH, hkewise condemned, who ' would have deserved a similar rescript.' They then mention the case of an African bishop who had evaded the rescript, refusing to have his cause tried before bishops ('apud episcopos'). And further, the African Donatists were creating disturbance through one Claudianus, destined for bishop in the city of Rome. In spite of the imperial rescript, he too remains in Eome. They then say that the Jew Isaac went so far (allud- ing, it would seem, to what took place some years before, as an example) as to ' attack the head of our holy brother Damasus with this deceitful aim, viz. that whilst he is on trial, who had been constituted judge over all, there might be no one to pass judgment on the lapsed, or at any rate on those who had seized on the episcopate.' But Damasus' innocence has been proved, so there is an end of that matter. ' Now, therefore, we ask that your goodness would deign to order that whoever —384 COVERED THE GROUND 241 shall have been condemned and sball have determined un- justly to retam his Church, or when summoned by an episcopal judgment shall have decided not to present himself, may be summoned to Rome by the illustrious prefects of the prsetorium of your Italy, or by the vicar.' Thus far, it is true, the petition of the synod seems to limit the contemplated action of the rescript to Italy and Illyricum. But the petition does not end here. For the synod proceeds to say : ' Or if a question of this kind shall have arisen in the more distant parts ' (clearly such as are not contained within the above limits), 'the trial may be held be- fore the metropolitan for local decision (jjer locorum judicia), or if it is the metropolitan himself, he should be ordered to repair, of necessity, without further process, to Eome, or to judges appointed by the Bishop of Bome. And if the metro- politan or any other bishop shall be suspected, it should be allowed him to appeal either to Eome, or at any rate a council of neighbouring bishops.' It is clear that they are acting on the provisions of the Sardican (or Nicene) canons. Now, who was to deal in a civil capacity with these bishops in * more distant parts ' ? They were obviously beyond the reach of the prefect of the Praetorium of Italy or the Vicar of Eome. The synod did not enter into that question, possibly because it was obvious who were the officials that would manage the matter in these distant parts, or still more pro- bably because it was not their business to say. The emperor in his rescript does, naturally, mention the officials who would enforce the episcopal sentence or the transference of venue in these more distant parts, and thus he covers the ground occupied by the petition of the synod. Otherwise the rescript would have fallen short of the synodical request. They mention the officials w^ho would necessarily superintend the cases which they specify as actually pressing ; it was un- necessary or beyond their competency to mention the others, but their request goes beyond the jurisdiction of these officials into ' more distant parts.' It is therefore not the case that Gratian was ' extending the system of appeals,' as Mr. Puller puts it ; he was merely facihtating the mode of procedure which had already commended itself to the Church. ' The 242 OF GRATIAN'S RESCRIPT. a.d. 300—384 more distant parts ' are but covered by his rescript, as they had pleaded in their letter. Nor is it correct to say or suggest that there is nothing in the correspondence to show that the bishops were resting their case on higher and strictly Papal grounds. The open- ing of the synod's letter, which speaks of the bishops having gathered together from various parts of Italy ^ * to the sublime sanctuary of the Apostolic See,' is suggestive ; and they speak of Damasus, compared with other bishops, as being ' equal in office,"^ but he excels in the prerogative of the Apostolic See.' And if we go outside the actual letter, as we have a right to do in search of the context, we know that St. Ambrose, probably the virtual author of the rescript,^ considered that Damasus sat in the chair of Peter,"* and he held Peter to be the rock in Matt, xvi.,'^ and taught that from the Church of Eome * the rights of venerable communion flow to all.' ^ Mr. Puller says, ' It sometimes seems to me that eccle- siastical historians have hardly done justice to the immense importance of this act of imperial legislation.' But two or three words slipped into an imperial rescript were at the best a slender basis whereon to rest so enormous a superstructure as the patriarchal jurisdiction of Eome over the West. And at least it should be absolutely certain that even this basis is sound ; whereas it seems quite certain that it is itself without foundation, for the words in Gratian's rescript, appealed to by Mr. Puller, cover no more ground than did the actual petition of the Koman synod. ' ' Ex diffusis Italise partibus.' Mr. Puller (p. 156, note 1) has no right to limit this to the suburbicarian churches. I do not know why he puts asterisks in place of the words ' sublime sanctuary of the Apostolic See.' « I.C. what we should call order, as distinguished from jurisdiction, his ' prerogative ' embracing the latter. ' It was written during the period when the emperor spent the winter with St. Ambrose at Milan. * ' Peter the Apostle, who was Bishop of the Roman Church ' (De Sacram. lib. i. § 5). » Cf. his hymn Ipsa Petra canaite. " Mansi, t. iii. p. 622. CHAPTER XVI. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE (A.D. 381). § I. — Theodosius and the Imperial City. I. In January 379 Gratian decided upon a step which both reflected the greatest credit upon himself and was fraught with far-reaching consequences to the fortunes of the Church. After the death of his father by Gratian's order, Theodosius the son had retired into private Hfe. Gratian drew him forth by the magnanimous offer of half his empire, which, as De Broglie says,^ Theodosius first refused with modesty and then accepted with simplicity. History presents few more touch- ing pictures than that of these two young men, of rare virtue, the one forgiven, and the other forgiving, entering upon the government of the empire with devout attachment to the Christian faith. For during his winter's stay at Thessalonica Theodosius, who was by parentage, so to speak, an orthodox Christian, 2 but not yet actually enrolled in the Christian army, fell ill of fever, and in fear of death called upon St. Ascholius, Bishop of Thessalonica, to baptise him, having previously ascertained that the bishop had never given in to the Arian heresy. He arose from his sick bed to exercise the virtue of divine faith which he had received through the waters of regeneration. As he surveyed his imperial charge a huge scene of religious conflict presented itself to his sight For nearly half a century Constantinople had been under the influence of heretical bishops, and the scene of the most dis- ' Cf. the whole account in Broglie, L'Eglise et V Empire Romain au IVnie Siicle, 3me partie, p. 357 seq. 1866. ^ ' &viji6iv fifv eK irpoyivaiv XpiCTiavhs VTrdpxtov, Kal rrj tov ifioovaiov iriarfi npoff- Helfifuoi (Soc. V. 6). B 2 244 THE EASTERN EMPEROR ENFORCES a.d. 300 graceful turmoils. Each heresy, as it emerged, found its home there, and the Catholic faith had wellnigh disappeared when Gregory left Nazianzus to do his best to revive it in this New Rome, as they delighted to call it. II. Theodosius determined at once to strike a blow for the true faith. But how was he to define that faith? The Nicene Creed was the verj' subject of contention, and each formula that was promulgated by way of explanation had been twisted into a new heresy. He decided to begin by insisting on the observance of the rule of faith itself. He would not — as a devout layman he could not — issue any dogmatic definition, but he could insist on the norm of religious truth being observed, such a rule as no Christian could dispute, and as no Christian did dispute qua the rule. In regard to the heresy that was creating fresh confusion at Constantinople, Damasus and the Roman synod had issued a clear decision, and it was accepted at Alexandria by the successor of St. Athanasius. What could be better calculated to reduce to unity the scattered forces of religion than to recall the Easterns to the true centre of teaching? He therefore ordered that the religion delivered to the Church oj Borne hy the Apostle Peter, as expounded by the Pontiff Damasus and by the present Bishop of Alexandria, should be preached by all Catholics. ' We will that all people who are governed by our clemency should practise the same religion as the divine Apostle Peter delivered to the Romans, as the religion proclaimed by him up to this time declares it ; and which it is clear the Pontiff Damasus follows, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity — that is, &c. Those who follow this law we order to take the name of Catholic Christians.' ^ Now, nowhere do we discover a single note of surprise at the East being thus called upon to practise * the religion of the Romans.' In fact the evidence afforded by the incidental notice of the Apostle Peter is of the most irrefragable nature, to the effect that the Christian world, East and West, had ' ' Cunctos populos quos cleiuentiae nostrte regit teniperamcntum in tali volumus religione versari quam divinum Petrum Apostolum tradidisse religio usque nunc ab ipso insinuata declarat.' —384 THE FAITH OF ROME. 245 learnt to look to the See of Peter as the central authority on matters of faith. The religion practised by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and now held by the chosen successor of St. Athanasius, such was the form of faith delivered from the throne of the imperial neophyte to the Eastern world. It is clear that Theodosius draws a distinction between Damasus and Peter of Alexandria of a vital character. Damasus is the pontiff, Peter the bishop ; Damasus is mentioned simply as the pontiff, Peter as a man of apostolic sanctity, as though some reason needed to be given for tacking on his name to that of the pontiff. His adherence to the religion delivered to the Eomans by the Apostle Peter was worth mentioning ; it sug- gested what Theodosius required of his own East, viz. a similar adherence. Eome, then, is indicated as the centre ; Eome in its connection with the Apostle Peter, and Rome as the seat of the Pontiff of the Christian religion.' Did Constantinople resent such a description of the Christian religion ? Was it an idiosyncrasy of the young emperor's ? It is clear that it was, at any rate, the teaching of St. Ascholius of Thessalonica, whose religious pupil the emperor had become, and Constantinople was unable to say that the faith of Old Piome was not the norm for the faith of New Piome. She received her new emperor with open arms, so St. Gregory tells us. 2 There were soon to be plenty in that city prepared to disagree in fact with Piome, and some, as we shall see, in theory ; but not the saints or the theologians of the East. Prosper of Aquitaine expressed the conviction of the day as he sang : Sedes Koma Petri quae pastoralis honoris Facta caput niundo.' III. The state of things in Constantinople, whither the new emperor now prepared to go, was as follows. St. Gregory, whom the Church specially dignified with the name of ' the ' Of course the word ' pontiil ' could be used of any bishop, but it is here the distinction of terms that is to be noted occurring in a legal document. '^ ' Cupidus accessit ad sibi cupidissiraos ' (Carmen de Vitd sua, 1305). ^ I.e. ' Rome the See of Peter, which has been made to the whole world the head of the pastoral office.' 246 CONSTANTINOPLE AND a.d. 800 theologian,' had sth-red the city by his eloquent preaching of the true faith, seconded by his great holiness. You might see St. Jerome sitting an eager listener at his expositions of the faith, whilst St. Gregory made use of his unrivalled knowledge of the text of Holy Scripture. But also you might see a figure wrapped in the mantle of the philosopher, and leaving the oratory with the classical staff and his hair in philo- sophical disorder, full, to all appearance, of enthusiasm for the eloquent bishop as he refuted the Arian, the Eunomian, or the Macedonian. Warned against this man, whose name was Maximus, Gregory nevertheless took him into his confidence, and even alluded to him in the way of defence in one of his public orations. But presently Maximus threw oft' the mask, and after having intrigued with the enemies of Gregory, in- duced some Egyptian bishops with (unhappily) the consent of Peter of Alexandria, to consecrate him to the see of Con- stantinople. Gregory had thus rendered himself ridiculous in his support of Maximus, and in the bitterness of his dis- appointment retired. On his reappearance to bid a final farewell, the people of Constantinople, enraged at the appoint- ment of Maximus, suddenly settled that the only remedy was to make Gregory himself their bishop. The scene that ensued seems to have baffled description — Gregory resisting, men throwing themselves on his person and forcing him into the episcopal chair, and women crying out, ' If you leave us, you take away with you the Holy Trinity ' ' — i.e. the true faith. Gregory consented on condition that his election obtained conciliar sanction, and at once retired a little way into the country. Maximus repaired to Thessalonica to gain the ear of the emperor, 2 from whom he met with an unfavourable reception, and forthwith he turned to Alexandria, where he was also coldly received by Peter. IV. Such was the state of things when Theodosius ap- proached Constantinople. He seems already to have formed the idea of an Eastern council, and to have consulted St. Damasus in regard to it, through Ascliolius, who appears, from an incidental expression in Damasus' reply, to have ' (rvveK$a\(7i 7ckp, fht, travrw Tpiaha (Carmen de Vitd sud, 1100). » Cf. Broglie, loc. cit. p. 404. —384 ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 247 been for Bome time past in the position of Papal vicar at Thessalonica.' The Pope repHed to Aschohus in favour of a council, and condemned the election of Maximus. The letter reads like a private one, so much so that it has been doubted whether it is genuine ; but the verdict of scholars is in favour of its genuineness, and that being so, it seems per- fectly clear that the council had the approval of the Pope. It was, however, so far merely an Eastern assembly — m no sense an oecumenical gathering. Theodosius approved of the nomination of Gregory, and the settlement of the whole matter of the bishopric was handed over to the council ; but meanwhile the emperor went a step further in the direction of maintaining the true faith. In January, 381, appeared a short edict forbidding all heretics to assemble for divine worship. He also went a step further in defining a heretic. He had bidden all Catholics to follow the religion taught by the Pontiff Damasus, and, as a matter of fact, by Peter of Alexandria, and had spoken of the consubstantiality of the Holy Trinity as part of that faith ; he now specified the teaching which obtained at Piome con- cerning the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit.^ Theodoret, in describing the effect of this decree, says that the churches were now to be given to those who held ' the faith of Damasus.^ Thus the consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son was at once a matter of faith, and now also a matter of civil obligation for Catholics, before the council met. The French bishops, in their letter to Innocent X. in the seventeenth century, admitted that the anathemas of Damasus were irrevocable before the Council of Constantinople ; and the law of January 381 shows that Theodosius did not con- ceive of these bishops meeting to discuss an open question. ' 'Hoc est quod scepe dilectionem vestrani commonui, ne fierct aliquid in- considerate ' {Ep. v.). For the opposite view maintained by Mr. Puller, relying on the words of Innocent I. to Anysius and Rufus, cf. Prim. SS. p. 162. The Pope's words only show when the emperor gave civil sanction to the arrange- ment, not when Damasus made it. * Cf. Theod. De Beligione Decreta, lib. xvi. tit. v. 6 ; Migne, Patr. Lat. vol. xiii. ' Hist. Eccles. v. 3. 248 THE COUNCIL OF a.d. 800 And St. Gregory treated the question as closed in his preach- ing to the people, to the chagrin of some, friends of Mace- donius, but with the consciousness that they were standing alone in the Catholic Church. § 11.— The Council. I. Meletius was already on the scene to institute St. Gregory into the bishopric' We may picture to ourselves the meeting of St. Jerome and St. Meletius, the uniform magnanimity of the latter and the enthusiasm of the former for his newly acquired master, St. Gregory, binding the two together. There were many saints at this Eastern council, which began so well and ended so unhappily. St. Basil's brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, joined the little throng gathered round the eloquent and mortified bishop of the same name, the choice friend of St. Basil, who had passed from his labours on earth to his work of intercession in heaven. Meletius was the hero of the hour ; he had already synodically expressed his agreement with the ' Tome of the Westerns ; ' - his people were in the enjoyment of intercommunion with the disciples of Paulinus ; ^ he had arranged with the latter that whoever svu-vived the other should be the sole Bishop of Antioch.'' There were, for the present, two Bishops of Antioch, but that had been recognised by * the West,' ^ and consequently he came as the symbol of what the young emperor hoped, and the saintlier souls in the East sighed after — continued peace with the West " and the inauguration of peace amongst them- selves in the East. The first business of the council was concerned with the bishopric of Constantinople itself. Maximus" had been con- demned by Damasus in a private letter to Ascholius meant for the emperor's ear. He condemned his appointment to Constantinople on the grounds that it was done by externs, the ceremony performed at an unusual hour, without consul- ' Socr. H. E. V. 8. * Antiocliene Synod, 379. ' Theodoret. H. E. v. 3, * Greg. Naz. Carm. de Vitd sud. * Ep. Concil. Aqtiil. 5. Cf. Dam. Ep. v. " Letter of the Italian bishops to the Easterns (381), 'dudum.' Mansi, t. iii. 623. —884 CONSTANTINOPLE, a.d. 381. 249 tation of the clergy and people, and that the very appearance of Maximus was, according to accounts, that of a philosopher rather than of a Christian.' At the same time there were some difficulties about the election of St. Gregory, which probably account for the matter being reopened later on, and for the election of Maximus finding favour for a while, in spite of his character, with the law-abiding West ^ before they had full information on the subject. The council was presided over, in the natural course of events, by St. Meletius. There were no Papal legates, for the council had not been convoked as an oecumenical assembly. Alexandria was not yet represented ; it was in mourning round the death-bed of its patriarch, the saintly Peter. The Bishop of Antioch was, therefore, the natural president, according to ecclesiastical custom, Antioch being the third of the greater sees of Christendom, the third see of Peter. The ordination of Maximus was investigated and re- pudiated, and so far the East was placing itself in harmony with the West — so far as the judgment of the latter was known. St. Damasus had urged St. Ascholius to use his influence with Theodosius previous to his leaving Thessa- lonica for the appointment of some bishop against whose election there could be no objection from a canonical point of view.^ Whether this could be said as to St. Gregory's elec- tion opinions may differ. He had been consecrated by St. Basil Bishop of Sasima, and had acted as Bishop of Nazian- zus out of affection to his father's memory. However this might be thought to affect the canonicity of his election (translation from see to see being the great flaw in Eastern elections and the source of some of its greatest troubles), his election was confirmed, and it seems as though his first act was to intercede for the Egyptian consecrators of Maximus. They were spared the usual censure. II. Difficult as it is to settle the order of transactions in ' Damasi, Ep. v. ^ If this be the true account of the matter there would be nothing unnatural in a council in the West treating of the subject, on which Damasus would not naturally consider the opinion given by him in his letter to Ascholius as irre- formable. ' Dam. Ep. v. 250 ST. MELETIUS DIES. a.d. 800 this council, of which we do not possess the Acts, it seems almost certain that they must have at once proceeded to con- sider the dogmatic question,' and were probably interrupted in their work of proposed pacification by an event which altered the whole course of events for some years to come. Meletius died — not, as Canon Bright expresses it, ' a saint outside the communion of Eome,' - but a saint of chequered career, who, originally recognised amongst the bishops of the East by the Pope Liberius, of mild rather than uncom- promising nature, yet a magnificent confessor of the faith as against the Arian Euzoiiis, having thrice suft'ered exile, was for a while distrusted at Eome, but after publicly signing the * Tome of the Westerns,' was welcomed by Eome as Bishop of Antioch in her archives. Some while ago he had made the advances to Paulinus which led to a formal compact as to their successor, and he had now endeared all hearts to himself at Constantinople. He ended his life with inducting into the see of Constantinople her first orthodox bishop for more than forty years. He had perhaps also agreed to the principle embodied in the so-called fifth canon of the council, that all at Antioch should be acknowledged as orthodox who, whether they spoke of one or three Hypostaseis, acknowledged the one- ness of the Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.' ni. The death of Meletius was an event which not only plunged the city of Constantinople into a profound gloom, and was felt throughout the East, but it introduced a comphcation into the subject of the Antiochene disputes. After a funeral, in which the procession of bishops and clergy and others, with their hghted tapers in hand, is described as illuminating the city, and after the body of the saint had left to enter, on its way to Antioch, cities into which, in accordance with the sentiment of the time, no corpse had been allowed to be borne, ' De Broglie seems to think that the dogmatic question was not dealt with at all till later on, which is, of course, possible. But I hope to show that it is more probable that the course of events was as I have described it. 2 Hist, of the Church, p. 172. ' Cf. Canon v. This was a reversal of the judgment of St. Basil on the subject. The actual canon was probably drawn up at a later council in 382. —884 UNEDIFYING BISHOPS, 251 the bishops met to consider the question of St. Meletius' successor. It was a question which ought never to have been submitted at all.' Its proposal can only be accounted for by the state of the Eastern episcopate at that moment. The Emperor Valens had scattered bishops over the East to sup- port the cause of Arianism, who were quite unfit for the sacred office, and many of these had * conformed ' upon the edict of Theodosius, without a religious conviction of any kind.^ Their main sentiment was a deep-seated hatred of the West, which had supported the orthodox faith. They were violently Eastern, because they were but faintly orthodox. These men, St. Gregory tells us, had come all sunburnt from the plough, or from the smith's anvil, or the office of the petty scribe, or the baker's shop, or from handling the oar, or from the rank and file of the arm3\ A great deal is sometimes said about the authority of the Second Council and the galaxy of saints that are supposed to have promulgated the third canon, and to have proposed a successor to St. Meletius. St. Leo, with his provoking accuracy, describes the men who did this part of the busi- ness as * certain bishops.' St. Gregory considered them the offscouring of the episcopal body, and the very dregs of the Christian community. He distinctly states, as Tillemont points out, referring to St. Gregory's account of the council, that there were men loaded with gold who set to work to corrupt the bishops.^ As long as Meletius lived, the question of the compact which he had made did not press, and they would probabl}' have considered it too dishonourable to provide for the perpetuation of the state of strife which St. Meletius plumed himself on having brought to a peaceful issue with the consent of the West. But now came the difficulty ; that some of these bishops would have to be under Paulinus, whilst with others there was the still greater difficulty that they would be giving in to the West. Behind Paulinus they saw the Pope, and the Pope was to these abandoned men the symbol ' Tillemont says of this that ' some enemies of peace proposed in the council a thing of which they ought never to have dreamt ' (5^. Greg, de Naz- art. Ixxi. p. 475). Cf. Tillemont, St. Greg, de Naz. art. Iviii. p. 441. Paris, 1703. ' Loc. cit. 252 IN SPITE OF ST. GREGORY, a.d. 800 of the Homoousion. They could not deny the truth of the latter nor the rights of the former. They never in the whole strife objected that Lucifer had offended against the canonical rights of the East in consecrating a Bishop of Antioch. Neither St. Basil, nor St. Gregory, nor even these quarrelsome men, seem ever to have suggested that obvious flaw, as it must have been considered, unless the Papal regime was, in principle, acknowledged throughout the East. St. Basil distinctly refused, totidem verbis, to decide against the validity of the consecration. St. Gregory assumed its validity through- out. A fact such as this is of vital import in determining the general current of Eastern thought as to the canonical rela- tionship of the West to the East. But these half- Christian bishops (as St. Gregory calls them), at Constantinople, whilst they could not plead a lack of canonical validity in Paulinus' consecration, did demur to the shadow of Western patronage which lay on the rights of Paulinus. They had learnt to cherish a certain unchristian bitterness against the West, whilst others were influenced (to a less extent) in the same direction because the West had refused them the particular mode of support which under the leadership of St. Basil they had claimed in their struggle against Valens. Tillemont attributes their malignant spirit to this, and also to the spirit of ' pride, pique, and jealousy.' ' St. Gregory indignantly repudiated the dishonourable course on which they were embarking. He rose above their * low reasons,' as Tillemont calls them—' reasons,' he adds, * unworthy of a bishop. He sought only the will of God, the honour of the Church, and the good of souls.' ^ He deprecated their miserable attempt to turn the question of religion into a question of astronomy. He urged them, instead of advancing the miserable plea that things should go from the East, where Christ was born, to the West, and not rice versa, to think more of our Lord as the first-fruits of the whole human race, and to allow themselves ' to be a Httle conquered.' ^ ' This,' as Canon Bright remarks, ' was clearly the right course.' " St. Gregory said that it was pardonable in them ' Loc. cit. p. 476. ' Ibid. ' Carwt. de Vita sud, 1690 and 1653. * Hist, of the Church, p. 173. —384 ELECT FLAVIAN. 263 * in some measui-e to vex ' • the West during Meletius' lifetime, and when they were uncertain how he would he received (as was the case before the peace was made), being annoyed — defenders, as they say, of the laws ^ — but now he considered it wanton and inexcusable. Paulinas (he urged) could not live long, and so he entreated this ' mob of youngsters,' ^ to rise above this false patriotism and act for the peace of the Church. He told them plainly that he might resign 'his throne, but not his opinion.' But ' party feelings proved too strong for this good counsel.'^ Flavian, who, it is to be feared, had promised not to accept the bishopric, was elected. He had been St. Meletius' right-hand man, and even if he had not definitely agreed to the compact, it was a sad sight to see one who had been so intimate with Meletius entering upon his new charge by a violation of that saint's most cherished hope. It was a sure renewal of the breach with the West which St. Meletius had so carefully closed, and it was a deliberate prolongation of strife at the very heart of the East. IV. St, Gregory's disappointment may be imagined rather than described. His high soul, eager for the peace of the Church, revolted from the rude and contemptuous attitude of the uneducated and undisciplined band of young bishops who secured a sufficient majority to carry the dishonourable proposal. He no longer attended the sessions regularly, and since they were held in the episcopal palace, he soon removed ' Carm. de Vitd sucl, 1614. - Mr. Puller's translation {Prim. SS. p. 251), ' these self-styled defenders of the canons,' is not a correct rendering of the original. There is no irony in his words. ^ Carm. de Vita sua, 1636. * Canons of the First Four Councils, by Canon Bright, 1892, p. 110. Mr. Puller's account of this deplorable incident is distressingly apologetic and, it must be added, inaccurate. He calls it the action of the (Ecumenical Council, and he says : ' It is, I think, allowable to express regret that the bishops at Constantinople did not ratify the compact in the interests of peace. What they actually did was canonically legitimate, but it may be doubted whether it was wise or charitable ' (p. 248). St. Gregory thought it morally wrong. De Broglie thinks that the influence of this saint had waned since the Maximus affair. This is possible ; but the reasons St. Gregory gives are suflicient. Tille- mont's piety here fortunately gets the better of his Gallicanisma 254 ST. GREGORY RESIGNS. a.d. 300 to another dwelling. The council was thus without a regular head, and the friends of St. Gregory were withdrawing from participation ; it was, in fact, nothing in itself but a small Eastern synod. What was the young emperor doing all this while ? In the spirit of a Christian ruler he held himself aloof from the strife, but he sent for his spiritual father, St. Ascholius, from Thessalonica, who, as belonging to the Western Patriarchate, had not attended the council.' At the same time a new element of disturbance entered upon the scene. The Egyptians arrived with their new metro- politan (or patriarch) Timothy. Tillemont remarks that they had been delayed ^ by the necessity of arranging matters on the accession of Timothy. The Egyptians felt themselves compromised by the affair of Maximus, and that they had been pardoned rather than justified — a humiliation which they owed to Gregory .^ To add to the complication, the bishops who came at Theodosius' wish from lllyricum brought with them what St. Gregory calls a sharp ' Western breeze.' ^ They must have felt a somewhat disdainful compassion for the intricate quarrels of the East, compared with their own steady simplicity of faith. They were specially scandalised at the constant translation from see to see in the East, and neither they nor Timothy of Alexandria approved of Gregory's elevation to the see of Constantinople. They looked upon the argument that he had never gone to his original see, and had only administered his father's see provisionally, as insufficient; and the whole council became a fresh scene of confusion. Gregory forth- with announced his resignation, which was received with a respectful silence. The fact was that he had proved too uncompromising in his preaching to please those who origi- nally hailed his promotion, and too mortified in his life for the fashionable capital of the East ; consequently there was no ' This is the simplest solution of the difficulties raised in one direction by Papebroch, May 9, Acta Sanctorum, and in another by Tillemont, St. Greg, dc Naz., note 43, p. 717. * Loc. cit. St. Gregory says : i^anivris KtKKtjufvoi, but probably means that they came suddenly, having been originally invited. • De Broglie, loc. cit. p. 435. ' Carm. de Vitn suA, 1802. —884 NECTARIUS IS ELECTED. 255 section sufficiently enthusiastic in his favour to counter- balance the displeasure of Alexandria and the Egyptians. The Egyptians were in accord with St. Gregory in deprecating the selection of Flavian for Antioch, but this was not sufficient to counteract their dislike to his intrusion into the see of Constantinople in i^lace of Maximus, for whom they had no respect from a moral point of view, but whose election they considered canonically valid. St. Gregory, therefore, resigned in the interests of peace, and delivered a farewell address, which for theological exact- ness combined with pathetic eloquence has hardly its equal in Christian literature. He was a man not born to rule such elements of discord as then met in the Byzantine capital ; but for holiness, and orthodoxy, and polished eloquence he had hardly a peer in that century. He made his will in the presence of several bishops, leaving what he had to the poor of Nazian- zus, whither he now retraced his steps. On his way he passed by Csesarea, the scene of his beloved Basil's labours, and after delivering a panegyric there on his brother saint, retired to his father's city of Nazianzus.' V. The council had now lost its two greatest saints — Meletius and Gregory, and with St. Gregory several of his friends appear to have more or less withdrawn themselves. We may safely reckon amongst these St. Gregory of Nyssa and Helladius, and the little throng that had gathered round their master, the ' Theologian,' as he was called. It was necessary to elect another bishop. Amongst the names presented to the emperor was that of a civil dignitary, whose life had been somewhat free, though irreproachal)Ie of late, and who in consequence had delayed his baptism. We may guess, though we cannot say for certain, under what in- fluences his name was entered on the list proposed by the bishops. The emperor selected him, and he received all the sacraments at once. His appointment was a scandal and ' Bufinus Bays that men had never seen a holier and more blameless life, more brilliant eloquence, a purer and more orthodox faith, more perfect and consummate knowledge. Tillemont has a beautiful description of his preach- ing. He used to say to the Third Person, ' Thou art my God, and I shall not cease repeating -yes, Thou art my God.' 256 THE MACEDONIANS RETIRE. a.d. 30O promised ill for the Church. Constantinople and Antioch ■were thus, both of them, tilled with bishops on whose election a cloud rested. But both of these bishops happily belied their bad beginnings. Flavian, indeed, ended as a saint, and Necta- rius set to work to do his duty in good earnest. It must have been now that the council addressed itself to the work of bringing the Macedonian heretics to the acceptance of the full faith concerning the consubstantiality of the Eternal Trinity ; but it had lost its one guiding spirit in theology in the retirement of St. Gregory, and its main power of peace- making through the death of Meletius. The Macedonians could not have been impressed with what they had seen of the bishops so far, and they simply refused to accept the teaching that was proposed to them. The imperial influence was brought to bear upon them, but in vain. The emperor pressed upon them the submission they had made to Pope Liberius, but they simply left the council, leaving a letter of warning to their followers as to anything that might be done in favour of the Nicene Creed. They had found that the Nicene Creed involved not merely the Homoousion of the Son, but of the Holy Spirit, and one can well imagine that the bishops of the synod had lost their moral influence after the incidents that had marred their sessions hitherto. YI. But this council has nevertheless taken a high place in the consciousness of Christendom, having attained to the rank of one of those Four Ecumenical Councils which St. Gregory spoke of as next to the Four Holy Gospels. How was this '? It was for one act, which brought the East into harmony with the West, and which was confirmed by the Popes. The de- parture of the Macedonians may have had the effect of has- tening' the agreement of the bishops in a formula which had already been in use for years, and which expressed the synodical teaching of St. Damasus on the subject of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity. We do not know how or when, after what discussion, if any, the said formula was adopted ; we only know that it was not new, and that it ivas adopted. It had already been called by St. Epiphanius the Creed of the ' So De Broglie. —384 THEEE POINTS CLEAR. 257 Church, and the faithful had been required to learn it, almost as it now stood, by heart. If formally adopted after St. Gregory and his friends had withdrawn, we may fairly as- sume that there had been some discussion before the death of St. Meletius, and that St. Gregory and others had left their proxies or then- signatures for the said doctrinal decree. And the list of signatures, as we have it, suggests this. It is clear that the signatures are not those of the bishops given at any one session, they must have been placed together more or less at random ; but it is reasonable to suppose that the sig- natures were each of them attached to some document, though not all to the same. The signature of Timothy of Alexandria, or again of St. Meletius, were neither of them, as the said list would imply, attached to the third canon ; for Alexandria never accepted it, and St. Meletius died before it was drawn up. But it is reasonable to suppose that St. Meletius might be claimed as having accepted the form in which the Nicene Creed had been frequently recited by way of explication (with the approval of individual bishops in their several dioceses) before the council met, and that Timothy signed at the council itself. Consequently, the scribe finding both signatures, en- tered them as though they were attached at the same session and to the whole of the council's doings. Although we have no Acts, no record of the discussions, nor even of the order or number of the sessions, we have nevertheless the clear testimony of history to these three points — viz. that the enlarged form of the Nicene Creed, such as was already in use in some parts of the East, and was in harmony with the teaching of St. Damasus' ex cathedra j)ro- nunciation in the Eoman synod, was agreed to by a sufficient number of bishops to make it the act of the council ; next, that the ordination of Flavian to Antioch did not meet with the approval of the council as a whole ; and, lastly, that the third canon was, if it was mooted in this council at all, not the judgment of the 150 Fathers, but of a por- tion only. These are the broad facts for which there is historical evidence ; beyond this we seem to be in the region of mere conjecture. When Mr. Puller speaks of * so many 258 THE THIED CANON. a.d. 300 great saints ' ' having approved of Flavian's ordination, he is met with St. Gregory's statement that it was only a ' crowd of youths,' and those of a very unsaintly character, who suc- ceeded in drawing after them some of the * older stars.' "^Tien certain writers speak of the third canon as though it possessed the authority of the Church, they need to he confronted with St. Leo's determined accuracy in calling it only the decree of * certain ' bishops ; but when the Council of Chalcedon, eighty years afterwards, admitted the Council of Constanti- nople into a rank which was denied to it by the Council of Ephesus, it recognised a patent of orthodoxy as having been conferred upon its one unanimous act — viz. the enlargement of the Nicene Creed — a development by way of explication, embracing the truth which Eome had already pronounced to be of faith, and which the Emperor Theodosius had already decided to enforce on those who wished to be called Catholic Christians. The synod thus rose at length from a mere Eastern assembly of great saints, mixed up with a crowd of unedifying bishops, summoned to bring the East into line with the West on the subject of the Third Person of the Eternal Trinity, to the rank of one of those four oecumenical councils which exhibited the faith of the Church on the co- equality of the Son and the Holy Spirit with the Eternal Father, and the Divine Personality and perfect human nature of the one Mediator between God and man. § III. — New Rome, or the Third Canon. Before proceeding further, it will be well to consider briefly the so-called canons of this Second General Council. One of them plays such a conspicuous part in the controversy between our Anglican friends and ourselves that it calls for special attention.^ It has been contended by the former for the last three centuries, that the Council of Chalcedon set its seal to the principle that the primacy of the See of Eome (whatever that primacy may involve, whether actual jurisdiction or merely a position of honour) was due to the secular position ' Prim. SS. p. 148, note 1. * ' That the Bishop of Constantinople shonld have the prerogatives o£ honour after the Bishop of Rome, because it is New Rome.' Canon III. —384 WHEN WAS IT PASSED? 259 of the imperial capital. This will be considered at length when we come to that council. But the action of that coun- cil, whatever it be considered to involve, was based on this third canon of the Council of Constantinople. Hence the necessity of considering this canon with care. Its history is involved in great obscurity. When was it passed ? Not, we may safely assert, after Timothy of Alex- andria had arrived at the council, unless it were after his departure ; neither could it have been passed whilst St. Gregory was president. No one who has read ever so little of his writings at this time will suppose that he would have given his consent to a measure so certain to frustrate his cherished hopes of peace, and prompted by the spirit of over- reaching which he so emphatically denounced. One hardly sees, therefore, how it could have been passed at all. Canons were always drawn up at the close of a synod ; but this could not have been the case here, by reason of the presence of the Bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptians, who never accepted the regulation contained in this third canon. Neither is there room for it in the previous sessions, considering, not merely St. Gregory's presence, adverse to such a proposal, but his account of the synod, which makes no allusion to it. Was it, then, a canon of the council in the strict sense of that term ? In considering this question, we must bear in mind that it was never sent to the West, and that, consequently, when- ever passed, it was considered not to be a canon which con- cerned any but the Easterns themselves. It was not, it would seem, sent even to Alexandria, possibly on the ground that it was not considered to affect the question of jurisdiction. On the next vacancy in the See of Constantinople, Alexandria acted as its superior, and placed St. Chrysostom in the vacant see. It may be said, however, that this was done in defiance of the canon, just as at the next General Council (as it was in- tended to be) Alexandria occupied the seat of president, above Constantinople, at the order of the emperor himself. But had it been a canon in the ordmary sense of the term, it could hardly have been so completely passed over in both cases. s 2 260 DIFFICULT TO SAY. a.d. 300 But, further, on the first occasion on which it was pubhcly quoted at a General Synod, the Western bishops present denied that it was amongst the canons of the Church at all. And the evidence is strong to the effect that it was not contained as a canon even in the oldest Greek versions of the canons of the Church. In the Latin version of the canons called the Prisca, which drew its list from very ancient Greek manu- scripts, it is placed after the Council of Chalcedon, as though it had made its first appearance, as an oecumenical rule of action, on the occasion of that council, and there is fair ground for supposing that it was missing in the earliest ver- sion of the Isidorian collection of canons. Now these two versions, the Prisca and the Isidorian, supply us with our earliest mformation as to the most ancient Greek manu- scripts. Much doubt, therefore, hangs over this supposed canon on these grounds. Add to this the fact that the first canon is generally admitted to be not so much a canon as a part of the Tome which was drawn up by the council, and that the fifth and sixth canons are now admitted by all scholars to belong to a second council held in the following year ; whilst the seventh is not a canon at all. On all these grounds we have reason for hesitating to call this, which comes in their midst, a canon even of the Eastern Church. And yet the subject must have been mooted and settled by some authority. Now, Socrates puts the regulation con- tained in this canon before the confirmation of the Nicene Creed. His account cannot be depended on as giving the order of time ; but his placing this decree, as he calls it, by itself, before the time came, according to him, for the canons about bishops keeping to their provinces and looking to pro- vincial synods for the transaction of provincial concerns, seems to suggest that it stood on a different footing from these. It is certainly remarkable that the council of the following year, in giving a detailed description of what was done at the council of 381, mentions the subject-matter of the so-called first canon and of the second, as well as the ordina- tion of Nectarius and Flavian, but makes no allusion to this —384 NOT CONCERNED WITH JURISDICTION. 261 third canon. Of course, this might be clue to a conviction on their part that Rome would never accept the new arrange- ment. But if it really was one of the first three canons pro- perly enacted, and they mention the subject-matter of the first two, but keep silence as to this, we have to suppose them guilty of a dishonourable reticence. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that the decree of which Socrates speaks, and to which they allude in their letter to Theodosius, stood on a different footing to the second and fourth canons. It was an arrangement on which they agreed amongst themselves after Timothy had left, and which would therefore concern any future ecclesiastical intercourse between Alexandria and Constantinople. It had nothing to do with jurisdiction, but related to the mere question of honorary precedence {Trpsa^sla t7]s Ti/juijs). It did not concern Rome, as it would have done had it related to jurisdiction ; for in that case they knew well Rome would be obliged to have her say. It was, after a time, slipped in amongst the canons. Theodosius, in his law of July in that same year, adopted the new order of precedence in naming the prelates who in each region were considered orthodox. But this might be due to the petition of the bishops concerning their new decree, not to its figuring amongst canons of the council ; though, indeed, it would be unsafe to argue much from the order in the law of July 30, because the persons named therein are so named, not because of the dignity of their sees, but their personal merit. It is, however, certain that Theodosius approved of the move, and one cannot but see the hand of the quondam civil functionary,^ now bishop of the Byzantine capital, in the whole matter, and consequently Socrates may be so far right in placing this decree immediately after the ordination of Nectarius, that it was due to his particular influence. Theo- dosius naturally sanctioned, if he did not also promote the arrangement, for although a good Christian, he was an emperor. His successor set it at nought when precedence would have involved jurisdiction, as at Ephesus. ' Nectarius. 262 CONTAINS TRUTH AND FICTION. a.d. 300 The reason given in the canon for thus exalting Constan- tinople over Alexandria contains a curious mixture of fact and fiction. * Because it is New Rome ' was the ground assigned. Now it was true that the precedence of Old Eome over the West, viewing the West as its patriarchate^ was in one sense due to her being the capital of the empire ; but it was an arrangement which was made by Rome herself in vu-tue of her higher relationship to the Church. She chose to rule a portion of her world-wide spiritual dominion in the character of Patriarch as well as Pope ' — that portion which came at this time under the civil rule of the West^ of which Eome was the capital, though not now the imperial residence. It is therefore true, as Canon Bright has said, that ' the representation ' contained in the canon was ' un- faithful to the facts,' "^ i.e. untrue, for ' it is certain ' (as the same waiter has else^Yhere said) * that the Bishop of Eome enjoyed this pre-eminence not simpl}^ because his city was Eome, but also because he held the chair of Peter.' ^ At the same time, whilst wrong in supposing that patriarchal honours could be assigned to a capital because it was a capital hy themselves and the emperor, the}^ were right in implying that the patriarchate of the West came about (in one sense) through Eome being the capital ; only it was through the choice of the blessed Apostle Peter and his successors select- ing the Papal for a Patriarchal centre. We have no reason to suppose that this was meant to be denied.' Their mistake may have consisted in imagining that such a matter as even ' ' In the decrees of the bishops of Eome the distinction between their supreme and patriarchal jurisdiction is not always fully observed ; the latter is often supported and exalted by the former ; the one influences the other, and not unfrequently both flow on together : that is, the bishops of Rome perform many things both as Popes and Patriarchs. The Popes themselves do not always draw the precise line of distinction ; they possessed, indeed, both powers as successors of St. Peter, and often appeal even in acts which were connected immediately with their patriarchal authority to their supreme pon- tifical power ' (Dollinger, Hist, of the Church, Period II. cap. v. § 4). - Canons of the First Four General Conncils, by W. Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Regius Professor of Eccles. Hist., 1892, p. 107. ■■■ History of the Church, by W. Rright, D.D., 1882, 1892, p. 178. ■* It seems inconsistent with the submissive tone of the letter sent in 382 to Rome to suppose that they in any way questioned the supremacy of the See of Peter. —381 DISAPPEOYED IN THE WEST. 263 honorary precedence, when it concerned two of the three Petrine Sees (Alexandria and Antioch), could be settled by these Eastern bishops, or that honorary precedence could be for any length of time divorced from actual jurisdiction. May be they thought to bar in the future such action as that of Peter of Alexandria in allowing his bishops to ordain Maxi- mus to Constantinople ; and it might not unnaturally seem that Antioch, considering her long-standing divisions, would be better protected by Constantinople if the latter held the place of honour. And they could count on Flavian, in his present position, owing (as he did) his election to the bishops of the council, acquiescing in an arrangement which commended itself to the political and military instincts of Theodosius. But there mingled with this a certain lust of earthly honour which culminated in the great schism which was con- summated through the unrestrained ambition of the ablest and most unscrupulous prelate that ever managed to intrude himself into that ill-fated Byzantine see. The decree which goes by the name of the Third Canon of Constantinople was the germ of the successful mendacity of the arch-rebel Photius. § IV. — The Western Disapproval of the Election of Flavian to Antioch. Thus far, then, the synod was thoroughly and exclusively Eastern, in its composition, its range of action, and its internal discord. There was no idea of its aspiring to the rank of an oecumenical synod. But whilst it ended in some confusion and disagreement in regard to the Antiochene troubles, it nevertheless placed itself in line with the West in the matter of dogma. But they sent no official report to Eome, conscious, doubtless, of the impossibility of expecting Kome to accept their choice of Flavian. The account, how- ever, of what had taken place necessarily reached the West, and was animadverted upon by a council that met that year in September to consider the case of two bishops who, although teaching Arian doctrine, refused to be numbered amongst the Arians. These bishops desired to be tried before 264 THE WEST ASKS FOR A FULLER a.d. 300 an oecumenical synod ; but St. Ambrose and (we may pre- sume) St. Damasus considered that a small but influential council of thirty-t^yo neighbouring bishops was sufficient to adjudge their case. It was not a rei^resentative synod of the West, neither Rome (where Damasus was pressed by fresh opposition from his old enemy Ursinus) nor Spain being re- presented, although their letter to the East implies that they were acting in unison with Damasus. Its president was a great and holy bishop named Valerian, and its ruling spirit was St. Ambrose himself. This council, which met at Aquileia, addressed a letter to the Emperor Theodosias, which is of importance as showing that the West had long ago accepted the compact between St. Meletius and Paulinus as to the survivor being sole successor at Antioch. They say that, owing to the dissensions there, they had intended sending legates from the West to compose the strife,' but that ' since our desires could not take effect at that time owing to public disturbances, we presume that our petitions were pre- sented to your Piety, in which we asked, in accordance with a compact between the parties, that on the decease of one the churches might remain in the hands of the survivor, and there should be no attempt to ordain anyone over his head.' Such had been their previous petition, after they had heard of the compact made before the Antiochene Synod of A.D. 379, in which St. Meletius and his friends signed the * Tome of the Westerns ' and sent it to Rome. This, however, had now been rendered useless, owing to what had taken place at Constantinople.^ Accordingly they proceed to say : * And ' ' Qui sequestres et arbitri refundendse, si fieri posset, pacis existerent ' (Mansi, t. iii. p. G23). "^ Mr. Puller rests much of his argument {Prim. SS. p. 249) concerning the continued existence of the breach \vith Eome and St. Meletius on this letter and the succeeding one from Milan. He argues that the Council of Aquileia did not know of what had taken place at Constantinople, and hence made a proposal about the survivor of either bishop at Antioch. But this is impossible for two reasons, viz. : (1) it is impossible to suppose that they would ask for a ' fuller council ' at Alexandria (as they did in this letter) before they knew the issue of the council at Constantinople, and (2) they knew of Theodosius' law of July, for they thank him for passing it, and this law was passed subsequently to the Council of Constantinople, and brings in the name of Nectarius, who was ordained at that council. —384 COUNCIL TO DEAL WITH 265 therefore we ask and beseech you, most clement and Christian emperors, to convoke the whole body of Catholic bishops to a council to be held at Alexandria, who may fully discuss and settle the question as to who are to be admitted to communion and who are to have their communion with us maintained.' They had said in the same letter that they were bound to laave a care for the Paulinists at Antioch, because they had lorifi ago received the letters of both sides.' What they intimate is, that they cannot throw over Paulinus and his followers, which the acceptance of Flavian would involve. They had once hoped to send legates, but that being impossible under the circumstances, they had sent letters which they think the emperor must have received,^ in which they had asked for the imperial sanction of the compact entered into by the two sides. That compact having been set aside, i.e. at the Council of Constantinople, they now ask for a General Council to meet at Alexandria, and consider * to whom communion should be given and with whom it should be maintained ' ^ — i.e. whe- ther they should extend their communion to the followers of Meletius now placed under Flavian. For themselves they wish the compact to stand (' quod stare volumus ')• We learn from Sozomen that several at Antioch at once decided to join the party of Paulinus, as they presumed St. Meletius would have wished them to do, and so these Western bishops say that they do not wish any of these to seem neglected, ' who also in accordance with the compact, which we desire should stand, have asked for our communion.' * They therefore ask for a fuller council (' ccetu pleniore ') than that of Constantinople, which will have a better chance of restoring peace. Very shortly after this, another council seems to have met at Milan, ^ in which the bishops came to the conclusion that it would be better to have the council at Rome itself, to decide the affair of Nectarius, whose ordination they considered ' ' Utriusque partis dudum accepimus literas ' {loc. cit.). - ' Oblatas pietati vestrse opinamur preces nostras.' ' Mansi, t. iii. p. 634. * ' Qui et pacto, quod stare volumus, communionem nostram rogarunt ' (loc- cit.). * So Hefele and others think. Mansi makes the letter only a second from Aquileia. 266 THE DISHONOURED COMPACT. a.d. 300 illegitimate. From what follows we may assume that St. Damasus himself, whilst he would have supported Gregory as against Maximus, felt that Maximus' ordination had elements of canonicity which were lacking in the case of Nectarius.^ The letter of this Council of Milan further censures the election of Flavian in place of Meletius. They say that the confusion which had recently (' nuper,' i.e. at Constantinople) taken place is indescribable. Things now stand thus, ' We had written long ago ' (' dudum,* i.e. long before the Council of Constantinoj)le, alluding to the letters spoken of above as having been sent instead of legates, after they knew of the compact between Meletius and Paulinus) ' that, since the city of Antioch had two bishops, Paulinus and Meletius, whom we considered to agree in faith, either peace and concord should be established between them without detriment to ecclesiastical order, or that, at any rate, whichever of them died before the other, there should be no election in the place of the deceased whilst the other lived. But now that Meletius has died . . .. it is said that one has been not so much substituted as intruded into his place.' ' And this is said to have been done with the consent and by the advice of Nectarius, the regularity of whose ordination does not seem clear to us. For in the council lately {nuper),'' &c. Now from this letter we gather that there had been no formal notification of the enactments at Constantinople, but that information had reached them, as it must have done even before September (the date of the Council of Aquileia) as to the course of events at Constantinoj)le — and information of a sufficiently precise nature to justify them in writing about it to the emperor, and calling it a state of inexplicable confusion. Further, they allude to letters which had been sent to the emperor concerning the compact long ago (* dudum ') — that is, as compared with the Council of Constantinople, of which they speak as comparatively recent ('nuper'). These could only have been the letters to which the bishops at Aquileia alluded as having been sent previous to the Council of Constantinople. ' This explains the apparent change of front on the part of Damasus. It is, however, quite possible that it was a real change of mind in consequence of information as to what happened at Constantinople. —384 HISTORICAL CONCLUSION. 267 Now that the compact had been set aside, they ask for a larger council. It is therefore quite certain from these letters that when St. Meletius went to Constantinople he was a bishop accepted by Rome/ and absolutely certain that he died in communion with Rome.^ Indeed, considering what has been advanced abo^■e,^ it may be safely said that he had been in communion with Rome during the interval between the Synod of Antioch (379) and his death. And further, no case has been made out for the assertion that he was ever excommuni- cated by Rome. It must be remembered that the refusal to acknowledge a person as bishop is by no means equivalent to excommunication, and again, that the refusal of letters of intercourse may mean something much less than a decision that the person to whom they are refused is under the excommunica tio major. Note. — It will be seen that I have drawn a perfectly opposite conclusion from the above letters to that deduced by Mr. Puller, 'Prim. SS.' pp. 247-251. He regards them as containing a demon- stration that St. Meletius was out of communion with Rome at the time of the Council of Constantinople. It may well be asked, Whence this difference ? It originates in the simple fact that Mr. Puller has disregarded the ordinary rules of grammar in his trans- lation of the first letter. He translates the past tense in the Latin by the present in English. ' Oblatas pietati vestrse opmamur preces nostras, quibus partium pactum poposcimus, ut . . . per- manerent . . . attentaretur,' is all in the past. But Mr. Puller actually translates j^oposcimus ' we pray,' and oblatas as ' should be offered,' and permanerent as ' may remain ' (p. 250), which alters the whole sense. He then, to make it more complete, understands mine Meletio defuncto as meaning that the bishops at Milan had notu, i.e. since the Cotincil of Aquileia, heard of Meletius' death. One could wish that Mr. Puller had restrained himself a little in making such sweeping accusations about others rendering history an impossibility as he has indulged in on p. 327. Nothing surely can equal the hardihood of turning the past tense into the present, and then making the passage thus translated the pivot of his argument as to the relation of St. Meletius to the See of Peter. As has been ' They speak of ' two bishops.' 2 They had ' long ago ' sent letters to both. ' "P. 229. 268 :ME. PULLER'S version. a.d. 300—384 seen in the text above (cf. also note top. 264), what the bishops are speaking of when they wish the subject of whom they should admit to communion to be dealt with, is the state of things that had arisen in consequence of Flavian's election, not the matter of communion with St. Meletius, 'Prim. SS., p. 250 (last Une).' So that instead of its being ' perfectly clear from this letter that St. Meletius up to the time of his death was still cut off from the communion of the Western Church, which was so fully represented at Aquileia ' (p. 251), it seems perfectly clear that the exact opposite is the truth. As for the West being ' so fully represented at Aquileia,' that is a minor matter, but it is difficult to see how the West could be fully represented, without Rome or Spain, by thirty-two bishops. So that on p. 251 (last line) of Mr. Puller's book the word ' Flavian ' should be substituted for the words ' St. Meletius ' — in other words, the whole superstructure of argument so laboriously built up by Mr. Puller falls to the ground. CONCLUSION OF SECOND PERIOD. § I. — Councils of Constantinople and Rome (382). Before closing the second period it will be well to take a rapid survey of the action taken by the East and West in regard to the council which met at Constantinople in 381, in order to see how the whole matter ended in peace for the distracted East. Two great synods were held, one at Con- stantinople and the other at Eome, in 382, instead of a larger one of East and West in one place. I. The West having (p. 266) expressed its dissatisfaction with the doings of the council at Constantinople m regard to the appointment of Nectarius to Constantinople and of Flavian to Antioch, now demanded a General Council, and suggested Alexandria as the best place wherein to meet. What Theo- dosius actually did was to summon a fresh synod to Constan- tinople. Meanwhile St. Damasus (for by the West we must understand St. Damasus and the Western bishops) proceeded a step further and proposed a General Council to meet at Rome.' This invitation, however, came too late. Numerous bishops had already met at Constantinople and left their dioceses for the time that would be required for a synod there, and had not made arrangements which would permit of their extendmg their journey, neither (it would seem from what they say) had they met at Constantinople in such numbers as would be ' Theodoret speaks of ' the West ' calling for a council of Easterns and Westerns. But, as Merenda observes, everybody knows (' nemo qui nescit ') that by this expression the Pope is frequently meant {Gesta S. Damasi, cap. xx. § 2). Merenda also thinks that the letter wTitten by the Emperor Gratian to Damasus about assembling a synod, mentioned in the Lib. Synodic, cap. Ixxiv. refers to the Council of Aquileia. 270 THE EAST ADDRESSES ROME a.d. 300 required for an cecumenical council of East and West. This they stated in their letter, which they at once wrote to St. Damasus and the Western bishops. In that letter, after cordially > responding to the desire of the West to bring matters to a peaceful issue, and speaking of themselves as * members ' of the West (as containing, it might perhaps be fairly argued, their head 2), they say that ' it was indeed our wish, if possible, to leave our Churches in a body and gratify the need or desire,' i.e. of repairing to Rome. ' For ' (they continue) ' who will give us wings like doves to flee away and be at rest with you ? ' In the West was their true home — so the expression used implies ; ^ there was their mother, who could gather them under her wings and give them shelter and peace. But this, they plead, was simply an impossibility at present. It was impossible to leave their Churches for so long, or to send notice to the other bishops. They had already * flocked in eager haste ' to Constantinople '' ' in conse- quence of (sk) the letters sent by your Worthiness last year after the synod at Aquileia,^ to the most God-loving Emperor Theodosius.' It would therefore now be impossible to let the other bishops know. This last reason throws some light on this Synod of 382 at Constantinople. It was not the 150 Fathers who met, except by representation. Of course, we know that St. Gregory of Nazianzus refused to attend ; and we do not know how many others did the same. They themselves call the synod of the last year {'Trspvcn' [381]) ' Several writers on the subject imagine that these Eastern bishops were not sincere in what they said. There is absolutely nothing in the words they use to convey the notion of hypocrisy. - Of course they might mean only to speak of being members one of another, but the context suggests the above meaning. ' Mansi, t. iii. p. 583: irphs vixas. Cf. the well-known expression in St. John i. 1, trphs rbv @e6v, indicating the infinite communion of the Son with the Father the -irritri BeorriTos. The Greek preposition in such contexts is equiva- lent to the French ' chez vous.' Jerusalem was the mother-Church as the older ; Eome was their mother as the present centre of the Church. * ffuvSeSpojuTj/coiuev, lit. ' We had run together.' * It is therefore evident that the order of things was this. St. Damasus, in concert with the bishops at Aquileia, had proposed a council at Alexandria. The Easterns were at once summoned by Theodosius to Constantinople, where they received the subsequent invitation to Rome which is recorded in the letter from the council held (as is supposed) at Milan. -384 IN FILIAL TERMS, AND ADOPTS 271 oecumenical, not their own — a term which they could hardly have meant to use even of that in its full signil&cance, unless in the sense that the dogmatic decisions, being but an echo of the pronouncements already promulgated in the West, witnessed to the universal acceptance of the teaching of the Eoman Synod of 372. Probably, however, they used the word in the same way that the Africans used the word universal, i.e. of a Synod of All Africa. This whole letter is a witness to the fact that the East had no idea of such a thing as the independence of national Churches. Neither provinces, nor even the whole of the East, felt themselves at liberty to plead that they could manage their own affairs without reference to the West.' They then proceed to say that they had adopted the next best course (o Bsvrspov 7]v) by way of righting matters and showing their love ^ for the Western bishops. ' We asked €yriacus, Eusebius, and Priscianus to undertake the work willingly of going to you, and through these we show our own peaceful determination, and how we aim at unity.' They then describe their faith in exact accord with the teaching sent originally by the Pioman Synod (372) on the subject of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, and they refer to St. Damasus and the Westerns for a further explanation of their faith to a certain doctrinal formulary, which they speak of as '' the Tome which was adopted ^ at Antioch by the synod as- sembled there, and to the Tome put forth last year at Con- stantinople by the Oecumenical Synod.' This passage proves two things : first, that the Council of 382 did not regard itself simply as a session of the Council of 381, but as a separate synod ; and secondly, that the so-called Fifth Canon of the ' The letter of Theodosius quoted by Mr. Puller {Prwi. SS. p. 274) does not exist ; and though it did once exist, it probably had nothing to do with this matter ; and, if it had, it was denounced by St. Ambrose as erroneous in its teaching (cf. Appendix III. p. 479). ^ I feel myself quite unable to take the line that these bishops were mere hypocrites. Without rating them too high, they must have had the courage of their opinions sufficiently to say so, if they were, as some suppose, all the while offended with the West. At any rate, they thought it best to say the exact opposite. They were not the same as those of the previous year. ' I have thus translated y(yfvnfjifv The canon runs thus : ' As to the Tome of the Westerns, we also recog- nised those in Antioch who confess one Godhead of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost.' '■^ They seem to me to amount to demonstration. —384 THE GREAT ROMAN SYNOD 273 the divine Apostle Peter.' And now the council assembled at Constantinople (382) to establish peace could report that their * (Ecumenical ' Council of the previous year (381) had professed the same faith, and they were able to tell the West that they unanimously accepted in the East the doctrinal formulary which had issued from Kome in the midst of their troubles under Yalens, and had been accepted by St. Meletius and his synod at Antioch, two or three years previously, and by the more General Council of 381.^ So far, then, as the faith was concerned, the East had now been brought into line with the West. But peace was not yet restored ; for the new Bishops of Constantinople and Antioch had not yet received the assent of the Bishop of Rome to their appointment. Meanwhile the council, which had been originally intended as oecumenical, met at Eome, shorn of the Eastern contingent that met at Constantinople, but one of the most remarkable synods as concerned its composition that had assembled during the reign of Damasus. There was St. Ambrose himself, the foremost prelate of his time, the spiritual guide of the Western emperor, and the sph-itual father of the great Augustine ; the metropolitan of the city (Milan) selected by the emperor for his frequent residence ; a bishop who has more vividly impressed his memory upon the West than perhaps any other Western saint of that critical time. The great Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Ascholius, who had baptised the Eastern emperor, had also come with the special desire of meeting St. Ambrose in the flesh. He came in his anchorite's garment, and found his brother saint ill in bed. St. Ambrose himself describes their meeting,^ their long embrace, the tears they shed. There was the great St. Jerome, the student of Holy Scripture, who had drunk in the theology of St. Gregory of Nazianzus from his own lips, to whose inspection St. Gregory of Nyssa had submitted his writings, and who was one day to be the instructor of St. Augustine himself. There was, above all, the great Saint Epiphanius, one of ' It had not yet the right to the title (Ecumenical. ^ Ep. xv. n. 10. T 274 THE ISIEETIXG OF THE SAINTS. a.d. 300 the greatest men of the day ; born in Palestine, brought up a Jew, converted by the sight of a monk giving away his garment to clothe a beggar ; the friend of St. Athanasius ; inhabitant of the Thebaid as an anchorite, where the monas- teries rang with the fame of his many miracles ; drawn out of his cell against his will and made Bishop of Salamis — a man consulted by East and West, profoundly versed in Hebrew and Syriac and Greek, one who had investigated to its depths every heresy, and who was called ' the Apostle, the new John, the herald of the Lord.' These great saints were now in the city of St. Peter and St. Paul. And there was one object, which must have had a special interest for them at that time — the chair of Peter. St. Damasus had built a new baptistery, and placed the chair of Peter in it, to which the description he put up in this baptistery alludes — Una Petri sedes, unum verumque lavacrum.' St. Optatus, the African bishop, had lately written his work against the Donatists, and in answer to their boast that they had a successor of Peter in Kome, having consecrated a bishop for Piome, named Macrobius, for their own sect, he had written thus, ' In fact, if Macrobius be asked where he sits in Eome, can he say, In the Chair of Peter ? — which I am not aware that he has ever seen with his eyes, and whose shrine he, as a heretic, has never approached.' St. Ambrose, St. Ascholius, St. Epiphanius, and St. Jerome may be thought of in devout reverence at the shrine of Peter, one in their faith, as expressed by St, Ambrose in the Council of Aquileia, that from Eome 'the rights of venerable com- munion flow abroad to all.' ' Unfortunately, the Acts of this important synod have perished, and we can only guess at its decisions by the action of the West towards the East subsequent to the assembly. Hitherto St. Damasus had expressed his disapproval of Maximus' appointment to Constantinople privately, before the appointment had been made ; ^ but the Council of Aquileia, ' Mansi, t. iii. p. 622. ' Damaa. Ep. ad Aschol —384 RESULTS OF THE SYNOD. 275 ■which met by his authority/ and was presided over by Valerian and attended by St. Ambrose, who was its ruHng spirit, had asked for a general council at Alexandria, in con- sequence of its being obliged to say in the name of the West that the arrangements of the Council of Constantinople (381), concerning either Maximus, who had apparently appealed to it, or concerning the see of Antioch, would never meet with their approval. But the Council of Milan had gone further, being doubt- less in possession of further details. It had protested against the appointment of Nectarius, and asked the emperor to send his bishops to Rome. That most extraordinary man, Maximus, had appeared in the West, having probably dropped his yellow wig and philosopher's mantle and staff, and had claimed the privilege of appeal. He had not handed in an appeal whilst in the East, and hence his case did not techni- cally come under the operation of the Niceno-Sardican canon. But the principle of that canon might fairly be invoked,'^ and the council did claim that the East should act in accordance with its provision.^ The East ought to have waited for the sentence of the West, the council says. It dis- claims the idea of making itself the court of first instance, but claims to be consulted in the matter.' It was one which could not be concluded in the East ; there must be a common judgment.^ All this must have been review^ed, at the great synod at Eome in 382, by the Pope, by St. Ambrose, St. Epiphanius, St. Ascholius, St. Jerome, and the bishops in synod. What they decided can only be conjectured from the sequence of events, which was as follows : — Maximus was disowned by the West, the two consecrators of Flavian were excommuni- cated, but towards Flavian himself Rome maintained silence,^ ' Cf. Valesii Nota apud Sozom. lib. vii. c. 9 ; and Merenda, Gesta Damasi (Migne, p. 328). 2 Viz. that no bishop should be appointed during an appeal to Borne. ' Mansi, t. iii. 632. Not mentioning the canon, but obviously arguing upon its lines. ' Praerogativam examinis (Anibr. Ep. xiii.). * A common judgment is not necessarily one in which all parties are on a par, and all contribute the same amount of authority, but in which all, head and members as well, join. " aioiir)]v eix*" (^02.), T 2 276 THE APOLLINARIAN HERESY. a.d. 300 neither passing actual sentence upon him nor admitting his claim — placing him, in fact, in much the same position as that held by St. Meletius before 379, i.e. neither excommuni- cated nor adopted by Eome ^ — whilst the East applied to Eome for its approbation of Nectarius, thus acting in accord- ance with the request of the Council of Milan, that the matter should not be concluded in the East. Theodosius did not consider Nectarius' position safe without Eome's approval ; accordingly, a solemn embassy of bishops and imperial officials ^ was dispatched to Eome for her approbation, the emperor asking for a letter of communion to ' confirm the episcopal position ' of Nectarius.^ The Council of 382 had used an expression in the end of their synodical letter to Damasus to the same effect ; they express a hope that Damasus and the West will ' congratulate ' them on what they had done — a courteous ecclesiastical formula to request confirmation.^ It seems also that the Apollinarian heresy was dealt with at the Eoman Sj^nod (382). St. Damasus would be particu- larly anxious for consultation with such as St. Epiphanius and St. Ambrose on this subject. The condemnation of that heresy had been one of the great works of his reign. It had sprung, as so many heresies, from a zealous opposition to one form of error leading to an error on the opposite side. In opposing the Arians, Apollinarius came to imagine that our Lord's freedom from sin was mcompatible with the possession of a human soul, and that the possession of two natures, each entire and distinct, was inconsistent with the Unity of His Person. He, therefore, denied that our Lord had a human soul in its higher element or operation (a rational soul), and asserted that this was supplied by His Divinity. As j^ou entered the house of a disciple of Apollinarius you would see written up on the door or portico, a sentence to the effect ' Mansi, t. iii. p. C40 : ' Ab cxcomraunicatione Flaviani cessatum est, et schisma Antiochenae ecclesice ad tempus certum toleratum fuit.' ■^ ' Missia a latere suo aulicis cum episcopis ' (Bonifacii I.Ei). xv. ad Rufum, &c.). * ' Quffi eju3 sacerdotium roboraret ' [loc. cit.). * Nectarius' ordination needed to be purged of its irregularity as contra, vening the Second Canon of Nictea. —384 THE BRETHEEN CONFIRMED 277 that Christians should not adore a man who bore God within himself, bnt a God who bore human flesh. Both St. Basil and St. Athanasius exhibited a certain natural reluctance to condemn Apollinarius himself, though, it is needless to say, themselves absolutely free from any taint of his error. St. Damasus condemned him synodically in a synod (377) and deposed both him and his disciple Timothy, Bishop (perhaps ' ) of Berytus, and the example of the Pope was followed at Alex- andria and Constantinople. St. Damasus had been asked to depose these bishops after he had done it. Accordingly he replied, 'Why, then, do you ask me again to depose Timothy seeing that he was deposed by the judgment of the Apostolic See, in presence of Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, together with his master, Apollinarius ? ' ^ At this synod of 382 at Rome St. Jerome was deputed to draw up a formulary to be accepted by all suspected or con- victed of the heresy of Apollinarius. After this, various bishops met in the following year at Constantinople, and Damasus in a synod of the same year ^ confirmed all that had been done at Constantinople in 381, 382, and 383 in regard to dogma. The canons were not sent to Rome, and therefore had no oecumenical authority. After the synod of 382 St. Damasus took St. Jerome for his secretary, and we know from the latter that the Pope was occupied, during the time that remained to him, in settling matters referred to him by synods from the East and West. He had been the centre of the Church's life now for nearly eighteen years, and during all that time he had been con- stantly employed in either meeting the attacks on his own person or those, more serious still, on the faith of the Church. He had been, as the Sixth General Council called him, the * adamant of the faith.' As an instance of the way in which he was able to * confirm the brethren ' at times, we may re- member his action in regard to the saintly and orthodox successor of St. Athanasius at Alexandria. This bishop's name was Peter. He was driven out of his see by the Emperor Valens, and one named Lucius was intruded. Peter ' The difficulties of settling who this Timothy was are considerable ^ Damas. Ej). 14. ^ Mansi, t. iii. p. 642. 278 THE SPLENDOUR OF a.d. 300 betook himself to Rome, and in 377 he returned to Alexandria with letters from Damasus which, says the historian, * con- firmed the faith of the Homoousion and the ordination of Peter. Whereupon the people of Alexandria took courage and drove out Lucius and brought back Peter in his place.' ' Butherius, Bishop of Tyana, and Helladius, Bishop of Tarsus, two unimpeachable witnesses, probably referred to this amongst other instances when they said, in their remarkable letter to Pope Xystus, ' And often in former times when the tares of heresy were growing up out of Alexandria your Apostolic See sufficed during the whole of that time to convince of false- hood, repress impiety, and correct what needed correction, and to guard the world for the glory of Christ, as well under the thrice blessed Damasus as under several others.' It was, however, the chief glory of this Pope that he was the chosen instrument of the Holy Ghost to declare His Divine Majesty coequal with the Father and the Son, as part of that Catholic faith which had been enshrined in the Nicene Creed, but which needed explicit statement. This St. Damasus did in his ex cathedra pronouncement in the synods of 369 and 372, and his utterance gradually gathered into itself the entire Church, issuing in the assent of the great Eastern Synod in 381, which, by its acceptance at Rome, became one of the first four oecumenical councils,^ so far as its dogmatic decision was concerned. No wonder that the heathen prefect at Rome, as he saw the central position of the see of Peter, the reverence paid to it in the midst of the troubles it met with through an Ursinus or an Isaac (the Jew) , should say that he would become a Christian to-morrow if he could be made Bishop of Rome. He would probably have said the same of the bishopric of Milan, as he saw the heads of departments flock to the entertainments which St. Ambrose, himself the most mortified of men, occasionally gave in that city, and as he considered the influence of the great bishop on the Emperor Gratian. No wonder the heathen historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, felt the sting of jealousy as ' Socr. iv. 37. Sozomen accounts for the fact that Valens did not avenge himself for this insult by his being just then distracted with troubles else- where (Soz. vi. 39). ^ i.e. eventually. —884 ST. DAM ASUS' KEIGN. 279 he saw the state with which previous emperors had sur- rounded the heathen rehgion now transferred to the Chris- tian. He would not understand how a mortified man hke Damasus viewed such matters, accepting the ritual of imperial homage whilst he knew that his real strength lay in the divine promise to the blessed Apostle Peter, in whose name, together with that of the holy Apostle Paul, he ruled the Church, and in whose chair he sat. PERIOD III. (THE FIFTH CENTUEY.) 400-452. CHAPTEE XVII. THE CHURCH OF NORTH AFRICA IN THE DAYS OF ST. AUGUSTINE. § I. — The Letters of St. Innocent. A RECENT writer, whose statements have been often traversed m this book, has said of us, in regard to the subject of this chapter, ' As honourable men, let them refrain from pretending that the Church of North Africa, in the time of St. Augustine, believed in the principles laid down hj the Vatican Council. Such a pretence is an impertinence and an act of folly, which must alienate every person of good sense and Christian sim- plicity who is cognisant of it.' ' The particular teaching of the said Council against which this writer's remarks are directed is given in the immediate context. It is ' the principle that, jnre dirino, every member of the Church, whether clerical or lay, has an inherent right to have " recourse to the Pope's judgment in all causes which appertain to the jurisdiction of the Church." The African Fathers absolutely deny that right.'- It must be observed in passing, that it is noi jure divino, according to the Vatican decrees, that everyone has the right of direct and immediate recourse to the Holy See. It belongs to ecclesiastical authority to regulate the channels of access to the supreme authority, which may differ at different times and in different countries. In a word, whilst the principle of appeal is open to all the world, the mode of procedure by which the appeal is set in motion is matter of ecclesiastical arrangement. Ever since the sixteenth century, or at any rate the seventeenth, the Church of North Africa in the days of St. Augustine has been quoted as an authority for separation from ' Primitive Saints, dc. p. 20H ; cf. also the Preface to the work by the Bishop of Lincohi, p. xxxi. '= p. 202. ^84 PELAGIANISM A.D. 400 Eome in this country. At the time of the final separation, when Ehzabeth had an archbishop made without leave from Eome, and without connection with Eome of any kind, no theory had been struck out to justify the state of things in which men found themselves ; but as soon as they sought for the shelter of Church history the Church of North Africa was invoked in justification of the step taken. And when Archbishop Laud endeavoured to defend his position from history he laid great stress on the misunderstanding that arose between Eome and Africa in the beginning of the fifth century over the affair of Apiarius. Dr. Pusey followed in the same line and insisted that * England is not at this moment more independent of any authority of the Bishop of Eome than Africa was in the days of St. Augustine.' ' It is no exaggeration to say that if it can be shown that the Church of North Africa in the days of Augustine held that the Bishop of Eome was the supreme Governor of the Church under Christ, by His divine appointment, one of the great ob- stacles to reunion between ourselves and many of our fellow- countrymen will have been removed. It is this that I now proceed to show. I. The fifth century, in its first few years, saw the begin- ning of a heresy which struck at the roots of all Christian piety. It originated with a fellow-countryman of our own, a British monk named Pelagius, who denied that death was the penalty of sin — that sin had in any substantial way afiected our nature, so as to weaken it and make it incapable of ful- filling the commands of God. Pelagius confused grace with the grant of free-will, and held that it was possible by the mere virtue of our free-will to keep the law. He denied that any interior strengthening of our nature was needed, admitting only the necessity of instruction, as by the doctrine and ex- ample of our Lord. He held that the assistance which helps us more easily to fulfil the divine commands is merited by the proper use of our free-will.'^ ' Eirenicon, p. 66. ^ See in Migne's Patrol. Cursus a most exhaustive account of Pelagius' teaching in Garnier's Seventh Dissertation on the Works of Mariiis Mcrcator, in which the above points are dealt with one by one. —452 DRIVEN FROM AFRICA, 285 The great difficulty of dealing with this false doctrine lay not so much in the nature of the heresy as in the character of the heretics. Pelagius had no scruple about denying and asserting at random, professing perfect harmony with the teaching of the Church when pressed by authority, and pro- ceeding to teach its contradictory when absolved. His disciple, Coelestius, was the first to come to the front ; and his action in Africa led to an expression of opinion on the value of a decision from Eome which ought to settle the ques- tion as to what the Church of North Africa held concerning the authority of the See of Peter. Coelestius had found his way to Africa, and disseminated his opinions there. He was condemned by a synod at Carthage under Aurehus, a.d. 412. The synod wrote to Pope Innocent and described Ccelestius as ' struck with anathema and deprived of communion until he should openly anathematise the things objected against him.' Ccelestius appealed to Eome. The African Fathers took no exception to his appeal, which is mentioned quite naturally by Marius Mercator,a contemporary^ and later on by Facundus the African writer. He left Car- thage and went, not, as it was supposed he would, to Eome to prosecute his appeal, but to Asia. His object seems to have been to get into the priesthood whilst he was yet finally un- condemned. He was ordained priest at Ephesus, and was therefore outside the patriarchal jurisdiction of Eome. Meanwhile Pelagius had gone to Jerusalem to disseminate his errors in Palestine ; there he found a sympathiser in the Bishop of Jerusalem, named John. But at a synod consisting mainly, if not altogether, of priests, a Spanish priest, named Orosius, whom St. Augustine had sent, as he says, to sit at the feet of Jerome at Bethlehem ' to learn the fear of the Lord,' explained what had happened at Carthage, how this Ccelestius had been condemned for false doctrine. Such a difficulty of language, however, arose, and Pelagius seemed so to evade all that Orosius accused him of teaching, that it was agreed to refer the matter to Eome, and John, the Bishop of Jerusalem,' concurred, ' confirming,' says Orosius, ' our demand and con- ' This bishop seems to have believed in Pelagius, without, however, having any sympathy willi Pelagianism. Cf. Natalis Alexander, H. E. vol. ix. pt. 2. 286 KEFERRED TO ROME a.d. 400 tention that the parties and the letters should be sent to the blessed Innocent, the Roman Pope, all agreeing to follow what he should decide.^ but on the understanding that the heretic Pelagius should impose silence on himself meanwhile.' The Bishop of Jerusalem, however, fearing that Pelagius would be condemned at Rome, seems to have instigated the Bishop of Palestinian Csssarea, Eulogius, to summon a synod of the bishops of the province at Diospolis, in which Pelagius imposed upon his judges and was declared orthodox. Some of St. Jerome's monasteries were now burnt to the ground, owing to his opposition to this new heresy which Pelagius was now spreading about on the pretence that it had been sanctioned at the synod. '^ There were, however, two wandering bishops from Gaul, named Eros and Lazarus, who at once wrote to Africa and acquainted the bishops there of what had happened in Palestine. II. A large council of bishops was now held at Carthage to consider what step should be taken. It was contrary to the canons to condemn a man in his absence, and accordingly their plan was to give the sanction of the entire province to the Carthaginian decision of five years ago, .and obtain for it the authoritative confirmation of the Apostolic See. I say of the Apostolic See, for this was the point of all their endeavour, not to obtain a condemnation from the see of the great city of Rome, but to obtain the authoritative sanction of ' the Apostolic ' See. ' We have considered,' so they write to Pope St. Innocent,^ * that we ought to acquaint your Holiness with this which was thus enacted, lord and brother, that the autho- rity of the Apostolic See may be applied to the statutes of our lowliness, for the sake of guarding the salvation of many, and also of correcting the perversity of some.' And after describing the teaching of Pelagius, they say (n. 3), 'And we fear lest wc should seem to act unbecomingly in bringing forward before you those very things wliich you proclaim ' 'Universis, quid ipse decerneret, secuturis.' Orosii Apol. num. 4. 2 Jer. Ej). 24, apud Aug. * Innoc. Ep. xxvi. The letters which follow are to be found in most collec- tions of the Councils and in every complete edition of St. Augustine's works. The following quotations are from the Benedictine edition, Paris, 1G94. —452 AS THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 287 with higher grace from the Apostolic See.' ' And, again, ' If, therefore, in what is said to have been enacted by the bishops in the East, Pelagius shall seem to your Reverence to have been justly absolved, still the error itself and the impiety, which now has many champions scattered through divers regions, deserves the anathema of the Apostolic See ' (n. 4). Almost immediately afterwards a synod of African bishops was also held at Milevis, at which St. Augustine was present, having come, it is supposed, from Carthage (where the letter just quoted was probably written by him) to assist in similar proceedings under Silvanus, the presiding bishop of the Numidian province. In the letter of this provincial council to Pope Innocent, the bishops say that they write, in imitation of their brethren at Carthage, * to the Apostolic See.' They speak of Ccelestius, as well as Pelagius, being still ' in the Church ' (n. 3), although the former had been anathematised and excommunicated in Africa. Only his appeal to Rome could justify them in thus speaking. The three saintly bishops, Augustine, Alypius, and Possidius, were present at this council, and the synodical letter to the Pope strikes the same key-note as that of the Carthaginian council. ' Because the Lord, by the special bounty of His grace, has placed you in the Apo- stolic See,' is their opening salutation. They excuse them- selves, after setting forth the heresy, for saying so much to one who is doubtless moved to act of his own accord, and then speak of Coelestius being still within the Church (n. 3). And they give their reason for wishing for the exercise of authority in this matter in words which ought to be written over every page of those treatises which endeavour to enlist the witness of ' the Church of North Africa in the days of St. Augustine ' against the supremacy of the Holy See. They say, ' We think . . . that those who hold such perverse and pernicious opinions will yield more readily to the authority of your Holiness,^ derived from the authority of the Holy Scriptures.' But whether they will or not, there are ^ others who, as your Reverence perceives, have to be cared for quickly and at once.' ' ' Quae majore gratia de sede Apostolica prasdicas.' ■^ So they speak of it as (i.) something beyond their own, and (ii.) as of divine institution. 288 THE LETTERS OF INNOCENT a.d. 400 At the same time Aurelius, Augustine, Alypius, Evodius, and Possidius wrote besides a joint letter to the Pope to the same effect, asking for his rescripts. III. We have now to consider the two celebrated letters of St. Innocent in reply, and I shall quote them, not as showing what he claimed, but what the African bishops are found to have accepted without a murmur. These bishops, it will be seen, were either the tamest and most hypocritical of men, or they believed in Papal supremacy. To the synod at Carthage he writes : ' ' Preserving the ancient tradition, and mindful of the ecclesiastical discipline, you have in true method added strength to your religion,- not less by your present consultation [of us] than by your sen- tence having approved the principle of referring to our judg- ment, knowing what is due to the Apostolic See, since all of us who have been placed in this position desire to follow the Apostle himself, from whom the episcopate itself and all the authority of this office has proceeded.^ Following him, we know how to condemn what is wrong and approve what de- serves approval.^ The same is the case as to your judgment that the arrangements of the Fathers are not to be trodden under foot, in that they decreed, not by a human but b}' a divine sentence, that whatever is done from the separated and remote provinces they would not consider should be final unless it should come to the cognisance of the Apostolic See, so that whatever sentence shall have been justly delivered should be confirmed by the entire authority of this see, and that just as all waters should flow from their natal fount and the pure streams of the uncorrupt head flow through the diverse regions of the whole world, so other Churches should take from this see {inde sumercnt) what to teach, whom to cleanse, who should be avoided, as stained with ineradicable filth, by the wave that is worthy of pure bodies.' He then gave his decision. This one rescript contains the teaching of the Vatican ' Aug. Ep. 181. ' ' Vestra) religionis vigorem firmastis.' * ' A quo ipse episcopatus et tota auctoritas nominis hujus emersit.' * It is obvious that St. Innocent speaks of the infallibiUty of the Holy See. It is ' sequentes,' not ' cum sequamur.' —452 ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY 289 Council entire. Before, however, considering its reception, listen to the sister letter to the Council of Milevis : ' ' Diligently, therefore, and fittingly do you consult the arcana of the Apostolic office (a dignity, into which flows the care of all the Churches, besides those things which are without) on matters of anxiety, as to what opinion should be held, following the ancient rule, which you know as well as I do has been kept always by the whole world. . . . Why have you confirmed this, unless as knowing that replies are ever emanating from the Apostolic fountain through all provinces to those who petition it ? Especially as often as a matter of faith is being ventilated, I consider that all our brethren and fellow-bishops are in duty bound to refer only to Peter, that is, to the author of their own dignity and office, as j^our love has now referred, what may be for the common good of all Churches through the whole world. For the inventors of wrong must necessarily become more cautious, when they shall see that at the rejDort of a double synod they are sepa- rated from ecclesiastical communion by the decrees of our sentence.' The Pope then proceeds to cut off Pelagius and Ccelestius from the communion of the Church by Apostolic authority (' apostolici vigoris auctoritate ') until they repent ; and in his reply to the five bishops he says that his sentence will have its effect in whatever part of the world Pelagius may be, and that he has no reason to suppose that he has been absolved by any synod, because, if he had, letters would have at once been sent to Eome. If he has repented, it is not for us, says St. Innocent, to summon him to Eome, but for him to hasten here that he may be absolved. IV. Now, the important point for the argument of this book is. How did the African bishops, and, in particular, St. Augustine himself, receive this letter ? The whole of the Vatican teaching is contained in it. This simple fact is not without its bearing on much that has been written of late. The mere fact that that teaching was fully before the public consciousness of the Church in the year 416 has left St. Leo little or nothing to add in regard to the authority of the ' Aug. E2). 182. u 290 WELCOMED IN AFRICA, a d. 400 Apostolic See. But the important point is, Did the African bishops, did any African bishop, take exception to St. Inno- cent's definitions of the place occupied by Rome towards the rest of the Church as the See of Peter ? Did they throw out the remotest hint that, in accepting the net result of St. Inno- cent's letters, they excepted the passages about the authority with which it was done ? Not one. Yet the letter was much before the world. Later on, three African councils quoted one of the very passages in which St. Innocent so clearly defines the ofi&ce of the See of Peter. This, it will be said, was too late to be a witness of the Earlj' Church. But a very important writer, St. Prosper, a Gallic bishop, writing as a contemporary in defence of St. Augustine against Cassian, speaks of St. Innocent as ' most worthy of the See of Peter.' The expression is significant, for Prosper knew well what St. Innocent had said of that See. Also, 214 African bishops said : ' We determined that the judgment should stand which was issued by the venerable Bishop Innocent from the See of the most blessed Peter.' They are referring to these very letters of Innocent, and again, I say, the reference to the ' See of Peter,' considering what those letters contain about it, is significant. I have been unable to find any single hint in any contemporary writer to the effect that St. Innocent was exaggerating the privileges of his see. Indeed, he hardly went beyond the declaration of the African bishops as to the Scriptural source of his authorit3\' But what of St. Augustine himself '? St. Augustine says that Innocent, ' in reference to all things, wrote back to us in the same way in which it was lawful and the duty of the Apostolic See to write.' ^ I do not know how it would be possible for St. Augustine to set his signature to the Vatican decrees by anticipation in plamer terms. Of these two great letters of Pope Innocent he says, in another place, challenging the Pelagian bishop, Julian, ' lieply to him [i.e. Innocent], yea, rather to the Lord Himself, whose testimony that prelate used.' ^ Again, he ' The Liber Pontiftcalis speaks of St. Innocent having drawn up a ' con- Btitutum ' for the whole Church. * Ej}. 183, n. 2. ■■> Lib. i. c. Julian, c. 4. —462 SPECIALLY BY ST. AUGUSTINE. 291 says that if anyone should come across Pelagians, he is no longer to exercise towards them a mistaken mercy ; he is not to conceal them, but to bring them before their bishop. ' For already two councils have been sent (or have sent) to the Apostolic See about that matter. Thence rescripts have come. The case is ended ; would that the error may be sometime ended too ! ' ' St. Augustine knew that there were plenty who had already, when he wrote these words, resisted the decision of the Holy See, but nevertheless that decision was authoritative — * The case is ended.' It has been customary to express the latter sentence in the short maxim, ' Eome has spoken ; the case is at an end ' — words which, it will be seen, are the exact equivalent of what St. Augustine here says. Hardly any decree exists in which the position of the Apostolic See has been more clearly defined than in that of St. Innocent ; and no decree was received in terms of more unqualified admiration by the Church of North Africa in the time of St. Augustine. § II. — St. Zosiimts' Support of the Faith. Dr. Pusey ^ has made the relationship of Zosimus towards Pelagianism one of his test cases against the infallibiUty of the Holy See ; but in his handling of that Pope's history he has, in express terms, whether he knew it or not, contradicted St. Augustine, and in his own imaginary history of St. Zosimus he has founded his opposition on an incorrect description of Palpal infallibility. It is the old story of the conflict between science and religion. The opposition is always found to be between imaginary facts (or gratuitous deductions) and Christian teaching, or between ascertained facts and a carica- ture of that teaching. In this case neither the facts exist nor is the representation of our teaching correct. r. In A.D. 417 Zosimus succeeded St. Innocent, and Cooles- tius at once hastened to Rome and resumed the appeal against ^ Servi. cxxi. n. 10. ^ Scntioti on the Rule of Faith, Pref. p. xiv, and Eirenicon pt. ili. pp. 219-226. u 2 292 ST. ZOSIMUS MISUNDERSTOOD a.d. 400 the African sentence, of which he had given notice at the time, but which he had failed to prosecute. • Zosimus admitted him to an audience. Coelestius had brought with him a letter of approbation from the Bishop of Jerusalem, and had avowed his desire to submit to the decrees of Innocent.^ It is this that alters the whole case, and wrests the memory of this Pope from the accusation which Dr. Pusey so persistently brought against him. It is this that never appears in that writer's arraignment of the Pope. St. Innocent had expressly said^ that if Coelestius and Pelagius should condemn their depraved teaching, they were to receive * the usual medicine'—/.^, be received back into the Church. They did present documents in which they promised amend- ment.^ Dr. Pusey says that the document which they presented was heretical, and that Zosimus failed in his guardianship of the faith, because he approved a Pelagian confession.^ St. Augustine says be did no such thing. He insists upon the fact that, all through, St. Zosimus was entirely on the orthodox side. These are his words :— ' Zosimus never said, never wrote, that what they think about children is to be held — moreover, also, he bound over Coelestius again and again (crehra inteiiocntione), when he was endeavouring to purge himself, to the necessity of consenting {consentiendum) to the above-mentioned letters of the Apostolic See ' {i.e. the letters of Innocent) ; and he argues that whilst Zosimus eventually condemned Coelestius and Pelagius, repeatedly and authorita- tively (' repetita auctoritate '), what took place meanwhile ' was the most kindly persuasion [for the purpose] of correction, not the most hateful approval of depravity.' ® And elsewhere he insists that Zosimus dealt with Coelestius on the understanding ' that he should condemn what had been objected against him by the deacon Paulinus [i.e. at Carthage], and give his assent to the letters which had emanated from his own predecessor,' ^ i.e. St. Innocent. St. Augustine is meeting the cavils of the Pelagians, who wished to make out that the Pope, St. Zosipius, ' Paulini Libell. ad Zositn. apud Baron, ad ann. 418. * Zosim. S^j. i. ad Africanos. ' Itmocentii Ep. xxx. ■• Marius Mercator, i. 4. * Scrmmi on the Rule of Faith, Pref. p. xiv. ** Aug. lib. ii. ad Bonif. cap. 3. ' Cf. TAh. de Pccc. Orig., cap. 6 and 7. —4:52 BY DR. TUSEY AND OTHERS. 293 had favoured their cause ; and by an appeal to the actual history of the case, he overthrows their contention, and in doing this he answers Dr. Pusey by anticipation. II. Moreover, St. Zosimus did not absolve these heretics there and then, but wrote to Africa for any ' instruments ' of information, and said that if no one offered within two months to present a further case against Coelestius and Pelagius, he should consider all doubt removed.^ He had received their letter of entreaty, he says, before he gave judgment.- The African Fathers had met and represented to the Pope that his absolving these heretics would cause great confusion. They said that they decided that the decision of St. Innocent should hold good until Pelagius should confess that the doctrine he had taught was false.^ Zosimus was really acting with the caution of a judge : and as a judge he was in the right. It is the office of a judge to give sentence according to the evidence produced, and Zosimus was, from a formal point of view, right in his decision to hear Coelestius and Pelagius. They professed amendment, and until evidence of their insincerity was forthcoming, Zosi- mus was in duty bound to admit them to a hearing. Dr. Pusey is mistaken in nearly every assertion that he makes on this subject. He says that Zosimus ' formally acquitted ' Coelestius. He only promised to do so if nothing from Africa turned up to the contrary, but meanwhile he discovered his insincerity. Dr. Pusey also says that Coelestius * presented to Zosimus an heretical confession of faith.' Now St. Augus- tine expressly says that this document was not heretical. He calls it ' Catholic' Whence this tremendous difference between St. Augustine and Dr. Pusey ? III. St. Augustine shall explain. He says that Coelestius and Pelagius promised submission and correction, if m any- thing they were judged to be wrong. This, according to our saint, stamped the document as Catholic. There were errors contained in it, it is true ; but St. Zosimus himself says to the Africans that they have misunderstood the text of his letters, as a whole, ' as though we had given credence to Coelestius ?n all tilings, and without discussing his words, had ' Ep. i. ■' Ep. iii. ' Prosper, Lib. c. Coll. cap. v. n. 3. 294 HIS CARE ABOUT CCELESTIUS. a.d. 400 assented, so to speak, to every sj^llable.' ' It was the submis- sion promised to the ApostoUc See, which made Zosimus accept them as worthy of a hearing, and it was this that, St. Augustine expressly says, made the document ' Cathohc in its meaning.' ^ Pelagius said of his confession of faith : * In which, if any- thing has been laid down unskilfully or incautiously, we desire to be corrected by you, who hold both the faith and the See of Peter ; but if this our confession is approved by the judgment of your apostolate, then, whoever shall aflfix a stain on my character will prove himself to be unlearned, or ill-willed, or even not a Catholic, and not me to be a heretic' This was the addition which in St. Augustine's judgment made the document strictly Catholic in tone. Ccelestius likewise said, ' We offer them ' {i.e. their teach- ings) ' to be approved by your apostolic judgment [lit. the judgment of your apostolate], so that if perchance any error of ignorance has crept in upon us, as being men, it may be corrected by your sentence.' Consequently, Marius Mercator, whose authority is of great moment, says that Ccelestius ' by frequent answers ' gave hopes that he condemned the heads of teaching for which he had been condemned at Carthage, and that this was the reason why ' he was thought worthy of some kindness by that holy bishop' (Zosimus), for he 'was commanded with special urgency ' to renounce what had there been objected against him.^ I have said that Zosimus was acting in the spirit of a real judge, and this his letter to the Africans shows. They had really acted without the proper procedure. Although (as it l)roved) substantially right, they were formally wrong. They had acted on the accusation of two deposed bishops, Eros and Lazarus, whose motives were not beyond question, and who, ' Zos. Ej). iii. ^ He says {Ep. chii. ad Ojyf.) that ' the Catholic faith ' is so clear in Zosimus' letter ' that it is not lawful for Christians to doubt concerning it.' And that it was Catholic ' because it is the part of a Catholic mind ' to do as Coulestius then pretended to do, viz. consent to the letters of Pope Innocent (c. du. Ep. Pclag. lib. ii. c. 5). ' Commcm. sup. nomine Ccelestii, cap. i. § 4. — 45> HIS ENCYCLICAL AND 295 as degraded from their office, had no longer the right of accu- sation.' Zosimus, who had the care of all the Churches, pointed out the evils that would ensue if such wandering stormy petrels as Eros and Lazarus were allowed to enter upon the rfde of accusers of others. And in their previous trial the Africans had failed in duty towards Ccelestius, who had given notice of appeal to Eome ; for, although they appear to have respected the appeal, they took no care to have it properly conducted. It must be remembered also that Zosimus did not rehandle the dogmatic question. It was merely with the sincerity of Ccelestius and Pelagius that he dealt, and in this he was deceived. But this has nothing to do with his infallibility. Eome has never taught, Eome does not teach to-day, that the occupant of the Holy See cannot be deceived, but only that when he is led to determine a matter of faith or of the. moral law as of obligation on the whole Church, he is secure of divine assistance. The whole case, therefore, of Zosimus is outside the region of infallibility, as that infallibility is defined in the Vatican decree. As Facundus, the African writer, says, in reference to the whole matter, * Simplicity, through not penetrating the wiliness of the wicked, ought not to be reckoned a crime ; ' and, as St. Augustine says, Pelagius could not deceive the Church of Eome beyond a certain point. Zosimus discovered that Ccelestius was not in earnest, summoned him to appear, and on his non-appearance excommunicated and anathe- matised him. IV. But he did more than that. He drew up an ency- clical on the matter of faith, which consisted of an enlarged form of the decree of Innocent, accepted by the African Church ; and by the advice of St. Augustine, the subscription to this was made obligatory on all bishops, and on the laity whenever suspected of heretical leanings.^ The emperor gave the aid of his civil authority, and St. Augustine of his ' This, at any rate, was the view of Zosimus. Tillemont has done his best to defend them. But see Garnier's notes to Marius Mercator for an answer (Migne's edition). - In writing to the Africans the emperor spoke of his rescript as agreeing with their decision, which was true. But it was also true that in a higher sense he followed the judgment of Zosimus. Cf. Possidius, Vita S. Aug. cap. xviii. 296 EX CATHEDRA TEACHING. a.d. 400 pen, which for some years he devoted to this subject, for the settlement of which he claimed the decree of St. Innocent and the encyclical of St. Zosimus embodying and enforcing that decree. St. Zosimus, in writing to the Africans concerning his decision to allow Coelestius a hearing, said : ' Although the tradition of the Fathers has attributed so great authority to the Apostolic See, that no one would venture to dispute con- cerning its judgment, and has always guarded the same by canons and regulations, and the current discipline of the Church up to this time, by its laws, pays due reverence to the name of Peter, from whom she traces her descent (for cano- nical antiquity by the judgments of all willed that such power should accrue to this Apostle, derived also from the very promise of Christ our God, that he could loose what was bound and bind what was loosed, an equal condition of power was given to those who obtained the inheritance of the see with his approval, for he has the care as well of all the Churches as in a special manner of this his own see. . . . Since, then, Peter is the head of such authority, and he has confirmed the subsequent desires of all our ancestors, that the Pioman Church should be sustained by human as icell as divine laws . . .), nevertheless, though such is our authority, that no one can withdraw himself from our judgment, we have done nothing which we have not of our own accord brought to your knowledge by our letters,' &c. I produce this passage by way of showing the kind of teaching which Africa received from Eome, and which nowhere in St. Augustine's voluminous writings finds any contradic- tion : with which, on the contrary, his teaching, as seen above, fully harmonises. We look in vain in the history of the Church of North Africa at this time for any disclaimer, any suggestion, that Eome was not the See of the Apostle Peter, and, as such, the inheritor of peculiar powers of jurisdiction. She assumed this position as in duty bound ; she instinctively quoted the divine authority by which she acted, and Africa on the whole listened, applauded, co-operated, and obeyed. Such is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the facts quoted —452 THE CASE OF APIARIUS 297 above. So dependent was Africa on Rome, that when the Donatists boasted that some Easterns had written letters of sympathy, St. Augustine argued that these Easterns must have been Arians, because ' never would an Eastern Catholic [Church] write to the Bishop of Carthage, passing over the Bishop uf Rome ' ' — in other words, all ecclesiastical communi- cation would come from the East through Rome.^ And in this great contest with Pelagianism, Prosper, in his historical defence of St. Augustine against Cassian, writes, with the knowledge of a contemporary, that ' the Pope Zosimus of blessed memory added the strength of his own judgment to the decrees of the African Councils, and armed the right hands of all the prelates wWi the sword of Pete?- to the destruction of the impious.' § III. — Apiarms, or the Dispute as to a partlcidar Exercise of Papal Junsdiction and the best Mode of Procedure in regard to the inferior Clergy. I. But a question arose as to the best method of exercising this jurisdiction of the See of Peter over the Church of North Africa. The course of appeal was in the case of bishops, first, to the province, next to a general synod, and then to Rome. But in regard to priests and deacons, the Africans drew up a canon in a.d. 418 to the effect that these * inferior ' clergy could appeal first to bishops in the neighbourhood then to the primate of a province, or to a national synod, but no further.' Pope Zosimus had thought fit to disregard the mode of procedure afterwards laid down in this their canon, by admitting a priest named Apiarius to communion. He afterwards commissioned his legate, Faustinus, to impress upon the Africans that his procedure was not novel, but that its principle had been included in the Nicene canons. The ' Con. Cresconiinn, lib. iii. cap. 34, § 38. ■^ The communication about the Nicene canons was by agreement with Kome. ' Just as in England there is no legal appeal in a criminal case from the verdict of a British jury ; which is an instance of the truth that the right of access to the supreme authority is not an essential consequence of its supremacy. The authority, still supreme, may be exercised by an inferior court. It is, in a word, all a matter of arrangement. 298 A DISPUTE AS TO THE MODE k.c. 400 Africans had not this canon in their own copies ; the}' there- fore asked leave to communicate with the East, and see if their copies talHed with those at Eome, and, indeed, they insisted that they ought to be ahowed thus to assure them- selves as to the gap in their own copies. Meanwhile, St. Augustine proposed that they should act in obedience to the regulations which Zosimus had included amongst the canons of Nicaea. They did not say that they would not obey, even if their own copies of the canons were found to be correct. They said they would consider the question further. Now, without entering here into the question whether the canons of general councils were above the Pope or not, it is certain that the Popes regarded themselves as the custodians of these councils, and as bound in conscience to govern according to their requirements. It was, therefore, quite consistent with respect for the Pope's supremacy to plead that he was in this instance departing from the canonical regulations. A Catholic bishop now might do the same, if a case arose ; and it may be added, that since the Church has a human side, a little warmth is wont to arise over such contentions when they are of great interest to the parties engaged. It was, therefore, no failure in obedience, or respect, on the part of the African Fathfirs, to say what they did on this occasion. The failure would have been in resisting the Papal decision if, after common consultation, it did not harmonise with their own judgment. To this pass, however, matters never came. History deserts us just when we should have ■wished her to speak ; we only know that the Church in North Africa eventually settled down to the arrangement which Zosimus called that of a Nicene canon. II. But this is to anticipate. The copies of the Nicene canons from the East arrived in 419,' and we hear nothing more of ' There was no sort of infallibility about the version of the canon that Atticus sent from Constantinoi^le ; nor is it at all certain that the Alexandrians possessed the canons intact. Neither of thcni ever acted as thougli the African contention were vital. And, indeed, the Africans put in a saving clause as to clinging to their own custom, viz. ' if they should be strictly observed by you in Italy.' They imply that they would be guided by Italian custom. Antioch did not send her canons. Cf. note at the end of Apjiendix II., p. 474. — 452 OF EXERCISING JURISDICTION. 299 the matter until four years afterwards, when the same scandalous priest came on to the scene, again appealed to Eome, and was again unhappily absolved. This was under Celestine. Meanwhile the Papal legate had succeeded in maldng himself obnoxious to the Africans, and they seem to have made an effort to do away with legates a latere for ever. They accordingly wrote a letter in which they entreated St. Celestine to send no more legates. They also ' earnestly entreat ' ' him to allow matters to be terminated (they are alluding to the case of the priest Apiarius, not to the case of bishops) where they arose. They cannot suppose that Almighty God would give wisdom to one man (in allusion to Faustinus, who had ' opposed the whole assembly of bishops ') over against innumerable bishops ; and to drag cases all the way to Rome involved the impossibility of having the proper array of witnesses, and as for legates a latere, no canon provides for such. The letter in which these statements occur differs in tone from any other communication from the African Church : it is evidently written with a tinge of bitterness ; but one or two points are worthy of sjiecial notice. First, they do not ask St. Celestine not in any case to admit persons excommuni- cated at a distance {e.g. in Africa) to communion, nor do they ask him under no circumstances to reverse the judgments of the Africans ; they only ask him not to do this ' too readily, hastil}', and unduly.' They do not oppose the principle of Papal jurisdiction, but urge, as they had every right to do, great care in its exercise. Secondly, they give a reason why the presence of a legate a latere is to be deprecated. It is not that he represents a false principle of jurisdiction, but that it leads to pride. Faustinus had evidently been lording it over Afrira. They had borne with him so far, for it was not contrary to their faith to be ruled from Piome, but they trust St. Celestine — nay, they are sure they can rely on him — not to send any more, ' lest we should seem to introduce the smoky pride of the world.' These ' executors ' of the Papal mandates were apt, as we learn from St. Augustine, to be accompanied ' ' Impendio deprecamur.' 300 NO QUESTION AS TO PAPAL a.d. 400 with great military escorts, and this did not, so they considered, tend to peace. It did not impress the heathen. It was to be deprecated, ' lest we ' {i.e. we Christians here in Africa) ' should seem to introduce the pride of the world.' Faustinus was not the inheritor of the Papal charisma, and did not understand matters as well as the African bishops themselves. So that they say one could only defend his position on the supposition that God could inspire one man with wisdom to the deprecia- tion of innumerable bishoj)s. Much capital has been made out of this letter by one or two slight perversions of its terms. It has been assumed, for instance, that the ' one man ' to whom the Africans here objected meant the Pope himself. But this is impossible. Not only is it the fact that Faustinus, as the bishops said, ' opposed the whole assembly,' and so, obviously, supplied the subject of their remark, but the Africans knew well that in all such cases the Pope never did act alone, he received appeals in Synod ; so that the remark about the ' one man ' being unequal to a number of bishops cannot apply to his Holiness. Again, a great many writers in defence of their theory have translated the words ' lest we should seem to introduce the pride of the world,' as though, again, the bishops were speak- ing of the Pope instead of themselves as a body in Africa. Archbishop Laud deliberately turns the ' we ' into * he.' Canon Bright understands it of the Pope, and likewise Mr. Puller — a most unreasonable supposition. HI. Once more, it is constantly argued that the Africans, instead of merely doing their best by earnest entreaty {' im- pendio deprecamur ') to secure a particular mode of procedure, or to limit it to the case of bishops, were resisting the doctrine of Papal jurisdiction in itself. But the whole of the contem- porary history forbids such a supposition. The ideal of Church government was, to the African mind, that priests should never be allowed to appeal beyond Africa, and that the cases of bishops should be managed by Papal commissions con- sisting of African bishops. Piome did not consent to bind herself to the former arrangement, but she had employed the latter. St. Augustine's visit to ]\Iauritania — hi the very year of the first council, in which the bishops promised —452 JURISDICTION IN ITSELF. 301 to act in obedience to Zosimus' interpretation of the Nicene canons — is a case in point. The Pope sent St. Augustine, as his commissioner, with some others, to settle the affairs of these Mauritanian Bishops on the spot. St. Augustine waersists, an open sentence must be passed on him, for a wound, when it affects the whole body, must be at once cut away. For what has he to do with those who are of one mind amongst themselves — he who con- siders that he alone knows what is best, and dissents from our faith ? Let then all those whom he has removed remain in communion [with the Church], and give him to understand that he cannot be in communion with us if he persists in this path of perversity in opposition to the Apostolic teaching. Wherefore assumiiifi the authority of our See, and aeting in our stead and plaee witli delegated authority {s^ovala), you shall 310 AGAINST NESTORIUS, a.d. 400 execute a sentence of this kind (sK^c^dasLs aTro^acrti'), not with- out strict severity, viz, that unless within ten days after this admonition of ours he anathematises, in written confession, his evil teaching, and promises for the future to confess the faith concerning the birth of Christ our God, which both the Church of Eome and that of your Holiness, and the ivhole Christian religion preaches, forthwith your Holiness will provide for that Church. And let him know that he is to be altogether removed from our body. . . . We have written the same to our brothers and fellow-bishops John, Eufus, Juvenal, and Flavian, ^^hevehj oiir judr/ment concerning him, yea rather, the judgment of Christ our Lord, may be manifest.' It would be impossible to express with greater clearness the claim involved in the Papal supremacy, as understood at this hour, than is done by these two letters. ' Confirm thy brethren ' Avas the divine injunction to the Prince of the Apostles ; ' I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not ; thou, in thy turn, confirm thy brethren.' ' Celestine was now exemplifying this law of the Church's life, and in doing so he did but add one more to the number of saintly Popes who had already been conspicuous for the support they rendered to the rest of the orthodox bishops in the defence of the great mystery of our Faith : e.g. St. Dionysius support- ing one bishop of Alexandria previous to the Arian struggle, St. Julius another, the great Confessor Bishop of Alexandrias in the midst of that struggle ; St. Damasus supporting the bishops in general in the struggle with the Macedonian heresy ; and now, St. Celestine ' confirming ' St. Cyril. And in each ' Dr. Dollinger parodies the Church's application of this text to the successor of St. Peter when he calls it ' far from being a guarantee of iufalUbility for every single dictum on an article of ecclesiastical doctrine.' No theologian ever laid down such a childish principle, nor did the Church ever call on Dr. Dollinger to believe it. He insinuates the same absurdity when he says, ' the exhortation that Peter should strengthen his brethren by no means involves a promi>e that he would really do so in every single instance.' * Our Lord proiui.-es the j.ecurity arising from his own prayer ; and that security need not be, and never was^ stretched to include ' every single instance,' of whatsoever kind. It will be adniited, however, that in the subject-matter of Celestine's letter, the very foundations of our holy i'aith were concerned. » Declcvati'Dis aifl Lellcrs on the Valicaii D-crets, Eiig. triuis. p. 12. —4.52 UNLESS HE REPENTS. oil case the support was rendered by the See of St. Peter less in the way of argument than by a simple faithfulness to the tradition of the Church : more, that is, in a divine than a human way, more by authority than by dialectic skill. The Church lives on authority, not on argument, even as our Lord ' spake as one having authority,' and not as the Scribes and Pharisees with their subtle dialectic. St. Agatho, when he sent his legates to the Sixth Council, said that they were not versed in subtle interpretations of the Scriptures — such as had so frequently led the East astray — nor were they illus- trious in eloquence, but they had something better, viz. a full knowledge of the ' tradition of the Apostolic See, as it has been maintained by my predecessors, the Apostolic Pontiffs.' This was real history, and this they possessed. Nestorius expressed his contempt for the Holy See when condemned by it, and affected to despise St. Celestine. He called him ' one too simple to fathom the force of the doctrines.' But, as Dr. Pusey well remarks,^ 'It did not occur to Nestorius that divine truth is seen by simple piety, not by proud in- tellect.' The letters of Celestine are by no means devoid of argumentative power at times ; they are, however, more the letters of a man of strong character in high authority than of the dialectician or the orator. He writes as one steeped in the writings of prophets, evangelists, and apostles, but his piety is of a masculine character, and his Scriptural quota- tions are full of point. This particular letter to St. Cyril played a most important part in the history of Christian doctrine, for it was referred to as authoritative by the council itself, and as determining their synodical act. VI. The two letters together, St. Cyril's and St. Celestine's, contain the following important points. (i.) It was an ' ancient custom,' according to St. Cyril, for such important matters as the deposition of an heretical arch- bishop to be referred to Rome. St. Cyril says that he writes to Rome ' as a matter of necessity.' He does not even sepa- rate Nestorius from communion with his own patriarchate until he has written to Rome. (ii.) He asks St. Celestine to prescribe what he judges best ' Introd. to some Works of Cyril, p. 64. Lib. of the Fathers. 312 THE BEARIXG OF THESE LETTERS a.d. 400 in the matter ; to give the formal decision on this important ease, and to notify his decision to all the bishops of the East. Canon Bright merely calls this writing in 'very deferential terms ' ^ to the Bishop of Eome. Would it not surprise some of his readers to know how deferential the terms of St. Cyril's letter were ? He uses a word which occurs again and again in the Acts of the councils in reference to the relation of the Pope to the condemnation of Nestorius, asking him Tvirwaat, TO BoKovv — words which are a sort of refrain for a year to come ; they form the key-note to the proceedings at Ephesus. Bossuet remarks upon this expression, that ' it signifies, in Greek, to declare juridically ; rviros is a rule, a sentence, and rviroiaai to Sokovv is to declare one's opinion judicially. The Pope alone could do it. Neither Cyril, nor any other patriarch, had the power to depose Nestorius, who was not their subject: the Pope alone did it, and no one was found to exclaim against it, because his authority extended over all.' (iii.) St. Celestine adopts throughout his letter to Nes- torius, sent with the above letter to Cyril, the same tone of authority as he uses in writing to Cyril. He writes with affectionate anxiety for Nestorius, but with the authority of office. He has no doubt about his prerogative of infallibility in such a matter, and does not hesitate to express his conviction. Dean Church, in defending - his position, and that of others who appeal to the early Church, says that he finds only a mitigated measure of authority ' in the early and undivided Church, and there was no such thing known as infallibility.' And this he calls *a certain fact,' including in the early and undivided Church the time of the great councils. But St. Celestine, on being appealed to by St. Cyril to formulate the decision as to Nestorius' excommunication and deposition, at once assumes his infallibility ^ in such a grave matter. The Vatican decree does not go beyond his words, when he says of his own sentence on Nestorius, that it is not so much his, but rather it is ' the divine judgment of Christ our Lord ; ' and again to the Patriarch of Antioch he says, ' Diet. ofChr. Biog. art. 'Cyril,' p. 706. * The Oxford Movement, by Dean Church, p. 185. ' As to the matter of faith. —452 ON PAPAL JURISDICTION. old * and let your Holiness know this sentence is passed by us, yea, rather by Christ [our] God.' Just as afterwards the synod, writing to the clergy of Constantinople, calls the executed sentence, being that of Pope and council together, 'the just sentence of the Holy Trinity and their [i.e. the bishops' and legates'] divinely inspired judgment.' (iv.) And again, Celestine is here pronouncing judgment as to what is preached by the ' whole Christian religion,' and decides to cut off Nestorius from the common unity. VII. Dr. Wordsworth speaks of this all-important letter as being simply a statement of 'the orthodox doctrine of the Western Fathers ' upon the controversy ! ' Celestine, however, states that he is giving the doctrine of the Church of Eome and Alexandria and ' the whole Christian religion,' or, as he expresses it in his letter to Nestorius (going over the same ground), ' the universal Church.' Canon Bright ^ describes it thus: ' Celestine gave Cyril a commission of stringent character (Mansi, iv. 1017). He was "to join the authority of the Koman See to his own,' and on the part of Celestine, as well as for himself to warn Nestorius that unless a written retractation were executed within ten days, giving assurance of his accept- ance of the faith as to " Christ our God," which was held by the Churches of Eome and Alexandria, he would be excluded from the communion of tltose Churches, and provision would be made by them for the Church of Constantinople, i.e. by the appointment of an orthodox bishop.' ^ Now, St. Celestine does not say exactly ' join the autho- rity of the Roman See to his own,' which Canon Bright gives as a quotation. There is nothing in the Latin or Greek exactly corresponding to * his own ; ' words which would sug- gest something more than the Papal decision as the source of authority.' Neither does Celestine bid St. Cyril warn Nestorius ' on the part of Celestine as well as for himself.' He simply constitutes St. Cyril his ' plenipotentiary,' as Dr. Dollinger ' Church History, vol. iv. p. 210. ^ Dictionary of Christian Biography, art. ' Cyril,' p. 706. ^ The italics are mine. * Greek a-ul, Latin ' adscita ' — simply terms with which a legate might be commissioned to act. 314 CANON BEIGIIT MISTAKEN. a.d. 100 accurately expressed it.^ Neither, again, does Celestine speak of the faith held by the Churches of Eome and Alexandria simply, but he adds that it is that of the entire Christian world or religion. And further, which is of much greater importance, he tells Nestorius in the same batch of letters ■which C.yril was to read and forward, that he will exclude him, not from the communion of * those Churches ' only, but from the communion also of the entire Christian Church. This latter point is of supreme importance, and it is strange that Dr. Bright should omit it.^ In this very letter Celestine speaks of Nestorius being separated from * our body,' by which from the contextual use of ' our,' he could not mean simply his own, nor only his own and Cyril's, but the whole body of the Church. Anyhow, in his letter to Nestorius, which St. Cyril was to read and forward, and which covers the same ground, the Pope says expressly that by this sentence, unless he retracts, he is cut off from the communion of ' the whole Catholic Church ( ' ab universalis te EcclesiaB Catholics communione dejectum).' This is a vital point, and it is surely not fair to tell the reader that Celestine Imde Cyril warn Nestorius that he was to be cut off from the communion of 'those Churches' (viz. Eome and Alexandria) when, as a matter of fact, he was telling him that he was to be cut off from the communion of the whole Catholic Church. They are w^ords, too, which recur, for in writing to the clergy and people of Constantinople the Pope repeats the sen- tence in full, which Cyril is to pass on Nestorius. And while he speaks again of the faiths held, not only by the Churches of Piome and Alexandria, but by ' the whole Catholic Church,' he says that Nestorius is to be ' excommunicated from the entire Catholic Church.' The same occurs once more in the Pope's letter to John of Antioch. The Pope there again speaks as clothed with supreme authority, calling his sentence ' the sen- tence passed by Christ our God,' and it cuts Nestorius off from * the roll of bishops ' (' episcoporum ccetu '). St. Celestine thus comes before us at the Council of Ephesus as the foundation of the Church in a crisis of her life ' ' Bevollniachtiger,' Lchrbuch (1843), p. 121. ■^ The same misleading expression (Home ami Alexandria) occurs in this writer's latest work, Wai/mcirks, dc. p. 221. —452 CYRIL ACTS ON THE POPE'S DECREE. 315 when the reahty of our Lord's redemption was at stake, for this was the real point at issue, as he himself pjid St. Cyril distinctly stated. He is the ' confirmer ' of the brethren. He feeds, or governs, the sheep of Christ, supplying them with the rvTTos, or authoritative judicial sentence, the form which was to govern their action. He resumes in himself the apostolic government of the Christian Church, and uses the Archbishop of Alexandria, occupant of the second throne in Christendom, to execute his sentence. Vni. The execution, then, of the Pope's sentence having been entrusted to Cyril, the latter at once wrote to John, Bishop of Antioch, on the state of things. He entreats him to consider what he will do. St. Cyril must have been well aware that he was treading on delicate ground, for Nestorius had been recommended for the See of Constantinople by the Patriarch of Antioch, and the event proved how little John was to be depended upon. Cyril says (M. iv. 1051) : ' We shall follow the decisions given by him [Celestine], fearing to lose the communion of such [i.e. the whole West], who have not been and are not angry with us on any other account ; considering, too, that the judgment and movement is not about matters of little moment, but on behpjf of the very faith, and of the Churches which are everywhere dis- turbed, and of the edification of the people.' In other words, it was an ex cathedra judgment ; it was on a matter of faith. John of Antioch began well, and wrote to Nestorius, on re- ceiving the Papal decision, urging him to submit, on the ground that, although the time given b}' the Pope, viz. ten days, was indeed short, still it was a matter in which obedience need not be a matter of days even, but of a single hour ; and that the term ' Mother of God,' although capable of abuse, M^as one which the Fathers had used, and which, therefore, Nestorius could consent to use, attaching to it his own doubt- less orthodox meaning. The letter, although urging obedience, differs in its tone from Cyril's, and gives us already a glimpse of a spirit that subsequently led John of Antioch into schismatic action at Ephesus. St. Cyril wrote also to Juvenal of Jerusalem exhorting 316 NESTORIUS, IN CONCERT a.d. 400 him to assist in writing both to Nestorius and to the people in accordance with the prescribed decree {opiaOevra rvirov), i.e. the Papal decision, and suggested that pressure should be brought to bear upon the emperors. Meanwhile Cyril had summoned a synod at Alexandria, and in conjunction with the bishops, he drew up twelve anathematisms, which he forwarded to Nestorius with the Papal sentence. IX. Nestorius tried to turn the subject. He artfully appealed to the Pope to know what ought to be done about certain supposed disseminators of Apollinarian errors, with which he ceaselessly charged St. Cyril, and drew up in reply twelve counter-anathematisms, full of erroneous doctrine. But he had devised yet another plan for staying the execution of the sentence — like all heretics, he appealed to the civil power. In this he was probably prompted and joined by others, for there were at that time in Constantinople some disaffected spirits connected with Antioch. This city — that first heard the name of Christian applied to the followers of Jesus Christ — honoured by the Church as one of the three Sees of Peter — the third ' throne ' in Christendom — had long proved a nursery of heretical teach- ing and religious dissension. Nestorius himself came from Antioch. Whilst there he had come across Theodore of Mopsuestia, the pupil of Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, who was the fountain, so far as we can trace things upwards, of all the mischief which occasioned the Council of Ephesus. In opposmg Apollinarianism Diodorus had lost the balance of faith, and taught that the union of Godhead and Manhood in the Redeemer was not of substance with substance, but of two personalities ; a union of name, authority, and honour. Theodore imbibed his error, and so great and lasting was the magic of Theodore's name that his memory had to be condemned in the Sixth Council. Nestorius had come under Theodore's influence. John of Antioch, in urging Nestorius to obey tbe Papal decision, alluded to Theodore's withdrawal of certain erroneous expressions as an encouragement ; being both of Antioch, they understood the value of such an appeal. —452 WITH BISHOP JULIAN, 317 But there was another of Theodore's pupils, the Bishop JuHan, a fellow-countryman of Nestorius, who entered into the lists with St. Augustine in favour of Pelagianism, and, with the usual modesty of heretics, compared himself to David, and Augustine to Goliath. This Julian had been deposed by the Holy See for his Pelagian teaching, and previous to the emergence of Nestorianism had found his way to Constantinople with some others in the hope of moving the emjDeror to call a council to reverse the sentence of the Pope. Two successive Bishops of Constantinople had refused to present him at Court. But it seems, from Celestine's letter to Nestorius, that the latter was on too friendly terms with Julian to please the Pope, and that but for his fear of Celestine he would have presented Julian to the emperor. When the See of Constantinople was vacant, Celestine had been anxious about its future occupant for this very reason, lest he should be one that would use his privilege of introduc- tion in favour of such ecclesiastical ' lepers ' as Julian, and lead his Imperial Majesty to call a council for no adequate reason, and so simply disturb the peace of the Church. St. Augustine and the African Church had expressed themselves satisfied with the ruling of the Holy See in regard to Pelagianism. The expression ' Roma locuta est ; causa finita est,' though not the actual words of St. Augustine, are the exact equivalent of what he did say. ' The rescripts have come,' i.e. from Eome (which are St. Augustine's words) is the same as ' Piome has spoken,' and the ' case is finished ' are his actual words. Capreolus, Bishop of Carthage, writing in the name of the African Church to the synod, goes out of his way to press this point, that the bishops of Africa had accepted the decision of the Holy See, and that the Synod of Ephesus had no right to re-open matters already settled by such authority. He speaks of novel doctrines which ' the authority of the Apostolic See and the judgment of the bishops agreeing together has defeated,' and submits that to treat these as open questions would be to discover a lack of faith. As a matter of fact, the Synod of Ephesus did allude to their case, not to re-open it, but to signify in express terms their adhesion en bloc to the decisions of the H0I3' See. 318 MO\"ES THE EMPEROR a.d. 400 Julian, however, hoped much from a council, and seeing his opportunity in the appointment of Nestorius to the See of Constantinople, appears to have drawn him into a favourable inclination towards himself, which led him to sound Celestine as to what could be done in regard to such as JuHan.' There was, indeed, a natural affinity between their heresies. * Where Pelagius ends, Nestorius begms,' said St. Prosper ; and ' Nes- torius erred concerning the head, Pelagius concerning the body,' said a council of Western bishops.^ Nestorius then, probably assisted by Julian, turned to the emperor, and made for a general council. St. Cyril had sent four Egyptian bishops to Constantinople to deliver the above-mentioned letters of Celestine and himself to Nestorius with all due circumstance, and Nestorius seems to have been aware of their contents. But before they could reach Constanti- nople he had represented to the emperor that the Church was in a state of disturbance, and needed the remedy of a general council. Dr. Littledale says that ' the Pope joined in a petition to the emperor to convoke a general council as the only means of settling the dispute '3— a flight of absurdity which we may leave to Canon Bright to correct, who says that * Celestine and Cyril were obhged to acquiesce in the decision of the emperor to convoke an oecumenical synod to meet at Ephesus on the following Whitsunday (June 4th, 431) at the request of Nestorius.' It is going a little beyond the facts to say that the Pope and St. Cyril were ' obliged ' to acquiesce. The state of things in Constantinople, owing to the presence of Julian and other deposed bishops, may have made Celestine reluctant ; but the letter to the synod is full of rejoicing at its gathering. However that may be, St. Celestine gave his consent, and St. Leo's summary of the Council is that it was ' convoked by the precept of Christian princes and the consent of the Apostolical See '—a more adequate summary than Canon Bright's,-" who does not mention * the consent of the Apostolical See.' ■' ' Ep. Celest. ad Nest, 2 Cf. Chr. Lupus, Append, to Scholia on the Camms of K^>]icsus. * Petrine Claims, p. 98. * llrighfs Notes on the Canons of the First Four Councils, p. 110. * Preface to Notes, etc. p. 6. —462 TO CALL A COUNCIL. 319 Nestorius appears to have worked bis plan well. He accused St. Cyril of Apollinarianism, and of generally disturb- ing the peace of the Church. And it is important to remember that it was to settle the question between Cyril and Nestorius that the emperor, Theodosius II., summoned the metropolitans of the East and a certain number of attendant bishops to Ephesus. It was with no idea of settling matters between Eome and Nestorius, for the emperor had received no in- timation of the sentence passed by Celestine. The idea in the mind of the emperor was that Cyril should be on his trial as a disturber of the peace and a restorer of Apollinarianism, and he probably expected Nestorius to take the prominent position. He disliked Cyril, and specially resented his attempt to secure the sympathy of the Empresses on the side of orthodoxy. He was just then growing jealous of Pulcheria's increasing influence, and Cyril had written her a long and magnificent letter on the doctrine of the Incarnation. We know also from a letter of Cyril's that Nestorius hoped to be president. The Council was thus, as Dr. Pusey has well remarked, a * device of Nestorius,' ' although it had been seconded by the monks who had been ill treated by him, and had urged the emperor in their despair to convoke a general sjmod. They did not know what had been done at Eome. X. But on arriving at Ephesus some time before Pente- cost, in the hope, doubtless, of influencing the inauguration of the council, Nestorius was rudely undeceived by the attitude whicli Memnon, the bishop of the diocese, assumed at once towards himself and his episcopal sj'mpathisers. The doors of St. Mary's Church were closed against them. They com- plained to the emperor that they could not celebrate the ' Dr. Pusey's account of the council, written quite at the end of his life as a preface, or a continuation of his son's preface, to some works of St. Cyril, is, probably, the best account of the council that any Anglican has written. He very successfully clears St. Cyril from the aspersions on his charactf r which Dr. Salmon repeats. In that particular point Dr. Wordsworth and Dr. Bright are honourable exceptions to the usual Anglican view of the great saint. Even Dr. Ne^vman, in his Anglican days, falls far below these three writers in the matter {Hisfor. Sketches), and Dr. Salmon ought not to quote his estimate of Cyril as that of ' Cardinal ' Newman without noticing the preface which he prefixed a3 Cardinal (Salmon's Infallibility of the Church, p. 307, 2nd edition). o20 JOHN OF ANTIOCII KEEPS AWAY. a.d. 400 liturgy of Pentecost in the churches of Ephesus. Bishop after bishop, on arriving, must have strengthened Nestorius' conviction that the Papal sentence was accepted, and that the bishops had come, as Count Candidian, the imperial commis- sioner, afterwards complained,' not so much to investigate, as to execute a sentence already passed. Accordingly, as we shall presently see, Nestorius absented himself from the synod. The day of Pentecost had come, and John, Patriarch of Antioch, had not arrived. Day after day passed, and no Bishop of Antioch. At length bishoj^s came with a message from him that they were not to wait.^ Some bishops had already fallen ill, many felt the fearful pressure of the want of accommodation, and at last some of them died. As they said the Piequiem Mass of one bishop after another, the survivors must have felt keenly the cruelty of the Patriarch of Antioch's procrastination. They knew it to be of set pur- pose. The synod, in its report to the emperor, assured His Majesty of their conviction that John had delayed from a desire not to be present at Nestorius' condemnation. He allowed friendship to gain the day over zeal for the truth. Accordingly, the bishops bega.n to ' cry out ' ^ against Cyril for not beginning ; and Cyril yielded to their wishes, himself convinced that John of Antioch did not wish to be present. On the sixteenth day after Pentecost the synod began its sessions. Dr. Salmon's caustic remarks on the disorderliness of the councils of the Church certainly do not apply to the sessions of this council. He ignores the judicial, orderly, and even majestic tone of the synod itself, and takes his descrip- tion from circumstances that took place outside the walls of the church, and he relies too unreservedly on the accounts of the schismatics, and further includes in the ' councils of the Church ' the Robber Council of Ephesus which succeeded the CEcumenical Council.' No wonder he can speak so slightingly of councils, when he confuses ' concilia ' and ' conciliabula,' and prefers the accounts of heretics to the narratives of the synod itself. The letter of the synod to the Pope would have ' Cf. Acta Conciliahuli adv. Cijrillum. - ' if I delay.' Cf. p. 3-11. * Cf. Ep. Cyr. ad Cler. Const. * Infallibility of the Church, p. 313 et scq. —452 THE POPE PRESIDED 321 quite spoilt his thesis, if he had taken that for his authority instead of the letter of the schismatics to the emperor. XI. Who, then, presided over the council that now met in the Church of St. Mary ? According to Dr. Salmon, ' the theory had not yet been heard of in the East which would ascribe the headship of all councils to the Bishop of Rome, present or absent,' ' and, accordingly, he denies that Celestine was in any sense president at Ephesus. The Bishops of Chalcedon, who asked for delay that they might understand, and thus give an intelligent adhesion to the Tome of St. Leo, thought otherwise, for they speak of the Council of Ephesus as that ' of which the most blessed Celestine, the president of the Apostolic chair, and the most blessed Cyril of great Alexandria, were the governors or presidents,' ^ whilst the Council of Chalcedon, in its definition of faith, expressly says that the Council of Ephesus was presided over by * Celestine and Cyril.' And the emperors, in their letter after the Council of Chalcedon, confirming the sentence against Eutyches and the monks who sympathised with him, speak of the Ephesine synod as the occasion ' when the error of Nestorius was ex- cluded, under the presidency of Celestine, of the city of Rome, and Cyril, of the city of Alexandria.' The Empress Pulcheria uses the same expression. We have, too, a large number of letters from various bishops to the Emperor Leo, written after the Council of Chalcedon, in reference to the troubles at Alex- andria under Bishop Timothy, most of which allude to the Council of Ephesus, and attribute the presidency to Celestine as well as to Cyril.^ For instance, certain European bishops (and we presume that Dr. Salmon will not rule their witness out of court, coinciding as it does with the 600 bishops of Chalcedon, almost all of them Eastern) depose that the Council of Ephesus was gathered together ' under Celestine, of blessed memory, the successor of the holy and venerable Peter, the guardian of the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and under Cyril, Pontiff of Alexandria, of holy memory.' And the bishops of the province of Isauria speak of Cyril, ' who for- merly governed the Church of Alexandria, and openly fought against the folly of Nestorius, and was partaker with blessed ' Loc. cit. ^ KvfifpvrjTai. » Mansi, t. vii. 539-623. 322 THROUGH ST. CYRIL, WHO HELD a.d. 400 Celestine, the Shepherd of the Safe Church of the Romans.' This latter, however, does not necessarily involve presidency. But Julian, Bishop of Cos, in his letter to the emperor, calls the Council of Ephesus that over which presided the thrice blessed 'and most holy Fathers, Celestine, Pontiff of the Eoman city, and Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria.' And again, the bishops of Upper Armenia call the council that ' of which the presidents were Celestine and Cyril . . . who chiefly shone for them against the wicked blasphemy of Nestorius.' These are but specimens of the letters of the bishops to the same effect. St. Celestine, then, was the real president of the council, but he presided through St. Cyril, who sat in his name. Canon Bright says that Cyril presided ' not in virtue of the commission from Celestine to act in his stead, which had already been acted upon in the Alexandrian Council of Novem- ber— but as the prelate of highest dignity then present, and as holding the proxy and representing the mind of the Roman bishop, until the Roman legates should arrive.' ^ But the Acts expressly state, again and again, that Cyril held, not ' the proxy,' but ' the place ' of Celestine, ^ And it does not follow, because the original commission had been ' acted upon ' in November, that it had been exhausted in June. Its very terms imply its continuance until the sentence was executed or remitted.^ St. Cyril's position was probably due to two causes : first, as the Bishop of Alexandria, the second ' See of Peter,' he was the natural representative of the Bishop of Rome ; and, secondly, he had been originally commissioned by Celestine to act ' in our stead and place,' in ' the affairs ' of Nestorius. Those ' affairs ' were not yet finished, and there had been no limitation in point of time, nor subsequent withdrawal, in respect of his commission. That Cyril considered himself to be acting as the representative of Celestine, by his commission, appears from his question to Celestine, asking him what he should do in case of Nestorius' retractation. The commission did not express his duty in that event ; and Cyril accordingly wrote, as we know from Celestine's letter,-* to know what his ' Diet, of Chr. Biogr. p. 706. « E.g. Mansi, t. iv. p. 1123. ' Cf. p. 309. ■* Ep. Ccl. ad Cyr. in fine, Act ii. —452 A PAPAL COMMISSION, 323 duty would be under such a happy ch'cumstance. He wanted to know whether he should treat Nestorius as no longer a bishop, now that the ten days' grace had elapsed. It is cer- tain from this that St. Cyril considered Celestine's sentence as linal, and that he only consented to deal with Nestorius as a bishop by reason of Celestine's permission, which accorded to the heretic a fresh opportunity of retractation. St. Celestine says that he leaves that matter to Cyril, in conjunction with the synod. *It belongs to your Holiness,' are the Pope's words, * with the venerable counsel of the brethren, to put down the disturbances that have arisen in the Church, and that we should learn that the matter has been completed (God helping) by the desired correction.' St. Celestine also says that if Nestorius continues in his sin, he will reap the fruit of what will be his own act, manentibus statutis imorihus, the previous decisions remaining in force. It is therefore clear that the Pope's sentence was not so much suspended as devolved upon the council. Had the emperor been orthodox, and not caught by the wiles of Nestorius, he would not have been as keen about the council as he was. The Pope, however, acted in accordance with the rule which St. Gregory the Great also afterwards laid down in such matters, viz. that of submitting to the imperial wishes when they did not run counter to the canons. He expresses the fullest confidence in Cyril and the council, that they will execute the sentence he had passed, with the more solemn apparatus of a conciliar adhesion to the rviros which he had sent to Cyril, Nestorius, and John of Antioch.^ He looked upon Cyril as the teacher of the council, and virtually owns the commission originally given as still running. The council, therefore, acted with the full permission of the Pope in utilis- ing the imperial convention for giving Nestorius every chance of repentance before executing the original sentence ; and St, Cyril acted under commission from the Pope. There is a letter extant, written by two Alexandrian clerics towards the end of this century, and used by the episcopal legates from Pope Anastasius to the emperor of the same name, which confirms the account here given of St. Cyril's ' TOL TTop' r|^l.S>v ird\ai dptaOepra, Ep. ad Sijn. M. iv. 1287. 324 WHICH WAS NECESSARY a.d. 400 position. In this letter they say that, ' whenever m doubtful matters any councils of bishops are held, His Holiness, who presides over the Church of Eome, used to select the Most Keverend Archbishop of Alexandria to undertake the charge of his own place.' In the case of the Ephesine Council, it was doubly natural that the Patriarch of Alexandria should be ' selected ' by Celestine as being the foremost champion of the truth assailed, and as having already had to deal with it in Celestine's name. There were also peculiar circumstances in this case which would have rendered it difficult for St. Cyril to have assumed that presidency with any chance of success, unless he had had such a special mtimation of the Pope's wish in the matter, or felt that he was but continuing on the ground of the original commission from Celestine to execute his sentence. For that it was for this purpose that the council, despite the ideas of the emperor, considered itself convoked, will presently appear. The circumstances that rendered the position peculiarly difficult for St. Cyril were these. At the first session, the imperial letter, which called the bishops together, appears to have been read, at the suggestion of Juvenal, Bishop of Jeru- salem, by Peter, the Alexandrian notary, and the question was then asked how long an interval had elapsed since the day fixed by the emperor for the meeting of the synod. Memnon, Bishop of Ephesus, gave the number of days, and immediately upon this St. Cyril proposed that without further delay they should proceed to busmess, speaking of a ' second decree ' which, he says, had been read to them by Count Candidian, the imperial representative. But there is no account (cf. Act I.) of this decree having been read. There is, therefore, a hiatus in the record, which has been either mutilated or abbreviated. But the account of the schismatic synod held by John of Antioch on his arrival, supplies a key to the missing portion of the record. That synod laid the greatest stress on the infringement, by Cyril and Memnon, of the imperial decree. Count Candidian told them he had been induced to read that decree under great pressure. He wished to wait for John before reading it, probably a device for putting off the synod; but Cyril compelled him to read it, ^- » —452 UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES 325 on the ground that otherwise they could not know the emperor's desh-es. Now they knew, apart from this, that the emperor desired them to meet at Pentecost, and that all the metropolitans available were to attend. The decree, therefore, could not have related solely or imncipally to that point. The copy, as we have it, is without the same formal ending as that which was read by Peter, and so we cannot be sure that we have the whole of it. Indeed, its recovery at all is of later date, and the two copies are not in perfect agreement. And Nestorius' letter to the emperor adds one point which is not in the decree as we have it. It would seem, then, as if this decree (Os/xicr/xa) were some- thing to be distinguished from the letter {ypd/u,/jia) read by Peter, and contained some fuller provision for the ordering of the council, which was set aside by the council itself. The letters of the schismatics to the synod, to the emperors, to the empress, to the clergy of Constantinople, and to its senate, all speak of the violation of this imperial decree. In the letter of the schismatics to the emperor they speak of John's absence from the synod under Cyril as contrary to his order, and add that the council had also infringed the imperial decree, as though in some further way. In point of fact, we learn from St. Cyril that Nestorius had hoped to preside at the council. The emperor, we know, considered Cyril the guilty party. And it seems probable that Nestorius, by accusing Cyril of Apollinarianism, and by his dexterous management of the emperor, hoped to turn the council into an occasion of examining Cyril. Count Irenseus, in writing to the Orientals, says that if the right order, i.e. that which the emperor prescribed, had been observed, the constitution of the council would have been different, and the ' Egyptian ' (as he called St. Cyril) ' would not have had it in his power ' to condemn Nestorius. We may presume that only two bishops would have attended each metropolitan,' and those only such as, according to Nestorius' conceit, understood such matters,^ and we know that Count Irenaeus also meant that Cyril icould not have sat as judge, being himself one of those under trial {ovhs Kplvsiv coy els cov rdv Kpivo/xsvcov rj^vvaTo), ' Cf. the imperial letter read by Peter. -' Cf. Ep. Nest, ad Imper. 326 OF IMPERIAL OPPOSITION. a.d. 400 nor, continues the count, ' would be have been able to touch the matter at all, acting as he did contrary to the judgment of the most noble Count Candidian ' — from which it is evi- dent that Candidian's contention was that Cyril could not sit as judge of Nestorius. In fact, the imperial decree must have resembled that of Constantine in regard to the Council of Tyre, and the order of Theodosius later on, by which he assigned the presidency of the Eobber Council to Dioscorus. All this was contrary to the canons. And accordingly, at the Council of Ephesus, St. Cj'ril, either ignoring that part of the decree which related to the mode of procedure, and in obedience only to the rest, or by the expressed desire of the council, or producing the commission he had received from Celestine, continued to occupy the president's seat ; and the council preferred the canons, and the Papal appointment, to the imperial decree. Candidian left the council on the ground, as he said afterwards,' that he considered the imperial decree was not going to be obeyed. He had been compelled by Cja-il to read the decree against his wdsh. And he must have seen very plainly that the condemnation of Nestorius was a fore- gone conclusion. There is no reason, on this interpretation, to suppose that Count Candidian told a barefaced lie, as the scholiast notes in the margin ; but merely that he was an Erastian, and sympathised with Nestorius. He would have liked Cyril to have been placed, as it were, in the witness- box ; he would have liked a discussion as to w'hat the Church believed on the doctrinal question ; w'hereas there was to be no real discussion, but all would be settled by acclamation, and bishops would simply testify to the faith in which they had been baptised, and for the guardianship of which they had been consecrated to their liigh oftice. So he complained that there was no real investigation. In fact, the synod, as we shall see, did not exhibit the features of a debating club, nor enter upon Biblical criticism, but simply gave its judgment, bishop after bishop, as to the heterodoxy of Nestorius and the orthodoxy of Cyril, and (which was as important a point as any) as to whether Nestorius had continued teaching his heresy since the Papal judgment, so that its provisions re- mained in force. ' Acta Cunciliah. adv. Cyrillum. Mansi, iv. 12G2. —452 POPE CELESTINE THE PILOT 327 In concluding this part of the subject, I must exjDress my astonishment at the utterly unhistorical position which Dr. Salmon has taken up in regard to another point ; and that too, whilst he is so vigorously opposing the infallibility of the Holy See on the grounds of history. He gives what he considers a convincing proof against the existence of any belief in that doctrine, drawn from the history of these early councils. He says : ' The only one of the great controversies in which the Pope really did his part in teaching Christians what to believe, was the Eutychian controversy. Leo the Great, instead of waiting, as Popes usually do, till the question 2vas settled, published his sentiments at the beginning, and his letter to Flavian was adopted by the Council of Chalcedon. This is what would have always happened if God had really made the Pope the guide to the Church. But this case is quite exceptional, result- ing from the accident that Leo was a good theologian, besides being a man of great vigour of character. No similar infiuence ivas exercised either by his predecessors or successors.' ^ It would be impossible to pen a sentence in more flagrant contradiction to the evidence afforded by the history of the Council of Ephesus. In the letters of the bishops from all parts of Christendom, which Dr. Salmon will find collected by Labbe, after the Council of Chalcedon, the name of Celestine is of constant occurrence, and alwaj-s as having been the Kv^spvrjT'qs, or pilot, in the matter of Nestorius, whilst the bishops themselves speak of him as ' the guardian of the faith ' (cf. Act II.), and the council, as we shall see presently, relies on his letter as the Tviros on which it framed its judgment. Here, then we leave the various parties concerned : Cyril in the performance of his duty, presiding over the council in St. Mary's Church at Ephesus, with some 200 bishops round him ; Nestorius remaining in his own house, prepared to ignore the council — he, as St. Celestine said, who appealed to it, not appearing ; John of Antioch remaining at an easy distance from Ephesus out of friendship to Nestorius, in whose con- ' Salmon on the Infallibility of the Clmrch, p. 426, 2nd edition. Cf. suirra, p. 278. ^ Mansi, iv. 1287. 328 OF THE WHOLE MATTER. a.d. 400—452 demnation he was loth to join; Candidian, the Imperial commissioner, having left St. Mary's in disgust at the turn that things were taking ; and the people of Ephesus, who had inherited an affectionate devotion to the Mother of God (who had lived nearly four hundred years ago in their midst, and under whose patronage their great church was placed), in a state of the greatest excitement, waiting for her great foe to be condemned ; and far away the good Pope lifting up his hands on the mountain, and preparing to send fresh legates to assist the maligned bishop, to whom the Papal sentence had been entrusted. CHAPTEE XIX. THE ACTS OF THE COUNCIL. I. So far, then, we have seen that Pope St. Celestine had, at the request of St. Cyril, decreed the sentence of deposition against Nestorius, and then left its execution (if Nestorius should remain obdurate) to St. Cyril and the council ; and that the Council (which was, as Dr. Pusey truly observes,' in its origin 'the device of Nestorius to ward off his condemna- tion,' but was agreed to by the Pope) at length met at Ephesus in the Church of ' St. Mary, Mother of God '— ' an ill-omened scene ' (remarks Dean Milman ^) ' for the cause of Nestorius.' It proceeded to summon Nestorius to answer to the charg es against him. Dr. Littledale, in the first edition of his ' Plain Reasons against joining the Church of Piome,' ^ gravely in- formed his readers that ' the Third General Council of Ephesus disregarded the synodical deposition of Nestorius by Pope Celestine, and allowed him to take his seat as Patriarch of Constantinople.' We have already seen that the Pope h ad not deposed Nestorius at all, but devolved the execution of his sentence on the council. As to the second assertion, as Father Eyder pointed out,^ it is ' quite curiously untrue, even for Dr^ Littledale.' Nestorius was summoned, but in vain. Three times summoned, he refused to appear. He eventually grounded his refusal on the absence of John of Antioch. The council con- sidered the question of summoninghim a fourth time,'^ but the ' S. Cyr. Alex. Tomes against Nestoritis. Lib. of the Fathers, Preface by Dr. Pusey. 2 Hist, of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 208. ^ P. 191. ' Catholic Co7ifroversy. Burns & Gates, 1881. ^ Mansi, t. iv. p. 1138. 330 THE EPISCOPAL JUDGMENT a.d. 400 threefold summons satisfied tlie requirements of the canons. They accordingly, after reciting the Nicene Creed, proceeded, in obedience to canonical requirements, to place his teaching before them side by side with the teachings of St. Cyril. II. The mere fact that the bishops did so seems to some writers to indicate that they did not regard the Holy See as infallible in its judgments. But this is to forget that it was St. Celestine's expressed desire that they should satisfy themselves as to the heterodoxy of Nestorius. And his desire that they should thus give to his judgment a rational adhesion in no way indicates any doubt on his part as to his judgment being, as he himself called it,' that of our Lord Himself. It is in strict accordance with Catholic teaching that the bishops should be called upon to act thus. Those who oppose the Catholic Church in these days seem strangely unwilling to take her doctrine as to her claims from her own lips. She does not claim for the Holy See, as Dr. Bright ^ seems to make her claim, an apostolical authority which concentrates, in the sense of excluding, all other authority ; she does not claim in- fallibility for the Yicar of Christ as isolated from the body, but as its head, one with the body. This is so important that we will give the Catholic doctrine on the subject, as it is luminously expounded by one who, for his writings on this subject, received the special blessing of Pius IX. Father Bottalla says : ^ * "We maintain, with St. Cyprian and ail the Fathers, that the bishops are as the circumference of a circle, so that in order to have perfect unity in the Church they must cleave to each other so far as to keep the pale of Christ's Church entirely closed against schismatics and heretics. Moreover, we maintain that tJte bishops must cleave to the centre of the circle, so that they may he gathered into a perfect unity ;* and finally, that the chair of St, Peter and consequently the Pope, is the centre and the source of episcopal unity. In this view it is impossible to say that the circle is the centre alone, or that a centre of a circle could exist without any circumference. We cannot say that a human body is the head alone detached ' Mansi, t. iv. p. 1050. - Church Histcn-y, p. 336. ' In/all. of the l'oi>c, p. 141. ' Which implies an act of judgment. —452 NOT A CONTRADICTION 331 from the rest, or that there could be a human head separated from a body acting m its normal manner. In like manner we cannot say that the Church without bishops is the whole, or that the Pope might act as Pope in a state of isolation from the episcopal body. ... If the Church be indefectible, it must be indefectible in unity of government as well as in unit}" of faith. In no case, then, can we conceive the Pope as in formal isolation from the episcopal body. . . . What is the province of the epi- scopal element in the monarchy of the Church ? It is certam, not only that the episcopal body can never be superseded in the Church by the Pope, but also that it can never be de- prived of its inherent jurisdiction in the general government of the Church, although there is no difficulty as to restrictions and limitations being placed by the Pope upon the exercise of their jurisdiction, should necessity require such a course. Moreover, the bishops, either in their own dioceses or in the oecumenical councils, are the natural judges of questions con- cerning faith, although under the guidance, and subject to the judgment, of the Roman Pontiif. . . . The power given to the aristocratic episcopal body was not intended by Christ to control or to reform the government and the teaching of the supreme ruler of the Church, but to give efl&cacy to his action on the whole body, to difiuse to every part the streams of divine life, and to draw tighter the bonds of unity which link together the whole structure.' The bishops, then, according to what some writers will persist in calling the Ultramontane theory, have a real function to perform in a general council. As Benedict XIV. says : ' * Bishops in a general council assist {assident) the Supreme Pontiff, not as mere counsellors, but also as judges." But as Fenelon said : - ' To judge after the judgment of the Pontiff is to join one's own judgment with that of the Pontiff. On this understanding the bishops in olden times subscribed the de- crees of the general councils. Their submission was a judg- ment and their judgment was submission.' The bishops, then, at the Council of Ephesus were called upon to pass judgment on the teaching of Nestorius, not with ' De Syn. Dicsc. lib. xiii. c. 2, n. 2, 409. Eomse, 1755. « Instr. Pastor. April 20, 1715. 332 OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY a.d. 400 the idea that the tvttos, or judicial sentence formulated by St. Celestine, could be revised, but to execute it, and to add the weight of their collective judgment to that of the Holy See. Their united judgment would give to the sentence an extension of weight, without adding to its intrinsic authority.' Dean Milman's sarcasm is the simple truth : ' The Bishop of Constantinople was already a condemned heretic ; the business of the council was only the confirmation of their [Cyril and Celestine's] anathema,' &c.^ Or, as Dr. Pusey correctly says : ' The mind of the Church had been expressed in the previous year.' And St. Celestine had told St. Cyril that, in spite of his having fixed so short a time for Nestorius to consider the question of retracting, he did not regret a certain delay which resulted from the apparatus of a council being called into action. III. Accordingly the members of the council, after reciting the Nicene Creed, and listening to Cyril's second letter to Nestorius, drawn up in synod in obedience to the commission entrusted to him by the Pope, for the most part one by one, stamped its contents with their episcopal approval.^ Nestorius' letter was then read and solemnly condemned as containing heretical matter, by most bishops in turn individually, and by the rest collectively. Dr. Salmon's sweeping accusations against the councils of the Church do not hold in regard to at least this session of the Council of Ephesus. ' There was,' he says, ' no idea then but that what one council had done another council might improve on ' — an assertion which he makes by way of proving that * there was no suspicion of its infallibility,' i.e. of that of the Nicene settlement.^ It is diffi- cult to understand how anyone could make the assertion in the face of all that is said to the contrary in the Acts of the Councils, or after reading the answers of the individual bishops in the first session at Ephesus.'' It was next proposed by the Bishop of Jerusalem that the ' ' Extensive non intensive ' — Bellarmine. '^ Hist, of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 200. ^ Mansi, t. iv. pp. 1138-70. ' hifall. of the Church, p. 312. * Mansi, t. iv. pp. 1170-78. —452 OR PAPAL SUPREMACY. 333 letter of St. Celestine should be read, which sentenced Nes- torius to excommunication from the universal Church. It was accordingly read, and received without discussion.' The place which this letter held in their estimation is seen in the report which the synod wrote to the emperors, in which they speak of it as having ' preceded their own judgment in the condemnation of the heretical dogmas of Nestorius,' and as having been indited by way of ' providing for the safety of the Churches and of the holy and life-giving faith as handed down to us by the holy Apostles, Evangehsts, and holy Fathers,' ^ and the supreme part which it played in the final condemna- tion of Nestorius is further stated, as we shall presently see, in the very terms of their own sentence. Further letters of St. Cyril's were then read, which, according to the declaration of Peter, the Alexandrian notary, were ' in conformity with ' the Pope's letter just read. The actual delivery of the Pope's letter and of those of St. Cyril, which executed the Papal sentence, was then sworn to by proper witnesses, viz. the bishops who delivered them. One important point yet remained to be established. The Papal sentence was conditional on Nestorius' continued ob- stinacy. If he retracted, the council was authorised by the Pope ^ to deal with the matter as it might think best. Had Nestorius, then, continued to teach the same heresy ? He had. He had uttered his blasphemies in Ephesus itself. It was enough. It only remained to read some of the writings of the holy Fathers, whose teachings the Pope had delivered,^ and, further, the opposed ' blasphemies ' (as they called them) to be found in Nestorius' commentaries — together with a letter from Capreolus, Bishop of Carthage, in the name of the African Church, begging that ' the authority of the Apostohc See ' ■' might be respected, and all novelties repudiated — and they could now proceed to deliver the sentence. The terms of the sentence are of supreme importance for determining the place which the Holy See occupied in the judgment of the ' Mansi, t. iv. p. 1179. ^ Ibid. t. iv. p. 1239 c. 3 Ej). Ccl. ad Cyr., Mansi, t. iv. p. 1292. * Cf. Eelatio Syn. ad hnpcrat., Harduin. p. 1099. * Mansi, t. iv. p. 1207. 334 THE SENTENCE ON NESTORITJS a.d. 400 Catholic bishops at Ephesus. Did they or did they not act in obedience to the Pope ? The terms of the sentence leave us in no doubt on this point. There are words in that sentence which are decisive, and which define the Eastern idea of Papal authority. The Fathers of the council speak of themselves as acting in obedience to the Holy See. They say they acted under necessity. They speak of Nestorius' disobedience to their summons having compelled them to enter on the investigation of his impious teachings in his absence ; of their having convicted him from his letters and commentaries, and his utterances even in the city of Ephesus itself ; and they proceed to say that * necessarily compelled by the canons and by the letter of our most Holy Father and fellow- minister Celestine,' ^ they had concurred after many tears in the sorrowful sentence to the effect that our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he had blasphemed, pronounces by this holy synod that he is deprived of his episcopal dignity and excluded from the assemblies of the Church. ' Necessarily compelled by the canons and by the letter of our most Holy Father and fellow-minister Celestine ! ' Such was their position. First, the canons. The reference is to their having acted in the absence of Nestorius. In several places they speak of their having satisfied the requirements of the canons through their threefold summons of the heretic. They had given him the opportunity of answering the charge brought against him, fom' bishops having repaired to his house to acquaint him of the position of things ; and John of Antioch had expressly commissioned two bishops to tell the synod not to wait for him. 'Do your work,' were his words, 'if I delay.' There had therefore been no violation of canon law. By the canons they were free to act, and indeed compelled, although the guilty party was not present. Secondly, the womb out of which their entire action and their final judgment sprang was the letter of the Pope.'- They ' Mansi, t. iv. pp. 1211-12. ^ The preposition by which they express their obe.lience to the canons is oTTfJ ; that by which they express their obedience to the letter of the Holy Father is in. That the words ' necessarily compelled ' apply to the letter, as well as to the canons, is clear from the conjunctions used. —452 AN ACT OF OBEDIENCE 335 were compelled to act by reason of the letter of him who was at once then' ' Holy Father ' and their ' fellow-minister,' in other words, their equal in sacerdotal dignity,' but their superior in authority. He had been asked by St. Cyril Tviraxrat TO hoKovv, to formulate the dogmatic decree. He had given the Tviros in the letters written to Cyril, Nestorius, the clergy of Constantinople, and John of Antioch, but especially in the letter to Nestorius which was read in synod. The council could do nothing else than yield obedience to this letter. This the bishops declare they have done. Their action in con- demning the Archbishop of Constantinople in his absence from the synod was covered by the canons ; their action in con- demning him at all was, they averred, a simple necessity after the letter of the Pope. Although exercising a real judgment on the subject, as the record shows they did, they were yet under a moral impossibility of differing from the Papal sentence ; they were, they say, ' necessarily compelled [aTro] by the canons and by [sk] the letter of the Holy Father ; ' and in delivering this sentence, which they thus declare to be in its origin and poAver that of the Pope, they profess to be acting with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is, they say, His sentence. What Celestine said of the sentence as it passed from his lips, that it was • the judgment of Christ, who is God,' the Ephesine Council also said of its execution and promulgation by themselves. Pope and council together claim the prerogative of infallibility : the Pope in defining the relationship of Nestorius' teaching to the Christian faith, the council, in judging after the Pope, ' necessarily compelled ' by His Holiness' decision. Bossuet, who frequently soars above the mists of Gallican prejudices, rightly says ^ that the council was not necessary but it was expedient, on account of the trouble that Nestorius was able to create through his influence at court. The council, therefore, was careful to note that its decision did not dero- gate from the compulsory nature of the Papal decision, but presumed it ; it was, though the act of free men, not, in every sense, a free action ; it was a matter of duty to join them- selves as members to their head,^ it was their own assertion ' avWeiTovpyov. ^ Def. Decl. Cleri Gallicani. ^ Mansi, t. iv. p. 1200 c. 336 TO THE POPE AS THEIR FATHER. a.d. 400 of their membership in the teaching body. The obHgation which was thus laid upon them by the canons could only refer to Nestorius' disobedience to the synod, which compelled it to enter upon the question icithout his oivn defence. No canon had dealt with his dogmatic error ; but the canons provided for the judicial treatment of a heretic. But the letter of Celestine, which laid them under this obligation to obedience, had respect not only to the deposition of Nestorius, but to his heresy,^ for it provided that his deposition should follow on his refusal to retract his error in regard to the matter of faith within ten days. And although the Pontiff had left the execution of his sentence, including its delay (if deemed ad- visable) to the synod, he had not left it open to them to acquit Nestorius in the event of his obstinate adherence to his error. This obstinacy had now been established by competent wit- nesses, and the council, having complied with the provisions of the canons in summoning him three times, was ' necessarily compelled,' in obedience to the Papal sentence, to depose and excommunicate the archbishop. But how, as Ballerini asks, could the Ephesine Fathers be ' necessarily compelled ' by the letter of Celestine, unless they were 'necessarily compelled' to preserve a unity of faith with the Pioman Pontiff ? Now, how do those writers deal with this momentous utter- ance of the council who maintain the independence of national Churches ? It is not put in evidence at all by Canon Bright in his article in Smith's 'Dictionary of Christian Biography' on St. Cyril, nor in that by Mr. Ffoulkes on the Council of Ephesus ; neither does it appear in Canon Bright's * History of the Church,' where the sentence on Nestorius is thus described : ' And the prelates proceeded to depose and excom- municate Nestorius in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has " blasphemed " ' (p. 333). There is no allusion to the letter of Celestine here. It does not appear in Canon Robertson's ' History of the Church ' — a work which has figured much on the list of books recommended to candidates for ordination in the Established ' Cf. Ballerini, De Vi et Baticme Primatns Rom. Pontif. c. xiii. § 11. —452 THE JOY AT EPIIESUS. 337 Church. Dean Milman ^ quotes a part of the sentence, but omits the crucial words * by the letter of our Most Holy Father and fellow-minister Celestine.' He even gives the Greek in a foot-note, with the same omission, marking that there is an omission. Dr. Wordsworth seems to go a step beyond these writers. He omits the crucial word ' compelled.' His version of the synod's sentence is : ■^ * They then declared that in accordance with the canons of the Church, and with the letter of their Most Holy Father and brother-minister, Celestine, bishop of the Eoman Church,' &c. * In accordance with ' is certainly not an accurate transla- tion of 'necessarily compelled by,' nor is it even a fair para- phrase of the same. A very strong and exhaustive term is here used in the Greek.^ And not content with a word which contams the idea of tremendous force, they add to it the adverb * necessarily.' ■* And it must be remembered that the Greek is the original here ; that it was drawn up by Easterns, and that it was the Greek which the Eastern Fathers actually signed. The sentence thus expressed and signed, the Fathers issued forth from their oecumenical synod. The citizens of Ephesus were in an ecstasy of joy. They had waited for the sentence in eager expectation, not as doubting the truth, but as looking forward to its confirmation. And upon the council's leaving St. Mary's at the close of the day, they burst into the wildest applause, and attended the orthodox bishops home with every token of honour, Cyril coming in, as well he might, for the lion's share of their attention. Torchlight processions and incense accompanied the members of the synod to their residences, and the very ladies of Ephesus turned out to manifest their joy at the vindication of the glory of their sex, the ' great Mother of God, Mary most holy.' Candidian, the emperor's legate, on the contrary, soon had the notices from the city walls torn down. The synod had defeated his hopes ; but he was bent on causing trouble, as the event proved. Dr. Littledale thinks that he makes a ' Hist, of Lat. Christianity, vol. i. p. 211 (4th and revised edition). * Church History, vol. iv. p. 216. ' Kamrdx^ivTfs, which is a strong form of 4irfix6evT(s. * avayKaiojs. Cf . St. Irenaeus on the necessity of agreeing with Eome, p. 36. Z 338 LEGATES ARRIVE FROM ROME a.d. 400 point against the ' Petrine claims ' of Rome when he adduces the fact that * no practical impression was made on Nestorius or the bishops of his party ' ' by the Papal sentence ; and Dr. Salmon holds ^ that the mere fact that the decision of a council was not received at once on all sides is fatal to the infalli- bility of oecumenical councils — an argument which would summarily dispose of our Lord's Divinity. One of the most recent theories about our Lord's miracles is that since every- body did not at once yield assent to His claims, no miracles could have been worked ; and Dr. Salmon's is only the same argument applied to the Church. Certainly Nestorianism did not cease to be ; indeed, it seemed for a moment as though after the council's judgment it might gain the upper hand. But what of that ? These writers have failed to appreciate one of the leading facts of human history, viz. the fall of man. Men who could repudiate the truth concerning the In- carnation could and did rebel against the Holy See and against any number of councils. Nestorius, then, and his followers, instead of submitting to Pope or councils, had their weapons ready ; and John of Antioch was to be led into serious sin be- fore the ultimate triumph of the great Patriarch of Alexandria. St. Celestine, foreseeing or being fully acquainted with the difficulties of the position, had sent three legates to remforce the council. There is no evidence that St. Cyril knew of their near approach. By the time of their arrival the emperor's party had sufficiently exerted themselves to prevent the further use of St. Mary's by the orthodox bishops, who accordingly met in the house of Memnon, the Bishop of Ephesus. The Papal legates had instructions from St. Celestine not to mix themselves up with any discussions, but simply to act as judges and to carry out his sentence. Accordingly, in this new session the bishops submitted their action in the previous session to the judgment of the legates, and asked them to confirm it. Philip, legate of ' the Apostolic throne,' as the Acts describe him, said, in his opening speech, that Celestine had ' long ago decided ' the present matters by his letters,^ but that he now sends fresh letters for 'the ' Petrine Claims, p. 98. ' Infallibility of the Church, p. 426, c. » Mansi, t. iv. col. 1282, b. —452 WITH A PAPAL BRIEF. 339 confirmation of the Catholic Faith.' Cyril proposed that the letters of the Pope should be read * with the honour that befits them.' They were accordingly read in Latin and Greek, Philip having first said that it was in accordance with custom that the letters of the Apostolic See should be read first in Latin. The Papal letter speaks of the synod as being a witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and expresses the conviction that the same Lord who presided over the Council at Jerusalem will be present at Ephesus and teach them. All bishops have received the Holy Ghost ; all have received a common command to preach the name of the Lord in place of the Apostles whom they succeed. He then refers to Timothy having been left by St. Paul at Ephesus, and com- pares them to Timothy. The Pope's expression suggests a similar relationship between himself and the bishops in synod to that which existed between St. Paul the Apostle and St. Timothy, Bishop of Ephesus. He ends with the assurance that they will see that w^hat lie lias decided concerning Nestorius is ' in behalf of the security and freedom from trouble of all the Churches,' and that they will therefore not hesitate to give in their adhesion to ' what was long ago decided by us,' which he has sent his legates to execute.^ This letter, on being read, elicited applause from the bishops, who, taking up the injunction in the last sentence, cried out, ' This is a just decision,' and the synod exclaimed that it thanked ' Celestine, a new Paul ' (in allusion to the Pope's reference to St. Paul's admonition to Timothy), ' Cyril, a new Paul ' (Cyril who had represented the Pope), ' Celestine, the guardian of the faith (roJ (f>v\aKt rrjs Trcarscos), Celestine of one mind with the synod,' ' one Celestine, one Cyril, one faith of the synod, one faith of the whole world.' These utterances as to the unity of the Church contain a volume of theology, and taken together with what had pre- ceded them they exactly illustrate the idea of the Church's action in a general council as described above (p. 330.) The Pope appears in them as the source of infallibility ; the council's action is stated to be the sequence of his ; it is an actual exercise of judgment in the shape of an intelligent ' Mansi, t. iv. col. 1287. b. z 2 340 THE BISHOPS' ACCEPTANCE. a.d, 400 adhesion to the Papal sentence ; and the result of all is the exhibition of the Church's unity as a whole. This, too, is the description of the situation given almost in so many words by Projectus, one of the episcopal legates of the Pope. He speaks of the rviros afforded by Celestine's letters, and says that the Pope has exhorted their Holiness, not as though teaching the ignorant, but as reminding those who know. He applies to Celestine's action the very word, when translated into Greek (as it appears in the Acts), which Celestine had used of St. Paul when he ' admonished ' Timothy as Bishop of Ejihesus ; and speaks of their office as being that of ' bringing the matter to a perfect end,' so that their action was to be the consummation of the apostolic sentence of the Pope. Firmus, Bishop of Cfesarea in Cappadocia, now answered for the council, and his answer is most important. He speaks of the * Apostolic and holy throne ' having given the * decision and sentence ' ' in the affair of Nestorius, to Alexandria, Jerusalem, Thessalonica, Constantinople, and Antioch, which (he says) we, the bishops of the synod, have folio wed. 2 He says that the limit of time allowed to Nestorius by Celestine for reformation had long passed when they reached Ephesus ; that the emperor had fixed the time for their meet- ing ; that they had summoned Nestorius and he had not obeyed their summons, and that accordingly they had executed the sentence {rou rvirov i^s^i^da-a^sv) by passing a canonical and apostolical judgment against him. Canonical, he doubt- less meant in allusion to the terms of the sentence * necessarily compelled by the canons ; ' ' apostolical ' in allusion to the letter of their Holy Father Celestine, by which also they were ' compelled.' After this clear description of the situation, Arcadius, the third legate, thanking God for their arrival on the scene, asks that the proceedings of the council be read. Philip the legate asks the same, in accordance M'ith Celestine's injunctions, congratulating the holy and venerable synod that they have ' joined themselves as holy members to the holy head by their lioly exclamations ' — again a perfect description of the office of ' y^rion7)(Tfi — a word which is generally used of the arrival of a messenger from God, especially of the Holy Spirit. Cf. Dindorf, Stcph. Tliesaur. vol. iii. p. 1881. ^ The second session of the council was on July 10. John of Antioch reached Ephesus on June 27, and held the Conciliabulum the same day. ^ Commoiiit. i. 42. * Hist, of the Church, p. 331, adopted also by Neale, Hist, of E. Church, bk. i. § 2, originally suggested by Tillemont. 342 UNDER THE PATRIARCH a.d. 400 maintains ' that John of Antioch might easily have arrived in time, and that there is no conceivable motive for his delay, except what the synod gives on information which it had re- ceived from adequate sources. ' Why should he delay,' asks Dr. Pusey, ' except that he did not wish to be there ? ' The passage in Evagrius on which Dr. Bright relies, both in his ' History ' and in his more recent article in the ' Dictionary of Christian Biography,' is not sufficient to settle the question. Evagrius was an Antiochene, if not by birth at least by resi- dence, and he merely gives the fact that many, doubtless Antiochenes also, thought there was excuse for John : and the reading of the passage is not certain. And Evagrius is cer- tainly inaccurate in the same passage in saying that Cyril asked Theodosius to convene the council, as also in another statement, that Nestorius promised to attend the synod on the first summons. Hefele's account, according to which John of Antioch's message that they should proceed without him, refers to the time of the reception of his message, and not to a time subse- quent to that, is in strict accordance with the only evidence we have; and accordingly, the Protestant editor of Clarke's trans- lation of Hefele's work says in his Preface ^ with regard to Cyril, that * there seems no reason to doubt that his antago- nists purposely delayed their arrival, and gave him to under- stand that the proceedings might begin. At any rate, the author [viz. Bishop Hefele] appears to have stated the case with all possible accuracy.' On his arrival at Ephesus, John of Antioch, refusing to listen to the deputation of orthodox bishops, which endeavoured to provide him with proper information, proceeded in the ut- most haste to hold a synod of these otherwise unsatisfactory bishops, and after listening to an ex parte and most untruthful statement from Count Candidian, deposed and excommuni- cated Cyril and Memnon. The turmoil in Ephesus can be better imagined than described. John did not, indeed, express sympathy with the teaching of Nestorius, but he professed to discern a fatal flaw ' Cf. Cyril of Alex. Tmncs against Nestorius, Preface, p. Ixxx. * Preface to Hefele's Hist, of the Council, English translation, p. viii. —452 OF ANTIOCH. 343 in the mode of his deposition by the council, as being contrary both to the imperial rescript and to the canons. It is needless to say that he paid no manner of attention to either of these authorities in his own proceedings. He was completely led away by the disquiet spirits who had gathered round him, some of whom had been deposed by Eome, and others were under accusation for various charges ; although he would probably have said that he was not setting himself up against the Pope, but had only taken the part of a man who, although teaching falsely, was being persecuted by Cyril and his associates. Fortunately he was prevented from consecrating another bishop in place of Memnon at Ephesus, as he was minded to do. CHAPTER XX. THE SEE OF PETER ' CONFIRMING THE BRETHREN.' I. Such was the state of things when the true council re- assembled to hear the judgment of the Papal legates as to the execution of the Papal sentence at their first session, whose minutes the legates had now perused at home. Philip takes the foremost place, and at once declares that the judgment of the sj^iod in its first session had been passed on thoroughly canonical and ecclesiastical lines ; and he asks that the minutes be read over again publicly, in order that, * following the sentence of the most holy Pope Celestine, who undertook this care [i.e. the care of this matter], we may be able to confirm the decisions of your Holiness.' Arcadius seconds Philip's proposal, and the sentence of the synod was read again, contaming the crucial words * compelled of necessity by the canons and by the letter of our Holy Father and brother-minister Celestine,' &c. Then it was that Philip rose and pronounced the definite judgment on the proceedings of the council as it sat, with Cyril at its head, and listened to the most elaborate and careful statement of the relation of the Holy See to the rest of the Catholic Church. His words are too important to be given in paraphrase only. He says : ' * It is doubtful to no one, but rather has been known to all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, the prince and head of the Apostles, and pillar of the faith, the foundation of the Catholic Church, received of our Lord Jesus Christ, the' Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, the keys of the kingdom, and power was given to him to bind ' Mansi, t. iv. col. 1295. A.D. 400—452 PAPAL SUPEEMACY 345 and loose sins ; who, up to this time and always lives and exercises judgment in his successors. In accordance, therefore, with this order, his successor holding his place, our holy and most blessed Father Celestine has sent us to this synod to supply his presence.' He proceeds to say that all having been done regularly, and Nestorius having refused to attend the synod, what has been pronounced against him is ' firm,' holds good, according to the decision of all the Churches, for East and West are present together at this * sacerdotal assembly.' So let Nes- torius know that he is outside the communion of the Catholic Church. Arcadius followed in the same strain. His points were that Nestorius had been admonished * by the letters of the Apostolic See,' and then also by the synod ; that he had not made use of the time accorded to him for coming round to a better mind ; that he had not accepted the sentence of the Apostolic See {rvirov rrjs aTroa-rokiKrjs KaOshpas) nor the ad- monition of all the holy bishops ; consequently, in obedience • to the decisions delivered by Celestine, the most holy Pope of the Apostolic See, and to the decrees of the holy synod (we say), let Nestorius know that he has been deprived ^ of the episcopal dignity, and is excluded from the whole Catholic Church and the communion of all the bishops. Projectus says that on the same grounds he decides with the authority of a ' commission from the holy Apostolic See, as executor, in fellowship with his brethren, of the sentence,' that Nestorius is forthwith bereft of the honour of the episco- pate and of communion with the orthodox bishops. II. Such is the position which was occupied by the Papal legates. There can be no mistake about the significance of their utterances. It is not possible to express the position of Eome in the Catholic Church in plainer terms. Her position, according to these statements, is that of judge in matters of faith, and of ruler in matters of discipline. That position is traced to a divine institution. She is asserted to be the See of ' h.Ko\ovdr]ff avTis, which is opposed to the non-acceptance or disobedience of Nestorius. '^ It is the Greek perfect, indicating the still enduring result of a past act. 346 ASSERTED AND ACCEPTED a.d. 400 St. Peter, and as such, by reason of the position of princedom bestowed on him by our Divine Lord, she is proclaimed the head of the CathoHc Church. As such she has responded to St. Cyril's request, rvirMaai ro Sokovv, that she would formulate the dogmatic sentence. The synod has followed that sentence, and therefore the legates, in the name of Celestine, the occu- pant of the Apostolic See, are prepared to confirm the act of the synod. This is the pith of the legates' speeches. Now if this position was quietly accepted, we have at an oecumenical council an emphatic condemnation of the Anglican position as contradicting and rebelling against that form of unity which Christ established in His Church. If the AngHcan position is to be defended on the ground of conformity with the principles of Church life that have the sanction of the oecumenical councils, history must record some protest against the position taken up by the legates at the Council of Ephesus. Anglicans proudly turn to history. No words can be more scathing than those in which Canon Carter ^ and Mr. Gore, for instance, denounce what they are pleased to call Roman Catholic disregard for history, and assert their own superior attention to its verdict. Bishop King, of Lincoln, follows suit.2 And yet the Anglican Church takes its stand, as did the Lambeth Conference,'' on the first four oecumenical councils. Well, we open the Acts of the Councils, and what do we find ? Here at Ephesus is the teachmg of the Catholic Roman Church described in full, and we look in vain for any protest, any one dissentient voice, any sign whatever of disagreement." On the contrary, Cyril forthwith appeals to the synod, saying that the bishops have heard what the legates have said, that the legates have spoken as ' occupying the place of the Apo- stolic See, and of all the holy synod of God-beloved and most ' Cf. Roman Question, chapter on ' Ideas of Truth ; ' and Gore's R. C. Claims, p. 109, 2nd edition. 2 Preface to Primitive Saints, dc, passim. 3 Dr. Sahnon repudiates the authority of the councils to such an extent that, although his book is used by High Churchmen, its theory is not the same as that of the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Episcopate. * Mr. Puller {Primitive Saints, p. 184) calls the doctrine of Philip at Ephesus ' new and therefore false ; ' the council accepts it as old and therefore true. What Philip said was ' suitable.' —4.52 BY ALL THE BISHOPS. 347 holy bishops in the West ; ' that they have executed what has been prescribed to them by Celestine ; that they have given their approval to the sentence of the holy synod against Nestorius, and that consequently they should be asked to set their signature to the same, and that the records of what was done yesterday and to-day should be added to the previous Acts. The whole council responds to Cyril's proposal, and says, ' Since Arcadius and Projectus, the reverend and pious bishops and legates, and Pkilip, presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See, have spoken loliat is suitable, they ought to confirm the Acts by their signature.' ^ It is enough. We ought to hear nothing about * history ' from those who refuse to obey the See of St. Peter on the ground that it is not the divinely appointed centre of unity to the Catholic Church. We ought, at least, to hear no such accusations as to Eome's disregard for history as are indulged in by some writers, whose position is absolutely excluded by the history of the Council of Ephesus. We ought to hear no more of the theory that the teaching of the Church of Piome is only a continuation of ' a school of thought,' as Mr. Gore holds, or of an ' innovation of the Church's laws,' as Dr. Little- dale held, due to the powerful character of St. Leo the Great. The Council of Ephesus was held twenty years before the Council of Chalcedon ; and at the Council of Ephesus the theory of the Church's government which these writers persist in calling an innovation was in full working order, and was declared to be based on a truth acknowledged ' by all ages.' The teaching of the Vatican decree on this subject was the teaching of the Fathers of Ephesus, and it was the rule of their conduct. Consider the whole drama of the council's decision. Commencing with some hesitation, considering the difficult circumstances in which they were placed, the Fathers of the council rise to the occasion, and, amid many tears, as they say, pass their sentence in accordance with, and in obe- dience to that of the See of St. Peter. They have the emperor against them ; they presently have the patriarch of one of the three Petrine Sees against them ; they have troops of soldiers ' Mansi, t. iv. col. 1299. 348 THE SYNOD TO THE EMPEROR. a.d. 400 brought from Lydia against them, and peasants from the worst parts of Constantinople, creating a scene of confusion, and stirring up the indignation of the inhabitants of the city, who were all, nevertheless, on the side of Cyril and the ortho- dox bishops ; but in the face of all this turmoil, the synod calmly and judiciously enters upon the work for which it had been convoked by the emperor, and which had been entrusted to its care (as itself says) by the * Holy Apostolic See.' And now, reinforced by legates from the Apostolic throne, the whole tone of the synod rises, and with mutual congratulations, the entire body — ' the holy members joining themselves to their holy head, not being ignorant [as Philip says] that the blessed Apostle Peter is the head of tJie ichole affair, and even of the Apostles ' — exhibits its perfect unity in the condemnation and extrusion of the heretic from communion with itself. The bishops had written to the emperor immediately after the first session, but now they write again in bolder terms, informing him that Celestine had indicated the line of judgment which they too had adopted, that he had sent Cyril to hold his place — a direct reversal of the imperial wish— and that he now afresh signified the same mind, having sent letters by his legates, Arcadius, Projectus and Philip. These men (they say) expressed the mind of the entire West, and have declared their oneness with the synod, so that ' the whole world is of one mind.' The sj-nod thereupon ventures a step further, and requests the emperor not to disturb them any more with ' sacrae jussiones ' in Nestorius' behalf, and they ask to be released, that they may return to their various homes. Now it will naturally be asked, How do Anglican writers deal with the crucial words which feh from Philip's lips ? We have failed to find them in full in any Anglican writer.' No one of those from whose writings we have quoted has ' Since the abpve was Avritten a book has appeared called Leadership, not Lordship, in which these words are given ; but they are accompanied by a mis- statement of the facts. The writer speaks of the words of Philip having been only ' accepted in the sense of not being contradicted in words,' which is not true ; and he speaks, in the same sentence, of the ' absolutely independent [sic] judgment and action of the council.' This is in simple deliance of the council's own words—' necessarily compelled,' &c. —452 COMMENTS. 349 given his readers the benefit of Philip's speech in full. Neither does any one of them connect it rightly with its context. Dr. Littledale alludes to it only to pass it by as the private opinion of the Papal legate. But this, as we have seen, is not true. It does not occur in Dr. Wordsworth's rather full account of the council, nor in Dean Milman's. Dr. Neale says simply, * the legate Philip, after dwelling on the primacy [s/r] of St. Peter's chair,' &c.' Dr. Bright is the only Anglican writer of prominence that has dealt with PhiHp's words, of which his account is as follows : ^ * Next day, in the third session, the legate Philip, having magnified the successor of Peter as inheriting his authority, joined with his two com- panions in affirming the sentence against Nestorius.' This is a somewhat meagre summary of this all-important session ; but in a note Dr. Bright gives a short quotation from the said speech with comments : ' Peter (said Philip) was the head of the Apostles, and *' even now and always ^ lives and judges in his successors." On the whole, what Rome said in 431 amounts to this : " All bishops succeed the Apostles, but Celestine, as heir of him who was the foremost Apostle, has a right to be foremost among bishops." Rome did not say, as she now practically says, " The apostolic authority is concentrated in St. Peter's successor." There is nothing strange in Celestine's charge to the legates to maintain the authority of Rome.' What Dr. Bright's explanation does not meet is the asser- tion that the primacy of the successor of Peter is, according to Philip and the council, of divine institution ; and: that, taking into account the context of the words, they indicate a belief that the apostolic authority of the Church cannot be exercised in antagonism to the judgment of the ' Apostolic throne.' We must repeat, and it cannot be too often re- peated, that the Vatican decree does not teach that the action or judgment of the ' Holy Apostolic See ' exhausts the exercise ' History of the Eastern Church, bk. ii. § ii. The word ' primacy,' amongst Anglicans, generally means something less than supremacy. In Catholic ter- minology the two are identical. - History of the Church, p. 336. ' Fleury and Ceillier omit the word ' always,' although there is no difference in the original. 350 CYRIL PROTESTS AGAINST a.d. 400 of apostolic authority in the Church, but that it informs it, to use a scholastic term ; it does not exclude the apostolic authority of the episcopate, but is necessary to it ; it is not the act of the whole Church, but of the Head of the Church. Only it is involved in the promises of her Divine Head, that the earthly Head, His vicar, shall not lead the members astray, and that there shall never be separation between the Head and members : that is to say, the Church shall never die. The members, by their separation, cease to be living members. The Holy Apostolic See will live on till the day of doom with such members as He alone knows will be joined to their Head, for the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.' III. In the next session of the synod, CyrU, still presiding, brought forward his own case and that of Memnon, the Bishop of Ephesus. John of Antioch had allowed himself to be so far led away by the bad company in which he found himself, that he had synodically condemned, excommunicated, and deposed both Cyril and Memnon. Cyril could afford to treat such madness with contempt. But he had to deal with an emperor who was opposed to him, and with future generations. He might have fallen back simply and solely on his union w^ith the successor of St. Peter ; but the matter was one which had arisen smce his communication with Celestine. Accounts "were already being sent to the emperor by Candidian ; and Nestorius and the Patriarch of Antioch both leant on the imperial arm. At any moment he might find himself in prison, as, indeed, soon actually happened. Every moment, therefore, was of importance. Accordingly the synod met again, and Cyril asked the bishops for their vote on John of Antioch's conduct towards himself and Memnon. In stating their cases he gives a short summary of what had happened, in which precisely the same ' Mr. TuUer (Prim. Saints, p. 184), quoting part of Philip's words, adds, ' We must certainly say that all this is new doctrine : new and therefore false ; an attempt to give a religious sanction to the great position which the Roman Pontiffs had acquired mainly through the legislative action of the State.' It has been shown above that Mr. Puller's proofs of the ' legislative' origin of the position of the Holy See are derived from misinterpretations of the documents. Here he is face to face with all these Eastern bishops, and what he says was new teaching, they say was the original and universal teaching of the Church. —452 ANTIOCH, A LESSER THRONE, 351 view of matters as I have emphasised recurs. They had met, he says, in consequence of the imperial edict — but for what purpose ? * For the purpose of confirming by a common sentence the right definition of the ApostoHc Faith ' — this, and not the settlement of an open question, was the primary object of the council. The opos, or definition, was, of course, the optadsvra tvttov of the Apostolic See. Their confirmation of this was not the act of a superior authority, for they also confirmed the Nicene Creed, and their very confirmation was submitted to the judgment of the Papal legates, but it was the added strength, as we have already seen, of the exhibition of unity on the part of the assembled bishops. It was the various points of the circumference (to use Father Bottalla's simile) cleaving to their centre ; ' following ' (as Bishop Fir- mus, publicly, interpreted the council's action) * the sentence of the Apostolic throne,' * urged of necessity,' as the council at large expressed themselves, ' by the canons and by the letter of Celestine,' and in performing their duty the mem- bers of the council had proved the heresy recently introduced by Nesiorius. So that the purpose of the council was ' to confirm by a common sentence the orthodox decision of the Apostolic Faith, and to attest the heresy recently introduced by Nestorius.' After explaining how the proceedings had been conducted in an orderly and judicial manner, and how John of Antioch had delayed when he might have come, and had brought with him, and been joined by, certain disorderly people, some without sees, some under accusations, he points out that the so-called sentence of dejDosition which John and some thirty bishops had pretended to pass on himself and Memnon was absurd, considering the number and character of the real synod. Further, the Patriarch of Antioch had violated a rule of the Church in attempting such a thing as the deposition of one occupying * a greater throne.' That is to say, Antioch had no jurisdiction over Alexandria. Even if it had, the canons of the Church should have been observed, by their citing the accused to appear before them. Such was St. Cyril's view of the position. Accordingly, on Cyril's proposition, three bishops were now sent to John of Antioch to summon him to appear before 352 JUDGING ALEXANDRIA. a.d. 400 the synod. But they found John surrounded with soldiers, and were insulted with the blasphemous talk of his retinue. On the return of the episcopal messengers, Cyril proposed that the synod should at once proceed to declare the sentence of the Conciliabulum null and void. But Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, interposed, suggesting that John should be cited again. In the course of his speech Juvenal roundly con- demned the Patriarch of Antioch for not hastening to appear before the holy synod to defend himself before it, ' and to obey and respect the Apostolic throne of great Rome, sitting with us.' The rest of the sentence is untranslatable as it stands.^ It appears to bring in also ' the Apostolic throne of Jerusalem.' But Juvenal could hardly have spoken of that as * sitting ivith us,' for it was himself. He proceeds, accord- ing to the text, to speak of the throne of Eome as being that see * by which, or at which, above all it is the custom by apostolic order and tradition for the throne of Antioch itself to be directed and judged.' It has been thought that Juvenal may have aUuded to his own see, because he was, as a matter of fact, at that time endeavouring to wrest some of her fairest provinces from Antioch ; and at the Latrocinium shortl}" afterwards he did take his seat as above Antioch, and sided with Eutyches. But it is impossible that he should have claimed in the council at this time what was so manifestly false, and what was actually true of the Apostolic throne of Eome, in several previous cases, such as that of Paulinus of Antioch. He obviously insisted on ihe same point as St. Cyril did, viz. that only Eome possessed jurisdiction over the throjne of Alexandria, and in some way at the same time magnified the greatness of his own see. John was twice more cited, but with similar and even worse results, the bishops being ignominiously treated, John saying that * since the causes of the court are transferred to the Church, he was transferring the cause of the Church to the court.' The synod thereupon proceeded on the following day to pronounce all that John of Antioch had done null and void, and to pass sentence of excommunication against him and his associates, until they should acknowledge their fault, adding ' Labbe, t. iii. p. 1172. —452 JUDGMENT LEFT TO ROME. 353 that ' unless they do that quickly, they will undergo the com- plete sentence of the canon.' In this session there is no mention of Cyril having presided as in the previous one, possibly because in the condemnation of John of Antioch Cyril was going beyond his original commission, and therefore the Papal legates act alone, their commission by Celestine's ex- press words having a further reach, and including such a step as the deposition of the Bishop of Antioch, although by the same commission they were empowered to act as they did in conjunction with Cyril and with his advice. The synod, thus composed of the Papal legates with so wide a commission as Celestine gave them, might have proceeded to depose John of Antioch as he had pretended to depose Cyril and Memnon. In their letter to St. Celestine they expressly say they might have done so, but they stopped short of this and ' reserved it for the judgment of your Holiness.' ' Being a matter con- cerning one of the ' greater thrones,' they left the severer sentence for the Apostolic throne itself, the See of St. Peter, whose care for the Faith they had pronounced in the begin- ning of their letter to be worthy of all admiration, and to which they said they had written a report as a matte?- of duty and necessity {ik'yprjv airavra ety jvwaiv rrj^ ivine Providence that the whole force of the ' Petrine Privilege ' should be felt on a large scale, and under the pressure of unparalleled needs ; so that the Church might for ever know where her strength lay and never suffer her locks to be shorn. n. But to proceed to the actual history. ' A foolish old man,' as St. Leo called him, erring more from stupidity than the subtlety that misled Nestorius, was the cause of the storm that now burst upon the Church — a foolish old man, who boasted that he had kept his vow of continency in the monastic life, and who had all that natural infiuence which is invariably exercised, for good or evil, by men of recognised austerity. Eutyches (such was his name) adopted much the same method of argument as Nestorius. As Nestorius accused St. Cyril of Apollinarianism, so Eutyches accused his oppo- nents of Nestorianism. And as Nestorius endeavoured to gain —452 PRETENDS TO HAVE APPEALED 365 the ear of Pope St. Celestine by accusing others of ApoUi- nariaii teaching, so Eutyches endeavoured to win Pope St. Leo to his side by accusing othei-s of Nestoiianism. Eutyches took his stand in certain expressions of St. Cyril, so that in the ultimate issue St. Cyril's teaching became the field of battle. St. Cyril was the accepted exponent of the faith against Nestorius ; St. Celestine decided in his favour, and the third oecumenical synod adopted St. Celestine's ruling. St. Cyril's exposition was now quoted by Eutyches in favour of a new heresy. St. Leo, in the name of the blessed Apostle Peter, promulgated an ex cathedra decision called his * Tome,' condemning this new heresy, and the fourth oecumenical synod accepted his ruling. Li this case, too, the ' members joined themselves to the holy head,' as the action of the bishops in condemning Nestorius was described at the Council of Ephesus — after what struggles and calamities we shall now proceed to see. III. Eutyches was condemned in a synod at Constanti- nople, upon impeachment by Eusebius of Dorylaeum. Flavian, his archbishop, says that, after much fencing, Eutyches threw off all disguise, and said that * we ought not to confess that our Lord subsisted in two natures after becoming man,' and that ' the Body of our Lord, although born of the Virgin, who is consubstantial with us, is not itself consubstantial with us.' In this, says St. Flavian, * Eutyches ran counter to all the ex- positions of the holy Fathers.' The synod proceeded to degrade him from his ecclesiastical rank, and deprived him of the superintendence of his monastery, but they did not go on to expressly anathematise his teaching. IV. But the matter did not rest there. It was not enough that Eutyches had been condemned by his archbishop. There was no idea in the Church at large of the archbishop's judg- ment, even though pronounced in synod, being final. There were no such things in the early Church as independent provinces. There was a further court of ai)peal, recognised, as we shall see, on all sides as part of the Nicene settlement for the government of the Church, and recognised as such at Nicsea, or Sardica, or both, on the ground of the connection of one see with the prince and head of the Apostles, as St. 366 TO LEO, TO AVHOM FLAVIAN a.d. 400 Peter was acknowledged to be in the Council of Ephesus. There was, in the minds of the whole Church, an ' Apostolic See' — apostolic, not in the sense in which every bishop is a successor of the Apostles, but in a pre-eminent degree — and to that Apostolic See the case was now carried. We should not expect to find Eutyches exhibiting the methods of a sincere inquirer. He had all the wiliness of a heretic. He looked round about at once for help, and, pro- bably, wrote letters to every quarter whence help might come. He knew that there was friction between his own saintly archbishop and the Archbishop of Alexandria, who proved the most bitter foe to the truth that even the distracted East produced. He may well have known the weakness of the Bishop of Jerusalem, which led him to such unfortunate conduct in the immediate future, and it is therefore exceed- ingly probable that he proceeded to enlist these bishops in his cause. At any rate, the patrician Florentius afterwards deposed that Eutyches had appealed to an Egyptian and Jerusalemite, as well as to a Eoman council, at the end of the above-mentioned synod at Constantinople — but in an undertone. The account given by the monk Constantine may be passed over, as he was convicted of untrustworthiness at a second synod, or session. If, however, Eutyches did write to these other bishops, his letters are not extant ; and we can surmise nothing as to their contents. But what is certain is that Eutyches wrote to Eome, and sent the Pope, together with Eusebius' accusation and some testimonies (mostly supposi- titious) to himself, two documents, one a profession of faith, and the other a notice of appeal which he pretended to have handed in at the Synod of Constantinople. In his letter he asked the Pope to arrange that he might suffer no prejudice pending the appeal, on account of his condemnation by his archbishop, and he asked for a decision on the matter of faith.i At the same time he wrote to St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Kavenna, soliciting his interest. This saintly arch- bisliop replied that he could not intervene in such a matter without the leave of his superior, the Bishop of Borne. He ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1015. —452 NARRATES THE CASE. 367 appears not to have learnt from Eutyches anything about the synod at Constantinople, and he knew nothing of the dogmatic epistle of St. Leo.^ He accordingly advises Eutyches what to do. We are indebted to an important discovery of an old copy of St. Peter's letter in Greek, dated between a.d. 453 and A.D. 455, and therefore strictly contemporary, for the whole text of the saint's words. He advises Eutyches ' to attend obediently to whatever is written from the most blessed Pope of the city of Rome, because blessed Peter, who both lives and presides in his own see, gives to those who seek it the truth of the faith.' Eutyches, in his letter to the Pope, had told a falsehood. He had not really lodged an appeal to Eome at the synod. But although he had not done this, his statement that he had is irrefragable evidence that the bishops of the East held that such an appeal, if given in at the right time, must have the effect of suspending their sentence. This was the point of Eutyches' statement, viz. to stay the proceedings. He knew that the Pope had only to suppose that an appeal had been lodged, and he would be able to enforce a suspension of pro- ceedings. V. Flavian also had written to St. Leo immediately after the synod, sending him the Acts. He notified, indeed, the condemnation of Eutyches to other bishops, but he sent the Acts of the synod to St. Leo alone, as to a superior court. His letter, however, did not arrive in due time, whether owing, as is supposed, to the management of Eutyches and his friends, it is impossible to say. Accordingly, St. Leo, on receiving Eutyches' letter, wrote at once to the emperor and to Flavian. The letters are both of. the highest importance as showing what the Pope could assume as admitted by the Emperor of the East and the Archbishop of Constantinople. The emperor had taken Eutyches under his patronage, and written in his favour to St. Leo. The latter, having heard only from the emperor and Eutyches, tells the emperor that he cannot give judgment on the case until he has heard from Archbishop Flavian. He blames Flavian to the ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1346, 0, Adnmiitio. 368 LEO BLAMES FLAVIAN. a.d. 40a emperor for not having sent the Acts of the synod to Eome at once, * as he was m duty bound to do.' The Pope was not aware that Flavian had dispatched the Acts, but that from some mishap they had been delayed. If the emperor and Eutycheswere in concert — or rather Chrysaphius, the eunuch, who had poisoned the emperor's ear in favour of the heretic — to get judgment from Rome before the cause was proi3erly heard, they were much deceived in their estimate of Leo. For the latter simply told the emperor that he was displeased that Flavian had not written, and that he had written to say so, and felt sure that after this ' admonition,' Flavian would send a report of all the proceedings,' * so that judgment may be passed in accordance with evangelical and apostolical teaching,' To Flavian the Pope writes in terms of censure, for not having done his duty (' quod ante facere debuit ') in reporting everything ' as fully as possible.' It is impossible not to see in these letters plain evidence of the recognised position of the See of Eome as the supreme court of appeal. It was not Yalentinian, but Theodosius, to whom St. Leo wrote, and it was of no less a personage than the Archbishop of Constantinople that he complained ; and his complaint to the Emperor of the East was, that the arch- bishop had contravened a rule of the Church in not sending his report to Piome. No mere patriarch could thus write to an emperor concerning a bishop beyond the limits of his own patriarchate ; and no one in his senses could have ven- tured to write thus in a matter which he felt concerned the salvation of the human race, except on the understanding that the rule was clear and undisputed. VI. This was in February, a.d. 449. St. Leo, though he wrote to the emperor and to Flavian, deferred his answer to Eutyches ; but Eutyches, without waiting for the Pope's reply, imitated Nestorius in inducing the emperor to summon a council. He persuaded Dioscorus, Archbishop of Alexandria, who was prepared to act as his patron, to petition the emperor for a general synod, and his Imperial Majesty fixed ' ' Quern credimus post admonitionem omnia aJ nostram notitiam rela- turum ' (Leonis Ep. xxiv.). —452 FLAVIAN PREFERS A PAPAL BRIEF 369 the ensuing August for its meeting. Probably the emperor had not yet received the Pope's reply. Certainly, Flavian had not heard of the definite decision of the emperor to plunge the East into all the difficulties of a council when he wrote his answer to Leo. That answer is another most im- portant item in the evidence supplied by the history of the Council of Chalcedon to the recognised position of the See of St. Peter. VII. Flavian in no way resented St. Leo's censure of his silence. As a matter of fact, he had written and sent the Acts of his synod, but they had miscarried, or been delayed on the way. The archbishop recognised the duty which lay upon him to report proceedings to Eome. He describes the whole situation, narrates the deposition of Eutyches, and says that the latter has appealed to the emperor, thereby trampling under foot the canons of the Church. Further, Flavian tells Leo that whpi Eutyches had asserted, unknown to him, in his letter to the Pope, viz. that at the synod he gave notice of appeal to Eome, is untrue. He implies that, liad it been true, he would have suspended proceedings. Flavian does not afford in this important letter the slightest indication that in his judgment St. Leo was stretching his prerogative in writing to him as he had done. On the con- trary, he ends by invoking that prerogative as the only means of securing the peace of the Church. He asks the Pope to be bold with the boldness that becomes the priesthood, to ' make the common cause his own,' and to deign to give his decision by means of briefs in accordance with the canonical deposition of Eutyches at the Constantinopolitan Synod. He asks the Pope thereby to ' confirm ' (using not the usual word, but that which occurs in our Lord's command to St. Peter in St. Luke xxii. ') the faith of the emperor; and he says that ' the matter only needs your impulse and the help that is due from you through your own consent, to bring every- thing into peace and calm ; and so the heresy which has arisen, and the trouble that has ensued, will be brought to a happy conclusion, with the help of God, through your holy ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1354. Leonis Ep. xxvi. B B 370 TO A GENERAL COUNCIL. a.d. 400 briefs; and moreover the synod, about which there are rumours, will be prevented from taking place, and so the Churches in every quarter will not be troubled.' ' Flavian, therefore, profoundly distrusted the value of the rumoured synod, and looked to the timely exercise of the Papal prerogative as sufficient to secure the peace of the Chm'ch. And in expressing this conviction he bears witness to the fact that an equal reverence was attributed to the authority of the Apostolical See by the rest of the bishops in the East.'^ Otherwise there would be no point in his remark, and no gi-ound for his hope. The principle, therefore, of Church government which the Archbishop of Constantinople assumed as Catholic was this — he did not consider that matters should necessarily be con- cluded where they began. There was, as yet, no thought of the independence of national Churches, nor of each province finally settling its own matters. His connection with Eome was intimate and obligatory ; and it is clear that it did not depend on the civil position of that city. He wrote to Leo, as to him to whom it belonged to 'vindicate the common affairs of the Churches ; ' he prayed him to issue briefs which might settle the disturbances of the Eastern Churches, and he alluded to the passage in St. Luke xxii., * Confirm the brethren.' St. Leo had requested him not merely to notify the deposition of Eutyches, as he would do to other Churches, but to send him the Acts — precisely what is done for the revision of a sentence by a superior court. And Flavian accepts the position to enable St, Leo to do his duty, which St. Leo had said was impossible without a full report of the proceedings.-^ He states distinctly that not only was there no need of the judgment of any other Eastern patriarch, but that not even a general council was needed ; and Flavian knew well what the other Eastern bishops thought.' This was in March, a.d. 449. In April Eutyches occupied himself with getting an assembly of thirty-four bishops con- ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1358. - Cf. ' Obs. Bailer, de Diss. Quesn. de Eutych. Appell.,' Leonis Opera, t. ii. ' Ep. xxiii. ' Mansi, t. v. p. laoG. Adnot. Bailer, —452 ST. LEO, AS HEIR OF PETER, 371 vened in Constantinople to discuss an accusation which he had brought against the synod that condemned him of having falsified the documents — an accusation which miserably broke down. VIII. But in May Leo had received Flavian's report, and he at once took in the whole position. The lion was roused, and from that day onwards his activity, his decision, his wisdom, his piety, his tender charity and his indomitable courage were such as to mark him out as one of the most extraordinary characters that have filled the pages of history, even were we to forget the effect of his noble presence on Attila, leader of the Huns outside the walls of Eome, or his influence over Genseric within the city. He had already given the death- blow to the remnants of Priscillianism ; he had baffied the clandestine movements of the Manicheans, and he had sent Pelagianism to its grave. But here was an enemy that threatened to shake the foundations of the Christian religion b}^ a direct assault on the person of its Founder. All that activity, and ingenuity, and worldly prestige, all that the favour of princes and the friendship of the great could do, was en- listed in its favour. But St. Leo was more than a match for these. He was so in virtue of the divine promises to Peter, for we shall see that it was as the successor of St. Peter, and through the Church's recognition of the authority of the Apostolic See, that Leo triumphed. Had he been compelled to vindicate the authority of St. Peter's See — that is to say, if men had been able to resist him on the ground that our Lord did not include the successors of St. Peter in His com- mission to that Apostle — the position would have been an impossible one. But the faith of thej^Church had been de- clared in the most explicit terms at the Council of Ephesus. East and West had there agreed in the position that ' it had been known to all ages, and was doubted by none, that the blessed Apostle Peter, Prince and Head of the Apostles, received the keys of the kingdom from the Saviour of the world,' and that Pet.r ' lives and exercises judgment in his saccessors.' Such were the undisputed terms in which the Papal legates at Ephesus had expressed the general teaching of the Church, which by common consent had been placed 372 SENDS LEGATES WITH HIS TOME, a.d. 400 in the archives of that oecumenical council, as containing nothing strange to the ears of the assembled bishops of the East. It was, then, as the successor of the Prince of the Apostles that St. Leo now acted, and that he claimed to act ; and no voice in the East was raised to deny this truth, save, in- directly, one, and that was the voice of the man who became the patron of Eutyches, and who was extruded from the Church at her oecumenical council at Chalcedon. IX. The ides of June had come, and Leo having been already engaged on his longer epistle to Flavian, saw the necessity of taking more stringent measures to meet the diffi- culties in which Flavian was placed. He decided upon send- ing legates to Constantmople to inquire into the whole matter, and instead of sending his letter by Flavian's messenger, he sent it by these legates, together with others, addressed to Theodosius, to Pulcheria, to the Archimandrites of Constanti- nople, to the synod, of which he had now received notice, and in which he acquiesced, • and to Julian, Bishop of Cos, of whom more hereafter. The ' Tome of St. Leo,' as the epistle now sent to Flavian is called, stands almost alone, after Holy Scripture, in the reverence with which it was regarded for ages by the entire Church. Its reception was equalled only by the position assigned in the primitive Church to the letter of St. Clement, the third successor of St. Peter, written to the Cormthians in the first century. It was frequently read in the East after a general council in professions of faith. St. Gregory the Great says (Lib. vi. Ep. 2) : * If anyone ever presumes to say any- thing against the faith of these four synods, and against the Tome and definition of Pope Leo, of holy memory, let him be anathema.' It opens with judging Eutyches at once, and then proceeds to that magnificent exposition of the ' sacrament of our faith,' which on its first perusal in youth has impressed so many much as the first sight of the sea. X. It is, however, with the ending of St. Leo's Tome that ' This was clearly the case, in spite of the apparent contradiction given at the Robber Synod, which will be explained hereafter. —452 PRESCRIBING THE SENTENCE. 373 the jjurpose of this book is concerned. The Archbishop Flavian (be it remembered), to whom the Tome is addressed, had come before Leo as the judge of first instance, having synodically condemned a monk of his own archdiocese. He brought him before Leo in his letter as already condemned in the Con- stantinopolitan Synod, to be condemned more solemnly and by a final peremptory judgment passed by the Apostolic See. For he did not merely notify the deposition of Eutyches, but asked for help, and asserted that peace could only be obtained by Leo's approval of the Synod of Constantinople (whose Acts he sent) and by his issuing a brief to that eft^ect. Accordingly at the end of his Tome St. Leo gave his judgment. "Without referring the matter to a council of the whole West, he reviews the synodical acts, and in part confirms, in part disapproves, of the judgment of the Constantinopolitan Synod. He confirms the condemnation of Eutyches; but he reprehends the acts of the synod as irregularly conducted. He blames the bishops for not having proscribed under anathema the heretical saying of Eutyches, ' I confess that our Lord consisted of two natures before the union, but I confess only one nature after the union.' And then he directs that Eutyches should be received back again if he repents, and gives the exact method of such reception. The matter, therefore, needed to be done more exactly and canonically than in the Synod of Constantinople. Eutyches might have thought that he had spoken some of these words ' rightly,' or that they were such as could be tolerated (' tolerabiliter '), so far as any expression of the synod to the contrary was con- cerned. ' In order, however/ the Pope concludes, ' to bring this whole matter to the desired end, we have sent, in our stead, our brethren the Bishop Julius and the priest Kenatus, with my son, the deacon Hilarus, with whom we have associated the notary Dulcitius, whose faith has been approved by us, trusting that the help of God will be with us, that he who had erred may abjure his false opinion and be saved. God keep thee safe, dearest brother.' Such was the exercise of Papal jurisdiction contained in this letter, one of the most celebrated documents of Christian antiquity. 3/4 THE WITNESS OF THE TOME. a.d. 400 It may be noted in passing that St. Leo here calls the priest Kenatus his brother ; but this letter is sufficient to show what the whole Catholic Church thought of the rela- tion of the Ajjostolic See to the rest of the episcopate. Here is a palpable exercise of authority, such as only belongs to the judge of a supreme court. None of the other patriarchs are taken mto account ; St. Leo speaks in full authority, and that he was not usurping an authority which was disallowed by others is certain from the fact that the Council of Chalcedon and the whole Catholic Church accepted the Tome as a solemn judgment within the competency of the Pope's authority. Thus, not only did Eutyches pretend that be had appealed to the Pope, when it suited his purpose, on the understanding that his appeal would be sure to suspend the sentence of the Eastern bishops against him ; not only did Flavian send the sy nodical Acts to be reviewed by the Pope as judge in the matter ; not only did Leo act as judge and decide the case so far as could be done at a distance, and send legates to do the rest in his stead — but an cecumenical synod, and the universal Church for ever after, accepted as on a par with the definitions of Nicaeaand Ephesus the Tome which contained this exercise of authority, against which not a protest, not a murmur, not a whisper was ever raised.' It is as idle to call the teaching involved in this exercise of authority that of a ' school of thought,' as it would be to call the Catholic doctrine concerning the single personality of our Lord a ' school of thought ' simply because a certain number of bishops held aloof from St. Cyril in his contest with Nestorius. It was the school of thought that held its own at Ephesus, as being the only teaching of antiquity ' known to all ages ; ' and it prevailed in the future of the Church — in other words, it was the teaching, not of a school, but of the Church. St. Leo's Tome never could have been accepted by the Church unless the position of judge which he assumed therein was in accordance with apostolic doctrine. XL Together with his ' Tome ' or Ei)istle to Flavian, Leo sent a letter to the Emperor Theodosius, which is of import- ance as showing the grounds on which he acquiesced in the ' Cf. 'Observ. Bailer, dc Eutych. Appell.,' Lconis Opera, t. ii. —452 IDEA OF "the COUNCIL 375 convocation of a general council. He says that Eutyches has been proved to have erred — there is no question, accord- ing to St. Leo, about that ; but since the emperor has settled upon a council at Ephesus * that the truth may be made known to the unskilful old man,' he, the Pope, sends legates to supply his place. ' The legates,' says St. Leo, ' are com- missioned to carry with them a disposition to justice and benignity, so that, since there can he no question as to what is the ititcgritij of the Christian faith, the depravit}'' of error may be condemned.' If Eutyches repents — which the kind heart of the Pope always contemplates— the benevolence of the priesthood (bishops in the Greek version) is to come to his aid. Eutyches, says St. Leo, had promised him, in his original petition, that he would correct whatever the Pope condemned. The idea of the council, then, was that it was a fitting machinery to impress on Eutyches the importance of obeying the Papal decision, and to deal with him properly if he asked pardon. It was in this that the Constantinopolitan synod had come short of perfect justice and charity. XII. But St. Leo continues with the following descrip- tions of the position occupied by the decisions contained in his Tome or letter to Flavian. He says to the emperor, 'But what things the Catholic Church universally believes and teaches concerning the sacrament of the Lord's Incarnation are more fully contained in the writings which I have sent to my brother and fellow-bishop Flavian.' ^ At the same time the Pope wrote to the saintly sister of the emperor, who had brought him up in his tender years under all the best influences of the Christian faith. It was not her fault, if her imperial brother now sided with heretics ; and it was to be her lot to assist the saintly Pope in the Church's struggle with the new heresy. To her — the Empress Pulcheria — St. Leo described the error of Eutyches as ' con- trary to our only hope and that of our fathers,' and told her that, if he persists in his error, he cannot be absolved. ' For,' he adds, the * Apostolic See ^ both acts with severity in ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1394. ■^ Literally, ' The moderation of the Apostolic See observes this discipline that it both,' etc. Mansi, t. v. p. 1399. 376 THAT OF A FULLER, NOT OF a.d. 400 the case of the obdurate, and wishes to pardon those who suffer themselves to be corrected.' It is obvious to remark that he considers the absolution of Eutyches to rest with the Apostolic See. He hopes that Pulcheria will do her best to help on the Catholic faith, and says that he has delegated his authority to those whom he has sent, that pardon may be bestowed if the error is done away. It is here, as elsewhere, the Apostolic See that is assumed to be the agent in the matter, and the council is to be con- cerned not with any question as to the true faith, but with moving Eutyches to repentance by the display of unanimity amongst the bishops. Still more important, if possible, are the terms of the letter which he sent to the Archimandrites of Constantinople.' They are his ' beloved children.' He is sending to them persons ' a latere ' to assist them in ' the defence of the truth,' not for the investigation of the faith. He sets his seal to their condemnation of Eutyches. If he repents and makes full satisfaction — which is the constantly recurring thought in Leo's mind — then * we wish him to obtain mercy.' But ' as to the sacrament of the great love of God {pietatis magme) in which we have justification and redemption by the Incar- nation of the Word of God, our teaching from the tradition of the Fathers - is sufficiently explained in letters to Flavian, so that you may know from your chief {per insinuationem Pnesulis vestri) what in accordance with the Gosi)el of our Lord Jesus Christ we ivish to he established in the Jicarts of all the faithful.' "^ XIII. Still more definite are the words of the Pope to the synod itself, which was to meet in August. He gives as the ground of its being convoked the emperor's wish to add the authority of the Apostolic See to his edict,' as though His Majesty desired ' that the meaning of the answer given by the Prince of the Apostles to our Lord's question should he declared hij the most Messed Peter Itimself i.e. through his own see. The object of the council is further defined to be ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1406. ' ' Nostra ex Patrum traditione sententia.' ' Mansi, t. v. p. 1407. * ' Ad sanctffi dispositionis effectum ' — ' dispositio ' being a term in use for imperial edicts. —452 A HIGHER JUDGMENT. 377 that ' all error may be done away with by a fuller judgment ' (' pleniore judicio ') — exactly the idea of a council which has been given above. • The council was as it were the fuller and more emphatic utterance of the Papal judgment. Its action was to consist in adhering to the judgment of the Apostolic See — in, as it were, prolonging its utterance, and applying it materially and visibly to the person in hand. It was not a higher judgment, not the confirmation of a superior autho- rity, but the sentence of the Pojje swelling out and com- pleted by its synodical proclamation, as the sufferings of Christ are completed by those of His followers. His legates were to provide over its actual utterance ; they were to de- termine ^ with the holy assembly of the episcopal brother- hood * what things will be pleasing to the Lord.' The Pope then goes on to give a sketch of what Eutyches should do, and repeats what he had already said to Flavian, viz. that Eutyches had promised to obey the Holy See in the docu- ment (' libellus ') which he had originally transmitted.-'^ One other letter he writes on the same day to Julian, Bishop of Cos, in the course of which he says he has sent letters to Flavian ' from which both your beloved self and the whole Church may know about the ancient and only faith, what we hold and preach as of divine tradition.' No sooner had the legates set out with this batch of letters than Flavian's original letter (written immediately after the Constantinopolitan Synod) arrived, containing another copy of the Acts of the synod which he had spontaneously sent to Eome, and which had been mysteriously delayed. Leo at once wrote to him briefly, saying that the synod was not really needed. And he took the opportunity of writing once more to the emperor, excusing himself from attendance at the synod on three grounds : first, because there was no pre- cedent for a Pope attending such a council (except, of course, by his legate) ; secondly, if there were, temporal necessities at home were in the way (the barbarians were wellnigh at the door) ; and thirdly, because the case was so clear that there was no real need (' rationabilius abstinendum '). Still he says he sends legates. • P. 330. '^ Mansi, t. v. p. 1411. ' Ibid. CHAPTER XXII. THE COUNCIL AT EPHESUS, CALLED THE LATROCINIUM, OR ROBBER SYNOD LEADING TO THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. I. On August 8, a.d. 449, the ill-fated council met. It had been convened at the express desire of Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, a man of immoral life and violent temper, animated with furious hatred against Flavian and a deter- mination to protect Eutyches. The Emperor Theodosius seems to have been completely in the hands of his eunuch Chrysaphius, the friend of Eutyches, and to have been perfectly indifferent to canons and laws of the Church. He repeated the experiment which he had made in the affair of Nestorius, of appointing the president of the synod, but this time with success. He appointed Dioscorus president in defiance of the laws of the Church, and he forbade Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, to attend the synod, on the ground that he had written against Cyril, but really because he was opposed to Dioscorus and Eutyches. Further, he commanded the attendance of Elpidius with a band of soldiers, with the view of forcing on the condemnation of Flavian, whom he called an innovator in religion. These were terrible auspices under which to commence a synod. But the emperor did not even stop there. He commanded the attendance of an Archimandrite of Syria, named Bar- sumas, who was afterwards credited by the bishops at Chalcedon with the murder of Flavian ; and not only his attendance was ordered as an anti-Nestorian, which was the attitude that the adherents of Eutychianism assumed, but the synod was ordered to give him a seat and vote, although not a bishop. The position seems at first sight that of a madman. But Theodosius was under the influence of others, and these AD. 400—452 EUTYCIIES ACQUITTED. 379 others were reckless in their endeavours to vent their spite against the orthodox party. Dioscorus seems to have been consumed with the spirit of jealousy, and he at once accepted the position of pre- sident. He sat above the legates, who stood out against this innovation upon the Church's order, and took no regular seat in the council, but stood outside the bishops. Juvenal of Jerusalem, who was infected with Eutychian leanings, and had been joined on to Dioscorus by the emperor as one of the presidents, sat above the Bishop of Antioch, against whom he had long had a grudge ; and in spite of the famous canon passed at Constantinople, Flavian, its archbishop, sat below each of these. II. When the proposal was made to read St. Leo's Tome, Dioscorus simply occupied the time with other matters, and the Tome was never read. Eutyches had a confession of faith read on his behalf, which was accepted. His great point was that he accepted the Nicene Creed and the Ephesine decree — so little did the recitation of the Nicene Creed ex- clude heresy as to the central dogma of the Christian religion, and so utterlj^ at variance with the facts of the early Church is the contention, now often made, that since 'Komans, Greeks, Anglicans ' recite the Nicene Creed, there is sufficient unity of faith amongst them to constitute a visible Church. Dioscorus accepted Eutyches' confession of faith, and his condemnation was reversed. In vain did the legates plead that the Tome of St. Leo should be read. The letters of St. Cyril were read and interpreted in favour of ' one nature after the Incarnation.' Eustathius of Berytus said that it was not St. Cyril's or St. Athanasius' teaching that there were two natures in Christ, using, however, an expression which refers in Cyril's writings to the One Nature and Divine Personality which existed before the Incarnation. The bishops held their tongues in terror, with Dioscorus before them, surrounded I)}- soldiers and by the monks of Barsumas. They were dumb as the bishops in England m the Convoca- tion of 1531, when in terror of Henry VIII. they gave a silent vote in favour of his supremacy. Flavian was forthwith condemned. The Bishop of Ico- 380 FLAVIAN JNIURDERED. a.d. 400 Ilium threw himself at the feet of Dioscorus, and pleaded for Flavian. Dioscorus called for the soldiers, and the place was immediately filled with the rough military, with chains in their hands to lead off refractory bishops. They were locked in for the rest of the night. A blank paper was given them to sign ; the sick were not allowed to go out for refreshment until they had subscribed the paper. Flavian now appealed to Eome, and this was the signal for blows and kicks from the monks, headed by Barsumas, and from Dioscorus himself. The old man eventually died of the injuries ; but he had lodged his appeal to Eome before he went before another throne to receive the martyr's crown. Well might many of the bishops at Chalcedon, as they thought of this murdered Abel, call Dioscorus a second Cain. Domnus, the Bishop of Antioch, was deposed, as also Theodoret. Maximus was chosen in the place of Domnus, but the See of Cyrus was left unfilled. Eusebius of Dory- laeum, and Ibas, were likewise deposed, the see of the former being left vacant, while that of the latter was filled by Nonnus. No one knows what became of Bishop Julius, the legate, in this scene of disorder, but Hilarus, the deacon, fled for his life,* and escaped to tell the tale to his master at Rome. Such were the circumstances under which the authority of the Apostolic See was set at nought by a Christian bishop, with the protest only of the Papal legates, the Bishop of Iconium and the martyred Archbishop of Constantinople. Dioscorus departed in haste and the assembly dispersed. And so, as Bishop Eusebius of Dorylaeum afterwards informed the Emperors Valentinian and Marcian, Dioscorus, ' by money and by the brute fojce of his troops, overwhelmed the ortho- dox faith, and confirmed the heresy of Eutyches.' The synod was stigmatised by Leo as a * Robber Council ' rather than a true synod, and for ever after it was known by that expres- sive title. III. Now let us suppose that the Church at this moment possessed nothing more for the purposes of her government than a 'first patriarch,' primna inter 2)arcs, with *a prece- ' So Prosper, in his Cltrankon. —452 NEED OF A SUPREME KULER. 381 dency, a pre-eminence,' and (in a sense not formal or technical) * a leadership,' but without * definite powers ' — which is the highest Anglican description of the official position of the Holy See. Suppose, too, that this precedency was owing, not to a divine institution, but to the secular position of the city of Eome, to its having been ' organised by apostolic hands,' and having been connected with ' the majesty of the names of Peter and Paul,' and become ' famous for its bountiful generosity ' and for ' its traditional immunity from heretical speculations.' This is the account given by a representative Anglican writer, of the ' place both lofty and distinctive,' ' un- doubtedly assigned by ancient Christianity ' to the See of Eome.' Would such a leadership have proved equal to the crisis that had arisen in the East under the Emperor Theodosius ? Could such a leadership (which does not include the rir/ht of being appealed to as a higher court) have been able to reverse the catastrophe of the Eobber Synod ? Could such a position, with no ' definite powers,' no inheritance of rule and judg- ment from any ' Prince of Apostles ' (for this is excluded by that theory), have been a sufficient lever for even Leo the Great to counteract the tremendous success over the orthodox faith which had now been achieved at Ephesus ? Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, complaining to Edward I. of the conflicts that had arisen in England between the Church and State, says that nothing would avail to set things right except that state of things in which Catholic emperors bent before (1) the decrees of the Sovereign Pontiffs, (2) the statutes of councils, (3) and the sanctions of the orthodox Fathers. And in regard to the first he says, * the sovereign Lord of all gave authority to the decrees of the Sovereign Pontiffs, when He said to Peter in the Gospel of St. Matthew, " Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heavwi." ' - Could any- thing short of this inherited privilege of Peter, which was the teaching of every Archbishop of Canterbury, and which is the distinctive feature of Catholic and Eoman teachhig at this ' Cf. The Roman Claims tested by Antiquity, p. 8, by W. Bright, D.D., Canon of Christ Church, Eegius Professor of Ecclesiastical History. 1877. ^ Ep. 199 : Regibtrum Epistolarum, ed. C. T. Martin (1882), vol. i. p. 240. 382 I.EO ACTED AS SOVEREIGN. a.d. 400 hour, be adequate to deal with the state of thmgs that had now arisen in the East? IV. On what did St. Leo actually rely ? He had already expounded the faith which he ' desired to be implanted in the hearts of all the faithful,' as he told the clergy of Con- stantinople. He had already giveii an ' interpretatio benigna ' to the emperor's desire for a council as necessarily involving the wish to have Peter's answer at C?esarea Philippi ex- plained by Peter himself {i.e. through his see), as he told the synod itself ; he had reviewed and revised the Acts of a pre- vious Sj' nod of Constantinople, and laid down the conditions of Eutyches' restoration, and, in his letter to the empress he had assumed, on the ground of his occupying ' the Apo- stolic See,' the office of absolver of the heretic in case he re- pented.. But he had now to lift up the fallen East. He had the emperor against him ; the Patriarch of Alexandria was involved in heresy, a new patriarch had been elected to Antioch, the Bishop of Jerusalem had sided with the enemies of the faith, and but one bishop, besides his own legate, had dared to lift up his voice in favour of the murdered arch- bishop. On what, then, did Leo rely in dealing with bishops, patriarchs, and an Eastern emperor ? His position as Bishop of Old Ptome could avail him nothing, for Theodosius was Emperor of New Rome. His position as occupant of an Apostolic See would not suffice ; the Bishop of Jerusalem was his equal there. The traditional orthodoxy of Pome would be of no use to him here ; the East had gone in for its own opinion. He had with him the hearts of many, but the voices of none, whilst the emperor professed to believe in an Eastern council of bishops under his own royal supremacy. What right had Leo to intervene at all ? The ground that he did assume was his position of Sove- reign Pontiff. He knew well that though they might rebel against it, they could not deny it. He knew that the East to a man believed St. Peter to be ' the Prince and head of the Apostles,' and that Peter * lives and exercises judgment in his successors.' ' And on this belief he acted throughout. And ' Cf. p. 344. —452 FLAVIAN'S APPEAL TO ROME. 383 in the whole course of the Council of Chalcedon not a single protest ^Yas raised against the assumption made to emperor, empress, to the synod, and to individual bishops — made publicly and given as the ground of his action ; there was, I say, not a solitary protest against the perpetual assumption on the part of the Pontiff that he was the successor of St. Peter, and that as such he had the power of the keys, not exclusively, but pre-eminently ; with a precedence, not of honour merely, but of spiritual jurisdiction over the entire Church of God. ' It is idle to bid us acknowledge her bishop ' {i.e. the Bishop of Piome) ' as first patriarch, when he will not be acknowledged as anything short of a Supreme Pontiff.' ' This is the ground alleged for refusing at this moment to the Bishop of Rome the position which the writer of these words considers was his in the first four councils. It has, however, already been made clear that the Pope's position was some- thing very different from this from the beginning ; but the history of Eutychianism and the Council of Chalcedon are distinct in their evidence to the truth that the Pope was held to be the successor of the Prince of the Apostles, and as such was, as St. Cyril called Celestine, ' the archbishop of the universal Church.' V. Flavian upon his condemnation at Ephesushad handed in an appeal to the Papal legates. He appealed to ' the Apostolic See ; ' so Liberatus, the African author of the ' Breviarium,' states 2 after inspecting the documents. And Yalentinian, the Emperor of the West, distinctly states the same in his letter to Theodosius. ' The ^ishop of Constantinople appealed to him ' (viz. the Bishop of Piome) ' by formal notice,' 2)cr libellos.^ De Marca, whose general line of argument would naturally indispose him to admit this, says, ' It is clearly proved by Yalentinian 's letter that Flavian appealed to Pope Leo ; ' and again, * so as that he appealed to the Eoman Pontiff alone.' The Empress Placidia,^ writing from Rome, says that appeal had been made to the Apostolic See, ' and to all the bishops of these parts.' ' These parts ' are not to be understood of the entire West, but of those bishops round ' Roman Claims, &c. by Canon Bright. * Breviarium, c. xii. ^ Leon. Ep. Iv. * Ibid. Ep. Ivi. 384 TIDINGS OF THE CATASTROPHE a.d. 400 about Rome, and all others happening to be in Rome, with whom the Popes almost invariably acted in matters of un- usual importance. The authority of such a synod was wholly due to that of the Holy See. For no mere Roman synod could have the right to deal with the affairs of an Eastern patriarchate ; the authority of such a synod could only come from its president, the successor of St. Peter, in whose name its decisions most frequently ran. When a Pope felt that the unanimity of his council would add any extrinsic weight to the Papal judgment he would naturally mention it, as in point of fact St. Leo did in this case. But its intrinsic value was recognised as being due to the authority of ' the Apostolic See.' Flavian knew well that the Pope usually acted with a synod, and he may have mentioned the synod, as the Empress Galla Placidia seems to imply ; or the em- press may (quite as probably) have thrown the words in, as being true in fact, although not expressly mentioned by Flavian.^ St. Leo's letter to Theodosius, sjDeaking of the tears of ' all the churches in our parts,' is headed * Leo, Bishop, and the Holy Synod, which met in the city of Rome.' But, as De Marca admits, Valentinian's letter is conclusive. VL On September 29 (449) St. Leo was holding one of these synods of the suburbicarian sees and of the bishops who happened to be in Rome, assembled to celebrate the anni- versary of his own birthday, and conduct the affairs of the Church, when Hilary, the deacon, arrived from Ephesus with the sad news of the Robber Council. The synod was accord- ingly prolonged to consider what steps should be taken to retrieve the disaster which had befallen the true faith. They had now before them the appeal of Flavian and that of Theodoret. They knew nothing as yet, it would seem,"-^ of the death of Flavian, and the election of his successor. They only knew of the triumph of heresy in a council of bishops which had received St. Leo's acquiescence on the understanding that it met to promulgate the condemnation of Eutyches, if he did not withdraw his heretical propositions, and to absolve him by the authority of the Holy See if he did. ' Cf. the Ballerini's Observations a)i QucsncVs Eighth Dissertation. 2 This is very clearly shown by the Ballerini. —452 INDUCED LEO TO DEMAND 385 St. Leo, in concert with his bishops, at once repudiated the council at Ephesus ; so that Hilary, the deacon, who was present, could write to the Empress Pulcheria saying ' * that everything done in Ephesus by Dioscorus uncanonically and tumultuously and through worldly hate, is condemned by the aforesaid Pope with the whole Western Council,' i.e. the bishops at and around Eome. At Chalcedon (Act X.) the legates objected to the reading of the Acts of the Bobber Synod on the ground that they had all been rendered null and void ' by the most blessed and apostolical Bishop of the city of Eome,' and the validity of the objection was admitted. And so, too, all who took an active part in that synod were now separated by St. Leo from the communion of the Apostolic See. VII. So that Leo did not ask for any fresh council in order to nullify the proceedings at Ephesus, but he treated them at once as null and void. No general synod was needed for that ; and Flavian had not appealed to a general synod. Besides the reasons just given, his principles on that point were clearly expressed in his letter to St. Leo (' Ep.' xxvi.), when he said that the exercise of Leo's authority would supersede the necessity of a council ; and his experience of the Ephesine Synod would not inclme him to repeat the experiment of another council. He appealed to Leo's apostolical authority, in accordance with the canon of Sardica or Nice, and it rested with Leo to exercise that authority as he thought best, by synod or otherwise. St. Leo considered that a council was rendered necessary by the circumstances under which Flavian appealed, not by Flavian's appeal itself. The Pontiff acted in exact accordance with the fourth canon of Sardica, or (as I have said there is good reason for believing it to be) the un- mutilated canon of Nicsea, which came to be called a Sardican canon. That canon enacted that 'When any bishop shall have been deposed by the judgment of those bishops who live in the neighbouring parts, and shall have proclaimed that his case is to be dealt with in Piome, no other bishop should be ordamed to his see after the appeal of him who seems to be ' Leonis Ep. xl. c c 386 ENFORCEMENT OF THE a.d. 400 deposed until the case has been decided by the judgment of the Eoman bishop,' What, therefore, was necessary according to this Nicene, or Sardican, canon was the judgment of the Bishop of Eome ; and the Bishop of Eome had the right, according to this canon, to demand that things should remain as they were, and no bishop be ordained until he had passed his sentence.' Accordingly, in the following January (450),^ the Pope wrote to the Emperor Theodosius, who, he well knew, recog- nised in him the successor of St. Peter, in spite of his having yielded to Chrysaphius his eunuch, and thrown his imperial segis over the reprobate Patriarch of Alexandria. Now it was not a time in which a man like St. Leo, whose whole soul was on fire with zeal for the truth of the Incarnation, would venture on an unsubstantiated claim, or claim an unrecognised position. He must have known that there was no one who would deny his connection with St. Peter, or he would never have run the risk, under the circumstances, of being asked on what ground he ventured to intervene with such a claim. The idea that he acted as ' First Patriarch ' is out of the question. There is not a sign of such a thought in the whole history ; and the idea that he risked all on a doubtful position, or asserted what was not fully recognised, is preposterous. But the only alternative to this is the supposition that what was accepted without a murmur at the (Ecumenical Council of Ephesus was the literal truth, viz. ' That it has been known to all ages and doubtful to none ' that Peter was the head of the Apostles, and that * he up to this time and always lives and exercises judgment in his successors.' Accordingly, Leo wrote to the emperor and demanded the fulfilment of 'the decrees of the canons drawn up {hahitoritm) at Nicfea.' And in virtue of these he asked that ' you would order that all things should be as they were before anj' judg- ment was passed [i.e. at the Bobber Council] until a larger number of bishops can be gathered together from the whole world ; ' and that this synod be assembled in Italy, * so that I ' Cf. stqyra, p. 180. 2 This date has been fixed by the Ballerini through a codex which they recovered (cf. Lconis Opera, Ep. liv., and Diss, de Ep. deperd. n. 38). —452 SAEDICAN CANON 387 mai) he present and pass judgment on the whole matter.' ' The object of the council was that those bishops ' who have erred from the right way may be recalled to a sound mind by whole- some remedies, and that those whose case is graver may acquiesce in counsels (given), or be cut off from the One Church.' He speaks of the emperor having sent letters, previously to the Eobber Council, ' to the see of the blessed Apostle Peter,' and having made him feel sure that truth would be defended, especially considering the trustworthy character of those whom he (the Pope) had sent to the council ; then he expresses his certainty that all would have been well with the bishops if they had been allowed to hear his letter to Flavian (the Tome) ; ' for the tumult would have been so quieted by the manifesta- tion of the most pure faith which, inspired divinely, we have received and hold, that neither unskilfulness would have pursued its folly' (in allusion to Eutyches), * nor rivalry ' (in allusion to Dioscorus against Constantinople) ' have had the opportunity of doing further harm.' These words of St. Leo to an Eastern emperor, written after consultation with the Synod of Piome, contain as full an expression of infallibility as is anywhere to be found. One expression, if taken too strictly, goes beyond the Vatican decree. That decree, in formulating the dogma which is here assumed by St. Leo, decides that the Pope does not, in his ex cathedra pronouncements, claim inspiration but divine assistance. It is clear, however, that St. Leo held the same. Inspiration, in its earlier, wider sense, includes the assistance vouchsafed to the writers of Holy Scripture. But the saint here limits the word by the rest of the sentence, and shows that he means exactly that divine assistance in declaring what * has been received by us ' {i.e. the Holy §ee), which con- stitutes Papal infallibility according to the Vatican decree. The position, then, as St. Leo placed it before the emperor, was this. The synod has gone wrong. That is certain. Had the bishops had St. Leo's Tome read to them they would have gone right. Violence and intrigue prevailed ; but Flavian protested and appealed, and so did the Papal legates. ' Cf. Ep. xliii. and xliv. 388 BY EEASON OF a.d. 400 It is necessary, therefore, according to the canons, that the Pope should intervene. This, under the circumstance, will be best done by the medium of a general council, whereby alone (St. Leo says) ' all conflict would be brought to an end, and all deviation from or doubts as to the faith cease.' ' At the same time he wrote to the Emj)ress Pulcheria. and said that his legates protested, at the synod, that force was being used, and ' that they were not going to be separated by any injuries from that faith which had been most fully ex- pounded and set in order by the See of the blessed Apostle Peter, and which they had brought with them to the holy synod.' He asked the empress to assist him in getting another synod convoked, and to consider herself ' specially entrusted with a commission (for that purpose) by the most blessed Apostle Peter.' VIII. Theodosius kept perfect silence. A few weeks after the despatch of these letters the Emperor Valentinian came to Rome with the Empresses Galla Placidia, his mother, and Eudoxia, his wife, and daughter to Theodosius. On the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter they came into St. Peter's for their devotions, and met the sorrowing Pontiff. They were at the tomb of the Apostles in the Basilica, and his Holiness ap- proached their Imperial Majesties, hardly able to speak for the tears and sobs that choked his utterance. ^ He described to them the state of things, and told them of his request for another synod, and induced them to use their influence with their imperial relative to induce him to answer the Pope's request. Accordingly each one of them wrote to Theodosius. The Western emperor's letter to his imperial relative in the East is of supreme importance. It is, I repeat, impossible to suppose that Valentinian would venture on any disputed ground as to jurisdiction. Valentinian's letter was inspired by Leo. And no one can read St. Leo's letters at this period without feeling that his supreme motive was the honour due to our Divine Lord and his devouring zeal for the revealed ' E2y. xliii. ' Ejp. Ivi. ' Galla Plac. ad Thcodosium.' —452 FLAVIAN'S APPEAL. 389 truth concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. No one can read his letters without feehng that a certain piety, humihty, and holy charity breathes through every one of them ; and therefore no one can reasonably suppose that he was engaged in pushing a usurped prerogative at this momentous crisis. What, then, does Valentinian, thus inspired, say to his im- perial cousin ? He says, * The most blessed Bishop of the city of the Eomans, to whom antiquity gave the sovereignty over all ' (as being the See of St. Peter, as we know Valentinian held), ' has to judge concerning matters of faith and the affairs of bishops,' and that on this account the Bishop of Constanti- nople appealed to him by a formal notice ^ ' on account of the strife that had arisen concerning the faith.' And so he is induced to write to Theodosius that ' he would acquiesce in the petition of Flavian that the aforesaid bishop [of Eome] having gathered all the bishops of the whole world within Italy, may without prejudice, and going into the whole matter, give the judgment which faith and the word of divine truth require.' The empress wrote at the same time, describing the scene in St. Peter's, speaking of Flavian's appeal to Eome, and that of the Papal legates. At the same time she wrote. to the Empress Pulcheria,^ and, after describing the tears of Leo, expressed her hope that all that had been decided at the * tumultuous and most miserable ' Council at Ephesus will be treated as null and void, and that * all things remaining un- injured [i.e. in statu quo, as provided by the fourth canon, so called, of Sardica] the judgment will be remitted to the council of the Apostolic throne, in which Peter, the most blessed Peter, first of the Apostles, having received the keys of the heavens, adorned the headship of the hierarchy. For we ought to give the primacy in all things to the Eternal City.' At the same time Leo wrote to the clergy and people of Constantinople, promising them all possible support from his fatherly care for them, and biddmg them use their influence to obtain a plenary synod ; and explained to the Empress Pulcheria that human affairs can go smoothly only when the royal and sacerdotal authorities defend those matters which belong to a * divine confession,' as a reason for Theodosius ' Ep. Iv. Leonis Opera, ed. Bailer. ^ Ep. Ivi. 390 ON TIIEODOSIUS' DEATH a.d. 400 and himself working together — a reason, that is, why the emperor should consent to a council. This was in February, 450. IX. Meanwhile letters were on their way from the clergy and people of Constantinople and from the archimandrites Martin and Faustus, written in the preceding October, and St. Leo wrote one of his most magnificent letters in reply. He speaks of his writings having been directed to the East, ' not only by the authority of the Apostolic See, but also with the unanimit}^ of the holy synod, which had frequently met, that the care which we have for the whole Church may be apparent, by our exhortations addressed to all the faithful and our demand for help in the defence of the faith from the most clement prmcess.' Meanwhile, he directs Martin and Faustus to make known to the children of the Church * what we preach contrary to the impious sense [of EutychesJ and in accordance with the evan- gelical and apostolical doctrine ; for although we have written fully what is and always has been the sententia of Catholics, still we add now no little exhortation to confirm the minds of all. For I am mindful that I preside over the Church in his name whose confession was praised by the Lord Jesus Christ, and whose faith destroys all heresies, but above all the im- piety of the present error ; and I understand that nothing else is permitted to me than that I should spend all my efforts on that cause in which the safety of the Universal Chmxh is attacked.' Accordingly, that there may be no mistake about his teaching, in case they should not have received a copy of his writings, he sends fresh copies.' Such was the tremendous energy of this single-minded hero of the great conflict for ' the only hope of the human race.' So far as the Emperor Theodosius was concerned, it was all in vain. X. In the midst, however, of Leo's difficulties, the Providence of God removed Theodosius, after many signs (if Nicephorus is to be relied on) of true repentance. He had ' El). Ixi. —452 THE COUNCIL IS GRANTED. 391 selected for his heiress a saintly woraaii, under a vow of perpe- tual chastity, of whom St. Cyril says that in her ' every kind of virtue and every adornment pleasing in the eyes of the Divine Majesty shone with wonderful splendour.' ' No woman, however, had as yet held the reins of empire ; and accordingly she offered her hand and throne to the most distinguished general of the day, on condition that he should respect her vow. Marcian was a worthy husband to St. Pulcheria, re- nowned as well for his piety as for his military skill. Every- thing was now changed, for the emperor and empress re- garded their position simply as an opportunity for protecting the true faith. X. Pulcheria's entreaties toTheodosius that he would accede to the Pope's request for a council to be called in Italy had failed. But in her new position her first care, as also that of her husband, was to carry out the wishes of Leo. The imperial zeal, however, was ' without knowledge,' for their very advent to the throne had made a council unnecessary. But this they did not know ; and accordingly they wrote to Leo, acquainting him with the fact that they had acted at his instigation in memory of the scene at St. Peter's, and had issued an edict for the convention of a council.^ Not in Italy, since the reason for that no longer existed, as it would be best held under their own protecting presence, in the East, where all the disturbance had taken place. The Pope told their Imperial Majesties that he no longer desired a council. The bishops had signed his epistle to Flavian in such numbers, and so many were daily returning in penitence, that his legates at Constantinople, in concert with Anatolius (who had also signed the Tome of Leo), could manage the rest. But Leo was not the man to quench the zeal of emperors ; and since, out of pure love of the truth and devotion to himself, they had issued the edict, imagining it to be his desire, he praised in them what he sincerely admired, viz. their zeal, and consented to send legates.^ ' Cyr. Alex, dc Fide ad Pulch. et Sorores RegiiMS. = ffov avdeuTovvTos : at which everything was to be decided by Leo's authority, ffov ai/Oei'Tovi'Tos bpiaoiaiv, Ep, Ixxvii. * ' Doubt has arisen respecting the true faith, as is shown by the letters of 392 THOUGH NOT NEEDED. a.d. 400 The emperor and empress, in expressing the purport of the council, did not imply that the doctrine contained in the Tome of Leo was an open question. We know they believed the doctrine themselves. But there were some amongst those w^ho had been led away who needed to have it publicly set before them, and the reinstatement of the lapsed but peni- tent bishops needed some arrangement which would, says Pulcheria, be made * on the authority of Leo.' ^ Some shorter confession of faith, in accordance with the Tome, was also needed, and desired by the Pope, and all this could be effected in the council. Pulcheria in the same letter informs the Pope with evident joy that the Bishop of Constantinople has sub- scribed the Tome ; whilst the emperor had already told Leo that he looked to him in the cause of the orthodox faith, because he was * the bishop and ruler of the divine faith.' ^ This, be it remembered, was one of the holiest emperors, if not quite the holiest, that ever ruled at Constantmople. XI. Before, however, proceeding to the acts of the council, it will be well to consider the circumstances under which Anatolius took his seat as Bishop of Constantinople. Upon the death of the murdered Flavian the clergy and people of Constantinoi^le had elected to the vacant see the very person who had acted as secretary to the heretical Arch- bishop of Alexandria (Dioscorus), and was in favour with his sympathiser, the Emperor Theodosius. The latter had rehed on him in his ecclesiastical administration, and had probably procured his election as archbishop of his capital. Anatolius, for that was his name, wrote to Leo announcing his consecra- tion. "What else he said we do not know. It is not correct to say, as Mr. Gore does,-^ that he * simply announced his consecration, without asking for any consent to it on Leo's part ; ' for his letter, as we have it, is confessedly a frag- ment, and St. Leo's letter to the emperor implies that Ana- the most holy Bishop of Rome,' are the emperor's words. There was no doubt in his own mind as to which was the true faith ; and the letters of Leo were all written with the view, not of settling, but of enforcing the true faith. ' aov avdevrovvTos (Ep. Ixxvii.). ' iiTitrK'nTtuuvaav Ka\ &pxov(Tav t?)? dfias irimfoDS. ' Diet, of Chr. hiogr. art. ' Leo.' —462 LEO DEALT WITH ANATOLIUS 393 tolius did ask for Leo's confirmation. What, however, we do know that he omitted was a statement as to his teaching ; he gave no account of his faith. ^ Leo accordingly waited some months before answering, and then he wrote, not to Anatohus himself, but to the Emperor Theodosius. Now it would hardly be possible to give clearer indications of the re- lation of sovereignty on the part of the See of St. Peter towards the See of Constantinople than are afforded by this and some succeeding letters. It must be remembered that Leo was writing to the Eastern emperor, who was opposed to his condemnation of Eutyches ; he was writing, too, about the bishop of that city, which was the very apple of the imperial eye. We know that the emperor had avowed the sovereignty of the See of St. Peter over all the sees of Chris- tendom by his signature to the ' Constitution ' of Valentinian ; but this sovereignty of the Apostolic See was now to be ex- pressed in a form most calculated to excite that emperor's indignation, and to jeopardise the whole position, unless that sovereignty were beyond dispute. But in truth the Huns, tumultuously crowding into Italy and advancing towards Eome, were not more dreadful in the eyes of Leo than the incursion of heretics into that vineyard of the Lord, with which the Eastern bishops declared him to have been en- trusted by the Saviour of the world. ^ The time had come when that energetic nature, which had hardly its peer in that half- century, must exercise the authority of his position to the full. The Divine Majesty of his Lord was at stake. It was enough for Leo. XII. Now there was just occasion for suspicion as to Ana- tolius' teaching. Indeed, his conduct after the sjmod showed that there was a taint of heresy about him, such as Leo feared. Accordingly Leo wrote to the emperor, in July 450, and praised him for deciding to adhere to the Nicene Creed. It was on this point that Theodosius had been misled by the Eutychian party. They were for ever proclaiming their ad- herence to the Nicene Creed, and made believe that they were contending for that creed and for the Ephesine decree. So the Pope gives the emperor credit for sincerely believing that ' Ep. Ixix. Ixxi. • Letter of the Eastern bishops to Leo after Chalcedon. \ 394 AS HIS ADMITTED SUPERIOR, a.d. 400 he was acting in defence of the Nicene settlement ; and on this ground he expresses his surprise that Anatohus has not sent him an account of his faith. Consequently he has de- ferred acknowledging him — * not that he refused his affection, but because he awaited some manifestation of Catholic truth.' He says that he is not exacting from him anything but what every Catholic would do. He then alludes to their predeces- sors' writings as sufficient tests for those who preceded them. But they are not enough for themselves under present cu'cum- stances. Anatolius is to ' read carefully ' ' what the holy Fathers have given as guard to the faith in the Incarnation,' ' and he must understand that what Cyril wrote against Nes- torius is consonant with this.' Cyril's letter, says the Pope, is a clear exposition of the Nicene definition, and has been placed in the archives of the Apostolic See.' Anatolius is to read carefully the Acts of the Ephesine Synod '^ against Nes- torius ; and he is ' not to disdain to read also my letter, which he will find agrees in all things with the Fathers.' But this is not all. St. Leo tells the emperor that Ana- tolius, having recognised that all this is demanded and ex- pected of him,'' he is to sign the confession of the Common Faith, and make a declaration before all the clergy and the whole people — a profession of faith which is to be ' publicly notified (1) to the Apostolic See, and (2) to all the Lord's priests [i.e. bishops] and Churches.' Further, he is to send a written statement as soon as possible, plainly (' dilucide ') de- claring that if anyone believes or asserts anything else concern- ing the Incarnation of the Word of God than what ' the profes- sion of all Catholics and mj own ' declares, he will separate such a one from his communion. And to expedite this im- portant matter, he says he is sending four legates, whose business it will be * to declare the exact faith which we hold, the form of our faith, so that if the Bishop of Constanti- nople consents to the same confession of faith, with his whole heart, we may feel secure and rejoice in the peace of the ' ' Apostolicae Sedis scrinia susceperunt.' * ' Ephesinae synodi gesta recenseat.' ' * Expeti desiderarique ' — ' desiderari ' expressing Leo's feeling that some- thing of the kind ought to have been done sooner. —462 ENFORCING ON HIM 395 Church. If, however, there is any dissent from the purity of our faith and the authority of the Fathers,' a council must be held in Italy, so that it may not be open to anyone to talk about the Nicene Creed and yet be in opposition to it. Now, had there been an idea that there was the slightest dogmatic ground for denying the prerogative thus claimed by Leo of dealing with the Archbishop of Constantinople as a subject, and of imposing on him the Roman ' form of faith,' it is not possible to suppose that either Theodosius or Ana- tolius would not have resented this exercise of jurisdiction. It would be impossible to imagine a more extreme case. There is every circumstance that could emphasise the impos- sibility of such a tremendous assumption (if it were an as- sumption ') passing muster without a challenge. The arch- bishop in question was not naturally disposed either to submit quietly to a usurpation for the sake of uniting against a common foe, for he had a tender spot in his heart for the party of Eutyches ; he was not the occupant of a see which had no ambition or no political friends, for it was the Imperial see, and was soon about to attempt a rise in the scale of patriarchal honour over Alexandria and Antioch. Here, too, was an emperor not favourable to Leo and the orthodox party, but under the influence of Dioscorus and his friends. Such were the circumstances, and they simply preclude the idea that there was not ample recognition of the headship of the See of St. Peter on which St. Leo could work ; for Leo was neither a dullard nor void of care for the faith. He lived for the faith, and he knew something of men. To Pulcheria St. Leo wrote to exactly the same effect, in- sisting that Anatolius must without delay acknowledge the ' unskilful foil}' ' displayed by the definition of the Eobber Synod. And the reason he gives is the same as Leo XIII. would give under similar circumstances, viz. * because both my confession of faith and that of the holy Fathers ^ concerning the Incarnation of the Lord is in all respects a concordant and one confession.' ' Canon Bright's explanation, 'Leo . . . quietly assumes,' is simply out of the question. - In each of these letters there is jDrobably a special allusion to the Nicene Fathers, with whom Theodosius misled by Eutyches, claimed to be in harmony. 396 TERMS OF COMMUNION. a.d. 400 At the same time he writes to the archimandrites of Con- stantinople (a still stronger step in some respects), and com- plains of Anatoliiis having given no sign, as if there had been no scandals connected with Constantinople, or 'as if ' the merit of a bishop were not to be demonstrated principally from here.' Leo seems to have had no fear that he was placing the cause nearest to his heart, the maintenance of the * peerless sacrament of the faith,' in any jeopardy. If ever there was a case in which the authority of the Apostolic See needed to come forward, it was here, and if ever there was one case more than another in which that authority was used with holy boldness and singleness of aim, it was this. The result was everything that could be wished. Leo wrote in July, and at the end of the month Theodosius suddenly died. The legates appear to have acted promptly, and in November the Empress Pulcheria was able to announce to Leo that ' Ana- tolius embraces the apostoHcal confession of your letters,' and has without delay signed the dogmatic epistle to Flavian, which she calls ' the letter of the Catholic faith.' XIII. Anatolius' letters to Leo are unfortunately lost. Leo answered him ^ and congratulated him, and, after giving directions about the reception of such bishops as had given way at the Latrocinium, he says, ' the favour of communion with us is to be neither harshly denied nor rashly bestowed.' He says that he had received Eusebius into communion, and therefore requests Anatolius to have Eusebius' Church taken care of, and desires that all should know that Anatolius has been received into communion with Rome, ' that those who serve our God may rejoice that your peace has been concluded ivith the Apostolic See.' He further tells the emperor ^ that he has directed the legates to co-operate with Anatolius, and in another letter ^ he tells Anatolius that he joins him with them in the execution of his decree,^ and gives his directions about the lapsed bishops in general and the leaders in particular. ' ' Aut non hino prascipuo fuerit meritum demonstrandum.' ^ Ejy. Ixxx. ' Ejh Ixxxiii. ♦ Ep. Ixxsv. ' ' Executionem nostrae dispositionis.' (Cf. the use of dis^ositio for an im- perial edict.) —452 LEO'S TOME SIGNED BY 397 As regards the latter, if they repent he * reserves ' their case ' for the maturer counsels of the Apostolic See,' ' and bids Anatolius * to strive to execute such things as befit the Church of God ' in union with his own legates. At the same time, as if, in God's providence, history was to settle for those who search it the lines of Papal jurisdiction, St. Leo exercised the same authority over the members of the Archdiocese of Constantinople that Zozimus did over Africa. Two Constantinopolitan priests had repaired to Rome to clear themselves of suspicion as to heresy, and Leo sent them back, saying that ' at great cost they had opened their hearts to [literally in] the Apostolic See, and shown that they receive nothing save what we, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, have both learned and teach ; ' and he exhorts Anatolius to assist them, as ' being adorned with the favour of Apostolical com- munion,' i.e. communion with the Apostolic See. It is difficult to imagine a more perfect anticipation of Catholic ecclesiastical life in the nineteenth century. And so far there is not a solitary protest recorded, not a distant idea that St. Leo was doing more than exercising his proper pre- rogative in a natural way, and fulfilling the responsibilities of his sacred and divinely instituted office. XIV. A very important step was now taken by the new archbishop. For the second time he called together his * home-synod,' ^ and the bishops not merely themselves signed the Tome or letter to Flavian, but sent it to the absent metropolitans. Abundius, the Papal legate, thereupon returned from Con- stantinople, and obtained, in accordance with the request of Leo, the subscription of the Metropolitan of Milan and his synod to the Pope's dogmatic epistle. The same had already been obtained from the provinces of Gaul. So that this letter to Flavian, which had been suppressed at the Robber Council, had now received the signatures of well- nigh the whole Christian world. It was issued as an ex cathedra pronouncement on the part of the Pope ; it had now been re- ceived as the dogmatic expression of Christian belief at Con- ' Ibid. c. ii. * Consisting of the bishops at and around Constantinople. 398 ANATOLIUS AND OTHER BISHOPS, a.d. 400—452 stantinople, at Antioch/ and in the entire West. No bishop who had signed it could henceforth treat its teaching as an open question ; it only remained to issue a definition in accord- ance with it, and to induce the Egyptians to withdraw their complicity with Dioscorus and his teaching, and to arrange the return of the lapsed but penitent bishops. St. Leo had already laid down the conditions of their return, but had made an exception in the case of the rmgleaders at Ephesus. This, however, he also eventually left to the discretion of the council on application from Pulcheria.^ Such were the circumstances under which Anatolius, the Bishop of Constantinople, took his seat at the Council of Chalcedon. » Leonis Ep. civ. * Ep. Ixxxv. CHAPTEE XXIIL THE DEPOSITION OF DIOSCORUg. I. The great council met, not, as was originally intended, at Nicsea, but at Chalcedon, in order that the emperor might attend to his imperial affairs and yet be near at hand in case of need. And it must be borne in mind that it was summoned for the reversal of the Ephesine catastrophe. The Robber Synod of Ephesus had acquitted Eutyches, and grounded its acquittal on his agreement with St. Cyril ; it had condemned Flavian, his archbishop, on the false suppo- sition that he differed from Cyril, and so from the Nicene Fathers. But, on the other hand, St. Leo had confirmed the condemnation of Eutyches by the previous Synod of Constan- tinople, and there was an end of that matter. His position as a heretic was assumed throughout. But the condem- nation of Flavian and the pretended agreement of Eutyches with St. Cyril had to be dealt with ; and the Patriarch of Alexandria had to be condemned, if he continued obdurate to the last. St. Leo had cherished hopes of his repentance, and accordingly had devolved upon the council the duty of de- posing him in case only of his continued obduracy ; in case of his repentance the matter would have to be referred again to the Apostolic See.' It was not enough, then, for the council to signify its adhesion to the Tome of St. Leo. It must also make it plain that its adhesion included the clear perception that the two great letters of St. Cyril, confirmed by the General Council of Ephesus (which included the Pope by representation and by ' 'Reserved for the maturer counsels of the Apostolic Sec ' (Ej). Ixxxv.) 400 WHAT THE COUNCIL HAD TO DO. a.d. 40Q his subsequent confirmation of the Acts) were not in contra- diction with the Tome which they subscribed, nor tlie Tome in contradiction with them.' Further, it was left to the council to draw up some short definition which would serve as a test of orthodoxy on the point in question. St. Leo's Tome was not intended for that ; it supplied the tv-jtos,^ the mould and the material, the neces- sary norm and measuring-line, but not a definition adapted for practical purposes ; this would be best effected in a coun- cil, after an investigation and exposition of the needs of the case. Again, St. Leo had left it to the council to deal with the cases of those bishops who had been illegitimately extruded from their sees, and whose cases could now be heard in per- son— such as Eusebius and Theodoret ; and the cases of those bishops who had subscribed the condemnation of Flavian by putting their signatures to a blank paper. Such was the work before the council. It met in the Church of St. Euphemia, on whose intercessions the bishops avowed their reliance, and on whose altar they placed their definition, that it might be presented before saints and angels, and to Almighty God, by her intercessory mediation. There were at least 600 bishops present, the largest number that had yet met together. They were, almost to a man, Eastern prelates. The scene of their meeting is de- scribed in glowing terms by Evagrius, and is to this day one of the most exquisite spots in that beautiful region. II. Dioscorus at once took his seat as Archbishop of Alexan- dria. He had just before gathered together ten bishops and exe- cuted the farce of excommunicating St. Leo — an act of madness, which eventually afforded the bishops their chief ground for deciding upon his impenitence, and in consequence for carry- ' It is important to remember this, because some writers, in dealing with the exclamations of the bishops during the council concerning Cyril, seem to imagine that they were quoting Cyril simply, as the authority before which they bowed ; indeed, they even suppose that the bishops put the authority of Cyril on a par with that of Leo. But it was because Cyril's orthodoxy had been established by Pope and council, particularly by Colestine and Sixtus (who are expressly mentioned—cf. fifth session), that his authority is quoted. * Ep. ci. Anatolii ad Lconem. —462 DIOSCORUS AND THEODORET. 401 ing out the sentence of Leo, committed to their charge. Whether by this means he thought to make it technically impossible for the legates to sit and condemn him, or whether he acted out of mere bravado, and by way of insult to the Apostolic See, it is impossible to say. He now sat down in the place of honour, as the occupant of the second see in Christendom. But the Papal legates intervened, and refused to proceed until Dioscorus was removed from the seat he had occupied. They wished him to go out. They held a commission (said Paschasinus) * from the most holy and most apostolic Bishop of Eome, who is the head of all Churches, to see that Dios- corus should have no seat in the council.' When questioned further, the legates said that Dioscorus ' had dared to arrange ' a synod without leave from the Apostolic throne.' The imperial commissioners wished to resist this decision of the legates, but in vain. They had to obey ' the head of all Churches,' and cause Dioscorus to leave his place. His pre- sence, however, was required, and he was therefore allowed to sit in the middle, without, that is to say, a seat as a consti- tuent member of the synod, which was the gist of the legates' demand. There he maintained that Flavian was rightly con- demned by the council which the Emperor Theodosius had convoked at Ephesus. His position really was that the imperial supremacy was sufficient for the case, and that Flavian was involved in heresy. Accordingly the Acts of the Bobber Synod were read. In these the name of Theodoret occurred, who had been deposed by Dioscorus. Theodoret was called for, and he presently entered. A scene of tumultuous confusion ensued. The Egyptian bishops saw in Theodoret only the enemy of St. Cyril. They shouted and protested, and maintamed that to admit Theodoret into the assembly was to cast out Cyril, whom Theodoret had once anathematised. The statement, which the commissioners and senate made, that Leo had rein- ' TToiriaai. I have translated the word ' arrange,' as being a term which is both covered by the Greek word, and which fits in with the facts of the case. St. Leo had sent legates, but Dioscorus took precedence of them by order of the emperor, or with his consent. This was his sin in the matter. D D 402 THE ALEXANDEIAN PATEIARCH a.d. 40O stated him in his bishopric, and that the emperor had ordered his presence, availed nothing for awhile with these Egyptian partisans. They were furious at the idea of one who had anathematised their former holy patriarch, appearing in the council in the character of bishop. They cared for neither Pope or emperor, nor for the Patriarch of Antioch, who had likewise testified to the orthodoxy of Theodoret ; they believed them all to be unaware of the true character of the man. They were calmed, however, by the compromise of admitting his presence on the understanding that his sitting as accuser should not prejudice the question of his proper place in the synod, which could be settled afterwards, as was in fact done in Theodoret's favour. The pith of the accusation now brought against Dioscorus lay in the fact that he had suppressed the Tome of Leo ; and he persisted throughout that Flavian was rightly con- demned, because he had said that * after the union ' {i.e. the Incarnation) ' there were two natures in Christ.' Dioscorus and his party were willing to acknowledge that Christ was ' of two natures,' but not that there ' are two natures ' in Him.' The obduracy, therefore, of Dioscorus being duly esta- blished, it only remained to pronounce sentence, in accord- ance with St. Leo's direction, in canonical form — which, how- ever, was deferred for another session. The Oriental bishops, i.e. those in the patriarchate of Antioch, were in favour of all the leaders of the Eobber Synod being included in the con- demnation of Dioscorus, but on the Illyrian bishops exclaim- ing, 'We have all erred: we all ask for pardon,' it was decided, for the present, that Dioscorus alone should suffer deposition. When the bishops reassembled, neither Dioscorus nor the imperial commissioners made their appearance ; the latter, because the deposition of a bishop was so completely the affair of the spiritualty, and the former, doubtless, because he had clearly seen how things were going. Eusebius of Doryh^um, who had been * deposed' by the Robber Synod, now preferred ' Mansi, t. vi. p. 690. -452 DEPOSED AT THE SYNOD 403 his complaint against Dioscorus, and the latter was accordingly summoned in the usual way to attend the synod. Meanwhile, three clerics of Alexandria and a layman were admitted to the synod, to prefer their several complaints against their patri- arch. These petitions were each one of them addressed ' to the (Eciimoiical A rcJihishop and Patriarch of great Eome, Leo, and to the holy and Qj^cumenical Synod.' They revealed the fact that Dioscorus was a man of notoriously loose morality and intolerably overbearing temper. The priest from Alex- andria concluded by saying to the bishops, ' I, miserable Athanasius, presbyter of the most renowned city of Alexandria, have presented these petitions to the most holy CEcitmenical Arclihishop and Patriarch Leo, and to the most holy (Ecume- nical Council of holy Fathers and Bishops.' The layman Sophronius concluded in the same way.^ These petitions, thus addressed, were ordered to be inserted in the Acts, and read to Dioscorus in case he came to the synod. But Dios- corus, like Nestorius, refused to obej' the summons, saying that he * adhered to what he had previously said,' thus con- fessing his obstinate perseverance, and bringing himself under the condemnation of Leo. III. The sentence was forthwith pronounced by Pascha- sinus, at the desire of the bishops. Julian, Bishop of Hypepge, not merely concurred with the rest in calling on Paschasinus to give the sentence, but made the following short speech : — * Holy fathers, listen. Since in the metropolis of Ephesus Dioscorus held the authority ' (from the emperor) ' for judging between holy Flavian and the most religious Bishop Eusebius ' (on the one hand) ' and Eutyches ' (on the other), 'and issued a thoroughly iniquitous judgment, himself first pronouncing an unjust sentence, and then forcing the rest to follow him — now your holiness holds the authority of the most holy Leo ; and all the holy synod, gathered together according to the will of God and the decree of our most pious emperor knows, ' Mr. Gore {Diet, of Chr. Biog. p. 663) alludes to these addresses as the 'expressions of individuals,' as though they were nothing further. It must be remembered that these petitioners were endeavouring to ingratiate themselves, uot with St. Leo, but with the council, and that the council was prepared to use their petitions as evidence. The context makes their use emphatic. D D 2 404 BY THE AUTHORITY OF ' a.d. 400 as does your holiness, all that was done m Ephesus ; and Dioscorus has been thrice summoned and would in no wise obey. We ask your holiness, therefore, who holds, or rather your holinesses ' (i.e. the other legates), ' who hold the place of the most holy Pope Leo, to promulgate and issue against him ' (viz. Dioscorus) ' the sentence contained in the canons. For we all, and the whole oecumenical synod, are of one mind with your holiness.' The whole assembly reiterated its perfect oneness of mind with Paschasinus. Let us pause for a moment. The whole enormous assembly of Eastern bishops can hear St, Leo addressed by the Alexandrian clerics as the ' cecumenical ' archbishop jjfn- excellence, and not a word of protest, but the letters are placed in the archives for use in the tremendous scene that is being now enacted— nothing less than the deposition of the occupant of the second see in Christendom. Again, the deposition of the Patriarch of Alexandria is yielded by the synod to the legates on the ground that they hold the authority of Leo. The authority of the synod in Chalcedon is said to differ from that of the synod of Ephesus under Dioscorus, in deriving from the Bishop of Rome, who, through his legates, is present at the s3a-iod, and forms a constituent necessary and sovereign element of that assembly. Nothing in the life of the Church could require a more sovereign act of jurisdiction than the deposition of the Arch- bishop of Alexandria. St. Athanasius tells us how St. Julius in the last century said that the canons required that all matters concerning the deposition of an Alexandrian arch- bishop should be referred to Piome, that 'a just judgment may be issued thence.' St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, had been deposed by a synod with the authority of the emperor. But the Pope treated the deposition as null and void, reopened the question, and acquitted Athanasius. In the case of Dioscorus, a Bishop of Alexandria was now being deposed, and the whole Church accepted his deposition. But he was deposed by the authority of the See of St. Peter, whose agent was the synod of bishops, including the —452 THE APOSTOLIC SEE. 405 representative of the Apostolic See. If anyone doubts this, let him ponder the following sentence, adopted by the council.' Paschasinus, Lucentius (bishops), and Boniface (priest), * holding ' (as the Acts say) ' the place of the most holy and blessed Leo, Archbishop of the Apostolic See of great and older Eome,' stood up and pronounced the sentence of deposi- tion on the following grounds : 1. 'Because Dioscorus on his own authority received Euty- ches, of one mind with him, into communion when he had been canonically condemned by his own archbishop ' — ' this he did before he sat in council with the bishops at Ephesus.' 2. ' The Apostolic See has pardoned the other bishops.' They acted under compulsion, and they have repented and have ' continued to adhere ^ to the most holy Archbishop Leo and the holy and CEcumenical Council.' (How could the 'Apostolic See ' be said by an oecumenical synod to have ' par- doned ' bishops, unless that synod held that the said see represented * the prince and head of the Apostles ' ? And what obedience could Eastern bishops owe to Leo, except on the supposition that he was the ' oecumenical archbishop ' ?) But Dioscorus ' has continued to boast over those things on account of which he ought to groan and throw himself on to the ground.' (So that his obstinacy, which Leo mentioned as necessary to be established before he was finally con- demned, was substantiated.) 3. He did not allow the Tome of Leo to be read — ' which not being read, the Holy Churches of God throughout the world have suffered scandal and injurj'.' (Notice the relation of the Papal utterance to the whole Church of God.) All this, however (they say), might have been pardoned. But this was not all. The climax was reached when — 4. ' He presumed to issue an excommunication against the most holy and blessed Archbishop of Greater Piome.' 5. Lastly, he had rendered himself technically liable to deposition, for he refused to appear when thrice summoned to a synod. (St. Athanasius also refused to appear when summoned to a synod ; but it had been convoked by the ' Mansi, t. vi. p. 1046. -' eTr6/xivui, 406 THE SENTENCE ITSELF. a.d. 400 emperor without the consent of the Pope, as the Eastern historians notice in condemning it.) * Wherefore Leo, the most holy and blessed Archbishop of great and older Eome, by us and by the present holy synod, together with the thrice blessed and worthy of all praise, the blessed Apostle Peter, who is the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, and the foundation of the orthodox faith, has stripped 1dm of his episcopate and deprived him of all sacerdotal dignity. Wherefore this great synod will decree what is according to the canons.' Anatolius signed first, saying that ' he agreed in all thmgs with the Apostolic throne.' Dioscorus had disobeyed the canons of the holy Fathers and had refused to obey the three- fold summons. Maximus of Antioch recorded his agreement with Leo and Anatolius. Diogenes, Bishop of Cyzicum, ' consented to those things which had been decreed by the most holy and blessed Pioman Archbishop Leo,' and by Anatolius and the present holy and oecumenical synod. One bishop calls the meeting ' your angelical meetmg.' In the version of this sentence which Leo himself sent to the Gallic bishops the indictment against Dioscorus that he had * excommunicated ' the Pope is omitted, as was natural ; otherwise the differences are purely verbal.^ The sentence, however, as communicated to Dioscorus, did not give the bishops' reasons in full, but merely mentioned the technical point of his disobedience to the summons of the synod, besides * his other offences.' But in their official report to the emperor,-' which is of the highest importance, they give the grounds of their condem- nation in full. First, Dioscorus had prevented the Pope's letter to Flavian being read at Ephesus. Next, he had restored Eutyches, ' sick with the impiety of the Manichgeans,' to his priesthood and position in his ' Mr. Gore calls this version ' widely different.' But a comparison of the two line by line will convince the reader that this is not correct. ^ Mansi, t. vi. p 1098. —462 THE SYNOD'S REPORT. 407 monastery ' after the Bishop of Rome had decreed ivhat ivaa fitting, and had condemned the perfidy of Eutyches in saying, " I confess, indeed, that our Lord Jesus Christ was of (sk) two natures before the union, but that there was one nature after the union." ' The quotation is from the Tome of Leo, and shows that they understood the latter part of the Tome as a juridical sentence. Dioscorus had seen this sentence which the Pope passed on Eutyches, and had suppressed the Tome in which it occurs. Thirdly, his misconduct to Eusebius of Dorylaeum was scandalous. Fourthly, he had received into communion those who had been put out of communion, thereby offending against the canon which ' teaches that those who are excommuni- cated by one should not be received into communion with others.' But all this (the synod says) might have been forgiven; in fact, the Pope had expressly said that a door of repentance was to be left to the last. But Dioscorus (probably just before the council actually met) gathered together ten bishops and induced them to execute the farce of excommunicating St. Leo himself. This was the climax of his madness. And so the synod continues to report to his Imperial Majesty by saying that — Fifthly, ' beyond all this, he has also opened his mouth like a mad dog against the Apostolic See itself, and has endeavoured to effect letters of excommunication against the most holy and blessed Pope Leo, and — Lastly, ' has persisted in his iniquities and been obstinate against the holy and oecumenical synod, refusing to answer to various accusations brought against him.' He remains, therefore (so they wrote to the Empress Pulcheria), 'a pillar of salt, and the rulers of the various Churches have regained their sees, Christ our Lord having prosperously directed their course. Who shows the truth in the wonderful Leo — for as He used the sapient Peter, so He uses also this champion of the truth ' (' itat et isto utitur assertore'), viz. Leo. 408 THE MATTER OF FAITH a.d. 400 Such is the verdict of the great Eastern Synod, viz. that St. Peter is the rock in Matt, xvi.,' and that Leo takes the place, in the Church's government of souls, of the blessed Apostle Peter, bemg the Vicar of Christ in his direction of the Church — a statement which is correctly summed up in the more modern phrase ' Papal supremacy,' or ' infalli- bility.' IV. In the session which followed, the imperial commis- sioners, who, although not presidents in the ecclesiastical sense of the term, arranged the external order of the assembly, brought forward the question of the faith in which the body of bishops were now to proclaim their unity. Dioscorus, if this is the third session, had now been deposed, and the case of his assistants in the Piobber Council — viz. Juvenal of Jerusalem and four other bishops — had yet to be dealt with. None of these were present at this session. The business before the bishops was, according to the commissioners, that of 'ex- pounding the faith purely ; ' and the object in view was that * those who seem not to have held the same ideas as all the rest should he brought hack to unity of mind hij the full know- ledge {sTTiyvcoais) of the truth, for the lord of the earth holds, as we do, the faith handed down by the 318 Fathers at Nicaea, and the 150, and by the rest of the most holy and glorious Fathers.' This description of the business before the meeting is of great importance for understanding what follows. It was the ' pure faith ' which was to bind the bishops together ; and the commissioners themselves had no doubt as to what that pure faith was. It was no open question. Those who were to be * brought back ' were the bishops who had acquitted Eutyches and condemned Flavian, asserting that Flavian had contra- vened and Eutyches had accepted the Nicene Creed. By voting for the condemnation of Flavian they had seemed to hold ideas which were at variance with the meaning of the Nicene Creed, as interpreted by the Council of Ephesus and by Leo. But the emperor (said the commissioners) held to the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed as interpreted by the present Pope. ' Cf. the ' Sentence ' above, p. 400. —452 SETTLED BY LEO. 409 On the mention of the emperor's faith in the Nicene Creed, all agreed by acclamation that they held no other faith than that of Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus. So far all was well ; but a Eiitychian could say that. Accordingly, Cecropius of Sebastopol rose and introduced the real subject before them. He said that besides these declara- tions of faith, the matter concerning Eutyches had arisen, and that a dogmatic decision had been given by the most holy archbishop in Eome, ' And we follow him, and have all sub- scribed his letter.' The bishops exclaimed, ' We all say this : the exposi- tions given are sufficient ; it is not in our power to make another.' This is a crucial point in estimating the position which St. Leo's letter occupied in their minds. It stood on a level with those writings which had been accepted by the previous councils. It had not been synodically discussed ; it never was. The bishops from the first refused to discuss its con- tents in open synod. They folloioed Leo. They had signed his letter, and that was enough. They maintained that it was not open to them to make another exposition. It had not yet been synodically accepted, but they still had no cause to frame another exposition.' But as Piusticus in the next century annotates the bishops' acclamation, it was not the case that quite all the bishops were satisfied with this. The great majority were of one mind, but it could not be taken for granted that every one of them was agreed with the rest. Accordingly the commissioners pro- posed that the patriarchs of each of the provinces should, with one or two from each province, pass into the middle and de- liberate in common concerning the faith, so that if there should be any difference of opinion, wldch tliej) thought there could not he, that difference might be clearly expressed. The bishops, however, refused to do this. They were satisfied with things as they were. They flatly refused to make out any written formulary, for those already in exist- ence were sufficient. They had already agreed to Cecropius' ' It was (they said) Leo's sentence (tvttos) which made it unnecessary. Mansi, vi. 953. 410 THE TOME COMPAEED WITH a.d. 400 statement that the Pope's dogmatic interpretation sufficed for the Eutychian matter. V. But Florentius of Sardes pleaded that ' a certain time should be given so that we may approach the truth of the matter with becoming consideration, although most certainly as concerns ourselves, who have subscribed the letter of the most holy Leo, we do not need setting right.' He considered, and very properly, after the circumstances of the Eobber Council, that some did need settmg right, but not those who had subscribed to the letter of Leo. Cecropius, accordingly, proposed that the decisions of the 318 Fathers and of the most holy Leo be read. He prefaced his proposal by saying that ' the faith has been well discussed by the 318 holy Fathers, and has been confirmed by the holy Fathers Athanasius, Cyril, Celestine, Hilary, Basil, Gregory, and now again by the most holy Leo.' It may be noticed that Leo is here said to have ' con- firmed ' the faith confessed by the Nicene Fathers, which shows that nothing can be argued from the council being said to confirm the letter of Leo as to its thinking itself a superior court. St. Leo was not superior to the Nicene faith, nor the synod to Leo. In each case the meaning of the word * confirmation ' must be determined by the context. It will be seen that the final confirmation b}^ Leo was certainly that of a superior authority. The Nicene Creed was read, and amongst the exclamations that burst from the bishops were such as ' Pope ' Leo so believes ! ' ' Cyril so believes ! ' The great point in then* minds was that the condemnation of Eutyches did not involve the condemnation of Cyril, and that, therefore, in signing the Tome of Leo they were not disagreeing with what the Church had already taught through St. Cyril. Two letters of Cyril were then read ; the first on the ground that it had been confirmed by the Council of Ephesus, and the second, to John of Antioch, had as a matter of fact been sanctioned by Pope and emperor and the whole Church. ' 6 ndnas, the Pope (Mansi, t. vi. p. 955). I do not lay stress on the definite article, but the occurrence of the word by way of contrast. Cyril was also a pope, but they do not call him so here. —462 CYEIL'S AUTHOEISED LETTERS. 411 After this the bishops again cried out that ' This is the faith of Leo, the archbishop — Leo thus beheves — Leo and AnatoHus thus beheve ! ' No one who considers the circum- stances under which AnatoHus signed the Tome of Leo will for a moment suppose that AnatoHus is placed on a level with Leo by saying that they believed alike. They further cried out, ' As did Cyril, so do we all believe ! ' and * Leo the archbishop thus thinks, thus believes, thus wrote ! ' The whole contention of the Eutychians had been that they were following Cyril, whose letters had been adopted by the whole Church. The orthodox bishops were, therefore, anxious to emphasise the fact that in subscribing to Leo's teaching they, too, were not divorcing themselves from the doctrine of Cyril. They believed both. If they had been asked. Is it likely, is it possible that Leo under the circum- stances could have led them astray, and differed from those writings of Cyril which had received oecumenical sanction ? they would doubtless have replied that it was impossible. But this was not the question before them. They were only dealing with the truth, that as a matter of fact St. Leo did not contradict Cyril. And they no more sat m judgment on the Pope and St. Cyril as superiors than a man acts as superior to St. James and St. Paul when he declares that they do not contradict one another in their doctrine of justifi- cation ; neither do they put St. Leo on the same official level as St. Cyril by mentioning them together, any more than a man would equalise St. Paul the Apostle and a Greek poet, if he showed that the Apostle agreed with the poet. It must be remembered, too, that St. Cyril's writmgs had Papal sanction. The Tome of Leo was now read. At two points, such was the stupidity of some of the bishops of lllyricum and Palestine (who had been exposed to adverse influences) that they could not see how the words of the Tome could be reconciled with St. Cyril's teaching. They did not say that the Tome was wrong, but they did not see their way to reconcile the two.^ ' Their difficulty was, doubtless, to distinguish the two concepts of ' nature ' and ' person,' especially as their relationship had been expressed in Latin, and had to be tianslated into Greek. Members of the Church of England may 412 SOME BISHOPS COULD NOT a.d. 400 Aetiiis the archdeacon ventured to show the bishops that they had forgotten two passages m St. Cyril, and Theo- doret quoted to them some words of the saint. They were satisfied that they were mistaken. At the end of the reading the bishops exclaimed, 'This is the faith of the Fathers! This is the faith of the Apostles! . . . Peter has thus sjwken hy Leo! The Apostles thus taught! Cyril thus taught! ... As CathoHcs we hold this! . . . Why were not these things read at Ephesus ? Dioseorus concealed these things.' The commissioners and senate asked, ' After all this, who doubts ? ' The bishops replied, * No one doubts.' They saw, then, in Leo's dogmatic epistle the teaching of the Apostles, but specially of the Apostle Peter. They refused to examine the contents of the letter in synod which they had already sub- scribed out of synod, but persisted that they heard in it the voice of Peter speaking through Leo, and explaining his own confession of faith at Caesarea Philippi. It is not to be sup- posed that they used the expression * Peter hath spoken by Leo ' without reference to the teachmg then in vogue, and actually emphasised in this very council, that Leo was the successor of Peter. The question before them was not, indeed, whether the successor of Peter could be untrue to the teaching of Peter ; they were simply asserting that as a matter of fact he was true to the Apostle's teaching. But their exclama- tion suggests their belief that it followed from his official position. But although no single voice was raised to break the force of the unanimous cry which rose from the bishops, ' We all believe ! ' and * No one doubts ! ' and ' Peter hath spoken by Leo !' still there was something more needed ; for they had not merely to believe, but to understand, since they had to meet their former friends, the bishops who had led them at the Eobber Synod. They were absent now ; but their case had to be dealt with — and amongst these was the patriarch of the Palestinian bishops. If this was the second session, and remember the difficulties felt by Dean Stanley even in this century on the same subject, when he was endeavouring to suppress the Athanasian Creed. —4.52- UNDERSTAND THE TOME. 413 Dioscoras M'as not yet condemned, as the order given by Mansi indicates, then they must have been in the utmost need of being well prepared to face Dioscorus, as well as the other ringleaders of the Latrocinium. But if (as so many old copies give the order, and as the Ballerini hold) this was the session immediately after the deposition of Dioscorus, they had still to reckon with the other bishops, to say nothing of their own flocks. And some shorter formulary, some con- densed form of the Tome, would have to be provided for prac- tical use ; and they would need to have the teaching of Leo thoroughly in hand to know how to comport themselves in the coming trial. Accordingly Atticus of Nicopolis asked for a concession of five days, so that they might decide upon this. They especially asked to be supplied with the letter of Cyril, con- taining the twelve anathematisms which had not been read to them, but on which their opponents outside had laid the greatest stress. They say, ' The letter of our lord ^ and holy Father and Archbishop, Leo, who adorns the Apostolic See, has been read to us,' and the expression implies that they receive that without question. But they wish for the other letter of Cyril's. Why ? That they may settle then" own judgment as to the orthodoxy of Leo ? By no means. But ' that we may be properly provided in the time of closer ex- amination.' Many of the bishops then proposed that they should all look into this together. The commissioners agreed to an interval of five days, during which those bishops who wished might meet at the house of Anatolius and treat in common, out of synod, concerning the faith, ' that those who doubt may be taught.' Those who doubt were not allowed to meet for mere discussion, but for instruction. The word * doubt ' seems to have roused the bishops, and they disclaimed against there being such a thing as doubt in the matter. ' We all believe as Leo ; ' * No one of us doubts ; ' ' We have already subscribed.' The commissioners then explained that it was not meant ' One article governs them all. Hence the translation I have given in the text. Mansi, vii. 974. 414 THEY DID NOT DOUBT LEO, a.d. 400 for them all to meet together. * But since it is fitting to persuade all who doubt, let Anatolius choose from amongst those who have subscribad such as he thinks fitted to instruct such as doubt.' It was not, then, the council that discussed the contents of the Tome in synod, but some of the bishops, who, from diffi- culties of language, and as the event proved, lack of acquaint- ance with Cyril's teaching, were willing to be ' instructed ' in the house of Anatolius between the sessions. They had signed a blank paper at the Eobber Council in fear of their lives. They would be asked by others in Chalcedon and by their flocks at home, whether they understood what they signed now. If they replied that they did not understand, but simply accepted everything on the word of Leo, they would, indeed, have done homage to a truth in owning alle- giance to St. Peter in his successor ; but what was then needed was not an act of faith in the infallibility of the Vicar of Christ, but an intelligent adhesion to his dogmatic decree, such as was necessary for those who had to teach. The Fathers of the synod did, indeed, in writing to the emperor on this very subject, bestow unlimited praise on the faith which in some did not need any discussion. ' To those who believe, a perception not submitted to discussion ' ^ suffices ' for the useful purposes of faith, drawing the devout soul to confess the holy dogma.' But these bishops could not really say they believed with an intelligent faith, when they did not thoroughly understand the agreement between Cyril and Leo, although theij assumed its existence ; having a difficulty in grasping the coincidence of teaching by reason of the different languages in which the several letters were written. That this was the principle on which the hesitating bishops acted is rendered quite certain by what they said in the following session. After the legates had described the attitude of the synod towards the Tome of Leo as being precise!}^ the same as their attitude towards the Council of Nice and the Council of Ephesus, and after the bishops as a body had accepted tliis as their position,^ the bishops of Ill3'ricum made a declaration in the person of one of their number named Sozon. They said ' ' Indiscussa.* - Mansi, t. vii. p. 10. —452 BUT NEEDED INSTRUCTION. 415 that their hesitation had not proceeded from any doubt as to the orthodoxy of Leo.' The only question was whether one or two expressions conveyed the sense which they were quite persuaded was intended by the ' Hol}^ Father.' The legates had elucidated (' nobis dilucidaverunt ') the matter. It is there- fore beyond dispute that the examination of the Tome was not in their minds connected with the idea of revision but of elucidation. St. Leo expressly alludes to this scene in the synod with satisfaction. He speaks of the danger of their consent being a mere mechanical and pretended assent,^ and consequently welcomes the news that some doubted about his ' judgments.' He reckons it a misfortune on their part, and, in the case of some doubts on the part of the ringleaders at the Latrocinium, calls it an evil thing, and due to the instigation of ' the author of dissension,' but rejoices that evil was overruled for good, for it removed all suspicion of an unreasoning, unintelligent adhesion having been given by the other sees ' to that one which the Lord of All has appointed to preside over the rest.' He says that the net result was that what Almighty ' God had previously defined by our ministry,' He confirmed ' by the irreversible assent of the whole brotherhood,' i.e. of bishops. It was already, as it came from his own pen, irreversible ; for he says it was that which ' God had defined,' but it was further strengthened by the irreversible sentence of the episcopate. That sentence, it must be remembered, contained within it the Pope by representation, his legates being a constituent part of it, and it needed his further confirmation. Further on he says that ' truth shines more brightly, and is more strongly held, when what faith had first taught examination has afterwards confirmed.' It was already of faith ; but it received an accession of strength within the soul, when the * fides qufierens intellectum ' had enabled that understanding to sit in its light. The examination, then, of the Tome of St. Leo accorded ' Mansi, t. vii. p. 30. They say the language is obscure. & v (ppiais Suarav fjuirreTo. It was a translation. * Leonis Ep. cxx. ad Tlieod. 416 FREE TO EXAMINE, NOT DISSENT. a.d. 400 to these less enlightened bishops was an investigation for the purposes of elucidation, not of revision. No orthodox Christian could seriously maintain that any of the bishops were free to revise that dogmatic letter. They were free to examine, but not to reject. Freedom of dissent would indeed be fatal to the infallibility of the Holy See ; the liberty of examining, and turning a blind obedience into an intelligent adhesion, in no way derogates from her position of authority. It does but secure that * the members should agree with the head,' to use the words of St. Leo, by an enlightened and not merely a blind faith. A palmary instance of such examination occurs m history soon after this — after the council had passed its sentence and promulgated its definition under anathema. Its decision was then, in the eyes of bishops and of Pope, irreversible. And yet, at the request of the emperor Leo, the Eutychians were allowed to re-examine the synodical sentence. In the case of those who after such examination gave in their adhesion, the council was considered to be confirmed anew, not by a superior authority, but by the additional judgment of concurring bishops. Those who refused adhesion were counted as heretics. They were free to examine, but not to refuse obedience. And we have only to ask ourselves what would have happened if these bishops at Chalcedon had refused to listen to the teaching of Anatolius, and withheld their subscription to the Tome of Leo, to see that they, too, were free to examine, but not to dissent, and that their approval was not that of superiors, but the submission of sul)ordinates. There is not the slightest trace in the actual evolution of the synod's action at Chalcedon of any approval as of superiors. The contrary appears quite clearly in the fifth session. The Tome of Leo would have remained the charter of the Christian faith precisely as much if they had disagreed. As a matter of fact, it was involved in the pro- mise of Christ to His Church, that the episcopate should sooner or later adhere as members to their head. One Dios- corus was as much as the Church could bear at that time, and one victory over the truth, such as the Eobber Synod, all that Christ willed to allow to the prince of darkness in a —452 DIFFICULTIES CLEARED UP. 417 single period. And consequently the bishops in the next session subscribed their assent to the letter of Leo as a symbol agreeing, in point of fact (as, indeed, it was bound to do by reason of the Petrine privilege of the Apostolic See) with the faith of Nicaea. They did not say the Vicar of Christ has exercised his prerogative of infallibility (these are modern terms) ; but the thing was there. Anatolius, who signed first, said that the 150 Fathers at Constantinople had ' confirmed ' the faith of Nicfea. In that same sense he might have said that the 600 Fathers of Chal- cedon confirmed the Tome of Leo. In neither case was it the confirmation of a superior authority, but an exhibition of the oneness of the Church's faith. The Illyrian bishops said that they found the explanation of the legates about the passage they could not understand, nor reconcile with what Cyril taught, helpful and sufficient.' And as when some asked of the Apostle Peter how he could reconcile his action with the teaching of the Apostle James and others, he — all apostle as he was — condescended to explain his conduct, and forthwith they acquiesced {rjcrv'^acrav) , so here these bishops, after due explanation, signed the letter of the Apostolic See, saying they were fully assured of its agree- ment with all previous standards of the Christian faith. They did not by this means judge Anatolius, who had signed long ago, nor the whole of the council, nor its head, St. Leo ; they simply recorded their intelligent submission. Any instructed Christian might say ' this or that ex cathedra pronouncement of the Holy See agrees of necessity with all previous ex cathedra utterances ; but for my part I do not see that it does, though I am bound to believe it. I should like to see as well as believe — I should like to 'believe and know.' There was nothing more than this in what took place at this session in the case of orthodox bishops in regard to St. Leo's dogmatic epistle to Flavian. In 1845 some remarkable words feU from the lips of Dr. Dollinger, in addressing a company of sarants as an historian at Munich : ' Gentlemen, the question is this : It is true that the infallibility of the Pope is not a dogma defined ' Mansi, t. vii. p. 31. E E 418 RESULTS. A.D. 400—452 by the Church ; yet anyone who should maintain the contrary would put himself in opposition to the conscience of the whole Church, in the present as in the past.' ^ It is this that results from our study of the Council of Chalcedon. The conscience of the whole Church was pene- trated through and through with that conception of the Pope's relation to the rest of the episcopate which has been defined only twenty years, but believed in for eighteen centuries and a half. And yet the ' Dictionary of Christian Biography ' can admit to its columns the following sentence by Mr. Gore : — ' It will be seen, then, that Leo's letter was treated by the council like the letter of any highly respected Churchman ' ! (Art. Leo, p. 663.) ' Cf. Christianity and Infallibility. Longmans, 1891. P. 245. CHAPTER XXIV. THE DEFINITION OF FAITH. Bishop Hefele has remarked concerning the fifth session of the Council of Chalcedon, that it is ' one of the most im- portant in Christian antiquity.' In his Tome or letter to Flavian, Leo had censured the Synod of Constantinople for passing by the expression which Eutyches used in its presence, saying, ' I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the union, but I confess one nature after the union.' In the discussions of this fifth session everything turned on this expression. As Neander said, ' The " in two natures," or " of two natures," was the turning-point of the whole con- troversy between monophysitism and dyophysitism.' Ana- tolius and others were prepared to accept the expression * of two natures,' giving to it their own meaning, but not denying the coexistence of the two natures after the union at Nazareth. With Eutyches the expression was meant to exclude their co- existence. On October 22 the bishops met, without the senators, who were not needed on the matter of faith. The imperial com- missioners were present as usual to manage the business part of the meeting. It was known that the bishops who had met m Anatolius' house had drawn up a formula, and it seems that the Papal legates were more or less acquainted with its contents. The commissioners accordingly ordered the formulary in question to be read, which was done by Asclepiades, Deacon of Con- stantinople. It had been drawn up at least in concert with Juvenal of Jerusalem and Thalassius of Ciesarea, who had been the offenders at the Robber Synod, and probably by Anatolius himself, Archbishop of Constantinople now, but with E E 2 420 THE BISHOPS IN DANGER. a.d. 400 antecedents of sympathy with Dioscorus, whose secretary he had been during the persecution of Flavian. The formula contained the expression *of two natures.' It was at once objected to by the Bishop of Germanicia, but defended by Anatolius, and the clamorous approval of a mass of bishops filled the church. It was one of those crises in the history of the Church at which, as in a critical passage in the denouement of a well-drawn plot, one involuntarily stops to take breath. Who could stem the tide of secret sympathy with Eutychian teaching which was again setting in ? The bishops clamoured for the insertion of the expression * Mother of God ' in the Creed. They were still possessed of the idea that somehow orthodox teaching concerning the ' two natures ' in Christ involved the heresy of Nestorius— which spoke of * two persons ' in the Incarnate Word. The Papal legates now stepped forward and condemned the proposed definition {tvitos); they announced their determination to quit the scene unless the letter of Leo was strictly adhered to. The bishops, how- ever, still clamoured in favour of their own formula. The commissioners endeavoured to calm the meeting by drawing their attention to the fact that the term which they had in- serted in their definition, viz. * of two natures,' might be imderstood in an heretical sense, since Dioscorus had con- demned Flavian for using the opposite expression 'in two natures ' of our Incarnate Lord. Anatohus rephed that Dioscorus was not condemned on account of his faith, but for the attitude he had assumed towards the Pope, and for not appearing when twice summoned by the synod. The arch- bishop's sympathy with his old master, Dioscorus, had evi- dently not been quite exorcised. He was followed in his defence of the questionable formula by the great majority of the bishops. It is evident that the commissioners perfectly understood the crisis that had now arisen. The bishops had signed the Tome of Leo, but some did not perfectly understand what they had signed ; some were still in sympathy with error, and others were still terrified by the ghost of Nestorius and Nestorian proclivities, which seemed to them to haunt all orthodox statements of the two natures in our Lord. —452 THE QUESTION WHETHER 421 It fell to the lot of the imperial commissioners, placing themselves on the side of the legates (by whom they were guided) to bring the Eastern bishops to a better mind. They brought the matter to its true issue by asking practically whether they were prepared to withdraw themselves from the Supreme Pontiff? They said, * Do you accept the letter of Leo ? ' — a question which, put as it was, shows that the commissioners did not consider the synod a superior authority. In fact the whole tone of the session shows that the bishops had to accept the Tome of Leo in the fulness of its meaning, or submit to be superseded by a council in the West. For this was what the legates had threatened. The bishops, however, exclaimed that they had both received and put their signatures to the letter. Thereupon the commissioners pressed home the rigorous conclusion that what was in that letter must be inserted in their definition. ' No ! ' cried the bishops, * it is not another definition that is being made ; nothing is lacking to the definition.' And Eusebius of Dorylaeum repeated their state- ment, ' It is not another definition that is being made.' He held that it was in perfect agreement with the Tome. * The definition has confirmed the letter,' i.e. by its agreement with it, just as the bishops at Constantinople are said to have * confirmed ' the Nicene Creed, not as in a superior court, but by a loyal acceptance of it. 'Archbishop Leo,' they con- tinued, ' believes as we believe.' * The definition contains everything.' ' The definition contains the faith.' ' Leo said the same as Cyril said ; Celestine the Pope confirmed what Cyril said ; Xystus the Pope confirmed what Cyril said.' * There is one Baptism, one Lord, one Faith.' It is to be noticed how they bring in Celestine's and Xystus' confirmation of Cyril's writmgs, and assert that Celestine and Leo are at one. They would not dispute the orthodoxy of Leo ; but they feared, or pretended to fear, lest their submission to his letter should be taken to imply a denial of Cyril's orthodoxy, which had, they say, been gua- ranteed by two Popes. The commissioners now appealed to the emperor, who 422 THEY WOULD FOLLOW LEO a.d. 400 was near at hand, to know what should be done; and his Imperial Majesty sent word that a commission of bishops (which had already been proposed) must meet, or else a council in the West, as the legates had threatened, would be inevitable. The Illyrian bishops, whose signature to the Tome after their instruction in Anatolius' house, had evidently been to a certain extent a matter of mechanical obedience, still pressed for the disputed definition, when at length the commissioners put before them straight and nakedly the choice which they must make, viz. Dioscorus or Leo. ' Which will you follow, the most holy Leo or Dioscorus ? ' * We believe with Leo ' was their immediate reply. * Then you must admit into your definition the teaching of Leo, which has been stated,' was the commissioner's logical conclusion — alluding to the expres- sion 'in two natures,' and not *o/two natures.' The commission met for discussion, but as there is no record of the nature of the discussion, we only know that they gave up their point and elected to follow Leo, and to insert in their definition the truth that our Divine Lord sub- sisted ' in two natures : ' that is to say, that in His One Person there are two natures, the Human and Divine, unmingled after the union effected at Nazareth in the womb of the Mother of God. When they returned to the church the altered definition was read, and agreed upon without dissent. Thus the legates, by their firmness, had saved the position. And they had saved it as legates. Nothing short of the supreme position of Leo could have given to his legates the authority which they exercised so well at this session. After all that had been effected at this wonderful council, it would have ended in a catastrophe, but for the firm stand which they made on behalf of a single preposition, which had become the watchword of the orthodox party. No one else in that assembly could have opposed himself as an impassable barrier to the acceptance of an expression so minute, but so all- important. And the simple issue had at length been pre- sented to these Eutychian sympathisers from Illj^icum and Palestine, viz. would they follow Leo or not ? They had once -452 HAD TO BE ANSWERED. 423 obeyed Dioscorns ; they were now induced to obey * the most holy Leo.' It was a momentous hour in the history of Christendom. And we, whose rehgion centres in our adoration of our Divine Lord, have to attribute its successful issue to the firmness of the legates of the successor of that Apostle * who lives and exercises judgment in his successor ; ' and that firmness was due to the prayer of his Divine Master, through whom he * confirmed the brethren.' But for the legates, the end would have been professed submission of the bishops to the teaching of Leo, and yet at the same time the adop- tion of a definition which let in the false teaching which Leo opposed. As it was they ' followed Leo ' in their definition, as they professed to have followed him in their subscription to his Tome. It was probably at this session that the synod drew up the allocution which was afterwards presented or read to the emperor. The synod suddenly glows with warm sympathy towards him whom it had so often called ' the Holy Father,' and it says, * God has given the synod a champion against every error in the person of the Roman bishop, who, like the ardent Peter, desires to lead everyone to God.' They then go on to deny that Leo's Tome was a different confession of faith from the Nicene. The object of such explanations is (they assert) to stop the mouths of * innovators ' — doubtless in allusion to the late emperor's condemnation of St. Flavian as one who had ' innovated in religion.' They quote amongst other instances the synods of Sardica and Ephesus as having added useful explanations, saying that those who met at Sardica ' against the remains of Arius,' * sent their judgment to those in the East ' — the West had done the same in the person of Leo — and they end with asking the emperor to be gracious in ' setting his seal to their godly decrees, and con- firming the preaching of the See of Peter.' So far, then, there were two principles on which the action of the Church had been based. I. The contention throughout the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon was that it was not enough for anyone ac- cused of heresy to say that he was willing to recite the Nicene 424 COROLLARIES. a.d. 400 Creed. The Nicene Creed needed explanation in view of fresh perversions ; that explanation was given by the Church, and these explanations must be received by those who would remain in the Church. The orthodox were those who ' heard the Church,' the present living Church. That which was decided under anathema by an oecumenical council (includ- ing, of course, its head), was just as necessary to be believed as the original scheme of doctrine. It was contained in that scheme, and to reject the voice of the living Church was tantamount to rejecting the original deposit of the faith. Men could not go behind the living voice and appeal to an- tiquity when that voice had decided that Mary was the Mother of God, or that there are two natures in our Divine Lord after the Incarnation. It belonged to the Church to expound her own deposit, and her children must receive as history that, and that alone, which she delivered to them as such. If a member of the Christian Church maintained that his researches into the early Fathers led him to decline the judgment of Celestine upon Nestorius, or Leo on Dios- corus, and to maintain the orthodoxy of the opinions cham- pioned by these heretics, he was subject to excommunication. II. Again, they more and more spoke of the See of Peter ; and as their needs multiplied, they had recourse more and more to its judgment as a court of appeal. Nothing, indeed, could exceed in fulness of statement the description of the relation of the Bishop of Rome to the Apostle Peter, given and accepted at the Council of Ephesus ; but at Chalcedon the references were more frequent and from all quarters. Rome is the See of Peter to the Emperor Marcian, to the Empress Pulcheria, to the synod at Chalcedon ; she is wel- comed as such by Flavian, and described as such by St. Peter Chrysologus ; her own assertion is never once questioned even in the East, though made again and again, and made in such momentous acts of the Church's life as the excommunication of the Patriarch of Alexandria and the dogmatic exposition of the Catholic faith on points on which masses of Eastern bishops were going miserably astray. If Anglicanism con- sists mainly in a protest against the supremacy of the Pope, not a whisper of Anglicanism was heard during the fourth —452 COROLLAPtlES. 425 General Council, unless it be from the coarse-minded, fero- cious heretic Dioscorus, who was deposed and excommuni- cated by St. Leo through (' per ') the instrumentality of the Holy Synod. The exposition of faith given by the Holy See — the Tome, that is, of Leo, or dogmatic epistle to Flavian — was signed by the greater number of bishops before it was brought before the synod ; it was not revised, nor reviewed, nor examined, but only publicly read, in the council itself. It was virtually enforced in the house of Anatolius upon the Illyrian bishops who were tainted with Eutychianism, and upon the Palestinian bishops, who had been more or less influenced by Juvenal, soon to be their patriarch. They wished to see hoiv Cyril and Leo agreed, rather than ichetlier they did. For Cyril (as the bishops afterwards said) was con- firmed by Celestine, and therefore his teaching was the teach- ing of the Church. They came to see that Leo's teaching had not contradicted that of Celestine and (said the bishops) Leo resembled Peter in his championship of the faith. The Illy- rian bishops were instructed by the Bishop of Constantinople on the points on which their ignorance led them astray, and they subscribed it as w4iat it was bound to be, in harmony with the writings of St. Cyril ; their judgment was a submis- sion and their submission was a judgment. And when all strife for the present was over they called it not only the voice of Peter, but * the doctrine of the chair of Peter ' (tt}^ KaOshpas TlsTpov KTJpvyfjLo), and this in the ]3resence of the emperor himself. For at the following session (the sixth) Marcian and Pulcheria, with their imperial suite, were present. The emperor told them why he had convened the synod. He does not say it was to decide open questions. On the contrary, it was convened in order * that no one in future should venture to maintain concerning the birth of our Lord and Saviour anything else than that which the apostolic preach- ing and the decree, in accordance therewith, of the 318 holy Fathers had handed down to posterity, and which was also testified by the letter of the holy Pope Leo of Eome to Flavian.' And they asked him to give the force of civil law to the ' teaching of the chau- of Peter.' CHAPTEE XXV. THEODORET AND SIAXIMUS. After the sixth session the bishops continued their meet- ings, but no longer on the same footing. The council, in its strictly cecumenical character, was closed. The business trans- acted in the following meetings was of a comparatively local character, and consisted in the settlement of disputes between certam Eastern bishops. Thalassius of Caesarea, although present at the later sessions, took back with him the record of the council's action up to this sixth session, and no further. Pelagius II. distinctly says in his letter to the Istrian bishops that the authoritative nature of the council ceased after the sixth action, and what followed was concerned with ' private matters.' And St. Leo describes the work submitted to the council as having consisted only of the definition of the faith and the restoration of the bishops who had lapsed at the Eobber Synod. The rest of its proceedings, he says, were of a different nature ; and accordingly the ofiicial report of the synod included in its unquestionable programme only the two matters just mentioned ; they placed the rest on a different footing.' The emperor had desired the bishops to remain a few days for the consideration of other matters, for the settlement of which it was natural to take advantage of such a gathering. Whilst, therefore, considerable importance attached to the arrangements which were made, they could not claim the same high level of authority as belonged to the series of sessions which culminated and closed with the address to their Imperial Majesties. I shall select three of their actions, the restoration of ' They excuse themselves fcr entering on the subject of Constantinople's position. A. D. 400— 462 THEODORET'S APPEAL- 427 Theodoret, the acceptance of Maximus, and the twenty-eighth canon, as bearmg specially on the subject of this book. I. A great deal has been made of the case of Theodoret, as a supposed proof of the repudiation of Papal supremacy. It will be, therefore, well to state it somewhat fully.' He had been condemned by Dioscorus at the Bobber Synod for his sympathy with Nestorius. Thereupon he appealed to Eome. He wrote to Leo and said that ' if Paul, the herald of the truth, the trumpet of the Spirit, ran to the great Peter . . . much more do we, in our littleness, run to your Apostolic throne that from you we may receive healing for the wounds of the Church : for it is fitting that you should have the primacy in all things.' He then enumerates the advantages with which the Apostolic throne is adorned, viz. ' abundance of spiritual gifts as compared with others ; superabundant splendour ; the presidency over the whole world ; ^ abundance of subjects,^ present rule, and the communication of her name to her subjects ; supereminent faith, as in the days of the Apostles ; the tombs of the common Fathers and teachers of the truth, Peter and Paul, . . . who arose in the East but died in the West, and from that West now illuminate the whole world — these have made your throne most illustrious.' Then, after setting forth his condemnation at the Latrocinium (Bobber Synod) in his absence by Dioscorus, he adds, ' But I await the sentence of your apostolic throne.' He desires to know whether he is to acquiesce in this unjust deposition or not. ' For I await ' (he repeats) ' your sentence, and if you should command me to acquiesce in the adverse decision, I acquiesce.' ^ Again he says to Leo : * I beseech and entreat your Holi- ness that your upright and just tribunal would assist me, ' Canon Bright writes (Ch. Hist. p. 417, third edition) about St. Leo : ' His judgments, whether as to an individual or as to a doctrine, were first reviewed and then confirmed,' as a proof of the supposed difference between his position and that of the Holy See amongst ourselves now. The ' individual ' is Theo- doret. We have seen that his doctrine was not ' reviewed and confirmed ' as by a superior court. ^ rfis oiKov/jifpTis TrpoKaQ-^fxivt}. Cf. St. Ignatius' irpoKiidriTat ttjj ayd-rrris, presi- dent of the [covenant of] love — said of Eome. ' olKr}T6puy, lit. inhabitants. ' eVi/ieVw (Theod. Ep. cxiii.). 428 TO ROALE. A.D. 400 who am appealing to it, and would bid me come to you and show that my teaching treads in the footsteps of the Apostles.' ^ To Kenatus, a priest of the Chm-ch of Eome, employed as legate to Ephesus,^ he writes : ' Concerning this case, I beseech your Holiness that you would persuade the most holy and blessed archbishop to use his apostolic authority and bid me fly to your council ' ^ — that is, the council which the Pope invariably used in the determination of greater causes. Theodoret adds words which are omitted by Quesnel, who, in defiance of the context, endeavoured to show that it was not to the authority of the Pope himself that Theodoret appealed — words which even if the preceding quo- tations were to be forgotten would be sufficient to show that it was the exercise of the authority of the Holy See that he was invoking, viz. : ' For that most holy See has the sove- reignty over the Churches which are in the whole world on many counts ; and before all these, in that it has remained free from the stain of heresy, and none has ever sat in it with thoughts contrary [to the faith] ; it has kept the Apo- stolic grace whole and uncorrupt.' He then expresses his readiness to acquiesce in its judgment, whatever it may be. It is clear from this that it was not the judgment of the synod at Eome in itself that he sought, but the judgment of the Sovereign Pontiff, expressed, as it was wont to be, in synod. The synod was the apparatus, the machinery, the setting of the Papal judgment. The bishops of this synod could not be considered infallible as compared with other synods, except by reason of their relationship to the Hol}^ See. It was the infallibility of this latter on which he distinctly placed reliance. At the same time he wrote to Constantinople to Arch- bishop Anatolius, to induce him to persuade the emperor to allow him (since a bisho}) could not move without imperial leave and the assistance of the imperial purse) * ' to go to the ' Ep. xcii. c. 5. * He was probably dead when Theodoret wrote to him. But Theodoret was insufficiently informed, according to Tillemont. ^ E^). cxvi. ' Through orders to the civil oflicials- as we should say, by free passes. —452 ROME ABSOLVED HIM, 429 West and be judged by those bishops most beloved of God.' Theodoret was not simpleton enough to ask the emperor's leave for anything that contravened the laws of the Church as understood in the East ; and yet he did ask the Bishop of Constantinople to get him leave to have his case tried at Eome. From which we may justly conclude that the trans- ference of the case of a Greek bishop to Eome was not con- sidered by either the Bishop of Constantinople or the emperor to be in contravention of the laws of the Church. It M^as not here the case of anything claimed by the Pope, but a glimpse of how Greek bishops understood the matter amongst them- selves. These Western bishops, ' most beloved of God,' could possess no rights over an Eastern bishop, except as being the council of the sovereign ruler of the Church, as Theodoret had called the Eoman Pontiff. But as the custom was ever to exercise the Pontifical authority by means of a council, it was all one to appeal to the Episcopal Council at Eome or to the Bishop of Eome himself. Theodoret's expressions con- cerning the latter necessitate this conclusion so far as his own judgment was concerned, and his letter to Anatolius gives his estimate of what the Bishop of Constantinople deemed a proper course for justice to take. It would, indeed, be diffi- cult to express in clearer terms the teaching of the Vatican Council concerning the relationship of the Holy See to the rest of the Church than has been done by Theodoret. Accord- ing to him that See is the Holy See, the Apostolic throne, the sovereign ruler of the Church throughout the world, and the one pure, true channel of the Church's faith. It seems that the writings which Theodoret promised to send to Eome for inspection and judgment did not reach Leo until after the legates had left for Chalcedon ; but on re- ceivmg them St. Leo at once passed sentence in Theodoret's favour. He was worthy to be restored to his see. Both St. Leo' and the commissioners^ speak of the Papal 'judg- ment.' So that there can be no doubt that St. Leo passed actual sentence on Theodoret's individual case, and it follows that it was a regular appeal on the part of Theodoret. We may assume, indeed, that there was a careful examination of ' Ep. cxx. 5. * Actio viii. 430 LEAVING THE EXECUTION a.d. 400 the case at Eome, considering the caution invariably exercised by this great Pontiff in admitting anyone to communion, who had been suspected of heresy. And Theodoret had been in active sympathy with Nestorius, but had detached himself from that heretic when the reconciliation took place between St. Cyril and John of Antioch. It is, therefore, in the highest degree improbable that St. Leo would pass judgment without careful and, presumably, conciliar examination of his present teaching. He had probably signed the dogmatic epistle to Flavian, or offered to sign it. When, therefore, Theodoret came to Chalcedon, he was in the position of a man whose rights were secured by the Papal judgment, and who was entitled to act as bishop. The council, however, was called for the special purpose, amongst other things, of restoring the bishops who had been deposed in the Latrocinium (Robber Synod) ; ' and St. Leo had commissioned it to act in the matter of such restoration.'^ Consequently it would seem that St. Leo wrote at once to the legates to say that he received Theodoret to communion and restored him to his see, so far as the right was concerned, although the complete execution of his sentence invohing the actual resti- tution to this see would naturally remain in the hands of the synod, having been already devolved upon them by Leo him- self. When, therefore, the council opened its proceedings and Eusebius of Dorylaeum had preferred the accusation against Diodorus, Theodoret was told by the imperial commissioners to enter ; but the Eutychian sympathisers amongst the bishops were indignant at his restoration. They were certain that Leo had been overreached ; and considering Theodoret's antecedents (his opposition to Cyril) it is not surprising that they should think this. For it was a matter in which, on the principles of the Vatican decrees, Leo might have been de- ceived. And the Eutychians, long years after this, maintained that Theodoret was insincere, and that St. Leo had been over- reached. They ought, however, on any but the Papal theory of government, to have said that it made no difference whether he was deceived or not ; for what right had the ' Ep. Ixxvii' - Ep. xciii. c. 3. —452 OF ITS SENTENCE TO THE SYNOD. 431 Bishop of Kome to restore a Greek bishop to his see at all ? But this was not their contention ; they neither blamed Theodoret for appealing to Kome, nor Eome for hearing his case. They simply objected that Theodoret had not placed his case honestly before the Bishop of Rome.^ And in like manner, at Chalcedon, they demurred to the synodical ac- ceptance of Theodoret as bishop, and clamoured for his extrusion. The imperial commissioners, however, and the synod, decided that Theodoret's restoration by St. Leo must stand good so far as this, that he was to act as bishop, whilst any charge they had to prefer against him should be investigated later on. He was, I say, to act as bishop, for he was allowed to take his place as accuser, and was accepted as such by the whole council on the ground that he had been restored, or rather his deposition declared null and void, by the judgment of Leo. According to the arrangement of the Council of Constantinople (382), a degraded bishop could not act as accuser of another bishop ; so that in admitting Theodoret as accuser of Dioscorus, the synod accepted the sentence of the Poj)e. And, in point of fact, he subsequently acted as fully bishop in the course of the council. When the Illja-ian bishops doubted about the meaning of some words in Leo's letter, Theodoret set them right, quoting from St. Cyril, on which the commissioners said : ' After this, who doubts "? ' and the bishops exclaimed, ' No one doubts ! ' ^ In the fourth act Theodoret gave his judgment on the Tome of Leo ; and in the sixth act he signed, saying, ' I, Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, defining have subscribed.' ^ And now, in the seventh session (the eighth act), the bishops proceeded to satisfy the demands of the lUyrian and other bishops that Theodoret should anathematise Nestorius. They had consented to sit with him in synod on the ground that Leo had pronounced his deposition null and void ; but they now — at least a certain portion of them — in deference to the clamours of the Egyptian bishops, desired that he should ' E.g. in the conference held before Justinian in 533. * Mansi, t. vii. p. 19. ' Ibid. t. vii. p. 146. 432 ROME'S SENTENCE EESPECTED. a.d. 400 assure the council that, whatever might have been his dispo- sitions or avowals when Leo pronounced sentence in his favour, he was prepared to do what every bishop might be called upon to do, i.e. anathematise Nestorius. In this they were perfectly within their rights. The Egyptian bishops had been put off during the synod with the promise that they should have satisfaction later on. Theodoret, after a little fencing, anathematised Nestorius by name, and immediately the bishops burst into an exclamation of tremendous force, saying, 'Leo has judged after' (i.e. in accordance with the mind of) ' God ! ' It was Leo's judgment, as I have said above. That the action of the bishops was in no way (on the principles of the Vatican decrees) an infringement of the authority of the Holy See, which Theodoret had invoked and described as presiding over the whole world, is certain from the following facts,' viz. that the legates took part in the matter and actually gave the decision — that the leader of the Tll}Tians was the Bishop of Thessaly, who entirely depended on Eome, being the Papal vicar in that region — and that Leo himself saw in the bishop's action no derogation of his authority,'^ and that in spite of the commissioners' attempt to soothe the Egyptians by saying Theodoret should not act as judge, he did, as a matter of fact, act as such though not in the case of Dioscorus which was the point of their objection. So that the matter may be fau'ly summarised thus, St. Leo had given the bishops the fullest authority to deal with the cases of the bishops who had been ' deposed ' at the Eobber Synod. He had declared Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, to be deserving of his bishopric, having certified to his orthodoxy. Accordingly, in spite of the clamom's of the Egyptian bishops, who had had to see their patriarch Dioscorus disgraced, and, en revanche, desired to make out that Theodoret had deceived St. Leo, he was allowed to act as judge in the matter of faith, though not in the deposition of their patriarch. When all was over, he was required to do what would satisfy the irri- tated Egyptian bishops, viz. anathematise Nestorius, and then, after saying, as it were, to these bishops, ' You see that Leo, as usual, was right,' they placed him in possession of his ' Cf. Natalis Alexander, Diss, dc Thcodordo. * Ep. xciii. ad Thcod. —452 MAXIMUS OF ANTIOCII 433 bishopric, their decision being expressed by the Papal legates. There was nothing in all this that placed the council above the Pope ; on the contrary, the admission of Theodoret to the council as judge in doctrine, though not in the case of Dios- corus, of whom nevertheless he was allowed to be an accuser, which was forbidden to a degraded bishop, was a signal instance of the deference which was felt to be due to the sentence of the Bishop of Piome on the case of an Eastern bishop, who had expressly appealed to that judgment. Another matter settled by the council concerned the See of Antioch, which had been occupied at the Robber Synod by a bishop named Domnus. There was something pathetic about this man's career. He was nephew to the celebrated John of Antioch, and ex- perienced a call to the solitary life. Fh-ed, however, with the idea of recalling his uncle from his sympathies with Nestorius, he left his cell, contrary to the advice of the Abbot Euthymius, who predicted the misfortune that actually befel him. At Antioch he won his way to the episcopal throne, succeeding his uncle as successor of Peter in that third see of Christendom. But his weakness led him to show the white feather at the Bobber Synod, and, cowed by Dioscorus, he consented to the restoration of Eutyches, and the condemnation of Flavian. But he reajDed a rich reward of his cowardice in being dej)osed by Dioscorus, to whom he had truckled, on the ground of supposed sympathy in the past with Nestorius, and of having condemned Cyril. The indulgence shown to the other leaders of the Robber Synod on their repentance was not extended to Domnus by St. Leo, who forbade his restoration to the See of Antioch. He ended his days in penitent retirement. Anatolius, in contravention of the Nicene Canons, ordained Maximus Bishop of Antioch in place of Domnus. And on the restoration at Chalcedon of the bishops who had lapsed at the Latrocinium, whilst other bishops were restored to their sees, Maximus was allowed to retain his intruded position on the sole ground that St. Leo had ordered that his ordination should hold good.^ A writer ^ who professes the greatest regard for the prero- ' Mansi, t. vii. p. 258. ^ Quesnel. F F 434 IRREGULARLY ORDAINED, a.d. 400 gatives of the Sovereign Pontiff, but takes every opportunity of undermining their historical basis, remarks on this treat- ment of Domnus and Maximus, that if only the Act in which their case occurs were genuine, we should have in our hands an unequivocal testimony to ' the supreme authority of the Pontiff both over synods and over the Oriental bishops — the bishops of the greater sees.' His arguments against the genuineness of the record of this session were dealt with in a Yevy satisfactory manner by Baluze, and in a still more trenchant way by Tillemont, who, in spite of his Gallican sympathies, pro- nounces Quesnel's array of arguments nothing less than imbecile. It was reserved, however, for the brothers Ballerini to set the matter at rest by means of a manuscript which Quesnel had not seen, and which is older even than Eusticus. Their refutation of Quesnel's ol)jections is complete. • The prerogative admitted, in this Act, as belonging to Leo, covers everything ever claimed by the Holy See in the way of jurisdiction. St. Leo dispensed with the irregularity^ of Maximus' ordination in contravention of the Nicene canons, doubtless because he had shown his fidelity to the true faith, whilst Domnus, after his cowardly conduct at the Latroci- nium, did not ask for reinstatement, but eventually ^ elected to retire to his original seclusion. Now the authoritative settlement on the part of the Bishop of Piome of the succession to that Oriental see, one of the three * first ' or ' greater ' sees, was, if anything ever was, an exercise of Papal supremacy ; and the acceptance of the settle- ment by these bishops assigning no other ground except that the settlement had been made by the Pope, amounts to a demonstration that, in the minds of the Eastern bishops of that time, the government of the Church was strictly and properly Papal. Bat further, the acceptance of the Papal decision concern- ing the Antiochene succession occurred in the midst of a ' See an excellent summary of Baluzc's proofs of the genuineness of the Act in Migne's Leo the Great, vol. ii. pp. 1209-75. The Ballerini afterwards clenched the matter by the Latin copy of an older Greek MS. alluded to in the text. 2 For the sequence of events, see Migne's Leonis 0pp. ed. Bailer, t. ii. p. 726. —452 BUT CONDONED BY LEO, 435 session which was deaHng with the case of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa.^ It was proposed that the minutes of the Eobber Synod should be read. To this the Papal legates objected on the ground that the acts of that synod had been rendered null and void by 'the Apostolic Bishop of the city of Eome.' The Bishop of Constantinople (Anatolius) at once rose and said that he agreed that all that was done at that ill-fated synod was invalid, excepting only what was done in the matter of Maximus, Bishop of Antioch ; and he gave as his reason for saying so, that the most holy Archbishop of Kome had received Maximus into communion, and had ' decided that he should preside over the Church of the Antiocheans.' ^ To this the rest of the bishops agreed. So that the invalidity of the Robber Synod was assigned by these Eastern bishops simply and solely to the decision of the Bishop of Rome ; and the single exception made to the general invaliditv of its proceedings was one that the Pope had ordered, and its validity was attributed by these bishops to the Papal decision. But whilst the Pope gave his sanction to Maximus' ordina- tion to the See of Antioch, he refused it to the following com- pact now entered into by that bishop in regard to some provinces of his patriarchate. Juvenal of Jerusalem had long set his heart upon the ex- tension of his jurisdiction. He had succeeded in so completely gaining the ear of the emperor, Theodosius II., that he had been allowed to count in his rule the provinces of Phoenicia, and also of Arabia, and the three provinces of Palestine, which properly belonged to Antioch. St. Cyril had done his utmost to oppose this iniquitous proceeding, and appealed to the Pope, entreating him with earnest prayer (' sollicita prece ') ^ to give no ground for such ' illicit attempts.' But Juvenal gained his case with the secular power by means of forged documents. The quarrel over this lust of jurisdiction had gone on until ' The history of Ibas does not come within the scope of this book, but belongs rather to that of the fifth council. - fipxeic T7JS ^Ai'Tioxeaiv iKKArjcrias iSi.KaioKTfi' (Mansi, t. vii. p. 258). ^ Leonis Ep. cxix. ad Maximum. F F 2 436 AND WARNED BY HIM. a.d. 400—452 the time of the council, when Maximus acquiesced in a com- promise, by which Antioch was to be shorn of the three pro- vinces of Palestine, and Juvenal was to give up all claim to the Phoenicians and Arabians. But Maximus consented to this arrangement only ' if it was approved by our venerable Father, the Archbishop of Greater Piome.' ' Leo, however, withheld his sanction, and desired the Bishop of Antioch to keep him well informed as to what went on, reminding him that there must be some better reason for his allowing Antioch and Jerusalem to break the Nicene settlement than had been adduced.^ He also informed him that the assent of his legates was necessarily provisional on matters on which they had no definite directions h'om himself. But the Pope did not, at least in tha,t letter, absolutely and finally decide the matter. He only withdrew his sanction, and urged upon Maximus that he should ' share with the Apostolic See in this anxious matter,' and recognise the privileges of the * third see ' of Christendom.^ ' Cf. MS. of Actio, edited by the Ballerini. The expression ' Greater Eome ' is due to the account being from a Greek source. " Ep. cxix. ad Maximum. => Tlie writer in the Diet, of Clir. Biogr. (vol. iii. p. 881) has completely mis- understood this phrase. He speaks of Leo exhorting Maximus, ' as a sharer in an Apostolical See,' to maintain the doctrine, &c. St. Leo says : ' Dignum est enim te Apostolicas sedis in hac soUicitudine esse consortem et . . . privilegia tertire sedis agnoscere.' CHAPTEE XXVI. THE BYZANTINE PLOT. It had been well for the Church if the council had now dis- persed. But it was not to be. The bishops who remained now engaged in a project which had long agitated the minds of a few leading spirits. For more than eighty years Constantinople had nursed a thought which was destined to change the course of eccle- siastical history, and plunge her into a permanent schism. Photius, who consummated the schism between the East and West in the ninth century, claimed for the Bishop of Constanti- nople the title and position of * Universal Bishop,' The Bishop of Piome had been such, according to his theory, until the capital of the empire passed from Kome to Byzantium. But the position of universal bishop was based, according to Pho- tius, on the secular grandeur of the city ; so that when Con- stantino left Eome it was only a matter of time for Byzantium to succeed to the honours of the original capital. The difference between this theory and that which ob- tained in the fifth century involved the whole question of the property attributed to the Church in the Nicene Creed under the title * Apostolic' Under that title, in the mind of the early Church, was included the government of the Church by the Apostles and their successors ; understanding by ' the Apostles,' as the primitive Church did, a body of men who were asso- ciated together by our Lord under a visible head. ' It has been known to all ages,' so it was said at Ephesus, * and it is doubtful to none, that the blessed Apostle Peter, the Prince and head of the Apostles, the rock and foundation of the Catholic Church, received from our Saviour the keys of the Kmgdom.' And the see of that Apostle, consecrated by the 438 THE AMBITIOX a.d. 400 blood of the two Apostles, himself and St. Paul, became, in the words of St. Irenseiis and St. Cyprian, the principal or ruling Church, that which, according to St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the second century, 'presided over the [covenant of] love,' and in which, according to St. Augustine, ' the principalship had ever been in force,' and was designated in the terminology of the whole Church, East and West, in the fifth century, * the Apostohc See.' The chasm between the teaching of the schismatic Bishop of Constantinople, Photius, in the ninth century, and his predecessor in the see in the fifth century at Chalcedon, is exactly expressed m the words of the latter when he said to Leo * The see of Constantinople has for its parent your own Apostohc See, having, specially joined itself thereunto.' ' But although Anatolius thus expressed the true relation between Piome and Constantinople, his action at Chalcedon prepared the way for the unhappy schism into which the East eventually plunged, under the guidance of the miserable Photius, with his claim to be ' universal bishop.' The term ' universal bishop ' is one which might be properly used to express the relation of the Apostohc See to the rest of the Church, but even so it needed a certain care lest it should be thought to mean that other bishops were but legates or vice- bishops of the one universal bishop. In fear of this meaning being attoched to the term, St. Gregory repudiated it. It was, however, freely used at the Council of Chalcedon. And there is no fear of any Catholic nowadays giving it such an un- orthodox interpretation as St. Gregory detected in John's use of the term, and so there is no ground for refusmg it to the occupant of the See of Eome. But on the lips of a bishop of Constantinople it necessarily implied a heresy, for it also implied the idea that the government of the Church was not apostohc but Erastian. The earthly emperor, according to this theory, by moving his capital, moved the centre of the Church's unity. So Photius argued. Neither he nor bis pre- decessors were really prepared to carry out their theory to its logical issue, for, as a Sovereign Pontiff asked of his pre- decessors, were they prepared to call Eavenna, or Gangra, or ' ' Anatolius ad Leonem ' (Ej). ci.). — 4o2 OF CONSTANTINOPLE 439 Sirmium, the centre of the Church's government when the emperor made these, as he did, the centre of his rule ? The attack on the original constitution of the Church, which culminated, under favourable political circumstances, in the schismatic action of the East under Photius, was com- menced in fact at the Council of Constantinople. There the bishops assembled under Nectarius had decreed a certain precedency of honour to the * New Rome,' as Byzantine pride delighted to call the city of Constantine. But they had not so much as ventured to send their canon to the West. It w^as a purely local arrangement, not sanctioned even by the rest of the East.' But it was continually being acted upon, and the titular precedency presently grew into a very real jurisdiction. Constantinople, being the centre of political and commercial interests, continually saw bishops from various parts staying in her midst, and convenience led to the custom of settling many an ecclesiastical dispute in meetings - composed of the Bishop of Constantinople and those bishops who happened to be in the imperial city. It came also to be sometimes a matter of convenience and sometimes a matter of secular advantage for bishops to be consecrated at Constantinople. And what began as an occasional practice attained in course of time to the rank of a regular custom, attended, as such customs usually are, with pecuniary ad- vantages to the see that thus became an increasing centre, ^ The lust of power, so infectious in an imperial centre, and sometimes a certain immediate disciplinary gain to the Church, had thus led to claims in the way of jurisdiction which found no countenance even in the third canon of the Council of Constantinople. Large provinces of the Church in the East had come under the practical jurisdiction of the Bishop of Constantinople, though not without struggles and alternations of submission and resistance. Had Constantinople remained satisfied even with this, her ' Mr. Gore says (Diet, of Chr. Biog., art. 'Leo,' p. 6G3) that ' Leo's state- ment that this canon had never taken effect is entirely untrue.' What St. Leo said was that the canon was null and void so far as the sanction of the West ■was concerned, and this was strictly true. ^ Called the (tvvoSjs ivSrifnovaa. ■' Cf. Cone. Cluilced. Act xvi. 440 LED HER TO SEIZE a.d. 400 relations to the autonomous eparcliies of Asia Minor and Pontus and Thrace might have been capable of adjustment. But she was contmually being brought into contact Avith the * greater sees,' as they were called, of Alexandria and Antioch. And their position of recognised superiority stood in the way of that programme of universal domination in the East which was now looming before her mind. She had made an enormous stride in the third canon of the Council of Constantinople. By the arrangement there proposed she took honorar}^ pre- cedence of Alexandria and Antioch. But this canon, havmg received no ecclesiastical sanction, had done no more than keep before the minds of the Eastern bishops her ideal of Church government. It must not, howGver, be supposed that that ideal as at present conceived included any real equality of jurisdiction with Eome herself. Constantinople wished to be in the East what Rome was as patriarch of the West. Tlarpiapxias KXrjpovaOs was St. Gregory of Nazianzus' condemnation of the East. The relation of Piome to the whole Church as the See of St. Peter — as in a pecuhar and inalienable sense, the Apostolic See — was too firmly rooted in the mind of the Christian world for any idea of subverting that to enter as yet into even Byzantine schemes of exaltation ; that was an after-thought. To be the Patriarch of the East over Alex- andria and over Antioch was the summit of Constantinople's present ambition. And, as we shall see, Constantinople did not dream of the possibility of really securing this object of her ambition, except until the permission of Home, as represent- ing the blessed Ajyostle Peter} Now, Constantinople had met with more than one serious rebuff at the Council of Chalcedon. In discussing the com- plaint of Photius of Tyre a matter had come before the Fathers which touched the influence of Constantinople in her most sensitive part. The question had arisen whether the meetmgs of the Bishop of Constantinople and the other bishops resi- dent or sojourning in the city could be called a synod, and the bishops at Chalcedon had refused to say that they could. ' Letter of the bishops to Leo. —452 THE FAVOURABLE OPPOETUNIT^ 441 This was throwing a serious sHght on Constantinople's method of action at its very core. Again, the bishops of Asia had desired that the bishops of Ephesus should not be ordained at Constantinople, and the council had refused to support Constantinople in this her growing custom. Once more, the bishops had refused to give a definite sanc- tion to Constantinople's custom of ordaining a bishop for Basilinopolis. The time had therefore come for Constantinople to make one desperate effort to gain a quasi- synodical sanction for the position which she claimed as second only to Eome. Every- thing favoured her ambitious project. The bishops had left Chalcedon by the hundred, and amongst those that were left there was not one that might not be counted on for either assent or silence. Of the two ' greater sees ' Alexandria was vacant, and Antioch was occupied by a partisan of Anatolius, who owed to him his irregular elevation, which had been pardoned by Eome only (as Leo said) ' for the sake of peace.' ' Constantinople, therefore, had nothing to fear from these. She only needed a lack of scrupulous fairness on her own part to enable her to press the matter to a successful issue under these favourable circumstances. But further, she could count upon at least the silence of another leading prelate, viz. Juvenal of Jerusalem, who had himself just gained the object of his ambition for the last twenty years in the compromise by which he had wrested three provinces from Antioch. He at any rate was not in a position to complain of any illicit stretch of jurisdiction on the part of another. And Juvenal and Anatolius had a further bond in that both had come under the influence of Dioscorus and coquetted with Euty- chianism. Then the Bishop of Heraclea, the Primate of Thrace, was absent, and he was very closely concerned in the project that Constantinople had before her of extending her actual jurisdiction as well as securing the semblance of syn- odical sanction for titular precedence. This primate was represented by Lucian, who was so friendly to Anatolius that ' ' Studio pacis.' 442 FOR SHELTEETXG HER PROJECTS a.d. 400 lie was sent by him to Eome on this very matter. Ephesus, again, of supreme importance, as one of the exarchies to be robbed of its autonomy, was vacant, Bassian and Stephen having been deposed. Thalassius of Caesarea was there, but did not subscribe. The Illyrians were not there, not even Thessalonia, neither was Ancyra, Corinth, Nicomedia, Cos, or Iconium, all of them important centres. In fact, the httle knot of bishops whom Constantinople gathered round herself by various means could not by any stretch of language be called a representative ecclesiastical body. Moreover they had no leave from Eome to discuss the question now forced upon the bishops by Constantinople ; it was no part of the council's programme. It was simply a plot against the Church's order, with hardly a name that would command the confidence of the Church except Eusebius of Dorylaeum. The imperial commissioners were asked to assist at the session, but they refused. The legates also withdrew. There was not a single Western bishop present. But these ' astute ' Orientals, as the African bishop Facundus called them, drew up a canon which flung the Nicene settlement as to prece- dence to the winds, and assigned, on the one hand, the first place in the Ea.st to Constantinople, and on the other hand gave her jurisdiction over Asia Minor, Thrace, and Pontus. Their metropolitans were to be deprived of their position as left to them by the Nicene Fathers, and Constantinople was to be not only New Eome in the civil order, but in the eccle- siastical hierarchy she was to stand second to Eome in point of titular precedence, and at the same time to receive an enormous extension of her jurisdiction in the East. She had hoped and tried to gain the confirmation and ordination of the provincial bishops as well as of the metropolitans, but owing to the opposition of some metropolitans she failed in this part of her project. On the following day the Papal legates demanded an explanation of what had been done in their absence. They had absented themselves on the technical ground that after the definition of faith had been drawn up, and the matter of the lapsed bishops dealt with, their commission ended. But it turned out that they had also received orders from Eome — 4o2 UNDER A CANON 443 to oppose any attempt at altering the relations of bishops on the ground of the civil status of their sees. Leo was already well aware of the ambitious projects of Constantinople. Aetius, the archdeacon, now did his best to purge the action of the bishops of its irregularity. He said that it must be owned that the matters of faith had been decided in a fitting way, but pleaded that it was customary to take in hand other necessary matters ; that they had asked the legates to be present, but without success, and that they had received the permission of the imperial commissioners to proceed with the business. The legates, however, maintained, and were probably justified in maintaming, that the bishops had signed in fear ; that the proposed canon contravened the Nicene settlement ; that it was professedly grounded on canons which had not been enrolled amongst those of the Church ; ' and, lastly, that if they had been benefiting by the said canon up till now, what need of anything further ? — and if they had not, why do they now apply for sanction for that which is an infringement of the canons ? — reasoning which was unanswerable. In consequence of this mention of the canons, the com- missioners requested that each side should read the canons on which they relied. The legates accordingly read the sixth canon of Nictea, in which Alexandria and Antioch, and not Constantinople, come after Eome. Aetius is then supposed to have read first a slightly different version of the same canon, and then the third of Constantinople. But this is in the highest degree improbable, since his supposed reading of that version makes nothing for the point at issue. The rise of Constantinople took place after the Council of Nicaea ; no one pretends, or pretended, that the Nicene canons in any way assisted Constantinople in its present aims. It was then an inferior see, and left so by the Nicene Fathers. It was on the third canon of Constantinople that these bishops took their stand, as their resolution in the previous session shows. The Nicene canon was their difficulty. Indeed, in one of the oldest versions of the Acts of Chalcedon that we possess, this ' ' Non ccuscripti .' 444 WmCH CONTEAVENED a.d. 400 recitation of the sixth canon by Aetius does not appear.' There are also other indications that the text has been tampered with here ; for between the supposed recitation of the sixth canon and that of the third of Constantinople occurs the statement that ' the same secretary read from the same codex the synodicon of the second S3Tiod,' which Mansi rightly transfers to the margin, as an impossible statement to have occurred in the original. The Council of Constantinople was not called ' the second synod ' until after the Council of Chalcedon had placed it in that rank. The expression, there- fore, belongs to a later period than the original of the Council of Chalcedon. Accordingly, Eusticus, who had before him very early manuscripts, omits this expression, although the sixth canon appears in his manuscript. The insertion, there- fore, had been made before his time, doubtless, as has been suggested above, by a Greek scribe, who, seeing a Greek version of the sixth canon in the margin, put it into the text, and some after copyist inserted the remark about the second synod. Dr. Bright refers to the expression ' cecumenical,' used by the council of 382 of the council of 381 ; - but this could at that date onl}'- mean that it was a council of all the East, and it is certain that it had not yet been reckoned by the Church in general as the second synod. It would have been a simple impertinence to call it the second synod before it had received such a designation from the whole Church. Hefele seems to have misunderstood the Ballerini's argument, in urging that it was at Chalcedon that the Council of Con- stantinople took its place as second in the general councils. This is, of course, true ; but the original of this Act could hardly have started the phrase.^ What, however, is of greater importance is the conclusion which the imperial commissioners now drew from the whole discussion. The legates had quoted the sixth Xicene canon, ' The Codex Julianus, now called Parisiensis. Baluze first noticed this, and has been followed by the Ballerini. ^ Notes on the Canons, dx., 1892, p. 228. The reader must not suppose that the reference to Theodoret which Dr. Bright gives contains any expression of that writer in favour of his ojjinion ; it only contains the letter of the council of 382. ■' Ballerini, De Antiq. Collect. Canonum, Part I. cap. vi. 8. —452 THE NICENE SETTLEMENT. 445 beginning ' Eome has always held the primacy,' and had read onwards about Alexandria and Antioch. The Archdeacon of Constantinople had read the third Canon of Constantinople. Several of the bishops had taken the side of Constantinople, and expressed their perfect willingness to subordinate their sees to that of the imperial city; Eusebius of Ancyra, however, whilst he proclaimed his willingness to do the same, protesting against the pecuniary exactions with which this subordination had been accompanied. The commissioners decided that two things were plain from the Acts and depositions — first, that the primacy (TrpcoTsia — the very word used in the sixth Nicene canon, as cited by the Papal legate) belonged to Old Rome. About this there had been no question, and it is obvious that the imperial commissioners could decide nothing about that. But, secondly, they decided that New Rome ought to have — not a primacy such as Rome had, which the whole history of the council proves to have involved jurisdiction in the minds of all the bishops — but the same honorary privileges, as Rome, besides her primacy, and as a consequence of it, also possessed. Rome, they had said, possessed two things — honorary pre- cedence and primacy ; Constantinople ought to possess in the East that honorary precedence which Rome possessed over the whole Church.' Thus Constantinople laid the foundation of her desired patriarchate over the East, and sui^plied the premiss from which Photius was one day to draw the conclusion in claiming universal jurisdiction. It is difficult to understand how Mr. Gore could mana^^e to see ' Rome's self-assertion ' at the bottom of all this. Canon Bright also reproduces with approval the sentence in which 'My. Gore makes the strange statement, that it is ' more than probable [sic] that the self-assertion of Rome excited the jealousy of the East, and thus Eastern bishops secretly ' TTpi) TrdfTOiiv fifu TO. TTpicTs'ia Kal T7;z' i^aipeTov nixijv Kara rohs Kav6vas rw t^s irpefffivTiSo^ 'PcojUTjs 6eo(pi\i(TTdTCj) apxteTri Cf. infra, p. 459. G G CHAPTEE XXVII. THE easterns' RECOGNITION OF PAPAL SUPREMACY. No one will deny the incomparable importance of the letter which was now addressed to Leo by the remnant of the synod concerning their new proposal. The twenty-eighth Canon of Chalcedon is really the sheet-anchor of the Anglican position. Eelying as that position does on the first four general councils, it is maintained that the judgment of the Council of Chalcedon, supposed to be expressed in this canon, is sufficient to esta- blish the theory that the primacy of the Bishop of Eome was considered in the East to be due, not to his relation to St. Peter, but to the imperial position of the city of Eome. The belief in any real relationship to St. Peter postulates a divine origin for the primacy of the Bishop of Eome, for it involves the belief that our Lord included that primacy in His words to the Apostle.' And if the primacy be in any sense divine, it is indispensable. No amount of misconduct on the part of its representatives can justify us in altering the lines laid down by our Divine Lord Himself. But this twenty-eighth canon proves, so it is confidently asserted, that the Bishop of Eome only held a certain primacy by reason of his being Bishop of the Imperial City. He was, so it is said, only jirimus inter pares. Constantinople (it is urged) was placed by this canon in the second position on a principle which proves that Eome's primacy was one of mere presidency, of honour * without definite powers ' — in a word that the Bishop of Eome was only the * First Patriarch.' Now it is important to remember that the Bishop of Eome ' Cf. Lanfranc's argument at the Council of Windsor, which assumed that the commission to Peter incUuled his successors— an assumption accepted on both sides, i.e. by the whole English Church. 400—452 THE TERMS USED BY THE BISHOPS 451 was the first patriarch, and this canon recognises him as such. There is no dispute about this. Leo XIII. is to-day not only Bishop of Eome, but Patriarch of the West. The fault of the so-called twenty-eighth canon, therefore, did not lie in its re- cognition of Eome's patriarchal position ; its mistake lay in attributing even that position purely to her connection with the imperial city, whereas the matter really stood thus : — St. Peter selected Eome, and Eome was the capital of the empire. His successors reaped the fruit of his wise choice, and utilised, as they were meant to do, the advantages of a natural centre. Ecclesiastical Eome was able to be what she was because she was the See of Peter ; she was also able to do her work at first as she did because her influence radiated from the me- tropolis of the empire. Her patriarchal sway was subordinate to her apostolical jurisdiction ; but it was a reality. It is difficult to draw the line between the apostolical and patri- archal elements of her position, for the latter is necessarily overshadowed, and coloured, and informed by the former ; but her relationship to Peter, the prince and head of the Apostles, is clear, and occupied an unmistakable place in the thoughts of the bishops at Chalcedon. It was expressed em- l)hatically and in the most precise terms by the comparatively few bishops who passed this canon in favour of Constanti- nople. The terms which they use in their letter to Leo can- not, without doing violence to the laws which govern men's minds, be attributed simply to flattery or general Eastern courtesy. This, which is the favourite Anglican explanation of these bishops' statements, is excluded by the circumstances which produced the letter.' The bishops were, it is true, concerned to flatter St. Leo, if possible ; they wanted to gain something from him. But what they wanted to gain was of that nature that the parti- cular terms used by them were the last in the world that they would have dreamt of addressing to him at this juncture, merely with a view to flatter, even if they supposed that Leo was the man to be seduced by honeyed words in a matter of such supreme importance. Consider the circumstances under which they wrote. Leo had shown himself above all things ' Leonis Ep. xcviii. G G 2 452 UNNATURAL UNLESS THEY BELIEVED a.d. 400 zealous for the canons of the Church. It was this trait which the Emperor Marcian singled out for praise m his encomium of the Pontiff during this whole transaction. And the bishops at Chalcedon who passed the twenty-eighth canon were, as the African bishop Facundus described them in the next century, * astute as serpents.' Is it to be supposed that these astute bishops would give away their case by telling St. Leo that he was in precisely that position which their canon, according to the Anglican interpretation, was concerned to deny or ignore ? If they admitted that St. Leo was their 'head,' they were admitting that their position next after him was secondary in the sense of subordinate, and that their canon was valueless without his sanction. If they asserted that St. Leo was the instrument whereby the teaching of the Prince of the Apostles was made known to them, they were giving away the whole position which Anglicans consider essential to their own security. Complimentary terms which expressed, in plain Greek and Latin, a truth which Leo had all along maintained and acted upon, cease to be complimentary in the ordinary sense of the term ; they denote the acceptance of the position. Now the bishops did tell St. Leo that ' he was their head, and they but members.' What could be their idea in using, by way of compliment, such an expression as that ? Did they suppose that Leo would not take them at their word and treat them as members and act as their head ? Then, again, they did tell St. Leo that he was their * leader ' in the council, through his legates. They used the very word which our Lord used to His Apostles when He told them that there should be a leader amongst them, and that their leader should be as He Himself was in their midst — ' Even as I am amongst you ' — not lording it over them, but teaching, guiding, governing. Did they suppose that Leo would smile at the term and take no advantage of it ? Again, they did tell St. Leo that he had been to them 'the interpreter of the voice of Peter.' It was, on the Anglican supposition, exactly the wrong occasion to say that. They were not Eastern heathens addressing heathen rajahs, or Hindu suppliants before their conquerors. They were Chris- tian bishops — not, it is true, the best specimens ; but still, all —452 IN PAPAL SUPREMACY. 453 Eastern as they were, they had not lost all Christian sense of truth in spite of their Eastern cunning. On the other hand, they knew that it was the teaching of Leo that he was the successor of Peter, and as such the ruler of the Christian Church. And they were not so utterly devoid of all sense of truth, and of ordinary common sense, as to suppose that in putting such a weapon into Leo's hand as their own recogni- tion of his position as successor of Peter, they would advance the cause of Constantinople. Whereas if the Christian world held that Leo was their head, their language was natural, for then they lost nothing by saying so. Again they did tell St, Leo that * the vineyard had been entrusted to him by the Saviour,' in a way which implied that he stood in a different relation to that vineyard from the rest of the bishops. And they did tell him that he was the ' father ' of Constantinople, and trusted that he would ' extend his wonted care over that part of the vineyard.' In fact they as much as said there is no such thing as an independent national Church. Although we are the East, and under one emperor, and you are in the West and under another, still you have responsibilities towards the East, and a paternal relation to it, and you acted as our ruler in the council, and were the interpreter to us of the Prince of the Apostles, and we apply to you for that sanction without which our canon can never be the voice of the Catholic Church. This was what they said. Indeed, they said more than this ; for they told St. Leo that their own delivery of the truth to the children of the Church was but as the flowing forth of a stream from him as its apostolic source. ' Thou wast constituted the interpreter of the voice of blessed Peter to us all, and didst bring to all the blessing of his faith. Whence ire also show the inheri- tance of truth to the children of the Church.' ' And hence unity of teaching is secured through what they distinctly state as the mediatorial position of their head. Of Eutyches, who, be it remembered, was deposed by the Synod of Constantinople, the Acts of which were sent to Leo, ' ' Unde et nos . . . ecclesiae filiis hsereditatem sortemque veritatis ostendi- mus ' (Leo7i. Ep. xcviii. c. ]). 454 TIIEY BEAR THE MARKS a.d. 400 these bishops say that * his dignity was taken away by your Holmess ' — which is the result arrived at above from a con- sideration of the facts. (Cap. 2.) And of Dioscorus they say that he meditated an excom- munication 'against thee, when thou wast all eager to unite the Church,' and * he repudiated the letter of your Holiness.' They speak also of being eager to ' confirm ' the mercy of the Saviour towards him (which was what Leo had desired them to do) — not as if 'confirming' necessarily implies the action of a superior court, but in obedience to theii' Saviour's words. (Cap. 3.) They speak of the actual help derived from St. Euphemia — ' God was with us and Euphemia was with us '—on whose altar we know they placed their definition. And then they ask that Leo will 'accept and confirm' their canon. When they mention the legates' opposition to their canon, they profess to ascribe that ojDposition to the idea in the legates' mmds that everything ought to originate with his Holhiess, * so that even as the right settlement of the faith is set down to your account, so also should that of good discipline.' They in fact acknowledge that the matter of faith was settled by Leo, but they thought that they might initiate a matter of discipline, which they had now brought before his Holiness for his acceptance and confirmation. ' Therefore, we entreat thee, honour the decision with your favourable judgment, and as we have introduced harmony with the head in the things that are excellent, so the head would supply to the children that which is becoming.' They have (they say) sent the Acts to Leo, and they expressly state that ' the force of all ' rests with his confirma- tion and ordering. Now these are, many of them, positive statements of doctrine. Is sentence after sentence to be dismissed as mere compliment? Could anything but the exigencies of con- troversy have led Dr. Bright and Mr. Gore to disregard all these definite statements on the part of the bishops on the ground that they were mere compliments ? —452 OF BEING SERIOUS. 455 If they were ' compliments,' they were those of men who found themselves compelled to couch theu' compliments in terms which, if they wished to be independent of Eome, cut the ground from under their feet, sentence after sentence. They are not in the place in which compliments would come, nor are they of the nature of honorific expletives. They form the substance of the letter. If insincerely used, they testify to the necessity under which these bishops found themselves, of crouching at the feet of a master in order to gain the object of their desires. If used in sincerity, they are the testimony of witnesses, naturally the most unwilling, to the position of headship which the East recognised in the occupant of the See of Peter. We cannot claim for them the authority of the council, for these men were not the council ; but we are compelled to see in these terms the strongest possible evidence that the idea of the connection between Eome and St. Peter, and of such a consequent * headship ' of Eome over Constan- tinople that the latter could not arrange its own relations with other sees in the East without the acquiescence of Eome — we are compelled, I say, to acknowledge that this was so deeply rooted in the mind of the Eastern Church that it was simply useless to ignore it, and that the only thing to be done was to admit it plamly and to win the adhesion of Eome to their projected canon. But side by side with this letter of the bishops is another written by Anatolius himself, not less emphatic in its wit- ness to the Constantinopolitan conviction as to the Pope's supremacy. Anatolius speaks of the bishops at Chalcedon having confirmed ' the faith of the blessed and venerable Fathers ' of Nicaea, ' and also your Holiness' letter agreeing with them ' — showing that the attitude of the synod towards the Tome was the same as towards the Nicene faith, and that their confirmation of it was an acceptance of an authoritative statement. He then says that Bishop Lucentius is bringing the Acts of the synod, since ' it was a matter of necessity that all things should be brought to the cognisance of your Holi- ness.' ' But beside these things, since some matters were trans- ' e5€J &iravTa avayKaiws. Leon. Ep. ci. cap. 1. 456 THE TRUE IDEA OF THE COUNCIL a.d. 400 acted which specially concerned themselves,' and these must also of necessity be brought to the knowledge of his Holiness, Anatolius says that he sent these letters by the same messengers, to receive an answer concerning them. He then mentions the acts in order. First came Dioscorus' excommmiication, which he feels sm-e will obtain his Holiness' assent. Next (Cap. 3) he speaks of the reception of the Tome in exact accordance with what we have seen above. He says that it was needful that • the understanding of all should agree with the meaning of your orthodox faith,' and that this was the end for which the emperor convened the council — words which are completely corroborative of the view of the matter taken in chapter xv. Anatolius' words express the object of the session held after Dioscorus' excommunication, as that of obtaining an intelligent adhesion to the faith as propounded by Leo — iit in rectce restrce fidei sensiim omnium conveniret intelligentia. Consequently, Anatolius says, that with prayers and tears, and with the help of Leo himself, assisting in spirit and co-operating by means of the well-beloved men whom his Holiness sent to the council, and under the protection of St. Euphemia, he and those with him had devoted themselves to the work — in allusion to the ' instruction ' given in Anatolius' house to the lUyrian bishops. And when the time had come for all to issue an harmonious definition, they had done so, in spite of some contentious opposition from the first, and for the confirmation of their definition * in accordance with that holy epistle of yours,' they placed it on the holy altar. This latter remark explains the statement of the bishops that their definition was offered by Euphemia to her divine Spouse. So that Anatolius, writing thus publicly an account of the synod, emphasises (1) the necessity of agreement with the definition of faith issued by Leo, and (2) the necessity of re- porting to the Pontiff whatever was done at the synod ; and (3) describes the confirmation of their acts by Leo as at once necessary for them and free on his part.'^ • Slit, rb iSiKcis rifuv ire-KpaxOai rtva — called ' negotia privata ' in Pelagius II. 's letter to the Istrian bishops. '^ Cf. Lconis Ep. ci., ed. Ballerini, note. —462 DESCRIBED BY ANATOLIUS. 457 Having thus described the relation of a council to the Pope, in exact accordance with the present teaching of Leo XIII., Anatolius j)roceeds to introduce the subject of the canon. He describes it as having for its object the confirma- tion of the canon of the 150 Fathers, who decreed that the Bishop of Constantinople should have honour and precedence (not irpwrela, primacy) next after the most holy throne of Eome, by reason of her being ' New Eome.' And, he says it decided {i.e. the canon drawn up at Chalcedon) that the ordi- nation of the metropolitans of the diocese of Pontus, of Asia, and of Thrace, should rest with Constantinople ; but that the bishops under them should not be ordained, as had been the case for sixty or seventy years, by the latter, but by their own metropolitans. He then complains of the legates' opposition to all this, and speaks of the sanction of the emperor. He says that they paid all possible respect to the legates, but that they have now reported their decision to his Holiness, in hope of gaining his assent and confirmation, which they entreat him to give. ' For the throne of Constantinople has your Apostolic throne as its Father, having specially attached itself to yon.' And so he asks for the ratification of the canon. Later on,^ the arch- bishop tells the Pope that ' all the force and confirmation of what was thus done was reserved for the authority of your Blessedness.' Now after these two letters — the one from the enacting bishops at Chalcedon, and the other from the Archbishop of Constantinople himself, it is idle to talk of the ' self-assertion ' of Rome as having anything to do with the twenty-eighth canon. St. Leo doubtless knew how to magnify his office. But, indeed, there was no need to do that here ; it was already done for him. He was recognised publicly and un- mistakably by these bishops of the Eastern part of the Church as the natural, and, indeed, the necessary guardian of the canons of the whole Church, and this, too, in virtue of his relationship, through his see, to the blessed Apostle Peter. To attribute all this plain dogmatic and public exposition of the ' Ell. cxxxii. c. 4 : ' Cum et sic gestorum vis omnis et confirmatio auctori- tati vestrae beatitudinis fuerit reservata.' 458 LEO REJECTS THE CANON, a.d. 400 relationship of the Holy See to the rest of the Church to mere courtesy can only be the shift of those who find themselves driven hard to explain untoward facts. The facts are that the bishops who drew up the twenty-eighth canon did avow their entire de- pendence on Eome as the See of St. Peter, and that the Arch- bishop of Constantinople himself counted the proposal canoni- cally null and void without the subsequent confirmation of the Bishop of Eome. The explanation proposed and adopted by those writers who are out of communion with Eome, and have drawn up canons independently of her, is that all this plain speech was mere pretence. But something more than a mere conjecture is needed to set aside the plain facts of the case. The letters of St. Leo in regard to all this are full of Christian royalty. Majestic, uncompromising, and tender, they would by themselves be sufficient to establish his claim to the title which Christendom has accorded to him — Leo the Great. To Anatolius he wrote,' reminding him of the suspicion which had originally attached to his orthodoxy, praismg the faith which he now exhibited, but regretting that he had allowed himself to be influenced by the lust of honour and power. He blames him for endeavouring to use a council, assembled for the matter of faith, for his ambitious projects, and for imagining that any number of bishops could override the Nicene settlement (cap. 2). He considers that Anatolius' blame of the Papal legates is their commendation, for they were bound to opi^ose any infringement of the Nicene canons (cap. 3). He says he is sure that Anatolius will please the royalties more by self-restraint than by ambition. The deci- sion of * some bishops,' sixty years ago, 'never transmitted to the Apostolic See,' is no support whatever. (In other words, the third canon of Constantinople is of no account.) Alex- andria ought not to suffer because of Dioscorus, nor Antioch, where Peter first preached, be degraded (cap. 5). The Pontiff concludes with most earnestly and lovingly entreating Anato- lius to cultivate humility and charity. Already ^ Leo had written to the emjjeror, severely blam- ' Ep. cvi. * Ep. civ. —452 AND SENDS LEGATES 459 ing Anatolius for not being content with being bishop of the royal city, but aiming at the rank of an apostoKc see, which Constantinople can never become. And he tells the emperor that the Nicene arrangement cannot thus be set aside, and that in their defence, by the help of Christ, it is necessary for him to be a faithful servant unto the end, ' since a dispensa- tion has been entrusted to me ' (' dispensatio mihi credita est ') , * and the guilt will be mine if the rules sanctioned by the Fathers in the Synod of Nicfea, for the government of the whole Church, by the assistance of the Spirit of God, should be violated with my connivance, which God forbid.' But as Leo's passing over the ordination of Maximus of Antioch by Anatolius might seem to be negligence, he adds that he has not rehandled that, out of love for the recovery of the faith and desire for peace. To Pulcheria he writes ^ in the same strain, saying that he renders null and void (' in irritum mittimus ') what the bishops agreed to contrary to the Nicene regulations, and that he does so by the authority of the blessed Apostle Peter. In the following year the emperor wrote to St. Leo, tell- ing him that he was unwilling to resort to extreme measures with the monks in Palestine until he could show them his (Leo's) confirmation of the Chalcedonian definition. He says that the Eutychianisers had thrown doubts on that confirma- tion. ^ The emperor, in this letter, yields the point of the twenty-eighth canon, and expresses his warm sympathy with the Pope for the stand he had made on behalf of historical veracity and the ancient ways. ' For assuredly,' wrote his Imperial Majesty,' ' your Holiness did excellently well, as became the Bishop of the Apostolic See, in so guarding the canons of the Church, as not to suffer any innovation on ancient custom or the order settled of old, and inviolably observed to this day.' Considering what Leo had written to Marcian, this public acknowledgment of the position of the Apostolic See as guardian of the canons, from an Eastern emperor who had his desires as to a rise in dignity for his ' Ep. cv. 2 ' Whether your Blessedness has confirmed the things decreed (TuirajOeWo) in the synod,' i.e. on the matter of faith and excommunication of Dioscorus. 460 TO MANAGE ANATOLIUS. a.d. 400—452 imperial city, and had for a moment been led away by the Bishop of Constantinople, is at once a tribute to his real goodness and a witness, if further witness were needed, to the ingrained conviction of Christendom that the Holy See had a special dispensation committed to it, and that its charge was nothing less than the government of the universal Church. St. Leo left Julian, Bishop of Cos, as his legate at Con- stantinople ('vice mea functus'), ' lest either the Nestorian or the Eutychian heresy should revive, since there is not the vigour of a Catholic in the Bishop of Constantinople.' ' And he wrote to the bishops who had been at Chalcedon to say that they could have had no doubt about his approval of what had been done at Chalcedon in regard to the faith, had Anatolius only shown the letter he had received, which he had kept back because of what concerned himself. And he says, wherefore ' if anyone shall dare to hold the perfidy of Nestorius or Eutyches and to defend the impious dogma of Dioscorus, let him be cut off from the communion of Catholics.' At the same time they will see from his letters to Anatolius with what reverence the Apostolic See deals with the regulations of the Nicene Fathers, and that he (Leo) is guardian of the faith of our fathers and the canons of the Church.2 As it is the duty of a king to guard the laws, and himself to set an example of their observance, so Leo, as the divinely instituted governor of the Christian Church, whilst, for the sake of peace, he allowed Maximus, though otherwise un- canonically ordained, to remain in his episcopate, would not allow the ambition of a prelate in the imperial city to oust Alexandria and Antioch from the position assigned to them by the Nicene Fathers, on a principle fatal to the spiritual character of the Church, viz. that civil dignity could of itself, apart from the action of the See of Peter, raise a see to the rank which Alexandria and Antioch then held. ' Ep. cxiii. '' Ep. cxiv. c. 1. CONCLUSION. The verdict, then, of history, so far as the period dealt with above is concerned, is this. In the earHest records of the Christian Church agreement with Rome in matters of faith is seen to be a principle, clearly announced by St. Irenaeus, which does not grow or develop as a substantial truth, but which becomes clearer in its action, and more and more definitely recognised, as time goes on. The Church develops as a whole, and this principle of action does not remain stagnant without a proportionate unfolding of its powers. It becomes clearer as the records grow in fulness ; and the opponent of Papal supremacy is compelled to take refuge only in the absence of record, as at Nicaea, or in the plea that occasional resistance to particular acts of authority are equivalent to a denial of the authority itself. No imperial enforcement of Church laws can account for the existence and recognition of those laws as belonging to the Kingdom of God before they impressed themselves on the legislature of the day ; the Church then became ' in ' the world in a new sense, but was none the less not * of ' the world. The guardianship of the faith was recognised as belonging j)re-eminently to the See of Peter ; hers was a leadership so pre-eminent, with the support of a divine decree, that where, as St. Gregory says, ' fault is to be found in bishops,' her leadership is, by its very nature and of divine appointment, an a/3%?;, a rule, a supremacy. There is one expression used ' by a French priest, more often quoted by a certain class of respected writers than those who are not familiar with Anglican writings would believe to be possible. It appears in the last work of a justly esteemed writer in the Anglican communion, whose name has been ' I.e. ' gangrened with fraud.' [460] CONCLUSION. often mentioned in these pages. But he speaks of this French priest (Pere Gratry) as ' noble and truth-loving.' ^ Now this * noble and truth-loving ' priest accepted the Vatican decree under peculiar circumstances. He had written against it m unmeasured terms, which he lived to regret. In the full exercise of his faculties, with the certainty that he must shortly stand before his Judge, owing to the rapid inroads of a fatal disease, he sent in to his archbishop his submission to that decree. He also wrote the following words to a friend : * What I combated was inspired infallibility ; the decree of the Council repudiates inspired infallibility. I combated personal infallibility; the decree lays down official infallibility. Writers of the school which I thought excessive would have no more infallibility ex cnthedrd, as being too narrow a limit ; the decree lays down ex cathedra infallibility. I feared almost scientific infallibility, political and governmental infallibility, and the decree lays down only doctrinal infallibility in the matter of faith and morals. This does not mean that I have not committed error in my polemics. I have without doubt committed some on this and other subjects ; but so soon as I perceive an error I efface it, and do not feel myself thereby humiliated.' ^ It is with the prayer that some may perceive the error of opposing the dogma of Papal Supremacy and follow the example of this ' noble and truth-loving ' priest, as Canon Bright calls him, that this work has been written. Dominus illuminatio mea. ' Waymarks in Church History, by W, Bright, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, p. 241. * Souvenirs de ma Jeunesse, par le P. Gratry. ffiuvres Posthumes, p. 238. APPENDICES. APPENDIX I. Rev. F. W. Puller's Interpretation of St. Cyprian. Mr. Puller says, in reference to St. Cyprian's treatise on Unity, and especially the opening passage, ' Now, I put it to any candid Ronian Catholic, Is this the way that he would write on the great subject of the Church's unity ? ' And again, ' You may read the whole treatise on Unity from beginning to end, and you will not find one single word about Rome, or about the Pope, or about any Papal jurisdiction derived from St. Peter.'' The argument from silence is very freely used by Mr. Puller throughout his book ; but it requires an accurate knowledge of the circumstances under which a treatise is written to use such an argument with justice. The book of Esther does not contain the name of God ; but it does not follow that the writer did not believe in God. St. John in his first epistle says nothing about the Church, but it does not follow that he did not believe in the Church. The question is, would it have been ad rem to write about the Papacy in St. Cyprian's case ? The answer must be, that it would have been distinctly beside the purpose of his treatise, if the above estimate of that purpose is correct. It would have been nothing less than absurd to press the Papal jurisdiction on the Novatianists, with whom the question was, not as to the powers of the Papacy, but the legitimate occupant of the See of Rome. It would have been beside the purpose in the case of the lapsed, when the great point was to induce them to repair to their several diocesans for the requisite certificates. "When Mr. Puller says further on,* ' The subject of the Church's unity required some treatment of the central jurisdiction. So St. Cyprian felt ' — he is simply romancing. ' Primitive Saints, £c. p. 351. ' P. 353. 462 APPENDICES. Where is there any evidence that St. Cyprian felt anything of the kind at the time when he wrote that short treatise ? Just before Mr. Puller says, ' Notice how twice over in this short passage St. Cyprian insists that St. Peter received no pecuUar power,' that ' the other Apostles were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power. Can anything be more frigid and senseless than the Ultramontane reply that St. Cyprian is speaking of the power of order and not of the power of jurisdiction ? ' (p. 352). Mr. Puller ought to have remembered that amongst these frigid and senseless Ultramontanes Bossuet himself must be numbered, to say nothing of his own master, Tillemont. But he ought, more- over, not to have forgotten that St. Cyprian qualifies the above statement when he says, in one of the passages to which Mr. Puller refers, that ' although he gave the rest equal power, never- theless, in order to manifest unity, he by his own authority in- stituted the origin of the same unity.' He is speaking, of course, of Peter. Why is it frigid and senseless to suppose that, since St, Cyprian plainly attributes a primacy of some kind to Peter (and Mr. Puller admits thus much), the equahty is that of sacerdotal power and the difference that of supreme and subordinate juris- diction ? ^ Such an obvious explanation may seem ' frigid ' to Mr. Puller, but to those who make it, it is full of inspiring teach- ing, since it shows that our Lord provided for the guardianship of unity by an institution whose history is the very history of the Church herself. On the other hand, what shall we say of the supposition that St. Cyprian knew so little of Holy Scripture as to imagine that our Lord consecrated St. Peter to the Apostleship first, apart from the others (which is Mr. Puller's curious interpre- tation of the Cyprianic teaching ^), merely that the Apostles and • I.e. whilst they all had jurisdiction, it was to be exercised in subordination to St. Peter. ■^ ' Some little time before the others ' (p. 352). ' As we have already seen, St. Cyprian held that St. Peter was not only called first, but that he was also consecrated first. This notion is doubtless based on a mistake, but it ought to be kept in mind if we would understand St. Cyprian aright ' (p. 354). Mr. Puller not merely corrects the frigid and senseless interpretations of Ultramon- tanes, but convicts St. Cyprian of a blunder of the first magnitude. If St. Cyprian blundered in such a vital manner as this concerning St. Peter, what is his witness worth ? The fact is that the mistake is Mr. Puller's ; but it was necessary that the mistake should have been Cyprian's, else his witness must be placed on the Papal side. What St. Cyprian held is what Bossuet expressed with his usual felicity when he said, in his sermon on the Unity of the Church, that our Lord first places all (Apostles included) under Peter by promising hira APPENDIX I. 403 others might have an object lesson about unity ? What shall we say of the theory that the place of honour assigned to Peter (and Mr. Puller says that the ' stream of Anglican Divines ' assign the pre-eminence of leadership to Peter) did not even include pre- sidency at a council ? that his relationship to the other Apostles was only that of the Duke of Norfolk to the other peers of the realm ? ^ I will not call such an explanation ' frigid ' or ' sense- less,' for that would not advance my argument, but I am bound to say it has no warrant m St. Cyprian's actual words. Another of ]\Ir. Puller's misinterpretations concerns the crucial expression which, as we shall see, St. Cyprian uses of the See of Peter, viz. ' the root ' of the Church, but which Mr. Puller interprets of the Church herself. He rightly feels the importance of the expression, and informs us that if it could be ' solidly proved ' that the Church of Kome is ' the centre and the root, the source and the matrix of Catholic unity ' (as Father Bottalla correctly says it is, according to St. Cyprian), ' for the first time in my life I should begin to fear that the faith which God in His great mercy has ever given me in the Catholicity of my mother the Church of England has been the result of some illusion.' It is to be hoped that Mr. Puller may yet come to see that, so far as the Cyprianic literature is taken for evidence of the Church's teaching, it is cer- tainly true that the Church of Eome is the ' root of Catholic unity.' The word ' root ' is connected by St. Cyprian with three other words. Speaking of the Church of Rome, he calls her ' the head and root of the Catholic Church,' ' the root and womb of the Catholic Church,' and * the root and mother ' of Catholic unity. In using the first of these expressions, he is speaking of Pope St. Stephen. ' We, who hold the head and root of the one Church, know assuredly and are confident that to him ' (i.e. Novatian, the anti-Pope at Rome), 'being outside the Church, nothing is lawful ; and that baptism, which is one, is with us, where he also himself was formerly baptised.' ^ St. Cyprian's argument is that there is but one Church, and therefore but one baptism. He was mistaken the keys first and alone, and then he says ' the sequel does not reverse the beginning.' Golden words, which are the equivalent of St. Cyprian's teaching that our Lord ' provided (disposuit) by His own authority the origin of the same unity, beginning from one.' These words are absolutely subversive of Mr. Puller's fundamental contention that our Lord made Peter an object-lesson of unity ' as being the first-designated Apostle,' and so ' the symbol of unity' (p. 351). This would not be an exercise of ' authority,' nor the origination of unity, nor the beginning of a stream, such as St. Cyprian elsewhere describes the unity which started with Peter. • P. 229, note 2. « E}). Ixxiii. 2. H H 464 APPENDICES. in his application of this truth, but that does not affect the question as to the meaning of the expression * head and root.' There were then at Rome two opposed heads. The Novatianists, he had abeady said, had set up an ' adulterous and opposed head without the Church.' St. Cyprian repudiated this ' adulterous and opposed head,' and says that he, together with Jubaianus, held to ' the head and root of the one Church,' i.e. St. Stephen, the legitimate Pope. Consequently (he argues) the baptism of Novatian is invaUd. Mr. Puller appears to have missed the meaning of these words, from imagining that St. Cyprian is arguing with the Novatians. He thinks St. Cyprian is contrasting ' himself with Novatian ' (p. 345, Une 13) ; and he supposes that Novatian might answer, ' I am the Pope ; I am the head and the root of the one Church.' But St. Cyprian is not arguing this question at all ; he is engaged with a wholly different topic, viz. whether those whom he himself and Jubaianus both agreed were outside the Church, could validly baptise. It was not a ' controversy with Novatian ' ' in which he was engaged, but a controversy with certain bishops in Africa, destined soon, alas ! to become a controversy with St. Stephen him- self. Soon — but it had not as yet reached that stage. And con- sequently, Mr. Puller's argument ^ that ' it would have been absurd to base his argument in favour of baptising Novatians on his fellowship with Stephen, who was treating him ' (the italics are mine) ' as a heretic because he baptised Novatians,' falls to the ground. He was doing no such thing. Previously to this, St. Cyprian, writing to Cornelius, the Pope, speaks of the Novatians as having ' refused the bosom and embrace of the root and mother ' ^ — not, as Mr. Puller translates it, ' of her who is their root and mother,' but simply ' the root and mother,' which is the same as the true ' head,' as he goes on to explain. Here we have the head, and root, and mother all in one, as in the treatise on the unity of the Church, he says ' there is one head, one origin, and one mother,' meaning the Church and Peter, whom Christ instituted as ' the origin of unity ; ' and as there he sees in the legitimate bishop the Peter for the time being, so here, in leaving Cornelius, they had left the true head and taken up (he says) with ' an adulterous and opposed head,' and so had ' refused the bosom and embrace of the root and mother,' the legitimate bishop. For the legitimate bishop is the root of the Church in each region, being himself rooted in that past which goes up to Peter and to his institution as the rock and key-bearer by Him " hoc. cit. 2 P. 346. * ' Radicis et matris simun atijiie complexum ' (Ej). xlv. 1). APPENDIX I. 465 Who is the Root of David, as He is the Rock, and the Father of the world to come, His own institution being the mother of us all. But on another occasion St. Cyprian supplies an expression which is doubtless meant to be understood in the above passage. He calls the Church of Rome ' the root and womb of the Catholic Church.'' ' He is explaining to Cornelius that although he had not given those who sailed from Africa to Rome letters to himself, whilst there was a doubt, or strife, as to the validity of his election to the See of Rome, he had yet in no way opposed him. He had told them to ' recognise and hold to the root and womb of the Catholic Church,' whichever that might seem to be on proper inquiry. Mr. Puller thinks that St. Cyprian meant simply by the above expression that the Catholic Church is ' the root and womb ' to her children. And he thinks that ' St. Cyprian's advice was evidently meant to help them to discriminate.' ^ But this could hardly be the case if he merely told them to hold to the Catholic Church. How would that help them ? The fact is that Mr. Puller has misinterpreted the passage through omitting to notice (i.) one important word which he has omitted in his translation,^ and (ii.) from stopping short when he ought to have gone to the end of the paragraph. St. Cyprian told his people during this period of difficulty (for it is obvious that he refers to that alone) that they were to be careful to ' acknowledge and hold to the root and womb of the Catholic Church.' No one would talk of acknowledging the Catholic Church ; but it is the natural word to use of the bishop, who is the root and womb of the Church.'* It is true that this would not help them to know which was the root and womb of the Catholic Church ; but neither would his advice as interpreted by Mr. Puller. It was general advice. But St. Cyprian goes on to say that no sooner had he gained reliable information as to Cornelius' ordination than he had sent letters from all, everywhere throughout the province, so that ' all our colleagues might approve and hold to ' (compare ' acknoioledge and hold to the root and womb ') ' thee and thy communion, that is as well the unity as the charity of the Catholic Church.' I do not know why Mr. Puller has separated the two limbs of this paragraph and dealt with them, ' Ep. xlviii. 2. 2 P. 344. ' P. 343, line 3. ' St. Pacian — whose works Dr. Pusey calls ' further fruits of the mind of St. Cyprian, whose writings St. Pacian quotes with reverence ' (Pref. p. xxii), which he therefore bound up witli St. Cyprian's Epistles in the Lib. of the Fathers — calls Cyprian the ' root ' of his flock {Ep. ii. 3). H H 2 466 APPENDICES. one on p. 344 and the other on p. 347 ; but it seems to me that through omittmg to piece them together rightly, he has himself to accuse of ' forgetfulness,' and not Father Bottalla (p. 347, note 3). For had he taken the sentence as it stands in St. Cyprian he must, one would think, have seen that ' the root and womb of the Catholic Church,' which he (the Bishop of Carthage) told his subjects to acknowledge and hold to when at Rome, was, in that bishop's judgment, after all, Cornelius and his communion, which, on full examination, he bade all his colleagues 'approve and hold to,' being ' as well the unity as the charity of the Catholic Church.' Thus the Church is our mother, hut the Church as represented and actualised by tJie See of Peter, which is the root, and head, and origin of Catholic unity, on the principles which St. Cyprian's language, occasionally obscure and rhetorical, yet unmistakably enmiciates. Once more. Mr. Puller quotes Bossuet as on his side in this matter : ' He [Bossuet] understands the 7-adix et matrix, as I do, of the Church's unity : — " Cette tige, cette racine de I'unite ! " ' But Bossuet makes the 'root' something in the Church, not the Church herself — or, to speak more correctly, it is the Church putting her- self forth in a long chain of teachers within the unity of the chair of Peter. ' There is in the Catholic Church a stem, a root, a force to reproduce ceaselessly new pastors to fill the same chairs with one and the same doctrine.' ^ And then he proceeds to explain this root of unity more fully. ' There is need of only a little good sense and good faith for one to acknowledge that the Christian Church has had from its origin for a mark of its unity its commu- nion with the chair of St. Peter,' in which all the other " sees have preserved unity " ("in qua sola unitasab omnibus servaretur" — Opt. * c. Parmen.' lib. 11), as the holy Fathers say ; so that by remaining therein as ive ^ do, without anything being capable of withdrawing us from it, we are the body which has seen all those who separate themselves fall on the right and on the left. . . . When He [our Lord] said to His Apostles "I am with you," St. Peter was there with the rest, but he was there with his prerogative as the first of the stewards, primus Petrus (Matt. x. 2) — he was there with the mysterious name of Peter, which Jesus Christ had given to him (Mark iii. 17) to mark the solidity and force of his ministry ; he was tliere, in fine, as he who was to be the first to announce the faith in the name of his brethren, the Apostles, to confirm them in ' Pri7n. SS. p. 343, note 1. * He is contrasting the Catholic (Roman) Church with schismatics. APPENDIX I. 467 it, and thereby to become the rock on which an " immortal edifice " should be built. Jesus Christ spoke to his successors as He spoke to the successors of the other Apostles, and the ministry of Peter became ordinary, principal, and fundamental in the whole Church.' ' This is the way in which Bossuet explains the root of unity. And in this last passage he gives the truth which corrects Mr. Puller's misunderstanding of St. Cyprian and of the general teach- ing of the Church. Peter was to have his successor, as the other Apostles had theirs ; and if Peter were even merely a symbol and object-lesson of unity, we should expect that there would still be a successor of Peter distinct from the rest of the Episcopate, were it only to keep before our eyes the symbol of unity. As a matter of fact, our Lord made him the origin, not merely the symbol, of imity, and according to St. Cyprian, he was such, as having a chair, a succession — ' the chair of Peter, whence episcopal unity took its rise.' Mr. Puller's interpretation of St. Cyprian's doctrine comes to this : — Our Lord, according to that saint, ordained Peter first, and said, as it were, to His Apostles and others : ' Keep before your mind the unity of Peter, and how I ordained him by himself, that he might be a symbol of unity. He is one man, ordained by him- self, and this will teach you unity. It is a picture for you to think about, and so keep together. It will always remind you that the Church ought to be one.' APPENDIX II. Are the Sardican Canons Nicene ? St, Julius, standing in the midst of Eastern bishops, who had been driven out by the Eusebians and had taken shelter in Rome, ' gave back,' says Sozomen, ' to each of them his own Church, in- asmuch as the care of all belonged to him by reason of the dignity of his see,' or throne.'^ He also wrote the letter quoted above (p. 177), blaming the Eusebians for maintaining in the Council of Antioch that the Council of Tyre, which condemned Athanasius, ' Instruction Pastorale sur les Promesscs de I'Eglise (ffiuvres, ed. 1816, xxii. pp. 423, 424). ^ oTa Sf TTJs Travroiv /c7)5€/uoj'ias auTo? Trpoar)Kovffr]s 5ia tV o-i^'to-v tov OpSfOu (KdcTT(i> rriv iSiav 'EKK\riariaf aTTfSwKe (Soz. iii. 8). 468 APPENDICES. was subject to no revision on his (Julius') part. St. Atbanasius was Bishop of Alexandria, and as such his case came necessarily under the cognisance of Eome. In support of this assertion, St. Julius appealed to ' the directions of the Fathers,' which ' prescribed ' the contrary course to that adopted by the Eusebians. He appealed to something ' written ' by the Nicene Fathers — in other words, to a Nicene canon.' Where, then, is this canon containing ' the directions of the Fathers ' to be found ? St. Atbanasius, who produced this letter of Julius in his own behalf, must have known of it. St. Juhus knows of no question as to its existence and genuineness. The exact contents as described by St. Julius are comprised in the ' Commonitorium ' of St. Zosimus, sent to the African bishops when he commissioned his legate Faustinus to settle the affair of Apiarius in Africa. St. Zosimus called the canons, which embodied the principle for which St. Julius was contending, Nicene. These canons have, since the seventh century, been called Sardican, and the question is, On what ground ? There are many reasons for believing that no canons Avere drawn up at Sardica. St. Atbanasius, who was present at the Council of Sardica, and who professes to give an account of every- thing that happened there, says not a word about any canons, and his account leaves no room for any. Neither Socrates nor Sozomen, although professing to enumerate the acts of the council, make mention of any canons. No Pontiff, no one of the Fathers, of that century or the next, mentions any canons of Sardica ; whilst St. Ambrose,^ dealing with exactly the point settled in the so-called Sardican canons, appeals to the regulations of Nic»a, but not to Sardica. But the most startling evidence agamst any canons having been drawn up at Sardica occurs in a letter of St. Innocent to the clergy of Constantinople.'' The situation was exactly that which is contem- plated in the so-called seventh (al. fifth) Sardican canon. St. Chry- sostom had been deposed, and had appealed. On his return from exile, he had induced the emperor to summon a synod to put things right. Theophilus of Alexandria, who had done the mis- chief, and been told by the Pope to return to Constantinople and hold another synod in accordance with Nicene (or so-called Sar- dican) regulations,' had sent to Constantinople a copy of the very ' Athan. Ajpol c. Arianos, n. 22. ^ Ep. Ivi. ' ad Theophilum.' « Ep. vii. < Ep. V. ' ad Theophilum.' APPENDIX II. 469 canon which the Eusebians had originally passed at Antioch, to prevent St. Athanasius from ministering again, because of his con- demnation by the Council of Tyre. Thereupon,' St. Innocent joined issue on the subject of this said canon, and said that no canons but the Nicene were received by the Church, and these countenanced another synod being held. In the same paragraph he mentioned the Council of Sardica as having taken the same line, but not as having drawn up any canon. His language excludes the idea of there being any canons of Sardica. The evidence of this letter, if it stood alone, seems to me sufficient to warrant us in con- cluding against there having been any actually Sardican canons. But it does not, as a matter of fact, stand alone. Further, St. Augustine and the African bishops had never heard of Sardican canons, though this may be otherwise explained. St. Leo sketches the so-called Sardican canons, but calls them ' decrees of the canons drawn up at Nicsea,' when there was no reason for quoting them as Nicene, if they were Sardican, since as Sardican they would have been a sufficient authority for his pur- pose,- The same is true of St. Zosimus, St. Boniface, and St. Celestine, all of whom call these Sardican canons Nicene. They must have fallen back on the authority of Sardica, in meetmg the difficulty of the African bishops, had any Sardican canons existed, for the Council of Sardica was only not numbered amongst the oecumenical councils because it did not deal with any new matter of faith but merely confirmed the Nicene. Agam, the formula used in these so-called Sardican canons is unique, except in Africa. They are introduced thus : * Hosius said,' or ' Gratus said.' And the introduction of the name of the reigning Pope in the third canon (viz. Julius, in some copies Sylvester) is altogether ^vithout precedent. On these and other grounds it seems reasonable to conclude that these canons are possibly not Sardican. And yet, whatever they were, they have been universally received in the Church, having been acted upon in the East, as well as in the West, and having been eventually incorporated even into the African code of canons, though for a while doubted there. John of Antioch incorporated them uito the code of his Church in the reign of Justinian ; and the Coustantinopolitan Council in Trullo, assembled to supply canons omitted in the fifth and sixth ' Ep. vii. 3. * Ep. xliv. ' ad Theodosium.' 470 APPENDICES. General Councils, inserted them in the Oriental code. But the most significant piece of evidence is their insertion into the ' Nomo- canon ' of Photius. It is true that Photius, in writing to Pope Nicolas, denied that these canons had ever been received at Con- stantinople. But it is as certainly true that Photius was telling a falsehood.' The Pope told Photius in reply that he was miable to believe his statement. He would have been able to con%dct him of a barefaced falsehood had he known that Photius had included these canons in every one of his successive editions of the canons considered to be binding on the whole Church. Theodore Bal- samon, afterwards Patriarch of Antioch, wrote a commentary on the work of Photius and included the Sardican canons under those received in the East.^ Therefore, whatever these canons are, they express the mind of the Church as a whole. They can boast of oecumenical reception. What, then, is their real origin ? Some thirty years ago a theory was started by a professor at Rome, named Luigi Vincenzi, which satisfactorily accounts for most of the facts of the case.^ This ^vriter has endeavoured to show that in their present form the so-called Sardican canons are a commentary, or set of notes, on the Nicene canons by orthodox African bishops, the original Greek copies of those canons having been mutilated by the Arians. On the one hand we are led by the facts to doubt as to any canons ha^ang been drawn up at Sardica ; on the other hand we are confronted with witness of unimpeach- able character to the effect that the Nicene Fathers sanctioned certain canons for the guardianship of ecclesiastical discipline and with special reference to appeals to the Holy See, which correspond ' Photius also coined the Acts of a council, and tried to palm them off on the Catholic Church. He forged hundreds of signatures. His forgeries were committed to the flames by the eighth General Council. Nevertheless Mr. Puller (p. 153) uses his assertion to Pope Nicolas as conclusive evidence, pre- facing that evidence with the recommendation that Photius ' was the most learned man who had ever sat on that throne.' Possibly he was, but he was also the most unscrupulous. ^ Photius wrote first a collection of canons, then an arrangement in order of subject (Syntagma), and then a shorter form of the latter. Tlie Sardican canons appear in all. The Pope had blamed Photius for reaching the episcopate per saltum, and had referred to the Sardican canons. Photius rephed that these had not been received at Constantinople. As a matter of fact, he had quoted the tenth canon of Sardica by name under the heading ' concerning those who become bishops from lay condition,' both in his Syntagma and in his Nomo- canon. * De Sacra Monarchid Hebr. et Christianonim. Eomae, 1875. APPENDIX II. 471 to the provisions of the so-called Sardican canons. And again, in their present form these canons wear an African dress. This seems to be the only adequate explanation of the passage in St. Julius' letter, which St. Athanasius considered so important tliat he incorporated it in his own defence. St. Julius there speaks of appeals to the Holy See, in case of difference arising amongst bishops, as a ' custom,' and he also calls this ' custom ' something 'prescribed by the directions of the Fathers,' ix. the Nicene Fathers, and also a custom sanctioned by 'the Great Synod,' thus appearing to indicate that he is referring to the sixth canon of Nicfea, which begins with speaking of ' ancient customs ' prevailing. In its present condition that canon suggests, as has been shown above, ^ that Kome had jurisdiction over Alexandria ; but it is only as expanded in the so-called Sardican canons that it fully justifies the argument derived from it by St. Julius and produced by St. Athanasius, himself the Bishop of Alexandria, This theory also explains the otherwise inexpUcable fact that when St. JuHus told the Eusebians that they ought to come to Eome and have their cause tried there (in exact accordance with the provisions of the so-called Sardican canons) ; and this, on the ground that the Nicene Synod prescribed such a course, the Euse- bians did not contradict St. Julius in their reply as to the canon- ical mode of procedure. They only made excuses which St. Athana- sius calls unworthy of credit {aTViO dvov;), such as the stress of cir- cumstances and the length of the journey. They had, indeed, as St. Athanasius points out, themselves originally proposed to act on this very principle of having Julius for their judge (c. 20). The explanation of the matter given by Canon Bright and others does not satisfy the facts of the case. St. Julius, says that writer (the italics are mine), ' when he wrote to the Eusebians that the Nicene Fathers decreed that one council's resolutions might be reviewed by another [Athan. ' Apol. c. Ari.' 22], means only that they acted on this princijjle by considering the Arian question de novo after it had been determined by the Synod of Alexandria.' ^ But St. Julius does not quote the example of the Nicene Fathers ; he refers to their ' directions,' and he gives reasons, as does St. Atha- nasius, for the utility of the provision, showing that it was an actual direction for the future, and he emphasises in particular the special provision made in regard to the Bishop of Alexandria (the second Petrine See). His words, in fact, suggest the sixth Canon of 'the » P. 166, seq. * Notes (yn tlie Canons of the first fcnr General Councils, 1882. 47 2 APPENDICES. great Synod ' (as lie calls the Nicene), only in its fuller form, as quoted by his successors, and preserved, more or less, in the so- called Sardican canons. Indeed, this settlement at Nicsea, as I am supposing it to have been, runs through the action and letters of the Pontiffs and of the Fathers of the last half of the fourth century to an extent that requires some more reasonable explanation than that conscientious, high-minded. Christian rulers invented it or hailed the invention for their own ends. But, further, St. Julius goes on to say that he is speaking of an * ancient custom,' which was ' borne in mind and written down ' in the Nicene Council.^ It must then have been a definite regulation made in that council, not merely a principle of action to be deduced from their example. Canon Bright says also : ' Just as the Roman series of canons in the fifth century confounded Sardican canons with Nicene, and led the Roman bishops, first in ignorance, as in the case of Zosimus and Boniface, and afterwards in spite of authentic information (as in the case of Leo, Ep, xliii.) to quote as Nicene what was really Sardican,' &c. It has taken Canon Bright some years to arrive at a theory which thus impugns the honesty of the great champion of the In- carnation, the ' great ' representative of the Christian rehgion at that era, whose holiness breathes through every line of his sermons and letters. In 1877 Canon Bright had only got as far as asking the question about St. Leo, ' Can he have known no better ? ' ^ In the former passage the question has become an assertion, and St. Leo the Great is presented to his readers as a deliberate liar. The theory maintained in these pages makes no such demand on our moral sense. It requires us to believe, on the contrary, that when Pontiff after Pontiff quotes a canon as Nicene, and quotes it after it has been questioned as such, it is as good historical evidence as can well be obtained that the provision it contains was properly called Nicene. It was, we may suppose, preserved after a while at Rome only, the home of accuracy, the metropolis of canonical lore. The various allusions in the letters of St. Julius and (by implication) St. Atha- nasius, of St. Ambrose, St. Innocent, St. Boniface, St, Celestine, and later on, in Gelasius' letter to Faustus, supply such strong evi- dence that there was some Nicene direction (for they all call it ' (Qos TtaXaibv Tiryx^-vov, ^vriixovfvBtv 5* koI y p a