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clergymen, in cases of a mere personal character, afterwards embraced the form of proceeding in episcopal appeals, and finally the appeals themselves; but notwithstanding the disorders which arose from the abuse of the privilege, the right and power were never controverted. Subsequent usage continued to correspond with the earlier examples, and accordingly we find Leo despatching Potentius to Africa, that he might on the spot examine the case of the Bishop Lupicinus, who had invoked the pontifical authority.* St. Gregory the Great directed the Bishop of Numidia to investigate the case of Donadeus, deposed by Victor, and to treat the prelate with canonical severity, if he should be found to have acted unjustly.†

3.-MISCELLANEOUS EXAMPLES.

In the year 443, St. Leo had occasion to exercise the right of receiving appeals in the case of Chelidonius, deposed in a Council at which St. Hilary of Arles presided. Writing to the bishops of the province of Vienne, he confidently referred to immemorial custom as authorizing him to decide at Rome, on appeal, causes originating in Gaul, and to reverse the sentence of the Gallic prelates, contrary to the pretensions of Hilary, who contended that the Pope should appoint judges to review the cause in the province where it was first tried: "You, brethren," said Leo, "will acknowledge with us that the Apostolic See, in virtue of the reverence due to it, has been consulted by the priests of your province likewise, in innumerable instances; and that in various cases of appeals, conformably to ancient custom, the decisions were either rescinded or confirmed."‡ Accordingly, he overruled the objections of Hilary, restored Chelidonius to his see, and obtained a rescript of Valentinian III., that his decree might have civil force, and be put in execution.

The right of hearing appeals was fully acknowledged in the time of St. Gregory the Great. Sending a "defender" into Spain, he directed him to examine the case of Januarius, who had been deposed, and if he found him innocent, to reinstate him in his bishopric, to hand over to his authority the intruder, that he might be confined, or sent to the Pontiff, and to subject the bishops who had pronounced the unjust sentence, to penance in a monastery, and deprive them of holy communion for six months.§ On this case, in conjunction with another, Guizot remarks: "The power of the Papacy in Spain was so real, that in 603 two Spanish bishops, Januarius of Malaga and Stephen, having been irregularly deposed, Gregory the Great sent a commissary, named John, with orders to investigate the matter; and without assembling any Council, without looking

* Ep. xii., ad ep. Afric.

Ep. x., ad ep. per prov. Vien.

† L. xii., ep. viii.
L. xiii., ep. xlv.

for the assent of the Spanish clergy, John declared the deposition irregular, annulled it, and reinstated the two bishops, thus exercising the acts of the most extensive supremacy.'

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We have elsewhere seen that Eutyches, when condemned by Flavian, in the Synod of Constantinople, had recourse to Leo, falsely alleging that he had lodged an appeal, which shows that the right of appeal existed. Flavian himself, being unjustly condemned by Dioscorus, in the tumultuous assembly of Ephesus, put into the hands of the apostolic legates an appeal against the iniquitous sentence.† The Pope annulled the acts, recognised Flavian as of his communion, and cautioned the people of Constantinople against receiving any other bishop in his lifetime.‡ Gelasius, speaking of the appeal of Flavian and Chrysostom, says: "The Apostolic See, by not consenting to the sentence, absolved them."§ The American editor of Mosheim's Church History observes, that "Flavian before his death appealed to Leo; and this appeal, pursued by the Pontiff, occasioned the Council in which Eutyches was condemned, and the sanguinary Dioscorus deposed."||

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, was condemned in the false Council of Ephesus, but, like Flavian, he appealed to the just judgment and high authority of the Apostolic See. Writing to Leo, he says: "I await the sentence of the Apostolic See, and I implore and entreat your Holiness to succor me, who appeal to your righteous and just tribunal." He adds, that "this most Holy See has, on many accounts, the principality over all the churches throughout the universe." He asks a command to present himself at Rome, that he may there render an account of his faith. Leo recognised his orthodoxy, annulled the sentence pronounced against him, and restored him to his see. "Blessed be our God," says he in a letter addressed to Theodoret, "whose invincible truth, according to the judg ment of the Apostolic See, has shown you to be clear of all taint of heresy." When the bishop presented himself at the Council of Chalcedon, he was hailed by the fathers: "Let the most reverend Bishop Theodoret enter in, to partake in the proceedings of the Synod, since the most holy Archbishop Leo has restored him to the bishopric."++ In the course of the proceedings, the formal action of the Council was asked, that he might be put into actual possession of his see, conformably to the pontifical decree, or, as the acts express it, "that he might receive his church, as the most holy Archbishop Leo has judged." The bishops

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Cours d' Histoire Moderne, t. iii. p. 66.

Leo., ep. xliv., Ball. edit. col. 915, Liberatus, cap. xii.
Ep. xliv. et xlv.

Church History, p. 2, c. v. p. 152. Note.

Ep. xiii.

†† Act i.

‡‡ Act viii.

Ep. exiii. ad Leon. Also ep. cxvi., inter lit. Theodoret.
Ep. cxx., Ball. edit. col. 1226.

with acclamation assented: "Theodoret is worthy of his see." has judged conformably to the Divine judgment."*

"Leo

John Talaja was raised to the chair of Alexandria, in the decline of the fifth century. Acacius, the heretical Bishop of Constantinople, contrived to draw down on him the anger of the Emperor Zeno, who banished him from his see, and substituted Peter Mongus in his place. Calendion, Bishop of Antioch, to which city he fled, advised him to seek redress from Simplicius, Bishop of Rome, to whom he gave him letters of recommendation. Liberatus, a writer of the sixth century, relates that "having got letters of intercession from Calendion, Patriarch of Antioch, he appealed to the Roman Pontiff, as the blessed Athanasius had done."+ The Pope, recognising the justice of his cause, endeavored to have him restored, since the pontifical decree for that purpose could not be executed without the imperial concurrence; and his successor, Felix III., finding the obstacles insuperable, gave him the administration of Nola, a bishopric in Italy, without taking from him his title of patriarch. A priest named Solomon, degraded by Acacius, Bishop of Constantinople, appealed to the same Pontiff, who wrote to the clergy of that city, instructing them to treat him as a brother.

Barrow admits numerous cases of appeal: "Thus did Marcion go to Rome, and sue for communion there. So Fortunatus and Felicissimus, in St. Cyprian, being condemned in Africk, did fly to Rome for shelter, of which absurdity St. Cyprian doth so complain. So likewise Martianus and Basilides, in St. Cyprian, being ousted of their sees, for having lapsed from the Christian profession, did fly to Stephen for succor to be restored. So Maximus (the Cynic) went to Rome to get a confirmation of his elcction at Constantinople. So Marcellus, being rejected for heterodoxy, went thither to get attestation to his orthodoxy, (of which St. Basil complaineth.) So Apiarius, being condemned in Africk for his crimes, did appeal to Rome. And on the other side, Athanasius being with great partiality condemned by the Synod of Tyre; Paulus and other bishops being extruded from their sees for orthodoxy; St. Chrysostom being condemned and expelled by Theophilus and his accomplices; Flavianus being deposed by Dioscorus, and the Ephesine Synod; Theodoret being condemned by the same,-did cry out for help from Rome. Chelidonius, Bishop of Besancon, being deposed by Hilarius of Arles, (for crimes,) did fly to Pope Leo. Ignatius, Patriarch of Constantinople, being extruded from his see by Photius, did complain to the Pope."‡

The authority of the Holy See to receive appeals, from any quarter of the Church, was strongly asserted by Pope Gelasius. Answering the objection of Euphemius, Bishop of Constantinople, who alleged that

Ibidem.

† Breviarium controversiarum Nestoriance et Eutychianæ, c. xviii.
Suppos. v. n. 12.

Acacius was uncanonically condemned, because no Council had been summoned to investigate his case, as its importance seemed to demand, he says: "They object to us the canons, which they violate, whilst they refuse to obey the first see, that asks nothing of them but what is just and right. The canons direct that appeals of the whole Church should be made to this see, and no appeal should lie from it, so that it should judge the whole Church, and itself be judged by none, and no one should revise its judgments."* It is not probable that language so strong would have been used by the Pontiff to the Bishop of the imperial city, if it admitted of contradiction. To the Bishops of Dardania he wrote: "The whole Church, throughout the world, knows that the See of blessed Peter the apostle has the right to loose what has been bound by the sentences of . any bishops, since it has power to judge every church."†

Apud Fleury, l. xxx. 2 xxviii.

Ep. vii., ad episcopos Dardaniæ, anno 495, t. ii., coll. Hard. coll. 909.

CHAPTER XVI.

The Church ́of England.

21.-BRITONS.

THE special interest attached at present to the "Church of England," may justify a distinct review of the relations of the ancient Britons and of the Anglo-Saxons to the Holy See. The existence of Christianity in Britain in the decline of the second century, is known from the testimonies of Tertullian,* Origen,t and Arnobius. Bede, doubtless on the authority of ancient documents or tradition, states that in the time of the Emperor Aurelius, Lucius, a British king, sent to Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, to ask for instructors in the Christian law.§ That there is a great weight of authority for this statement, is admitted by an unfriendly reviewer of Dr. Milner's History of Winchester. "The truth is," says Dr. M., "all our original writers, British, as well as Saxon and Norman,|| together with the records of our ancient abbeys, the martyrologies and histories of foreign countries, and existing manuscripts of the most ancient date, (to say nothing of coins,) prove that the first Christian king reigned in our island, as the first Christian emperor was afterwards born in it." The attempt of Dr. Burgess to ascribe the origin of the British churches to St. Paul, is wholly unsupported by proof, and purely visionary.** In the absence of evidence, we cannot say positively how the succession of bishops was provided for, from the first arrival of those whom Elutherius despatched to Lucius; but it was no doubt according to some plan originally adopted with pontifical sanction. It is not improbable that the British churches may have been immediately dependent for ordination on the See of Arles, whose

* Adv. Judæos, p. 189.

In Ps. cxlvii.

Gildas, Nennius, Bede, Asserius, Malmesbury.
Postscript to History of Winchester.

† Hom. vi., in Luc. c. i.

2 L. i., Hist. Eccl. Angl.

** See its complete refutation in the History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, by John Lingard, D.D., vol. i. app., a. London, 1845. I avail myself freely of this valuable work.

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