agreeably to the Canons of Sardica, the only ones which the Church had
hitherto made in favour of appeals to the Pope, St. Hilary would, perhaps,
have consented; that is, if he were better acquainted with this Council
than they were in Africa. But it is not apparent that such a rehearing was
mentioned. And as to suffering the matter to be judged at Rome, St. Hilary,
besides the other reasons which he might have, considered, doubtless, with
St. Cyprian, that the proofs of the facts on which judgment must be made
cannot be transported thither. So the Gallican Church has always maintained
itself in the right, that appeals made to Rome be referred back to the
spot. Though St. Hilary had protested that he was not come to engage in any
dispute, nevertheless he did not refuse to take part in a conference, in
which St. Leo heard him, together with Celidonius. Several Bishops were
there. Notes were made of all that was said. St. Leo says that St. Hilary
had nothing reasonable to answer; his passion carried him away to say
things that a layman would not have dared to utter, and that the Bishops
could not listen to. He adds that this haughty pride touched him to the
quick, and that, nevertheless, he had used no other remedy than patience,
not wishing to sharpen and increase the wounds which this insolent language
caused in the soul of him who held it: that moreover, having received him
at first as his brother, he only thought of soothing rather than vexing and
paining him; and that indeed he did this to himself sufficiently by the
confusion into which the weakness of his answers threw him. It is clear
that St. Hilary would not answer on the main point of Celidonius's affair,
because he maintained that St. Leo could not be judge of it. And we must
not be surprised that the Romans found much insolence in the inflexible
firmness with which he maintained it. Doubtless it was this pretended
insolence which caused him even to be put under guard, which may surprise
us in the case of a Bishop, and in an affair purely ecclesiastical. Among
the insolent and rash expressions of which St. Leo in general complains, he
remarks, in particular, that St. Hilary had often demanded to be condemned,
if he had condemned Celidonius contrary to the rules of the Canons. He
wished, then, that we should judge others by the rule which fully justifies
St. Hilary. The saint, seeing that his reasons were not listened to, would
not wait St. Leo's sentence. He preferred withdrawing secretly, while this
affair was still being examined. So he escaped from his guards, and though
it was still winter, left Rome, and returned to Arles, perhaps in February
(445): so that when they sought for him to speak further on this matter, it
was found that he was gone. St. Leo failed not to proceed, reversed the
judgment delivered against Celidonius, declared him absolved and acquitted
of the accusation of having married a widow, and restored him to his rank
of Bishop, which he had already done at first, without having examined the
affair."
There were other accusations made against St. Hilary, into which we need
not enter. St. Leo wrote a very severe letter about him to the Bishops of
Gaul: he accused him "of raising himself against St. Peter, and being
unwilling to recognise his Primacy, as if all those who believe that a
successor of St. Peter passes the bounds of the Canons were enemies of the
Primacy of the Holy See. That would be to arm against the Popes in favour
of heretics a great number of Fathers, of Saints, and of Councils."[65] The
result was that he took away from St. Hilary his rights of Metropolitan,
and conferred them on the Bishop of Vienne, who had claims upon them. But
this measure was so disliked by the suffragans of Arles, that he restored
the See of Arles to most of its privileges under Ravennius, the successor
of St. Hilary. However, this matter had even more important consequences.
We will let the Roman Catholic historian, as before, describe them. "St.
Leo apparently feared that the Bishops of the Gauls would not be
sufficiently submissive to what he had ordered. And though he had made it a
charge against St. Hilary that he had employed an armed force in affairs of
the Church, for all that he recurred himself to the imperial power against
him. He represented him to the Emperor Valentinian the Third as one who
rebelled both against the authority of the Apostolic See, and the majesty
of the Empire, and obtained of this prince, who was then at Rome, a
celebrated rescript, addressed to the Patrician Aetius, general of the
armies of the Empire, by which, under pretext of maintaining the peace of
the Church, he forbids undertaking any thing whatever without the authority
of the Apostolic See, or resisting its orders, which, says he, had always
been observed inviolably up to Hilarius. He orders all Bishops to hold as
law all that the authority of the Pope establishes, and all magistrates to
compel by force to appear before the tribunal of the Bishop of Rome all
persons cited thither, if they refused to go. It may be seen by what
happened about this time to Atticus, Metropolitan of Nicopolis, in Epirus,
how scandalous this employment of force was, and how opposed, according to
St. Leo himself, to the gentleness of the Church. Valentinian adds, that
the sentence given by St. Leo against St. Hilary, had no need of any one to
be executed in the Gauls, since the authority of so great a Pontiff has a
right to give any order to the Churches. He goes so far as to make it a
charge against St. Hilary, to have deposed and ordained Bishops without
consulting the Pope. He even names him a criminal of State on the score of
his being charged with having employed the force of arms to establish
Bishops, and to place them on a throne where they had only to preach peace.
This law is dated the 6th of June, 445, and it is this which fixes the time
of all this history. It is undoubtedly very proper, as says Baronius, to
show that the Emperors have greatly contributed to establish the greatness
and authority of the Popes. This is not the place to make other reflections
upon it; but we cannot forbear saying that, in the mind of those who have
any love for the liberty of the Church, and any knowledge of its
discipline, this law will always as little honour him whom it praises as it
will injure him whom it condemns. Pope Hilary quotes this law, and avails
himself of the authority it attributes to the decisions of Rome."[66] It
would be presumptuous to add a word to the judgment of one who has made the
first centuries of the Church his especial study. St. Hilary, on his return
to Arles, made many attempts to reconcile the Pope to him, but all were
fruitless, as he would not give up the point in dispute. "It seems," says
Tillemont, "that he continued resolved to do nothing in prejudice of the
rights he believed to belong to his Church, but that seeing the two great
powers of Church and State united against him, he remained quiet and
silent, occupied only in the work of his salvation, and that of his
people." During the four years he survived, he redoubled his austerities
and good works: he died in the odour of sanctity; and after his death, "St.
Leo, though still persuaded that he was a presumptuous spirit, calls him
'of holy memory.' Yet, we have neither proof nor probability that he had
restored him to his communion, from which he had cut him off."[67] His name
occurs in the Roman Martyrology.
Thus an encroachment, which had failed in Africa, succeeded through a
conjuncture of circumstances, especially the intervention of the civil
power, in Gaul. Of course it was made the stepping-stone to further
advances. This one specimen may give us a notion how the lawful power of
the Patriarch and the recognised pre-eminence of the one Apostolic See of
the West had a continual tendency to develop, and won, by degrees,
unlimited control over the original and acknowledged rights of the Bishops
and Metropolitans. Still, even in the hands of St. Leo, this was merely an
extraordinary interference. Ravennius, the successor of this very St.
Hilary, was elected and consecrated by the Bishops of his province, who
then announced it to Pope Leo, and received a congratulatory answer.[68] He
says himself to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, "It is not for
ourselves that we defend the ordinations of your provinces, which perhaps
Hilarius may, according to his wont, falsely state to you, to render
disaffected the mind of your Holiness; but it is for you we claim them
through our solicitude." And again: "Decreeing this, that if any one of our
brethren in any province die, he who is known to be the Metropolitan of
that province, should claim to himself the ordination of the Priest."[69]
So long as the election and consecration of Bishops and Metropolitans were
thus free and canonical, the greatness of the central See could never
depress and extinguish the essential equality of the Episcopate. Let it be
remembered that St. Leo, with all his power and influence, consecrated no
other Bishops than those of Southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, which
were the bounds of his proper patriarchate; there his authority was direct
and immediate; but in Africa, the Gauls, Spain, Illyricum, and the West
generally, it was only properly exercised in matters beyond the range of
the Bishops and Metropolitans. We suppose it is impossible to define a
power which was to correct and restore in emergencies. The Bishops of the
province of Aries afterwards besought Pope Leo to restore the primacy to
Arles, and render, A.D. 450, this undoubted testimony to the Primacy of the
Roman Church, and to the connexion between the rights of the Metropolitan
and the Patriarch:--
"By the Priest of this Church (Arles) it is certain that our predecessors,
as well as ourselves, have been consecrated to the High Priesthood by the
gift of the Lord; in which, following antiquity, the predecessors of your
Holiness confirmed by their published letters this which old custom had
handed down concerning the privileges of the Church of Arles, (as the
records of the Apostolical See doubtless prove;) believing it to be full of
reason and justice, that as through the most blessed Peter, Prince of the
Apostles, the holy Roman Church holds primacy over all the Churches of the
whole world, so also within the Gauls the Church of Arles, which had been
thought worthy to receive for its Priest St. Trophimus, sent by the
Apostles, should claim the right of ordaining to the High Priesthood."[70]
The view on which St. Leo acted in these proceedings against St. Hilary is
very plainly set forth in certain of his letters. Thus, "To our most
beloved Brethren, all the Bishops throughout the province of Vienne, Leo
Bishop of Rome.... The Lord hath willed that the mystery of this gift (of
announcing the Gospel) should belong to the office of all the Apostles, on
the condition of its being chiefly seated in the most blessed Peter, first
of all the Apostles; and from him, as it were from the head, it is His
pleasure that His gifts should flow into the whole body, that whoever dares
to recede from the rock of Peter may know that he has no part in the divine
mystery. For him hath He assumed into the participation of His indivisible
unity, and willed that he should be named what He himself is, saying, 'Thou
art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church:' that the rearing of
the eternal temple by the wonderful gift of the grace of God might consist
in the solidity of Peter, strengthening with this firmness His Church, that
neither the rashness of man might attempt it, nor the gates of hell prevail
against it."[71] So to his vicar the Bishop of Thessalonica, whom he was
erecting into an Exarch over the ten Metropolitans of Eastern Illyricum:
"As my predecessors to your predecessors, so have I, following the example
of those gone before, committed to your affection my charge of government;
that you imitating our gentleness might relieve the care _which we in
virtue of our headship_ (principaliter), _by Divine institution, owe to all
Churches_, and might, in some degree, discharge our personal visitation to
provinces far distant from us; since you can readily ascertain, by near and
convenient inspection, what in every matter you might either by your own
zeal arrange, or reserve to our judgment." "For we have entrusted your
affection to represent us on this condition, that you are called to a part
of our solicitude, but not to the fulness of our power.... But if in a
matter which you believe fit to be considered and decided on with your
brethren," (the Bishops of the province,) "their sentence differs from
yours, let every thing be referred to us on the authority of the Acts, that
all doubtfulness may be removed, and we may decree what pleaseth God. For
to this we direct all our solicitude and care, that the unity of mutual
agreement and the maintenance of discipline be broken by no dissension, nor
neglected by any slothfulness.... For the compactness of our unity cannot
remain firm, unless the bond of charity bind us into an inseparable whole;
because, 'as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the
same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one
members one of another.' For it is the joining together which makes one
soundness, and one beauty in the whole body: and this joining together, as
it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord
among Priests. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an
equal jurisdiction; (_quibus cum dignitas sit communis, non est tamen ordo
generalis_;) since even amongst the most blessed Apostles, as there was a
likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power; and the
election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one.
From which type (_forma_) the distinction between Bishops also has arisen,
and it was provided by an important arrangement that all should not claim
to themselves power over all, but that in every province there should be
one, whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and
others again seated in the greater cities should undertake a larger care,
through whom the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the
one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."[72]
I think it fair to admit that the germ of something very like the present
papal system, without, however, such a wonderful concentration and
absorption of all power, is discernible in these words. I shall give
further on, Bossuet's interpretation of their most remarkable expression.
But it is also certain that such is not the view of the Church's government
set before us by St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, St. Vincent of Lerins, and the
Fathers generally, nor the one supported by the acts of the ancient Church.
There is a very distinct tone in the teaching and acts of St. Leo, and the
other Popes generally, from that of the contemporary Bishops and Fathers
who had not succeeded to St. Peter's own see. It consists in dwelling on
the Primacy so strongly, as quite to throw out of view the apostolic powers
of other Bishops; whereas these latter dwell upon the apostolic powers of
the episcopate generally; and, while they admit St. Peter's Primacy and
that of the Roman see, place the government of the Church in the harmonious
agreement of all. St. Leo's view, rigorously carried out, as it has been by
the later Roman Church, substitutes St. Peter singly, for St. Peter and his
brethren; and this usurpation, I repeat, we have to admit afresh, or else
be accounted heretics and schismatics.
Now, as to the government of which St. Leo had the ideal before him, I must
first remark that it was _new_. He says himself to the Bishop of
Thessalonica: "The government of Churches in Illyricum, which we commit in
our stead to your affection, following the example of Siricius of blessed
memory, who to your predecessor Anysius of holy memory _then first
committed with a certain charge_ the supporting of the Churches of that
province, which he desired to be maintained in discipline."[73] That is, it
was scarcely sixty years since Pope Siricius had selected the Bishop of the
Metropolis to keep a watch over the maintenance of the canons. And now Pope
Leo was already requiring the Metropolitans to consecrate no Bishop without
first consulting the Bishop of Thessalonica as his vicar.
Secondly, this proceeding on the part of the Popes was not submitted to
generally, even throughout the West. The "Codex Ecclesiae Africanae" is
full of prohibitions against even appealing to "Bishops beyond the sea,"
_i.e._ the Pope. In St. Augustin's time, as we have seen, they positively
forbad the Pope's interference with their internal government, and only
submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption of the
Vandals.
Thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the imperial
authority. The process, in fact, of centralizing in the Church, ran
completely parallel with that in the State. The law of Valentinian, above
mentioned, is a strong proof of this. Of course the object of the emperors
was to control the action of the Church through one Bishop made the chief.
But it is somewhat remarkable that that Church which maintains a standing
protest against the interference of the State with spiritual matters, (a
protest for which she is worthy of all respect and admiration,) should owe
to the support of the State, in different periods of her history, very much
more of her power than any other Church. It may be that God rewards the
fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the grant of that very temporal
power which threatens them with destruction.
Now as we have had St. Jerome in a noted place appealing to Rome, and
acknowledging her primacy, let us take another passage of his which, I
think, implicitly denies St. Leo's view. Arguing then against the pride of
the Roman deacons, in which city, as they were only seven in number, the
office was in higher estimation than even the priesthood, which was
numerous, he observes, "Nor is the Church of the Roman city to be
considered one, and that of the whole world another. Both the Gauls, and
the Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all
barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If you
require authority, _the world is greater than the city_. Wherever a bishop
is, be it at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or
Alexandria, or Tanae, he is of the same rank, the same priesthood. The
power of riches, and the humility of poverty, make a bishop neither higher
nor lower. But all are successors of the Apostles. But you say, how is it
that at Rome a priest is ordained upon the testimony of a deacon? Why
allege to me _the custom of a single city_? Why defend against the laws of
the Church a fewness of number, which is the source of their pride?"[74]
The very force of St. Leo's view lies in the exact contradictory of St.
Jerome's words: viz. _the city is greater than the world_, and this alone
justifies and bears out the present claim of the Roman see, and its
attitude both to those within, and to those without, its pale.
But fourthly, had this government, as imaged out by St. Leo, been submitted
to not only in Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Illyricum, but throughout the West
generally, all this would still be nothing for its catholicity, and
therefore its binding effect, unless it had been allowed by the East. Now
we have the strongest proof that it never was so allowed. This
interference, and much more, the centralization pointed at, as it never
would have been tolerated, so neither was it attempted, in the
patriarchates of the East. There was far less danger of the patriarchal
power becoming excessive, when it was possessed by five, who were a check
to each other. St. Leo's influence and authority in the West were balanced
by the exercise of like influence and authority in the East, originally by
the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and at this and later times still more
by that of Constantinople. And though throughout the East the Bishop of
Rome was reckoned the first of these in rank, yet the Easterns were
governed entirely by their own Patriarchs. So far from there being any
authority delegated by Rome to the Eastern Patriarchs, there was no appeal
from them to Rome, that is to say, in a matter belonging to their
particular government; for as to the general faith of the Church, in any
peculiar emergency or violation of the usual order of procedure, there was
an appeal, if not lawful, at least exercised, to any of the Patriarchs.
Thus Theodoret of Cyrus, unjustly deposed by Dioscorus of Alexandria in the
Latrocinium of Ephesus, flies "to the Apostolic throne" of St. Leo; "for in
all things it is becoming that you should have the primacy. For your throne
is adorned with many advantages. It has the sepulchres of our common
Fathers and teachers of the truth, Peter and Paul. These have made your
throne exceedingly illustrious. This is the height of your blessings."[75]
Though a supplicant, he addresses him only as first Bishop of the Church,
not as monarch. It is a virtual denial of the present Papal authority,
because a silence, where it would have been put forward, had it been known.
So the heretic Eutyches, before the council of his own Patriarch, "when his
deposition was read, appealed to the holy synod of the most holy Bishop of
Rome, and Alexandria, and Jerusalem, and Thessalonica."[76] Thus St.
Isidore of Spain, in the sixth century, says: "The order of Bishops is
fourfold; that is, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops. In
Greek a Patriarch is called the first of the Fathers, because he holds the
first, that is, the Apostolic place, and therefore, because he holds the
highest rank, he has such an appellation, as the Roman, the Antiochene, and
the Alexandrine."[77] Accordingly Gieseler says, "At the end of this
period," (A.D. 451,) the four Patriarchs of the East "were held in their
patriarchates for ecclesiastical centres, to which the other Bishops had to
attach themselves for maintenance of ecclesiastical unity; and in
conjunction with their patriarchal synod they formed the highest tribunal
of appeal in all ecclesiastical matters of the patriarchate; whilst, on the
other hand, they were treated as the highest representatives of the Church,
who, through mutual communication with each other, were to maintain the
unity of the universal Church, and without whose concurrence no decrees
concerning the whole Church could be made."[78]