Sermons & Letters 237

1. I shall seem to those who have surveyed the works of John Launoy, Paschasius Quesnel, and other writers of this school not yet to have said enough in the preceding pages concerning the appeal of Saint Flavian to the one and only supreme pontiff Saint Leo; for in unrolling those works they have especially learned that by no other right than the ecclesiastical—and indeed one derived from the Sardican canons—the appeals of bishops were adjudged to the Roman pontiffs when acting together with a council of the Westerns. When I had first considered the opinion of these writers, I was in doubt whether it was needful to compose a new exercise distinct from the preceding one, as an appendix to it, in which I might more diligently investigate the mind and aim by which the aforesaid Fathers,

led on by which, willed to frame the three so much spoken-of canons. I indeed bethought myself that it had by no means escaped them, nor had they wished to dissemble, the divine right by which it is granted to the Roman pontiffs to judge concerning all and whatsoever causes of the Church. But on the other hand, when in running through either the letters of Launoy I had come upon that which he inscribed to Jacobus Boenus, or had carefully weighed the last part of the eighth dissertation of Paschasius Quesnel, I resolved to speak here particularly of the Sardican canons, lest the things that were described in the preceding pages should seem doubtful, weak, and possessing no strength whatsoever.

In order therefore to confirm the truth of what has been said more and more, I judged that the manner of acting of those supreme pontiffs who already preceded the Council of Sardica could avail very much—those who, with no one gainsaying, having taken up the appeals of others, pronounced definitive sentences and judgments. Of this kind, I had to persuade myself, was the most celebrated cause of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria.

For the Sardican canons had not yet been framed, since it was only after five years, or seven, that those Fathers framed them; for Athanasius, accused by calumny on various charges through the factions of the Eusebians and the Arians, condemned by the judgment of the synods of the East and deprived of his episcopate, was compelled to come to Rome, that he might plead his cause before Julius the Roman pontiff, and recount the most grievous persecutions which he was suffering for hatred of the faith, and at the same time seek a new examination of his cause, lest the decrees of Tyre and the Mareotis should pass into a thing judged. That Athanasius therefore appealed from the judgment of the Easterns, and demanded the judgment of that tribunal to which he had fled and before which he willed to present himself, I think can be called into doubt by no one.

But what rights would protect Athanasius, so that he could knock at one and only one among so many sees of the Western bishops—whose judgment indeed his adversaries could neither refuse nor reject—I do not at all see, unless we have recourse to divine and apostolic authority. The Sardican canons, which had not yet been framed, by no means availed Athanasius. Nor, on the authority of Quesnel, Launoy, and the rest, were there other canons in existence in which this right of receiving appeals was adjudged to the Roman pontiffs. 2. Nor ought we above all to lend our ears to Quesnel, who everywhere in his writings, that he may evade or belittle the authority of the Roman Fathers,

says that there is in all catholic bishops a certain common right, by which they are bound to expend their labor for the affairs of the faith and of the Church. For in the cause of Athanasius, and in others like it, the question was not merely of labor to be undergone for the common firmness and safety of the faith, or of the utility of the Church, but of a peremptory judgment (as they say) to be passed, of synodal canons of the Easterns to be abolished, of the rash presumptions of very many factious bishops to be coerced—bishops who had thrown Athanasius from his see by force, and through right and wrong had adjudged his episcopate to a heretical man thrust in.

Moreover, if any bishop whatsoever is bound to expend his labor in like causes, why did Athanasius appeal to the one and only Julius, the Roman pontiff? Why did Julius himself, wishing by a solemn judgment to inquire more diligently into the innocence of Athanasius and to make it manifest to all catholics, compel the accusers—at least through their legates—to come to Rome, that they might render an account why, against the consent of the Apostolic See, they had assembled at Tyre, in order to bring false charges against a most holy man? Why, finally, do the Arians and Eusebians, summoned by Julius himself to plead their cause before him, not protest against the incompetence of the judge?

That they employed one shift and another, in order to forestall the public ignominy which they knew was threatening them, the most certain documents give assurance. We are also not ignorant that they wore Athanasius out, who awaited their arrival in the City, as they had promised, for fifteen months. But that anyone has ever been able, or will be able, to affirm that it could be called into question whether the cause being treated could be brought into examination at the tribunal of the Apostolic See, to which Athanasius had appealed—who? 3.

And indeed, that the Eusebian and Arian bishops by no means dared to deny the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff, by which they understood themselves compelled to come to the City, is plainly evident from the renewed disturbances which they had stirred up against the same Athanasius after the emperor Constantine had died. Bearing it ill, therefore, that this holy bishop had after fifteen months been restored to his see, when the Eusebians had been convoked by the emperor Constantius to the dedication of the Antiochene basilica begun under Constantine, they hold a council on the occasion of that affair; and, with new wiles devised, relying on the favor and authority of the prince, they thrust Athanasius out, and place in the Alexandrian see Gregory, who, surrounded by five thousand armed men, with the holy prelate put to flight,

by violence and fires occupies the Church. The defense of Athanasius, therefore, the one and only Saint Julius the pontiff again undertakes. That is, when the same Athanasius, together with Marcellus the bishop of Ancyra and others whom the Eusebian faction took care to banish into exile, petitioned that a new judgment be instituted, that his and his companions' cause might be brought afresh to examination. But what outcome this cause obtained, there is no one who is ignorant.

For Athanasius indeed, and Paul the bishop of Constantinople, Lucius of Adrianople, Marcellus of Ancyra, Asclepas of Gaza, and many others far more, were solemnly absolved by Julius and the Roman synod, and declared innocent, and therefore worthy to return to their sees without any canonical impediment whatsoever. And this judgment, that it might be held by all as irreformable, the same Pope Julius fortified with all those conditions which are expressed in law.

That is, he summoned the authors of the Eusebian faction by canonical citations to come to Rome, to render an account of the iniquitous judgments held in the synod of Tyre and Antioch, following in this respect (says Theodoret) the canon of the Church by which it had been provided that judgments should not be held with the other party of the litigants unheard, nor that sentence should ever fall upon the absent.

Nevertheless, the Eusebians, distrustful of their cause, knowing that they could not be protected by forces of Roman soldiers and by registrars, pretexted various, useless, and deceitful excuses—alleging the shortness of the time prefixed for them, that the prince's war against the Persians was an obstacle for those traveling, and adducing other things of this kind, which they reckoned would be of avail for dissimulation and tergiversation. 4. Nevertheless, when they heard that their judgments had been rescinded and abolished by Julius and the Roman synod, paying no heed at all to the fact that the care of all things belongs to the Roman pontiff,

as Sozomen says, or that the Roman Church has a privilege above the rest, as Socrates writes, the Eusebians, grievously moved, assembled together again at Antioch, and wrote to Julius a letter adorned with elegant words, but one full of irony and not without most grievous affronts. This commotion of the Eusebians the same Sozomen narrates. But we comprehend the truth of the matter more plainly from the genuine letter of the pontiff Julius, in which, meeting their objections one by one, he overthrows their false arguments, and most powerfully defends the rights of the Roman See, as derived by custom from the apostles. The sum of the complaints Severinus Binius diligently enough extracted from Julius's letter, recounting them in this order.

First, that they had borne it with indignant mind that they had been summoned to Rome. Second, that the term appointed for holding the council had been too narrow. Third, bearing it ill that the Acts of the conventicle of Tyre were being examined again by Julius, they wrote that it was unworthy for things to be treated over again in another synod which had already been established in another, and that those things should be undermined by Julius which had been judged by them. Fourth, in order to subterfuge the judgment of the Roman Church—which is the mark of all heretics—they inculcated, as their own, that the dignities of bishops are by no means to be estimated from the greatness of the cities. Fifth, they expostulated against Julius because, in writing to them, he had nevertheless not written letters to all by name, of which letter this was the inscription: To Eusebius with his companions.

Sixth, finally, in their letter written to Julius they complained that Athanasius, Marcellus, and other bishops, formerly condemned by themselves, had been received into catholic communion. Sozomen adds that they had attested by their letters that they would never enter into peace and concord with Julius, unless he had approved the things constituted by them. 5. There will be no one who does not marvel at so great an audacity of the heretics, but why? Because they contended with words against Julius the supreme pontiff, and denied that those rights belonged to him which antiquity taught to have been derived from the apostles. What meanwhile shall we reckon?

That they thought better concerning the rights and prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs than they judged concerning the divinity of Christ the Lord and the consubstantiality of the divine Word with the Father. But that they did not at all fear to deny these things concerning Christ the Lord, is to all an explored fact. Therefore, if the Eusebians were led by no other law than that of their own will alone, it is no wonder that they were unwilling to obey any ecclesiastical precept, and, in order to protect their obstinate contumacy by some specious color, they fabricated canons by which it was provided that the judgments of one synod could not be dissolved by the cognizance and decrees of another synod. But what sort of evasion did they devise? They themselves in the first place had gathered several synods to abolish the Nicene statutes.

Then, when they were summoned to Rome by the supreme pontiff Julius to plead their cause, they did not allege (as they say) the incompetence of the judge. They had not impugned the citation or summons. They merely employed delay, and having recourse to various tergiversations, when the pontiff could no longer await their arrival, and flight had been secretly snatched by their legates—who had inconsiderately left the Acts of the synods of Tyre and the Mareotis among the pontifical hands—the truth of all things having been plainly known, a decree of absolution was dispatched in favor of Athanasius and his companions; all the Acts being sent to nought which in the East had been fabricated by frauds and calumnies, by force and tyranny.

Then therefore, understanding that all the arts of their wickedness had been utterly laid bare, and overthrown by the judgment of the Roman See, they began to contend and boldly to impugn its authority. For they would have wished that the Roman pontiff should descend into their depraved opinions, by confirming and ratifying the nefarious decrees framed by themselves. Yet this new zeal and depraved ambition, as contrary to the sanctions of the apostle Paul and to the doctrines of the Fathers, Saint Pope Julius especially refutes, and harasses the authors of novelties with these words, which marvelously fit those who imagine for themselves that appeals can and ought to be made only from councils to more numerous councils:

Are you ignorant that this is the custom, that it should first be written to us, that from here what is just may be defined? Wherefore, if any such suspicion had been conceived against a bishop there, it ought still to have been referred to our Church. But now, those whom they by no means made more certain—after they have already done what pleased them—they wish us to be supporters of their condemnation, at which we were not present. Not so do the ordinances of Paul hold themselves, not so did the Fathers teach; but this is pride and a new zeal. Finally, employing entreaty, the supreme pontiff exhorts the contumacious Eusebians to give heed:

What things (he says) we have received from the blessed apostle Peter, these I signify to you, not otherwise about to write things which I think are known among you, had not the very deeds disturbed us. And enumerating all the evils which were befalling the Church through their zeal and machinations, in order that they may henceforth abstain from such things and set themselves against them, writing against those who would dare such things, with the utmost moderation he beseeches them, lest they be made ridiculous among the heathen. 6. Now indeed, if I were willing to discourse more at length concerning this letter of Julius written to the Eusebians, I could more clearly show that the authority of the Apostolic See, of which the pontiff makes mention, is founded in divine right and in an apostolic canon, as the distinguished

Christianus Lupus quite learnedly proved, by adducing various examples taken from ecclesiastical history—those namely which that learned man judged could be drawn either from the History of Eusebius of Caesarea, or from the writings of others. He also adds the well-known testimony of Tertullian against Praxeas, who in the cause of Montanus appealed to Zephyrinus, and the decree of the Antiochene council passed against Paul of Samosata, which obtained no weight except after the confirmation of Dionysius of Rome, as we ourselves elsewhere described, in preparing the Latin Rufinian edition of Eusebius of Caesarea. These therefore, and other examples of this kind, to which most excellent men appealed in order to explain the divine and apostolic right granted to the most reverend Fathers

for the receiving of appeals of whatsoever kind, we for the present pass over, lest we wander outside our field, or seem to do over again what has already been done by others. We insist only on the testimony of the praised Pope Julius, against which the Eusebians by no means dared to set themselves. Who, moreover, will believe that that most crafty faction of heretics, agitated by hatred and fury against Athanasius, would have kept silent, if Julius had falsely adduced for the protection of his rights both the custom of the Churches and the ordinations of the apostles and the doctrine of the Fathers—especially when he had harassed them because they labored with excessive ambition and were eager for novelties? 7. But this custom and exercise of divine right, which the Eusebians did not impugn, Quesnel and Launoy at least denied.

For although they grant that Julius willed to examine the cause of Athanasius and others in the year 341, even with the legates present whom the Arians had sent for this purpose, yet they dissemble that they were absolved and restored to their sees, and they assert only that the Roman council was proclaimed and celebrated as it were by a compromise of both parties. They therefore suppose no authority in the Roman pontiff besides that which he received from the litigants. But Launoy too, using a similar fallacy, contends that Julius was appointed by the Eusebians themselves as arbiter to judge the cause of Athanasius—on this ground namely, that he could not have judged except at their own petition.

Just as in settling certain disputes those are wont to do who, leaving aside the ordinary judges appointed by law, by making a compromise choose new arbiters for themselves. But that Launoy might cast a deception upon John Bonus, his friend, and sell him words, he subjoins the following words of Athanasius: These things indeed the Egyptians wrote to all and to the bishop of Rome, Julius. Because the Eusebians too sent letters to Julius, and in order to hold us they ordered a synod to be convened, and to Julius himself, if he willed, they offered the arbitration of the cause. Nevertheless, both Quesnel's and Launoy's fabrications immediately collapse; the very words of Pope Julius, praised in the preceding pages, betray them.

He who, repeating from higher ground the lawful rights of a judge, alleges the ancient custom, the ordinations of the apostles, and the doctrine of the Fathers. He ought therefore rather to have objected to them the compromise already made by the same Eusebian faction; and to have published it abroad, that it might become known to all, that he had not on a higher ground mingled himself in the affairs of the Eastern synods, except because the litigants assembling together delivered to him the faculty of judging. But on the contrary, against them as adversaries he as it were charges them with ignorance, and twits them by saying: Are you ignorant that this is the custom, that it should first be written to us, that from here what is just may be defined?

It was therefore not in the power of the Eusebians to constitute Julius as arbiter, and to make a compromise, that he might define the cause of the litigants according to the laws of justice and equity. But he had received from God the right of judging concerning the affairs of the Church and of bishops, and from the time of the apostles the Roman pontiff persevered in the possession of such rights. Too ineptly also did Launoy adduce the words of Athanasius, in order to fish out the will and aim of the Eusebians appealing to Julius. For from those words what else is gathered, except that the Eusebians, in order to boast that they had a good cause, and in order to deter Saint

the bishop Athanasius, had long ago given a pledge that they would hold ratified either the judgment of the Roman synod or that of Julius himself, just as the apostolic ordinances and custom demanded. For arbitrium does not signify a compromise, nor import that, as both adversaries contend; but among the Latins of that age it indicates a judgment, or a command, which are wont to be derived only from those having lawful authority, as we could prove from Horace and Cicero. 8.

But we have not yet fully grasped the force of Athanasius's words, unless we weigh that no one can be deterred by the sentence of an arbitral judge handed down by virtue of a compromise — a compromise that cannot be held to exist unless the litigants, agreeing among themselves, pledge that they are willing peacefully to abide by the judgment to be rendered.

When therefore the Eusebians, sending letters to Pope Julius that he himself, if he so wished, might judge Athanasius with all synod set aside, wished to deter Athanasius, they were already intending to call him before that tribunal beyond which it was no longer permitted them to seek evasions or to interpose appeals, because a peremptory and final judgment was to be pronounced; and once this was assumed — as the Eusebians themselves held in their wishes — it would no longer have been granted to Athanasius to return to his Church of Alexandria. For such is the condition of a peremptory and final judgment, that all hope of further dissenting is taken from the condemned; and therefore this kind of judgment alone can strike terror.

The Eusebians themselves, moreover, were compelled to send their legates to Rome not by the right of compromise but of a true appeal — legates who nowhere uttered a single word about holding a council, except when, seeing themselves convicted and overcome by Athanasius's legates, they perceived beforehand that their cause was going to ruin. They did not therefore at first refuse to have Julius as the lawful judge of the whole dispute. Only then did they begin to refuse, when, basely convicted by the opposing legates, they were utterly worsted. This very deed Julius himself, rebuking the Eusebians, cast in their teeth with these words:

"Since indeed your legates — Macarius the presbyter, and the deacons Hesychius and Martyrius — when they had come here, were in no way a match for the presbyters sent by Athanasius, and were ever convicted and refuted by them, they demanded that a council be summoned by us, and that letters be sent both to the Eusebians and to Athanasius at Alexandria, by which they might be convened, so that the cause of them all might be examined by a just judgment; for then, they said, they would prove against Athanasius what they were now unable to." Nor may it be supposed that Julius's words are to be understood of some private debate held between the legates of either party. For the holy pontiff immediately, to point to the solemnity of the trial and inquiry, added these words:

"For publicly, before us, Martyrius and Hesychius were refuted, while Athanasius's presbyters with confidence resisted them briskly. Indeed Martyrius and his companions, if the truth must be told, were everywhere routed, and therefore demanded a general council." They did not then at first demand that a general synod be held, except when they understood that the cause they were pleading had fallen. For then, following the manner of acting of heretics and schismatics, they resolved to alienate themselves from the judgment of the supreme pontiff, and seeking by rebellious evasions to deceive the holy pontiff, they demanded that a council be summoned. Yet meanwhile it has been established that this petition had no force whatever.

For the pontiff, using that power which he had received from God and following the rules of law, declared Marcellus and Athanasius innocent of all charges, and received them into communion; he declared void and of no force the records of the Acts which had been drawn up in the synods of Tyre and Mareotis, so that the very accusers of Athanasius and of the other Catholics, driven by despair lest perchance they should undergo the penalties of calumniators according to the decrees of the canons, set out from the city of Rome by night and took to flight. Nevertheless, the pontiff Julius himself, taking note of the irregular flight of these legates, employing the utmost gentleness, strove to bring to a conclusion the most grievous dissensions of the Easterns.

Wherefore, having admitted the appeal of those same legates, although he was urged by no necessity to convoke a council, he commanded by letters Eusebius and his associates to come to Rome for the holding of a council. But when that schismatic faction had, by evasions and a long protraction of time, again frustrated the pontiff's hope, he once more in council declared Athanasius and his companions guilty of no crime, and decreed that they were worthy to be restored to their sees, from which they had been expelled by violence. Therefore Julius, as if wishing to render an account of the things that had been done by himself, addresses them with these words: "It was fitting, therefore, beloved, that you should come here, and by no means engage in evasions, that the matter might be brought to an end."

"For reason requires this…. For they would have come, as I said, had they entertained good hopes concerning their cause." For the Eusebians never denied to the Roman pontiff the right of summoning the bishops of the Eastern Churches, nor did they proclaim themselves exempt from that duty of obedience by which the Churches of the whole Christian world are bound to obey the holy apostolic Roman see. 9. Yet Launoy, perceiving himself hard pressed by the course of these matters, devised the following subterfuge, saying: that Athanasius was restored to his see neither by the decree of Pope Julius nor by the sentence of the Roman synod, but by the judgment of the Sardican council, which synod, far more numerous than the Roman synod, confirms whatever had been done by the Roman synod.

A most wretched piece of reasoning, constructed against all rules of law and of logic. For he busies himself to confound the right of judging with the execution of a decree already passed, that thence he may wrongly infer that the judgments of the Roman pontiffs are to be reckoned of little or no account unless confirmed by general synods and held as ratified. But let him say whether the judgment and sentence both of Julius and of the Roman council were delayed by right or by wrong. Not by right indeed, since both the Eusebians and Athanasius and his companions did not refuse to have the Roman pontiff as judge, as is made known from what precedes.

By wrong, therefore, the Arian faction set itself against the statutes of Julius and of the Roman synod; and since the authority and violence of the Emperor Constantius lent it patronage, provision was made that Athanasius and the others should not be restored to their sees. But Launoy and Quesnel ought to have observed that the Sardicans themselves added no force and no confirmation to Julius's judgment and to the sentence of the Roman synod, since they used the following solemn declaration: "From this fact the equity of the judgment of our brother and fellow-bishop Julius will most clearly appear, who passed sentence not by rash counsel but by mature deliberation, so that nothing of doubt is left concerning the communion of our brother Athanasius."

There falls also the other subterfuge about a far more numerous synod, on which both our adversaries insist. For the authority of synods is not to be derived from the greater or lesser number of fathers, but from him who has the power of convoking them, and from the canonical and apostolic rules to be observed in the form and order of judgments — as Saint Leo the Great clearly indicated in Epistle 80 to Anatolius of Constantinople, of which we shall speak in chapter 10 of the following book. Wherefore, if the adversaries' argument held good, not even the Sardican council could have taken cognizance of the cause of Athanasius and his companions, since it had already often been settled:

"First indeed in our province (says Athanasius), when nearly a hundred bishops had assembled for this purpose; secondly at Rome, with us and the rest of the adversaries of Eusebius appearing. Now there were in that assembly more than fifty bishops." If therefore the weight and authority of a judgment were to be derived from the number of bishops, the decrees of the Alexandrian and Roman synods ought rather to have stood than those of Tyre and Mareotis. For both the Alexandrian and the Roman were more numerous than these, and in them Athanasius was acquitted and restored to his see. Speaking also of this last synod, the same Athanasius in his second apology says:

"For the presbyter Vitus brought more than fifty bishops to the council, where both our defense was received, and we were deemed worthy of communion and of the kiss of charity." But besides the Roman pontiff and the bishops brought to the council by the presbyter Vitus, others too might perhaps have attended the assembly — which we cannot affirm for certain, owing to the lack of records. But this subterfuge of our adversaries Saint Leo the Great long ago overthrew, when rebuking Anatolius, who supposed that the more numerous synod of Chalcedon supported him in abrogating the Nicene canon concerning the rights and privileges of the Churches. 10.

But this ancient possession of so great rights of the apostolic see, which the Eusebians strove in many and various ways to render disputable, at length Ursacius and Valens, brought to repentance, testified under oath that they would in future hold as ratified and firm, in the following words: "Nay, this also we promise (they say): that if at any time the Easterns, or even Eusebius himself, should wish maliciously to call him to judgment, we will not be present apart from your sentence." Or, as we read better in the fragments of Saint Hilary: "We will not be present apart from your knowledge."

We cannot therefore, from the course of these facts, doubt that already before the Sardican council that apostolic custom prevailed, whereby the Roman pontiffs received the appeals of bishops, judged of their causes either in synods or outside synods, and that it was lawful to no one to render judgments concerning the causes of bishops apart from the knowledge of the Roman pontiff. There falls therefore that whole edifice which the adversaries Launoy and Quesnel attempted to construct out of the Sardican canons alone, so as to contend that by no other right than the ecclesiastical, derived from the Sardican council, could the Roman pontiff receive and judge the appeals of bishops condemned in the provincial synods of the East.

Nor may it be permitted to Launoy, especially when he harasses Bellarmine, to appeal to the testimony of Pope Gelasius, who wrote in his epistle to the bishops of Dardania: "We do not pass over in silence what the whole Church throughout the world knows: that the see of the blessed apostle Peter has the right of loosing whatever has been bound by the sentences of any pontiffs whatsoever, inasmuch as it has the right of judging concerning the whole Church; nor is it lawful for anyone to judge of its judgment: since to it the canons willed that appeal be made from any part of the world, while from it no one is permitted to appeal." For from the fact that Bellarmine suppressed these words, "the canons willed that appeal be made," Launoy contends that the Roman pontiff can receive appeals only by canonical or ecclesiastical right.

And that this right is to be sought only from the councils of the Church, wherefore he would have decreed that this should be done for the public benefit of all. Thus Launoy reasons, indeed harassing Bellarmine unjustly. For Pope Gelasius in his epistle by no means departed from the opinions of his predecessors, who, as we have seen, affirmed that the bishops of the Roman see can by divine right judge of the causes of all the Churches, so that it is lawful for no one to judge of its judgment. Nor can our arguments or Bellarmine's be weakened by these words, "the canons willed that appeal be made."

For in that passage Gelasius did not employ the word "canons" for the decrees of councils, as the adversary wrongly tries to explain, but the pontiff used it to indicate that rule, established by divine disposition and confirmed by usage, by which the right was given to the see of blessed Peter of loosing the judgments of all the Churches, and that it should be lawful for no one to judge of its judgment. And lest I should seem to sell words for fables, I will ask Launoy in particular whether he ever examined the epistle of Gelasius of which we are treating. It must now be believed that he had examined it, since he accuses Bellarmine of fraud for suppressing these words, "the canons willed that appeal be made." Therefore it ought to have been known to him that the aforesaid epistle bears this title:

"Gelasius shows that Acacius was condemned by right by the judgment of the apostolic see alone." He could not have been ignorant how the pontiff, dealing in the body of the epistle with the condemnation of Sabellius, and with the Arian heresy routed in the Nicene synod, and with these and other synods held at various times on diverse occasions, no Christian could fail to know that the decree of each synod, which the assent of the universal Church approved, ought to be carried into effect by no see more than by the first, which confirms each synod by its own authority and guards it by continued moderation — namely, by reason of that primacy which the blessed apostle Peter received by the voice of the Lord as a command, and which, the Church nonetheless following, he both ever held and retains.

He therefore here relates how the apostolic see obtained that primacy by the Lord's command, and ever retains it, since by its own authority it has the power to confirm each synod and to guard it by continued moderation. But if it confirms each synod, why does Launoy contend that this is not true of general synods? Moreover Gelasius himself, in order to prove that the apostolic see used divine right in condemning Acacius, never appeals to the canons of synods, but to those pontiffs, his predecessors, who judged of similar causes, having no regard at all to the sanctions of the Sardican fathers. Wherefore in the same place he brings forward this other argument, as it were, of its supreme authority:

"But neither do we pass these things over: that the apostolic see, frequently — as has been said — according to the custom of the ancestors, even without any preceding synod, has had the power both of absolving those whom a synod had iniquitously condemned, and of condemning, with no synod existing, those whom it behooved." Then he subjoins the following examples, which marvelously support the question of which we are at present treating: "namely, of Athanasius of Alexandria, whom, before the Sardican council was convened, the Roman Church absolved from the synods of the Easterns" — the Roman Church exercised such rights by absolving Athanasius of holy memory. 11. But grant that Launoy ought to have dissembled all these things, that with impunity and from a mere love of wrangling he might harass Bellarmine, that learned man. Could Quesnel perhaps do this with equal right, who in setting forth the works of Saint Leo…

…ought he not, among others, to have examined this epistle 89 of his, which is to the bishops of the province of Vienne? Saint Leo himself indeed, treating of the right of appeals, supports himself by the testimony of Saint Julius the Pope, and most fully affirmed that they derive from no other origin than from divine institution. Therefore, having no regard at all to the Sardican canons, he thus writes that the apostolic see, by reason of the reverence owed it, was consulted by the priests of all provinces in countless reports, and that through the appeal of diverse causes, as ancient custom required, judgments were either reconsidered or confirmed. To this testimony indeed Quesnel adverted.

But leaving aside the preceding manner of speaking about the authority of judgments received through the compromise of the litigants, he nevertheless strove to lessen the force of these words, annotating thus in the margin of his edition: "He claims appeals for himself only from ancient custom." But how much this annotation can profit Quesnel's cause, I by no means see. Nay, I understand that Quesnel can be convicted either of carelessness or of excessive fraud. For in the same place Saint…

…the pontiff, from the countless consultations and appeals made to the apostolic see, intended at any rate to set forth the ancient custom, since already in the preceding chapter of that same epistle he had discoursed about the form of ecclesiastical governance, ordered in that arrangement by Christ the Lord, so that in the most blessed Peter he placed the chief of all the apostles principally, that from him as from a kind of head He might will His gifts to flow forth into the whole body, so that whoever had dared to withdraw from Peter's solidity should understand himself to be without share in the divine mystery. By a twofold title, therefore, Saint Leo affirmed in that same place that consultations and appeals are brought from the priests of all the Churches to the apostolic see:

namely, by a divine title, on account of the form of ecclesiastical governance instituted by Christ the Lord, and by a title of fact, which he intended to prove from ancient custom, through the appeal of diverse causes, by which the judgments of other bishops and synods were confirmed. Nor let Quesnel dare to contend that this form of governance, and this method of ecclesiastical judgments, can injure either the dignity of bishops or the authority of the Churches. For the holy pontiff himself asserts that these wonderfully cohere among themselves by divine disposition, adding: "Since our solicitude, seeking not its own but the things that are Christ's, did not abrogate the dignity divinely given, either to the Churches or to the priests of the Churches."

For no right of dignity or of another's authority can be injured in the episcopal order, if all, seeking the things that are Jesus Christ's, dare not pervert these dispositions, and in matters of faith and the affairs of the Churches cleave to the supreme head, through which the heavenly gifts ought to flow into the whole body. "For neither (he also subjoins) can they be partakers of the divine mysteries who dare to withdraw from Peter's solidity." 12. But that Athanasius cleaved to this solidity of Peter, and that the Arians and Eusebians withdrew from it, we have hitherto explained in what precedes. But whether in the judgment of this cause it pleased Quesnel to stand for Athanasius or for the Eusebians, I do not clearly enough perceive.

This one thing only I understand: that our adversary strained all the sinews of his zeal to adjudge the right of appeals to the Roman pontiffs only from the Sardican canons, and that these canons were established in favor of Athanasius, even according to his own intention, as it were from a prejudgment which he himself had created when seeking Rome. But who, ever zealous for inquiring into sincere truth, will be able to read these things without indignation:

"…a bishop unjustly deprived of communion and of his episcopal see, and through wickedness sent into exile — if he appeal to the firm see of Peter, does he create a prejudice for himself, does he infringe the rights of others, if he cleave to the head through which the divine gifts flow into the members, seeking at the same time the things that are Jesus Christ's and that pertain to His Church?" He created a prejudice for himself, indeed, both in the opinion of the Arians and in that of Quesnel; but by no means in the opinion of true orthodox men.

For those who have it at heart to pervert the dispositions of the Lord and the order divinely constituted have ever taught that appeal must be made to that tribunal which obtained its firmness from the very Founder of the Church — as we could prove by countless examples borrowed from the writings of others, if it were expedient. 13. Quesnel proceeds to reason; and now, having inserted into the eighth dissertation those three aforementioned Sardican canons, he inquires what the fathers supposed in framing those rules, and undertakes to explain it. "First they suppose (he says) that a bishop has received a sentence from the council of his own province; that the same bishop, deeming an injury done to him, demands that the council be renewed."

And in order gradually to draw the reader to his persuasion concerning the new right granted to the Roman pontiff through the council, he describes Hosius of Cordova, wearied by the arts of the heretics, who deemed it best if the faculty were given to someone by the council of adjudging whether and when there ought to be place for an appeal, lest ecclesiastical judgments should lie open more to the arts of certain knaves than secular ones. "For you have (he says) in the seventh book of the Code, title 65, etc. And whom (he subjoins) should the synod rather have adorned with this office than the Roman pontiff, the father of all, and in whom the memory of the holy apostle Peter was to be honored?"

"For a provincial synod was suspect to the condemned man; to gather the bishops of neighboring provinces for that cause was not in the interest of the Church. This burden, therefore, was given to the Roman pontiff, for whom no laborious investigation or accurate discussion of the whole affair was needed, but only to take cognizance summarily, even from the letters of the prior judges — just as it is easy for a secular judge at once to decide whose appeals the laws of civil right permit to be received." But who does not see that this supposition of Quesnel is false and fictitious? He supposes that the Sardican fathers granted a new right to the Roman pontiff, that the universal Church should venerate him as the father of all, and as the one in whom the memory of Saint Peter was to be honored.

Therefore, in Quesnel's opinion, before canons of this kind were framed, was it unlawful for the Roman pontiff to judge either of provincial synods, or to employ laborious investigation for restoring to their sees bishops expelled out of hatred and rivalry, or finally for declaring void and invalid the ordinations of those who had been intruded into the sees of the deposed?

Assuredly, if the things that are gathered from Quesnel's system stood firm, then that ancient right which Pope Julius cast in the teeth of the Arians and affirmed to belong to himself would have been utterly chimerical, and we should call the judgment pronounced by him in the cause of Athanasius and his companions — at least five or seven years before — void and violent, as being pronounced by one who did not yet possess authority. But that Julius judged of the cause of Athanasius and the orthodox cannot be called into doubt.

For besides the preceding epistle of Julius and the apologies of Athanasius alleged above, there exists also another epistle of the same pontiff written to the presbyters, deacons, and people of Alexandria, by which he exhorts them to receive with great alacrity Athanasius returning to his see, "who from so great perils of evils is restored to you pure and innocent, and is judged such not by our judgment alone, but by the whole synod." Yet I know not how Quesnel can be consistent with himself in the other things described above. For he boldly [refers] the appeal of Eutyches to the see of the bishops of the first Churches and to their synods, and finally contends that such was the custom of the Eastern appellants;

but here he holds that there is question of this new right granted to the Roman pontiffs from the Sardican canons, that this burden was imposed upon them, that they should take cognizance only summarily and from the letters of the prior judges, and decide whose appeals the laws of civil right permitted to be received. But what is this, except to be able to judge of the decrees of synods, to decide whether a sentence was passed against the condemned by right or by wrong, and to be able to suspend it and render it void, until the pontiffs, either by themselves or with others, make a fuller inquiry into the preceding judgments? But that a council is necessary for carrying out all these things, Quesnel does not affirm;

nor indeed ought it to be called necessary, if summarily and from the letters of the prior judges he can decide and even establish all those things. 14. Quesnel nonetheless, constant in his assertions, contends at all events in words that this right of appeals was newly adjudged at that time both to the Roman pontiffs and to Julius himself. But by what supports has he proved this? Perhaps by feigning that those Sardican canons have certain apparent contradictions, which, among others, the illustrious Christian Lupus long ago by his learned explanations removed out of the way; or by affirming that the Sardican fathers…

…by later considerations derogated from the earlier ones, so that, namely, from the later decrees the interpretation of the earlier ought to be taken, and that by that seventh canon the authority of the Roman pontiff should be restricted within narrow limits — that authority which in the third and fourth canons they had adjudged to him most amply. Quesnel is altogether mistaken. Those canons in no way conflict among themselves; and that supreme right which in the third and fourth canon approves the authority of the Roman pontiff…

…its authority in receiving appeals, is more and more confirmed in the fifth, or seventh, canon, so that it lies in his power either to judge by himself, or to delegate the judgment of the cause to others, or to summon the litigant parties to himself, or to convoke a new synod, in which the whole matter under question may be more solemnly recalled to a new examination. And so, lest we seem to be telling fables, let us attend to the canons. That third canon in the first place restrained the Eusebian faction, which was bringing the Nicene canons into contempt; namely when, by rash audacities, it was casting out orthodox bishops and clerics from Churches not pertaining to it, and intruding into their chairs and places others, condemned men and heretics.

But in order that Quesnel might conceal, or at least dissemble, the rash manner of acting of that Eusebian faction, he did not copy out the canon in full, as it is found in the codices of Dionysius Exiguus; but, having perhaps carelessly removed those first four lines: "Bishop Hosius said: This too must necessarily be added, that bishops should not pass over from their own province to another province in which there are bishops, unless perchance invited by their brethren, lest we seem to shut the door to charity" — he subjoined only the rest that follows: "Namely, that if any province, etc." This canon, as we have said, the illustrious Lupus illustrated with learned scholia and notes, and observed that it consists of four parts;

in the second of which are found those foreign judgments which were wont to be made especially by the Eusebians; in the third there is question of the judges of provincial synods, whose duty it is to write to the Roman pontiff, that the episcopal judgment may be referred to the apostolic see, as Pope Innocent I explained in his epistle to Victricius of Rouen. In the fourth part, finally, of that canon there is question of that right of the apostolic see which Quesnel has hitherto called new. But it cannot indeed be called new, which flows from divine institution. And that it flows from divine institution, not from canonical right — as regards that care which the Roman pontiffs expend upon all the Churches — is made known from what has hitherto been written, and Saint [Leo] clearly hands down.

Leo the Great in his letter to Anastasius, bishop of Thessalonica, and Julius himself, the pope, in his praised letter to the Eusebians. Therefore, since amid so great a controversy to be settled between Julius and the Eusebians the matter was being conducted in the exercise and use of this oversight and authority, with respect to the things which were brought into question by the factious Eusebians, for this reason, lest in time to come either the synods of the provinces or any other bishop of the Catholic Church should dare to despise or to weaken the decrees and judgments of the Apostolic See, they declared that the tribunal of Saint Peter was to be held in honor: namely, that by those who have given judgment a letter should be written to Julius, bishop of the Romans, and that, through the neighboring bishops of the province, if there be need, the judgment may be renewed, and that he himself may furnish examiners.

But if he cannot prove that the case is of such a kind that it needs to be judged again, then things once judged are not to be invalidated. Assuredly, if these words of the canon are taken in their genuine sense without violent interpretation, they are to be referred to the audacity of the Eusebians, who contended that the memory of the apostle Saint Peter was not to be honored, but that the judgments of the provincial synods were to be held firm and ratified, so that they could not be rescinded or abolished by anyone whatsoever. Therefore the Fathers of Sardica, who wished to break a like audacity, declared only that the memory of blessed Peter was to be honored, namely, that by those who have judged, and so forth.

Nor did they preserve a different mode of acting in drawing up the fourth canon, in which there is treatment of bishops deposed by synodal judgment, into whose see they will have no other man placed before the Roman Pontiff, the case having been examined, shall have pronounced sentence. Here they decree anew that the judgment of a synod is to be subjected to the judgment of the Roman Pontiff. That is to say, that they may ratify, and declare to be in accord with divine right, what Pope Julius had written at least five years before agreed with him, when he had learned that Gregory the Cappadocian had been intruded into the see of Alexandria without his being consulted. Therefore nothing was adjudged to the Roman Pontiff in those two canons which he did not, as they say, already hold by right of possession.

This peaceful possession none sought to deny or to disturb, with vain effort, save men of injured faith, who, just as they sought utterly to overthrow and abolish the rules of the Nicene dogmas, so likewise strove to assail the authority of the supreme judge and guardian of the canons. Therefore, in order that in time to come even the provincial councils of factious men might not attempt to injure or weaken this peaceful possession of the Roman Pontiffs, in that assembly of Sardica they wished to frame the two praised canons as an appendix, as it were, to those of Nicaea, since in that preceding Nicene synod it had been established that the privileges and prerogatives of the Churches were to be preserved, and the Fathers had said:

The Roman Church has always held the primacy, as was read in the Council of Chalcedon and as we have observed in what precedes. But now let Quesnel tell us what is contained in the seventh canon, whereby we should understand that the prior ones are derogated? For in it so plainly is the authority of the Roman Pontiff set forth.

The authority of the Roman Pontiff in receiving and judging the cases of appellants is so unfolded that by it the contentions of the Eusebians and of all schismatics are utterly settled—of those who denied that the judges of the provincial synods could be summoned to render an account of past judgments; which indeed Pope Julius, from the Nicene canons, proved against those same schismatics to be necessary for restraining the powerlessness, hatred, and fury of judges against the condemned, writing: "Those who think rightly" (he says) "concerning what they have done, and in which they themselves were judges, are not wont to take it ill if what was judged by them is sifted by others, inasmuch as they are confident that what they themselves have judged just can never become unjust."

Wherefore the bishops gathered in the great synod of Nicaea, not without God's counsel, permitted the Acts of a prior synod to be examined in another synod, so that both those who were judges, having before their eyes a second judgment to come concerning that matter, might weigh the case with all diligence, and those who had received the sentence might know for certain that they had been condemned not through the rivalry of the prior judges, but by right and by desert. Let Quesnel, I beg, attend to the following words, that he may understand that this rule had already obtained from apostolic custom and had only been renewed and explained in the Council of Nicaea. "Because" (adds Saint Julius)

"such a custom existed of old, and its memory survives and is handed down in writing in the great synod, and you do not allow it to prevail among you, you assuredly do an unseemly thing." Come now, let us subjoin that fifth Sardican canon, which the codices of Dionysius Exiguus exhibit outside its natural place; and which Quesnel adduced mutilated and truncated, with two words omitted, against the versions of all the interpreters. Bishop Hosius said:

"It has been resolved that if any bishop be accused, and the bishops of the same region, having gathered, depose him from his rank, and he, as one appealing, take refuge with the most blessed bishop of the Roman Church, and the latter be willing to hear him and judge it just that the examination of the matter be renewed, he shall deign to write to the fellow-bishops who are near the province, that they may diligently and accurately investigate each point and pronounce sentence concerning the matter according to the faith of the truth. But if anyone request that his cause be heard again, and it seem good to the Roman bishop to judge upon his supplication, that he send from his own side presbyters, it shall be in his power to do whatever he shall have approved as rightly disposed."

"And if he shall have decreed that those ought to be sent who are to judge together with the bishops, having the authority of him by whom they were sent, this too is to be laid down. But if he think the bishops' sentence sufficient for the cognizance of the matter, he shall do what shall seem rightly disposed to his most prudent counsel." The bishops answered: "What has been said is approved." Christian Lupus observes that this canon agrees wonderfully with the two preceding ones. Nay, that it was issued rather to set forth more fully the authority of the Roman Pontiff is proved by those words which hint that he can send presbyters from his side as legates, who, either alone or together with the bishops of another neighboring province, may take cognizance of the case and conclude it;

lest place be given to appeals without end. Yet it by no means permits the bishops of the neighboring province alone, without the assistance of the Roman presbyters, to judge. I confess indeed that on occasion of this canon various questions were raised by the interpreters among writers both ancient and more recent, as may be seen in the most renowned Christian Lupus. Nevertheless no one strove to interpret it so zealously and violently as our adversary Quesnel. For he, having made at his own pleasure a new construction of the canon, and having withdrawn those words which indicate the full authority of the Roman Pontiff

in taking up and resolving the cases of appellants, contends that "a judgment is renewed" and "a council is renewed" ought to be taken for one and the same thing. Adding moreover: "And indeed, if 'judgment' were taken for 'sentence,' it ought not to have been said 'in judgment,' but only 'judgment.' It is established, therefore, that a council of the Roman bishop is here to be understood. But what kind of council, we must investigate. He asserts that a manifold council is subject to the Roman Pontiff."

And therefore, having first set down that common distinction of the grades of ecclesiastical administration befitting the Roman Pontiff—namely, as bishop of the City, as metropolitan of the Roman province, as primate of the suburbicarian dioceses, as patriarch of the Western tract, as head and summit in the whole Church—he concedes that the Pontiff can also dispose of diverse synods according to the quality of the cases. Yet with this caution, however, that he himself alone should never judge, but with due regard had to the cases which it behooves him to weigh. So that when, within his own parish or proper diocese, appeal is made to him from the sentence of an inferior judge, the appellant's cause is to be judged by the parochial synod, or by the supreme Pontiff himself surrounded by the counsel of his clergy;

when from a province the cause pertains to the provincial synod, when from the suburbicarian dioceses to the diocesan, when from the Western tract to the Western, when from other parts of the Church to the ecumenical and universal—unless by the free choice and petition of the appellants something else be signified. To this norm, unless I am mistaken, the sense of the Sardican canon is to be drawn out, and by the same reasoning the appeal of Flavian is to be judged. A pretty interpretation indeed, but exceedingly ingenious, of the pontifical law—if it could stand. But although various supports are employed by Quesnel to sustain it, nevertheless the very words of the canon first make it collapse. And then the most ancient interpreters who explained the canon;

and finally the mode of acting of Pope Leo and of the other Roman Pontiffs, who, when the cases of appellants had been received, either immediately pronounced (as they say) a peremptory judgment themselves;

or else decreed only that a general council was to be convened, when they believed the public solemnity of judgments to be necessary for removing the gravest dissensions and schisms which, on account of the diverse factions of wicked men, were wickedly vexing the state of the most holy Churches to the ruin and scandal of Catholics—for breaking the contumacy of those who had strayed from the rules of faith and ecclesiastical discipline, and for reconciling the penitent guilty who had abjured the crimes they had committed, a solemn confession of the Catholic faith having then been made, and finally for carrying into execution each and all the statutes of the Apostolic See which seemed necessary according to the condition of the times and the quality of the affairs.

Four things, therefore, are to be distinguished. First, the protestation of a deposed bishop who remonstrates and appeals from the sentence or judgment of the provincial synod; the third, the judgment of the Apostolic See itself, or of the Roman Pontiff, pronounced in a parochial synod or in consistory concerning the appellant's cause and rights, and concerning the preceding sentence of the provincial synod; the fourth, finally, regards the execution of the judgment of the Apostolic See itself, which, since it often cannot be had save by the convoking of a new patriarchal or general synod, for this reason the Roman Pontiffs send legates from their own side, that each thing defined by them may be faithfully committed to execution.

It is not true, therefore, that "a judgment is renewed" and "a council is renewed" ought to be taken for one and the same thing, as Quesnel devises. For an appeal once made certainly demands a renewal of the judgment—which, willy-nilly, the adversary must confess—but by no means another convocation of a council. For in express words, in the last canon transcribed by us, we have: "But if anyone request that his cause be heard again, and it seem good to the Roman bishop, upon his supplication, to judge, so that he send presbyters from his own side, it shall be in his power to do whatever he shall have approved as rightly disposed."

But what free power would there be in the Roman Pontiffs to do whatever they have approved, if they could not by right judge, or send presbyters from their side to hear the affair on account of which the appellant has appealed? Assuredly, if the Fathers had not adjudged full power to the Roman Pontiffs, but had wished to restrict the pontifical rights only to one new council, they ought to have employed another mode of speech, since among many fitting means for a new cognizance of matters, free liberty has been given them to choose that which shall be judged more fitting and suitable by their most prudent judgment. This the last words of that canon just reviewed expressly intimate.

Meanwhile Quesnel, by flattering himself, intends to affect a joy too great, because he has been able to prove that the cause of Flavian was carried to a general synod by virtue of an appeal resting solely on the Sardican canons; and moreover, having employed various distorted interpretations, which we have clearly proved in the preceding Exercise to be wholly fallacious, he again turns his cutting style against Jean David, and harasses him as a trifler and a deceiver, because he wrote that Flavian had appealed to the one and sole Roman Pontiff.

But who will not thoroughly perceive the confidence of a man who has been willing to compare our reasons—not excogitated in the brain, but drawn from sincere monuments—with so many and so great trifles, cavils, and false conjectures, and interpretations which he has busied himself to heap up with excessive zeal and to display to readers, in order to establish and strengthen his new system?