Sermons & Letters 237 part 2/3

"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."