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: