by infallibility it self As for the behaviour of Hormisdas in this whole business it may seem too stiff and rigorous but setting aside his design to trample down his Rival at Constantinople and taking upon himself the single Authority of governing the Christian Church his severity was but seasonable and necessary at that time For ever since the unhappy Publication of the Henoticon and the Schism of Acacius the Discipline of the Church was wholy laid aside by the Acacian Party and that could not be restored to its effectual exercise without bringing the Offenders against it to a publick Confession of their fault Neither indeed without that was it lawful by the Canons of the Church to receive any man that had been Canonically judged a Schismatick to Communion And as for the Scythian Monks though their Proposition were true as in one sense it might be when they applyed the Crucifixion not immediately to the Divinity it self but to the flesh in which the Divinity resided Yet however it was in the first place as they express it in general terms capable of too harsh a sense Secondly it was without Authority when private Persons will take upon themselves the confidence to impose upon the Christian Church Thirdly it was an unmannerly reflection upon the Council of Calcedon as if that had not made sufficient provision against the late Heresie but stood in need to be patcht out by this new Addition And for these reasons I cannot see but that it was justly censured and rejected by this Pope though otherwise and in most other Cases he was a man of much too stiff and unyielding a Temper The rest of the Acts of his Reign are lost for tho he lived two years after yet after this time we have no remaining Records of his Transactions But the Emperor having cleared the Church of these wanton Schisms that owed their Birth meerely to the liberty granted by his Predecessors he now proceeds to root up all the ancient Heresies that it seems had peep 't above ground again by having been so long neglected And it is certain that there is no setting limits to liberty of opinion for if men are once allowed the wantonness of Philosophising as they please there is nothing so absurd that somebody will not assert And here from this particular Case we may observe the woful effects of a few years indulgence and licentiousness when all these wild Heresies that the several Emperors had from time to time rooted up by effectual Laws now take root and spring up again and probably had they not been timely prevented by this Emperor and his Successor they might have grown to as great an head as ever they did in former times But they are cut up all together at one blow by one Law viz. That the Manichees be every where destroyed and put to death and that the rest of the Hereticks and an Heretick is every man that is not Orthodox together with Heathens Jews and Samaritans bear no Office in the Common-wealth And if any shall presume to do it he is to be severely fined excepting only the Gothick Arians because they are our Confederates Where we may observe that the punishment of the Manichees is Capital but that of the other sort of Hereticks Pecuniary because Manicheism was not meer Heresie but down-right Debauchery and that of the blackest Dye teaching men the practice of all wickedness from the Principles of Religion And therefore this Heresie was as severely proceeded against by Heathen as by Christian Emperors as we may see by a Rescript of Dioclesian and Maximinian in the Gregorian Code against the Manichees those new and unheard of Monsters in the Roman Empire that were first spawn'd in Persia where they committed all manner of wickedness raised Tumults and Seditions among the People and caused great slaughters in every City And as for the exception of the Arian Goths it could not well be avoided at that time both because the Emperor was Confederate with their Powerful King Theodorick whose displeasure would then have been very dangerous to the State of the Empire and because he would not provoke him to use any Severity against the Catholicks in the West he being then King of Italy and had hitherto been so far from all thoughts of Persecution that he protected the Church in all its Rights and Liberties and abetted its power with as Religious care and respect as any Emperor had ever done It is reported by Baronius and those that follow him that Justin afterwards reverst this Indulgence to the Goths and put the Laws against the Arians so severely in Execution that Theodorick forced Pope John the First to go his Ambassador to Constantinople to take him off from his severity and because he did not or would not effect it cast him into Prison at his return home where he died This is the common Tale but I doubt it wants Authority For as for Anastasius the Librarian who is the chief Author upon whom the learned Annalist relyes he is a very late and fabulous Writer living in the 9th Century and that under Pope Nicolaus the first that great Father of Lyes whose whole business it was to corrupt the Records of the Church for the advancement of his own See and as he for that reason imposed upon the World the forged Decretals of the Popes from Clement down to Cyricius so his Librarian extracted the History of that Interval out of those Forgeries And though he had or might have had better Records of the following Popes yet I know not by what fate it comes to pass his Story is altogether as ill-told and is no better then rank Legend But so it was that he lived in a dark and barbarous Age when the Records of the Church were buried under heaps of Tales and Fables and men only studied to out-stretch one another in the strangeness of their Reports And therefore I cannot but wonder that a man of Labbés Learning and Judgment should follow him as the best Author of the Papal History when it is so inconsistent with all those Records that himself has examin'd and published of every Popes Actions As for the Letters of Pope John to the Italian Bishops about this business they are apparently spurious Gregory Turonensis indeed tells a Story somewhat like it but then he has it only upon Report at a great distance of place and that a very crude one and different from other Records for he says nothing of the Embassy to Constantinople which was the only considerable transaction of this Popes Reign but only says that he was told that the cause of his Imprisonment was that Theodorick putting all the Catholicks in Italy to the Sword it is strange that no Historian of that time should make any mention of it Pope John went to him to perswade him from so bloody a Persecution for which in a rage he threw him into Prison As for the Story of Gregory the Great it is
contains nothing new in it The 132 d is against the Conventicles of Hereticks of all Herds The 133 d reduces Monks to the observation of the Laws of the Church and the Rules of their Order The 137 th reâ—ulates Ordinations of the Clergy by the â—anons The 146 th is an indulgence of Liberty to the Jews and these are all the Laws enacted by this Emperor about Religion for those few that follow were made by his Successor Justin though they are placed under this Princes name by mistake Now I pray what is there in all this that is not warrantable in a Prince What is there that is not highly praise-worthy What is there that is not warranted by Precedents of his Predecessors unless it be this That he exceeded them all in his care and kindness to the Church What then can be the meaning of those ungrateful Men who requite him with nothing but Calumnies and unkind reflections for being too busie in Church-Matters unless it be this That they care not that Princes should inspect and observe the Neglects and Disorders of the Clergy I am sure Baronius betrays great dis-ingenuity in loading him so heavily as he has done when yet at the same time he is forced to excuse him first from the necessity of the times for recovering the Discipline of the Church for the Canons having lain neglected all the time of Zeno Basiliscus and Anastasius that obliged him to be the more active to recover their Authority and if he were so why does the Cardinal charge him with pragmaticalness against the Power of the Church Secondly from Justinian's own declaration that runs through all his Laws that he does not take upon himself the Authority of enacting Ecclesiastical Laws but of abetting them and putting them in executioâ— by secular Penalties a fault that would be very commendable in all Princes But some distance after the great Cardinal so far forgets his displeasure against this great Emperor that upon his sending an Ambassy to Pope John the second against the Acaemetan Monks he writes a Panegyrick upon his decent and regular Proceedings in the Church in that he always acted by the Authority of his Bishops with the consent of the Pope Adeo ut nihil his sanctius rectiusque perfici potuerit ab Orthodoxo Imperatore qui Catholicae fidei patrocinium studio indefesso susceperit And beside this he might have remembred what himself says in the year following ought never to be forgot Pope Agapetus his high Commendation of the Emperor's acting in Church-Matters in his Epistle to the Emperor Firmamus laudamus amplectimur non quia Laicis Auctoritatem praedicationis admittimus sed quia studium fidei vestrae Patrum nostrorum regulis conveniens confirmamus atque roboramus Another excuse he has made that with him out-weighs all the rest that he was under the Government of a wicked Woman kneadâ—d up of no less than six she-Devils Eve Dalilah and Herodias Alecto Megaera and Tisiphone and there is not one Lady in all his story if she be out of his favor that he does not compound of some or all of these Ingredients And concludes that he might have been the greatest Prince that ever swayed Scepter had it not been for this Penelope or six-fold Devil who made it her business to cross and controul him in all his Designs and unravel as fast as he could wind up in all his great Under-takings So true is that of the Preacher It is better to dwell with a Lyon or a Dragon than with a wicked Woman § XXIII And thus having vindicated his Laws from the Cavils of these ungratful Men I come now to vindicate his Person and his Actions from their more disingenuous Aspersions And here lies the main ground of the Quarrel against him not his medling too much with Church-Matters but with Church-Men He would not suffer himself as some of his Predecessors did to be outhufft by the Papal Insolence but brought Vigilius one of the proudest of them all to complyance and submission and that is a Crime never to be forgiven And for want of better or rather worse Information against him they are content to take up with a scandalous Libel i. e. Procopius's Anecdota Baronius was grieved to the heart that he could not find it because from thence he says it would appear what the Humor what the Wisdom what the Piety of Justinian was when his sauciness against Ecclesiasticks was such as no good or pious Prince could be guilty of But Alemannus a Convert from the poor Greek Church and one of the Cardinals Successors as he proudly intitles himself in the Office of Apostolical Librarian chancing it seems to light upon it as he was brushing the old Manuscripts in the Vatican is transported with joy and is all on fire to oblige holy Church with the publication of so useful a Work that the World might now see what manner of Man this same Justinian was who treated a Bishop so rudely as he did the good Pope Vigilius and not only so but he has helpt out the original Copy in his Latin Translation and what Procopius relates only as a flying Report he makes bold to set down as a known and certain truth And among many other strong strains of disingenuity he has been so injudicious as to undertake to make out the truth of this Libel by Procopius his own History that was publisht to the World in Justinian's own time approved of by himself and the Author advanced for it to the highest Preferments in the Empire Now that Man that will seriously go about to prove a Panegyrick to be a Satyr only shews that he is a little too much in good earnest But before I prove the false-hood of these Slanders it will be convenient to shew the occasion of raising them and that was the great heats in the Controversie about the tria capitula in which the Emperor created to himself a great number of Enemies by his zeal and resolution on that side that he unhappily took to I shall therefore first set down the progress of that Story that was the only false step of his Reign but so unluckily made that he could never wholly recover himself again before I ingage the Librarian and his supposed Author This Emperor then having appear'd so zealously in behalf of the Orthodox Faith having declared so severely against all Hereticks by several Edicts and particularly publisht a Rescript against the singularities of Origen upon complaint of the Palestine Monks set on by Pelagius the Popes Legate at the Court of Constantinople in spite to Theodorus Bishop of Caesarea his Rival in Court-favor but a great Admirer of Origen having appointed a Conference at Constantinople in the year 533 to reconcile the Acephali to the Church and the Council of Calcedon in which he expresses a very high Passion for the resettlement of Peace and Unity Having been so bold as to consent to the deposition of Anthimus Bishop
they were exempted by Law And in the year 399 the same Law is repeated with a pecuniary Mulct not only upon the Offender that commits the Crime but upon the Judg that connives at it And in the same year another Rescript is publisht to refer Ecclesiastical Causes to the Ecclesiastical judgment but contentious about Civil Rights to the Secular Courts And there are many more Laws of the same strein in the Imperial Code the meaning whereof is not wholly to limit the Judgment of all Ecclesiastical Causes to the Church and of all Civil Causes to the Secular Courts because most Causes as I have shewn above appertain to both But their plain intention is that Causes purely Ecclesiastical or Offences against the Canons Rubricks and Orders of the Church for the preservation of Peace and Decency or Offences against the Rule of Faith shall be judged by the Church alone and as for civil Controversies they are to receive their decision only from Civil Courts For the final power of Decision is all the Authority that can be used in that case but though the Church has none of that yet it has a Power to judg of the same Actions as far as they concern the Laws of their Religion or as Theodosius the younger expresses it Christianam sanctitatem And though when one Man stands convict of having defrauded another they have not Power to right the Person wronged or to inforce a Restitution yet they have a Power to pass sentence upon the injury as a breach of the Christian Law and that sentence will have its effect So that though they have not a Civil Authority in Civil Causes yet they have an Ecclesiastical that is distinguisht not by the Matter but the Penalty of the Law But the true and proper meaning of these Laws is best understood by the occasion upon which they were enacted and the occasion of this was that the Emperors had impowr'd Bishops to decide Controversies by arbitration and the consent of Parties which they in process of time challenge as their right and derive their Authority for it from Apostolical Law as was done by the African Fathers at this time petitioning the Emperor That if any Persons will choose to have their Controversies decided by the Church according to Apostolical Law and one Party shall appeal from the Award that the Priest who was the Judg shall not be cited to the temporal Courts by him to give in any account or testimony of the proceedings To which Petition the Emperor returns this Law as a just denyal though that neither does nor can take away their Power of Ecclesiastical Censures that they received from our Saviour but of civil Decision that was granted them by the favor and indulgence of Princes and when once they pretended to an higher Commission for it it was but time to clip their pretences But in the year 400 he publisht a very remarkable Rescript in defence of the true power and discipline of the Church against all Appeals from their Sentence even to the Imperial Throne it self Whoever shall be deposed from his Office in the Church by a Synod of Bishops if he shall presume against the modesty of the Church and the Peace of the Empire to resume that Office to himself from which he is deposed he shall according to the Law of Gratian of blessed Memory be banisht an hundred Miles from the City that he infested for it is but fit that he should be banisht their Assemblies who is cut off from their Society And be it farther enacted by the force of this Law That no such Persons apply themselves to our Secretaries to procure our Rescripts in their behalf and if they shall by stealth obtain any all Rescripts granted to such Persons as are deposed from their Priesthood are hereby declared null and void And lastly let such Persons upon whose favor they relie take notice that they shall not escape the punishment due to such as shall undertake the protection of such Men as are already cast by the judgment of God This Law of stopping all Appeals from the Church was of all others most necessary for the preservation of discipline in it and therefore it was always with greatest care establisht by the Canons against all Invasions and observed with the greatest tenderness by all the wisest Emperors And we have seen through the whole series of this History that from the very time that Princes took upon them the protection of the Church the only thing that debaucht and defeated the Efficacy of its Discipline was Church-mens taking sanctuary at Court against the Authority of their Superiors And the mischiefs of this abuse having been so often experienced it was but high time to take it quite away insomuch that the Emperor was pleased to tye up his own hands from untying any sentence of the Church As for the occasion of this Law there are many conjectures about it but I think the most probable is that of Gothofred that it was made at the Petition of the African Fathers who were actually sitting at that time to restore the ancient and effectual discipline of the Church and reform the Abuses and Corruptions that were crept or were creeping into it and so among others implore the Emperor that he would be pleased to stop all ways of appeal to Persons that stood legally condemn'd by the sentence of the Church and to injoin this to all his Officers as they word it interpositâ poenâ damni pecuniae atque honoris And this Petition the Emperor grants with that frankness as to take away this abused Power of Appeals not only from his Judges but himself and damn their Authority by this Rescript once for all and for ever In the year 401 he exempts those of the Clergy that were forced to trade to get a Lively-hood from the payment of all Customs the same Law that was made by Constantius in the year 343. So that it seems the Church was not as yet indowed with sufficient Revenues to maintain it self when some of the Clergy were forced to traffick for bread Thô they were afterward forbidden all manner of Trade by Valentinan the third when it seems the Church was grown rich enough to subsist upon its own stock In the year 407 he not only confirms all the ancient Priviledges and Immunities of the Clergy but he grants them a new sort of Tuition viz. Secular Advocates for the management of all their Secular Affairs but lest by this means the Church should be cheated by these Trustees the Bishops of the Province are required to survey their Accounts This Law was made at the Petition of the African Fathers in the fourth Council of Africa and is extant in their Code Canon 97. And it was done for this end that the Clergy might not be forced to appear in Law-Courts and leave their Functions to follow Law-Suits And this is the first time that Lay-men were taken
is I suppose that Trebonian has wholly left it out of the Justinian Collection Under the Title de Paganis there are three Laws of Arcadius viz. 13 14 16 and five of Honorius 15 17 18 19 20. The first Law of Arcadius was enacted at his first coming to the Empire in the year 395 and was only a Ratification of all his Royal Father's Laws both against Pagans and Hereticks with very severe comminations upon his Officers that neglected their speedy and vigorous Execution no less than death it self in supercapitali supplicio judicamus Officia i. e. Officiales coercenda quae statuta neglexerint By a second Rescript in the year following all Priviledges whatsoever heretofore granted to the Heathen Priests are utterly abolisht And by a Rescript in the year 399 all their Temples still remaining in Villages in the Province of Syria Phaenice are commanded to be pull'd down but not without Tumult many of the Monks who were usually most busie at that Work being wounded and slain by the Country People In the same year Honorius takes away their Sacrifices and Temples in France and Spain but so as to preserve their publick Ornaments after the example of his Father Theodosius in the eighth Law of this Title And in the same year also he being petition'd by the African Fathers in their fifth Council to remove all the Relicks of Idolatry that as he had already taken away their Sacrifices so he would be pleased to abolish their publick Festivals quae ab errore Gentili attracta sunt i. e. that were Customs at first derived from the old Heathenism to this he returns a peremptory denyal That though it was his Royal Pleasure that the prophane Rites should be taken away yet he would not have the People deprived of their Solemnities of mirth according to ancient and immemorial Custom And whereas the same Fathers moved that the Heathen Temples still remaining in Villages and more remote Parts of the Country might be destroyed the Emperor denies that too the Idols he will have removed but not the Buildings themselves demolisht But in the year 408 the Emperor is of another mind being inflamed to it by a particular Provocation For Stilicâ—o being slain that year both the Heathens and the Donatists as we have seen in their History grow insolent and give out that all the Laws that had been enacted against them were only Stilico's without the Emperor's Consent which being signifiâ—d to the Emperor by the African Fathers with a repetition of their former Requests he upon it grants all that they ask and more and nothing less will serve his turn than the utter extirpation of Paganism Upon it he takes away all their Revenues and settles them upon his Army destroys their Images and their Altars turns their publick Temples to other publick Uses commands the private Chappels to be demolisht by the Owners takes away the solemn Festivals and imposes the execution of this Law upon his Officers under the Penalty of a very severe Fine His last Rescript was enacted in the year 415 in which he permits the Heathen Games yearly exhibited by the Priests in their Metropoles or great Cities upon condition that the Priests return home to their own Habitations as soon as the Solemnity is ended Secondly he sequesters all Revenues belonging to the Temples to his own and to the Churches use Thirdly he removes all their Heathen Images from the Baths and all other publick Places And lastly he inflicts Capital Punishments upon the Ring-leaders in their Sacrifices and superstitious Processions And thus by these several Penal Laws under these several Titles and against these several Factions he so settled the Peace of the Church and Empire that though he lived ten years after for he died not till the year 425 he had no necessity of making any more news Laws about these old Matters for when things are once settled in their right Method the World jogs on in good order of its own accord So that it was really this reign that vanquisht all the inveterate disorders of the Church that utterly rooted out the Schism of the Donatists and broke the heart of the Heresie of the Arians for it was at this time that it received its fatal blow though afterward it made some weak Essays and fainting gaspings to recover life Neither do I remember that after this time he had occasion of making any other Laws about Ecclesiastical Matters but one Law of Discipline in the year 420 to recover the obsolete force of an Ecclesiastical Canon strictly forbidding all Clergy-men to cohabit with any Women unless their own Mothers Sisters or Daughters and commanding all that had been married before they entred into Orders to retain their Wives after it The first part of which Law was made in pursuance of the Nicene Canon that had been frequently renewed both by the Ecclesiastical and Civil Law by reason of a common Abuse that was crept into the Church that Men professing Caelibacy took Women into their Houses commonly call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 beloved Sisters to minister to their necessities and join with them in their Devotions by which odd kind of liberty they brought great and just Scandal upon the Church and for that reason we meet with continual Complaints in all the Ancients against them The other part of the Law against the Clergies divorce upon pretence of stricter Sanctity is taken from the sixth Apostolical Canon so that it is evident from this Law that the Caelibacy of the Clergy was not at this time injoin'd though afterward it crept into the Church by insensible degrees till it was at length imposed rather by the Authority of Custom than Law § XIV But the management of the Civil Policy of this Reign in Church-Matters as happy as it was it was not so happy as the Ecclesiastical Government that runs parallel with it was deplorable For in this very Period of time hap'ned such a fatal Revolution in the Church like those great Deluges and Conflagrations that Plato dreams of by which old Worlds are destroyed and new ones made as swept away the whole frame of the ancient Church and swallowed up all its power in the exorbitant Usurpation of one Bishop For now it was that the old Constitution of the Catholick Church as it had stood from the time of our Saviour and his Apostles divided into Provincial Jurisdictions and those again uniâ—ed into a Catholick Communion with an equality of Power among themselves was gulft up in the unlimited and universal Supremacy of one single Bishop over all This was first challenged by Innocent the first who began to reign in the year 402 and was ever after eagerly pursued by his Successors at which great change of things it might be convenient to make a stand and take a sad view of the dismal Ruins under which the Primitive Church with all its liberties lay buried for many Ages But as it
ancient Canons And that was the custom of all Popes at that time following the dance of Innocent the first to make the Canons speak what themselves pleased and when they pleased to speak Contradictions But in the time of Leo the great Hilarius Bishop of Arles and a mettlesom Man would not be content with his Metropolitical Authority but sets up for a Patriarchal Supremacy over all France and Independency upon Rome This transports that proud and jealous Pope beyond all bounds of revenge and outrage and upon it he writes in great fury to the Bishops of France to depose him from his Metropolitical Authority and cancels all Acts of his Government in that capacity And as for the Grant of his Predecessor Zosimus to that See he has the confidence to pretend that it was only temporary and personal though by it he imposed as grosly upon Zosimus as Zosimus himself did upon the ancient Canons and to ratifie all he procures this Imperial Rescript commanding absolute Obedience to all his Commands and in effect erecting an universal Supremacy for him But the matter the stile and the spirit of the Rescript too much betray the rough hand of Leo himself in it And it was no hard Matter for so bold a Man to extort what he pleased from such a softly Prince And yet this very same Man when Hilarius dyed got Ravennius a very weak Man to succeed him and then restored the Metropolitical Authority to him and his See and thus did these Men set up and pull down as served the ends of their own Ambition and all out of pure Reverence to the ancient Canons And to speak a plain truth plainly they meerly lyed themselves into their universal Supremacy as I shall shew more at large not only from this instance of Arles but from two other great transactions on foot at the very same time that is their Usurpation over the Churches of Africk and Illyricum And though in the first they were shamefully baffled by the Africans who exposed their gross and scandalous Forgeries to the World yet it shews that they trusted to nothing so much at the time of their usurpation as the Sovereign Power of lying But to keep to our present business His next Law is to confirm all the Rescripts of former Emperors Pagan as well as Christian to out-law the Manichees This Law was made upon the discovery and confession of some very foul matter by one of the Ring-leaders of that Sect what the Fact was it was not thought decent to express and it is only in general thus described Quorum incesta perversitas Religionis nomine Lupanaribus quoque ignota vel pudenda committit such a foul incest under pretext of Religion that it was not so much as named in the publick Stews His next Law is against the Robbers of Tombs and Sepulchres it is a very severe one and one of the most eloquent for the stile in the whole Collection Servants and poor People convicted of it are punisht with death Men of fortune with forfeiture of half their Estates and all their Honors Clergy-Men with deposition from their Orders and perpetual banishment And as for all Governors that shall neglect the execution of this Law they forfeit both Estate and Honor. His last Law is to regulate the Bishops Courts and to revive some Laws of former Emperors relating to the Clergy it gives the Bishops power of Judicature praeeunte vinculo compromissi by way of Arbitration but no otherwise It allows Bishops and Presbyters to appear in the Civil Courts by their Proxies for all Causes unless Personal Crimes and lastly it prescribes what Persons may or may not be received into Holy Orders according to several fore-mention'd Rescripts of former Emperors § XV. But the most material Law of this reign is still behind and that is the Law to confirm the Decrees of the great Council of Ephesus that was both call'd and ratified by Theodosius the Younger which I have reserved to this place to treat of it by it self because as it is the greatest transaction of this Reign so is it another eminent Instance of the right Concurrence of the Powers of Church and State in the determination of Ecclesiastical Controversies and enacting of Ecclesiastical Laws and Canons All the old Schisms and Heresies being vanquisht by the Methods already described such is the wantonness of Humane Wit that it fell upon contriving new Conceits for its own sport and entertainment There is such a natural Vanity in some Mens Tempers that they can scarce live without singularities and innovations from whence comes that necessity of Heresies that St Paul speaks of they are the certain effects of Pride and Pedantry and as long as there are and will be born in all Ages Men of that Complexion nothing can hinder them from venting their own novel and home-spun Metaphysicks And therefore it cannot be expected that the Church should be altogether free from Heresies for that cannot be done without an alteration of Humane Nature it is enough that it is furnisht with means to stop and cure the Disease whenever it breaks out in the body of the Church as we have seen great numbers of Botches dispersed and reduced to nothing by the right exercise and concurrence of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And after this time it is observable that Heresies were not so long-lived for now the Method of their cure being understood by experience which when all is done is the best Art of Physick it was so soon dispatch't that they rarely survived their Author and after one sentence effectually executed they scarce ever put the Government to a second trouble as will appear by the following History Nestorius being chosen to the swelling Throne of Constantinople by Theodosius the Younger out of the Church of Antioch to avoid or rather end a violent competition at home he brings along with him one Anastasius a Presbyter his inseparable Friend and Companion and Valesius is pleased to be so critical as to affirm that he was his Syncellus an Office in the Pallaces of Patriarchs who had power to choose what Presbyters they pleased to cohabit with them who were therefore stil'd Syncelli or Concellanei But I doubt this learned Man here derives this Office too high for we find no foot-steps of any such State in the Records of the Church till after the Institution of Patriarchates by the Council of Calcedon and then we have frequent mention of it in History though nothing but deep silence before But whatever he were whereas the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mother of God had been so familiarly given to the Virgin Mary by the Ancients that it was by custom become her proper Title and always annext to her name against this Anastasius inveighs in a Sermon and affirms that she ought not to be stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of God but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of Man But
Asiatick and Thracian Bishops for him upon the account of the Animosity between him and Cyril about the Anathema's From hence they fall to the Examination of the Acts of the Ephesine Council where the forgeries the frauds the violent and illegal Proceedings of Dioscorus Juvenal and their Associates against Flavianus and Eusebius are at large most shamefully exposed to the World but their punishment is referred to the Emperor and so ends the first Action In the second they proceed to treat of the settlement of the Faith where they establish the Nicene Faith against Arius the Ephesine against Nestorius and the Epistle of Pope Leo to Flavianus against Eutyches as necessary Expositions of the Faith In the third Session which Valesius says ought to have been the second comes on the Tryal of Dioscorus who upon divers Accusations brought into the Council against him and after three Citations refusing to appear is deposed It is pretty to observe in this sentence how under this swelling Pope the Acts and Forms of Court were innovated for the advantage of the Papal Power The Libels or Petitions against the Offender are addrest in the first place to the Oecumenical Arch-bishop and Patriarch of Rome and then to the Council it self And then none must denounce the Sentence but his own Legates and that too must be done not in the name of the Council but in the Name and by the Authority of Pope Leo and St. Peter and this being done the Council signifie their sentence to the Emperor and Empress where again they give all the glory of the Action to Pope Leo. In the fourth Action beside repeting the former Decrees a Committee is appointed to debate farther concerning the Faith and Leo's Epistle which they represent to the Council as agreeable in all particulars to the Nicene Faith After that the Judges acquaint the Fathers that the Emperor is pleased to refer back the sentence against the Accomplices of Dioscorus to themselves but they tacking about and following the dance of that shameless Ecebolian Juvenal of Jerusalem and subscribing the Epistle of Pope Leo are reconciled and admitted to sit In the next place the Egyptian Bishops refuse to subscribe either the Condemnation of Eutyches and Dioscorus or the confirmation of Leo's Epistle during the Vacancy of the Arch bishoprick of Alexandria upon the deposition of Dioscorus it being both against the Canons and the Custom of their Church to act any thing without the consent of their Arch-bishop But this the Council interpret a meer shift and tergiversation to escape the subscription to their Decrees and therefore insist upon it before their dismission And tell them withal that the Canon was valid as to the ordinary Affairs of their own Province but ought to be anticipated and superseded by the determinations of general Councils that include and over-rule all Provincial Jurisdictions In answer to this they declare their own readiness to subscribe but dare not for fear of the People when they return home who they knew would lay violent hands upon them for betraying the Rights of the great Alexandrian Metropolitan And after long drawing on either side the matter is adjusted by the mediation of the Secular Judges that their subscription should be respited till the election of a new Arch-bishop which was accepted by Paschasinus the Popes Legate upon this condition that they would give Security by Oath or Sureties not to depart the City till that was done which being readily perform'd it ended the Controversie After this follows the Petition of the Eutychian Monks of Constantinople to the Emperor which he referr'd to the Council as he did all other Addresses but it being in behalf of Dioscorus against the Council and particularly their own Bishop Anatolius from whom they threaten to divide Communion if they persist in their Sentence against Dioscorus they are taught by Aëtius the Arch-deacon of Constantinople in a Premunire against the 4 th and 5 th Canons of the Council of Antioch whereby all Presbyters are actually excommunicated that presume to separate from their own Bishop But before they can be farther heard in Council they are required to subscribe the Epistle of Pope Leo against Eutyches and his prophane Novelties which refusing they are deposed from their Orders and expell'd their Monasteries The Imperial or as the Council phrases it the external Power according to the holy Laws of their Ancestors backing their Decree against the Contumacious This Action is shut up with a very fair decision of a Controversie between Photius Bishop of Tyre and Eustathius Bishop of Beryte who being a subject Bishop to Photius had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by subreption procured a Rescript in the time of Theodosius the Younger to bring part of the Province into subjection to himself and by force and threatning extorts Photius his consent to it But this great Council now sitting Photius Petitions the Emperor to write to the Council to redress his wrong which is easily granted where the cause being debated Eustathius confesses the Canon against him but pleads the Imperial Rescript against that But this Plea is utterly rejected both by the Judges and the Bishops to whom the Judges referred its final judgment who determin'd it upon this rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Imperial Pragmaticks are of no force against the Canons Upon this Eustathius pleads the Authority of Anatolius and a Synod of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Bishops sojourning at Constantinople who had proceeded so far in this contest as to excommunicate Photius though uncited and unheard upon this the Judges refer it to the Council Whether that were a legal Synod to which Anatolius pleads That it was so by Custom though not by Law But against this the 4 th Canon of Nice is urged that no Bishop can be ordain'd without the consent of his Metropolitan which Eustathius having done by whatsoever other Authority it was an open breach of that Canon and so adjudged by the Council to whom the Secular Judges intirely lest the Judicature as proper to their Jurisdiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they declare to give the final Sentence about these Matters which being done by the Council in behalf of Photius it is thus confirm'd by the Judges 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let the Decrees of the Council stand establisht forever And upon it Cecropius Bishop of Sebastopolis is incouraged to move That all Imperial Pragmaticks for the Alteration of the settled bounds of Provinces may be taken away forever as bringing certain disturbance and confusion upon the Government of the Church which being seconded by the Synod is confirm'd by the Consent of the Judges In the 5 th Action after many Debates the Judges having no mind to the Imposition of Leo's Epistle the Fathers proceed to the settlement of the Faith and having first approved the Creeds of the three other general Councils they add a 4 th of their own framing against Eutyches not that
with Petitions on one side for abrogating and on the other for confirming the Council of Calcedon The Emperor considering of the Matter refers it to the Judgment of the Church and being unwilling to put the poor aged Bishops to the tedium of long Journeys for assembling in Council he takes a more compendious but no less effectual course directing his Letters to all the Metropolitans of the Christian Church within the Empire requiring their impartial Judgment of both Controversies without fear or favor or ill-will having only the fear of God before their Eyes and as they would one day answer it to the divine Majesty viz. the Ordination of Timotheus Aelâ—rus and the ratification of the Council of Calcedon And this brought forth that famous volume of Encyclical Epistles that make up the third part of the Council of Calcedon and that are so often and so much commended by the Ancients Liberatus Facundus Hermianensis Evagrius Victor Tunonensis and Cassiodorus at whose perswasion as himself informs us Epiphanius a learned Man translated them into the Latin Tongue and that is the only Copy of them that is now extant An excellent Collection it is of Ecclesiastical Antiquity and a true representation of the ancient Unity and Communion of the Catholick Church without the formality of a general Council The Authority of the determination is the same consisting in the Concord of Bishops and the Resolution it self much more easie and expedient For it required much time and expence to assemble Councils it put infirm old Men to long and tedious Journeys it rob'd most Churches for a time of their Guides by the absence of their leading Prelates whereas by this way of Encyclical Correspondence the dispatch was equally speedy and effectual For the Result of all their Answers was the approbation of the Synod of Calcedon and the deposition of Timotheus there being but one Dissenter and he but half an one and that was Amphilochius Bishop of Sida who at first disallowed the Council of Calcedon but earnestly pâ—â—ss't the deposition of Timotheus thô witâ—â—n a little time he was brought to subscribe the Council as Eulogius Bishop of Alexandria reports who withal says that there were no less than one thousand six hundred subscriptions return'd to the Emperor which if true it is a much greater number than all the four General Councils put together amount to Upon this transaction the Remarque of Facundus is very smart and acute Behold here the true Liberty of the Church in those days when the most Christian King did not overâ—aw the Priests of God with his temporal Power but on the contrary arm'd and warn'd them against all such fear by the over-ruling fear of God Neither did he suggest any thing of his own thoughts lest it should be suspected that their Answer was suited to his Royal Will and this he did not only out of respect to the Discipline of the Christian Church but because he very well knew that no forced Decrees were of any Authority in themselves for when a Sentence is forced it is not his Sentence by whom it is pronounced And the cause that carries it gains nothing by it but the advantage lies on the side of the Party condemn'd for it is evident that he was not at liberty to judg aright whose Judgment is forced for a forced Judgment is none at all And therefore this Emperor of blessed Memory preserved the Peace of the Church because he would not presume to establish any Doctrins by his own Authority and usurp that Power that is proper to the Priesthood alone Whereas had he prescribed to the Council and they meerly lacquied to his instructions it is evident that one Lay-man that was no competent Judg of those Matters really pass't the judgment and not those who were the only proper Judges of the Cause And withal he very well understood that forced Councils never came to any good effect as the Council of Ariminum under Constantius and the false Council of Ephesus under Dioscorus And therefore though himself could have pass't a right sentence yet he would not because he would not render the Sentence of the Church suspected and by that means evacuate its Authority But as the whole Eastern Church agreed in this business so no Man was more active not to say more imperious in it than Pope Leo who was ever for carrying all things through with an high hand and having raised himself to the height of Authority resolved to keep it up For it was no small point of Grandeur that he gain'd when he procured that his own private Epistle should be imposed upon the Catholick Church and made equal with the Decrees of General Councils But that which advanced him to the top-round of Power was his signal Victory over Constantinople and the Eastern Bishops when he forced them to eat and reverse their 28 th Canon made Anatolius submit and beg his pardon brought the Emperor Marcian himself almost upon his Knees and forced him to renounce his own Imperial Rescript thô made in favor of his own Imperial City This great success could not but swell his mind that was already but too great of it self and thereupon he takes the supreme and indeed single management of all things into his own hands And when no Man no not the Emperor himself dares withstand his Commands so severe and peremptory were they that for a good time he kept the Eutychian Cause sufficiently low and humble And to say the truth setting aside his by-design of advancing the Grandeur of his own See he acted nothing that was not only warrantable but justly praise-worthy For when once a Controversie is decided by the Authority of the Church no Christian Bishop can be too vigorous in his proceedings against all thâ—t refuse submission to the Decree Here Peace and Government lye at stake as well as Truth and unless they are preserved the Church is lost and the Society dissolved into meer Tumult and Confusion Whilst Controversies are on foot and have not received the Judgment of the Church we may allow Men to be moderate or eager in their Disputes about them according to the variety of their apprehensions or natural Tempers But after the Church has interposed its Authority there all moderation is at best but Treachery and the Reverence due to its commands will call forth every honest Mans utmost zeal in its defence And that was the case here that the Eutychians moved for a review by a new Council No says Pope Leo that were to offer an Affront to the Authority of the Church in the great Council of Calcedon and instead of putting an end to Schisms and Contentions to make them perpetual for the humor and pleasure of every peevish talker Nam cum nihil sit convenientius fidei defendendae quà m his quae per omnia instruente spiritu sancto irreprehensibiliter definita sunt inhaerere ipsi videbimur bene statuta convellere et
not to say a greater only to avoid envy a Benefactor to Mankind as any Prince in the whole Succession He delivered Christendom from the Incursions of the Barbarians and when he found it not so properly invaded as besieged and in a great measure possest by them he not only subdued them all to the Empire but which was a much greater work to Civility and the Christian Faith and by that means he left the Peace of the World much better secured and its manners much more improved then they were before His next Improvement of the Creation were his numberless and prodigious Buildings by which he lest the World more habitable then he found it neither do I speak meerly of that vast number of great Cities that he built but of his great care to make Commerce easie and pleasant and remove the difficulties of travelling by building Bridges making High-ways founding Publick-houses for the reception of Strangers in all convenient places in these kind of works he was so munificent in all places that he might not improperly be stiled the Founder of the Roman Empire that as it were turned those vast Dominions into one City A Third Benefit to Posterity is his excellent Body of Laws and Rules of Government gathered out of the Records of that wise State for about 1300 Years A work so glorious in it self that it had been often attempted by the greatest men not only those of the more ancient Common-wealth but of the most polite and emproved Age it entertain'd the ambitious thoughts both of Caesar and Cicero But in vain so great a work was preserved for the glory of Justinian and though if we consider the remote Antiquity of the Laws the seeming inconsistency among themselves and the immense bulk of Books and Records in so long a Tract of time the undertaking must have seem'd an impossible thing to any other man yet he pursued it with that diligence as to bring the greatest work that was ever undertaken to perfection in a little time Now for all these good Deeds that he has done to all Posterity I think no man that pretends to any thing of gratitude or ingenuity can excuse himself from the obligation of doing honour but much more right to his Memory But beside all this his Cause is become the Controversie of all Christendom because the Power that he challenged and exercised in the Christian Church for which he is so much condemned by the Court of Rome is one of the inseparable Branches of Soveraignty and was always challenged by all Christian Emperors so that if the Princes of Christendom should suffer themselves to be stript of it they are thereby outed of one half of their Empire And the true rise of the Court of Romes displeasure against him was not upon the account of any of his own Actions but a late Contest viz. The Famous Quarrel between Paul the 5th and the State of Venice as Eusebius has very well observed about these three Articles 1. The Power of the Civil Magistrate to judge the Clergy in Criminal Causes 2. The Decree of the Senate to prohibit the erecting of new Churches or Religious Houses without the Consent of the State 3. Their Statute of Mortmain against settling Lands upon the Church without the same Consent How high this Quarrel run is vulgarly known but it was so managed by the Learned Men that appeared in behalf of the Senate as to refer its whole decision to the Justinian Law whereas the Pope on the contrary challenged a Superiority over all Laws and would submit to no Rule but his own Authority Now the reason why the Venetian Advocates insisted so stubbornly upon the Justinian Code was not only for the advantage of those several Precedents that we have seen above to warrant the proceedings of the State in the several matters of the present Controversie but chiefly because the Code of the Canons of the Universal Church were taken into the Justinian Code and made part of the Imperial Law and if they could but bring the Pope any way under the Canons that would carry their Cause for it not only proved in behalf of the State that the power of prohibiting Ecclesiastical Laws to be imposed upon their Subjects without their Consent was a right challenged by all Christian Princes but own'd by the Church in the General Councils it being the known Custom of the Fathers to send their Decrees to their Imperial Majesties for Approbation before they presumed to publish them to the World or impose them upon the Church This is the Argument insisted upon by Jacobus Leschasserius a Learned Civilian at Paris in his Apology in behalf of the Senate who recommends the Justinian Code as the Bull-wark of the Liberties of Christendom And this little Treatise first gave the hint to Christophorus Justellus to publish the Code of the Canons of the Universal Church Now when the Court of Rome had for so many Ages been used to an absolute and unlimited Authority it could not but gawl and fret their proud Spirits to hear of being brought into subjection to Imperial Laws and for that reason they set themselves with all the Arts of Malice to beat down the Credit and Reputation of the Justinian Code till at length from his Laws they proceeded to vent their Revenge upon his Person and that was the thing that gave so much joy and transport to Alemannus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that now the World might see what kind of man this Justinian was who was so prophane as to take upon him a power of medling with Sacred Things and controuling Popes themselves But the indignity of so base a design soon provoked Learned Men to expose it to the World with that scorn that it deserved The first that appeared in the Cause that I know of was a Learned Man of our own Nation in the Year 1626 viz. Dr. Rive Advocate to his late Majesty a Gentleman equally eminent both for Learning and Loyalty in a little but a very ingenious Treatise upon the Argument Entituled Imperatoris Justiniani desensio adversus Alemannum The Book which is great pity is hard to be procured neither indeed had the Learned Author the advantage of some considerable Records that are now brought to light and though he was a Learned Man not only in his own Profession but all other Polite Learning yet I find that he was not so well acquainted with the Records of the Church as to be able to state that matter aright And therefore he is altogether mistaken in that part of his defence especially as to the Controversie of the tria Capitula but he followed the common opinion as it was stated by the Romanists against the Africans as I think all Writers have done to this very day But otherwise he has with great eloquence and strength of reason cleared the reputation of this great Prince from all their dull and dirty aspersions and Convicted the whole design of
of our times that there is no Faith in Man as he often does in his Epistles but especially in the 79 th to Eustathius himself And all this upon no other account Good man than because he could not compass a kind Office for an unworthy and ungrateful Man and this found him work to his Dying day especially as he expresses it with the Pride and Superciliousness of the Church of Rome But among these various Transactions the great Athanasius dies about the year 371 or 372 perhaps sooner or later for I am not concerned in Chronological Niceties my Business is to trace the Tradition of Christian Truth not to turn Hour-glasses or watch the Motions of Pendulums But his Fall was the occasion of great stirs in the Church both Parties being at such a time highly concern'd for a fit Successor to so great a Man and so great a See Peter a grave and ancient Presbyter of that Church was by the dying recommendation of Athanasius unanimously chosen but Euzoius the Arian Bishop of Antioch upon the first News of the Vacancy flies to Court to move for his Friend Lucius who had been join'd in Ambassy with him to Jovian against Athanasius and by the help of the Eunuchs succeeds and is sent to Alexandria with Magnus a great Court-Trader in the Cause but before they came the Praefect of the City a zealous Heathen had driven Peter into Banishment and when they came the People were so averse to the Intruder that they were forced to place him in the See by Military Power upon which what bloody Tumults and Disorders followed may be seen in all the Historians but most accurately in Theodoret. Somewhat before this time arose the Heresie of Apollinaris consisting of a great many Prophane or rather wanton Novelties the chief whereof was That our Saviour had no other Soul than the Divinity it self and the Conceit because it was a new one began to take very much among the People who naturally run after any thing that is strange and unusual But it is soon quasht by the diligence of the Pastors of the Church and that not only by Writing though all the Learned Men of that Age appear'd against it as Athanasius Gregory Nazianzen Gregory Nyssen St. Basil and Epiphanius but much more effectually by the Discipline of the Church A Council was call'd at Rome by Damasus the active and leading Bishop of his time though he was here more particularly concern'd because he had unwarily given reputation to the Hereticks by granting them recommendatory Letters And here every particular Article is condemn'd by an Express Anathema against it and an account of their Proceedings is given by Damasus in a Synodical Epistle to the Eastern Bishops the Epistle is of a very peculiar strein and shews that the Gentleman began to have some thoughts of advancing the state of the Apostolick See and it is the first that I have observed of that stiff strein But however the Heresie was soon quasht by that unanimous Agreement of all Churches to suppress it every where by executing the effectual Discipline of the Church upon all its Followers In so much that I can not call to Mind more than one Imperial Law against them at that time and that was enacted by Arcadius in the year 397. against their secret Conventicles at Constantinople they not presuming to appear in Publick And when a Sect is brought so low as that it dares not venture to make any publick Appearance it is vanquisht and scarce worth the Notice of the Government § IV. In the year following i. e. Anno 374. a Council was held at Valentia in France for reforming some Abuses and Corruptions that had crept into that Church and restoring the force of some ancient useful Canons In the same year hapned that strange Election of St. Ambrose to the Bishoprick of Milan after this manner Upon the Death of Auxentius the Emperor Valentinian hapning to be then at Mâ—lan calls the Bishops together and Exhorts them to take care to choose a Person of eminent Abilities for so great a See They in all humility refer it to his Majestie 's own choice No says he that is a Province not proper for me to undertake but to you that are inlightned by the Divine Spirit most properly belongs the Office of choosing Bishops Upon this the Bishops take time to debate among themselves but whilst they are consulting the People of each Faction flock together into the Market-place and there as it usually happens in popular Assemblies from Disputing proceed to Tumult St. Ambrose being Governor of the Place flies according to his Office to appease the Multitude Who no sooner appears than they all cry out An Ambrose an Ambrose for their Bishop at which he being astonish't ascends the Tribunal with an austere Countenance as if he were resolved to put some of them to Death but they still cry the louder Upon that he accuses himself of such scandalous Crimes as by the Canons of the Church render him uncapable of the Episcopal Office but that is all one to them neither will they believe him And therefore in the last place he betakes himself to flight by Night and designs for Ticinum but having wandred all Night and thinking himself near his Journeys end he found in the Morning that he had walkt in a Circle and was just entring into one of the Gates of Milan at which being surprized and fearing lest there should be something of the hand of God in it he returns home and submits they acquaint the Emperor with it for his consent because by the Constitution of Constantine the Great they were forbidden to take any Officers either Civil or Military into the Clergy without it lest the Common-wealth should be left destitute of able Men. But the Emperor is highly pleased with the Election and is proud of his own choosing such Magistrates as are fit to be made Bishops and through this odd concurrence of Circumstances is he made Bishop contrary to the Canons for he was then no more than a Catechumene which Learned Men think may be excused by the miraculousness of the thing as if it had been immediately brought about by the special Interposition and Authority of God himself and for such extraordinary cases the Canon it self has provided an Exception adding this Clause at the end of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unless it be done by the special favour of God And that this was so done all Parties concern'd in it thought they had good reason to conclude from so great a Conjunction of Wonders Soon after this Valentinian dies of an Apoplexy or some suddain Death upon which Ammianus Marcellinus reads a Lecture with as much Gravity as if he were President of the College of Physicians as he takes all Opportunity of shewing his Knowledge in all sorts of Learning a fondness very incident to all half-learned Men. But in the mean time Valens goes on in
the Church by a Rescript bearing date the year 376 that the same Custom should be observed in Ecclesiastical Affairs as was in Civil Causes that Controversies belonging to Religion should be judged by the Synod of the Diocess but all criminal Causes should be reserved to the Audience of the Secular Governors Not to inquire at present into the particular occasion of this Law which Gothofred conjectures was made in the controversy of punishing the Priscillianists with the Sword it is agreeable with the practice of the Empire and so this learned Civilian divides all Controversies into Causes ecclesiastical and political the Ecclesiastical into Controversies of Faith or Discipline these he says appertain to the Church The political are divided into Causes pecuniary or Causes criminal and these he says appertain to the Civil Power This I know is the common state of the bounds of Jurisdiction and has made great confusions in Christendom whilst both Powers contend to keep their own ground and especially since the power over the Catholick Church was swallowed up into the papal Omnipotency what troubles have the Popes given the Christian Emperors for daring to intermeddle with spiritual Matters But this Argument of the bounds of Jurisdiction I shall fully state when I have first set down the exercise of it in matter of Fact and therefore though I need at present only say that it is a dangerous Mistake to divide them by the different Matters about which they are conversant when they are both conversant about the same Matters and unless they are so both of them will be too weak to attain the ends of their Institution Yet because it is the fundamental Mistake on both sides and because I may never come to finish this wide undertaking and lastly because I find it to be the great stumbling block to the wiser and more judicious Men of the Church of Rome I shall here a little briefly consider its consequence The learned Petrus de Marca one of the wisest Writers of that Church affirms and believes the bounds of these two Jurisdictions to be so plainly determin'd by the Matters themselves about which they are imployed that no Man can possibly miss their true boundaries that does not industriously over-look them in that it is so evident that the regal Power extends only to things secular and the Ecclesiastical to things spiritual Whereas on the contrary nothing is more evident than that all Actions are both Secular and Spiritual the same Action as it relates to the peace of the World and the Civil Government of Mankind is of a secular Nature and as it is a moral Vertue and required by the Law of God as a duty of Religion so it is of a spiritual Nature And so on the other side those things that are esteem'd Spiritual yet as they have an influence upon the publick Peace and nothing has a greater they must come under the cognizance of the civil Government So that these Jurisdictions are so far from being distinguisht by the Objects about which they are conversant that they are always both equally extended to the same Objects so as that if we limit either to one sort of Actions we destroy both For to take Matters spiritual in their strictest acceptation and as they are vulgarly understood for the Offices of divine Worship and especially the publick Devotions that are performed by the Sacerdotal Order in the publick Assemblies yet if the Sacerdotal Power reach not beyond this to secular things it can never reach its end for that is to procure the future happiness of the Souls of Men and that very much depends upon their good or bad behavior in the Affairs of this life so that if their spiritual Guides and Governors are barr'd from intermedling in all such Matters they are cut off from the chief part of their Office and what remains will be too weak to attain its end for when Men have been never so careful in all the Offices of Religion yet if care be not taken to regulate the Actions of humane intercourse all their Devotion will avail them very little in the World to come So on the other side when the Civil Power has done all that it can to settle and secure the quiet of the Common-Wealth by the wisest Laws of Justice and Honesty yet if they may not take notice of what Doctrins are instill'd into their Subjects by their Teachers or what divisions or commotions are raised by them in the Church they may soon be involved into disturbance or confusion without any Power to relieve themselves I am not at present concern'd to prove that this is now actually done by any Party of Men it is enough to my present purpose that it is a possible thing to disturb the peace of Government under Pretences or by Mistakes of Religion or to pray and preach Men into Rebellion And if it be so then the consequence is unavoidable that it must be subject to the power of the Civil Magistrate if that be any of its Office to take any care of the peace and quiet of the World But in truth this distinction has been all along chiefly cherisht by the Bishops of Rome since the time of their Usurpation because when they had got all the spiritual Power of the Church into their own hands their next care was to hug and keep it intire to themselves and therefore they confin'd the Power of Princes wholly to Matters of State but as for all things that concern'd the Church they were bound with all submission to resign themselves to his Holinesses Orders and if they presumed to gain-say any of his Edicts though never so prejudicial to their own Affairs it was open defyance to Holy Church and though the Popes never proceeded any farther against him as none of them did till Hildebrand yet that alone was at that time a forfeiture of the Affections of his best Subjects i. e. all those plain and good People that have any real love or value for their Religion And this one thing alone gave the Popes of Rome though they had never proceeded to the scandalous boldness of deposing Princes an absolute Empire and Authority over all the Princes of Christendom And it is observable that they were the high flying Popes that were the chief sticklers for the advancement of this distinction as appears not only from the Collection of Gratian Distinct. 69. where it is largely exemplified but from Petrus de Marca himself warranting the truth of this Doctrin from the Authorities of Gelasius Symmachus Gregory the second Nicolaus the first Innocentius the third who in their several high Contests with the Emperors that indeavour'd to check and bridle their Ecclesiastical Insolence still bid them mind their own business and not presumâ— to meddle with the Church the Government whereof was intrusted to St. Peter and his Successors But their Adversaries have been even with them especially the Erastian Hereticks for what greater Heresy can
restrain their outrage and he for a remedy against the Mischief for the time to come makes a Law consisting of these seven heads First to forbid their intermedling with any Proceedings in the Emperor's Courts Secondly to reduce them to the number of 500. Thirdly to enact that none should be capable of admission into the Order but poor Men. Fourthly that they should be chosen by the Citizens And Fifthly approved and confirm'd by the Governor Sixthly that they refrain from all Publick Meetings and Courts of Justice unless as they are forced to appear as Parties And lastly that as vacant Places fell for the time to come they should be fill'd up by the Governor The occasion and history of this Law is described at large by Socrates There had been an old grudg between Orestes the Prefect and Cyril the Bishop of Alexandria because as the Prefect thought the Bishop's great Power in that City seem'd to abate of and check with the Authority of the Emperor 's Vice-Roys and because he knew that Cyril watcht his Government but it hapned once that whilst the Governor was present at a Publick Shew to prevent a Tumult of the Jews there were present several of Cyril's Friends and among the rest one Hierax a zealous School-Master who was seised and punisht for a Spy upon this St. Cyril threatens the Jews and upon his threatnings their Rabble enter into a Conspiracy to destroy the Christians and in the Night raise an out-cry that one of their Churches was on fire and as the Christians run from all Parts to quench it they with Protestant Flails murther them in the Tumult upon which Cyril the next day turn'd them all out of Town and the People plunder'd their Goods This fretted Orestes to the heart so that though Cyril used all means of reconciliation with him he vowed an eternal and implacable Enmity Upon this Animosity the Monks of Nitria as the Historian has it but whatever they were they must by the circumstances of Time and Place be the same Men that this Law calls Parabolani make Tumults in the Streets affront and assault the Prefect in his Chariot and one of them breaks his head with a stone who being taken is wrackt to death by him but honorably buried by Cyril Upon which complaint is made to the Emperor from both sides but he takes his Governors part and for that end makes this Law to put these Ecclesiastical Men under his Government who had hitherto been subject to no Authority but the Bishop's Though 16 or 17 Months after being again reconciled to Cyril he puts them wholly under his Jurisdiction restores the Power of Election and Substitution into his hands and increases their number to six hundred His next Law enacted in the year 421 relates only to the Churches of Illyricum We command that all Innovation ceasing the ancient Canons and Customs that have hitherto prevail'd be observed through all the Provinces of Illyricum and if any Doubt or any Controversie arise it shall be determin'd by the Synod of Bishops but not without consulting the most reverend Arch-Bishop of Constantinople that ought to enjoy the Prerogative of old Rome There is no one piece of Antiquity that has been more canvassed and controverted than this Law among learned Men and yet to this day it lyes undiscover'd in the dark and no wonder whilst the Records of it lay buried in Rubbish It were tedious to recite the several Conjectures of Photius Baronius Perron de Marca Blondell Gothofred and divers others because they are all but meer Guesses without any bottom to support them But since their time the Records have been brought to light by the learned Holstenius who first publisht them to the World out of a Vatican Manuscript in the year 1662. And they agree so punctually with all the Records of that time as by it setting aside the Authority of the Manuscript it self to justifie and in reality demonstrate their own Credit Now the short of the Story is this That the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople were at that time contending for Supremacy of Jurisdiction and Illyricum being situated in the Confines of both Empires was naturally the Seat of War For though all Illyricum had in former times belonged to the Western Empire yet it was divided by Theodosius the Great and one half of it laid to the Eastern and upon that the Bishop of Constantinople claims Jurisdiction over it Constantinople then pretending to the same Prerogative in the East that Rome enjoyed in the West This pretence was set up immediately after the Council of Constantinople that only gave it preheminence of honour next to old Rome and that they fairly construed Equality of Jurisdiction whereas on the other side the Romanists challenged Supremacy of Power over those Churches by prescription from the time of Innocent the first who had set up the Bishop of Theâ—saloniâ—â— as his Legate over all Illyricum and to justifie his Innovation pleads Prescription from Damasus but that is according to the constant Custom of the Man rank Forgery when Damasus never in the least pretended to any such Power but only kept up Correspondence with Acholius Bishop of Thessalonica as the chief Metropolitan in those parts without any Intimation of any such Relation between them But Rufus who was then Bishop of Thessalonica having received such a Supremacy of Power from his Master Innocent was faithful to his Masters Interest and so continued till the very time of this Rescript and fighting it out manfully against the Usurpation of the Constantinopilitans Now the point of War as it was managed by the Bishop of Constantinople was this that Illyricum ought to be wholy governed by its own Synod of Bishops But as by Rome that the Bishop of Thessalonica ought to have and exercise a Supremacy of Jurisdiction over them And so it stood at the time of this Rescript Boniface the first then Bishop of Rome in the year 419 which was but two years before the date of the Rescript commending his Courage and great Service to the Apostolick See and this Victory was so great that as Boniface himself attests the greatest part of the Illyrican Bishops came over to his side But Atticus then Bishop of Constantinople more a Lawyer then a Divine and therefore chiefly governed and over-ruled the Church by Imperial Authority who had bafled an Excommunication of Pope Innocent with the Emperors Rescript and by it seised a Jurisdiction over the Province of Hellespont as I have elsewhere shewn finding Illyricum in danger to be lost procures this crafty Rescript from the Emperor against Rufus and under pretence of asserting the Laws and Liberties of the Church by preserving the Supreme Power of Provincial Synods takes the Supremacy of all to himself in that nothing was to be done or concluded by them without his consent And here the confidence of these men is very remarkable in pleading Antiquity on both sides notwithstanding the
Practice For whereas Nicomedia had ever been the Metropolis of Bythinia the Emperors Valentinian and Valens had conferred the Title and Honour of a Metropolis upon the City of Nice reserving the Metropolitan Power to Nicomedia Upon occasion and pretence of this Grant Anastasius Bishop of Nice usurps to himself the Power of Jurisdiction over some part of the Province and particularly Basilonopolis of this Eunomius Bishop of Nicomedia and Metropolitan of Bithynia makes his Complaint to the Council and they to adjust the Ecclesiastical Canons and the Imperial Rescript grant the Honour of a Metropolis to Nice but so as to reserve the Power entire to Nicomedia Hereupon Aëtius the Arch-Deacon of Constantinople who lay at catch for all opportunities to advance the Grandeur of that See interposes a provision that this Decree may not be interpreted to the disadvantage of the Bishop of Constantinople of whose Power to ordain the Bishops of Basilonopolis he was ready to produce divers Precedents But this was rejected by the Fathers as being whether true or false as to matter of Fact contrary to the Canons so that hitherto they were not able to fasten any of the Constantinopolitan Usurpations upon the Authority of the Council The next Transaction is to correct and rectifie another Irregularity of that pilfering See in the Controversie between Athanasius and Sabinianus for the Bishoprick of Perrha For whereas Athanasius had been Canonically deposed by his own Metropolitan he repairs to Constantinople and makes his Complaints to Proclus who according to his Custom greedily embraces his Appeal and writes to Domnus Arch-Bishop of Antioch in his behalf who upon it calls a Council to review the former Judgment which he had in great kindness committed to Panolbius that was an intimate friend to Athanasius and upon enquiry finds that Athanasius was so conscious to himself of the Crimes laid to his Charge that he never durst stand his Tryal and to avoid it had resign'd his Bishoprick and withal was so diffident of his Cause at the second hearing that he durst not so much as appear under pretence that Domnus his Metropolitan was his Enemy and so is again deposed And yet for all this he is so restless as to bring his old Complaints even to this Great Council and they taking a full Examination of all the former Proceedings find that they can afford him no Relief and yet because he had an excuse for his Non-appearance at his last Tryal viz. The enmity between him and Domnus they were so tender as not to give final Sentence against him but refer the effectual Judgment of the Cause to Maximus the present Bishop of Antioch against whom he could make no Exception Hitherto the Proceedings of the Council were fair and regular enough but in the next Session in which they draw up their Canons the Clergy of Constantinople with some others that they had pack't together being not above a third part of the Council put a slur upon the whole Council for whereas 27 Canons were Voted and Subscribed by all the Fathers after the rising of the Council the Judges and the Legates they Vote another Canon granting an exorbitant and illegal Power to the Bishop of Constantinople over the Metropolitans of three whole Diocesses and clap that to the Canons of the Council but with what ingenuity it was done and how worthily defended when the Abuse was complained of in the next meeting and how slitely the Business was carried by the Judges and what fierce and bloody Wars it occasioned in the Church between the two Great Prelates of Rome and Constantinople I have already elsewhere represented and therefore shall forbear any farther Account of it here where my main design is to give an account of the Hâ—story of the right Concurrence of the distinct Powers of Church and State in its Government And setting aside this last Action that was carried by fraud and stealth this Council seems to have been more decent and regular in its Proceedings then any other whatsoever since the Council of Nice and had this advantage above the rest that it was not left to the superintendency of one or two Courtiers but was committed to the Care and Conduct of a great number of Persons of Honour and Quality who behaved themselves with all the decency of temper prudence and civility For as they managed the order of proceedings and interlocutions with great Art cutting off all impertinency and unnecessary talk so they never interposed the Authority of their own Judgment in any matter but entirely referred every thing little or great to the determination of the Bishops and were so complemental in their respect to the Church that they would not presume to be so much as present at those Sessions in which the Confession of Faith was drawn up that being only a work proper to those who were Commissionated to it by our Saviour himself And when it was finisht the Emperor declares That it was not establisht by his own but by the Councils Authority that he came to own and confirm what they had Enacted and so requires all his Subjects to acquiesce in what was settled by their Authority under severe Penalties to be inflicted by his own In all which all Partieâ— seem'd to have observed all the Rules not only of Justice but of decency and to have shewn that Civility to the Churchâ— that all men though there were no other Obligation then meer good manners owe to the Religion that themselves profess And though the Clergy of Constantinople and their Confedeâ—ates were guilty of great and shameless disingenuity in the last Session not only breaking but perverting and falsifying the Canons of the Church yet the Emperor and Judges cannot be very much blamed who were Strangers to these matters and took the motion to be nothing else then a Complement of particular respect and honour to the Imperial City and as such they pass it that as the Ancient Canons had given pre-eminence to the Bishop of old Rome out of respect to the dignity of the head City so new Rome being now advanced to an Equality with it in the Empire it was but fit to raise it to the same degree of honour in the Church And that had been no great harm had it been done without robbing other Churches of their just Rights and Priviledges which though the Clergy understood the Laicks did not because what was here settled by Law they had always seen practised by Custom and therefore had no reason to look upon it as an Innovation But as for the Eutychian Heresie that was the proper business of this Council it being so fairly Condemned by the Ecclesiastical Judgment they according to Form and Custom send the Relation to the Emperor for his Royal Confirmation wherein they do not so much acquaint him with their Decree with which he had been before acquainted having confirm'd it in the 6th Session as justifie their Authority to make it and it is a very
of Constantinople and the Queens Favourite at the instigation of Pope Agapetus for suspicion of the Eutychian Heresie and after that to confirm the Decree of the Council under Mennas against him by adding Banishment to his Deposition And being now upon a design of publishing a Rescript against the Acephali in behalf of the Council of Calcedon upon this Theodorus a friend to Eutyches as well as Origen having insinuated himself into the Court by the Empress and being endeared to the Emperor by his great Officiousness partly to be revenged of Pelagius for the Affront to his Master Origen and partly to divert the good Emperor from his Design against the Acephali craftily perswades him that he might spare his Pains and reconcile them to the Council at a cheaper rate If three Offensive things were taken out of its Acts i. e. if the Writings of Theodorus Mopsuestenus Master to Nestorius if the Epistle of Ibas Bishop of Edessa to Maris Persa and if the Book of Theodoret against Cyrâ—l's Anathema's might be condemn'd of Heresie though they had been absolved by the Council The Motion was plausible to the Emperor and he thought it a very easie Method to reconcile all Parties only by suppressing the Writings of two or three private Men so that the Authority of the Decrees of the Council it self stood unshaken as before for though the Council did not condemn yet it did not commend but onâ—y acquit them and therefore it was not directly concern'd in their suppression And Theodorus finding that by this Device he had decoyed the Emperor into his snare that he might secure him from a Relapse prevails with him in the absence of his Rival Pelagius who was then at Rome to publish an Edict of Condemnation by his own Authority but drawn up as Facundus Hermianensis tells the Emperor not by himself but Theodorus and his Accomplices that so having once publickly appear'd in the Cause that would be an obligation upon him to persevere in it against all opposition otherwise he understood the gentleness of his Temper so well that when he saw the Mischiefs and Inconveniences that follow'd upon it he would quit the Cause and leave them in the lurch to answer for their Affront to the Council of Calcedon And the better to secure themselves the Edict was as craftily composed as it was contrived All the Councils were confirm'd all the Heresies of all denominations condemn'd only in the tail of all these three particular Authors were apocryphised And that the good Emperor's design was meerly Peace and Concord is very observable from the conclusion of all Si quis igitur post ejusmodi rectam confessionem et haereticorum condemnationem salvo manente pio intellectu de nominibus vel syllabis vel dictionibus contendens separat se à sanctâ Dei Ecclesiâ tanquam non in rebus sed in solis nominibus et dictionibus positâ nobis pietate talis utpote dissensionibus gaudens rationem pro semetipso et pro deceptis et decipiendis ab eo reddet magno Deo et Salvatori nostro Jesu Christo in die Judicii By which it is evident that the Emperor accepted the Model after the security and settlement of the Christian Faith against all sorts of Hereticks as the only remedy expedient at that time against contention and curiosity without any design against the Council of Calcedon or any other determinations of the Church but on the contrary rather with a religious and intire submission to their Decrees and for this reason it is approved and subscribed though not without reluctancy by all the four Eastern Patriarchs and most eminent Prelates of the Eastern Church Whereas on the other side the Western and African Bishops concluded it a direct reflection upon the Wisdom and Authority of the Council it self to condemn those Writings of Heresie that it had upon a fair Trial acquitted And thus by this unhappy Legerdemain of that false and jugling Man Theodorus under which the Emperor suspected no ill Design instead of finishing the settlement of the Church after so fair a progress that he had made in it for it was he that govern'd and manag'd all things in his Unkle Justin's reign he brings all things back into the same Tumult and Confusion into which they were brought by the Henoticon It was but a slite and a very remote breach as one would think upon the Churches Authority yet it broke down all Bounds of Discipline and Government that it seems is a thing so tender that it can endure no tampering and unless it be made sacred and inviolable it loses all its force And so this great Emperor after this slite Wound in a matter in which it was so little concern'd could scarce make it up again by the Authority of a General Council Though I must confess that the occasion of raising the Quarrel so high was the turbulent spirit of Pope Vigilius who as he was guilty of all other Wickedness exceeded in Pride as appears not only from the Historian but the Sentence of Excommunication against him by Pope Silverius in the time of that Popes banishment Quippe qui nequissimi spiritûs audaciâ ambitionis phrenesin concipiens in illius Apostolici Medici cui animas ligandi solvendique collata et concessa potestas est versaris contumeliam novumque scelus erroris in Apostolicâ sede rursus niteris inducere et in morem Simonis cujus discipulum te ostendis operibus datâ pecuniâ meque repulso qui favente Domino tribus jam jugiter emensis temporibus ei praesideo tempora mea niteris invadere That by the instigation of the Devil being mad with pride he rebell'd against St. Peter and his Authority committing a new and unheard of sin in the Apostolick See it self and following the example of Simon Magus whose Disciple he shewed himself to be by his works by purchasing my Bishoprick with Mony and expelling me out of it for these three years And if we may believe the angry Africans he bought the Apostolick See of the Empress Theodora whose Creature he was and procur'd the banishment of Pope Silverius by forging treasonable Letters to the Goths in his name and when Justinian suspecting some Abuse recall'd him home this wicked Man caused him to be murther'd by two of his own Servants So that it is a just Character that is given of him by Baronius himself Cedit huic Novati Impietas Pertinacia Vrsicini Laurentii Praesumptio ac denique aliorum omnium schismaticorum Antistitum superbia artogantia atque facinerosa temeritas c He out-stript Novatus in wickedness Vrsicinus in stubbornness Laurentius in impudence and all Schismaticks that ever were in pride insolence and presumption But however by a train of wickedness mounting himself into the Apostolick See according to his Simoniacal Articles with Theodora he enters into league with the Henotical Bishops sends an Encyclical Letter to them extant in Liberatus to assure them that
the Court by great shews of Mortification succeeds He was a Man that of all things defyed all ambitious thoughts and designs of Preferment and yet was perpetually dreaming that he should one day be the great Bishop of Constantinople and by vertue of his own real dreams and one pretended by the Emperor who knew him to be zealous in his Cause and withal very manageable he is advanced to that high dignity And so it is that none gallop so fast to Preferment in the Church as those that creep to it And after his Instalment the first thing he does is to submit himself to Vigilius and so does Apollinaris of Alexandria upon the death of Zoilus whose Bishoprick he had usurpt and thus are Hypocrites and ill-Men always on the right side But Vigilius finding himself Master of the field and having forced all his Enemies even the Emperor himself to submit is resolved to shew his Authoâ—ity And in the first place he contends with the Emperor about the place of the Council one will have it in the East and the other in the West but at last they agree upon Constantinople upon condition that an equal number of Eastern and Western Bishops be summon'd But before the Council meets the Emperor desires the Pope to give his own Opinion and that was an hard task to put him upon declaring himself and therefore he desires to be excused but the Emperor presses so importunately upon him as to provoke his Choler and to be revenged he turns cross-grain'd and so affronts his tria capitula and when the Council meets is sick and sullen refuses to join with them and no Courtship either of the Council or the Emperor himself can draw him to any compliance but on the contrary he commands the Council not to presume to determine any thing till he had declared his own Judgment And that he does at large in an Instrument sent to the Emperor that he calls his Constitutum in which though he condemns and confutes the Writings themselves yet he will allow no sentence against the Persons because they dyed in the Communion of the Catholick Church and had been absolved by the Council of Calcedon and at last concludes with this peremptory threatning His igitur à nobis cum omni undique cautelà atque diligentiâ propter servandam inviolabilem reverentiam praedictarum Synodorum et earundem venerabilia constituta dispositis statuimus et decernimus nulli ad ordines et dignitates ecclesiasticas pertinenti licere quicquam contrarium his quae praesenti asseruimus vel statuimus constituto de saepe dictis tribus capitulis aut conscribere vel proferr aut componere vel docere aut aliquam post praesentem definitionem movere ulteriùs quaestionem c. But the Council regard neither him nor his threatnings and so condemn the tria Capitula and to expose him for an egregious Prevaricator publish to the World his own several Declarations against them Upon which Baronius has a very pleasant observation that this they were forced to because they knew their Decree would be of no force without the Authority of the Pope What Inferences will not Zeal and Partiality make when they produced his own testimony against himself to convict him of manifest prevarication to conclude that this was done out of dutiful respect to his Authority by which if they had regarded it they stood all at this very time deposed from their Holy Orders But things being carried so disorderly on all sides the Council came to nothing and the Emperor after he had once made a breach upon the Authority of the Church could never heal it again for the Hereticks instead of being reconciled made advantage of it against the Authority of the Church it self as Leontius a Writer of that Age informs us who argued thus upon it aut boni scilicet erant aut mali si boni curâ—anathematizatis Si mali cur à Synodo recepti sunt And as for the Catholicks some were for an expedient of Peace against the Authority of the Council and others for the Authority of the Council against trimming for Peace But the Emperor having proceeded so far in the business is now resolved to carry it through his own way and all that will not comply are deposed and banisht and this lights chiefly upon the Illyrican and African Bishops but they were soon reduced by the Emperor's severity whereas the Bishops in the Western Empire that was then under the Franks set up a form'd Schism especially in the Parts about Venice and Istria that lasted for many years and cost both the Church and the Empire a long train of trouble and vexation But as for Pope Vigilius when he saw there was no way of escape but by compliance though he loved his Will too much yet he loved his Bishoprick much more therefore after all his stubbornness he comes in and fairly subscribes and approves the Decree of the Council But here the Roman Writers are again at a great loss to salve his Reputation but I think it would be more for their own to let him alone For before he was in lawful possession of St. Peter's Chair they own him to have been a Villain and withal confess that he got into it by Simony Sacriledg and Murther But that being done out of duty and gratitude to his Patroness Theodora he beats down the Council of Calcedon but seeing the Emperor resolute in his Design he turns a fury on that side and publishes his Judicatum to damn the tria Capitula and then in a little time suspends his own Sentence till the meeting of the Council when the Council meets he contradicts them in his Constitutum But because he saw the Emperor in good earnest against him and the African Bishops beginning to scowr out of their Bishopricks he fairly comes in and renounces the Constitutum yet after all these turns of prevarication since the time of his sitting in St. Peter's Chair we must have him to be a very honest Man notwithstanding that he all the while stands guilty of the same Impieties that he did before In my Opinion they would much better consult the honor of St. Peter's Chair by confessing him so ill a Man that even his sitting in that could not mend him or rather that he never had legal Possession of it but was all his life-time a meer Usurper for by the Canons a Man that comes into a Bishoprick by Simony renders himself uncapable of it forever So that if they would leave him under his own disgrace it would be no dishonor to St. Peter's Chair but when they are at such mighty pains to prove that it was not defilâ—d by his sitting in it it leaves wise Men under a suspition that some indecent uncleanness was left behind But however the discovery of his last Conversion which was first brought to light by Petrus de Marca and was dated within six Months after the rising of the Council clears
that great and enormous difficulty that has so long puzled us to make out how this Council should be so received in the Church among the General Councils without the Popes Authority But whether the Recantation were spurious or genuine and that is still in the dark it will not salve the business for if it were genuine it is only a confession of his old Wickedness and that he was managed in it by the Devil after he sat in St. Peter's Chair but what the real Devil was that tempted him is too evident from his shifting sides as his Interest lay Though the greatest demonstration of it is his Plea that he had hitherto erred for want of information and right understanding of the Controversie whereas it is too notorious from the whole progress of it that no Man could be better acquainted with it than himself and whoever reads his Judicatum upon it at the conference at his first coming to Constantinople and his Constitutum sent to the Council seven years after will never of all Excuses allow that of ignorance If it be spurious then if the Apology were good for any thing 't is lost And I must confess it seems somewhat incredible to me that so publick an Instrument concerning so great an Affair should be altogether unknown to his immediate Successors that were so deeply ingaged in the Controversie against the Schismaticks especially Pelagius the second and Gregory the Great who never produced its Authority against them but most of all Gregory who transmitted the Acts of the Council to Queen Theodelinda But though the writing be forged it is plain enough that he actually complied as Eustathius a Cotemporary Writer affirms in the life of Eutychius and Liberatus broadly suggests when he says that Vigilius suffer'd much in the Cause though he were not crown'd which was then the proper Phrase for Apostasie But that he was received into the Emperor's Favor appears from the Imperial Grant of certain Priviledges to the Citizens of Rome that was sent by Vigilius to endear him to the City though in his return home he dyed of the Stone in Sicily and is succeeded by Pelagius the first who though he had been banisht by Justinian whilst he was Apâ—crisiary at Constantinople to Vigilius upon account of his zeal in defence of the tria Capitula yet before he is admitted to the Papacy he both owns the Authority of the Council of Calcedon and condemns the Capitula and after incites Narses then Governor of Italy to reduce the Schismaticks of Venice and Istria by the Secular Power and the same was done by all his Successors till the Schism dyed So that in short it was not the Pope that determin'd the Council but the Council that determin'd the Pope and if it was confirm'd by Vigilius as that does not make the Council good so it is only another proof of the shuffling dishonesty of the Man If it were not confirm'd by him but by his Successors and that was the only Plea in its behalf before De Marca's discovery then it is not the Pope that makes or unmakes a General Council for if so then this was none because rejected by the present Pope Vigilius and yet it was one by the approbation of his Successors Though when all is done the Notion of a General Council is but a Notion for there was never any such thing in reality and all those that bear that name were more properly Councils of the Eastern Empire there being very few Western Bishops present at them And they were only call'd General Councils in opposition to Provincial and ought rather to have been stil'd Imperial as summon'd by the Emperor himself whereas other lesser Councils were summon'd by the Bishops themselves And that places this Council in the same rank with the other four because it was summon'd out of all parts of the Empire and not confin'd to Provinces and Diocesses as the Metropolitical or Patriarchal Councils were But that the Summons of the Bishop of Rome was necessary to the calling of a General Council and his confirmation of their Decrees necessary to their Validity is one great branch of the Papal Usurpation as I hope in its due place to prove at large against Petrus de Marca But to proceed in the business of this present Council all Parties concern'd in it labor to clear themselves of all blame and lay all the burthen of these Disorders upon other Mens shoulders but though it may seem a severe yet it is an impartial Judgment that they were all too faulty As for the Emperor 's own part it is evident that the publication of his Imperial Edict was an illegal act because against the Authority of a Council owned by himself though had he understood it so he would never have done it but he was perswaded that it was no reflection upon the Council it self because it was no contradiction to any of their own direct Decrees but only concern'd the Opinions of some private Persons that the Council thought not fit to condemn at that time though seeing what use the Eutychians made of it he supposed it now useful to the settlement of the Church without any Affront to the Council it being only to change Counsels with change of Affairs This was all the Emperor's meaning and it could have done no great mischief had it not been abused by the craft of Theodorus and his Acephali who perswaded him that it could be no abatement to the Authority of the Council and yet when it was done used it as an Argument to subvert it And then as for those that fought so furiously as the Africans did for the honor of the Council against the tria Capitula though the honor of the Council was remotely concernâ—d in it yet because it was not so apprehended or intended by the Emperor they might and ought in duty to have complyed with his Royal Pleasure only adding a Sa vo to the honor of the Council that had been easily granted and that would have disappointed the craft of the Eâ—tychians and caught them in a snare of their own setting and they must either have own'd the Council or put off their Vizard So that which side soever was in the right they were all in the wrong when they made a Schism in the Church about it for the thing was not Tanti in it self as to warrant the breach of Catholick Communion Though at last the bottom of all these unhappy Quarrels was founded in St. Cyril's over-doing Anathema's against Nestorianism that yet he endeavour'd to impose upon the Catholick Church as so many Articles of Faith Which because Theodoret and Ibas supposed to be too hard an Imposition the Eutychians took advantage of to represent them as Favourers of the Nestorian Heresie though it is plain from the tenour of all their Writings that they were as little guilty of that as Cyril himself but were cautious of spoiling the Cause by too much niceness of Speculation and
troubled with any of the old Schisms and Heresies Though it was assaulted with new ones and so it must be as long as the Taint of Vanity is left in Humane Nature but as fast as it sprung up they were cut off by the same Method of Government So that by the reiterated experiments of so many Emperors here Recorded in this Code we find the true Efficacy of Penal Laws against all the extravagant wantonness of Schism and Singularity Under the Title de Haereticis there are ten Laws of Theodosius the Younger beside two other under the Title of Ne sanctum Baptisma iteretur and three of Valentinian the Third but they are only Recapitulations of former Laws to glean up the small scatterings that were left of the Ancient Schisms and Heresies The most remarkable of them all is the 65th Law by Theodosius in the year 428 that is an Epitome of all the former Laws by which he sweeps away at once 23 Sects by enjoyning the Execution of the former Laws against them upon the Judges under the same Penalty that the Law inflicts upon the Offenders Quae omnia ita custodiri decernimus ut nulli Judicum liceat delatum ad se crimen minori aut nulli coercitioni mandare nisi ipse id pati velit quod aliis dissimulando concesserit Under the Title de Apostatis there is only one Law of Valentinian to tye the Punishment of Intestability upon Apostates with more severity in the year 426 to which may be added the like Law against the Jews under that Title under which are extant seven more of Theodosius the Younger the first is very particular forbidding the Jews upon their great Festival of Aman to burn the Holy Cross in shew of their Contempt of the Christian Religion For that had been their Custom ever since their deliverance by Hester from the Conspiracy of Haman to Celebrate that day with extraordinary extravagance of Joy and Mirth and among other Customary Solemnities they were wont to burn the Effigies of Haman and his Gallows with mighty Triumph and Acclamation But it seems they had at this time changed the Gallows for a Cross thereby to reflect Contempt upon our Saviour and his Religion And for that very reason are they forbid that Custom under Penalty of forfeiting all their other Liberties The following Laws under this Title viz. l. 21 22 25 26 27. were only enacted to defend them and their Synagogues from the violence of the Rabble only the 27 th is made to restrain the Insolence of Gamaliel the Patriarch in the year 415 upon which followed the dissolution of that Office among the Jews For four years after in the year 419 he publisht a Rescript the last under that Title commanding the Jewish Governors to refund all the Crown-Gold that they had collected since the abolition of their Patriarchs and withal commanding all his own Officers for the time to come to collect the same Tribute for the use of his own Exchequer And so ended the succession of Jewish Patriarchs that had continued from their dispersion to this very day by what accident 't is uncertain but it was probably occasion'd by the great Misdemeanors of Patriarch Gamaliel who as we find by the 22 d Law had highly abused the Emperor's favor to the Oppression of the Christians themselves To these Laws may be added two more under the next Title ne Christianum Mancipium Judaeus habeat forbidding Jews to keep Christian Slaves upon pain of death Under the Title de Paganis there are only five Laws of Theodosius to renew the Laws in force against them upon supposition that there are any Pagans remaining in the Empire as it is expressed in his second Law Paganos qui supersunt quanquam jam nullos esse credamus promulgatarum legum jamdudum praescripta compescant And thus was this body of Imperial Laws finisht and consign'd that has ever since been the Standard of Law to most parts of the Christian World and from it we are fully instructed in the proper method of curing Schisms and Heresies viz. by abetting the Discipline of the Church with Penal Laws effectually executed upon the Offenders This after all the Experiments that were tryed by several Emperors was found the only proper Remedy against all the Distempers of the Church as Theodosius himself observes in his third Novel concerning all sorts of Dissenters Quos si ad sanitatem mentis egregiae lege medicâ revocare conemur severitatis culpam ipsi praestabunt qui durae frontis obstinato piaculo locum veniae non relinquunt If we endeavor to reduce these Men by sharp Physick to sobriety of Mind they themselves must bear the blame as well as the Punishment of our Severity that by their wicked obstinacy stop up all Avenues of Mercy or Pardon That is the true state of the Case there is alwayes a natural stubbornness mixt with Schism and nothing but smart can cure it And this is the thing that makes it so necessary to add Penal Laws to the Discipline of the Church thereby to stanch that peevishness that without it will naturally fly out into all the follies and wildness of humane Nature And all Princes that either out of their own natural Curiosity to try the experiment or being forced by the necessity of the times have taken off the Penal Laws or suspended their execution have soon been convinced of their mistake by the fatal Consequences that it has brought upon their Government As for the Laws that were enacted by these Emperors after the sealing of the Code and for that reason call'd Novels or new Laws there are two of Theodosius and three of Valentinian The first of Theodosius is only a revival of his own 56 th Law de Haereticis commanding the execution of all Laws against Jews Heathens and Hereticks His next Law takes away all manner of exemptions from Publick Taxes and among others those granted to the Clergy by his Predecessors which the Emperor excuses by the pressing difficulty of the present time though it is evident that granting or withdrawing such favors are meer Acts of the Prerogative Royal. The third Law placed in the Novels of Theodosius belongs not to him but to Valentinian the third directed to his Prefect in France and is of a peculiar Nature from all the other Laws in the whole Code being indeed not so properly an Imperial as a Papal Rescript and extorted by the Importunity of an assuming Pope to justifie his own Proceedings There had been an old Contest between the Bishops of Arles and Vienna for the Metropolitical Superiority for though it had always belong'd to Vienna yet Patroclus a very ill Man getting into the Bishoprick of Arles by Court-tampering usurps it to himself and is backt in it by Pope Zosimus with the pretended Authority of ancient Canons But this is contradicted by his two next Successors Boniface and Celestine upon the very same Plea of