Religion and Loyalty The Second Part. OR THE History of the Concurrence of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the Government of the Church from the Beginning of the Reign of Jovian to the End of the Reign of Justinian By SAMUEL PARKER D.D. Arch-Deacon of Canterbury LONDON Printed for John Baker at the Three Pigeons in St. Paul's Church-yard MDCLXXXV TO THE READER THE Church of England having acknowledged and declared His Majestie 's Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical to be of the same Nature and Extent with that Authority that the Christian Emperors claim'd and exercised in the Primitive Church I deem'd it no unuseful piece of Service to my King and Country to inform my self and my Fellow-Subjects out of the Records of those times of our true Duty to the Royal Supremacy And to this end I have drawn up as exact a Chart as my little Skill could reach of the Primitive Practice of the Three first Centuries after the Empire became Christian. Neither have I only Surveyed and coasted the general History but have sounded every part of it and not only described the safe Passages and right Chanels through which the abler Pilots steer'd their Courses but the Shallows the Gulfs the Rocks and the Sands upon which the less Skilful or less Fortunate Shipwrackt their Governments Neither have I presumed to make any Political Remarks of my own but have only observed the Natural and Historical Events of Matters of Fact And by the Experience of 300 years in which all Experiments were tryed we are fully instructed in all the right and all the wrong Measures of Government in the Christian Church In the Reigns of the great Constantine Jovian Gratian Theodosius the Great Arcadius Honorius Theodosius the younger Marcian Leo Justin and Justinian are exemplified the Natural good Effects of abetting the Power of the Church by good Laws and their effectual Execution In the Reigns of Julian and Valentinian we may observe the inevitable Mischiefs of Toleration and Liberty of Conscience In the Reigns of Constantius and Valens but especially of Zeno and Anastasius are to be seen the fatal and bloody Consequences of pretended Moderation or as we phrase it comprehension that indeed unites all Parties but then it is like a Whirlpool into one common Gulf of Ruin and Confusion This is the short account of this Undertaking and the Historical Events of things being withal so very Natural they will of themselves amount to a fair Demonstration of the Necessity of Discipline in the Church and Penal Laws in the State All that I can ensure for the Performance is its Truth and Integrity I have faithfully and impartially perused all the most Material and Original Records both of Church and State and out of them and them alone have Collected the ensuing History and if that prove true and for that I stand bound the Conclusion that I aim at will make it self The CONTENTS SEct. I. The State of the Church under Jovian The Hypocrisie both of the Eusebians to recover their Bishopricks and of the Acacians to preserve theirs in owning the Nicene Faith page 1. § II. Of Valentinian his Edict for Liberty of Conscience The struglings of the Eusebians against the Acacians Their Councils at Lampsacus and Tyana to that end They are defeated by the juglings of the Acacians The dishonest craft of the two Leaders Eudoxius in the East and Auxentius in the West p. 7. § III. The Persecution of St. Basil by the Eudoxians his discourse with the Prefect Modestus Dear to the Emperor Valens Valens himself no Arian but abused by the Eudoxians the deplorable State of the Eastern Church at that time under their Oppressions St. Basil's misfortune in receiving Eustathius of Sebasta to communion The death of St. Athanasius The Heresie of Apollinaris how suppressed p. 27. § IV. The Election of St. Ambrose to the See of Milan The death of Valentinian the mischiefs he brought upon the Empire by his principle of Liberty of Conscience Themistius the Philosopher's Address to Valens in behalf of the Orthodox The Emperor Gratian's Rescripts and effectual Proceedings against Hereticks His restitution of the Discipline of the Church The bounds of the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction briefly stated The great Schism at Antioch occasion'd by Julian's toleration p. 35. § V. The singular care of Theodosius the Great to settle the Church and Orthodox Faith Vindicated in his Institution of the Communicatory Bishops He summons the general Council at Constantinople and confirms all their Decrees by several Imperial Rescripts Wisely forbids all Disputes about Religion Assists the young Valentinian against the Tyrum Maximus and prevails with him to reverse his severe Rescript against the Catholicks p. 55. § VI. Valentinian made the first open breach upon the Power of the Church in taking to himself the Power of Judicature in Matters of Faith St. Ambrose his Sufferings upon that account His Embassy to Maximus his Wisdom and Courage Maximus his Conquest of Italy and overthrow by Theodosius The Stars raised by the Hereticks at Constantinople in the Emperor's absence The method of lying People into Tumults His effectual enacting and executing Laws against them settles the Church in Peace p. 66. § VII His Laws made without the concurrence of the Church for reforming the Abuses of Widows and Deaconesses the disorders of Monks and the Abuse of Church-Sanctuary p. 81. § VIII His Laws without the same concurrence against Manichees Apostates Pagans and in behalf of the Jews p. 89. § IX Of the Council of Aquileia Of the Schism at Rome between Damasus and Ursicinus Of the Schism at Alexandria between Peter and Lucius Of the Schism at Antioch between Paulinus and Flavianus p. 98. § X. The unparallell'd Immorality of the Priscillian Heresie The Prosecution of them by Ithacius justified against Mr. B. they were executed as Malefactors and Traitors not as Hereticks St. Martin's great indiscretion in interceding for them p. 124. § XI The praise of Theodosius against the Calumnies of Zosimns The Laws of his Son Arcadius against the Hereticks p. 152. § XII His Laws of Privilege to the Catholicks The several Laws of Tuition The Law of civil Decision in the Church by Arbitration The Laws against Appeals from the Church to the civil Power p. 167. § XIII His Laws of Reformation of Discipline Against the tumults of Monks the abuse of Sanctuary against the Johannites against Apostates In behalf of the Jews The Laws of Honorius against and for the Jews The Laws of both Emperors under the Title de Paganis p. 180. § XIV The history and design of the Theodosian Code Theodosius his own Novels Of the Parabolani of Alexandria The famous Law concerning the Churches of â—lâ—yricum explain'd together with his other Laws and the Laws of Valentinian the third p. 198. § XV. The History and Acts of the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius and Imperial ratification of the Decreeâ—â—f the Church by Marcian p. 225. § XVI The
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
with the Recommendation of Damasus the great Bishop of Rome and is restor'd with universal joy of the People and Lucius forced to fly for help to the Emperor and his Court-Patrons then at Constantinople that was at that time little better than Besieged and before the Emperor had any leisure to mind his Complaints he by his own rashness came to his Unfortunate end of being Burnt by the Enemy in a Cottage where he had taken shelter in his Flight And so from this time Lucius continued in Exile at Constantinople till Demophilus the Arian Bishop that succeeded Eudoxius in that See and all his Party among whom Lucius is particularly named were turn'd out of the City by Theodosius the Great in the year 380. At which time Peter dies and Timotheus succeeds him for Lucius now having but small hopes left of recovering his Bishoprick under such an Orthodox Emperor made no attempt for it And now comes the great Council of Constantinople where the Nicene Faith is establisht for ever and in pursuance of it an Imperial Law made to take away all Churches through the Empire from the Hereticks of all Denominations For which the Council of Aquileia soon after sitting in the West send him the foremention'd Letter of thanks farther imploring his assistance for the Settlement of the Church and this of Alexandria in particular where the present Bishop was overwhelm'd with inveterate Schisms and Dissentions In order to which they move his Majesty that he would be pleased to call a Council at Alexandria particularly to determine who of the Hereticks should be received to the Communion of the Church and upon what terms which they thought in such a vast number of Offenders too invidious a work for the Bishop to undertake by his own Authority What followed upon it I know not For the Rescript of this Emperor to the Praefect Optatus to give Timotheus full Power of Judicature in Ecclesiastical Causes and to be assistant to him is apparently forged for there was no such Praefect as Optatus at that time as well as all the other Laws under the Subdititious Title De Episcopali Judicio the unanswerable proofs of it may be seen in Gothofred's Extravagans But probably without any farther care things settled of themselves under so wise a Reign for Timotheus sat peaceably in his See to his dying day without any disturbance that we read of from his Enemies When they saw the Church defended by such an Emperor they were content to sit still for Men are not wont to make their Attempts where they have no hope of Success But still we see by the whole progress of this Alexandrian Schism that the Disorders of the Church proceeded not from it self but the Dishonesty of the Court Eunuchs The last great Schism of that Age that the Council of Aquileia mentions in their Letter to the Emperor was that at Antioch which began sooner and lasted longer than either of the other How the matter was composed between Paulinus and Meletius we have seen above that upon the Death of one of them the Surviver should have the Government of the whole Church But upon the Death of Meletius Flavianus sets up against Paulinus and his own Oath too for he had abjured the Bishoprick as long as either of them should live And he makes so many Friends as to keep it till the great Council of Constantinople and have it confirm'd to him by the Authority of the Council where the Business was transacted by a Seditious Party with such disorderly Heats and Tumults as almost put the great Gregory Nazianzen out of love with Councils whose angry words upon a particular occasion against the abuse of some in his time are peevishly and absurdly applied by our Innovators against the use of Councils in general The Ecclesiastical Abridger almost runs mad for joy of his Satyrical Expressions and though as an Orator the good Father represented his Complaints and Invectives bigger than the life for that is the use of that sort of Eloquence R. B. has pretty well improved it with a scurvy Translation and made it look more like railing than handsom Satyr But what would you have of a meer Abridger of Binius poor Man he never looks into the secret of the Story and the connexion of things but he finds in Binius that such a Council was held such a year and out of him he gives a crude Epitome season'd with some malicious Reflections against the Bishops and so has done But alas if he had but had any insight into the Series of the Story and understood the Mystery of the Eusebian Faction by whom all these Disturbances were raised in the Church it would have spoil'd the Malice of all the Abridgment For whereas his whole design is to load the whole Body of Bishops with the Miscarriages of the Church in all Ages it is evident all along that the Body of the Bishops labour'd against all those Miscarriages that he has ignorantly and maliciously charged upon them and that all those Disorders committed in the Church from the time of Constantine to the time of this present Council were the Acts and Contrivances of some wicked men that crept into the Church by Simony and Court-favour and were enabled to do all that mischief that they did in it in spite of the Opposition of the Good Bishops by the Power of the Eunuchs So that all these Disorders were so far from being the Acts of the Ecclesiastical Power that they were the meer effects of its Oppression And such were these very Men that labour'd to raise this Tumult in the Council as is evident from Nazianzen's own account of them and that in short is this He at first earnestly endeavour'd to perswade them to acquiesce in the former Agreement and to have but a little-Patience in that Paulinus was a very old Man had one foot in the Grave and could not long stand in their way upon the other But he is hiss't down by the factious Party as a Betrayer of the Supreme Prerogative of the Eastern Church that they said ought to be preferr'd above the Western because our Saviour was Born in that part of the Empire For that was the pretence of their Zeal in this foul Matter that Paulinus had been ordain'd by Lucifer Calaritanus a Western Bishop which they will needs have to be a dishonourable Intrusion upon the Eastern Church and therefore in despite to that Usurpation they will set up Flavianus and by their noise and clamour tire the old Bishops into a complyance but Gregory Nazianzen quits the Council through meer indignation and seeing how things were like to go and what troubles he was like to encounter in that great See he soon after resigns his Bishoprick of Constantinople Of which the Faction make their advantage of playing over their old Game for creating a Division between the Eastern and Western Church An Artifice as we have seen first started by Eusebius of
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
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