Photians and so continues to this very day This Council was repealed in the time of this very Emperor The Doctrine and Creed of Photius concerning the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father alone was also restored And this advanced the Dispute from a charge of Schism alone to a charge of Heresie also in the opinion of this Author Those servile notions also of allowing even pretended General Councils a Power only of ratifying not of debating the Predecisions of the Pope have been generally disowned and looked upon as very odious in all the Emperors who have endeavoured to restore them This the two Palaeologi Michael and John found to their cost the one in the Council of Lyons in the year 1275. the other in the Council of Florence in the year 1437. nor do the numbers of those who are mentioned in this Latinizing Synod either of those who had still sided with Ignatius or of those who were here received upon their revolting from Photius seem sufficient to have carried the Cause on that side by equal management especially considering that the later would in that Case have given their Suffrages against them And who could look upon this as a fair Decision with regard to Conscience that was so manifestly contrary to the sense of the greater numbers of their own Church which ought alone to have been owned for the competent Judge in Causes between her own Members 35 Here therefore Ignatius injured his good Cause by this way of defending it and gave Photius new advantages against him However he found no farther opposition from him during his own Life Ignatius died Octob. 23. 878. and then Photius was restored by the same Emperor that had before excluded him Yet with no such inconsistency as our Author fancies He that was an adulterer and an invader whilst the true Husband was living might now be a Husband and just Possessor after the true Husband was deceased Probably the Emperor himself when his Passion was over might think himself obliged in Conscience and Honour to make him this honourable Amends for his past irregular and unequal proceedings against him though I know Nicetas who was an Ignatian pretends other Arts whereby he regained the Emperor's favour And indeed we have Photius's Cause conveyed to us with no small disadvantage His Adversaries at that very time suppressed his principal Writings on that Subject they seized and burnt his Original Papers before any Copies could be transcribed they have afterwards had it in their Power to suppress many of his other Works whilst the Empire of Constantinople was in the hands of Latines or Latinizing Greeks and they have since had it in their Power to hinder the Printing of as many of them as have not fallen into the hands of Protestants This no doubt must needs have proved very prejudicial to a right understanding of his Cause that we have very few assistances for understanding it but from his professed and very inveterate Enemies However it was Photius on this restitution had now no longer any Rival that could pretend a better Title So that now they had nothing plausible to pretend for themselves that they would not own him However it appears from this Nicetas that the Ignatian Party still retained their old resentments when even Ignatius himself if he had been living had less to say for himself than formerly and his followers had yet much less to say for themselves now than he had The next year therefore after hiâ— new restitution that is in the year 879. Photius calls a General Council wherein he is confirmed by Pope John's consent his Legates bâ—ing present and the Eighth General Council in the Latine account expresly repealed this being received in stead of it by the modern Greeks to this day wherein the second Nicene is received among the General Councils as the Greeks do still receive it wherein the Creed of Constantinople is received without any mention of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son nay with Censures against Innovators of it and wherein lastly Censures are threatned against all who would not submit and own Photius for their lawfull Patriarch These are the principal particulars here decreed as appears from the fragments of this Council first published by Dr. Beveridge from Oxford MSS. most of them from Beccus a zealous Latinizer though Baronius is willing to call them in question for not being mentioned by later Men than Beccus And the Pope's Legates assent to all and as to that particular of obliging all to submit to Photius the Pope had given them particular and express Orders in his Letters and Instructions still extant So that now the Ignatians could no longer pretend any Patronage of the Roman Church to countenance them in their Schism And to sweeten them the more it was also here expresly stipulated that there should be no indecent reflections on the Memory of Ignatius The Pope was gained by his finding the Emperor bent on it and by the beneficial agreements made with Photius in order to it He obliged Photius to quit his Right in the Bulgarians a grant which his Predecessor could not gain even from Ignatius who had been so much obliged by him He obliged him also to quit the Communion of some of his own Excommunicates as himself also disowned the Schismaticks from Photius And this probably went far towards the uniting the Ignatians when the exasperating severities were laid aside and there was now no Rival nor considerable Authority to head them And this in all likelihood was the reason why notwithstanding their former heats they are nevertheless both of them mentioned honourably in the Synodicon It was in course to be expected concerning Photius because he was the last in Possession and because his Disputes with the Latines started on that occasion obtained afterwards so Universally that his sense is the sense of the Greek Church to this very day And though Ignatius's sense be now as generally deserted yet the union of the Ignatians did necessarily require a decent behaviour to his Memory which was now no longer difficult to be granted when he was now no longer capable of being a Rival Thence forward therefore Photius seemed to have enjoyed more quietness till the year 886. and the Succession of Leo Sapiens which is the last time we find him mentioned in History 36. And now in this whole History thus represented there is nothing that if fairly understood will make for the purpose either of our Author or of our Adversaries Our Author pretends that they neither of them separated from each other's Communion as thinking each other Orthodox and that they did not scrupulously enquire into each other's Ordinations But it is very strange he should so much as pretend it when the contrary is so very notorious What account then can they give of all those Severities and Persecutions which are mentioned of Photius against the Ignatians if not to force them to his Communion What needed
Lector and Theophanes tell us expresly It was indeed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Bishops then in Town whose Authority though it was questioned for the greatest Affairs as appears in the 4th Action of the Council of Chalcedon and the Dispute of Maximus with Pyrrhus yet was often made use of in such occasions as these and was by the Canons of the Church sufficient and obliging till a greater number of Bishops could be persuaded to restore him Till he could get such a Number to do it it was the Duty of Euphemius to acquiess in the Deprivation and to communicate with his Successor and it will be our present Bishops Duty also to doe so when this can be proved to be their Case And indeed I know no other Evidence of his communicating with his Successor but that he did not set up a Communion against him 16. In the Case of Macedonius the Emperour's Rage did somewhat precipitate him he had him forcibly seized and sent immediately into Banishment without so much as the Formality of a Tryal The rather so because he feared the People would not endure it such a Zeal they had for Macedonius and the Cause defended by him Afterwards he bethought himself and got an Assembly that did his business for him They took upon them at the same time the Persons of Witnesses and Accusers and deprived him absent and in exile and when they had done so they notifie the Sentence to him by Bishops and a Presbyter of Cyzicus So Theophanes tells the Story No doubt it must have been a Synod that proceeded after the receiv'd way of Synods in notifying their Sentence by ecclesiastical Persons However our Author says that he communicated with his Intruder Timotheus So he might possibly interpret Macedonius's Exile and submitting to it as he seems to have done that of Euphemius in relation to the Case of Macedonius In this case certainly it neither could have been true nor could he have any good Testimony for him to believe it so When the Bishops came to notifie the Sentence to him Macedonius asked them whether they owned the Council of Chalcedon And when they durst not answer him positively he asked again Whether if the Sabbatians and Macedonians had brought him the like Sentence they would think him obliged to acquiesce in it Is not this a plain Exception against their Authority as Hereticks for not receiving that Council and a Protestation against their Sentence as null and invalid and a disowning any Obligation in Conscience to submit to it And what needed Timotheus to fly into that Rage against the Name and Memory of Macedonius if what our Author says had been true that Macedonius owned any Communion with him Why should this same Timotheus refuse to officiate in any sacred Place till he had first defaced the Pictures if he found any of Macedonius Why should he prosecute Julianus only for being his Friend How came it to pass that when the Emperor sent forth his Edict for subscribing the Condemnation of Macedonius together with the Synodical Letters concerning the Consecration of Timotheus the more constant Adherers to the Council of Chalcedon would subscribe neither of them and even the weaker would not subscribe the Deprivation of Macedonius which notwithstanding in consequence subverted the Succession of Timotheus Why should Timotheus bring up the use of the Nicene Creed more frequently than Macedonius had done purposely to draw odium upon Macedonius if there had been Communion between them as our Author would persuade us What needed then all those Persecutions and Violences against the followers of Macedonius but only to force them to the Communion of Timotheus Why did Juliana as an Assertor of the Council of Chalcedon refuse the Communion of Timotheus if it was not manifest that the difference was such as broke Communion Why should the Praefect of the Studite Monks refuse to receive Consecration from him who had condemned the Council of Chalcedon if it had not been notorious that he had condemned the Council and was therefore an Heretick and of another Communion from them who owned that Council in defence of which Macedonius had been banished He did indeed to please them Anathemize those who had Anathematized that Council but when the Emperor expostulated with him concerning it he pretended to mean his Anathematism against those who received the Council So true he was to his Heresie One would admire whence it was that our Author came by that good Opinion he had of this Timotheus as if he also had been a Catholick and the 3d Catholick Bishop of Constantinople who had been deprived by Anastasius Neither of these things were true nor affirmed by I believe any one good Historian Our MS. Catalogue of Patriarchs by Nicephorus Callistus has either Marginal or Interlineal Censures of the Patriarchs whether Orthodox or Heretical in all likelihood according to the received Opinions of the Time and Church where these Observations were made There in an interlineal Note over the place where he speaks of Timotheus we find him called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is of no great consequence to our purpose whether this Note was from Nicephorus himself or some Constantinopolitane Librarian either way it will shew the received Opinion of the Modern Constantinopolitanes So also in the Iambicks concerning the Patriarchs published before the I Volume of the Byzantine Historians Timotheus is with some Indignation called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which we see how unworthily our present Rhetor expressed himself on this occasion even with reference to the sense of his own Church The only occasion of his Mistakes that I can think of is that he injudiciously followed the Authorities of Flavian of Antioch and Elias of Jerusalem as related by Cyrillus Scythopolitanus his Author and a very good one in these Matters That Author says indeed that those two Patriarchs assented to the Synodical Letters for Timotheus though they would not to the other Letters that came with them concerning the deprivation of Macedonius This I suppose gave him occasion for his good Opinion of Timotheus that those great Men afterwards such Sufferers in the same Cause as yet rejected not his synodical Letters Our Author was very well aware that if they owned the Communion of an Heretical Successor their Examples must have been faulty and could not be pleaded as Precedents by his own Principles and it seems he was not aware how notorious it was that this was indeed the Case of Timotheus But their Behaviour herein was exactly the same with the Behaviour of those whom Theophanes censures as weak so far he is from our Author's Opinion in making it exemplary And it is plain Macedonius and Timotheus differed not only as Rivals of the same See but also as Heads of different Communions How then was it reconcilable to any Principles to own Timotheus without disowning Macedonius Only the receiving Timotheus might as for
A VINDICATION OF THE Deprived Bishops c. PART I. Shewing That though the Instances collected in the Baroccian MS had been pertinent to the Editors Design yet that would not have been sufficient for Obtaining their Cause 1. THat the Laity should be favourable to Mistakes derogatory to the sacred Power cannot be thought strange in an Age wherein they generally use so little diligence to inform themselve or to receive Information from those who are qualified to inform them concerning the Rights of the Clergy Their own Interests are alone sufficient to make them partial in affairs of this nature though they were more sincerely influenced by Considerations of Religion than we generally find them but that Clergymen should also â—avour them in Encroachments on their own Function that they should professedly patronise Doctrines tending to lessen the Esteem of that greatest and most valuable of all Authorities wherewith God has honoured and instrusted none but them that they should make it depend on the pleasure of the Magistrate which was designed for greater and more noble Ends than the Magistracy it self that they should put it in his power to destroy the very being of the Church as a Society by a secular Deprivation that they should not onely own but teach That none are obliged to adhere to themselves in such a Case wherein the Magistrate is against them no not so much as in regard of Conscience that they should by this means make the greatest and most momentous Concerns for Souls subordinate to worldly carnal Politicks and the far less weighty Interests of worldly Prosperity and of particular Societies that they should hereby make it least capable of subsisting under a Persecution which was the Case most obvious in the view of our B. Saviour and his Apostles and therefore most particularly provided for if they took care for any thing beyond their own time These things I say would not be very credible if they were not very notorious One would think none who valued the general good of Religion and the Catholick Church and the Souls of Mankind before the temporal Prosperity of any particular State and it is hard to conceive how any good Man can doe otherwise could even wish such Opinions true though his Wish alone were sufficient to make them so How then is it agreeable that Clergymen of all Men should be the most favourable and zealous Advocates for such Opinions so manifestly destructive of those greatest Interests which they of all men ought best to understand and to be most zealously concerned for How is it agreeable that they of all men cannot be content to let the Memory of ill Precedents dye but that they must allarm us with future Fears of having them acted again by not only abetting but also justifying them How is it agreeable that they should do this in a Prospect such as ours is of a Laity so little concerned for the good of Religion and the Church when even they who have any Principles have such lax ones and so very little obliging them even in Conscience to venture any thing for any particular Communion That their preferring their worldly Concerns depending on the Pleasure of the Magistrate before the greater Concerns of Souls and Eternity is the true Cause of it is not to be believed while there are any Reasons that might induce them to it Yet little Reasons cannot in Equity excuse when the Consequences ought to be so very valuable on that very account of Mens being either good or religious But this advantage our Adversaries have that their Cause is like to suffer nothing by ill Management when it is in the hands of such able Advocates Let us therefore see whether all they say will amount to Reason and to Reason sufficient to excuse them 2. They pretend and pretend with great Confidence That nothing can justifie our Adherence to even unjustly deprived Bishops if the Successors be not Hereticks That this is so they appeal to an antient Greek MS. of Instances collected to their hands before any prospect of our present Case They pretend from this Collection that neither the Bishops themselves who were unjustly deprived made any Separation nor any Subjects of such Bishops on account of any obligation of Conscience to adhere to them Hence they collect that these things being the sense of the antient Church as often as any such Instances appeared ought also to be our sense who profess a Veneration for Antiquity And were these things so as they pretend they would perhaps be considerable to excuse the Practice of our present Adversaries But all these things are justly questionable and far from that Evidence which their Cause requires and themselves pretend to All they say is resolved into this MS. and this will do nothing for their purpose The Author whoever he was is much too young to be admitted as a Witness of most of the Facts enumerated by him especially considering we have Authours of the earlier times to speak for themselves Nay he has not pretended to be a Witness on his own Credit He has been particularly carefull to tell us his Authors most of which are extant to this very day As therefore his Credit is nothing for things so much earlier than his own Age so neither is there any need we should depend on his Credit when we can have immediate recourse to his original Authors themselves It is called an antient MS. and yet pretended no elder than the 13th Century But sure the ingenious English Prefacer cannot think Antiquity of so low a date as that is to be that Antiquity which we profess to imitate or pretend to alleadge Yet neither can he prove his Author a competent Witness even for that low Antiquity All that appears from his quoting Nicetas Choniates is onely this That he could not be elder than that Century in which the Author lived who was quoted by him But neither doth it thence follow that he lived in the same Age nor can it thence be determined how long he lived after him This mention of Nicetas will bring him down below the Year 1205. where Nicetas ends his History Nicetas himself lived some while after But our Author refers to his History as an Authority as being elder than the Traditions of the Age he lived in He neither pretends to remember the things for which he quotes him nor to have received any Informations concerning them from the relation of any old Men who could remember them But where Nicetas fails him he shews himself perfectly ignorant of the Affairs of that Age which was concerned in the History written by Nicetas Nicetas mentions no Successor in the See of Constantinople between Cosmas Atticus and Theodosius Our Author therefore takes Theodosius for Cosmas's immediate Successor Nicetas does not mention the Synods nor the Abdications that were in the Cases of the Patriarchs deposed in the time of Isaacius Angelus therefore our Author supposes there were none Nicetas
bring our Author's time within a Century after those times of Isaacius Angelus So the first remarkable Schism that fell within that distance will most probably be the occasion of this Work and the Ecclesiastical Rhetor then in Office the Author of it But of this more hereafter 7. I confess I was once of the mind that Nicephorus Callistus was the Author of it My reason was that which is mentioned by Mr. Hody that his Name is made use of in most of the Works contained in this Volume either in the Titles or in the Tables and that both before and after this of which we are at present discoursing This made me think that the whole Volume was intended for a Collection of Pieces wherein he was some way concerned and that his Name was intended for the Title here if the Illuminator had performed his Office in adding a Title to it But upon more thorough consideration I have I confess altered my Opinion I observe this Tract is in a hand extremely different from the other hands of the whole Volume It is withall contrived within a quire proper to itself and the latter end in a little smaller hand that it might come within that compass Thence it appears that it was written singly not to be connected with a following Vacancy where there might have been room for what remained but to be bound up with other things already written Accordingly what follows begins abruptly as if the former quire had been purposely left out to make room for this insertion These are Tokens that it was not at first designed as a part of this particular Collection Then it begins so near the top of the Page that one would suspect no Title was intended but that the Author's Name was purposely omitted And indeed no Author's Name seems to have been mentioned in the Copies from whence Cotelerius intended to have published it Withall I doubt that Nicephorus Callistus who wrote when Andronicus was now grown old in the Empire might have been somewhat of the latest to have been the Author of it Besides there are considerable Differences between our Author and Nicephorus Mr. Hody has observed one if the Interposition of Leontius between the Inthronings of Dositheus be not rather some Disorder of our Copy of Nicephorus's Catalogue of Patriarchs There are also several other Differences Our Author calls the first of the Patriarchs deposed by Anastasius Dicorus Euthymius and that as often as he mentions him both in the Tract itself and the Summary as several others had done before him Nicephorus calls him rightly Euphemius both in his MS. Catalogue and in his Ecclesiastical History Our Author takes no notice that Timotheus the next Successor but one to Euphemius was a Heretick but Nicephorus does in his Catalogue of Patriarchs if the inserted Censures of the Patriarchs be his There he is called in an interlineary Note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 However in his History he takes notice of his Fickleness that he sometimes approved and again openly condemned the Synod of Chalcedon This was sufficient to hinder him from arguing that his orthodoxy was the reason why his Communion was owned notwithstanding his Usurpation So also from the remaining Contents of the 23d Book of Nicephorus Callistus it appears that Nicephorus owned that there were Schisms in the time of Leo Sapiens under the Patriarchate of Stephen the Emperor's Brother and of Nicolaus Mysticus and Euthymius though it seems our Authour knew nothing of them 8. Thus much therefore we have gained That in Matters of so great Antiquity as are here debated this Author's Word alone is by no means competent to be depended on as an Authority Hence it will follow farther that we may now very justly put the Stress of our Cause upon examining the Merit of the things themselves without any relation to the Author And if we can shew that his Way of Reasoning is not concluding though the Matters of Fact produced by him were as pertinent to our present Case as our Adversaries are concerned they should be and also that his Matters of Fact are far from being such as they suppose them I cannot foresee what our Adversaries can in reason desire more for shewing how little reason they have to be so confident on account of what is said by this Author 9. First therefore as to the Reasoning itself how much soever it be insisted on by our late Brethren in our present Disputes yet neither is it such as would be thought fit to be regarded by Men of Conscience nor safe to be trusted by Men of Prudence and Skill in the Art of Reasoning They pretend to have amassed 18 Instances of Bishops who did not think fit to insist on their Right or were not seconded by their Subjects if they did so when they were not deprived on account of Heresie out of the History of 900 Years Whether they did well or not in it is not here so much as attempted to be proved only it is presumed to be well done barely because 't was done in so many Instances and no publick opposition made against it But if Matters of Fact so nakedly mentioned must be urged for Precedents it will be impossible to make any thing of this way of Arguing from History What History is there that in a Succession of 900 Years does not afford Examples against Examples And how can it be understood which are rather to be followed as Examples if no more be considered concerning them but barely this that they were Examples How easie were it for an Historian by this Way of Reasoning to justifie as our Brethren do the wickedest things that can be They prove it lawful to break Oaths from the Example of King Stephen which I believe they will hardly find one antient Historian who does excuse it from the Charge of Perjury I am sure they may find several who charge it as expresly as we do with that very Imputation And can we not in the same scope of Time produce 18 Instances of successfull Wickednesses of Murther Adultery Sacrilege c. committed by potent Persons whom it was no way safe to contradict at least where there are no Memorials of Opposition transmitted to Posterity Can any Man of Conscience think it fit that 18 Instances on one side in such a space of Time should be the Rule of his Conscience Or can any wise Man think himself obliged to defend whatever may be patronized by such a number of Instances 10. The Design of this Way of Arguing is no doubt to prove the Sense and Approbation at least of those Churches where these Instances passed without Contradiction but it is manifest that many more things are requisite for proving that besides naked Matter of Fact What if in the Instances here mentioned the Churches did not adhere to unjustly-deprived Bishops when the Intruders were not Hereticks Yet many more things must be requisite to be made
out before Application can be made to our present Case which are not yet in the least attempted It must first appear not onely that the Deprivation was indeed unjust but that the Church who deserted them and adhered to the Intruders did also think it so Yet this will hardly be made out particularly in the Case of St. Chrysostome I believe they can give no Instances of any who thought him unjustly deprived but they were Joannites and therefore separated from the Communion of his Deprivers 11. It must appear farther secondly That they thought him invalidly deprived as well as unjustly That they know very well is Our Sense of the present Case on which we lay the Stress of our Cause not onely that our Bishops are deprived for what our Laws in the true sense of the Legislators did never intend should be a Crime but also that they are deprived by a Power that can no way pretend to a Right of Spiritual Deprivation that is purely by a Lay-power without the least pretence of Ecclesiastical Censures This therefore they ought to prove That even in Case of a purely Lay-deprivation those Eastern Churches did not think fit to assert their Spiritual Liberties against the Encroachments of the Secular Magistrate But that seems more than ever their Author undertook I believe than his Cause required I am sure several of his Instances did suppose Synodical Deprivations yet if they cannot shew this all they say is utterly impertinent to our present Dispute For we our selves may say and say agreeably to our own Principles as much as their own Author says and perhaps as much as he intended if he had been living to make Application to our particular Case We do no more say than he that the Injustice of a Sentence does null or invalidate it when otherwise the Authority by which it is pronounced is valid and obliging Nor do we say that Subjects are even in Conscience free to adhere to their Bishop when the Authority by which he is deprived has not onely a Right to conclude them but to conclude him also Yet all this is consistent with the Liberty allowed by this Author of withdrawing Communion from an Heretick The Reason is this because even the Canons of the Church to go no farther now allow Subjects this Liberty to judge of their Bishop's Faith by a private Judgment of Discretion and with reference to their own particular Act of Communicating as has been shewn by their own Author himself in the latter part of his Tract ommitted by Mr. Hody 12. Yet this is not all that had been requisite for their Reasoning in this Case It ought also to appear thirdly That the Church thought her self at Liberty to deny her Adherence to an unjustly deprived Bishop even when he insisted on his own Right and challenged her Duty from her This is the actual Case of our present Bishops and of this also their whole Collection does not afford one single Example Yet this is the onely Case wherein her not adhering to him can by any Art of equal Interpretation be taken to signifie that she did not think such Adherence his due even in regard to Conscience otherwise the Non-payment of Debts alone does by no means imply a belief that they are not due It is certain the Person to whom they are due may remit them if he please and his not challenging them is often taken for an Argument that he does remit them at least that he does not challenge Payment now It is therefore no more an Argument in such a Case that the Church does not think such a Duty of Adherence to such a Bishop really due than that the Bishop himself does not think it so For it is as consistent in them with an acknowledgment of Right to defer the Payment till it be demanded as it is consistent with the Bishop's owning it for his Right that he does not as yet think fit to demand it But our Author pretends that by his Collection of Instances it appears no Bishop ever challenged his Right if the Person substituted in his own place were not an Heretick So indeed he says but thence it does by no means follow that they had no Right because they did not challenge it Nor can it be thence gathered but that it may be prudent as well as just for Successors to insist on their Right though Predecessors who thought it just did yet not think it prudent to insist on theirs The Change of Circumstances may make so great a Variety in the Case it self If it be only a Personal Injury the Mischief the Church may suffer by the Person 's defending his Right may be more than what she may suffer by permitting a single Act of Injustice to go unredressed But in our Case our Adversaries very well know the Injury is more than personal They know the old Doctrines of our Church are involved in the Injustice that is offered them They may also know that this New Doctrine of the Validity of Lay deprivations with regard to Spirituals is of intolerable mischievous consequence as granting to the Laity Principles by which they may ruine us when they please and that this pernicious Doctrine cannot well be opposed in this Case but by our Bishops insisting on their Rights And they cannot shew but when Doctrines of such consequence were concerned the Bishops not onely did but were also commended for insisting on their Rights Indeed where such Doctrines were concerned the Antients would have called the Adversaries Hereticks and in that case this Author himself allows that Bishops may judge it to be for the publick Good of the Church that they challenge their private Rights Yet after all our Author's Pretensions in his Title his Examples give a small account of the Sense of the injured Bishops themselves concerning their own Case but principally pretend to tell us what others thought concerning it How then can our Adversaries pretend to persuade our present Bishops to wave their Right upon account of this Collection of Precedents where St. Chrysostom is expresly excepted in the very Title notwithstanding what is pretended from Palladius and where withall there are so few examples observed in the Discourse it self of any who did so before them 13. Yet to let them see how far this Way of Reasoning is from proving the thing our Adversaries are concerned for we may venture to give not grant what they neither have proved nor can prove from the Instances here alleadged that the Churches had deserted their unjustly and invalidly deprived Bishops and deserted them even whilst they insisted on their Right I yet deny farther That from the naked Matters of Fact they can any way conclude even the Judgments of those Churches whom we may for a while suppose to have done what our Adversaries wish they had done For in order to the proving the Judgment of such Churches it will be farther requisite fourthly That what they did they did
can hardly doubt but that this was indeed the Case that occasioned it That the Author excepts St. Chrysostome's Case as affording matter for a particular consideration seems to imply that this Case was particularly insisted on by the Adversaries with whom he was concerned And indeed the Case of Arsenius was so very like that of St. Chrysostome that it cannot be thought strange that the Arsenians should reason from that Case as a Precedent St. Chrysostome excepted against the Synod ad Quercum that deposed him that his notorious and professed Enemies Theophilus Acacius Severian and Antiochus presided in it So did Arsenius against the Synod that deposed him that the Emperour had convened it and influenced it with whom he had a known Difference on occasion of his late Excommunication The Synod ad Quercum admitted not this Exception of St. Chrysostome but condemned him for Non-appearance without any Examination of the Merits of his Cause and the same way this other Synod also proceeded in the Case of Arsenius that he also had no Hearing concerning the Particulars objected against him In the Case of St. Chrysostome not onely the Eastern Joannites but all the Bishops of the West renounced Communion with those who had proceeded so unjustly in Censuring him without ever hearing his Defence and this not onely while St. Chrysostome himself was living but for many years after his death till an honourable amends was made him as far as was possible that is not to his Person but his Memory That was not onely when his Name was received into the Ecclesiastical Dipâ—ychs thereby owning him to have dyed in Right as Bishop of Constantinople but when his Body was brought back and received into the City by a solemn Procession of the then Bp. Proclus the Emperour himself assisting at the Ceremony This was as Socrates tells us in the 16th Consulship of the younger Theodosius in the year 438. and in the 35th year of the Dishonour done him which seem therefore to be reckoned from the Synod ad Quercum where he was first deposed which was the year before he was banished Constantinople He was not banished till the 30th of Septemb. in the year 404. for they usually allow him onely five Years and some odd Months for his Bishoprick which began Febr. 26. in the year 398. and therefore must end in 403. and the time of that former Synod ad Quercum which probably was the reason why Socrates began his Account from thence No doubt the Arsenians also had this Example before them when they procured the Two Translations of the Body of their Patron the first from the place where he dyed to the Monastery of St. Andrew in the City in the beginning of this Reign of Andronicus then from the Monastery to the Church of St. Sophia in the later Concordate made by the Patriarch Nipho of Cyzicus in the year 1315. For so St Chrysostome's Body also had been interred in the Church of the Apostles built by the Emperour Constantine the Great and where himself was buried also no doubt the principal Church of the City then till this of St. Sophia was afterwards built by the great Justinian so carefull the Arsenians were that their Patriarch Arsenius should not fall short in any Punctilio of the Honour that was done to the memory of St. Chrysostome 5. And from hence we understand the Reason why our Author is so particularly carefull to observe that past Invalidities in Succession did not use to be critically examined but left to God not even by the dividing Persons themselves when they were so long past that they could not be remedied and were withall not injurious to the Rights of any Person living Thus he observes even in the principal Case of St. Chrysostome That Severianus of Gabala and Acacius of Beraea though they were accused to Pope Innocent that is the true Notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were notwithstanding not censured by him but permitted to the divine Vengeance when their Fact was now too late to be redressed The like he observes concerning Pope Caelestine's approving of Atticus and his Successors in his Epistle to Nestorius These are Arguments ad homines even from the sense of those who were the principal Separators on Account of the Injustice done to St. Chrysostome for such were the Bishops of Rome And he is frequent in his Observations of this kind a sign that the Schismaticks he had to deal with were rigorous in Retrospection and unraveling what had been done since the injurious Deprivation and this the Arsenians did insist upon Arsenius himself upon his Restitution after his first Expulsion expresly ratified all the Orders that had been conferred by the Intruder Nicephorus of Ephesus And in the Reconciliation made by Niphon of Cyzicus one thing granted them was That the Clergy should submit to a Penance of forty days Suspension no doubt as an Acknowledgment that their whole Ministry was in Right unlawfull as far as it had been received in the Schism And this seems to have been the reason why Gregoras censures the Arsenians as having that design of advancing their own Party to all the Preferments of the Church That was a consequence of their vacating all the Places that had been filled since the Intrusion and invalidating their Orders they thereby left none qualified to fill their Places but themselves 6. But our Author expresly excepts the Case of Heresie as that alone which could justifie a Separation The Heresie then in view in the sense of the Greeks was no doubt the Doctrine of the Latines which they called Heresie and with which they had been allarmed since the pretended Vnion at Lyons This Exception therefore the Author could very truly and prudently admit and urge against both the dividing Parties that neither of them could charge the other with Latinizing or pretend that as a Cause for their Separation Joseph had suffered in that Cause as well as the Arsenians and was forced to retire and Beccus was set up against him because he would not comply with the Emperour in that Matter Yet in the latter end of his Discourse he adds out of the Canons two prudent Limitations of this Case even of Heresie One is that he requires that the Heresie should have been antecedently condemned by the Church lest otherwise private Persons should be left at Liberty to separate for whatever themselves should be pleased to call Heresie Another is that the Heresie so condemned should be openly and in the Face of the Church owned by the pretended Heretick that no publick Separation might ever be permitted without publick Evidence of the Cause on which the Separation was to be made I cannot think these Limitations were made precariously but in prospect of a Cause then in view that might have suffered by the Consequence of this Concession that Heresie at least would justifie Separation if these Limitations had not been interposed And I can think of no
ulla Canonica Auctoritate tua pulsus Ecclesia c. which he insists on as an Argument for invalidating their whole proceedings against him So also Anastasius Bibliothecarius in his Preface to the Eighth General Council speaking of the same Ignatius says that he was praejudicialiter expoliatus By which in all likelihood he means that he was robbed of his Throne antecedently to any form of judicial Proceeding The Author therefore of the Synodicon himself owns that he was driven away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 meaning I suppose the Secular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as distinguished by that word from the Ecclesiasticks He therefore calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a simple Synod probably because they were only a few Bishops and Monks that concerned themselves in this matter without any Synodical Formalities not even those of the Synodus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bardas therefore the Caesar who was the Author of it did now all he could by hard usage to force him to abdicate It plainly hence appears that even he did not think the Emperor's Power sufficient for it Yet he was wicked enough and prejudiced enough on that side to have believed it if the Casuistry of that Age would have afforded him any countenance in it But they had not then the confidence to allow actions of that nature to pass for Precedents Yet all the rigours they could use to him could not prevail with Ignatius to quit his Right How is it therefore that our Author can have the confidence to say that he did not divide from Photius nor perswade the People to divide from him How could he possibly claim his Right but that he must at the same time challenge the Clergies and Peoples Duty as obliged in Conscience to adhere to him and to own him as their onely lawfull Pastor How could he do that without obliging them to leave and disown Photius We have therefore here one of our Author 's own Precedents so far from making for his Cause that it makes directly against him Ignatius thought it lawfull to challenge his Right against a Successor whom even himâ—elf could not charge with Heresie And this invasion of Ignatius's Throne was censured as Schismatical in Photius by the generality of the disinteressed Judges of that Age. Pope Nicholas the First in the Name of the Western Church charges it directly with that very imputation of Schism And even the Eastern Bishops themselves threatned Bardas that they would never own another Bishop and that they would break themselves off from the publick Assemblies till they were partly wheedled and partly terrified from what they had resolved on And whatever their Practice was this very threatning is an argument of their Judgment in the Case that Photius and his party had been the Schismatickâ— though themselves had made the Separation Our Author himself observes how ordinary it was in those Ages to call Photius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Adulterer and Invader of the Throne and those Phrases do at once signifie his want of Right and the violences used by him in coming in against the consent of Ignatius Nor has he any thing that I can find to prove that Ignatius kept Communion with Photius but only his old argument from the pretended Dyptichs of his own time which has already been answered Thus the Case was at least till the Synod wherein Ignatius was deposed and Photius confirmed But what needed a Deposition if Ignatius had already yielded his Right as our Author would perswade us What needed a Synodical Deposition if that by the Imperial Authority had been thought sufficient 32. The Friends of Photius discovered their Consciousness of his want of Right First by the violence used to the person of Ignatius to force him to surrender then by diligence used by them when they found their endeavours with Ignatius unsuccessfull to get a Synod that might deprive him of his Right whether he would or no Yet the difficulties and delays they met with in procuring a Synod and corrupting the Suffrages of it are also arguments of the opposition they met with in their main Cause even in the East even among the Greeks themselves where the Authority of Bardas was most significant for it was some years before chey could effect their purposes that way not till the latter end of the year 860. The Auhor of the Synodicon besides his former Synod makes two more the former in Blachernis the latter in the Church of the Apostles This I take to be the A B Synodus wherein Ignatius was Deposed as the Commentators expresly tell us And the two Sessions of that same Synod in different places as it gave occasion for them to give the Title of A B to their Synod it self so it also seems to have been the occasion why this injudicious Collector of the Synodicon should make two Synods of it The latter of the two was that wherein the Pope's Legates were either forced or bribed to sign the Condemnation of Ignatius I am apt to think that the true occasion of convening a second time the same Bishops before they were departed to their several Homes was the unexpected arrival of the Legates that they also might conciliarly confirm what had been done in the Council before their arrival If I guess right their former sitting must have been immediately before the arrival of the Legates and indeed it seems to have been so The Pope was surprized at the proceeding against Ignatius and charges Photius with breach of promise in medling farther in that matter than he had pretended he would do And he says he sent his Legates not to determine any thing concerning the Cause of Ignatius but only to enquire into it and to make report to him of the success of their enquiry And if we may believe his Adversaries account of this Affair Photius had pretended that Ignatius had resigned and this it should seem they reckoned on which could not have been if this decision of Ignatius's Case had been long before Even that pretence argued his Consciousness that what had been done before against Ignatius would never be thought sufficient to deprive him of his Right in Conscience as soon as the falshood of this pretence should be discovered This therefore put him upon a Conciliary Trial of Ignatius in that former meeting wherein Ignatius was personly present But Ignatius pleaded what Pope Nicholas also pleaded in his behalf that he ought to be restored to his Possession before they could by the Canons bring him to a Trial. This Photius's Council would by no means admit of but proceeded their own way pretending to give him a fair thorough hearing and deprived him However knowing that his Plea was indeed allowable by the Canons they thought their Cause would require all the confirmation that could be got by the Legates and the reputation they would gain by having the Western Communion on their side If this therefore were so the
time of these Synods or Meetings rather of the same Synod will best appear from the time of the arrival of the Popes Legates The Letters Pope Nicholas sent with his Legates going to Constantinople bear date Septemb. 25. Indict 9. So it must have been the latter end of the year 860. before those Legates could finish their journey And when they had reached Constantinople they were 100 days there before they could be prevailed on to ratifie the Deposition of Ignatius so contrary to the instructions they had received from him that sent them This must necessarily bring it to the beginning of the year 861. before the 18th of March Nicholas had received the news of their prevaricating and wrote again what he thought fit upon that occasion But when the Suffrages of a Council were once gained what Arts soever they were that were used to gain them Photius had then some appearance of Right till Ignatius could relieve himself by Another and a Greater Council That was a lawful way allowed him of recovering it by the very Canons However Photius could in the mean time plead this Canon hence produced by our Author in favour of himself which before he could not that none ought to separate from himself thus Synodically settled nor to joyn with Ignatius thus Synodically condemned till himself were condemned and Ignatius resettled by a greater and more numerous Synod And to add the greater Authority to their own Synod they boasted of the same numbers that was in the Council of Nice as Pope Nicholas observes in his Answer to them This was a plausible Artifice â—o the Superstition of that Age. 33. Pope Nicholas therefore no doubt made all the interest he cou'd to get a Synod that he might oppose to this Synod of Photius He knew his Authority alone would never be admitted for it without a Synod and such a Synod as the Canons required And though he allowed no Superstition for the number yet the Antiochian Canon which by this time obtained in both the Eastern and Western Churches required that the Synod that must restore Ignatius must at least be more numerous than the Synod that deprived him No Synod therefore could serve his purpose but such a one as must have had more than 318 Bishops This I suppose made it some time before he could condemn Photius or restore Ignatius with such a Synod Anastasius tells us it was in the 11th Indiction That must have been either in the end of the year 862. or the beginning of the year 863 Till then at least how good soever his Title was yet the guilt of Schism had been imputable to Ignatius if he had made a Separation or intruded himself into his own Throne before a Synod had restored him Nay by the Antiochian Canon he had forfeited all pretensions of having the Merit of his Cause considered if he had challenged any Duty from his Clergy and People before a Council had restored him But when Pope Nicholâ—s had restored him in the Roman Synod and deprived and anathematized Photius with them who lookâ—d upon that Restitution as an Act of Superiour Authority Ignatius wâ—s then restored to his full Right and Photius was deprived even of that Right â—o which a Canonical settled possession had intitled him And from that time forward if Ignatius had â—â—â—â—enged the Obedience of his Clergy and Laity and withdrawn them from the Obedience of Photius the guilt of the Schism had notwithstanding not been imputable to him but â—hotius But these Principles do not even in that Agâ— seem to have been the sense of any more than the concerned part of the Western Church The Council of Constantinople when they decreed that Constantinople should be next to Rome did never seem to â—nderstand it of pâ—oper jurisdiction but only of Precedency in place Afterwards â—he Council of Chalcedon decreed equal Priviledges to the same Sâ—e because it had an Emperor and a Consul and a Senate which were no more consistent with a subordinate jurisdiction in the Bishops than in the Emperors the Consuls and the â—enates None ever pretended at that time â—hat the Emperors the Consâ—ls and the Senates of new Rome were properly subject to the Emperors Consuls and Senates of old Rome in regaâ—d of jurisdiction And the Canon concerning Appeals made in that same Council oâ— Chalcedon waâ— uttâ—rly inconsistent with any such jurisdiction that allows to recourse for such Appeals beyond the See of Constantinople I know very well Pope Leo's Legates disowned both these Canons and so have the Latine Collectors generally who reckon no more than 27 Canons as made in that Council But the 16th Action of the Council shewed that they were the genuine sense of the Council and at least of the Eastern Empire and the Eastern Churches And so it descended down to the times of Ignatius and Photius of which we are discoursing By the judgment therefore of the Eastern Bishops of those times who were the most competent Judges of that Eastern Dispute and by the other Canons of the Church which required that Judgments concerning matters of Fact such as this was should be decided in the same place where the matter of Fact had happened the Synod by which Ignatius was to be relieved must have been another and that a greater Synod in the same Constantinople and till he could get such a Synod on his side himself had been responsible for the Schism that must have followed on his claiming his Right Nay the Antiochian Canon made him forfeit his Right if he claimed it in such a way as this was And it is plain by the Pope's Letters to the Emperor Michael that the Emperor did not allow the Pope's Authority in this Case nor do we find that Ignatius made any stir upon it till he was restored Conciliarly in the same place where he had been deprived This seems therefore to have been the state of that Dispute if Nicholas proceeded by way of proper Jurisdiction if he had proceeded on the Principles of the Primitive Church on the supposition of Equality then he could no otherwise have obliged the Eastern Bishops than as the Bishops or Provinces that sided with him were more numerous than those that were against them For this is all that had been reasonable in that case that where Peace was absolutely necessary and yet could not be had without Cession on one part there it was also necessary that the smaller part should rather yield to the greatest But whether Empire had more Bishops or Provinces is needless now to determine The rather because it does not seem to have been thought on or insisted on in the Disputes of that Age. It is sufficient for our purposes that in the sense of the Eastern Bishops and by the Rules of the Eastern Discipline which Ignatius was to stand by this Roman Synod was no competent Authority and therefore left both him and Photius in the same condition wherein it found them