things are carried with Tumult and Violence by Dioscorus of Alexandria Juvenal of Jerusalem Thalassius of Caesarea and Barsumas a debauch't Abbot who was particularly summoned by the Emperor and his Vote made equal with the Bishops contrary both to the Canons and the Custom of the Church as appears by the Subscriptions to the late Council of Constantinople under Flavianus against Eutyches Action the 7th where the Bishops subscribe in this Form IN Bishop subscribe as Judge and the Abbots in this only IN Presbyter and Abbot subscribe the Condemnation And beside all these Irregularities Count Elpidius who was sent by the Emperor to preside and keep good order favouring Eutyches out of Complyance with Chrysaphius took the Judgment of the Council to himself so as to hinder all Canonical Proceedings and that soon run the whole matter into Tumult and Confusion Barsumas and his Monks breaking into the Council beating some imprisoning others and forcing others to subscribe a Blank for Eutyches his Absolution and so Eutyches is absolved Flavianus and Eusebius of Dorilaeum Condemned and imprisoned too together with the Popes Legates only Hilarus escaping by Flight And to confirm all these unpriestly and unchristian Enormities Chrysaphius procures an Imperial Rescript which we shall find afterwards reverst by the Emperor Marcian But within three days after the Scuffle Flavianus dies in Goal of the Wounds given him by Barsumas and his Mirmidons and to him succeeds Anatolius though he cannot pass at Rome without absolute submission to Pope Leo his Epistles and the Catholick Church as if they were the same thing But Dioscorus having carried things with so high an hand and bold success returns home flusht and drunk with Victory and in one of his Fits excommunicates Pope Leo himself But the only effect of all these disorders and disturbances in the Church at that time was the advancement of the Papal Greatness for as this Pope never failed to exert his Power to the utmost so every success raised his Throne to a greater height and he so managed this advantage as to bring the design of the Papal Supremacy as it was laid by Innocent the First to its full perfection For though the Title of Head of the Universal Church was not gain'd till Boniface the Third yet Pope Leo went away with the Power and as will appear by the Event exercised a real Supremacy over the Catholick Church For being informed of these wild disorders he immediately calls a Council and writes to the Emperor to Conjure him by the Holy Trinity and as he will answer it at the Divine Tribunal to null all the Acts of that Prophane Council and by Vertue of an Appeal that Flavianus made to himself before his death demands a General Council to be held in Italy And this he seconds with another to his Sister Pulcheria begging her intercession with the Emperor And the Emperor Valentinian with his Mother Placidia and his Queen Eudoxia hapning to visit Rome at that time Leo so plyes them with ruful Stories of the late Ephesine Persecution that he dissolves the Women into Tears and engages all their Zeal to intercede with Theodosius for an Italian Council and this they all do out of that dutiful respect to the Supremacy of St. Peter to whom Leo tells them that our Saviour and all Antiquity had ever given the Sacerdotii Principatus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they express it in their several Epistles But the Emperor was so prepossest by his Eunuchs and his Zeal against Nestorius that no importunity could prevail upon him the thing being already Canonically determined as he replyes to the Empress in answer to her Letrer of Intercession and by an Imperial Rescript ratifies the deposition of Flavianus as guilty of the Nestorian Heresie and justifies all the Proceedings against him at Ephesus but if we may relye upon the Crude Reports of Nicephorus and some later Writers which I never do he repented before his death and sent Chrysaphius into Banishment however that was no publick satisfaction was made to the Church till after his death when Marcian reverst all the Acts of the Council together with the Rescript of Theodosius by which it was confirmed restored the banish'd Bishops and removed the Body of Flavianus to Constantinople and for the complete settlement of the Church summoned a Council of 630 Bishops in the Year 451 first at Nice and afterward at the request of the Fathers at Calcedon For these being sensible of the Abuses that had been put upon the Church by the Imperial Delegates in several Councils they were desirous that the Emperor himself might if there hap'ned any Contest about their Proceedings interpose by his own immediate Authority he being then detein'd by urgent Affairs of State at Constantinople and Calcedon being no more then a Miles distance on the other side the Thracian Bosphorus And by this putting themselves into his Imperial Majesties own Protection they in a great measure secured the Liberties of the Church and rescued it from the long continued Abuses of the Court-Debauchees insomuch that though the Emperor sent many of his Chief Officers of State to manage and moderate in Council yet they never presumed to conclude any thing till himself was present at the 6th Session But the Council being met at the Emperor's Summons Pope Leo sends his Legates and his Letters in which he is pleased to take notice of his Majesties particular Respect to the Apostolick See in that he did not Summon but only invite him to the Council when he was not obliged to appear in Person or as Hilarus one of his Delegates afterwards pleads in the Council it self that it was without Precedent and against all Prescription for a Pope of Rome to appear in Council But his Holiness not being obliged to execute the Office of Supremacy in Person he sends his Legates or Curates as his Representatives to preside over and manage the Council And the Council being opened Paschasinus that was the Fore-man of the Ambassy moves in his Masters name the Bishop of Rome the head of all Churches that Dioscorus of Alexandria may be call'd to the Bar and not suffer'd to sit as Judg in Council otherwise himself and his Brethren were commanded by their Commission to remonstrate Here the Judges require his Accusation To this Lucentius another Legate replys That his Crime was too evident in that he had presumed to assume to himself the Authority of a Judg and pass't sentence not only without but against the judgment of the Apostolick See which as it never ought to be done so it never had been done and for this reason he is not admitted to sit upon the Bench but is turn'd down to the Bar and his Indictment is exhibited by Eusebius of Dorilaeum But its Prosecution was at present superseded by Theodoret's appearing in Council that occasion'd a Tumult of the Egyptian Illyrican and Palestine Bishop against him and the Eastern Pontick
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
much complaisance being as yet but green in his Government replyed that being but a Lay-man it became not him to meddle in those Matters and so left it to themselves to meet as they judged convenient And that was the Maxime of his Reign to leave Church-Matters to the judgment of Church-men and therefore he fined Chronopius a Bishop a great sum of Mony to be distributed amongst the Poor for appealing from a Synodical sentence to the secular Court Upon this they immediately huddle up a Council at Lampsacus on the Helespont in the year 365. And here they condemn all the proceedings of Acacius and his Party at Constantinople after the Seleucian Council declare for the Doctrin of similitude against them decree that the Bishops that had been deposed by them should be restored to their Churches as having been unjustly deprived But yet are so tender-hearted as to grant the Usurpers the Communion of the Church upon their Repentance for which no doubt they were much concern'd after they had recovered their Purchases This being done they according to custom signifie their proceedings by an Encyclical Epistle to all Christian Churches and fearing lest the Enemy should prevent them at Court as they had hitherto done they make all speedy application there But alass Eudoxius an old crafty Courtier lay leiger there and had so possest the Emperor Valens to whom his Brother Valentinian left the Estern Empire that when they came the Emperor commanded them to reconcile themselves to Eudoxius at their peril and upon their persisting in their Complaints in a fury drives them all into banishment And now have we the same game turn'd up and plaid over again under these two Brothers that we have already seen under the Sons of Constantine For the Acacians or Eudoxians having seized the Emperor Valens the poor outed Eusebians or rather Macedonians for by this time they were distinguisht by that name had no other Remedy left but by application to forreign Churches and the power of the Western Emperor And so among others they in the first place send their Legates to Liberius Bishop of Rome but he knew the Men too well by his own sufferings having been twice driven into banishment by their means under Constantius for no other crime than his constant adherence to the Nicene Faith and therefore peremptorily refuses Communion with them But alass they confidently reply that they are not the Men they were and that they came to join with the Catholick Church against the Anomaeans declare for the Nicene Faith and for his full satisfaction herein produce the Letter of the Lampsacene Council with all their subscriptions to the Council of Nice and defiance to the cheats of Ariminum The old Man being transported with the joy of their Conversion and as he dreamt the Re-union of the Eastern and Western Churches embraces them with both his Arms little knowing good Man that the bottom of their Errand was to recover their Bishopricks and that for their sakes they had left their Faith behind them And that is the Centre of this Controversy between the Macedonians and the Eudoxians not the Faith but the preferments They had both been of the same Party under Constantius against the Nicene Faith yet under Jovian the Acacians had subscribed it to keep their Preferments and now under Valens the Macedonians finding themselves by that means left in the lurch make the same subscription to recover theirs And yet they have so much imposed upon the Historian Natalis Alexander by the boldness of their Hypocrisie that he reckons this Synod among the Orthodox Councils and falls out with Baronius and Binius for esteeming them Arians whereas in truth they were neither but a pack of ill Men that knew no other Religion than Interest But their jugling was now too late for the Adversaries had not only got possession of their Bishopricks which they say in all Governments is a great many Points of Law but of the Emperor himself which I am sure in that Government was all as will more appear by the sequel of this Story The Legates of the Council of Lampsacus having sped at Rome and being arm'd with communicatory Letters from Liberius they sail to Sicily and there in a Council of Bishops make the same Declaration and obtain the same favor and from thence to Illyricum where they gain synodical Letters to the Eastern Bishops to certify or rather congratulate the happy Union of the Eastern and Western Churches by their conversion And this they send by Elpidius a Presbyter of Rome whom Liberius had join'd with the Legates to give them the greater reputation in the Western Churches as Baronius thinks or rather as Valesius conjectures with more probability an Illyrican Bishop for in their Epistle they recommend him as their own Legate and chosen from among themselves And the Emperor was so far from being concern'd for the Arian cause that he grants his Letters to recommend the Decree of the Illyrican Council and to settle the Nicene Faith where he declares against the Equivocations of the Homoioufians and proves them no better than Arians This Letter Valesius will have to have been written not by Valens but Valentinian who though he then resided in the West intirely govern'd the Eastern Empire Valens being wholly obedient to his Orders and rather his Under-officer than his Sharer in the Empire This is but a conjecture and 't is not likely that the Council should send into Franâ—e for Imperial Letters when they had their own Emperor so near but if it be true Valens was concurring in it and that clears him of Arianism By these means the Legates and their Companions get themselves restored to their Preferments in a Council at Tyana in Cappadocia But they having gain'd their point could not forbear discovering their old pick against the Nicene Faith as St. Basil informs the Western Bishops who gave them their first reputation It is not the old and open Arian that does the harm because that Heresy being condemn'd by the sentence of the Church it 's wickedness is known to all but it is the sheep-skin Men that under shews of Love and Reconciliation and upon pretence of being taken into the bosom of the Church take advantage to worry the Flock and seduce the less understanding These are the Men of Mischief that cannot be so easily prevented And it is this sort of Deceivers that we request you to use all diligence to discover and lay open to the World that either frankly declaring for the truth they may own intire Communion with us but if they will not let them keep their Poison to themselves and not be suffer'd to infect others by too careless communicating with them And particularly cautions them against Eustathius Bishop of Sebasta in Armâ—nia the chief Agent in the Ambassy from the Council of Lampsacus to the Western Church that he was a rank Arian and Arius his own Disciple had been
sets up a Schism against Paulinus to the great and long disturbance of the Church as we shall afterward see though Theodoret either out of a picque to Paulinus or partiality to Flavianus relates the whole Matter so awkerdly as not only to pervert but apparently to falsifie the whole Story § V. In the Year 379 is the great Theodosius taken into a partnership of the Government who by his Wisdom settled all the distractions of the Eastern-Empire and by his courage recovered the Western when it was lost At first he is left to the Government of the East as being at that time by the folly of Valens and the wickedness of the Eunuchs and Eudoxians much the most troublesom and therefore in the next year after his being settled in the Government he takes care for the settlement of Religion and for that end is himself baptised by Acholius Bishop of Thessalonica that at that time belong'd to the Eastern Empire and as the first fruits of his sacramental Vow he immediately set out and that probably at the good Bishop's motion that famous or as it is commonly stiled Golden Rescript de fide Catholicâ to the divided People of Constantinople commanding the universal Reception of the old Orthodox Faith ut secundum Apostolicam disciplinam evangelicamque doctrinam Patris et Filii et Spiritâ—s sancti unam Deitatem sub parili Majestate sub piâ Trinitate credamus that we believe one God-head of the Father Son and Holy Ghost all of equal Majesty in the holy Trinity according to the Doctrin of the Apostles and Evangelists And as for all that refused this Faith of what Faction and Denomination soever they were all adjudged Hereticks and the Laws against them put in force And soon after this the great Church of Constantinople is by his command taken from the Hereticks who had in one shape or other kept possession of it full forty years and deliver'd up to the Catholicks And this was seconded by another Rescript in the year following to the Proconsul of Asia that had been all along infested with the most numerous swarms of Hereticks in which he strictly commands all Churches to be taken away from all Bishops and Priests that refused to subscribe the Nicene Faith and for better security further Orders that no Man should be admitted to any Church but such as were approved by a certain Committee of Orthodox Bishops appointed by himself for that purpose Here I must confess that I once thought this Law an invasion upon the Rights of the Church by confounding the old bounds of Provinces and destroying the Prerogatives of Metropolitans because they were chosen without regard to either but having now traced its history more accurately by comparing the Imperial Laws with the Records of the Church and indeed it is impossible to gain a full knowledg of either without a competent knowledg of both and so considering the time and occasion of enacting it it plainly clears it self from any such ill suspicion For first if it were made before the Council of Constantinople as some will have it it was then but a temporary Provision till a better settlement could be made by the approaching Council and therefore if it had been an intrenchment upon the Church it was not design'd to be perpetual but was taken up as the best expedient that the necessity of the Times would admit and all necessity is its own dispensation But if it were enacted after the Council and if its Date be not mistaken and so it was for the Council sat in May June July and this bears date August then it is only a confirmation of the Decree of the Church that had settled the Nicene Faith But which soever it was this institution of the Communicatory Bishops was no alteration either of the bounds or the Rules of Discipline for the Ecclesiastical Government of Provinces under Metropolitans stood as before but it was only a Rule to his own Officers not to deliver up Churches to any that did not bring Certificates from some of these Bishops but when they brought them they were to be admitted after the usual manner if Presbyters by the Bishop and his Synod of Presbyters if Bishops by the Metropolitan and his Synod of Bishops Neither can any thing be inferr'd for equalling Diocesan Bishops or preferring them above Metropolitans by Nectarius his being made the first Man in the Instrument for it was no matter of power but of trust the Emperor chose them not with any regard to their Authority but from his knowledg of their Integrity in the Orthodox Faith and therefore being best acquainted with Nectarius the Bishop of his own City and his old Favourite he naturally named him in the first place and the rest probably by the information of others This is all that I can find intended by this Emperor 's erecting this Committee of Communicatory Bishops it was to guide himself and his Officers not to determine the Church And now are we come to the great Council of Constantinople whose main business it was to settle the Nicene Faith and anathematise the Arian Heresy and all the Sects that had been spawn'd out of it but because the Macedonians had as we have seen above so often own'd the Nicene Faith and particularly in the Council at Lampsacus the good Emperor in hopes to bring them over summon'd them to the Council 36 in number but it seems they were at that time in a sullen fit and would not be prevail'd upon to stand to their former subscriptions and so depart the Council But the Fathers proceed and in the first place vote the Nicene Faith unalterable condemn all the several dissenters from it by name make some Canons useful for the present settlement of the Church and give an account of their proceedings to his Imperial Majesty in these words That meeting at Constantinople in obedience to his Summons they had preserved Peace among themselves confirm'd the Nicene Faith anathematised all Heresies that had been raised against it enacted divers Canons for the due settlement of the discipline of the Church they now request his Majesty that he would be pleased to ratifie the Decrees of the Council that as they were call'd together by his Imperial Letters so he would be pleased to give an effectual conclusion to their Decrees That was the true state of the Church under his wise reign as it was under Constantines to summon them to Council by his own Authority and leave them to the liberty of their own determinations and then if he pleased to inforce them by his own Imperial Laws and Penalties And that he did to purpose for beside the former Law of Communicatory Bishops that was most probably publisht at this time he enacted another injoining the Nicene Faith forbidding publick Assemblies to all that would not subscribe it condemning the Photinians Arians Eunomians by name and commanding all Churches within the Empire to be
deliver'd up to the Orthodox Bishops or such as kept close to the Nicene Faith The Rescript is a plain Epitome both of the Creed and Canons of the Council and for the most part exprest in the very same words And because when the Churches were taken from the Hereticks they attempted to build new ones he seconds it with another to forbid that under pain of Confiscation Upon this the Hereticks meet in private Conventicles or assemble Multitudes together in the Streets and Fields which occasions two Laws in the year 383 to forbid all manner of Meetings in all Places whatsoever to restrain wandring Bishops from preaching or ordaining successors in the Heresy and the Execution of these Laws is injoin'd the Governors of Provinces upon pain of Deposition from their places But because the Hereticks were ferretted out of all other Places and took sanctuary in the great City of Constantinople he publishes another Rescript the year following requiring the Magistrates to make a diligent search to find out their lurking holes and so we hear no more of them till the year 388 when all these Laws against them were contracted into one Rescript the Emperor being provoked to renew the execution of his old Laws by their sawcy behaviour upon any cessation against them But now leaving the Eastern parts to go to the assistance of Valentinian the younger against the Tyrant Maximus who had driven him out of his Empire in the West he chooses Tatianus a Man eminent for Courage Wisdom and Conduct to be his Praefectus Praetorio in his absence and when he comes into Macedonia where he meets the distressed young Emperor and finding himself ingaged in a dangerous War on his behalf for the better security of the Peace sends him a new sort of Rescript strictly commanding him that he suffer no disputes about Religion and if any shall dare to do it that he punish their presumption with just severity A Law that has been found so useful and necessary to the publick Peace that it has been from time to time renewed by wise Princes in all Ages He himself was forced four years after to impose it upon the Egyptians and Alexandrians under pain of deportation and no wonder when they have been remarked in all Ages and by all Authors as the most contentious and quarrelsom People in the World and particularly at that time great Tumults were raised by the Anthropomorphite Monks It was afterward renewed by the great and wise Emperor Marcian inserted into the Laws of the Vice-Goths the Capitulars of Charles the Great and the Additions of his Son Lewis And this they did not only for the security of the publick Peace but for the honor and reverence of Religion For it cannot but bring that into great contempt to see it bandied up and down in popular Tumults and Seditions and therefore in the Primitive modest Times they indeavour'd to keep Matters of dispute and controversy from the notice of the People and distinguisht between the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things fit to be preached and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 notions fit to be conceal'd And it was the familiar form of Expression in their Sermons when they came to any controversial point to break off suddainly with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this the learned know Gregory Nazianzen has an excellent Sermon upon the Subject fit for our own conceited and capricious Times in which the good Father is so popishly affected as to recommend to his disputing Citezens of Constantinople ignorance above curiosity But this wise Emperor having settled things in as good a posture as he could in the East prevails at the same time with the young Valentinian who by the instigation of his Mother Justina had been a great Patron of the Hereticks to publish the same severe Rescript against them in the West that himself at his first coming to the Empire had enacted in the East and to cancel the former Law that he had two years before made in their behalf viz. that we grant liberty of publick Assemblies to all those that believe according to that Faith that in the time of Constantius was agreed upon at Ariminum by all the Bishops of the Roman World and let those Men know that presume that themselves alone ought to have liberty that if they shall attempt any disturbance against this our Command they shall stand guilty of High-Treason and pay for it with their blood This is a very high Act in behalf of all the Hereticks for by the Faith agreed upon at Ariminum is to be understood the cheat that Valens and his Party put upon the Council that comprehended all the different Parties whatsoever And yet that is the Faith that is here confirm'd to last forever and whoever shall publickly oppose any that publickly promote it shall forfeit his head This came from the furious zeal of Justina who prosecuted it with the same zeal and outrage wherewith she had procured it and it was so highly displeasing to Benevolus the Emperor 's Secretary that he chose rather to lose his Office and the Offer of much greater Preferments than so much as transcribe it And this was the Rescript that brought so much trouble to St. Ambrose when he refused to deliver up his Church to the Arians and indeed it was particularly aimed at him And the first Mover of all the Mischief was one Auxentius a Scythian that had a great mind to that wealthy Bishoprick but partly because the Name of Auxentius was hateful to the People of that City and partly because he was infamous for many Villanies in his own Country he took upon him the name of Mercurinâ—s But this whole business being a very remarkable transaction and of very great consequence to my Argument I shall set it down with the greater Nicety that we may not only see the outward Actions themselves but the inward Springs and Motives of the Court-Intrigues § VI. And first of all Auxentius challenges St. Ambrose to a dispute before the Emperor then only a Catechumen but the Bishop disdains the Motion that when the Faith had been so fairly determin'd by so many Councils he should prostitute the divine Authority of the Church by referring it to a secular Judicature but chiefly by making a Catechumen supreme Judg of the Faith But Dalmatius the Tribune is sent by the Emperor to command his appearance upon which advising with some Bishops that were then present with him he returns his Answer in writing in which with equal courage and modesty he reproves him for medling with things that did not originally belong to his Judicature and so proceeds to state the Power of the Emperors in Ecclesiastical Matters from the practice of his Predecessors And it was then but time to be hot in the Cause this being the first open breach that was made upon the Church for though Constantius had often done it underhand or rather unadvisedly
Autoritates quas Ecclesia Vniversalis amplexa est ad arbitrium haereticae petitionis infringere atque ita nullum colligendis ecclesiis modum ponere sed datâ licentiâ rebellandi dilatare magis quam sopire certamina For when the most proper means for securing the Faith is that we acquiesce in those things that are legally settled by the direction of the Holy Ghost otherwise we shall but destroy what is already well settled and affront that Authority that has been own'd by the Catholick Church for the humor of every petulant Heretick and so shall have no means left to preserve the Churches Peace but opening a gap to all rebellion we shall rather propagate than quel Contentions and so concludes ' that when a thing is once determin'd by the Authority of the Universal Church Quis est nisi aut Antichristus aut Diabolus qui pulsare audeat inexpugnabilem firmitatem qui in malitiâ suâ inconvertibilis perseverans per vasa irae et suae apta fallaciae falso diligentiae nomine dum veritatem se mentitur inquirere mendacia desiderat seminare Who but these great Enemies to Christianity the Devil and Antichrist would dare to shake the settled foundation who presevering stubborn in his Malice by his Vessels of Wrath that are apt Tools for his Craft under a false pretence of a greater diligence whilst he counterfeits to search after truth sows his Tares And therefore when the Hereticks only mâ—ved for a conference and the Emperor being inclined to a request as he thought so easie No says Pope Leo this is as great an Affront to the Calcedon Fathers as to grant them a new Council Evidenter agnoscitis quod magnis haereticorum audetur iâ—sidiis ut inter Eutychetis Dioscorique discipulos et eum quem Aposâ—olica sedes direxerit diligentior tanquam nâ—hil ante fuerit definitum tractatus habeatur et quod totius mundi Catholici Sacerdotes in sanctâ Calcedonensi Synodo probant gaudentque firmatum in injuriam etiam sacratissimi Concilii Nicaeni efficiatur infiâ—mum Your Majesty cannot but observe the crafty attempts of Hereticks that there should be a farther Debate between the Hereticks and us as if there had been nothing already determin'd and the settlement made by the Holy Council of Calcedon to the great joy of the Catholick Church all the World over should be slited to a dishonorable reflection upon the Council of Nice it self And whereas the Emperor desired him to send Commissioners he offers to send them not to dispute with the Hereticks that he scorns but to put the Sentence of the Church in effectual execution against them Which was accordingly done and Timotheus Aelurus was deposed banisht and imprison'd and when he petition'd for leave to come to Constantinople there to make a publick declaration against the Eutychian Heresie to this Pope Leo says No again for though that may set him right as to his Faith yet it can never wash away the guilt of his wicked and bloody Actions the Absolution whereof requires some other expiation than fair Confessions and therefore he enjoins Gennadius then Bishop of Constantinople not so much as to admit him into his presence at his peril as he had not long before school'd his Predecessor Anatolius for being too remiss against the Hereticks and suffering one Atticus a Presbyter publickly to dispute the Eutychian Controversie after the determination of the great Council The sum of all is that the matter was already decided by the Authority of the Church and after that there remains no liberty of Dispute And therefore instead of indulging that he advises the Emperor to exert his Imperial Power in defence of the Faith and that when the Church had done its part in declaring it it was now his duty to maintain it against the Assaults of restless Spirits Cùm enim Clementiam tuam Dominus tantâ Sacramenti Illuminatione ditaverit debes incunctanter advertere Regiam Potestatem tibi non solùm ad Mundi regimen sed maximè ad Ecclesiae praesidium esse collatam ut ausus nefarios comprimendo et quae bene sunt statuta defendas et veram pacem his quae sunt turbata restituas c. Seeing your Majesty is by the Grace of God endued with so good an Understanding you ought out of hand to consider that Your Royal Power was given you from above not only for the Government of the Empire but chiefly for the Protection of the Church that by suppressing seditious Attempts you may defend what is already establisht and restore Peace where things are in disorder That is the true state of the use of Regal Power in the Government of the Church to protect and assist it in the free exercise of its own legislative Authority not to assume and annex it to the Imperial Crown It would be an endless thing to transcribe all the Passages to the same purpose out of the several Returns made to the Emperor from the Eastern Bishops they all move upon this one hinge that what was determin'd by the Church was Sacred Law and therefore no review or farther dispute of the Resolution of the Calcedon Council And thus was this stubborn Controversie laid and the Church settled in Peace and Unity all this Emperor's Reign But beside these Laws of Discipline to enforce the Authority of the Church he made divers other Laws in behalf of the Church that were meer acts of his Royal Grace and Favor bestowing several Priviledges and Immunities upon Churches and Church-men Thus he granted the right of Sanctuary to all Religious houses so as to punish its violation with no less Penalty than Death Another Law he enacted to forbid all Plays and prophane Sports on Holy-days and to protect Men from Law-suits Arrests and Vexations at times dedicated to the Service of God upon pain of forfeiture of Estate And a third Law to forbid all but Christians to plead in Courts a fourth against the Sacriledg of Simony and a fifth to exempt the Clergy from being forced to appear before Secular Courts beside a great many other Priviledges granted to particular Churches § XVIII But he dying after he had Reigned 17 Years and 6 Months in the Year 474 his Son-in-Law Zeno unhappily succeeds to the great loss both of Church and State a man altogether unfit for Government being not only a weak a careless and a dissolute Prince but one that affected to expose himself to the contempt of the World by making his Follies and Debaucheries publick esteeming it a poor and sneaking thing to conceal his wickedness but brave and Prince-like to be wicked in sight of the Sun And consequent to this strange folly he was a shameless Oppressor of his Subjects robbing and defrauding them and wherever he could by any indirect shifts seizing any thing into his hands and no wonder when Millions of Worlds are not sufficient to defray the Charges of an unbounded Luxury These practices
St. Basil who being a very mortified Man and forced from a retired life into the Wealthy Bishoprick of Caesarea was thought a very easy Prey by Modestus at that time Prefect of the Province and the head Patron of the Eudoxian Faction and therefore the Emperor coming to Caesarea in his Passage to Antioch he is incited by his Courtiers against this old Man as an open Enemy to his favourite Eudoxius The description of the Incounter may be seen in Theodoret but more at large and with some difference in Gregory Nazianzens funeral Oration upon St. Basil which thô it is too lavish and panegyrical in many particulars yet the sum of the account of this business is contein'd in the discourse between the old Bishop and the Prefect Modestus who was sent to perswade him to be reconciled to Eudoxius Where after some conference the Prefect falls into rage and threatning and asks him if he stand not in awe of his Power He replys for what what can you do to me What can I do returns he I can proscribe you banish you torture you kill you Can you so replys the Bishop but if you have nothing else to threaten me with these things concern not me What do you mean says he I mean says the Bishop that he is not obnoxious to the proscription of Goods that has none unless you would rob me of this poor thred-bare Garment and a few old Books Banishment I know none for the Earth is the Lords and that is my Countrey as for Tortures I have not a Body strong enough to feel them the first stroke will put me out of pain and as for death it would be the greatest kindness you could do me to send me out of this feeble Carcass to my Lord and Master At this the Prefect stands astonisht and professes that in all his life he never heard any Man speak with such courage and assurance Perhaps says Basil you never met with a true Christian Bishop till now for if you had he must have discoursed after this manner if call'd into question about these Matters For you must know Sir that we are mild and gentle in all other things the most humble and submissive of all Men as our Law commands us insomuch that we dare not behave our selves with the least pride or stubbornness I will not say to the Emperor or you that are great Men but to the meanest and pooâ—est of the People But where the Cause and the Truth of God is at stake there we lay all other things aside and look at him alone Fire and Sword wild Beasts and Flesh-hooks are in his service rather pleasure than terrour to us and therefore revile us threaten us do what you plâ—ase and the worst you can with us and tell the Emperor what I say we shall never yield nor comply with his Will thâ— he threaten much more dreadful things than all these This is the true old primitive Spirit resolution adorn'd with Civility and by it the Bishop not only overcame the Prefect but became dear to the Emperor who resorted to his Church and received the holy Eucharist from his hands From whence it is evident that this Persecution came not from the zeal of the Emperor but was meerly set on foot by the Grandees of the Faction for the sale and purchase of Sequestrations And for these designs they make use of the Emperors soft nature and vehement desire of Peace and that was all that he here required of St. Basil only to be reconcilâ—d to the Eudoxians not to their Opinions And though he was so well satisfied with St. Basil at this first onset yet they would give him no rest till he condescended to their importunity for his Banishment which was sign'd but upon a suddain Sickness of his Son after it its execution was stopt And this is the true Interpretation of all the dismal Stories in the Historians concerning this Emperor's Arâ—an Persecution but into what a woful condition the Eastern Church was brought by this Court-merchandizing is described in the Letter of Meletius and his Brethren to the Western Bishops The gravity of the Clergy is lost the skilful Pastors have left their Flocks whil'st such as are set over them consume even the Goods of the Poor upon their own Pleasures There is no regard had to the Canons of the Church but an uncontroul'd liberty of Sinning for they who come to the Government of the Church by illegal ways will do any thing to please their Masters So that there is in reality no Government and every-man does what is good in his own Eyes wickedness is boundless and the People stubborn the Bishops trim and dare not speak out for having acquired their Power by Men they are Slaves to all by whose help and Patronage they were advanced With much more to the same purpose from whence we fully understand the true Face of the Church and the right State of the Controversie at that time to displace honest Men upon pretences of Religion only to get into their Preferments as farther appears from their wild way of proceeding as it is there described Whereas no man ought to be concluded Guilty without some shew of Evidence our Bishops are condemn'd only by being accused and punisht without any proof at all some never knew their Accusers others never saw their Judges some were never accused at all but conveyed away by dark Night hurried into Banishment and kept in perpetual Imprisonment This was the deplorable state of the Church at that time under Valens and his Eunuchs for the redress whereof not only Meletius but Athanasius and St. Basil wrote to the Western Bishops to implore the Assistance of the Western Church and Empire Athanasius his Letters are lost but that of St. Basil is very remarkable for its Eloquence and Ingenuity But at this time St. Basil labouring in the Settlement of the distracted Churches in the East by the advice of St. Athanasius visits the Churches in Armenia where he unadvisedly receives that old insinuating Prevaricator Eustathius of Sebasta to the Communion of the Catholick Church upon his reiterated Profession of the Orthodox Faith Upâ—n which Theodotus Bishop of Nicopolis where the Reconciliation was made who better understood the Man though Basil was not unacquainted with his former Shufflings falls out with him But Eustathius like himself finding that by reason of that great opposition that was maâ—e against him and knowing that his Enormities were so great that St. Basil was neither able nor willing to restore him falls foul upon him and loads him with so many base Calumnies which though St Basil at first despised for some years it was the great work of his life to wipe off one part of Mankind it seems being so credulous and another so ill-natured as easily and greedily to swallow any ill surmise and of this he often complains even in his own Friends till he was at last tempted to sing the burden
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
there be in the Church than to take away the very Being of the Church by distinguishing between the sacred Function which they grant to be the proper office of the Church and the Power over sacred things which they annex intirely to the Civil Power by which distinction they leave the Governors of the Church no other Power than to administer the Offices of Religion without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion and then they have none at all for there can be no power without a Power of inflicting Penalties And there lyes the true distinguishing point between these two Jurisdictions not in the Matters about which their Power is imployed but in the Penalties by which it is inforced Thus to be short and give one example for all whereas Justinian leaves to the Church the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sins committed against the Ecclesiastical Order by the Clergy and to the State the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Sins against the Laws of the State This division is so far from being true that both Powers are equally concern'd in both Crimes for if any Clergy-man disturb the Government as the Donatists did by a Contest about a Canon of the Church then though it were an Ecclesiastical sin it concern'd the Civil Government to check the Mischief by the proper Penalties of Sedition as Honorius drove them into banishment and thereby restored the long interrupted Peace of the Empire And on the other hand if any Clergy-Man let him be never so regular to the Laws and Rules of the Church shall in a state-Faction ingage in a Rebellion against his Soveraign that is properly a Political sin the Church is bound to inflict such Penalties upon him as are denounced by the Laws of their Religion against all Traitors and Rebels i. e. to cast him out of their Society and the capacity of Salvation And that is the only difference in the case that when the King cuts a Traitor off for this life the Church cuts him off â—or the next and so it is in all other Crimes where the Prince punishes for breach of the Laws of the Land the Church punishes proportionably for breach of the Laws of Religion And as by the Laws of the Land the Penalty is proportionable to the Crime so is it by the Laws of the Church for as some Offences are Capital and some only Penal in the State so in the Church some are punisht by Penance some by utter excision or cutting off from the Kingdom of Heaven which is the same thing in its kind as cutting off life in this World So that the same Crimes are so far from belonging to different Judicatures that all belong to both the only difference is that one punishes here and the other hereafter And now this one observation of the difference of Penalties in the same cause being supposed which cannot be be avoided without destroying or intrenching upon the Rights of Church or State the bounds of Jurisdiction are evident enough without splitting of Causes and it is easy enough to understand how the same Causes belong to both Jurisdictions from their different ends without setting any restraint to either Power And thus having in this short digression as briefly as I could secured this point of the Controversy which is the main Hinge upon which depends the disingenuous Contention of both the extreme Parties both Papal and Erastian I now return to the course of the History which was broke off at the year 376. At which time the Huns breaking into the Eastern Empire and Valens being extremely distrest by them and the Goths at the same time St. Jerom and Crosius say that he repented of his former severity and upon it recall'd the Orthodox Bishops from banishment but Socrates only says and that much more probably that being otherwise imployed he desisted and so the banisht Bishops particularly Peter of Alexandria had opportunity of returning home And that I doubt was all notwithstanding St. Jerom's lavish story of his Repentance which good Father partly by his boldness partly by his eagerness has occasion'd the greatest Mistakes in the story of the Church and therefore when he is a single witness his Testimony is not to be regarded in any Matter of Fact unless when he speaks of his own knowledg for he was an honest Man and would not lye yet he was so very hot-headed that it often betrayed him into false-hoods and therefore his single Authority ought not to be trusted unless in Matters of his own knowledg And by relying upon it and that contrary to the testimony of calmer Authors great darkness has been brought upon the Records of the Church and has particularly blemisht Baronius his Annals who has very often followed his Authority not only without but against all other Authors and by it run himself into a great many Mistakes against the best Records of the Church And this I take to be one though no material one that Valens repented of his Persecution and callâ—d back the banisht Bishops for which there is no proof but only his saying so and they that followed his Authority otherwise we do not find that they were solemnly recall'd till Gratian came into the East after his death when indeed all the Historians agree that they were restored In the Year 377 a Council was held at Antioch for preventing or rather curing a Schism in that Church that was first created by Julian's spiteful and treacherous toleration to all Sects for by that means 3 Bishops had been set up in one Church Meletius who was first an Acacian but afterwards revolting to the Nicene Faith Euzoius was put in his place by the Acacian Faction and Paulinus set up by that hot Man Lucifer Calaritanus who would accept of none of Meletius his repentance in opposition to both With Meletius the Arian Converts communicated with Paulinus the old Orthodox because Paulinus himself had ever been so and as for Euzoius he presided over the Acacian Party But he dying about this time a Controversy arose who should be the true and proper Bishop of the Place in which not only the People of the City made Parties but the Bishops of other Churches St. Basil was zealous for Meletius Pope Damasus for Paulinus so that it became a Controversy between the East and West But at last this expedient was found out that both during their lives should keep their own shares but when ever one of them dyed the surviver should govern the whole Church and that the Schism might not be perpetuated an Oath was administred to six of the eldest Presbyters of that Church who were the only Candidates for the Election to submit to the Decree and this for the present ended the Quarrel And yet when after this Meletius dyed Flavianus one of the six Presbyters that had sworn never to invade the Bishoprick whilst either of the present Bishops survived violently thrusts himself into the See and
there is Evidence of such a Custom yet there is none of such a Word and therefore I think there is no need of any such far-fetcht Curiosity when the words are so intelligible in their natural sense against the Court-Eunuchs that had been all along the Patrons of this Faction and so were to be restrain'd by this Law of forfeiture of Estates being generally Men of great Wealth No says Gothofred that was only under Constantius yes say I they first set up their Trade of Simony under him but continued it in all following Reigns and did all that Mischief that was brought upon the Church under this Emperor's Predecessor Valens and therefore for preventing this Disorder for the time to come in these great Courtiers he forbids them to act at all for these Hereticks under the great Penalty of Confiscation of their whole Estate Or rather it is most probable that Eunuch was become a Proverbial Nick-name to the whole Party for the Trade between the Court Eunuchs and the Eunomians was so notorious under Valens that it might in just derision be named the Eunuchean Sect. This is I fancy the most easie sense of the words In the same year he puts out another Rescript to restrain the Meetings of all sorts of Hereticks in the City or Suburbs of Constantinople Gothofred conjectures that the Suburbs are here added because Eunomius being expell'd the City kept his Conventicles there as Sozomen informs us but that is one of Sozomen's Mistakes for he was not at that time banisht from Constantinople but Calcedon But his Conjectures why all sorts of Heresies and Errors ar◠here named is more probable because at that time the Eunomians themselves were broke into several Factions and Animosities though this is not singular to this Law but all the Laws of this Emperor run in the same comprehensive stile to prevent all Shifts and Evasions In the years 392 and 394 to all the former Edicts and Penalties he publishes his Rescripts against all Ordination by Hereticks under a severe Pecuniary Mulct upon the Persons both Ordaining and Ordain'd The same Law that his Son Honorius at first executed against the Donatists as we have seen in the History of that Schism The last Law that he made about these Matters was to abrogate the 17th Law that disabled the Eunomians from making Wills and as he often as well as all other Emperors varied his Laws upon Reasons of State so he had now some particular Reason that induced him to reverse this and what that was is not to be known but by Conjecture he was then departing to the War against Eugenius and so was willing to leave all People as easie and peaceable as he could especially the Courtiers if the Law referr'd to them or the whole Party whom its severity had made Malecontents And therefore this Indulgence was in a short time after taken away by his Son Arcadius this Emperor dying in his return home and before he could reverse it But the most usual reason of their altering their Rescripts were the various Tempers of their Ministers of State The former Laws were enacted when Tatianus was Praefectus Praetorio a Vigorous and an Active and an experienced Man that prosecuted them with all severity But this was made when Rufinus succeeded to the Office who being at his first entrance upon it more wary though otherwise of a bold Temper advised the Suspension of that severe Law for those nice times and as soon as they were over again advised its execution And thus this great Prince broke the heart of the Faction by abetting the Sentence of the Church against them with vigorous Laws And that had been sooner done had they been more vigorously executed by his Judges and Officers whose Neglect or Connivance was the reason of his so often renewing the same Law And there indeed generally lyes the greatest Miscarriages of all Governments And of this his Son Honorius was so convinced both by his Father's and his own Experience that he made all his Laws effectual by annexing severe Penalties upon their non-execution § VII But beside these Laws to back these new Decrees of the Church against Hereticks and Heresies he enacted others by his own Authority to rescue the Ancient rules of Discipline that were grown obsolete by the abuses and corruptions of time And first he reduces the Order of Deaconesses to their Primitive Institution commanding in pursuance of the rule of the Apostles and Practice of the Primitive Church that none be admitted into that Order under the Age of Sixty and that too with several Limitations that she appoint Curators or Trustees for her Children that she carry away with her none of the Plate or Jewels of the Family and that she bequeath nothing by Will to the Church Clergy or Poor though the particular occasion of this Law was that wicked Fact that Sozomen reports to have been committed at this time by a Deacon of the Church of Constantinople with one of the Deaconesses of the same Church who had probably setled her personal Estate upon him not for the Churches Service but her own And in the same Rescript commands That all Women who shave their Hair upon pretence of Religion be cast out of the Church which was done not only in pursuance of the rule of the Apostle and the Canons of the Church particularly the Council of Gangra that was then taken into the Codex of the Laws Ecclesiastical but of the Law of Nature it self to prevent the Confusion of Sexes the distinction being chiefly preserved by this Custom This Rescript was publisht in July but in September following the Clause disabling Deaconesses to dispose of their Moveables by Will to Pious and Charitable Uses is reverst provided the Will be made in time of Health and not upon their Death-beds when they might be too apt to be imposed upon by Superstition and the Frauds of Priests At the first Law Baronius takes fire as if it were a violent restraint of Devotion to God and Charity to the Poor and an Abridgement of the Priviledges of Holy Church which therefore he says was soon cancel'd by the Advice of St. Ambrose that great Assertor of Ecclesiastical Liberty But that St. Ambrose had any hand in reversing it we have no Authority of any Historian that I know of but the Cardinal himself But beside by his leave such restraining Laws are requisite nay necessary in all Commonwealths for there is nothing so Prodigal as Superstition and wherever there is Religion that will creep into great numbers of the People and therefore it concerns the Government every where to take care that Families and the Publick be not defrauded by Prodigal Zeal or under pretence of Devotion And this abuse was so early that when Constantine the Great made a Law to the Citizens of Rome to enable all Persons whatsoever to give by Will to the Church not only what Legacies but what Lands they pleased
Nicomedia and ever after kept on foot by the Faction For the Western Church had been all along true and faithful to the Orthodox Faith and happy in a succession of Orthodox Emperors and therefore the Easterling Merchants that hitherto made a trade of their Religion and changed their Faith with their Interest greedily seized all Opportunities of breaking with the West where the Faith was fixt and settled because such a settlement would break the Court-Exchange for Preferments upon every Turn of Affairs And such Eceboliuses were the Bishops that raised and promoted this disorder They had ever changed their Faith with the Times and as they had bought their Bishopricks of the Courtiers under Constantius and Valens so were they resolved to keep them under Theodosius And therefore finding his Resolution to stand by the Nicene Faith they readily vote with the Council for its establishment but to prevent the establishment of the Church they start this new and unseasonable Controversie about the Ordination of Paulinus to keep up the division between the East and West Their wrigling and changing of Faith and their buying and selling of Preferments is admirably described by Gregory himself in the Poem of his own Life upon his resignation from whence I have chiefly collected this whole Story You are welcome Chap-Men how often soever you may have barter'd your Faith now 't is high Fair-time let no Man depart without a good penny-worth And now let R. B. here set his Presbyterian hand as his custom is to point out this Character of this prophane Faction against all the good Catholick Bishops with his cold Exclamation Are not these lamentable descriptions of the Bishops of those happy Times and excellent Councils But no multiplying-Glass like Malice unless perhaps Ignorance Upon this Hinge all along turn'd this Controversy it was not kept up by any zeal for the Arian Heresie but the Heresie it self was only pretended to keep up divisions in the Church and by that means a good Exchange was kept up at Court for the sale of Church-Preferments upon every turn of Times And so here upon Gregory's Resignation every Man hoped for a good penny-worth but the Courtiers were grown too cunning and it being so valuable a prize instead of sharing with the Church-men by Simony seize the Bishoprick for themselves Nectarius an unlearned Man but a great Courtier I know not by what art but I am sure by too much interposition of the Emperor being against all the Canons of the Church hoisted into it And it is the great blemish of that Princes reign though it may perhaps be some excuse that he stretcht a point to serve a Friend But the Western Church is startled at these irregular Proceedings and upon them Pope Damasus a resolute Man and one of the first that valued himself upon the great Authority of the Apostolick See moves the Emperors Gratian and Theodosius to grant a General Council at Rome for the better settlement of things But the Eastern Bishops baulk their appearance upon pretence that they cannot be so long absent from their Flocks having been assembled the year before at Constantinople and therefore send only their Legates with a Copy of the Acts of the Council With which the Council at Rome were so 〈◊〉 satisfied 〈◊〉 with very little 〈…〉 adjudged the See of Antioch to Paulinus alone and yet forbore to denounce the sentence of Deposition against Flavianus for fear the Faction should take the advantage that they watcht for to break off Communion with them In order to which it is probable that they raised the Bishop of Constantinople to so great an height of dignity as to take place and precedency next to the Bishop of Rome who upon the account of the Grandeur of the Imperial City had all along held the greatest esteem in the Christian Church And by vertue of this Decree of the Council at Rome Paulinus takes and keeps possession of his Bishoprick to his dying day and is succeeded in it by Evagrius Of the legality of his Succession against the claim of Flavianus see St. Ambrose his 78 th Epistle that runs parallel so luckily with Theodoret's partial story as to discover all its particular flaws and dawbings For says Theodoret after this they would never let Flavianus be at quiet but tired the Emperor with Complaints against him till he undertook his defence himself and by it so satisfied the Western Bishops that they promised reconciliation to him upon which he sent his Legates to treat the Peace which was at last agreed on in the time of Innocent the first But according to St. Ambrose his account who was an Actor in the business the Story runs thus The Emperor upon the Complaint of Siricius that succeeded Damasus against Flavianus refers the Cause to a Council at Capua but Flavianus refuses to appear and moves for an Eastern Synod But the Bishops at the Council being aware of this old device of dividing between East and West immediately vote Communion with all Bishops of the Eastern Church that own'd the Nicene Faith of whatsoever side in this Controversy to cut off that old pretence of Schism upon which Flavianus relyed Upon it he peremptorily refuses all appearance and upon that they refer it to Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and the Egyptian Bishops but he shuns the reference and takes shelter at Court. Upon which the good Father thus expostulates Frustra ergo tantorum sacerdotum fusus labor Iterum ad hujus seculi Judicia revertendum Iterum ad Rescripta Iterum vexabuntur Sacerdotes senes transfretabunt maria Iterum invalidi corpore patriam peregrino mutabunt solo Iterum sacrosancta Altaria deserentur ut in longinquum proficiscamur Iterum pauperum turbae Episcoporum quibus ante onerosum paupertas non erat externae opis egentes compellentur inopiam gemere aut certè victum inopum itineris usurpare Interea solus exlex Flavianus ut illi videtur non venit quando omnes convenimus But soon after this Evagrius dyes and Flavianus bestirs himself that no Successor should be chosen but yet for all that the People would not be reconciled to him And St. Chrysostom coming at this time to the Throne of Constantinople he prevails with Theophilus of Alexandria to join with him in an Ambassy to Rome to reconcile Flavianus to the Western Church and by that means to remove those heart-burnings that were kept up between the Eastern and Western Bishops upon that account Which was done with some success for it abates the Schism though it does not end it And so things stood till the death of Flavianus in the year 404 who is succeeded by Porphyrius a Bishop of the Court-mould of as bad a Character and as true an Huckster as ever was bred up in the shop of the Nicomedian Eusebius He procured both the banishment of his Competitor and his own Ordination by money and when he had once got into his See
he govern'd by force of Arms and gets an Imperial Rescript from the young Emperor Arcadius commanding the Bishops to communicate with him upon pain of deposition And this became a profitable Fair at Court many of the Eastern Bishops rather choosing to be deposed than to defile their Consciences by allowing Communion with so vile a Man But at length the Wretch dyes in the 408. And Alexander is unanimously chosen who put an end to the Schism that had lasted 45 years And thus we see from whence almost all the Schisms and Disorders of the Church proceeded meerly from the Ambition of ill Church-men supported against the Churches Authority by the Power of the Court This was the great Plague of the Church after the Emperors became Christian and we shall find all along that the Church was either opprest or protected according as the Emperor himself watched against this abuse of his Courtiers And to defend the Church from it was in all Ages the highest Act of the Imperial Protection And this we have here seen at large by the example of this great Princes reign who was himself careful of the Churcâ—â—â— Liâ—erties and as far as he could 〈…〉 sâ—ffer'd no Court-merchandise in it And yet many Enormities were committed and that even in the great Council of Constantinople it self in the case of Flavianus but that was by reason of ill Men that were got into the Church by this ill practice under his Predecessors Valens and Constantius § X. The last remarkable transaction that I shall take notice of in this reign was the Heresy of the Priscillianists and the concurrence of the Powers both of Church and State for its suppression For though the Emperor Theodosius was not concern'd in it yet it being upon the Stage in the time of his Reign I shall take it into the Story of his time The matter of Fact is described with most accuracy by Sulpitius Severus who lived at the same time though he lived not long enough to see the end of the Heresie for he concludes his history with the four hundredth year of our Lord in the time of Honorius whereas this blasphemous Heresie was not utterly rooted out till some time after And setting aside his gross defect of judgment and his excess of partiality on the wrong side which yet is so enormous that it cannot impose upon any Readers understanding unless such an one as Mr. B 's is perverted by rank malice the Heresie is so described both by himself and divers others of the Ancients as shews the necessity of suppressing it not only by the Civil Magistrate but the Civil Sword For by all accounts of it it was no better than a meer Cento of all the Blasphemies of the Gnosticks and the Manichees together with some new secret and obscure Sacraments among themselves and the religious practice of all sorts of Villainy and Dishonesty That is the compendium of it as it is set down by St. Austin The Priscillianists that were founded by Priscillian in Spain held chiefly the Opinions of the Gnosticks and the Manichees though they drew together the dregs of all Heresies as into a common sink of uncleanness and for the concealing of their horrible brutishness among themselves have set up this among their Principles Swear or forswear but be sure not to betray the Secret Or as St. Jerom adds to the Character that as they devoted themselves wholly to Lust so in their unclean Embraces they were wont to sing this Stanza of the Prince of Poets Tum Pater omnipotens faecundis imbribus aether Conjugis in gremium latè descendit et omnes Magnus alit magno commixtus corpore foetus The very lake of Sodom and I might add of Geneva too they as well as their Masters the Gnosticks and Manichees being branded by all the Ancients for the Atheistical Principle of Fatality This Heresie was first brought out of Egypt into Spain by one Marcus and by him Priscillian a Man of a sharp Wit but infinite Vanity was poison'd who by his eloquence and neatness of address soon disperst the contagion over all Spain and especially among the Female sex who as Sulpitius expresses it being always greedy of Novelties of unsettled Principles and of wanton Fancies flockt after him in whole sholes of Proselytes And it took with that success that the Plague got among the Bishops themselves Instantius and Salvianus both Bishops being seduced into the Party and initiated into the Secret which being discover'd by Adigynus Bishop of Corduba to Ithacius Bishop of Emerita he with Idacius prosecuted them with all severity not only by ecclesiastical Process but before the Civil Magistrate as they supposed to nip the mischief in the bud but as the Historian thinks with too much fury or with more zeal than discretion by which he sayes they were rather exasperated than reclaimed But for my part I cannot understand how men of such lewd and despâ—rate principles that destroy the natural modesty and the common faith of mankind can ever be pursued with too much violence Such men as these are not proceeded against as Heretiques in the Faith but as Apostates from humane Nature as Thieves Robbers Cut-Throats and Banditi that declare open hostility to the Peace of the World But the Historian was led into his soft-natur'd Opinion by the Authority of St. Martin a weak and unlearned man of great devotion but very little understanding who interceded with great zeal to save the Lives of the Malefactors and if he had begg'd them of the Government as an Act of Mercy it might not have been altogether unbecoming the tenderness of a Religious man but when he required it as a duty of his Superiours to keep hands off from such vile Offenders he only shewed the pertness of his humour and the weakness of his Understanding But first of all they are proceeded against by the Censure of the Church in the Council of Caesar Augusta i. e. Caragosa the Metropolis of Aragon in Spain in the Year 380 in which the Bishops are deposed and the Lay-men excommunicated and the Sentence signified to all foreign Churches to prevent their receiving them into Communion And withal several Canons are enacted against the particular customs and practices of the Heretiques As first That Women be not permitted to preach in Publique as Agape one of the first of the Sect a wanton and immodest Woman had done and others after her Example and this priviledge no doubt was the great Lure that drew the talking Sex so thick into the Faction The next Canon is made against fasting on the Festivals of the Church and that cross-grain'd temper was common to all the Fanatique Heretiques in all Ages to do every thing in contradiction to the establisht Laws and known Customs of the Church as we have seen above by the Canons of the Council of Gangra against the Eutactans or Eustathians The next Canon is to anathematise
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
Innovation of both was so very notorious But this served the turn well enough against the Adversary as here by this Rescript to Abolish all Innovation the Power of the Bishop of Thessalonica was utterly destroyed and when that was done Atticus having gained the Bishops to his own side by it knew how to do his own work This fires Pope Boniface for as the Rescript was publish't in June so in the March following he sends a Letter to Rufus full of Thundering and Lightning Commanding him in St. Peters name to maintain his Ground and Power against the Attempts of sawcy and pragmatical Innovators exhorting him to defie the Storm and fear no danger after the example of his Master St. Peter who would stand by him and carry him through all difficulties against those Violators of the Canons and the Churches Rights and concludes with a Command to him to disperse the approaching Synod that it seems had been appointed upon the publication of the Rescript because the matter about which they were to consult had been already determined by the Apostolick See And beside this he writes a threatning Letter to the Bishops to submit to Rufus and St. Peter and so he has the confidence to tell them that he was Constituted Head of the Catholick Church by our Lord and so acknowledged by the Nicene Council and therefore whoever divides from him is thereby cut off from the Communion of the Church And yet for all that it grieves him to hear of some that have contrary to the Law of God and the Church forsaken the Apostolical See to joyn with a pittiful Somebody that has no Power at all as they will find by searching the Records of former times And so commands them to repent and return for fear of what may follow and submit themselves to Rufus whose Power was no new thing but as it had been granted by the Ancients so it was to remain for ever or in short as he concludes Cesset novella praesumptio And this is seconded with a longer Epistle to the same purpose And thus did these bold Usurpers with equal impudence lay claim to antiquity on either side when all the World knew the Innovation of both but that was all one to them because it would beat the Enemy from setling in the Possession and then themselves might gain an opportunity of leaping into it Neither did Pope Boniface think it enough to make use of his own Authority in the Case but he engages the Emperor Honorius on his side and prevails with him to write a smart Letter to Theodosius for reversing the late Innovations in Illyricum And that he promised to perform but of its own accord it came to nothing for when two Parties that are both in the wrong contend for a right it cannot be adjudged to either without injustice to a third Party whose real Right it is And thus when these Emperors went about to remove Innovation on either side it lay in both their ways which way soever they moved And how they went on to wrangle from Age to Age for the Usurpation on both sides with the confident Plea of Antiquity and the Precedents of their Ancestors may be seen more at large in Holstenius his Collection my present Business is to discover the true meaning of this hidden Law from the present Contest between Boniface and Atticus which as without it it is not to be understood so by it we understand not only the sense of the Law it self but the foul subreptions of both the Usurpers There remain but two other Laws under this Title Enacted by Valentinian the Third to confirm all Priviledges granted by any of his Predecessors to the Clergy and particularly to Abolish the Act of John the Tyrant who upon the death of Honorius invaded the Western Empire and took away all exemptions of the Clergy from the Secular Courts for which Gothofred suspects him to have been an Arian though without any other ground then this that it had been the constant Custom of the Arians to take Sanctuary at Court against the Church under bad Reigns but whatever he were his Law is here Cancelled by this Emperor then but a Child and upon a very childish reason that it was not lawful that the Ministers of God should be subject to the Judgment of Temporal Powers which is such a Contradiction to all the Doctrines of the Fathers and to all the Laws of the preceding Emperors who in all their Rescripts declared all such Grants of Priviledge to be meer Acts of Grace and Favour that this Rescript could be nothing else then the subreption of some Clergy-man who taking advantage of the times the Child-hood of the Prince then not above 7 years of Age the weakness of a Woman his Mother Placidia who then Governed all but chiefly from their fears under their late great distress to which they were reduced by the Tyrant took this opportunity of enhancing the Priviledges of his Order to the claim of a Divine Right I know Gothofred would soften this Law as if it referr'd only to Ecclesiastical not to Civil Causes first because in his 12th Novel afterwards he made that distinction That is to say as he grew older he grew wiser and so corrected this childish Over-sight but otherwise the reason given for this Law is general that it is not fit that the Ministers of God should be answerable to Secular Powers Secondly that the Tyrant had removed all Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Civil from the Church to the Secular Courts which he infers from the word Indiscretion But if we will stand to the Practice of the Empire this Law can relate only to Civil Causes notwithstanding that ambiguous word for Ecclesiastical Causes were all along left to the Church either in pretence or reality but Civil Causes reserved by some Emperors to their own Courts and by some granted to the Judgment of the Church it self as an Act of Favour and therefore it must be understood of the Cancelling of these Acts of Grace by the Tyrant when the same favour is restored especially when back't by that general reason that it is not fit that the Ministers of God should be accountable to the Secular Powers because by the Practice of the Empire they were not for the dâ—scharge of the Ministerial Offâ—ce and therefore this Law cannot relate to their duty as Priests but as Citizens to refer them in all such Causes as some former Emperors had out of kindness done to the Ecclesiastical Judicature All the Laws of these Emperors under the following Titles are scarce any thing else then the Ratifications of the Rescripts of former Emperors especially of Theodosius the Great and his Son Honorius against the small Remainders that were left of Hereticks Jews and Heathens And as for the Hereticks in particular they were reduced to an inconsiderable handful of Men never able to make any Head against the Catholick Church that was never after this time
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
they intended to make a new Creed but as a necessary declaration of the ancient Faith against his upstart Heresie The sixth Action is one of the most remarkable Instances of the right use of the Imperial Power in the Christian Church that we have upon record in all the Histories of it For the Council being fully agreed about the settlement of the Faith in the last Session in this the Emperor with his Empress attended by a great Train of Nobles comes to confirm their Decrees as he professes in his Speech to the Holy Fathers Nos enim ad sidem confirmandam non ad potentiam aliquam exercendam exâ—mplo religiosi Principis Constantini Synodo interesse voluimus He came into the Council not to make but confirm and ratifie their Decrees by his Imperial Power And therefore having the Acts of the last Session read before him with the Subscriptions of all the Bishops to the Confession of Faith he there immediately enacts this Penal Law to inforce the observation of their Decree The Catholick Faith being declared by the holy Synod according to the Tradition of the Fathers we think it both decent and our duty to cut off for the time to come all farther Debates about it If therefore any private Citizen Soldier or Clergy-man shall hereafter make any disturbance by attempting any publick Disputation about the Faith the Citizen shall be banisht the Soldier disbanded and the Clerk deposed and be obnoxious to further punishment at our Royal Pleasure And thus having with so much Prudency and Decency exerted his Imperial Authority in Controversies of Faith 〈◊〉 not at all to interpose his own Power in making the determination but to imbrace and confirm the resolution of the Holy Fathers the proper Judges in the Case in the next place he exerts his Authority in matters of Discipline For having observed some defects in the Clergy both against the ancient Canons and the Imperial Laws he propounds it to the Council that they would take care to provide for their Reformation And this he declares he does out of meer Respect and Honor to their Function as thinking it more decent that they should be canonically determin'd in Council then enacted and inforced by his own Imperial Laws And as it was a civil Decency so it was no more for the Abuses that he complain'd of were such as concern'd the Peace of the Empire as well as the Church as the Tumults and Disorders of the Monks frequent Instances whereof as we have met with through the whole progress of this Story so were they the Masters of these present Revels And certainly such Disorders concern'd his own Imperial Power if the Peace of the Empire did so As for his other two Proposals the first against the trading and the second against the wandring of the Clergy they were properly subject to the Imperial Power because though these and the like irregularities were first forbidden by the Ecclesiastical Canons yet they had before this time been often restrain'd by the Imperial Laws as we have seen above out of the Theodosian Code After this the Emperor in Complement to the memory of the Holy Martyr St. Euphemia in whose Church the Council was held gives the City of Calcedon the honor of a Titular Metropolis securing all the Rights of Metropolitical Power to the Metropolitan of Nicomedia And here some say the Council ended the Fathers having dispatcht the whole work for which they were summon'd the following Sessions being only taken up with casual and personal Controversies and therefore by some of the Ancients they are made distinct Councils and this latter part in some of their Writings goes under the name of the 5 th Council The seventh Session is spent in confirming the Agreement or Concordate between Juvenal of Jerusalem and Maximus of Antioch about dividing their Usurpations How Juvenal that had been all along such an active Confederate with Dioscorus and stood guilty of the same Crimes came to meet with so much favor is easie enough to conceive being a great Court-Parasite and Church-trimmer and so by his cringings and flatteries had wrigled himself into the good Opinion of the Fathers In the 8 th Action Theodoret is restored to his Church upon his anathematising Nestorius and his Heresie and that was a very easie matter for him to do when he had all along done the same having only opposed the unseasonable imposition of Cyril's Anathema's The 9 th and 10 th Actions were taken up with the case of Ibas Bishop of Edessa who had been accused to the Emperor Theodosius by some Eutychians as guilty of the Nestorian Heresie and by him the cause was referr'd to a Synod at Beryte in which he anathematised Nestorius and all his Doctrines and was cleared of his Indictment But in the violent Council of Ephesus he was again accused by Eutyches himself and without being heard deposed and imprison'd But now upon his Petition is heard in this Council and after the examination of all Records and Witnesses he is again found clear of the Nestorian Heresie all the Accusation being grounded upon his opposition to Cyril's Anathema's And the true State and Account of that Controversie between Cyril and Nestorius and the Eastern Bishops against both is best described by Ibas himself in his Famous Epistle to Maris Persa recorded among the Acts of the 10th Session The subject of the 11th and 12th Actions was a Contest between Bassianus and Stephanus for the Bishoprick of Ephesus but they being both uncanonically ordeined are both deposed Upon this occasion the Asiaticks move that the new Bishop may be Consecrated at Ephesus according to the Canons No say the Constantinopolitans but in this City according to Custom as they falsly pretended for all their Usurpations to do illegal things and then make them a Precedent to warrant their illegal doings This occasions a new Contest about the Prerogative of the Bishop of Constantinople to ordein other Metropolitans but he and his Party being conscious to themselves of the weakness of their own pretence they let fall the Controversie The most observable passage in this Action next to the Contest it self and the Constantinopolitan Plea to justifie their Usurpation by illegal Custom against Canon is the Plea of Bassianus to make good the Title to his Bishoprick viz. That he was Consecrated by the Bishops of the Province and his Consecration allowed and confirmed by the Emperor and that is an instance of the Custom of those times that the Princes Approbation was necessary to the Instalment of a Bishop though the Power of Election was placed in the Provincial Synod Upon what reason of State this Power of the Prince was grounded I shall shew when I come to argue the reason of the thing at present I only alledge this as an instance of the practice And of the same nature is the next Action of a Case setting up a new Custom and the pretence of an Imperial Rescript against Canon and Ancient
rational discourse of the true use of Councils and their Authoritative determinations in the Christian Church It is not say they to make new Doctrines of Faith but to protect the old Truths against the wantonness of Innovators so that if all men would be content with the Ancient Faith it would be needless for the Church to make any new Declarations but when men leave the old Track of Religion to loose themselves in their own new contrived Labyrinths and corrupt the plain and simple Truth with over nice and curious Inventions it is then necessary for the Church to stop their Vanity by its Authoritative Declaration of the Truth it self Not as if there were something defective in the Faith and the Church were always adding to it but to make such wholesome Provisions as it judges most convenient against all Innovated Doctrines And this they exemplifie by â—ll the Decrees of the several Councils against the Prophane Novelties of Arius Pâ—â—tinus Macedonius and Nestorius and shew that they were only Fences to guard and defend the simplicity of the Ancient Faith against the petulâ—nt Assaulâ—s of these several Hereticks and that they declare to be the ground of their present determination against Eutyches that it was only a Declaration of the old Truth against a new Heresie And much more to this purpose and it is the true State of the Authority of Councils to make Decrees to stop the vanities and singularities of Innovators and when they are made they become obligatory by their own Authority and nothing can hinder or take off their Obligation but an apparent contrariety to the Divine Law So that it neither concerns nor becomes the Subject to make a strict and Philosophical search after the truth of the Decree it is enough to him that it is not apparently false In all other Cases the Authority of the Church is sufficient to justifie his Obedience before God by whose Providence they were placed under their Government And the want of this just Civility to Superiors has in all Ages been the true Original of all disturbances in the Christian Church And this was the sence of the Emperor himself who immâ—dâ—ately upon the Receipt of this Report from the Fathers publishes an Edict to the talking Citizens of Constantinople forbidâ—ing all farther disputations about the Christian Faith in that all Controversies were now determined by the Authority of the Council against which he says it were prophaneness and sacriledge for any man to presume to set up his own Opinion and no less madness then to grâ—pe after more Light at noon day and therefore after this clear discovery of the â—ruth whoever will not acquiesce in it but makes farther Enquiry he can neither seek nor find any thing but falshood And for this reason all farther disputes are peremptorily forbidden as an insolent and intolerable affront to the Sacred Authority of the Council and this is enacted under the forementioned Penalties that he declared in the 6th Session for the Confirmation of their Exposition of Faith Deposition of the Clergy Disbanding of Souldiers and Banishment of Citizens And this was afterward alledged as a proper instance by Facundus Hermianensis to the Emperor Justinian against the condemnation of the tria capitula after they had been tryed and acquitted by the Council of Calcedon with this remark upon it The Emperor Marcian judged it no less than Prophaneness and Sacriledg to review the Sacerdotal Judgment and therefore that being once pass't it was an end of all Controversie Here behold a Prince indeed a true Father of the Common-Wealth and a true Son of the Church that does not dictate but follow Ecclesiastical Decrees declaring by his Edict That whoever after the settlement of the truth shall pretend to make any farther inquiry can seek for nothing but Error For this saying forever blessed be his Memory all the World over who not only recover'd the sinking Empire but also restored lasting Peace to the poor distracted Church This Edict was reinforced by a second a Month after and Copies of it sent to all the several Praefecti-praetorio for its more effectual Execution And they are both revived in a third Rescript published the year following in which this Heresie and all the ways of propagating it are supprest by all the punishments against all other Heretiques So that it is in reality a neat Compendium of all the Laws under the Title de Haereticis in the Theodosian Code And because the bastard Council of Ephesus under Dioscorus in which Flavianus Eusebius Theodoret and many other Catholick Bishops were condemn'd had been ratified by a Rescript of Theodosius he here cancels its full force as to all the Sufferers that were surviving And because the Eutychian Itch was got among the Monks of Jerusalem and Alexandria to the raising of botches and tumults especially at Jerusalem by the disorderly behavior of one Theodosius who made himself Bishop of the place the Emperor and Empress write to them to desist at their farther peril But it seems some were stubborn and irreclaimable and no sort of Men so obstinate as those that live remote from the Conversation of the World and therefore in the year 455 the Emperor renews his former Rescript particularly to be put in Execution at Alexandria where the Heresie most reign'd and that is the last time that he appear'd against them And thus in four years time by protecting the Church in its due Authority and by abetting their Decrees with Penal Laws and by seeing his own Laws put in effectual Execution he put an end to this powerful and prevailing Heresie though it had gain'd both the Eunuchs and the Empire to its side § XVII And thus this great Prince this pattern of Government to all his Successors as Evagrius stiles him having settled all things both in Church and State two years after dyes and is succeeded in the year 457 by Leo who was chosen by the unanimous Vote both of the Senate and the Army a Prince says Nicephorus that would have carried the Election in the most flourishing times of the old Common-Wealth when only worth gave right and title to Preferm%nt a Man of that strict and severe Vertue that he must have been chosen Augustus by the Cato's themselves But as great a Man as he was he found it an hard task to keep things in that good order in which they were left by his Predecessor For no sooner came the news of Marcian's death to Alexandria that Metropolis of Sedition but a few of the Eutychian Party among whom were only two Bishops accompanied with the City-rabble make Timotheus Aelurus their Bishop and most inhumanely murther Proterius at Divine service who had been chosen to that See by the Bishops of the Province upon the deposition of Dioscorus and not content with his blood they treat the dead body with all the circumstances of rudeness and barbarity Upon this Complaints are carried to the Emperor by both Parties
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
so childish and such meer Legend that out of respect to so great a man I will not recite it All that certainly appears is this that there was at that time some misunderstanding between Justin and Theodorick for that was the Accusation upon which the Great Boëtius was then put to death that he held correspondence with Justin. And that Pope John was sent by Theodorick to treat with the Emperor but what was his particular Errand is not recorded but whatever it was it seems he managed it so as to fall into the King's displeasure and this is all that we have of that Popes Actions and this Emperor's reign § XXI For he dying after he had reign'd nine years in his extreme old Age before his death saw his Nephew Justinian fixt in the actual possession of the Imperial Throne by the choice of the Senate one of the greatest Princes in the whole Succession whether we regard the Success of his Arms the Magnificence of his Buildings or the Wisdom of his Laws the three greatest Ornaments of any Princes Reign And yet Envy and one ill-natur'd Libel of a malecontent Courtier if it be his has been able such is the ill-nature of Mankind to slur all the Miracles of his reign But I find that the ground of all the late displeasure against this great Prince was as some Men suppose his too busie intermedling in Church-Matters this is the thing that is taken unkindly by the Church-Men at Rome as an invasion of their Province But others on the contrary top him up for a Pattern to all Princes to keep the Jurisdiction of the Church in their own hands against all the pretences of Ecclesiasticks But as it falls out and ought so to do they are both equally mistaken for Justinian never attempted any thing in the Church that was not warranted by continued Precedents of his best Predecessors He only protected the Power of the Church in the exercise of its Jurisdiction as they did but never claim'd it to himself howsoever he might err as sometimes he did in the execution of his Office And whereas they load him so severely for presuming to make so many Novels or Laws of his own about Religion the whole charge is founded meerly upon ignorance and mistake they being all known Canons of the Church before ever he enacted them into Laws And therefore he is no more to be blamed than the best of his Predecessors unless it be for his too pious and watchful care to preserve the Discipline of the Christian Church So that it is no less than high ingratitude in the Clergy of Rome to requite so great a Benefactor to the Cause of Religion with nothing but unkind Censures and foul Calumnies But the ground of all their present Quarrel is his taking down the pride of one of their most haughty Popes Vigilius though by their own confession one of the worst of Men and that too was done at a time when their Holinesses had been accustom'd to trample upon the state of the Imperial Majesty it self And if in these contentions the Emperor fell into any indecencies that cannot be justified yet he ought not only in good Manners but in justice to be excused because it is evident from the Design of his whole Reign that his only aim was to resettle the long-disturb'd Peace of the Church and if at any time he fail'd in his Measures his Integrity ought by all the rules of Candor to attone for the defect of his Politicks But whether all his Acts of Government in the Church are justifiable or not I dare insure for all his Laws and for that I shall here account to finish the parallel between the Ecclesiastical and Imperial Laws in this Matter because by this Prince the Imperial Law was brought to its full Perfection And after that it will be needless to inquire into the practice of succeeding Princes who received either the Theodosian or Justinian Body of Laws as the sixt and standing rule of the Imperial Government Though of the two the Theodosian Code met with much the better Fortune for that having had ninety Years possession both in the Eastern and Western Empire it was not easily removed especially when it had been received by the barbarous People that invaded and conquer'd some Parts of the Empire as the only establisht Law of the Romans And so it was by that great wise and prosperous Prince Theodorick King of the Goths who enacted its obligation upon his own People in a compendious Edict drawn out of it consisting of 154 heads extant in Cassiodorus But Alaric his Successor and Grand-child by his Daughter Amalesuntha that greatest of Women made a new body of Institutes out of it vulgarly known by the name of the Breviary of Anianus not that Anianus composed it but because he by his Office compared and examin'd the Original Copy that was laid up among the Crown-Records and subscribed his Approbation from thence in after-Ages it came to bear his Name But after the Goths the Lombards the Franks the Burgundians and other People of Germany over-run the Western Empire and these when they came to settle blended the Theodosian Laws with their own ancient Customs from whence came the Feudal Law that to this day carries the greatest sway in the Government of all the European Nations But as for the Justinian Law that was received only in the Eastern Empire and there it had scarce reign'd 300 years when it was thrust out of Authority by the Basilica of Leo the Philosopher who added to the Justinian Collection the Novels of all the succeeding Emperors down to his own time But in the West it was never so much as heard of for 600 years after the death of Justinian there are not so much as any footsteps of it in the Capitulars of Charles the Great or any other European Laws Neither were they ever made publick to the Western World till the time of that great Prince Lotharius the second Emperor and Duke of Saxony who reign'd not till the year 1125. And he first brought it to light at the perswasion and by the assistance of Irnerius the most learned Man in that Age from which time forward it has kept possession together with the Feudal Law not only in the Schools and Universities but in the Government of the Empire But as for the Law it self it consists of two parts the Code and the Novels that is Laws made by himself after the publication of the Code and these are again to be subdivided into Laws concerning Faith and Laws concerning Discipline in both which he has behaved himself with as much decency and respect to the Church as any of his most admired Predecessors As for the Code it is a Collection of former Laws with some additions of his own Of the former Laws we have treated in order under the several Reigns in which they were enacted and therefore need say nothing of them here but only to vindicate
concerning Discipline His Laws concerning Faith are far from being numerous only three of his Predecessors and three of his own and all in pursuance of the Decrees and Definitions of the Church and those of his own are not so properly Laws as Confessions and Declarations of his own Faith sent to some Christian Bishops for their satisfaction and are nothing else than an owning or ratification of the four General Councils by whose Authority as he declares the Apostolical Faith was conveyed down through all Ages to his own time and for that reason he receives both the Nicene Faith because it was deliver'd down from the Apostles and the several Expositions of it by the following Councils Not as if that had been defective in perspicuity but because the Enemies of the truth had endeavor'd to subvert it some one and some another way therefore it was necessary for the Church in the following Councils to explain and defend its truth by Testimonies of Scripture and to anathematise all the Authors of prophane Novelties And for this very reason he lets all his Subjects know that there is no living for any Man within his Dominions that does not submit to the Authority of these Councils In all which he expresses so much Civility and Respect to the Jurisdiction of the Church that there is not an higher declaration of it in all the Imperial Laws so free is he in this matter from that imputation so confidently charged upon him by the Italians as Alemannus expresses it ad Religionis dogmata definienda ecclesiasticasque sanciendas leges effusa licentia a bold and saucy tampering with the Christian Faith which he was so far from ever attempting that no Prince ever declared more vehemently against that sacrilegious abuse of the Imperial Authority In the three following Titles de Sacrosanctis Ecclesiis de Episcopis et Clericis de Episcopali Audientiâ all the Laws enacted by himself are only so many Charters of Priviledg to the Church that express an high sense of Piety and Devotion and are withal contrived with so much prudence that whoever would go about to find fault with them must lay aside his Understanding as well as his Integrity And yet these are all the Laws of his own enacting in the Code for under all the following Titles he has only collected the Laws of his Predecessors without adding any of his own In his Novels as mighty and Ecclesiastical Legislator as he is taken to be his Laws of Religion are not so very numerous and those that are only revive Ecclesiastical Canons or Ecclesiastical Customs but are no new Institutions And any attempt of that kind was so far from finding any entertainment in his thoughts that he ever shun'd it with all manner of tenderness and declares upon all occasions that his Laws only wait as he is pleased to express himself upon the Canons of the Church The first Novel upon this Argument is the Third Enacted Anno 535 in the 9th Year of his Reign where he Enacts that in all Cathedral Churches the Clergy be stinted to a certain number but I hope no man can be so weak as to think that this was never Enacted before that time The next is the 5th de Monachis in which he only keeps the Monks to the Rules of their Institution but makes no new Rules of his own The 6th regulates the other Clergy according to the Canons of the Fathers as he declares in the Preface to it and there occurs nothing in it but what had been often commanded both by the Ecclesiastical and Imperial Law The 7th forbids all Alienations of the Goods of the Church The 9th gives the Church the Priviledge of prescribing for one hundred Years whereas the Plea of Possession against all other Prescription was limited to 30 and this he presents as a Religious Oblation to Almighty God These were all publish't in the same Year In the 11th he raises the place of his birth to the honour of an Arch-Bishoprick or Patriarchate to which he subjects Six Provinces that had hitherto belonged to the Arch-Bishop of Thessalonica and justifies his Power of doing it because the dignity of the Church naturally followed that of the State and therefore his Imperial Majesty having establisht a new Civil Prefecture in that City that gave it a new Prerogative in the Church for as in former times when the Prefecture of Illyricum was fixt at Sirmium then the Episcopal Primacy resided there but when afterward those Parts were invaded and laid wast by Attila King of the Huns Appennius the Prefect was forced to retire to Thessalonica the Archiepiscopal Dignity followed him thither Et Thessalonicensis Episcopus non suâ Authoritate sed sub umbrâ praefecturae meruit aliquam praerogativam i. e. And the Bishop of Thessalonica obtained the Prerogative not by Vertue of his own Authority but under the shelter of the Civil Prefecture And therefore the Emperor having instituted a new praefectus praetorio in his own City upon the Recovery of that part of the Empire that had been lost it was but fit and decent that upon that occasion it should be made an Archiepiscopal See And to it he subjected all Dacia and Pannonia Dacia then containing Transilvania Valachia and Moldavia Pannonia the lower Hungary the upper Austria Carinthia and Carniola as they are now divided And this being done he obtains of Pope Vigilius to grant the new Arch-Bishop his Legantine Dignity in those Provinces But here Baronius storms and says he extorted it by force and cruelty after the great falling out about the tria Capitula and that it was not honest to rob other Churches to enrich and advance his own But his passion has run him into a continued Train of mistakes For first the Grant of Vigilius was made at his first coming to the See as appears by Justinian's 131 st Novel in which it is mentioned that bears date in the Year 541 whereas there was no Quarrel between the Pope and the Emperor till after Vigilius his Journey to Constantinople which was not till the Year 547 neither did he suffer any force till the Year 551 as Baronius himself very well knows who has placed the Story of that Persecution in the History of that Year Neither secondly did the Pope grant the Metropolitical Dignity but only the Legantine Power the first was stablisht before by the Emperor and more then that an Archiepiscopal or Patriarchal Supremacy for at that time those words were synonymous to express the new Jurisdiction above Metropolitans Nor Thirdly were the Ancient and Original Rights of Thessalonica defrauded but only that part of the Empire that was newly Recovered and formerly belonged to Sirmium was settled in its Ancient State under the Metropolis of Justiniana But lastly the Cardinal has little reason to complain of robbing Peter to pay Paul if he would but reflect upon the Actions of the Popes about that time who with Force and Arbitrary Power both against
Canons and immemorial Custom transferred the Metropolitical Power from Vienna to Arles and that without any other reason then to make a Precedent and give a cast of their absolute Supremacy disposing of the Affairs of Christendom not by the Laws of the Church but according to their own Arbitrary Will and Pleasure Whereas the Law of Justinian was sounded upon the universal Practice of the Church as it was settled by the Apostles themselves by whom its Jurisdiction was every where accommodated to the convenience of Civil Governmenâ— And therefore this City being made both a Civil Metropolis and the Seat of a Praefectus Praetorio it was but natural both according to the Canons and the Customs of those times to make it an Ecclesiastical Patriarchate which then answered to the Diocesan Jurisdiction of the Civil Prefects over several Provinces The 16th Novel is a Repetition of the Third to limit the number of the Clergy in Cathedral Churches particularly applied to the Church of Constantinople The 36th and 37th are enacted upon his Recovery of Africa from the Vandals to restore the Discipline the Revenues and the Priviledges of the African Church to suppress all kind of Hereticks with all manner of severity and the execution of all former Laws upon them and to bestow all their Churches upon the Catholicks and to grant them the right of Sanctuary in all Cases excepting the Crimes of Rape and Murther The 40th 〈…〉 particular Grant or Dispensation to the Church of Jerusalem called the Resurrection-Church for the sale of certain Lands The Forty second is a Confirmation of the Sentence against Anthimus as guilty of the Eutychian Heresie according to known Custom as he declares in his Preface that as often as any of the Clergy were judged unworthy of the Priest-hood by the Sacerdotal Sentence the Royal Power should joyn with the Authority of their Decree that so both Powers Divine and Humane agreeing a good correspondence might be kept between both and so the World be well govern'd The Forty Third is a revival of a Rescript of the Emperor Anastasius to limit the Exemption of Taxes upon the Revenues of the Church which grew so very great as to defraud its contribution to the Civil Government and to that purpose he excuses only one thousand Tenements in the City of Constantinople belonging to that Church but requires all other Estates that were purchased since the Edict of Anastasius to contribute in their just proportion to the publick Burthens of the Common-wealth The 45 th subjects all Jews and Hereticks to the publick Burthens but interdicts them all Priviledges The 46 th â—â—ctifies the 7 th that forbid all Clergy-mâ—â— he alienation of their Lands which Law some of them so scandalously abused as to run in debt without any obligation to pay their Creditors In which cases especially of Debts to the Crown he permits the sale of Church-Lands to defray Church-debts and that I take it is no Law of Religion otherwise than as it is an act of Civil Justice The 55 th is only an interpretation of the several Laws against the alienation of Church-Revenues viz. to allow their sale by way of Exchange so it be done without fraud or fiction The 56 th is a revival of the Laws and Canons against Simony of which it seems there were great Complaints at that time The 57 th is a revival of a Law of the Emperor Leo enacting that if a Clerk forsake his Cure the Bishop take care to have it supplyed and that no Patron or Founder of a Church present his Clerk to it without the Bishops approbation The 58 th forbids the erecting of Chappels in private Families to the defrauding of the publick Churches and though it allows them for Prayers yet by no means for administration of the holy Sacraments The 59 th is a confirmation of the gifts of Constantine and Anastasius to the Church of Constantinople for Burials without Fees and Charges which it seems notwithstanding the Revenue that was settled by those Emperors for that purpose were at that time demanded by the Clergy of that Church The 65 th is a dispensation to the Church of Mysia to sell certain Lands for the redemption of Captives The 67 th provides that no Churches be built without the Bishops consent and that Bishops reside within their own Diocesses The 76 th only reforms Abuses among the Monks The 77 th restrains Sodomy and Blasphemy The 79 th refers all the Law-suits of Monks and Nuns to the determination of the Bishop The 83 d enacts the same priviledg for the whole body of the Clergy The 86 th impowers any Subject to appeal from the Secular Judge of the Province to the Bishop who is required to examine the Proceedings and authorised if the Appellant desire it to sit in Commission with him and if upon his Complaint the Judg refuse to do Justice he is commanded to inform the Emperor against him This is a Law that the Ecclesiasticks had no reason to complain of as a diminution of their Authority when in effect it put the whole Government of the Empire into their hands Though the Judges had but too much reason to take offence at it in having spies set over all their Actions and all spies are apt to be too busie and officious The 109 th revives the Laws of his Predecessors Leo and Justin against all sorts of Hereticks of what Sect soever and whereas by Law Daughters Portions were to be payed before any other Debts he debars all Female Hereticks of that Priviledg The 111 th is an amendment of the 9 th Novel that gave the Church the priviledg of pleading against all Prescription less than 100 years whereas other Subjects were allowed that Plea no higher than 30 years but the Inconveniences were found so great by reason of the great distance of time exceeding the term of Man's life that in this Novel he brings it down to the compass of 40 years The 120 th is a revival of his former Laws against the alienation of Church-Goods The 123 d. is a compendium of the Canons of the Church for the regulation of the Clergy but chiefly Bishops But it consists of so many particulars and is of that great length containing no less than 44 Chapters that it would be too tedious to repete it here though it is highly worth the Readers perusal being a very judicious Collection of the best Laws of the Church in that matter The 129 th grants the Samaritans because they now behaved themselves modestly and peaceably the power of making Wills which he had taken from them by a former Law upon occasion of their Tumults in Palestine as may be seen in the life of St. Saba who was sent Ambassador from those parts to the Emperor Justinian at the beginning of his Reign to complain of their Violences The 131 st is a very famous Law and a kind of recapitulation of all his former Laws concerning Church-Matters and therefore
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
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
into the concerns of the Church and that not to intermeddle with any thing of its discipline and jurisdiction but only as their Stewards and Solicitors And this Emperor was so kind to them as to follow this Rescript with another commanding that the Advocates of the Church should be put to no delays in the Common-Law-Courts but admitted to Audience at their first appearance In the year 412 he recites the particular Priviledges granted to the Clergy and commands all his Officers to keep them inviolable upon pain of perpetual Banishment The Priviledges he enumerates are these six 1 Exemption from Offices 2 From repairing of High-ways 3 From extraordinary Taxes 4 From building of Bridges 5 From maintaining the publick Carriages 6 From the Gold-Contribution which was a particular Tax imposed at that time In short they were excused from all Payments but their Canonical Tribute the rate of which was known and customary For their Lands were never exempt from Taxes and the proportion that they paid was call'd the Canonical Contribution and whatever Officer demanded more than their standing rate he was by this Rescript banisht for ever as a sacrilegious Person In the same year he publishes another Rescript forbidding the accusation of Clergy-men before any Judg but the Bishops and if any Person of what degree and quality soever shall bring an Indictment against them and be not able to make it good he shall be branded with publick Infamy as the Person accused must have been if found guilty This Rescript notwithstanding its general words that the Clergy ought to be accused before the Bishops and not else where the Lawyers will have to be understood of Ecclesiastical and not Civil Crimes but this proceeds from their common Prejudice that I have noted above that only Ecclesiastical Offences fall under the Judicature of the Church but Civil and Political Crimes are restrain'd to the cognisance of the State whereas both are punishable by both with those different Penalties that are proper to the different Jurisdictions And as for this Law in particular it cannot be understood of any other but Civil Crimes and this is evidently proved by those very Arguments that are alledged by Gothofred himself to appropriate it to Ecclesiastical Miscarriages First that they are such Crimes as are punisht by the shame of Deposition and therefore most properly Civil Crimes for there were very few Ecclesiastical Offences so great as to deserve so high a Punishment and those few that did so as in the case of Schism and Heresy were always appropriated to the Ecclesiastical Judicature before this Rescript and therefore not by it And this appears more pregnantly from his second reason the cause of enacting this Law viz. that Lay-men and even Persons of the greatest Quality being apt upon slite provocations to bear spite to the Clergy would be apt enough to way-lay their Reputation with popular defamations and false reports So that the apparent design of the Law was to prevent these scandalous Informations before the Secular Judges and restrain them from so much as taking them till they had been first examin'd by the Ecclesiastical Judicature And in the last place this is still more evident from the particular occasion of this Law that Heros a worthy Man Bishop of Arles had been thrust out by Constantius a great Court-Officer there and afterwards Emperor for six Months upon a tumultuary Accusation and Patroclus an infamous Person placed in his stead and therefore to prevent the like Disorders for the time to come it was but seasonable to enact this Law to restrain Secular Governors from receiving accusations against the Clergy till they have been first heard by the Provincial Synod So that this Law does not exempt the criminal Actions of the Clergy from the Civil Courts as Gothofred imagines when he objects that it is against the Jus Commune but only limits the exercise of their Jurisdiction viz. that they neither receive nor proceed in such Causes till the Judgment of the Church had been pass't upon them and after that they were at liberty to punish them according to Law This is the fairest and most ingenuous sense that I can make of this Law These are the chief Laws of these Emperors in the Church the Penal Laws against the Hereticks and the Laws of Priviledg to the Catholicks § XIII But beside these there were divers others enacted either to abet the Discipline of the Church by removing Abuses that were crept in upon its ancient Constitutions or by backing its present Decrees with the Imperial Authority Or else to set in order such Matters of Religion that though they related to the Church were yet without its Jurisdiction i. e. those Laws that concern Jews Heathens and Apostates in all which they followed the example of their Royal Father Theodosius And first they take care of the due and regular Ordination of the Clergy Constantine the Great had been forced to forbid his Officers both Civil and Military to be admitted into Holy Orders and the same Decree was frequently renewed by his Successors with alterations and limitations as the Prince thought most convenient for the present time that the State might not be defrauded or indamaged by too much bounty to the Church and when Men flockt so fast into it it was but requisite to lock its doors upon such as were already useful to the Common-Wealth Which Constantine did with a peremptory and universal Law but Valentinian the first with this limitation That any Person who had an Office in the State might be admitted into the Church so that he provided an able Person to supply his former Office But before this time the Priviledg of Clergy had taken place and the Bishop was impowr'd to redeem any Criminal from Justice or Debtor from Goal if he judged him qualified for doing Service in the Church that was grown into such an abuse that the Monks took them away by force and tumult to the hindrance of Publick Justice and the subversion of private Mens rights For when they were once enter'd into a Monastery or into Orders their Crimes were cancel'd and their Debts paid to redress which abuse Arcadius enacts a severe Law in the year 398 as his Father Theodosius had done before him against these violent interpositions of the Monks and threatens the Bishops that if any such Riots were made by the Monks under their Jurisdictions and not punisht by them the fault should lye at their Doors and commands them for the time to come that whenever they wanted Clerks they should take them from the Colledges of Monks if they found them clear of all Debts both Publick and Private otherwise as they ought not to have been admitted into the Monasteries so he now commands that they shall not be admâ—tted into Orders And this Law was but agreeable to the Constitution of things in those Times when the Monasteries as now our Universities were the proper Seminaries
it being so clear an Exemplification of my design to shew the right and the wrong ways of exerting the Civil Power in Matters of the Church In the Year 449 Flavianus Bishop of Constantinople who succeeded Pâ—oclus that succeeded Maximianus held a Council of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Bishops then Resident in the City for which reason in the Acts of the Council it is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the sâ—journing Synod according to the new and corrupt Custom of the Bishops of that City upon their Usurpation over the Rights of Metropolitans to receive Appeals from the Legal Sentence and determine them in the Synod of these Indwelling Bishops who attended at Court for their own Affairs and Preferments A device that the Bishops of Constantinople were forced to make use of because that See being at first but an inferior Bishoprick and subject to its own Metropolitan of Hâ—raclea it could not pretend to a Power of Convening Synods and therefore they seize this opportunity of consulting with the Bishops Resident in the City without any Summons and this by Time and a little Custom became a standing Synod superior to the Provincial Synods And that was the particular occasion of this present Council under Flavianus viz. A Contest of Florentius the Metropolitan of the Lydian Sardis with John and Cossinus two Bishops of his Province who had Appealed from their Metropolitan to Flavianus and his Court-Conclave though they upon hearing of the Cause were so civil and that was not usual either with them or any other Usurpers as to judge it on the side of the Metropolitan But that matter being fairly and easily dispatch't Eusebius the Bishop of Dorylaeum a City of Phrygia Salutaris and a man eminent for Piety and Learning rises up and accuses his old Friend Eutyches having long in vain endeavoured as he declares to the Council to reclaim him by private advice or discourse â—f holding and teaching Heretical Opinions or a different Faith from that delivered from the Apostles and received by the Nicene Fathers and delivers up the Articles of his Charge in Writing Upon this Eutyches is summoned to appear and is after three Citations and all the shifts of delay unkenell'd out of his Monastery and stript of his Orders But the great Eunuch Chrysaphius was his friend and before the Heretick would appear he flies to him for help and protection and he prevails with the Emperor to send Florentius a Courtier and one of his Creatures with a Rabble of Monks and a Guard of Souldiers along with Eutyches to the Council but for all that upon a full hearing and debating of the Cause he is again deposed and eased of his Abby Upon this he makes his Address to Pope Leo procures the Emperor's Letters in his behalf and among his many other Grievances makes that acceptable Complaint That his Appeal to the Apostolical See was rejected by the Bishop of Constantinople Leo was glad of any opportunity to exert his universal Pastorship but much more to break the Power of that Rival See and therefore he greedily takes the Judgment of the Cause to himself writes a very huffing Letter to Flavianus rates him severely for not acquainting his Holiness with his Proceedings but much more tartly for denying an Appeal to the Apostolical See and peremptorily Commands him to return all the Acts of the Council to himself as the only Supreme Judge or as he expresses himself in his Answer to the Emperor Ad praedictum autem Episcopum dedi literas quibus mihi displicere cognosceret quòd ea quae in tantâ causâ gesta fuerant etiam nunc silentio reticeret cùm studere debuerit primitus nobis cuncta reserare Flavianus knowing the Spirit of the Man and being afraid of giving him any Provocation returns him a very civil and submissive Answer â—â—gether with the Acts of the Council humbly requests his Concurrence and Approbation and assures him that Eutyches had never made any Appeal to his Holiness and therefore had abused him with a palpable falshood Leo upon this Information and the perusal of the Acts is satisfied and agrees to the Condemnation of Eutyches and returns Flavianus that Famous Epistle in confutation of the Eutychian Heresie that was afterward so magnified by the Council of Calcedon as to be made of equal Authority with the Decrees of the General Councils Upon this Eutyches flies a second time to his friends at Court and complains that the Acts of the Council had been falsified by Flavianus and upon that the Bishops that were present at the Council were re-summoned and are required to give in their Answer to the Interrogatories upon Oath but this they unanimously refuse as an affront to their Order because as Basil Bishop of Seleucia replyed it was never yet heard of that an Oath was offered to Bishops and therefore upon their word they vouch the truth and sincerity of the Record and declare that Eutyches never made any offer of Appeal to the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria as he pretended in his Bill of Complaint In short the Acts themselves being examined and compared with Eutyches his own Copy exhibited by his Procurators for he refused to appear in Person they were found to agree so exactly in all particulars as not only to put himself but his friends out of Countenance And therefore finding no shelter either at home or at Rome he betakes himself to Alexandria and there engages Dioscorus who succeeded Cyril in that See on his side And he being a man of an ungovernable temper and willing to put an affront upon the great Bishop of Constantinople according to the practice of those times for the Top-Bishops to endeavour to check each others greatness embraces the Quarrel with all possible Zeal and pursues it with as indefatigable diligence earnestly solicites the Emperor for a General Council to rehearâ— the Cause of Eutyches which he represents to him as nothing else then an opposition to the Nestorian Heresie and so the Emperor himself took it And though Flavianus and Leo opposed it with all their Zeal and Power yet Eutyches having the Eunuchs favour and the Emperors own aversation against Nestorius to back him he prevails and a second Council is summoned to Ephesus 19 years after the first consisting of 130 Bishops and the Presidency of the Council is by Chrysaphius his Power with the Emperor determined to Dioscorus by special Commission Pope Leo is invited but his Answer is That he neither would nor could come he could not because at that time Rome was distressed by the Huns and he would not because it was not becoming the State of the Apostolick Chair to appear in any Council but however he sends his Legates with Letters to the Council little suspecting those Irregularities that ensued but by the Artifice of Dioscorus they were not so much as suffered to be read and upon it the Legates quit the Council and upon that all