made Vows to St. John for his Deliverance But I see no reason to believe this Inscription to be so ancient as the time of this Hilary Leo's Successor An. 461. For in his Letter extant in the Council he relates the Story of his flight but-mentions no Saint at all only saith he trusted in the grace of Christ And this Style which is so like the Pagan Vows to their little Deities was above the Infant Superstition of that Age so that besides the improbability of an Inscription continuing legible for near twelve hundred years none who knows the time of Hilary can believe the invocation of Saints was so far advanced for a Man to forget God and Jesus Christ the only Deliverers of their Servants and publickly yea blasphemously to ascribe his deliverance to a Creature Rom. i. 25. Wherefore we conclude this Inscription was writ by some later Hand in times of gross Idolatry and Ignorance and that this which they call an Egregious Monument of Antiquity and an Argument for Invocation of Saints is nothing else but an Egregious Imposture and an Argument to prove the Fraud of those who set up false Doctrines by feigned Antiquity 'T is true in the 11th Action when Stephen whom Flavian had condemned in his life-time was deposed by the Council after his death some of the Bishops cried out Flavian lives after his death the Martyr hath prayed for us but this is far short of the aforesaid Inscription for they neither vow nor pray to the Martyr only since his Sentence was agreed to be just after his death they Rhetorically say this seemed as if Flavianus had prayed for them Yet this if it be genuine is the greatest step toward Invocation of Saints that I have seen in any Writing of this Age though it be no more than a Flourish proceeding from an excess of Admiration of Flavianus so lately martyred by Dioscorus the Mortal Enemy of this Council Concerning which Dioscorus for likeness of the Subject I observe the Notes say the Aegyptians gave him oh horrible Divine Honours and Religious Worship after his Death which means no more as Baronius the Author of the Story saith but that they worshipped him as a Saint and gave him such Religious Worship as they give to Saints Now the wary Romanists will not say these are Divine Honours much less were they such Honours as were paid to any Saints in this Age or some that followed But when Modern Writers speak of Ancient Times they often speak in Modern Phrases and so Binius took it to be the same thing to honour Dioscorus as a Saint and to give him Religious Worship because they at Rome now give Religious Worship to those they Canonize And this may suffice for this famous Council wherein Leo being all along Orthodox while the Patriarchs of most other great Sees had been either faulty or suspected had the greatest advantage imaginable to carry on his great Design of setting up for the Supremacy and though by this accident which he and his Legates improved higher Titles are given him than to any of his Predecessors or Successors for some Ages in any Council yet if the Forgeries and Corruptions be abated and the Fallacious Notes well understood there is no ground from any thing here said or done to think the Fathers at Chalcedon took this Pope for the sole supreme and visible Head of the Catholick Church An Appendix concerning Baronius's Annals § 1. THIS Century proving so full of various observations as to swell beyond our expectations we must here divert a-while to view the Errors in Barvnius lest the deferring these Observations to the last should make the Reader forget the Series of affairs already past by laying these matters too far from the History of that time to which these Notes belong and for brevity sake as well as for the clearer seeing into this Authors Fallacies we will follow our former Method And first we will observe that when he would set up any Doctrines or justifie any Practices of the Modern Corrupt Roman Church he generally cites spurious Authors or such as writ so long after this time that their Testimony is justly suspected since no Authors of this Age do mention any such thing The Miracle of Julia a Manichean Heretick Woman struck dead by Porphyrius Bishop of Gaza when he could not convert her by Arguments is taken out of a Latin Copy ascribed to one Mark a Deacon of Gaza very improbably but the stress of the Evidence lies upon the Credit of Metaphrastes Lipoman and Surius the Collectors of Legends who trade in few others but spurious Authors It were to be wished we had some better evidence of St. Ambrose's appearing after his death and promising Victory over the Goths than a Womans Testimony For both Orosius and St. Augustin who write of that Victory ascribe it wholly to the Power of God and mention no Saint concerned therein And Baronius cites both these as well as the credulous Paulinus who for advancing the credit of St. Ambrose records an Old-Wives Tale not supported by any credible evidence The ridiculous story of St. Paul's appearing to St. Chrysostom who is pretended to have had the Picture of St. Paul in his Study and to have discoursed with the sensless Image is not proved by any Author near that Age but by Leo the Philosopher and Emperor who lived 500 year after and writ a very Fabulous History of St. Chrysostom's Life and by a spurious Tract of Damascens who lived 450 year after Chrysostom's Death Yet upon these false Legends the Annalist triumphs over those who oppose Image-worship Like to this is that fabulous Story of Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria not being able to die in peace till the Image of St. Chysostom was brought to him and he had adored it which he hath no other Authority for than the aforesaid spurious Book ascribed to a late Author Damascen for the Writers of this Age mention no such thing And there can be no doubt but the Relation is false because St. Cyril Theophilus his Nephew and Successor continued for some time to have as ill an opinion of St. Chrysostom as his Uncle had to his last breath as his Letter to Atticus in Baronius shews And therefore there is a Story invented of a Vision appearing to St. Cyril by which he was terrified into a good opinion of St. Chrysostom But though the Quarrel he had at first to his memory be real this Apparition is feigned and proved by no elder nor better Authors than Nicetus and Nicephorus Another Forgery of St. Cyril's removing the Relicts of St. Mark and other Saints into a Church newly built in place of an Idol-temple and thereby clearing it from Evil Spirits hath no better Authority than certain Legends read in that woful Council of Nice which set up Image-worship 300 year after this Age The Revelation of the Relicks of St. Stephen pretended to
be writ by Lucian is transcribed by the Annalist but it contains many improbable lies and frivolous impertinencies such as Gamaliel the Master of St. Paul being a Priest and that St. Stephen's body was exposed to Wild Beasts by the command of Wicked Princes and that the way to engage St. Stephen Gamaliel and the rest to interceed for them was to build a Chappel over their Relicks with many more absurd passages So that indeed it is fitter to be derided or left to the Moths and Batts than to stand in a Church History y He cites for this one of St. Augustin's Sermons de diversis but it is supposititious and therefore can be no evidence for this Fable And it is a mighty prejudice to the whole Relation that St. Hierom who lived at Bethlehem at this very time doth not confirm it no not in his fierce discourse against the mistaken Opinion of Vigilantius who as he thought denied even common respect to be shewed to the Bones of Martyrs And it is like Sozomen did not like the story because he ends his History with a promise to give an Account of the invention of these Relicks of St. Stephen but he omits it Though he writes out another Legend there of the finding the Body of Zechary the Prophet of which he brings no other proof but that he had been told this Story But it is very unlikely that the Jews should have no regard to the Bodies of their own Prophets nor know of any vertue in them and yet after so many hundred years the Christians should find such power in their supposed Dust And it is one of the greatest Blots upon the latter end of this Century that their Superstition made them too credulous and apt to be imposed on with Fables of this kind in which there is scarce any verisimilitude or shadow of probability Which led the following Ages into greater Errors and had worse effects than were foreseen by those easie and well-meaning writers who hastily took up these false reports Which Note I am obliged to insert here to caution the Reader against divers relations of Miracles in Baronius about this time for some of which he cites Authors who are in other things credible enough To proceed it is no great credit for the Pope that he and the Western Bishops mistook the time of Easter a whole Month and were reproved by a miraculous appearance of Water in the Font on the right day of Easter if the story be true However to confirm this relation Baronius hath put together a great many such like Miracles but writ by later Authors Cassiodorus An. 514. Gregory Turonensis An. 590. Sophronius An. 630. when all Men doted on these reports But it is a little hard that he should charge the Reformed Christians with being mad for not believing these suspicious relations and accuse them with deriding the consecration of baptismal Water which is a known practice in all regular Protestant Churches A litle after he would prove the antiquity of the Mass by a spurious Sermon faslly ascribed to St. Augustin viz. de temp Ser. 251. And he transcribes a suspicious Epistle full of improbable Stories for nine pages together about the Miracles wrought by St. Stevens Relicks which Epistle he would prove by another Tract equally fabulous which some say was writ by Evodius an African Bishop others think it was only dedicated to him in which are Domnus and Domna after the Gallican Fashion in later Ages for Dominus and Domina But the judicious Reader who compares these Legends with other writings of this learned Age will easily discern both these Tracts to be Forgeries of the modern superstitious Times So that perhaps one Miracle-monger made them both And Baronius had justified neither of them if he had remembred what himself says of a spurious Tract of the Acts of St. Hierom viz. That the candor of Ecclesiastical truth and the modesty of Christian sincerity abhors always that which is feigned rejects and accurses all that is spurious The true Faith always bitterly hating and severely punishing every lye with the Author of it But his practice is every where contrary to this profession And soon after he cites the Lives of the Fathers under Theodoret's name to prove the efficacy of St. John Baptist's prayers as to the Conversion of the Marcionites whereas the Epistle of Theodoret there cited ascribes it to the divine ayd And this fabulous Book of the Lives of the Fathers is despicable for its gross absurdities and can be none of Theodorets because it contains many Miracles that Simeon Stylites wrought after his death and Baronius himself owns That Theodoret dyed seven year before this Simeon Yet this is the Man who is so severe an Enemy to all feigned Tracts who again cites the Rules for conjugal Chastity as prescribed by St. Augustin but finds them only in a forged Sermon de Temp. pag. 244. falsly ascribed to that modest Father Wherein there is so much Obscenity as cannot be supposed to proceed out of St. Augustin's mouth in publick and such as is hardly fit for Christian Ears besides many things that would be hissed at in any sober Auditory Again he cites Sophronius his Pratum spirituale as a Book of good credit and relating an Apparition of the Blessed Virgin as it truly happened Whereas both Possevine and Baronius himself confess this Book to be full of Fables and of no credit and the Author of it lived above 200 year after in a credulous and ignorant as well as a superstitious Age whose name was not Sophronius but Joannes Moschus Upon whose credit he would not have relied so much had he observed a rule of his own That he who writes the History of his own time is of greater Authority than he who writes after many Ages Which Rule he breaks in the very next Page by justifying a Legend writ by Gregory the Author of the Dialogues long after the year 600 and cited by Eulogius of Corduba An. 847. concerning Paulinus of Nola who died An. 431. as a Writer of Paulinus own Age testifies there Whereas if this Fable were true as those late Writers relate it Paulinus must be alive 45 years after so that he credits later Writers in contradiction to those of the same Age. We have often seen modern Authors describing the holy Men of this and former Ages with Images Crucifixes c. but Constantius who about this time writ the life of St. Germanus mentions no Images or Crucifix among that which he left at his death but only a Box of Relicks the sole point wherein Superstion was advanced as yet And whereas late Writers of the Saints Lives speak of Addresses to the Blessed Virgin to deceased Saints c. this old Author mentions only Prayers to God for those other kind of Prayers were not used in this Age. A little after he tells more
stuff about the Primacy and the order of Patriarchs is omitted Yea the Notes in Gratian own that formerly it went no further than to item gesta Sanctorum Martyrum So that the beginning and end that is four parts in six are Forged by their own Confession Yea the whole as Binius grants is so confused that in many places it is impossible to read it yet they say they have ventured to mend it as well as they can But after all their correcting or rather corrupting it the Copies do not agree Some want the Book of Judith and the 2d of Macchabees Some have only one Book of Kings and one of Chronicles Some reckon but two Books of Solomon some three and others five Some ascribe Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus to the Son of Syrach And after all as to the Canon it agrees neither with the Council of Laodicea nor with that of Carthage nor indeed with it self whatever Binius vainly brags And is not this a rare Foundation for the Trent Fathers to build their mistaken Decree upon As to the rest of it That passage that the Roman is preferred before all other Churches not by any Synodal Decrees but by the Voice of Christ c. is not only a modern addition as appears by Gratian and Justellus Manuscript which omit it but it contradicts the 4th Epistle of Gelasius which saith The supream power over all is not given to any by the Canons but to the Apostolical Church The order also of the Patriarchal Sees added since the time of Gratian is drawn up contrary to the Canons of Constantinople and Chalcedon The account of Councils make the Emperors Constantine and Theodosius Presidents of the two first General Councils Marcian and Anatolius of the 4th without naming Leo and only mentions Celestine's consent to the third Council So that this piece was coyned before the Pope pretended all Councils void wherein he or his Legates did not preside And that passage That the Acts of the Martyrs are not read in the Roman Church because many of them are writ by anonymous mistaken weak and Heretical Authors was writ before that Church had stuffed all her Offices so full of lying Legends and ridiculous Romances about the Saints the reading of which before the Reformation took up a third part of the Priests time upon Festival days But upon the whole I dare aver it is not Gelasius his work but most of it forged by Isidore Mercator 300 Year after the time of this pretended Council Wherefore it ought not to be cited as evidence on their side There is a 2d Roman Council under Gelasius to absolve Misenus one of the Popes Legates who had betrayed his Master and now repented But admit the matter of Fact be true yet the bad style and barbarous phrase of these Acts are strong suspicions of their being Forged § 10. Anastasius the 2d succeeded Gelasius according to Marcellinus Chronicle an Author of that time or in the year 498. But Nauclerus places his Election out of some other Author An. 492 Baronius and the Editors without Authority correct both these and place his entrance An. 496 The matter is not great and serves only to shew us the obscurity of the Popes in that Age whose Times are so differently related in History that we may be sure they were not made as now at Rome an Aera to reckon Councils and all other Church matters by The Author of the Pontifical who writ after the quarrel about Acacius was over saith hard things of this Pope viz. 1st That his Clergy rejected him because without any Council he communicated with Photinus a Deacon of Thessalonica a Man of Acacius party And 2ly because he would privately have restored Acacius For which also he saith by the Divine Judgment he was struck with death Now all this was allowed for truth by their own Writers before Baronius And both Ivo and Gratian received it for Authentic History and placed it in their collections But since the partial Cardinal writ not to discover truth but to disprove all that seemed to reflect on the Roman See Gratian is corrected in later Editions with a Note which contradicts the Text and the Editors Notes out of Baronius which extol the Pontifical to the Skies when it reports the greatest falshoods for the honour of Rome here say that Book is erroneous and faulty yea they charge them all to be Hereticks that spread these reports largely disputing that all this is false But in vain For 1st as to his allowing the name of Acacius to be restored in the Dypticks which is the meaning of voluit revocare Acacium in the Pontifical This is certainly true For the Emperor Justin expresly affirms this Pope did communicate with Acacius his party as the Notes own and they cannot disprove it but by falsifying an Epistle of Pope Symmachus and reading ego for nego as shall be shewed presently Nor is it any wonder that one Pope should approve what his Predecessors had condemned and if this be true Anastasius judged better than former Popes whose Eyes were dazeled so by Ambition that they could not see the Truth 2ly As to his communicating with Photinus without a Council the Notes finally do not deny it and it seems Foelix the Senator doubted not if Anastasius had lived to have engaged him to subscribe Zeno's Edict for Union so that he was likely enough to be moderate toward Acacius his party Only I do not think he would as the Notes pretend venture upon his single Authority to absolve Photinus if he had been condemned by a Council because in that Age the Popes did not exercise any such power 3dly As to his being strook with death by voiding his Bowels it might be true nor can I think as the Notes suggest that all the Authors above cited are mistaken and put the Pope for the Emperor who died by Thunder because the Deaths were very different And though Binius say it was about the same time that is very false for the Pope died An. 598 in the Emperor's Seventh Year But the Emperor lived near twenty year longer and died not till An. 517. So that those Historians must be very dull who could not distinguish two such different things happening to two Persons at so great a distance of time and place but took it for the same story Yet after all it may be this Pope died a natural death and that this slander of his dying by Gods Judgment might be the invention of the next Age after the Popes had got Acacius to be declared a Schismatick for then the Writers were to blacken all his Friends by such Fables as these And now that turn is served Baronius would wipe off the stain again meerly because Anastasius was a Bishop of Rome How probable this guess is I leave the Reader to judge There is but one Epistle of this Pope writ to the Emperor his
this Author who though he had placed S. Peters Death so many years before Clement's Entrance as to leave room for two intermediate Popes yet here again repeats his old Fable of S. Peters delivering the Bishopric of Rome to Clement a sufficient proof there is neither Truth nor Certainty in the pretended Personal Succession of the first Popes § 9. From this Pope Clement down to the time of Syricius who lived 300 years after him there are printed in these Editors after every Popes Life divers Decretal Epistles pretended to be writ by the several Popes and Vindicated by Binius's Notes annexed to them Which were received in the Western Church for many Hundred years together as the genuine Decrees of these ancient and pious Popes transcribed into the Canon Law and cited for many Ages to justifie the Usurpations and defend the Corruptions of the Roman Church to determine Causes and decide Controversies in Religion And yet they are all notorious Forgeries so that since Learning was revived divers of the most Eminent Roman Writers have rejected them Card. Cusanus affirms That being compared with the times in which they are pretended to have been Writ they betray themselves Baronius calls them Late invented Evidences of no Credit and Apocryphal yea Labbé and Cossartius have in their Edition a Learned Preface to them proving them to be forged And in their Margin write almost against every Epistle This is suspected This is Isidores Wares c. and also note the very places of Authors who lived long after these Times out of which large Passages in them are stollen Verbatim Which clear Confession of our Adversaries may make some think it needless to confute them and unnecessary to charge this Forgery upon the Roman Church But I cannot think it sit wholly to pass them by because Turrian the Jesuit had the Confidence to defend them all as genuine and Binius in his Edition not only Vindicates them by a general Preface but by particular Notes labours to prove most of them Authentic and Labbé himself prints those Notes at large in his Edition so that such as do not look into his Margen may be deceived Besides this Confession of some Romanists comes too late to compensate for the injury done to the Truth by their Churches approving them so long And they still keep up the Supremacy and all their corrupt Practices and Opinions which were set up and cherished by these Forgeries they now take away the Scaffolds when the Building can stand alone they execute the Traytor but enjoy freely the benefit of his Treason Moreover while some Romanists condemn them others go on to cite them for good Authority Harding brags he had proved many Points of Faith by the Epistles of Clement Damasus Julius Melchiades Pontianus Sixtus Soter and Symmachus Dr. Tho. James shews the particular corrupt Doctrines and Practices which the late Roman Writers defend by the spurious Epistles of Clement Marcellus Marcus and Hormisda And the Learned Cook with infinite diligence hath cited the very Places of the Modern Champions for the Roman Opinions and shewed what Doctrines and Practices they do maintain by these Forged Epistles It is also well known that the Late Scriblers for that Religion do follow Bellarmin and Others in citing these Decretals for good Authority and that the Canon Law is in a great measure composed out of these Epistles by which Causes are determined at this day in all Popish Countries Therefore till the Romanists raze them and the Notes in their defence out of the Volumes of the Councils and expunge all the false Notions taken hence out of their Canon Law yea and leave citing them in their Disputes with us we cannot think it needless to shew the apparent Forgery of them but we will not enlarge so as to disprove the Particulars but put together here our Evidence against them all § 10. These Epistles though pretended to be writ in the first four Centuries were never heard of in the World till near 800 years after Christ About which time came out a Collection of Councils under the name of Isidore Hispalensis but whereas he died An. 636 and this Collector mentions the XIth Council of Toledo and the Sixth General Council which were held near Fifty years after this appears not to be the Work of that Isidore but of one Isidore Mercator and it was first brought into France by Riculphus B. of Mentz in which Collection these Decretal Epistles first appeared but the Learned Hincmarus of Rheims immediately discerned them to be an imposture and Writ against them as Baronius confesseth But though he own the Cheat he is not willing to grant the Roman Church had any hand in it yet that is as clear as the Forgery because Hincmarus was hated and prosecuted by the Pope and forced at last to Recant his Censure of these Epistles and not long after Benedictus Levita having Transcrib'd divers Passages out of them into his Capitulars got them confirmed at Rome which could not but cherish so advantagious a Fiction that supported the Supremacy which they then did so hotly stickle for and therefore though they came first to the Birth in Spain some conjecture they were all Hatched at Rome whose evil Designs and Interest they are contrived to serve But the Age was so Ignorant when they were Invented that there is such infamous and convincing Marks of Forgery upon them as makes it very easie to prove the Cheat beyond any possibility of doubting and we will here put the principal of them together under their proper Heads § 11. First The Style of these Decretals shews they were not writ within the four first Centuries wherein at Rome especially they writ Latin in a much more Elegant Style than is to be found here where the Phrases are modern harsh and sometimes barbarous so that the Reader is often puzled to reconcile them either to Grammar or Sense As for Example Pope Victor's Second Epistle which of old began with Enim and was mended by Binius with Semper enim but still there is false Latin in it viz. aliquos nocere fratres velle The like barbarous Style may be observed in the two Epistles of Pontianus and in many others But the genuine Epistles of Cornelius preserved in Eusebius and S. Cyprian are writ in a more polite Style and as Labbé notes These Epistles shew how much good Mony differs from counterfeit and how much Gold excels Counters The like difference there is between the Style of that genuine Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians and those silly Forgeries put out in his Name in the very Front of these Decretals from whence it undeniably follows That the Decretals were not writ in the Ages wherein the Latin Tongue flourished nor by those Popes whose Names they bear And this is further manifest by divers Words which were not used in the time of these Popes but
dead which is an Unanswerable Proof that they could not be writ by those whose Names they bear § 15. Fifthly Those Popes could not but know their own Times and if they had writ them they could not have been mistaken in Chronology or in the Date of their Epistles but the Forger of them had so little skill in the Times for which he invented them that he is almost every where erroneous in his Computation The two first Epistles of Clement are written to S. James after S. Peter's death yet it is confessed by Binius S. James dyed six or seven years before S. Peter Binius would solve this by saying The Name of James crept into the Title instead of Simeon but alass the Name of James is repeated often in the very Body of the Epistles and that proves them Forged The Names of the Consuls also by which most of these Epistles are Dated must have been right if they had been writ by these old Bishops of Rome who could not be ignorant of the true Consuls in their own time but alas they are so generally false that Binius in his Notes in vain labours to excuse some few of them and is forced to own the rest to be false so that Surius was more cunning to leave all the Consuls Names out of his Edition Because he saith Calvin takes occasion from thence to despise all the Epistles and doubtless the Dates are as true as the Epistles both having sufficient Marks upon them of a Modern Impostor unskilled in those Times And it is evident that the Pontifical names the same false Consuls so that either one Author forged the Popes Lives and their Epistles or the Inventer of these Epistles took the Consuls Names so constantly from the Pontifical that he imitates him in false-spelling the Consuls names and in joyning Men who were never Consuls together yea because that Fabulous Pontifical usually Names no Consuls but those in Office at Every Popes Entrance and Death This Forger of the Epistles dates them all either by the first or last Consuls of every Pope as if all the Popes had only written Epistles in their first and last years A Few Examples of these Errors shall suffice The Pontifical makes Pope Euaristus to enter when Valens and Vetus were Consuls and to be martyred when Gallus and Bradua were Consuls and so the Forger dates his first Epistle by the names of his first Consuls and the second Epistle by the Consuls of his last year But alas both the Pontifical and Epistles are wofully mistaken since Euaristus as Baronius proves entred the 13th year of Trajan that is fourteen years after the Consulship of Valens and Vetus and two years after the Consulship of Gallus and Bradua so that by this Account he writ Decretal Epistles long before he was Pope So also whereas Pope Alexander really sat in Adrian the Emperors time and Trajan was dead before his entrance yet one of his Epistles is dated with Trajan as one Consul and Helianus as the other but these two were never Consuls together And his second Epistle is dated by the Consuls of Adrian's first yeaâ— whereas Pope Alexander came but into his See in Adrian's third year I will not trouble my self with any more Instances because there are none of these Dates true and many of them with the Pontifical which guides the Forgery so grosly false as to make Popes write Epistles before they were chosen and after they were dead which is an undeniable Evidence that the Inventer of these Epistles was a Modern Cheat ignorant of the true Times both of the Consuls and the Popes There are other Errors also besides the Dates which shew the Bungling Author of these Epistles neither understood Chronology nor History The Pontifical before it was corrected had made Anicetus Pope Pius his Predecessor and therefore Pius his third Epistle doth not reckon him among the Priests at Rome but puts in Eleutherius as one of Pius his Presbyters who was but a Deacon in the time of his Successor Anicetus The same Epistle makes Cerinthus the Heretic to be alive and busie at Rome in seducing Men An. 166 yet Binius before tells us he was present in the Synod at Hierusalem An. Christi 51 at which Synod if he were but Nineteen years of Age he must in Pius his time have been 130 which is incredible but Binius saith this may be believed because the first Epistle of Pius mentions Hermes named by S. Paul Rom. XVI who set forth a Book about this time An. 158 which Hermes if he were but only 34 year old An. Christi 62 when S. Paul writ his Epistle to the Romans must be 130 years of Age when he set forth this Book but in conclusion the Story of Hermes and his Apocryphal Book is a meer Fable stollen out of the Pontifical and Binius hath no way to defend one of these Fictions but with another equally absurd Again Pope Victor is made to summon one Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria to a Council at Rome but there was no Theophilus Bishop there in Victor's time Severus was then Bishop of that See and this Theophilus was Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine but if Victor had really writ this Epistle he could not have made so gross a Mistake In like manner Antherus Epistle mentions one Eusebius as then Bishop of Alexandria who was not Bishop there till two or three Ages after The first Epistle of Pope Fabian dated in his first year mentions Novatus the Heretic coming out of Africa to Rome and seducing Novatian with others but Baronius out of Eusebius and S. Cyprian assures us that Novatus came not to Rome till Fifteen years after Wherefore these Epistles were devised by a later Author who knew neither the History nor Chronology of those Ages for which he invented these Epistles but had only the Fabulous Pontifical in his eye and follows it in all its Errors and Absurdities So that since the Pontifical makes Pope Hyginus an Athenian Pope Pius an Italian and Pope Soter born in Campania Isidore forges three Epistles for Hâ—ginus To the Athenians for Pius To his Italian Brethren for Soter To all the Campanians And when the Pontifical falsly devises several Superstitious Rites begun in the corrupt Ages and other Usages to have been first appointed by some of the Ancient Popes the said Isidore upon that always forges an Epistle in those Popes Names to enjoyn those Rites and hence Pope Alexander writes an Epistle about Holy-Water Sixtus about none but the Clergies touching Consecrated Vessels Telesphorus about keeping Lent Seven Weeks Pius about keeping Easter upon Sunday Anicetus about Shaving Priests Crowns Calixtus about four Ember Weeks and so did other Popes whereas most of these Rites were setled long after and only prove these Epistles were forged by Isidore § 16. Now though it be so apparent and undensable that these
the next Pope nothing is memorable but that he is said by the Pontifical to be a Martyr Eusebius saith he died in Adrian's Twelfth year and mentions not his Martyrdom but Binius contradicts him and will have him to suffer in the 3d year of Antoninus and this without any Authority for it but his own Telesphorus according to Eusebius was the Seventh Pope from St. Peter and came in the Twelfth year of Adrian that is An. 130. But Binius following the Pontifical makes him the Eighth Pope and saith he entred the Third year of Antoninus that is Twelve years after and in the Notes on his Life upon the Pontificals saying he Ordained Thirteen Bishops in his Eleven years he observes that these Bishops were to be sent into divers parts of the World from whence he saith it is clear that the Pope was to take care not of Rome only but the whole World But first no inference from so fabulous an Author as the Pontifical can be clear And secondly if there were so many Bishops really Ordained by Popes as the Pontifical doth pretend there are but Sixty three Bishops reckoned by him from S. Peter's death to this time which is near 100 years From whence if we grant the Matter of Fact it is rather clear That the Pope Ordained only some Italian Bishops near Rome for otherwise when so many Bishops were Martyred there must have been far more Ordained for the World in that space of time Hyginus the next Pope began saith Eusebius in the first year of Antoninus but Binius saith he was made Pope the Fifteenth of that Emperor the Reader will guess whether is to be trusted The Pontifical could find this Pope nothing to do but to distribute the Orders of the Clergy which Pope Clement according to him had done long before § 2. From the Notes on Pope Pius Life we may observe there was no great care of old taken about the Pope's Succession For Optatus S. Augustine and S. Hierom with the Old Pontifical before it was altered place Anicetus before Pius but the Greeks place Pius before Anicetus and in this Binius thinks we are to believe them rather than the Latins The rest of the Notes are spent in vindicating an improbable Story of an Angel bringing a Decree about Easter to Hermes the Popes Brother who writ a Book about keeping it on the Lord's Day yet after all there is a Book of Hermes now extant that hath nothing in it about Easter and there was a Book of old writ by Hermes well known to the Greeks and almost unknown to the Latins though writ by a Pope's Brother read in the Eastern Churches and counted Apocryphal in the Western But we want another Angel to come and tell us whether that now extant be the same or no for Binius cannot resolve us and only shews his Folly in defending the absurd and incongruous Tales of the Pontifical Anicetus either lived before or after Pius and the Pontifical makes him very busie in Shaving his Priests Crowns never mentioning what he did to suppress those many Heretics who came to Rome in his time but it tells us he was Buried in the Coemetery of Calistus though Calistus who gave that Burial-place a name did not dye till Fifty years after Anicetus But Binius who is loath to own this gross Falshood saith You are to understand it in that ground which Calistus made a Burying-place afterward yet it unluckily falls out that Amcetus's Successor Pope Soter was also Buried according to the Pontifical in Calistus his Coemetery and afterwards Pope Zepherines's Burial-place is described to be not far from that of Calistus so well was Calistus's Coemetery known even before it was made a Coemetery and before he was Pope Eleutherius succeeded Soter and as the Pontifical saith he received a Letter from Lucius King of Britain that he might be made a Christian by his Command which hint probably first produced those two Epistles between this Pope and King Lucius which Binius leaves out though he justifies the Story of which it were well we had better Evidence than the Pontifical This is certain the Epistles were forged in an Age when Men could write neither good Latin nor good Sense and I am apt to fancy if Isidore had put them into a Decretal they would have been somewhat more polite so that it is likely these Epistles were made by some Monks who thought it much for our Honour to have our Christianity from Rome § 3. This Century concludes with the bold Pope Victor of whose excommunicating the Eastern Bishops for not agreeing with him about Easter we have a large account in Eusebius but of that there is nothing in the Pontifical only we are told he had a Council at Rome to which he called Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria and decreed Easter should be observed upon a Sunday c. Upon this hint and the Authority of a better Author we grant there were at these times divers Councils held about keeping Easter But the Editors of the Councils though Eusebius be the only credible Author which gives an Account of them presume to contradict him For Eusebius makes the Council at Caesarea in Palestina to be first and makes Theophilus of that City and Narcissus of Jerusalem Presidents of it but the Editors for the honour of the Pope place the Roman Council first and upon the bare Credit of the Pontifical who mistook Alexandria for Caesarea say That Theophilus was present at it whereas Eusebius saith This Roman Council was the Second called about this Question consisting of the Bishops about Rome Secondly The Editors place the Council of Caesarea affirming out of a suspicious Fragment of Bede who lived many Centuries after That it was Called by Victor ' s Authority whereas Eusebius as we see assigns other Presidents to that Council yea they intitle all the other Councils about this Matter Under Victor though in Eusebius they are set down as independent upon one another The Bishops of each Country Calling them by their own Authority And though Binius's Notes brag of Apostolical and Universal Tradition The Bishops of Asia produced a contrary Tradition and called it Apostolical for keeping Easter at a different time which shews how uncertain a ground Tradition is for Articles of Faith when it varied so much in delivering down a practical Rite through little more than one Century And the Asian Bishops persisting in their Custom and despising Victor's Excommunication proves They knew nothing of his Supremacy or Infallibility in those days We grant Victor was in the right as to the time of Easter and that which he and other Councils now agreed on was agreed upon also at the Council of Nice but Binius stretches it too far when he pretends That general Council confirmed Victor's Sentence of Excommunition For Victor's Authority is never urged in the Nicene Council nor his Excommunication mentioned and we
know from Eusebius That the Bishops of his own Opinion severely reproved him for offering to pass so rash a Sentence and to impose his Sense upon remote Churches So that thus far there is no genuine Proof of any Supremacy exercised or claimed by the Roman Church for the Decretals which only pretend to make it out are notorious Forgeries CHAP. III. Of the Forgeries in the Third Century § 1. THis Century begins with the Life of Pope Zepherine who Sat Eight years saith the Pontifical but the Notes tell you He Sat Eighteen which is a small Error in that fabulous Author Yet the Editors believe upon his Credit that this Pope ordered Vessels of Glass to be used in the Mass and the Notes prove it by Pope Gregory the Great who lived Four hundred years after this time However if we allow the Matter of Fact upon the Testimonies of S. Hierom and Epiphanius it will follow That in those Ages when they used Glass Cups they did not believe Transubstantiation for if they had they would not have ventured Christ's Blood in so brittle a Vessel but have forbid the use of Glasses as they have done in the Roman Church since this Opinion came in among them Under this Pope the Editors place an African Council and say it was Reprobated yet they cannot make it appear that this Pope so much as knew of it Nor was his Advice or Consent at all desired in that case which was never disputed at Rome till Pope Stephen's time as themselves confess viz. Fifty years after this Council was held from whence we learn That every Province in this Age believed they had sufficient Authority to determine Controversies in Religion among themselves without the Consent of the Bishop of Rome § 2. Though the Pontifical be guilty of many Errors in the Life of Calixtus and mistake the very Emperors under which he lived and died the Notes gloss them all fairly over and correct them by the Roman Martyrology which often follows the Pontifical and is as fabulous as that However we are told That Calixtus was buried Three Miles out of the City because the Law of the Twelve Tables forbid the Burying of a dead Body within the Walls Now I would know if this Law were in force how that can be true which the Pontifical and the Notes affirm and justifie That S. Peter Linus Cletus Euaristus Sixtus Telesphorus Hyginus Pius and Victor were All Buried in the Vatican And what shall we think of the Miracles done by their Relicks and at their Tombs if no Body know where they were first Buried Pope Urban the Successor of Calixtus is said in the Pontifical to be Buried in the Coemetery of Praetextatus which could not then be any Coemetery at all because Praetextatus was not Martyted till the Persecution under Maximinus which hapned many years after And if the Story of S. Cecily in the same Author be no Truer than his Chronology the Romanists worship a fictitious Saint The Pontifical is forced to feign That the Emperor Alexander Severus was a Persecutor contrary to his Character in all Histories of Credit and this only to make us think that Calixtus Urban and Pope Pontianus his Successor were Martyrs However though Eusebius knew not of their Martyrdom the Roman Church adores them all as Martyrs and have peculiar Days dedicated to their Memories Antherus as the Pontifical says Sat Twelve years and One Month and the Notes say that he Sat only one Month so that there is but only Twelve years mistaken in this Popes Life And if he was Pope but one Month doubtless his Secretaries had need be very swift Writers or else they could not gather many in his time However Binius will make it out for he brings in a Poetical Hyperbole Of those Scribes who could write a Sentence before a man had spoken it and so were as quick at guessing as writing and applies this in very serious earnest to this Pope's Notaries to make us imagine there were many Acts of Martyrs writ out in this short-lived Pope's time § 3. Pope Fabian as Eusebius relates was chosen by occasion of a Dove 's lighting on his Head when the People were met to elect a Pope of which remarkable Story the fabulous Pontifical takes no notice but tells us That in this Popes time Novatus the Heretic came to Rome that is say the Notes Above a year after Pope Fabian was dead after the Vacancy and in Pope Cornelius ' s time with such absurd Comments do these Gentlemen delight to cover the Ignorance and Falsehood of their Historian but such Excuses do only more expose him In this Pope's time were two Councils held one in Africa the other in Arabia and they Intitle them both under Fabian yet the only Authors who mention these Councils do not say Pope Fabian was concerned in either of them and therefore they were not under Fabian After this Pope's death there was a Vacancy of more than one whole year which the Editors to slatter the Papacy call in the style of Princes An Interregnum but alas their admired Monarchy was now turned into an Aristocracy and the Clergy governed the Roman Church to excuse which flaw in their visible Monarchical Succession the Notes say The Members next the Head knew it was their parts to do the office of the Head Which notable kind of substitution if it could be made out in the Body Natural Beheading would not be a Mortal punishment however they must say something to make us believe there was always a Visible Head of the Catholic Church or at least a Neck and Shoulders which stood for an Head till Cornelius was chosen Pope And they called a Council as they pretend in this Vacancy and writ a Letter of their Determination to all the Churches in the World that they might all observe what the Empty Chair of Peter had ordered But if any one read the Letter it self it will appear that this Council was only a voluntary Assembly of the Clergy in Rome and they met only to confirm S. Cyprian's Opinion and only writ their Letter to him but never pretended either to be Judges over Cyprian or any other part of the Catholic Church Pope Cornelius his Life follows for whose Character we are more obliged to S. Cyprian's Epistles than to the Pontifical which invents an idle Story of a Dialogue between Cornelius and Decius the Emperor and though the Notes own That Decius who is here pretended to Martyr him dyed the same Month in which Cornelius entred yet they will not own the Story to be false but boldly put in the Name of Volusianus into their Margen instead of Decius However the Breviary retains the Fiction of Cornelius suffering under Decius as it doth also the Fable of his Translating the Bodies of S. Peter and S. Paul But let any considering Man compare the different ways of telling this Sham Story and he
of Constantine were false and invented by Malicious Heathens and so far as Zosimus and Sylvester's Acts agree he confutes them both and since he lived within an Hundred years after this time while some alive might possibly remember these Passages His early denial of these Fictions is better Evidence against them than Baronius and Binius's Testimony for them after Thirteen hundred years to serve a Turn and do Honour to that Church they resolve to Magnifie Fourthly The Notes speak of Sylvester's Returning to Rome in great glory which is not mentioned in Zosimus nor Sozomen and only relies on the Credit of these Acts Which have no Evidence to Attest them but Pope Adrian who perhaps forged them or however first produced these Acts in the Second Nicene Council Four hundred and Fifty years after Sylvester's time to prove the use of Images in Constantine's Days But the very Acts declare That Constantine who had Built and Adorned so many Churches and if Images or Pictures had then been used must have seen the Faces of S. Peter and S. Paul did not know the Faces of these two great Apostles till Sylvester shewed them their Images Whence we infer That the Acts are no good Proof for Images if they were Authentic and their being first cited in an Ignorant Council made up of Forgeries and False Stories gives us good Reason to believe them Spurious § 8. The Annotator in the next place asserts confidently That Constantine was Baptized at Rome by Sylvester Anno 324 But his Proofs are very weak viz. First He cites a Roman Council for this held the same year But the Style of that Council is so barbarous the Sentences so incoherent and the Matter of Fact so false that Labbé owns it is a Forgery and Binius confesses it is suspicious so that this can be no evidence Nor Secondly Anastasius Bibliothecarius who lived Five hundred and Fifty years after this time and was a meer Sycophant of the Popes to set up whose Supremacy then newly hatched he stuck at nothing and that spoils his Credit Thirdly Zosimus is a malicious Lying Writer as to Constantine and though he do say Constantine was Baptized at Rome he doth not affirm that Sylvester Baptized him Fourthly Sozomen only relates Zosimus his Story to confute it so that not one of his Witnesses do prove the matter Yet these Authors with a weak Conjecture That Constantine could not have been present in the Nicene Council if he had not been Baptized before which we will presently confute is all the Evidence that Baronius and these Notes can give for this incredible Story But on the other side there are many clear Proofs that he was baptized at Nicomedia a little before his death First Eusebius who lived at that time and knew Constantine very well and writ his History soon after doth affirm this And if it had been False many then alive who could remember it would doubtless have exposed him for so manifest a Fiction The Notes say he Forged this Story in favour of Constantius but he must be very Ridiculous if he would be obliged by a Story of his Father which many hundreds as well as himself must have then known to be a Falshood And Eusebius must be as silly as he was knavish to invent a Fable so easy to be disproved by living Witnesses But the Notes wrong Eusebius when they say he reports that Constantine died Impious and alienated from the Catholic Church For Eusebius saith he made a most Christian and Pious end However Eusebius by this Testimony brings upon himself all the Rage and Spite of Baronius and our Annotator who upon all occasions Blast this Holy and Learned Writer to whose pains they and all the Christian World are infinitely beholding and though while Eusebius's History continues it be almost the only true Record used by Baronius in complling his Annals yet he and Binius in every Page almost do revile him as an Arian and a Writer of Lies But there is so much Malice and so little probability in the Accusation that their own Writers and ours also do vindicate Ensebius from these Slanders and we could easily confute these Calumnies but only that in this Relation he is so certainly in the Right that we need not consider his Opinion in other things but will shew as to this particular he is supported by the best Evidence imaginable For Secondly Theodoret also saith that Constantine was Baptized a little before his Death at Nicomedia and though that Eusebius who was Bishop of that City was an Arian yet he dissembled his Heresie while Constantine lived and the Emperor had restored Athanasius contrary to this Bishop's mind wherefore though he was forced to make use of an Arian Bishop to Baptize him being taken ill in that City yet it will not follow that Constantine died an Arian Moreover that Constantine was Baptized at Nicomedia is attested also by Socrates and Sozomen and also by the Chronicles of Isidore and S. Hierom and by S. Ambrose in his Funeral Oration for Theodosius Yea Athanasius and a whole Synod at Ariminum do expresly declare that Constantine was Baptized a little before his Death that is Thirteen years after this pretended Baptism at Rome which last Testimony Baronius and the Notes presume to corrupt and contrary to all the best Copies and the necessary Sense of the place put Constans his Name into the Text instead of Constantine So that in fine the only Question is now Whether we will believe these two Modern partial Writers with those most Fabulous but as they call them most approved Acts of Sylvester first cited by Pope Adrian 450 years after Or we will believe the concurrent Witness of all the Ancient and Eminent Writers of that and the next Ages to whom if we give Credit then Constanstine's Baptism at Rome by Sylvester is a meer Forgery devised for the glory of the Roman Church and for that only reason so eagerly defended by this Annotator and the Annalist § 9. Together with this Fable we must also reject the Fiction of Constantine's Leprosy which was invented only that Sylvester might cure it and therefore the Notes prove it very slenderly viz. First By those Acts of Sylvester in which they confess there are many Errors Secondly By a Roman Council which is as manifest a Forgery as the Acts themselves Thirdly By a Metaphorical expression of Gregorius Turonensis a credulous Writer who lived 300 years after this and yet even he doth not expresly affirm it Fourthly But the Annotator tells us the Gentile Historians do confirm this though he names but one viz. Michael Glycas who unlucklily proves a Christian Monk living in Sicily Anno 1120 about 800 years after this time and long after Adrian and his Nicene Council had dispersed Sylvester's Acts out of which Glycas took this Fable upon Trust So that at last he only proves the Acts by the Acts themselves and by
Worship due to God alone Only as the Romanists now are so they were inclined to Worship Angels that is by Praying to them However we Protestants say with Theodoret We neither give them Divine Worship nor divide the Service due to the Divine Majesty between them and the true God And when the Romanists can say this honestly and leave off Praying to them we will not tax them with this Canon Baronius hath one Device more viz. That the Angels which this Council says must not be Worshiped were not good Angels but Devils and the Genii adored by the Pagans For saith he the former Canon receives the Worship of the true Martyrs and rejects that of false Martyrs To which I Answer first It is false as was shewed that the former Canon receives the Worship of any Martyrs true or false Secondly Why doth not this Canon call these Pseudo-Angels as the former called those it rejected Pseudo-Martyrs if the Prohibitions were of the same kind Did ever any Christian call Devils Angels without some addition as Evil Angels Apostate Angels c Besides in that Age when this Council was held according to Baronius the worship of Daemons and the Tutelar Spirits was public not secret Idolatry so that it is manifest this Canon speaks not to Pagans but Heretical Christians And Theodoret shews That it was those Angels who gave the Law of Moses which were hereby forbid to be Prayed to and I hope neither Binius nor his Master will say these were Devils Wherefore this Canon plainly saith Praying to good Angels as They of Rome now do is Idolatry To conclude The Sixtieth Canon of this Council is the most ancient Account of the Canon of Scripture that ever was made by any Christian Synod being the same which the Church of England holds at this day for it leaves out all those Books of Judith Tobit Wisdom c. which we account not to be Canonical but our Annotator finding so Primitive a Council contradicting their new Trent Canon and not being able to reconcile the difference passeth this remarkable Canon by without any Note § 16. The reproachful Obscurity of Sylvester in this time of Action in all other Christian Churches puts the Editors upon giving us an heap of Forgeries together to colour over the Pope's doing nothing Remarkable for Nine or Ten years First We have an Epistle of the Primitive Church and Constantine's Munificence But Gratian and the former Editors of Councils cited this as a Decretal Epistle of Melchiades to prove the Pope's Supremacy c. whereas the Forgery is so gross that our Annotator affirms it to be a Fiction of Isidore Mercator's patched up of Fragments stollen out of the History of the Nicene Council the Council of Chalcedon and S. Gregory's 24th Epistle and wofully Mis-timed Yet being used to cite such Forgeries after this Confession he will not let it go without making some use of it for he Notes that what is said here of Constantine ' s Donations to Melchiades and Sylvester is very true and may be firmly proved by Optatus Milevitanus Very strange Optatus mentions no Donation of Constantine to either of these Popes Vid. supr § 6. and therefore the Reader may note That false and weak Inferences or Quotations from manifest Forgeries are Firm Proofs with Baronius and Binius when they make for the Roman Interest but the best Canons of the most genuine Councils are of no value when they make against it After this follows that odious Forgery called Constantine's Donation wherein he is pretended to make over to the Pope the whole City of Rome and all the Western Empire with all kind of Ensigns of Imperial Majesty and all manner of Jurisdiction which Ridiculous Fiction Nauclerus saith Antoninus rejected in his Chronicle because it is not extant in any ancient Author but only in the Decretals But our Editors print it without any Note of its being false yea with Notes upon it to prove it either true or very probable And Baronius introduces it with many Stories to make all that concerns the Popes temporal Greatness credible to an easie Reader yet at last to secure their Retreat from so indefensible a Post He and the Annotator make it a Fiction of the poor Greeks I shall therefore First prove it a Forgery and Secondly make it out That not the Greeks but the Pope's Creatures devised it First That it is a Fiction appears from divers Arguments For First who can believe Constantine so unjust first to give Rome and the Western Empire to the Pope and then to one of his Sons Or who can think the Pope so tame never to put in his Claim Secondly This Edict is grounded on the idle Story of Constantine's Baptisin by Sylvester which out of Sylvester's Fabulous Acts is related at large in it but those Acts being as was shewed a meer Forgery this Edict must be so also Thirdly It represents Constantine who was born and brought up under Christian Parents and had setled Christianity before this as a meer Heathen till he met with Sylvester at this time Fourthly It pretends the whole Senate and all the Nobles joyned with the Emperor to give the Pope this Power But besides the folly of Constantine's delegating more Power than ever he himself had it is most false to suppose That the whole Senate at this time were Christians for many of them continued Pagans long after Constantine's Death Baronius indeed out of Sylvester's Acts affirms That none of the Senate was converted before the Year 324 Forgetting that he had told us Divers Senators had given up their Names to Christ Twelve years before and that one or both of the Consuls were Christians two years before this So ill a Memory had the great Cardinal when his Cause obliged him to defend a Lye Fifthly It speaks of the Emperor's intending to build a City and call it by his own Name in the Province of Bizantium and his Resolution to transfer his Empire thither and yet before this the Edict had reckoned up Constantinople by name and Hierusalem as two of the Five Patriarchates and given Rome Jurisdiction over all the other Four Lastly It is Dated in the Fourth Consulship of Constantine with Gallicanus whereas Licinius was his Collegue in his Fourth Consulship which was in the Year of Christ 315 that is Nine years before the time fixed by Baronius for this pretended Baptism and that clearly shews the Story to be all Sham as all modest and learned Men of the Roman Church do now acknowledge But Baronius and our Annotator considering not barely the falshood of this Edict for that alone would not discourage them but observing also that it destroys the pretended Divine Right of the Pope's Supremacy grant it at last to be a Forgery but say It was devised by the Greeks Secondly Therefore I shall shew the Falshood of that Accusation For First they charge Balsamon with publishing it Now he
permission called by Liberius whose Legates also were present at it But herein they grosly falsifie for Sozomen declares That Constantius summoned all the Bishops to Milan and Baronius saith The Emperour called them together Therefore if this was a General Council it was called by the Emperour and not by the Pope In the Notes on this Synod they say Constantius being yet a Catechumen ought not to be present at a lawful Council But this is Baronius his device to colour over the Forgery of Constantine's Baptism before the Council of Nice there being no Canon forbidding a Catechumen to be present in a Council or in a Church except only while the Sacrament was celebrating so that if Constantius had been bound by an Ecclesiastical Canon there being no Canon to hinder his presence in this Council Baronius assigns a wrong cause of his absence Again the Notes do very falsly suppose That Foelix though chosen by the Arians was a Catholic Pope For he was Ordained by three Arian Bishops at Milan as Atbanasius declares and Socrates as we noted before faith He was in Opinion an Arian Nor is it probable when the Arians had got Liberius banished for not complying with them they should chuse a Catholic and an Enemy into so eminent a See or that the Catholic People of Rome should avoid the communion of Foelix if he were not an Arian 'T is true Sozomen speaks of some who said He kept to the Nicene Faith and was unblameable in Religion yet he adds he was accused for ordaining Arians and communicating with them But this bare Report raised perhaps by the Arians who still pretended to be Catholics and hold the Nicene Faith cannot outweigh such strong Reason and Matters of Fact as are here alledged to prove Foelix not only a Schismatical but also an Heretical Pope The Dialogue between Constantius and Pope Liberius at Milan here published shews That at this time he refused either to condemn Athanasius or communicate with the Arians and was banished into Thrace for this refusal But the Reader may justly wonder he should never mention his Supremacy and Universal Authority when Constantius asked him If he were so considerable a part of the World that he would alone stand for Athanasius and when he advised him to embrace the Communion of the Churches how properly might he have here told him he was Head of all Churches and those who did not communicate with him were no Churches Again Why doth this Pope offer to go to Alexandria and hear Achanasius's cause there which had been twice judged at Rome Surely he knew nothing of these last and highest Appeals in all Causes The Popes of after-Ages claimed this as a right of their See yet it must be granted that Liberius was ignorant of that priviledge § 24. The Council at Sirmium was called by Constantius and consisted of Arian Bishops who though they condemned Photinus his gross Heresie yet would not put the word Consubstantial into any of the three Creeds which they here composed however the Editors call it A General Council partly rejected Perhaps because Pope Liberius approved it who here openly Fell into the Arian Heresie and that not by constraint as the Notes pretend For out of his Banishment he writ to the Eastern Bishops assuring them he had condemned Athanasius and would communicate with them in their form of Faith and therefore he desired them to intercede for his release and restitution to his Bishopric The ambition of regaining which great place was the cause of his Fall as Baronius confesseth and though that Author had produced divers Ancient Writers expresly testifying That he subscribed Heresie Yet a little after he again denies that Liberius was an Heretic pretending that he only sign'd the first Confession of Sirmium which was not downright Heresie Though elsewhere he saith Athanasius rejected all these Arian Forms which wanted Consubstantial as Heretical and declares that the Catholic People of Rome esteemed Liberius to be an Heretic and would not have Communion with him for which he cruelly persecuted them Nay he brags of it as a singular Providence that Foelix who was a Schismatical Pope in his Exile upon Liberius's Fall suddenly became a Catholic and a lawful Pope which still supposes Liberius was an Heretic as doth also Baronius his Fiction of Liberius's speedy Repentance and Foelix his dying soon after his Adversaries return to Rome For the Writers of that Age say Foelix lived eight years after and for Liberius his Repentance though many Authors expresly speak of his falling into Heresie none are very clear in his returning or however none suppose it to be so long before his Death as Baronius doth whose design in this History is not to serve Truth but to clear S. Peter's Chair from the imputation of Heresie and therefore he makes this out chiefly by Conjectures The testimonies of Damasus and Siricius being parties and partial for the honour of their own See are no good Evidence if they did speak of his early Repentance but Damasus only faith The Bishop of Rome did not consent to the Faith of Ariminum Baronius adds This was Liberius I reply That Damasus was of Foelix his party before his own advancement to be Pope and so it is more probable that he meant Foelix Again the Catholic Bishop's Letter from Ariminum only says The Arian Decrees created discord at Rome that is there were then two Factions there one of which and probably that of Liberius did agree to these Decrees the other rejected them Baronius adds to the Bishops Letter these Decrees created Factions because the Pope of Rome opposed them But this will not clear Liberius since both Factions were headed by a Pope Baronius goes on to tell us that Sozomen affirms Liberius was turned out of his Church for not consenting to the Faith at Ariminum I Answer Sozomen must be mistaken in this unless we feign a double Exile of Liberius which no good Author mentions and which Baronius will not allow As for the Epistle of Liberius to Athanasius it was writ no doubt before he had condemned him or else he ought to have confessed his Fault as well as his Faith to that great Man I grant Socrates doth say That Liberius required the Semi-Arians and Macedonians to consent to the Nicene Faith in the time of Valens but this was Nine years after his return and not long before his Death yet then Liberius was imposed on in Matters of Faith by these Bishops whom he calls Orthodox for they were still Heretical and did not heartily agree to the Nicene Faith so that his Infallibility was deceived And though S. Ambrose call Liberius Of happy Memory where he cites a Sermon of his that is a Phrase which the Primitive Charity used of some Men not altogether Orthodox ◠But it is a great prejudice to Liberius his Repentance that though Athanasius
speak of him as having been once his Friend and report his Apostacy yet he never mentions his turning Catholic again Wherefore we conclude that all these Fictions and falsifying of Evidence and slight Conjectures in Baronius and the Notes are intended only to blind the Reader and hinder his finding out an Heretical Pope whose Fall is clear his continuance in his Heresie very probable and his Repentance if it be true came too late to save his Churches Infallibility though it might be soon enough to save his own Soul The Editors style the Council at Ariminum A General Council and yet dare not say as usually under Liberius who had no hand in it for it was called by the Emperour Constantius as all Writers agree so that it seems there may be A General approved Council as they style this which the Pope doth not call Moreover the Emperour in his first Epistle orders the Bishops to send him their Decrees that he might confirm them and though Baronius saith this was done like an Heretical Emperour yet the Orthodox Bishops observed his Order and call it Obeying the Command of God and his Pious Edict Wherefore this General Council was both called and confirmed by the Emperour Again Constantiâ—s in his Epistle declares It was unreasonable to determine any thing in a Western Council against the Fastern Bishops Whence it appears he knew nothing of the Western Patriarchs claiming an Universal Supremacy over all the Churches both of the East and West and for this Reason Baronius leaves this genuine Epistie recorded in S. Hilary's Fragments out of his Annals We have also noted before that though the Orthodox Bishops in this Council who must know the matter say That Constantine was Baptized after the Council at Nice and soon after his Baptism translated to his deserved Rest as the Ancient Historians read that Passage and the Sense of the place shews they could mean it of none but Constantine yet Baronius corrupts the Text and reads Constans instead of Constantine only to support the Fable of Constantine's being Baptized by Sylvester at Rome and the Editors follow him in that gross Corruption For they examine nothing which serves the Interest of Rome As for the Arian Synods this year at Seleucia and Constantinople I need make no Remarks on them because the Pope is not named in them and so there is no occasion for them to feign any thing Only one Forgery of Baronius must not be passed over That when Cyril of Hierusalem was deposed by an Arian Synod he is said to have appealed to greater Judges and yet he never named the Pope the reason of which Baronius saith was because the True Pope Liberius was then in Banishment but hath he not often asserted Foelix was a Catholic and if Cyril had thought fit might he not have appealed to him But it is plain by Socrates that Cyril meant to appeal to the Emperour and his Delegates as all injured Bishops in that Age had used to do § 25. Upon the restitution of Athanasius from his third Exile after the death of George the Arian Bishop he called a Council of Bishops at Alexandria for deciding some differences among the Catholics about the manner of explaining the Trinity and to agree on what terms Recanting Arians were to be received into the Church And though neither Athanasius nor any ancient Historian take any notice of the Pope in this eminent Action yet the Editors out of Baronius say It was called by the Advice and Authority of Liberius and to make out the notorious Fiction of this Popes calling this Orthodox Council even while he was an Arian the Notes affirm Eusebius Bishop of Vercelles and Lucifer Calaritanus as the Popes Legates were present at it which they take out of Baronius who had before told us That Lucifer Calaritanus was at that time at Antioch and sent two Deacons to Alexandria to subscribe for him yea this Synod writes their Synodical Letter to Eusebius Lucifer and other Bishops which plainly shews they were absent though it seems by Ruffinus that Eusebius came afterwards and subscribed to what had been agreed in the Council and was by the Authority of this Council not of the Pope sent into the East to procure peace among those Churches Nor have they any one Author to prove either he or Lucifer were the Pope's Legates nor any reason but because they were employed in great Actions though in that Age 't is plain the Popes were little concerned in any eminent business Moreover they bring in a Fragment of an Epistle writ according to the Ancient Custom by Liberius at his Entrance into the See of Rome to shew his Faith to Athanasius as if it were written now meerly to impose on the Reader a false Notion of his being at this time Orthodox and concerned in this Synod They also cite another Epistle of Athanasius to certifie Liberius what was done here but that Epistle is no where extant in Athanasius's Works but is cited out of the Acts of the second Nicene Council where there are more Forgeries than genuine Tracts quoted and besides the Epistle is directed not to the Pope but to one Ruffinianus and only mentions the Roman Churches approving what was done here but the Epistle being suspicious it is no good Evidence and we conclude with Nazianzen That Athanasius in this Synod gave Laws to the whole World And Pope Liberius had no hand in it About this time there were divers Councils called in France by S. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers and the Catholic Faith was setled in them one of which was held at Paris and the Synodical Epistle is extant yet the Pope is never named in it Nor yet in that Orthodox Synod at Alexandria wherein Athanasius and his Suffragan Bishops presented a Confession of their Faith to Jovian then newly made Emperour which shews that Liberius either was an Heretic at this time or else that he was very inconsiderable So that it is a strange Arrogance in the Editors to say that the Second Council at Antioch was under Liberius when the very Notes say it was called together by Meletius and observe that many Arian Bishops did there recant their Heresie a thing which a little before they pretended could be done no where but at Rome in the Popes Presence Upon Valentinian's advancement to the Empire the Eastern Bishops petition him to call a Council and he being then very busie told them they might call it where they pleased Which the Editors pretend was a declining to meddle in Church Affairs being a Lay-man But the Bishops Petition and his giving them liberty shews that the right of calling Councils was in him and so was also the confirming them as appears from the Bishops sending the Acts of this Council at Lampsacus to the Emperour Valens to be confirmed The same Bishops also sent their Legates with Letters to the Western Bishops and
particularly to Liberius Bishop of Rome hoping Valentinian the other Emperour had been in that City but he being absent these Legates perswaded Liberius they were Orthodox upon which he writ back Letters in his own Name and in the Name of the other Western Bishops to own them for good Catholics Whence we may note First That the Eastern Bishop's Letter styles the Pope no more but Collegue and Brother Secondly That Liberius calls himself only Bishop of Italy Liberius Ep. Italiae alii Occident is Episcopi But Baronius alters the Pointing Liberius Episcopus Italiae alii c. by that Trick hoping to conceal this mean Title Thirdly The Pope here saith He was the least of all Bishops and was glad their Opinion agreed with his and the rest of the Western Bishops Fourthly Yet after all these very Eastern Bishops were of the Macedonian party as the Title of their Letter in Socrates shews Baronius indeed leaves these words out of the Title but he confesses they were Semi-Arians So that the Popes Infallibility as being imposed on by Heretics in Mattets of Faith loses more by this Embassy than his Supremacy gains by it because the Legates were not sent to him alone but to all the Western Bishops Fifthly The Notes on this Council feign that besides these Communicatory Letters Liberius writ other Letters Commanding that ejected Bishops should be restored by the Apostolic Authority But this is one of Baronius his Forgeries For S. Basil and also Sozomen cited by the Notes on the Council of Tyana mention not the Legates shewing any other Letters at their return into the East but only the Communicatory Letters and since it appeared by them that the Western Bishops judged them Orthodox their Eastern Brethren did restore them And so also these Legates got the approbation of a Council in Sicily as they were returning home for the Sicilian Bishops by mistake took them for Orthodox when they saw the rest of the Western Bishops owned their Communion with them and so approved their Confession of Faith and therefore it is very impertinent in the Notes to say on this occasion That the Authority of the Pope was so great that if he admitted even suspected Heretics to his Communion none presumed to reject them Whereas we know that afterwards the People of Rome rejected even the Pope himself for communicating with Semi-Arians The next thing which occurs is a Synod in Illyricum Convened at the request of Eusebius Bishop of Sebastia one of the Eastern Legates who while his Fellows stayed at Rome went into that Country and prevailed with the Bishops assembled there to send Elpidius a Brother and Collegue of their own with a Synodical Letter to the Eastern Bishops declaring they would communicate with them if their Faith was the same with that of Nice Now though this Synod do not mention the Pope yet Baronius and the Notes feign That Elpidius was the Pope's Legate whereas the Synod the Emperours Letter and Theodoret from whom this Story is taken mention Elpidius only as a Messenger sent from this Council When these Eastern Legates returned home there was a Council called at Tyana in Cappadocia wherein they shewed the Communicatory Letters which they had fraudulently obtained in the West upon which Letters those who had been ejected as Heretics and particularly Eustathius of Sebastia were restored to their Sees but neither Sozomen nor S. Basil say this was done by any special Letters of Liberius or by any Command of his yet if it had been so this would spoil this Popes Infallibility it being certain these restored Bishops were Heretics who Liberius poor Man thought to be good Catholics and he hath the more to answer for if this were done not by his Consent alone but by his Command also After this we have the Life of Pope Foelix about whom they differ so much that nothing is plain in his Story but this that little of him is certainly known The Pontifical in Liberius Life saith He died in peace but here it saith He was Martyred by Constantius for declaring him an Heretic and one who was rebaptized by Eusebius of Nicomedia Yet Constantius was not Baptized at all till after Foelix his pretended Martyrdom and he was Baptized then not by Eusebius but by one Euzoius Again The Pontifical allows him but to sit One year and three months and the Notes say This is right computing from Liberius Fall to his Return which as Sozomen affirms was but little before Foelix his Death Whereas these very Notes tell us a little before that Liberius was above two years in Exile therefore if he lived but a small time after Liberius's return he must sit above two years But Marcellinus who writ in that Age tells us Foelix lived eight years after Liberius was restored Which Baronius and the Notes would conceal to hide the Scandal that their Church must get by a long Schism and by an Heretical Pope of whom they will needs make a Martyr only upon the Credit of the Pontifical and a modern fallacious Inscription pretended to be found at Rome many Ages after belonging to some Foelix but which of them they know not The Epistles ascribed to this Pope contain so many and so gross Untruths that Labbé notes They are discarded by Baronius and other Learned Men as Isidores Wares adding That the third Epistle was stollen from Pope Martin the First in his Lateran Council And though Binius very often cite the two first Epistles yet in his Notes on them he owns they are of no credit For they Forge many Canons as made at Nice and tell that idle story of the true Copies of the Nicene Canons being burnt by the Arians But it is certain the Forger of these Epistles was a Creature of the Popes because the Inscriptions of them are stuffed with false and flattering Titles and the Body of them nauseously and ridiculously press the Supremacy and the Universal Empire of the Roman Church § 26. The entrance of Damasus into the Papacy was not without Blood for the People were divided and some standing for Damasus others for Ursicinus Damasus his Party being stronger slew many of their Adversaries in a Church as all the Writers of that Age testifie and though Ammianus be a Pagan Historian yet it is very probable which he writes that it was not Zeal but the ambition of living high and great that made Men contend so fiercely for the Papacy for S. Basil himself about this time taxes the Roman Church with Pride and S. Hierom the great Friend of that Church often reflects upon the pomp and luxury of the Clergy there So that the Notes on Damasus his Life do but glory in their Churches shame when from these Authors they boast of the Magnificence and Majesty of the Papacy The Fabulous Pontifical was for many Ages pretended to be writ by this Damasus and he
Brother even when they Complement him as a great Master and Doctor which smells strong of the Forge and if this Epistle were made up there then the Notes need not triumph so much when it says upon Jovinians being condemned at Rome That the Bishop of Rome had looked well to the Gate committed to him that is say they the Gate of the whole Church of which Christ made S. Peter's Successor the Door-keepers But if the Epistle be true it only commends the Pope for looking well to the Gate of his own Church at Rome as they had done to their Gate at Milan having turned him out of that Church before The third Epistle of Siricius is like the former for style and sense yet the Editors will not reject it because the Pope saith He hath the care of all the Churches but let it be noted that Aurelius Bishop of Carthage uses the same words of himself a little after and there Binius notes That Aurelius means of the Churches of Africa only not of the whole World So we may say justly of Siricius here that he means He had the Care of the Suburbicarian Churches not those of the whole World For the fourth Epistle said to be writ from a Roman Council calls the Pope no more but a Primate and that Title belonged to the Bishop of Carthage as well as to him of Rome but indeed Labbé honestly confesses this fourth Epistle to be stollen out of Innocent's Epistle to Victricius The fifth and sixth Epistles are writ by Maximus an Usurper of the Empire and seem to be genuine but we need not wonder at the Tyrants speaking so kind things of the Pope in them since it was his interest to Flatter the Bishop of that potent City § 30. This Maximus having seized on the Northwest parts of the Empire summoned a Council at Bourdeaux which the Editors without any ground style under Siricius wherein the Bishops of the Gaâ—ican Church again condemned the Priscillianists and they appealed not to the Pope but to the Emperour Maximus who was so far from favouring these Heretics that at the instance of Ithacius a Catholic Bishop he caused them to be put to death for their Heresie Which cruel Sentence so displeased Theognistus and other Orthodox Bishops that they Excommunicated Ithacius and all his Party who had procured these Heretics to be put to death and S. Martin S. Ambrose and the best Men of that Age would not communicate with any of these Bishops who had prosecuted Men to death for Heresie no not though Ithacius and his Adherents were absolved from Theognistus his Excommunication in a Council which Maximus had called at Triers Now the Notes fearing the Reader should observe That many Popes and Bishops of their Communion have done just as Ithacius did viz. persecuted such as they call Heretics to death and delivered them up to the Secular Magistrate to be executed tell us That it was not an ill thing in Ithacius to procure the death of these Heretics but his Fault was in the violence of his Proceedings and in his not interposing such a Protestation as their Church uses on these occasions Wherein when they have made it necessary for the Magistrate to put an Heretic to death they solemnly declare they wish he would amend and do not desire his Execution But as this Protestation is a piece of notorious Hypocrisie unknown to those Ages so we may be sure so apparent a Sham would not have excused Ithacius whose Communion as Sulpicius Severus shews was renounced by S. Ambrose S. Martin and Others purely because they thought it unlawful especially for Clergy-men to procure any persons to be put to death for their Opinion though it were Heresie Wherefore these Holy Bishops if they were now alive must renounce the Communion of the Roman Church for the same reason for which they renounced the Communion of Ithacius even for their frequent procuring Heretics to be put to death and this is so plain that all their shuflling Notes cannot wash their Bishops hands from Blood nor fit them in S. Ambrose and S. Martin's Opinion to celebrate the Eucharist with other Christians There had been as we noted a long Schism at Antioch between Paulinus of whose side was the Pope and many Western Bishops and Flavianus who was supported by the Eastern Bishops and now Paulinus dying one Evagrius was irregularly chosen to succeed him and keep up the Schism and though Flavianus was owned for the true Bishop by the second General Council and he it was who ordained S. Chrysostom and obtained a Pardon from Theodosius for those Citizens of Antioch who had broke down the Statues of that Emperour and his Empress yet at the Instance of some Western Bishops the Emperour was perswaded to cite him to a Council which he had called at Capua in which S. Ambrose was present but Flavianus not willing to have his Enemies to be his Judges did easily excuse his Non appearance to the Emperour and the Synod thereupon referred the Matter between him and Evagrius unto Theoplalus Patriarch of Alexandria to whose decision Flavianus refusing to stand he appealed to Theodosius on which occasion S. Ambrose writing to Theophilus wishes rather Flavianus had referred the Matter to his Brother the Bishop of Rome because saith he you would probably have judged it if it had come before you so as he would have liked Which implies no more than that Theophilus and Siricius were both of one mind in this case of Flavianus yet on this slight occasion the Notes say That the Synod made Theophilus Arbitrator on condition he should offer his Sentence to be approved and confirmed by the Roman Church Which is a meer Forgery for Theophilus was made absolute Arbitrator by the Synod and this is not the Councils wish but S. Ambroses and after all Flavianus did not think a Western Synod had any power over him and therefore he rejected the Arbitration of Theophilus the Council and Pope Siricius also with whom though he did not communicate yet he was always owned to be true Bishop of Antioch § 31. The Second Council at Arles is supposed to be held about this time because the Followers of Photinus and Bonosus were there condemned Wherefore they say It was in the time of Siricius but under him it could not be since the Bishops there assembled do not name him nor do they except the Bishop of Romes Supreme Power when they refer all Ecclesiastical Matters to the final decision of their own Metropolitan and his Synod and declare that every Bishop who receives a person Excommunicated by another shall be guilty of Schism Yet the Editors are so apt to dote upon the Popes managing all Councils that they here style a meeting of the Novatian Heretics at Angaris in Bithynia A Synod under Siricius and call poor Socrates a Novatian for barely relating a Matter of Fact concerning the Novatians At this
it is very certain that divers of these pretended Decrees were not observed no not in France where these two Bishops lived for divers Ages after they are pretended to be sent thither Before I leave this Epistle I must observe that the last Section about the Canon of Scripture wherein all the Apocryphal Books are reckoned up as part of the Canon is a gross Forgery added to it 300 years after Innocent's death for Cresconius never saw this part of the Epistle nor doth he mention it under this Head though he cite the other parts of it so that if the whole Epistle be not forged yet this part of it is certainly spurious and added to it by a later hand as is at large demonstrated by Bishop Cosens in his History of the Canon of Scripture to which I refer the Reader noting only that the Council of Trent grounded their Decree about the Canon of Scripture not upon genuine Antiquity but palpable Forgeries and Corruptions In the following Epistles unto the twelfth there is nothing remarkable but some brags of the dignity of Rome and many pretences to a strict observance of the Ancient Canons which were no where oftner broken than in that Church Some think they are all forged because they want the Consuls names And the twelfth Epistle may pass in the same rank since it is dated with false Consuls viz. Julius the fourths time and Palladius but because it seems to shew that the Pope took care even of Foreign Churches Baronius resolves to amend it of his own head and puts in Theodosius and Palladius though still the number is false for Theodosius was the seventh time Consul with Palladius not the fourth and had not this Epistle made for the Popes Supremacy the Annalist would not have taken pains to mend it The thirteenth Epistle which passes in Binius for a famous testimony of Innocent's zeal in discovering the Pelagians and meriting Notes is the same with the beginning of the second Epistle of Foelix the fourth and Labbè saith it is a forgery of the counterfeit Isidore The fourteenth Epistle calls Antioch a Sister Church and from Peters being first there seems to confess it was the elder Sister and both that and the sixteenth Epistle speak of one Memoratus which Baronius will not allow to be the proper name of a Bishop because indeed there was no such Bishop in that time so that he expounds it of the Bishop remembred that is of Paulinus but the ill luck is that Paulinus is neither named before nor remembred in either of these two Epistles The Notes on the sixteenth Epistle mention it as a special usage of the Bishop of Rome not to restore any to his Communion unless they were corrected and amended but this was ever the rule of all good Bishops and of late is less observed at Rome than in any other Church The eighteenth Epistle maintains a very odd Opinion viz. That the Ordinations celebrated by Heretical Bishops are not so valid as the Baptism conferred by them and the Notes own that the Persons so Ordained may truly receive as they call it the Sacrament of Orders and yet neither receive the Spirit nor Grace no nor a power to exercise those Orders which seems to me a Riddle For I cannot apprehend how a Man can be said truly to receive an Office and yet neither receive Qualifications for it not any Right to exercise it The twenty second Epistle cites that place of Leviticus That a Priest shall marry a Virgin and affirms it as a Precept founded on Divine Authority and he censures the Macedonian Bishops as guilty of a breach of God's Law because they did not observe this Precept which every one knows to be a piece of the abrogated Ceremonial Law and the Annotator cannot with all his shufling bring the Pope off from the Heresie of pressing the Levitical Law as obligatory to Christians But there is one honest passage in this Epistle which contradicts what this Pope had often said before of the sinfulness of Priests Marriages for here he saith The Bond of Matrimony which is by Gods Commandment cannot be called sin However out of this Epistle which is a very weak one and dated only with one of the Consuls names the Editors feign a Council in Macedonia and a Message sent to the Pope for confirmation of their Acts which doth not appear at all in the Body of the Epistle And Baronius desires the Reader to note How great Majesty and Authority shined in the Apostolick See so that it was deemed an injury to require the Popes to repeat their former Orders Whereas if this Epistle be not forged it is no more but a nauseous repetition of the same Orders which he and his Predecessors had given over and over and the frequent harping upon the same string in all the Decretal Epistles especially as to the Marriage of the Clergy shews how little Majesty or Authority shined in the Popes since all the Countries to which they sent their Orders so generally despised them that every Pope for divers Ages was still urging this matter without that effect which they desired The twenty third Epistle was writ to some Synod or other they know not whether at Toledo or Tholouse as we noted before And the Jesuit Sirmondus in Labbe by elaborate conjectures and large additions probably of his own inventing had put it out more full and adorned it with Notes which pains the impartial Reader will think it doth not deserve The twenty fourth Epistle is dear to the Editors and Baronius because the Pope therein is his own witness that all Matters ought to be referred to his Apostolical See and that the Africans application to him was a due Veneration since all Episcopal Authority was derived from him 'T is true St. Augustine doth mention a Message sent to Innocent out of Africa but he adds that he writ back according to what was just and becoming a Bishop of an Apostolical See But as to this Epistle besides the hectoring language in the Preface there is neither Style nor Arguments but what are despicable and Erasmus did long since justly say In this Epistle there is neither Language nor Sense becoming so great a Prelate so that probably the whole may be a Fiction of some Roman Sycophant which is the more likely because Labbè owns that one of the Consuls names is wrong that is Junius is put for Palladius Erasmus adds that the twenty fifth Epistle is of the same grain with the former the Style is no better and the Matter of the same kind for he brags that whenever Matters of Faith are examined application must be made to the Apostollcal Fountain And yet this Pope as the Notes confess held the Eucharist ought to be given to Infants yea that it was necessary for them that is I suppose for their Salvation Now the
more solemn Worship By which one would imagin that in the time of this Council and ever since the Blessed Virgin had been worshipped as she is now at Rome but there is not one word of this true except only that she was there declared to be the Mother of God That Epistle of Cyril's from whence Baronius proves this saith nothing of either Praises or Worship given to the Blessed Virgin he saith indeed that when the people heard Nestorius was deposed they began with one voice to commend the Synod and to glorifie God because the Enemy of the Faith was cast down And when he had related what Honours the People did them by carrying Lamps and burning Incense before them he add◠Thus our Saviour manifested his Glory and his Power of doing all things to those who blasphemed him So that all this story of their praising and venerating the Blessed Virgin is his own Fiction as is also that other conjecture of his that the Synodal Epistle declares that John the Evangelist and Mary the Mother of God once lived together at Ephesus For that Synodal Epistle speaks only of two Churches there called by their Names So when he and Binius say it is believed that this Addition to the Angelical Salutation was then made Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us and Baronius adds that all the Faithfull use to say and often repeat this and teach it their Children even while they suck'd the Breasts But I ask Why doth any Man believe this Is it barely because Baronius says so Doth not he say an hundred false things to justifie the Corruptions of Rome Or can he produce one ancient Author about this time or of divers Ages after wherein this Phrase Mother of God pray for us is used It is certain he cannot and therefore this blasphemous addition is much later than the Council of Ephesus and the Custom of saying it and teaching it to their Children is a Scandalous Innovation brought in by the Roman Church in the Superstitious Ages and justly rejected by us who keep close to Antiquity in owning the Blessed Virgin to be the Mother of God but do not Worship her or Pray to her And thus much for the Council of Ephesus whose Acts being extant at large do abundantly confute the Popes Supremacy and set forth many other Usages and Practices of Rome to be Innovations and Corruptions § 3. After Celestine's death Pope Sixtus or Xystus the Third succeeded who sate about eight years but did few Memorable things In his younger days he was not only a Favourer but a Patron of the Pelagians though afterwards he writ against them and strenuously opposed them Wherefore Baronius doth not sufficiently prove those three Tracts Of Riches Of Evil Teachers and of Chastity which go under the name of this Pope were not his by saying there are divers Pelagian Doctrines in them since if they were writ in his youth Xystus was then a Pelagian himself This Pope writ as is said three Epistles two of which are put into the Council of Ephesus because they shew Xystus his Consent to what the Council had done and to Cyril's actings afterwards as to John Bishop of Antioch In the later of these Epistles there is a memorable Saying cited by Vincentius Lirinensis Let there be no liberty for Novelty hereafter since it is not convenient to add any thing unto that which is Old Had his Sucessors minded this good Rule the Roman Church had not added so many New Doctrines and Practices to those Old Ones which were received and used before Xystus his time The Pontifical relates a Sory of one Bassus who accused this Pope of Adultery and that a Synod of 56 Bishops convened by the Emperor's Order cleared him and condemned his Accuser Now for the greater credit of this Pope some have forged a third Epistle wherein he is made to signifie to them his purging himself upon Oath But Labbe condemns the whole Epistle as spurious and Binius rejects it because it is stolen in part out of Pope Fabian his third Epistle and because the Date is wrong for these Arguments will serve to condemn an Epistle that supposes a Pope accused and tried by his Peers whereas had it been for the Supremacy Binius would have justified it though it had these and greater faults Besides this Epistle some illiterate Monk hath forged the Acts of this Council wherein the Pope was tried and though there be neither Latin nor Sense in it being as dull as that of Sinuessa but the Inventor designing to do Honour to the Pope is very gently censured both by Baronius and Binius And to this they have tacked another such a Council of the Trial of Polychronius Bishop of Jerusalem before Pope Sixtus for attempting to challenge the Precedency before Rome c. And Binius confesseth not only that Pope Nicholas alledged this Council for good Authority but that the Modern Writers of their Church do so also Whereas he owns there was no such man Bishop of Jerusalem and that the whole Story and Acts are a Fiction of no credit in the World by which we may learn to be cautious how we trust the Roman Writers Ancient or Modern when they cite Records to support the Grandeur of the Church About this time Theodoret mentions a great Council at Constantinople under Theodosius about setling the Precedence of the Eastern Patriarchats on occasion of a Contest between the Churches of Alexandria Constantinople and Antioch Baronius and out of him Binius in relating this have added to Theodoret's words that Alexandria claimed the Priority before all the Eastern Bishops because he was the first Bishop of the Catholick Church after the Pope But the Quotation he produces out of Theodort Ep. 86. doth not so much as mention Rome nor the Pope So that they have invented that part of the Story to keep up their Churches Credit However this Council evidently shews that the Roman Church had nothing to do with the East they called great Councils without him and setled the Precedencies of their own Patriarchats without taking notice of the Pope As for Sixtus he made no figure in the World and all we hear of him further is that being warned by Leo his Deacon and Successor afterwards he discovered and prevented the Attempts of Julianus of Hecla a Pelagian Heretick who endeavoured to get into the Churches Communion as Prosper informs us An. 440. in Chron. In this year was held the Synod of Riez in the Province of Narbon dated by the Emperors and Consuls without any mention of the Pope For it was held under Hilary Bishop of Arles who first subscribes and is meant in the Canons by the name of the Metropolitan as Marca confesses And though Binius have no Notes to this purpose I must observe that this Hilary of Arles as Primate of those parts of France calls a Provincial
the Pope nor did his ratifying it make it needless for the Emperor to require the sentiments of others § 5. We have no more to add to this but only to make a few brief Remarks upon such passages in Binius's Notes upon this Council as have not yet come under our consideration The Miracle of Euphemia the Martyrs taking the Orthodox Confession of Faith into her Hand so long after her Death and Burial and casting away that which was Heretical is only hinted at in that suspicious Epistle from the Council But the Notes and Baronius cite for the formal story no Author elder than Metaphrastes who lived above 450 years after and if we consider how he and the later Writers who mention it vary and contradict one another in the time and manner of this pretended Miracle we shall easily discern the whole Story to be a Fiction A little after the Notes say that they highly injure this Holy Council who say the Epistle of Ibas which is Heretical and contains the praises of Hereticks and the condemnation of the Orthodox was received and approved by the Fathers at Chalcedon for those who say so joyn with the Nestorians But alass it proves very unluckily that it was Pope Vigilius who said this and who was condemned for an Heretick for this and other things of like nature by the fifth General Council and Binius knew this well enough but because it was a Friend he conceals his Name Again he tells us of one Julianus Bishop of Coos that he was the Popes Legate and so he is called indeed in the Subscriptions sometimes but let it be noted that the Pope doth not name this Julianus in his Letter to the Council among his Legates but Paschasinus Lucentius and Boniface with one Basilius are there said to be his Legates And yet this Basilius never appeared in the Council which makes a very Learned Man conjecture that the Fathers at Chalcedon rejected two of those whom the Pope had nominated for Legates viz. this Basilius and Julianus the former not being admitted into the Council and the later having no other place than what his own See gave him so that Baronius his observation concerning this Julianus his speaking Latin as the dignity of the Roman See required will not prove him properly a Legate or if it do then the Council placed the Popes Legates as they pleased Moreover the Notes call the excommunicating of the Pope by Dioscorus scelus inauditum an unheard-of-wickedness and a little after they say That Dioscorus was the first that ever was known to excommunicate the Pope or had committed this unheard-of-wickedness But why all this Doth the Council say such a Fact was never attempted nor heard of before No that is their addition for we have heard of Asian and African Bishops who took themselves to have as much Power to excommunicate Victor and Stephen Bishops of Rome as they had to Excommunicate them And we have heard of Liberius and Foelix whose Communion was renounced by the Orthodox and therefore Dioscorus's fault was his excommunicating an Orthodox Patriarch in a pack'd private heretical Synod not because this Patriarch was Bishop of Rome for had Leo deserved this Sentence by holding Heresie no doubt a greater Council would afterward have ratified it and joyned with Dioscorus In the account which the Notes give of the third Session we are told that Dioscorus was accused for wasting the Goods left to the Poor and Pious Uses by a Noble Lady deceased so that no Incense could be offered for her Soul And Binius and Baronius hence infer that they used then to pray for the Dead But if we look into the Council this will appear an invention of their own for there is no mention of praying for that Ladies Soul or offering in coâ—â—e for it to God but only that Dioscorus by spending 〈◊〉 Gifts riotously had as much as in him lay hindred the offering a sweet Savour to God out of her oblation Now whether this sweet Savour be meant literally of Incense then used in Christian Churches or allegorically of Alms so called Philip. iv 18. yet still there is not the least intimation that either of these were offered for the Lady or her Soul or any Prayers made for her after her Decease Yet this false Inference is nauseously repeated again afterwards In which last place Binius saith Dioscorus his with holding the Wheat which the Emperor gave to the Churches of Lybia so that the terrible and unbloody Sacrifice could not be offered there is a clear Testimony for the Mass Whereas it is only an evidence that the Eucharist was made of Wheat and that they received a large Morsel as we Protestants do of the Holy Bread and when it is called an unbloody Sacrifice I think that to be a Testimony they did not believe the natural and true Blood of Christ was there by Transubstantiation It is also very false to say That after the Cause of Sabinianus Act. 14. the Council was ended the Assembly dissolved when the Legates and Judges went out and that the Eastern Bishops staid behind clandestinly In which Words there are more falshoods than Lines For if the Council was ended how came the whole Council to meet again without a new Summons the very next day Again the Legates went out indeed but it was after the Judges not before them as the Notes insinuate and the Judges went out because the Causes were all heard and only the Canons to be treated of but before they went they ordered the Bishops to make some Canons So that to say the Council was ended and the Synod dissolved because none but the Bishops staid is ridiculous and contradicts his Note upon the third Session where he makes it a most clear evidence of a General Council when the Bishops meet without Lay Judges If he say the Popes Legates did not stay I reply they were desired to stay and their peevish absence could not hinder the Councils proceedings no more than Dioscorus his absenting and the Acts were next day approved as good though done without them and there it was also proved that the Council did not act clandestinly yea it is very absurd to say the going out of three Men from 627 who staid behind could make the Synod which remained to be a Clandestine Assembly So that we may wonder at the boldness of these Editors who in spite to the 28th Canon upon false grounds condemn those Actions which were examined justified and approved by this whole General Council We have in the next place an old Inscription pretended to have been made in a Chappel built by Hilary the Legate of Pope Leo after his wondrous escape from the Pseudo-Synod of Ephesus in these words To his Deliverer St. John the Evangelist Hilary the Bishop and Servant of Christ Which Inscription gives Baronius and the Notes occasion to affirm that he had prayed and
credible yet he takes this for a mighty and clear Miracle wrought by God at Constantinople in the East on purpose to confute the Arrian Princes then Reigning in Africa Italy and Gaul Who in all probability never heard of this Story and would much sooner have believed it if it had been done in their own Country It is very improbable that later Authors should know so exactly all the little Acts Sayings and Miracles of St. Benedict and yet differ almost 30 year about the year of his Birth nor are they agreed about his Age and Death This minds me of a Comical Authors remark upon such as pretend to Pray and Preach Extempore by an Hour-glass As if the Spirit could teach them what to say but not how much It is doubtless a strong suspicion that most of the Relations were invented after the time of this Saint little noted in his own days was forgotten Yet I see not how the time of writing the Dialogues called Gregory's should prove Marianus Scotus Sigebert and Trithemius mistaken in saying Benedict was born in the year 507 Because if Gregory the second which is very probable were the Author of those fabulous Dialogues he was made Pope An. 714. in an Age of Legends and so Benedict dying An. 603 might have four Abbots his Successors before this heap of Fables was put together which are very unworthy of Gregory the 1st Pope It is worth noting that this Benedict despised Learning and Study and ran away from School an ill Omen that his followers the Monks should help to ruin all polite literature and bring in that ignorance which covered all Christendom for many Ages For what other could be expected from such a Founder that was knowingly ignorant and wisely unlearned as this Gregory speaks But it was not only his Case for St. Francis another Founder of Monkery bids his Followers if they cannot Read never to learn any Letters but above all to take heed they may be inspired with the Spirit Yea he makes reading much and getting Books to be one of his bad signs These illiterate Patrons were fit to lead on an Army of Ignoramus Fryers to extinguish the Light of Learning that their false Doctrins and cheating Practices might pass undiscovered in the darkness they had made Further we may observe that the Cardinal severely Taxes Trithemius and other Monkish Writers for falsly feigning that many Eminent Men who preceded Benedict in time were Monks of his Order out of a blind Zeal to set up its glory But he considers not that the same blind Zeal hath put these Authors out of whom he brings innumerable Stories upon saying very false things for the glory of their Order which probably never were done upon the face of the Earth So that he should have better Authority than these partial Monks for the Miracles of their own Saints Theodorus Lector heaped up many scattered Reports without care and is not of the best credit especially in case of Relicks but his single Testimony is enough to make Baronius believe That God takes care of a dead Saints Bones in an Earthquake which probably might swallow up many living Saints who often suffer in such Common Calamities Those Miracles of St. Remigius which are impiously equalled to them that the Apostles wrought have no better evidence than two Authors Aimonius and Hincmarus who writ about 400 year after For that Epistle of Hormisda wherein that Pope makes Remigius his Legate is like the rest of that kind a manifest Forgery For he mentions Clovis the modern name of Ludovicus as if he were the King of France and newly Baptized whereas Clovis died at least four year before Hormisda was Pope and was Baptized near twenty year before this Letter is pretended to be writ From which Examples though but few it appears Baronius his evidence for Miracles and other things that tend to support the Superstitions of Rome are generally forged or suspicious Authors § 2. But when he cites genuine Writers in such Points he often corrupts their Sense and sometimes their Words For instance Baronius pretends that an intire Edict of Marcian's is imperfect meerly because he cannot find in it any particular expressions to take away the Primacy of the See of Constantinople Whereas this Edict clearly confirms the Canon of Chalcedon which had given the second place to Constantinople by this very Emperor Marcian's consent And it is something odd that our Annalist by meer fancy should assert even with confidence than an Emperor of the East should revoke by an Edict and a Bishop of Constantinople renounce a Priviledge granted by that same Emperor and in a General Council to that Church a few years before Again He insinuates that St. Severine allowed the Worship of Saints departed now used in the Roman Church But the Authors he cites Euagrius and Eugippius though they writ many years after St. Severine's death have not one word of any deliverance by the praying to Saints But one of them saith they were freed from the Famin by the Providence of God And the other affirms they praised God for hearing St. Severine ' s Prayers in this Calamity So that Severine prayed only to God and the People of that Age praised him alone And how can this excite the Posterity of that Nation at this day to pray to St. Severine so long after his decease What Victor saith of those who suffered death by the Arrian Persecution in Africa That the Romans would count them Martyrs must be meant either of the Roman Captives in Africk or of the Roman Church in Italy who looked on these Sufferers as their Brethren and of the same Faith and so reckoned them Martyrs But to stretch this Phrase to signifie that then the words Roman and Catholick were of the same import is very unreasonable and what Victor never dreamed of 'T is very suspicious that Ecdicius did not get his wonderful Victory over the Goths by praying to St. Martin because that History is related by two Authors one very Authentick that is Sidonius who might have been and probably was an Eye-witness who doth not once name St. Martin The other Gregory of Tours that lived near 150 years after and he mentions it indeed as done by the invocation of the Saint of his Church But Baronius in the next year taxes him with writing things that could not be credited Wherefore he should rather have drawn his conclusion from the living and certain Historian if Truth had been the business of these Annals The Emperor Leo's Edict is solely designed for the keeping holy the Lords-days which are the Festivals properly dedicated to the Majesty of the Most High But the Annalist expounds this of all Feast-days to give more colour to the scandalous usage of their Church where more reverence is given to a little Saints-day than to the Sunday which from the Creation or however from the Apostles times was
The first was to prevent Mens seeking Bishopricks especially the Papacy while the See was full On which we may note the Cunning of this Pope who probably had got the Papey by this means yet sees fit to condemn a Fault after he had made his advantage by it The Fourth Canon plainly supposes that the Pope will name his Successor unless he die suddenly which is expresly contrary to the ancient Canons which the Notes can neither totally conceal nor fairly excuse But I look upon the Acts to be intirely forged in the later Times as the gross barbarity of the Style shews and 't is not probable that 72 Italian Bishops should come to Rome as so many Cyphers only to applaud what this Pope did ignorantly and Uncanonically decree 'T is certain there was a Synod at Rome called by the Arrian King Theodoric which is perhaps suppressed by the Editors lest it should discover the Regal Power was then above the Papal And this new Stuff seems to be put into the old Garment to fill up the Rent Now Baronius and Binius place this Synod before the Kal. of May An. 499. and fall foul upon Theodorus Lector for saying That Theodoric called this Synod whereas he knew nothing of this Fiction He saith indeed That after the Schism had lasted Three years which must be An. 501. since Pope Anastasius died An. 498. Theodoric who then Ruled all at Rome called a Synod of Bishops and setled Symmachus in the Papal Chair So that according to him no body called this Synod of the Editors nor was Symmachus yet Pope but these are devices to make the Schism seem shorter than it was But Theodorus is of better Credit than the Annalist and Cassiodorus shews that this Schism was not fully ended until Symmachus his death 13 or 14 years after For he saith That in his Consulship An. 514 he had united the Roman Clergy and People and restored the desired Concord to that Church So that 't is certain there was a Schisin at this time and long after The Second Roman Council under Symmachus hath no Voucher but Anastasius who pretends it was called to condemn Potrus Altinensis King Theodoric's Visitor as an Invader of the Roman See But 't is no way probable this yet unsetled Pope durst do so bold a thing considering Theodoric to whose Arbitration they had submitted this and commended him for determining it by a Bishp was then at Rome in great glory loved and admired both by the Synod and People But the sport is Binius and Baronius do not agree whether this were a distinct Synod or only one Action of another Synod called Palmaria however the dispute being about so frivolous a Fiction we shall not interpose 'T is probable upon Theodoric's having declared Symmachus the true Pope his Enemies accused him of heinous Crimes To cover which a Synod is patch'd up so full of Barbarisms False Latin and Non-sense that it seems to have been writ by that Ignorant Hand who forged the ridiculous Council of Sinuessa for Pope Marcellinus and the design of both is the same viz. to make us think that a Pope cannot be judged by a Council neither for Idolatry nor for Adultery Besides the Forger mistakes the Consul's Names and Ruffus Magnus put in as Colleague to Faustus Avienus instead of Pompeius who is by two undoubted Writers of this Age joyned with Avienus as the Notes and Annalist confess who yet have the confidence to say these Acts are genuine But it seems they scarce think so for these Acts say expresly The Council was called by the Precept of Theodoric and own that they could decree nothing without that Princes knowledge Yet these Parasites contradict their so commended Acts and affirm this Synod was called by the Pope who was the Criminal yea though they immediately after print some suspicious Precepts of Theodoric about his calling and directing this whole process If the whole were not fictitious I might note That there is a manifest Corruption in the Acts for where the Roman Churches Grandeur is said to flow First from S. Peter ' s Merit then following our Lord's Command and the Authority of General Councils The Period is not sense and jussione Domini seems put in to make the Flattery still grosser But the Editor's Margin hath a glorious Note on this blunder and Baronius cites it with great Triumph Another Trick the Notes put upon these Acts which in the next Sentence declare that Symmachus and his Bishops desired Letters from the King's Clemency for calling this Synod Which the Annotator turns as if the King desired the Popes Letters and though he was an Arrian durst not call it without such Letters which Note is as false as it is impertinent For we see by Theodorus Lector That Theodoric did call the real Council And Zonaras saith Theodoric calling a Council rejected Laurentius and confirmed the Bishoprick of Rome to Symmachus And they must be able to out-face the Sun who out of a falsly expounded Period would prove that the Kings of that Age called no Councils without the Popes consent Symmachus his 4th Roman Synod of which Baronius makes the two former to be only divers Acts is said to be held when Avienus Junior was Consul but the name of his Colleague is omitted which was Probus This makes it somewhat suspicious but the business of it confirms that Suspicion which was to revoke two Laws made in a Roman Synod after Simplicius his Death wherein according to ancient Custom Basilius Praefect for Odoacer King of Italy was present with some Bishops and the Roman Clergy The first Law was That no Pope should be elected without the consent of the King of Italy then Lord of Rome The other That no Pope Bishop or other Clergy-man should alienate things given to the Church Which Laws they pretend to annul because they were both made by Lay-men and not subscribed by any Pope But first It is certain that Lay Princes made many Laws in Ecclesiastical Affairs by Advice of their Clergy and these were frequently confirmed in Synods Secondly These Laws were made in a Council of the Clergy as appears by that Title Sanctitati vestrae used by Basilius and Eulalius in this Council confesses these Laws were made some Bishops consenting to them Moreover the deceased Pope had directed the making these Laws And the Annotator who here objects They were made in the Vacancy of the See in another place saith The Roman Clergy well knew that when the Pope the visible Head of the Church was taken away it was their part by ancient Custom as the nearest Members to the Head and Administrators of Peter ' s Church to take care of the Vniversal Church Wherefore he cannot fairly deny but the Roman Clergy had power in the Vacancy to confirm a Law relating to the good ordering of their own Church And the bloody
to me it seems more Ignominious that the Letter shews some of the late Candidates for the Papacy had sacrilegiously sold the holy Vessels to buy Voices These no doubt were like to make hopeful Heads of the Universal Church Baronius is angry at this Letter and Edict and I suppose places it falsly after the forged Epistle of Justinian had aggrandized this Pope but do what he can the Kings reckoning him among other Patriarchs and making Laws for Papal Elections and his giving him no huffing Titles do clearly demonstrate that Popes then were not so great as our Annalist would make them seem and I wonder with what face he can say This Law was not against the Clergy but the Lay-men When the Law it self and the occasion of it confutes him The Third Epistle may be genuine wherein he doth well to say that according to the Decrees of his Predecessors the Roman Church ever kept and followed the Doctrin of St. Augustin and if they had never followed any other Guide there would not have been so many false Doctrins brought in to that Church However the great impertinence of divers Scriptures here cited shews this Pope to be no great Divine and one of his proofs I doubt is forged for I cannot in Exod. xxiv or any other place find these words You shall see your life hanging on a Tree Now to feign such a Prophesie must be a horrid Sin being literally adding to Gods word to which a grievous Curse is due The Epistle from Reparatus and his African Council to this Pope is more likely to be true because there is nothing of his Universal Supremacy in it They call him Holy Brother and Fellow-Priest nor do they expect Laws but desire advice from him Yea they require him to exclude from his Communion such of the African Clergy as came from them to Rome without leave which shews the African Church still opposed Appeals to the Pope The First Council under this Pope was called at Rome wherein He decreed according to Justinian's desire That it might Orthodoxly be said One of the Trinity was crucified for us in the Flesh Now this Decree puts Baronius and Binius to stretch their Wits to save the Infallibility For Pope Hormisda had before judicially determined the quite contrary in a cause of Faith viz. That it could not be Orthodoxly said so So that these Parasites are to prove both parts of a contradiction true and that two Popes who defined directly contrary to one another were both in the right Now here they shufflle and palliate this matter calling Pope John's disannulling Hormisda's Decree to be only a declaring his Opinion how far this Sentence may and how far it may not be held But before Baronius compares this Sentence with the Heretical Addition to the Trisagion and tells us the Popes Legates in Hormisda ' s time thought it was utterly to be rejected And that the Eutychians were the Authors of it yea he magnifies Hormisda for condemning it Yet Pope John says it is an Orthodox Sentence though still divers Monks at Rome did not believe him nor receive it But took Hormisda to have been in the right and so far questioned John's Infallibility that as Liberatus notos They forsook his Communion and for my part I cannot see but one of these Popes must necessarily be an Heretick In this year they place a genuine Record of a conscience at Constantinople between the Catholick and Severian Hereticks o But Binius Notes own this Conference was held before Justinian writ to Pope John for his Opinion and therefore it should have been placed before that Popes Roman Council and is fraudulently set after to make it seem as if the East had followed Rome in this Decision To this Conference the Eastern Bishops were summoned by the Emperor and their own chief Patriarch And we may here observe First That Hypatius Bishop of Ephesus was Prolocutor and is compared to St. Peter the Apostle Secondly When they speak of the Opinions of the Fathers cited by Cyril in the Council at Ephesus against Nesterius they reckon two Popes Foelix and Julius promiscuously with the rest giving them no precedence no mark of special priviledge Thirdly They reject divers Epistles that bore the names of Orthodox Fathers pretended to be kept among the Records at Alexandria as forged and corrupted by their Heretical Bishops and say they must be excused from receiving their Enemies for Evidence Which just Rule if the Romanists allow us in our Disputes with them the Controversie would soon be ended Fourthly Hypatius truly affirms that the Eastern and Western Churches were long time divided about the manner of expressing themselves as to the Trinity the Orientals suspecting the Occidentals to be Sabellians and these imagining those of the East were Arrians till Athanasius at last reconciled them by understanding of both Tongues which shews that neither side pretended to Infallibility And that Learning is the fittest qualification for a Judge of Controversies Lastly They say their Holy Mother the Catholick and Apostolick Church of God held it was Orthodox to say that one of the Trinity did suffer for us in the Flesh Now this could not be meant of the Roman Church where Hormisda's contrary Definition was still in force nor do they name the Pope in all their Conference So that Binius is mistaken in his Notion that Justinian contrived this Conference to unite the Bishops of the East with Rome for he took no notice of the late Popes Sentence but designed this Conference to settle the Truth and for all the pretence of Union and Subjection in Hormisda's time the Churches of the East and West were not united till after this when Pope John consented to their Desinition and owned that not his Predecessor but they were in the right § 10. The time of Pope Agapetus entrance and death is not certainly known Anastasius and from him Du Pin allow him not one whole year Baronius and Binius would have him sit longer but can only prove it by the dates of some Epistles which are not genuine 'T is certain he was dead before May 536. when Mennas Council at Constantinople met wherefore he must enter in the year 535. The truest account of him is to be had in Liberatus a Writer that knew him Who saith He was well skilled in the Canons and being sent by the Gothick King Theodatus on an Embassy to Justinian to divert his Army from Italy he arrived at Constantinople where he honourably received the Emperors Messenger but would not admit Anthimius to his Presence After this he saw the Emperor delivered his Embassy which was rejected However as Christs Embassador neither the Princes nor the Empress could prevail with him to communicate with the lately ordained Bishop of Constantinople Anthimius unless he would prove himself Orthodox and return to the Church which he had deserted Upon
this Anthimius resigned and went off yet still was under the Emperors Protection Yet Agapetus by the favour of the Prince consecrated Mennas Patriarch of Constantinople and having designed Pelagius his Deacon to remain there as his Resident he prepared to return to Italy but dyed at Constantinople Most of that which is added to this is feigned by Anastastus and the later Writers except what another contemporary Cassiodorus writes of Agapetus that he was so poor that the Sacred Plate of St. Peters Church was forced to be Pawned for Mony to defray the Charges of this Embassy But Anastasius his Fictions about the Popes quarreling with Justinian about his Faith and the Emperors humbling himself and adoring the Pope afterwards have no truth at all in them No nor those Miracles which Binius notes and Baronius pretended this Pope did in his Journey for they have no other Evidence for them than those fabulous Legends Gregory's Dialogues and the Pratum Spirituale And no Writer of Credit or that lived in that Age knew of any such thing The fore-named Authors for the credit of the Roman Martyrology where Agapetus death is set down on the 12 of the Kal. of October will have that be the right day of his dying But I can hardly think he dyed so long before Mennas Council which was in May 536. and there he is spoken of as lately deceased I shall only note that Baronius blunders his own Account wofully by citing a Constitution of Justinian directed to Anthimius as still Bishop of Constantinople dated on the Ides of August 536 long after Agapetus death And upon this he Rails at Theodora and Justinian and 't is true the Law is so dated and titled in the Novels But there must be a fault either in the name of Anthimius put instead of Menna's or in the Consuls because the same Emperor directs another Constitution to Menna in the same Month and the same Year and some Copies read its date 17 Kal. of August 536. which is the 16 of July Wherefore the Annalist should be cautious how he makes Characters of Princes on the uncertain Credit of these Dates The Copy of Justinian's Letter to John the Second before stuffed with Forgeries and undated is here printed without the Additions and dated in January saith Binius in June saith Labbè An. 533. And it assures us John's confirmation before related is spurious because here it is offered again to be confirmed by Agapetus the day before the Ides of March An. 535. And this Popes Confirmation is dated at Constantinople four days after the Emperors Epistle But Anastasius faith The Pope came not to Constantinople till the 10 of the Kal. of May and Justinian's Letter supposes him then at Rome and if so how could the Pope receive and answer this Letter in four days time But if Agapetus were at Constantinople what need the Emperor write to him or date his Letter from that City So that I suspect the Confirmation to be a Forgery and Labbè himself notes These things are not coherent For which we have a good reason in Lactantius who saith Ea enim est mendaciorum natura ut cohaerere non possunt Yet Binius is so immodest as to stretch this seigned Confirmation to be a solemn confirming of all Justinian's Edicts and Constitutions in matters of Faith Whereas that Emperor sent the Constitutions to the Pope and other Patriarchs to be executed not to be confirmed he only advised with his Bishops about them but his own Authority was enough to ratifie them To this is subjoyned that nauseous Forgery called Exemplar precum which hath been printed by the Editors four or five times over with variety of Titles and here is ridiculously applied to Justinian The matter of Agapetus Second and Third Epistle to the African Bishops and Reparatus is not exceptionable for the Pope calls them his most loving Brothers and owns it was not agreeable to the Canons to receive Clerks from Africk without their Letter wherefore he would forbear it as they had enjoyned He confesses also the Rights of a Metropolitan to be in the Bishop of Carthage But there are some suspicions that they are not genuine for they say they were sent by Liberatus Now he had been at Rome a little before and can scarce be supposed to be got back to Afric and to return to Rome by the 5th of the Ides of September And which is worse as Labbè truly observes Liberatus himself who writes the Story of Agapetus speaks but of one Journey to Rome and says nothing of this second And besides 't is dated Post Cons Paulini which is wrong unless they call Bellisarius his year by that name which is An. 535. And then Agapetus was at Constantinople So that we may fear the Forgers who would have it thought all the World applied to Rome have been at work here However if the third Letter be genuine we learn from it that Agapetus came into the Papacy in Winter for it seems Reparatus had writ to Pope John but while his Messengers were staied by the Winter from Sailing he heard in Afric of Agapetus his Election Baronius here affirms that the Pope now sent Decretal Letters to be published in Africa which are not extant But I believe there never were any such Letters for his advice might be accepted there perhaps but his Decretals then had no Authority in that Church The Fourth Epistle to Justinian is very suspicious being dated with no Consuls as the rest use to be it mentions also the Popes sending Legates on the Ides of October which if it were An. 534. he was not then Pope if the next year Agapetus must then be at Constantinople or dead there the 12 of the Kal. of that Month if the Roman Martyrology be true Wherefore we need not be startled at that incredible passage That Justinian had elevated the Roman See by such Titles of Charity and Bounty as exceeded their desires and hopes For the Letter is not genuine And I dare say the Parasites will not urge this because they think 't is Justice not Charity and Right not human Bounty which gives Rome the highest Titles and we are of Opinion no Titles can exceed that Churches desires though they may its deserts Since Binius suspects the 5th Epistle as dated before Agapetus was Pope and Labbè saith many things prove it false and more than suspected of imposture as being stolen out of Hormisda's and Leo's Letters and naming Theodatus Consul who never bore that Office We may without more ado reject it only noting the Forger resolved right or wrong to make the Pope the Mawl of all Hereticks The two Epistles to Caesarius supposing them genuine are very frivolous the 6th being only to tell him that Ecclesiastical Goods must not be alienated Which he knew better than the Pope and Symmachus had writ this to him above 30 Year
with Paulus Diaconus follow his Account But the two former Authors are in this case more worthy of Credit however this is certain Bellisarius did depose and banish Sylverius and got Vigilius Elected who fearing his Rival should be restored got him at last into his Hands and barbarously caused him to be starved to death This is a sad Story of two Popes Sylverius uncanonically elected a Simoniack and a perjured Person and Vigilius a favourer of Hereticks one that is said to have hired false Witness and to have given Mony to make the See void and at last a Murtherer Which shews how little reason there is for Baronius and the Notes to make such a stir which was the true Pope of these two They will have Sylverius to remain the rightful Pope while he lived and so Rail freely at Vigilius as an Heretick and Bloody Usurper But they cannot prove this by any Evidence but only by a manifestly forged Epistle of Sylverius And the contrary is very certain because the Emperor the Gallican Churches and all did own Vigilius for the true Pope long before Sylverius his death and he openly acted as such all that time Wherefore we must reject that Dream of Baronius who saith without any ground that Vigilius did Abdicate the Papacy for six days upon the death of his Competitor and got himself new chosen and this purged him of all Crimes and in a moment made him a Saint and a rare Pope He would force this Fiction out of Anastasius who in like Cases he generally despises who only saith the See was void six days but plainly means after Sylverius was deposed for he reckons Vigilius his time from thence allotting him above 17 years and 6 Months that is near two years more than Baronius allows There are but two Epistles ascribed to Sylverius and they are the only Evidence to prove him the true Pope after he was Deposed yet it is certain both are Forged The first charges Vigilius with Simony yea excommunicates and deprives him for usurping the Papacy it is dated with the name of Basilius whereas Baronius and the Annotator say there was no such Consul in his time And Labbè saith it is to be rejected for the Barbarity of the Style and other reasons and concludes the mistake of the Consul shews the bold ignorance of Mercator the Author of this Imposture Now observe for the ingenuity and credit of Baronius that this Epistle not only serves him to clear Sylverius from Simony and to prove him the true Pope but he calls this odious Forgery The Sword of the Spirit the Word of God and the Exercise of that Power which he had to Absolve or Damn Eternally all People which is no less than Blasphemy The Second Epistle to Amator is so gross a Fiction that both Baronius and Binius reject it being contrary to the true History delivered by Liberatus whom the Notes call the most faithful Writer of this time Labbè agrees with them that it is spurious and shews that Mercator stole it out of Gregory's Epistles wishing that the like censure which is passed on this were passed upon many more of these Writings But the Letter of Amator to Sylverius which Labbè saith Learned men suspect to be as false as the Popes answer to it Baronius will have to be genuine and from this slight Forgery alone he proves That all the Catholick World groaned together at the ignominies put upon the Bishop of the Universal Church A rare Historian Whose Assertions and his Evidence are both false Binius places the Second Council of Orleance in this year but Labbe from Sirmondus puts it three years sooner An. 533. in the time of Pope John the Second it was called as the Preface saith by the Command of the King of France and made very good Canons without Papal Advice or Authority Binius his Notes here blunder this and the following Council and will keep King Clovis alive three year longer than Nature allowed him to support a Fable of this Kings giving the Pope a Golden Crown An. 514. whereas he died An. 511. The Third Council of Orleans Binius sets An. 540. But Labbè more truly places it here However it takes no notice of any Pope though Vigilius about this time is pretended to have writ to Caesarius Bishop of Arles This Synod made divers Canons for Discipline and by the second Canon it appears they were zealous for the Celibate of the Clergy But the fourth shews that hitherto the Canons in this case had not been obeyed and the ninth Canon Decrees That if any Clerks having Wives or Concubines were ignorantly ordained they should not be removed § 13. Vigilius was made Pope immediately after Sylverius was deposed and while the Goths belieged Bellisarius in Rome which was in this year But the Editors from Baronius write An. 540. upon this entrance to cover the Fable of his new Election after the death of Sylverius But he must come in in the year 537 For Marcellinus places Vigilius his death An. 554. which makes up the 17 years and odd time that Anastasius truly allots Vigilius whose Successor Pelagius entred as Baronius and the Editors own An. 555 which is but 15 whole year from that year 540 in which they say he entred and from which they falsly compute his time who writ Letters dated An. 538 and acted in all things as the sole true Pope from the time Sylverius was deposed which was according to Anastasius after he had sat one year and five Months and he followed Writers of undoubted credit that is Marcellinus who places his deposition and Vigilius his entrance An. 537 so doth Genebrard who with Platina allow Sylverius only some odd time above one year in which all Writers before Baronius agree His invention therefore it was to ascribe above 4 years to Sylverius that this false Chronology might cover his devisable of a new Election of Vigilius An. 540. which we justly reject as an idle Fable invented to save the Honour of the Roman Chair Yet it is well Baronius did not think Vigilius the true Pope all this time for by that means we have his true Character who he saith was driven on with the Whirlwind of Ambition and like Lucifer fell from Heaven that his Sacriledge cried out on every side he calls him a Schismatick a Simoniack an Usurper a wretched Man an Heretick a Wolf a Thief a false Bishop and an Antichrist aggravating his Crimes with all his Rhetorick wherein he rather exceeds the Bounds of Modesty than of Truth for he really was extreamly wicked and beyond the power of the sanctifying Chair it self to make him Holy We have so fully described the Acts of this Pope and all the false Stories about him in the following History of the Fifth General Council that we may here pass him by with a few brief Remarks First Liberatus assures us
the Church when the Pope is resolved not to come and herein they follow the Example of the Council of Chalcedon who proceeded without the Popes Legates when they would not stay and join with them Wherefore in the third Collation this 5th Council declared the true Faith and in the 4th and 5th examine the Cause of Theodorus and Theodoret On the fifth day saith Baronius Pope Vigilius sent his Constitution to the Council being made by the advice of 16 Bishops and 3 Deacons and designed to oblige the whole Church the Western agreeing with him in it and delivered by Apostolical Authority Wherein he confirms the three Chapters declaring 1st That Theodorus of Mopsvestia cannot be condemned after his death 2ly That Theodoret's name should not be taxed 3ly That Ibas Epistle to Maris was Catholick and both he and that Epistle received by the Council of Chalcedon as Catholick and Orthodox But Binius cuts off the five last Columns which are added by Baronius and Labbè and which shew how fully Vigilius confirmed all the three Chapters Chap. iv In the 6th Collation the Council having received this Constitution do notwithstanding go on to examine Ibas Epistle And wonder any dare presume to say it was received by the Council of Chalcedon Which Baronius owns was levelled at Vigilius though out of respect he be not named And after a strict Examination They pronounce that the approvers of this Epistle are Followers of Theodorus and Nestorius the Hereticks They shew the Council at Chalcedon owns God was made Man which this Epistle calls Apollinarism That Council confesses Mary to be the Mother of God the Epistle denies it They commend the Council of Ephesus and Cyril's twelve Chapters condemning Nestorius Ibas condemns the Council of Ephesus defends Nestorius and calls Cyril an Heretick and his 12 Chapters impious They stuck to Cyril's Faith and the Nicene Creed he condemns Cyril's Faith and commends Theodorus his Creed They held two Natures but one Person in Christ He is for two Persons also Whereupon this 5th Council Decree the whole Epistle to be Heretical and Anathematize all as Hereticks who receive it And for this reason Binius leaves out of his Edition the most of that part of Vigilius's Constitution which concerns Ibas his Epistle And Baronius who puts it in with the Nestorians would excuse it by saying the latter part of this Epistle is Orthodox But the Council condemns the whole Epistle and all that say any part of it is right and all that write for it or defend it So that Pope Vigilius Baronius Bellarmine and all the Writers for this Heretical Epistle were and are accursed by the Sentence of this General Council And if as Baronius pretends the Popes Legates at Chalcedon say that Ibas appeared a Catholick by this Epistle the 5th Council shews the Fathers at Chalcedon condemned it not heeding what two or three said Baronius urges as the Nestorians did that Eunomius said at Chalcedon the latter end of Ibas Epistle was Orthodox but the 5th Council saith this is a Calumny and cite the very words of Eunomius out of the Council at Chalcedon which import that Ibas was innocent after he had agreed with Cyril and renounced his Epistle which he had done in the Acts before Photius and Eustathius The 7th Collation of this 5th Council was only repeating and approving former Acts In the 8th Collation Baronius owns this Council condemned the three Chapters contrary to Vigilius Decree and Anathematize all that did defend them that is Vigilius whom Baronius often commends as a defender of them Yea they declare them Hereticks by the Doctrin of the Scriptures and holy Fathers and of the four former Councils All which therefore Vigilius contradicted in his Constitution And whatever Baronius first says to disparage this Council it was ratified by the 6th Council by the seventh or second Nicene Council Act. 6. yea and as Baronius confesseth by all succeeding General Councils by the Popes Pelagius Gregory the Great Agatho Leo the second and by all succeeding Popes who were sworn to observe all the General Councils and this among others To which we may add the Councils of Basil and Constance and all the Catholick Church till Leo the 10th's Lateran Council An. 1516 which contrary to the Catholick Faith decreed no Council could condemn a Pope Wherefore we may conclude Vigilius was a condemned Heretick Chap. v. Now let us examine Baronius his shifts and those Binius learns from him First they pretend this was not a point of Faith but concerned only persons Which is most false For the Emperor Justinian calls it a matter of Faith so doth the 5th Council it self declare Yea Vigilius in his Constitution calls the condemning these three Chapters Erring from the Faith and Facundus the Apologist for them saith the opposing them was rooting out the Catholick and Apostolick Faith On the other side Pope Pelagius saith they are contrary to the Faith and to receive them is to overthrow the Faith of Ephesus which Epistle Gregory the Great confirms Bellarmine saith that is de fide which a Council defines to be so and calls the opposers of it Hereticks and accurseth them And Baronius calls the Emperors Edict for the three Chapters Sanctio de fide Catholica and Fidei decretum So that it must be a matter of Faith And Gregory the Great was mistaken if he meant that this 5th Council handled no matters of Faith but treated of Persons For the contrary is manifest But indeed Gregory means they altered no point of Faith established at Chalcedon as some in his time fancied only condemning the persons there examined but still it was by shewing they held notorious Heresies Chap. vi But to consider the three Chapters severally The first was about Theodorus of Mopsvestia who as Vigilius saith should not be condemned after he was dead citing Leo and Gelasius for it as having decreed it for a point of Faith But on the other side St. Austin declares if Caecilian were guilty of the Crimes objected 100 years after his death he would Anathematize him Pelagius urges and approves of this Doctrin of St. Austin and saith Leo agreed with him The same is proved in the 5th Council to have been the Opinion of St. Cyril of the African Council c. Thus also Domnus was condemned at Chalcedon after his death and many of the old Hereticks Honorius was condemned by name sixty years after his death Yea Baronius who urges this in excuse of Vigilius in one place in another declares that it is a mistake and that the Church of Rome doth condemn Men after their death So as he is forced to commend and condemn the same Fact and to excuse this reason of Vigilius he
Anastasius speaks only of one banishment of Vigilius for refusing to restore Anthimius near two years after his coming to Constantinople in the life-time of Theodora who died Anno 548 according to Baronius and this is the banishment from which Vigilius was released at the intreaty of Narses according to Anastasius and so both Bellarmin and Sanders affirm from the Pontifical Wherefore they and all Writers place this banishment of Vigilius divers years before the fifth Council held Anno 553 So that the Exile after the fifth Council is a meer Forgery of Baronius who openly contradicts his Author as if he mistook the time only because the real time of Vigilius's Exile will not serve his design to excuse the Pope from dying in Heresie He rejects a Story about Vigilius told by Anastasius as a manifest Lye only because neither Facundus nor Procopius mention it By which Arguing it will appear not only that Vigilius was not banished after the fifth Council but that he was not banished at all because neither Victor Liberatus Evagrius nor Procopius who then lived and Victor is very particular in naming all that were exiled for this Cause do not once mention Vigilius his being banished no nor Photius Zonaras Cedrenus Glicas nor Nicephorus And Platina with other Western Writers take up this Fable upon the credit of Anastasius and Baronius improves it to serve a turn But Baronius asks If it be likely Justinian would spare Vigilius I reply Yes because he was a weak and inconstant man and he having so great a Post Justinian chose rather to connive at him than to harden others by punishing him whom he represents to the fifth Council as one who condemned the three Chapters for which Reason also he is not condemned by Name in the 5th Council Secondly Baronius tells us of great Liberties Gifts c. given to Vigilius upon his release and sending home which he brings as a proof of his consent to the fifth Council Whereas that Sanction granting some Priviledges to Italy is dated in August the 28th year of Justinian and Vigilius according to Victor an Eye-witness died not till the 31st of Justinian So that these Liberties were promised to Vigilius and other Romans long before the Council while Vigilius and the Emperour were very kind viz. in the 23th of Justinian but performed five year after yet three years before Vigilius death and so his dying before his return with these Priviledges is a Fiction But Baronius by meer guess places it falsly in Justinian's 29th years beginning only to colour the Fable His last Argument is from Liberatus saying he died afflicted by the Eutychians but was not crowned I reply he despises Leberatus Testimony as to an Epistle of Vigilius But Liberatus saith not he was banished or put to death for his Opinions yea he counts his condemning the three Chapters Heresie and doth not tell us how he suffered or died so that he is no Witness to this Fiction but an Evidence against it Chap. xviii Baronius's last exception is that this was no lawful General Council nor had any Authority till Vigilius confirmed it And Binius saith his Sentence gave it the Title of a General Council But we have shewed before this was a lawful General Council received by the whole Catholick Church Now they grant it was not confirmed till after it was parted and that it was never gathered by the Holy Ghost so that his Act afterwards cannot make a nullity valid The Cardinal and Binius both tell us it was no General Council at first being called though the Pope resisted and contradicted it yet Binius had said before Vigilius called the 5th Council by his Pontifical Authority Baronius also saith the Emperor called it according to the sentence of Vigilius And the Council charge Vigilius with promising in writing to meet with them and his own Letter printed there declares his consent to the assembling this Council Yet if he had opposed it so did Damasus the second Council at Constantinople which was held repugnante Damaso yet is accounted a lawful General Council and Cusanus saith if the Pope be negligent or refractory the Emperor may call a General Council And though he was not personally present in this Council yet he sent his Constitution which was his Decree ex Cathedra But saith Baronius their sentence was contrary to the Popes Decree and therefore it cannot be a lawful General Council Bellarmine also urges this for a Rule but the matter of Fact sufficiently confutes them since this Council which did Decree contrary to the Popes Sentence is and was always held lawful So was the second General Council good and valid being confirmed by an imperial Edict in July An. 381 though Damasus did not so much as hear of it till after the Council of Aquileia held in September that year and it seems by Pope Gregory that the Roman Church till his time had not received the Canons of it Yea the third Canon which Damasus and Leo both condemned and which Binius saith the Roman Church rejects to this day Yet all the while it was held Authentick and by it Anatolius held the second place at Chalcedon and Eutychius in the 5th Council by it St. Chrysostom deposed and ordained Bishops and held a Council in Asia So that both Canons and Custom had setled this Rule as is proved in the Council of Chalcedon And Justinian made those Canons of this second Council to be inserted into the Dypticks and to be read in Churches So that Canons are good and valid without the Popes Approbation as well as Councils whose Decrees have their force from the Subscriptions of the major part of Bishops there present though two of the Popes Legates or ten others did dissent especially when the Emperor confirms them by his Edict as Constantine did those of Nice Theodosius those of the second General Council c. In like manner Justinian confirmed this 5th Council And so it was valid without the Popes consent though absent Bishops others as well as those of Rome were desired to confirm a Council after it was past not to give any new Authority to it but to preserve Unity and to shew the Orthodoxy of these absent Bishops Chap. xx Omitting the 19th Chapter which treats of General Councils at large we proceed to Baronius lesser and remoter objections against this Council He begins with Justinian who called and confirmed it whom he taxes 1st for want of learning calling him an illiterate man who could not read a Letter for which he cites Suidas a late fabulous yea an Heretical Author But Platina commends Justinian for his great Learning and Wit So also Trithemius who with Possevine reckon him among Ecclesiastical Writers Pope Agatho and the 6th Council cite him as one of the
venerable Fathers and Witnesses of the Truth Liberatus an Enemy of his mentions his writing a Book against the Acephali Procopius speaks of his great diligence in reading the Christian Writings So that Gotofred in his Preface to the Institutes shews this is a meer a Calumny of Suidas but Baronius greedily repeats it over and over of pure malice to this learned Emperor His second Quarrel at him is for presuming to meddle in Causes of Faith and making Laws for Priests But did not all the Religious Kings of Judah do so Did not Constantine the two Theodosij and Martin the same And the 5th Council highly commend him for it The Code of Theodosius his Code and the Authenticks sufficiently prove this was done by the best of Princes Thirdly He reproaches him for his sacrilegious Fury in persecuting Vigilius Now I have proved before this beating and banishing of the Pope is a meer Fable and if he was persecuted or rather punished it was for Heresie and Constantine Theodosius the elder and younger and Martian are commended for the same Acts against the Arrians Macedonians Nestorians and Eutychians and St. Augustin justifies this proceeding Fourthly He charges him with falling into the Heresie of the Incorrupticolae in his last days writing an Edict for it and madly persecuting all the Orthodox especially Eutychius Bishop of Constantinople for opposing it for which he Rails intollerably at him saying all Authors Greek and Latin attest this Finally he dooms him to Hell for this But first Justinian did not publish such an Edict as Evagrius and Nicephorus his two main Witnesses attest and Baronius owns as much And Victor Bishop of Tunen who suffered under Justinian Imprisonment and speaks hardly of him is silent as to this Edict but shews he continued constant to his Edict against the three Chapters to his very death wherein he owns all the former General Councils And it is so far from truth that all Writers Greek and Latin charge him with that Heresie that neither Procopius Agathus Victor nor Liberatus do it nor Damascen though he treat of this Heresie nor Marcellinus Bede nor Anastasius Suidas saith he was most Orthodox Aimonius and Paulus Diaconus affirm he was for his Faith a Catholick And twenty other eminent Writers cited by this Author do all give him a great Character and Pope Gregory with many others after his death bestow on him the Title of Pious and of sacred Memory Baronius names but three Authors for this Slander First Nicephorus whom Possevine calls Heretical and Erroneous in History and the Cardinal in this Relation judges him to be a Fool and generally he is but Evagrius his Ape His second Witness is Eustathias But Surius is generally stuffed with fabulous Writers and such is this Eustathius falsly pretended to have writ Eutychius his Life for neither Photius Trithemius Possevine nor Sixtus Senensis mention any such Writer And the Story is full of Lyes for he makes Eutychius to come to Constantinople to the 5th Council and then to be chosen Bishop after Mennas death who died five years before this Council And this Eutychius was chosen full four years before it And he reckons that Eutychius was Banished twelve years whereas two years after his Banishment he crowned Justinius and was actually Patriarch when Justinius was sick and nominated Tiberius his associate and so could not as this Fabler pretends be desired from Banishment after Tiberius Reign began with Justin yet to make out this Lye Anastasius his latine Version of Nicephorus adds ten years to John Successor of Eutychius and makes him sit twelve year and seven Months who in Nicephorus sat but two years and seven Months 'T is true Eutychius was Banished by Justinian but it was for Prophesying of his Successors and for holding the Heresie of Origen as Pope Gregory witnesseth against which Justinian had put out an Edict and which was sentenced in the 5th Council And it was for opposing this Edict not an Heretical Edict that Eutychius was Banished So that thirdly Baronius hath no Author for this Slander of Justinian's being an Heretick but Evagrius who is owned by all to be a most fabulous Author as is proved in the History here very fully by many instances Now what is his credit against so many truer and better Historians Finally Whereas Baronius reviles Justinian as a destroyer of the Empire and the Church This Author largely proves out of the best Historians that Justinian was a Wise Pious and Victorious Prince the best Emperor as to his Laws his Buildings his Wars and his Love to Religion that ever sat on the Throne Imperial to which the Reader is referred Chap. xxi In like manner the Cardinal reviles Theodora the Empress as a Wicked Heretical Sacrilegious Mad Woman strook with death by Heavens vengeance upon Vigilius Excommunicating her But other Authors say she was like her Husband in her Studies and Manners Yea the Emperor gives her an excellent Character in his very Laws He also and the 6th Council after her death call her a Woman of Pious Memory Nor ought Baronius to revile her for thrusting Anthimius an Heretical Monster into the See of Constantinople as he doth An. 535. pag. 226. ut supr since there he owns that at his Election he seemed a Chatholick and that she favoured him as Orthodox yea he carried it so as to seem such to all As to her contending with Vigilius two years about the Restitution of Anthimius which Baronius relates An 547. pag. 357. it is a meer Fable for that Cause of Anthimius was determined long before and Victor saith that Vigilius and Theodora agreed after he came to Constantinople and that she persuaded him to condemn the three Chapters And he who best knew saith it was Pope Agapetus who excommunicated Theodora then favouring the Acephali So that Vigilius is by the Scribes mistake put for Agapetus in Gregory as appears by his speaking of the taking of Rome by the Goths immediately after which was the Sacking it by Vitiges after Agapetus his time or by Totilas which was not after but before this pretended Sentence of Vigilius against Theodora viz. that year Vigilius came to Constantinople From all which it is manifest that this Pope did never Excommunicate Theodora at all who in her latter Days was Orthodox but hated by the Nestorians for joyning with Justinian in condemning the three Chapters which also raises Baronius his spleen against her Chap. xxii His next attempt is against the three Chapters which he wishes had been condemned to Eternal silence buried and extinguished adding it had been better for the Church they had never been spoken of viz. because of the Troubles ensuing I reply so there was about the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But this settled the true
as these because those Laws are not there Chap. xxxiii Again Baronius saith That Epistle of Theodoret's to Nestorius intimating his agreeing with that Heretick and rejecting Cyril after the Union is a spurious addition to these Acts which he proves by Leontius who affirms some such Letters to be fictitious But will the Cardinal allow him to be good Evidence where he makes but 22 Canonical Books of the Old Testament And doth he not commend Theodorus of Mopsvestia and Diodorus and deny that ever Theodoret agreed with Nestorius But even Baronius owns him to have been a Nestorian so that in this case Leontius is of no Credit But that which is yet more strange That the Cardinal in contradiction to himself repeats and owns this very Epistle read in the fifth Council to have been writ by Theodoret after the Union to Nestorius and that he favoured him still yet he brags there is no mention of Theodoret's being addicted to Nestorius after the Peace made and that his Epistles to Dioscorus and Leo sufficiently wipe off that Aspersion But those Epistles are suspicious as first appearing out of a Vatican Copy And whereas the Union with Cyril was made An. 432. these Epistles were writ long after that to Dioscorus An. 444 and that to Leo An. 449. So that if these Epistles were genuine they do not prove he was Orthodox till ten or twelve year after the Union But two things prove them spurious First Theodoret boasts in them both that he had been 26 years a Bishop and a Preacher at Antioch yet none ever reproved his Doctrin yea that his Sense and the Churches always agreed having never been accused by any nor accused any Which is an horrid falshood for had he not been reproved by Cyril deposed by a General Council and subscribed the Condemnation of Cyril Secondly In both these Epistles he saith he had been 26 years a Bishop yet one was writ 5 years after the other and by Baronius his Computation he was but 21 years a Bishop when he writ to Dioscorus being made Bishop Anno 423. And his History which mentions the Translation of the Body of S. Chrysostom and so must be writ seven years after the Union commends Theodorus of Mopsvestia for Orthodox shews he was a Nestorian then Baronius would wipe off this by pretending he writ his History before the Quarrel about Nestorius but in the same place saith He follows Sozomen whose Book came out An. 439. in commending Theodorus So that after all his shifts Theodoret was a Favourer of Nestorius An. 436. when he writ that Epistle read in this fifth Council and long after Chap. xxxiv Baronius and Binius say The Acts are corrupted because they affirm an Epistle to John of Antioch wherein the Author rejoyces for Cyril's death was writ by Theodoret which they affirm was writ by an Impostor because John was dead seven years before Cyril I Reply That is a Mistake for John was made Bishop An. 427. and according to Nicephorus sat 18 years which reaches to the year 444. in which Baronius saith Cyril died But suppose John were dead when Theodoret writ this Baronius of all men should not make this a mark of Forgery who allows Clement's Epistle writ to James Bishop of Hierusalem who had been dead 30 year for genuine and so doth Binius And the Cardinal cites and commends an Epistle of Theodosius as authentick writ to S. Chrysostom 30 years after he was dead And Secondly the Epistle is Theodoret's but the Inscription only which should be to Domnus is mistaken for it is as plain by his Sermon before Domnus after Cyril's death which we have also in the fifth Council as by this Epistle that Theodoret was an Enemy to Cyril after his death and Baronins may well pardon the Error in the inscription of John's Name for Domnus for he allows innumerable Epistles Edicts c. to be genuine notwithstanding Errors in the Title and therefore for so small a mistake in the Title of an Epistle should not ask What credit is to be given to such Acts His own Annals have many greater Mistakes as the Author proves yet he would have us credit them Yea in this reckoning of John of Antioch's dying seven years before Cyril he mistakes the whole time almost according to Nicephorus and four years by his own reckoning of John's entring An. 427 dying 436 yet sitting 13 years for so John did not dye till 440 that is four year before S. Cyril And the Epistles of Theodoret to Dioscoras and Leo on which he depends for his Arithmetick are one or both of them forged We conclude therefore that the Epistle mentioned in the fifth Council was Theodoret's who was a Nestorian after S. Cyril's death and he writ it to Domnus not to John Bishop of Antioch Chap. xxxv But he who accuseth the fifth Council for Forgeries doth follow many forged Writings himself in his discourse about it First The Confession of Faith made by Mennas Theodorus of Caesarea and others by way of submission recorded in the very Constitution of Vigilius is Forged For as to the Matter of it How is it likely the Eastern Bishops should say They allowed all the Acts of the former four Councils made by consent of the Pope's Legates Or ask him pardon for Injuries which they say they had never done to him Or how agrees this with Baronius his saying Theodorus asked pardon for his Scoffs and Contumelies against Vigilius or with Vigilius his form of Excommunication of Theodorus for despising his Authority As to the time this Confession and Submission is said to be made after the Decree for Taciturnity which was never made viz. An. 552. And we have proved Mennas was dead five year before and that Theodorus did always stand firm against the three Chapters Secondly He cites one Eustathius out of Surius who is proved Fabulons before Thirdly The Epistles of Theodoret which were shewed before to be forged And we add That for all his brags to Dioscorus An. 444. he writes a kind Letter to Irenaeus a Nestorian deposed Bishop of Tyre And another to Nomus wherein he rails at the pious Emperour Theodosius by whom he and other Nestorians were deposed and his Writings forbidden while as he falsly asserts Arians and all other Hereticks were tolerated Theodoret therefore was a Nestorian 16 year after the Union with Cyril and these Epistles are Forged which say the contrary Fourthly He cites the Action at Chalcedon concerning Domnus which is a Vatican Forgery For it is not in the Greek nor in Liberatus Evagrius nor Nicephorus and that Domnus for whom subsistence is provided in this Forged Action was dead before the Council of Chalcedon as both Justinian and the fifth Council witness who for all Baronius frivolous Objections to support this Forgery must needs have truer Copies
of the Council of Chalcedon than his Vatican now affords And indeed Domnus was deposed in the Ephesine Pseudo-Synod all whose Acts were declared void at Chalcedon except that which deposed Domnus then deceased and put in Maximus at Antioch Fifthly Baronius cites Auastasius's Lives of the Popes who is always full of Fables especially in Vigilius his Life in which are more Lies than Lines For he makes his Entrance to be when Bellisarius warred against Vitiges who he saith was taken by John the Bloody and brought to Rome by Bellisarius and Vigilius who gave Bellisarius the Sacrament to bring Vitiges safe to Justinian But John and Narses were both absent at the taking of Ravenna where Vitiges freely submitted to Bellisarius who kept him there till he carried him by Sea to Constantinople So that Vitiges came not to Rome at all Secondly Anastasius says The Emperour then enquired of Bellisarius how he had placed Vigilius in Silverius room and thanked him for it But Silverius was deposed and Vigilius put in three years before yea Justinian had writ to Vigilius and knew that Silverius was dead a year before and Vigilius had writ to the Emperour the year before Bellisarius came with Vitiges to Constantinople and Binius saith Justinian did not thank Bellisarius Thirdly Anastasius talks of Bellisarius being sent into Africk and of his killing Gontharis and offering great Spoils in his return at Rome to Vigilius c. But after this Bellisarius was not sent into Africk but into Persia where he stayed three years and it was Ariobindus and Artabanus who were sent into Africk the latter of which treacherously killed Gontharis So that Bellisarius offered no Vandal Spoils at all or if as Binius would have it he did when he wan Rome from Vitiges that was in Silverius his time so that is false also Fourthly Anastasius makes Theodora write at this time to Vigilius To come to Constantinople and restore Anthimus which he refused Binius after Baronius makes this a Miraculous change and says it was just upon Silverius his death at his first step into the See But if it was after Gontharis was slain it was not till the 19th of Justinian five years or six years after Vigilius was made Pope And the Change is as false as The time for Liberatus saith Vigilius did perform his Promise to the Empress and writ as she desired but afterwards it seems he finding the Emperour resolute did confirm the Deposition of Anthimus So that Anastasius his Story of Theodora's writing to Vigilius after Gontharis was slain is a Fable And Victor who then lived saith Vigilius was called to Constantinople by the Emperour not about Anthimus but to condemn the three Chapters in his Nineteenth year Fifthly Anastasius fables That the Romans accused Vigilius of Murder c. and that Anthimus Sorbo was sent by the Empress to seize him by force which he did the People abusing and cursing him as he went out of Rome and thus he was violently carried by Sicily to Constantinople to which place coming on Christmas Even the Emperour met and kissed him with Tears and the People sang The Lord cometh But Baronius gives him the Lye as doth also Binius For Vigilius voluntarily went from Rome in the 11th year of the Gothic War An. 546. toward Constantinople and staying long in Sicily arrived at the Court about April of the year following Sixthly Anastasius tells a long Story after Vigilius came to Constantinople of the Contests between him and the Emperour with his Empress about restoring Anthimus which the Pope refusing they tore him from the Altar of S. Euphemia cruelly used him imprisoned and banished him Which are all Fables for Anthimus was deposed Ten years before and his Cause forgot the three Chapters being now the only dispute yea Baronius and Binius who would have something of this true make the buffeting of Vigilius and his flight to Euphemia's Church to happen four years after Theodorus's death and indeed in Pope Agapetus's time there was some such Contest about Anthimus which Anastasius fabulously applies to Vigilius and Baronius with Binius do cherish the Fiction Seventhly Anastasius tells us how the Goths after this made Totilas King who besieged and took Rome but spared the People and lived like a Father among them But Totilas was made King four or five year before Vigilius came to Constantinople and took Rome while he was in Sicily and was so cruel as to kill all the Citizens they met and intended to ruin both City and People had not Pelagius and Bellisarius stayed his Rage from places and persons however he made a woful desolation there Eighthly Anastasius saith Narses was sent at the same time into Italy and Totilas with many Goths were slain by the help saith Baronius of the Blessed Virgin But first he mistakes the time for Narses overcame not Totilas till six year after his first sacking Rome in the 18th year of the Gothick War and Binius with Baronius foolishly ascribe it to the Year wherein Justinian revoked his Edict which he never revoked at all and this Binius saith was the 10th year of Totilas as Benedict had predicted But Baronius proves Benedict a false Prophet for he truly places Totilas his death in the 11th year As to the help of the Blessed Virgin mentioned both by Baronius and Binius Procopius saith Narses did ascribe the Victory wholly to God and Evagrius doth not mention his praying to or relying on the Virgin but speaks of a Report by some of the Blessed Virgins appearing to him from God with notice when to fight but doth not affirm it for truth yet the Cardinal proves invocation of Sains by this Fable Lastly after this victory Anastasius tells us the Roman Clergy in a body desired Narses if Vigilius and the Clergy banished with him were yet alive they might be recalled whereas Vigilius was then at Constantinople and never banished at all yea the 5th Council was assembled that year in which Totilas was slain yet hence Baronius on the credit of this Fabulous Author invents a story of Vigilius Banishment after the 5th Council Chap. xxxvi Finally Baronius overlooking the Ambition Treachery and Heresie of Vigilius can find but one ill thing in his life which is his going to Constantinople when the Emperor required him this he saith was always fatal to the Catholick Church for the Pope to leave Rome Was it so when the Popes removed for 70 years to Avignion Was it so when Agaperus 10 years before came to Constantinople No saith Baronius that was lucky God sent him and the power of the Apostolick seat was thereby demonstrated So that the difference was in the Men Agapetus was a steddy Catholic Vigilius an Heretical Hypocrite Whose life
shall conclude this Treatise His Ambition early appeared in procuring Boniface the 2d contrary to the Canons to choose him for his Successor in a Synod But the Senate and the Laws of the Empire forced Boniface by a second Synod to vacate this Election of Vigilius Again upon Agapetus death he made a compact with Theodora the Empress that for 350 l. in Gold and the Papcy which she was to give he would restore Anthimus and disannul the Council of Chalcedon but coming to Rome he found Silverius in the Chair upon which he tampers with Bollisarius and shewing him the Empress ' s Mandate promises him 100 l. in Gold to make him Pope Whereupon Silverius was falsly accused of a Plot to betray Rome to the Goths deposed and banished and Vigilius thrust into the Seat Usurping it two years during Silverius life and acting all that time as lawful Pope viz. from An. 538. to An. 540. writing to and receiving Epistles from Justinian Caesarius Etherius c. But persidiously broke his promise both to Theodora and Bellisarius and would neither restore Anthimus for fear of the Romans nor pay Bellisarius the Money And cruelly uses poor Silverius banished to Patara who in a Synod there excommunicated Vigilius But the Emperor hearing of it sent him back to have the Cause heard more fully and being come into Italy Vigilius by new promises gets Bellisarius to put him into his Hands and sent him to the Island Palmaria and starved him to death there Upon this Baronius and Binius pretend a fit of Conscience took him and he abdicated the Papacy desiring to come in by a new Election of which he was sure by Bellisarius power And so the Hypocrit gets in a second time the Electors being inspired saith Baronius yet he hath till this moment described him as an Ambitious Deacon mad with Pride a Patron of Hereticks a Schismatick a Simoniack an Usurper a Successor of Simon Magus and an Antichrist Such was his entrance and his Acts were suitable for Liberatus saith he did write an Epistle pursuant to his promise to Theodora and Victor affirms that he writ unto Theodosius of Alexandria to Anthimus of Constantinople and to Severus of Antioch Eutychians deposed as to Catholicks assuring them he believed as they did but bids them not tell any so But Baronius says this Epistle is not his Bellarmin says it may be his but that it was only in shew and before he was Pope Baronius Quarrels at the Inscription as if he called Justinian and Theodora his Lords and Christs but Victor expresly saith it was writ not to them but to three Heretical Patriarchs and that the Inscription was To my Lords and Bretheren joyned to us in the Love of Christ our Saviour and for all Binius and his pretences it is not unusual for the Pope to call Eminent Bishops Lords Pope Urban calls Anselm Father and Master and Damasus calls Prosper and other Numidian Bishops his Lords Secondly He alledges that Liberatus falsly affirms that Vigilius in the Subscription of this Epistle condemned Dioscorus who was an Eutychian which is absurd in a Letter whereby he would prove himself of that Party To which it is replied it is an Error of the Scribe putting Dioscorus name for Nestorius of which Party all the rest were there named And the Annalist allows many such literal mistakes in Liberatus Thirdly Baronius asks if this were his Epistle why he was not upbraided with it by Theodora and others when he refused to restore Anthimus 'T is answered for ought he knows this was objected to Vigilius since none can argue ab Autoritate human◠negativè However it would have been objected had there been occasion but the Story of the restoring Anthimus is a Fiction of Anastasius as he applies it to be the ground of a Quarrel after Vigilius came to Constantinople As to Bellarmine's Note that owns the Epistle but says it was writ in Silverius his time before he was true Pope which excuse also Baronius Binius and Gretzer make We must Note that Liberatus an Author of that time relates it to be writ after Silverius death And when Silverius was returned back to Italy Bellisarius again pressed Vigilius to perform his promise to the Empress which doth evidently suppose he had not as yet performed it An. 540. And since Silverius died in June that year soon after he fell into Vigilius hands we may justly think he was too busie in dispatching him and contriving his new Election to write this till after he was real and sole Pope so that Nauclerus puts after Silverius death Theodora's demanding of him to fulfil his promise But they object that at this time he condemned Anthimus and confirmed the Council of Chalcedon in his Epistles to Justinian and Mennas and so it is not likely he should write the contrary to these Bishops just then 'T is answered he was a Notorious Hypocrite as they own and so might write on Opinion openly to delude the Emperor and another secretly to the Hereticks and for all Bellarmine's pretences this last was his heart and mind for why should he dissemble in secret with his Friends with whom as he tells them he had but one Soul He might very likely dissemble with the Emperor for fear of being expelled out of the Seat he so much coveted But what hurt or good could deposed Bishops do him Fear therefore not an Orthodox mind restrained him from openly condemning the true Faith and his Ambition to keep his high Station made him do it privately only Which shews the weakness of Bellarmine's excuse as if he did not write this ex animo And equally frivolous is that pretence of his not writing it as Pope for when he writes of a matter of Faith and defines and declares it he either writes as Pope then or never for that is his proper office And the Nestorians might make all these objections against his Orthodox Epistle to the Emperor The second Act of Vigilius was his Constitution for Nestorianism by which he run into the contrary Heresie to that wherein he was dipt before which hath been sufficiently manifested in this Treatise There remains now only his Exit to be considered of which Liberatus only saith How Vigilius being afflicted by Heresie died is known to all Bellarmine expounds him that it was that same Heresie which he first secretly favoured that afflicted him Baronius observes he was by Gods just Judgment miserably tossed all his Life hated by the Emperor and Eastern Bishops for defending the three Chapters and execrable to the Western for his inconstancy and when he was just coming into the Haven died before he could reach home in Sicily of the Torment of the Stone As he had Murdered his Predecessor a little before in an Island so he died in one And here we leave
defending them 't is plain they knew his Mind and do particularly confute his Constitution only sparing his name yea 't is Evident they lookt on him as a sickle Man and published nothing but his first and soundest Judgment and never ceased acting vigorously for all his dissent for the Greeks at Chalcedon had shewed they looked on a Councils Decrees as valid though the Pope opposed them After all he hath no Witnesses of his Exile but the fabulous Anastasius all the Greeks he confesses are silent as to his sufferings and so are all Authentick Latin Histories too The Epistle of Peter of Antioch was writ 500 year after and only speaks of some difference between Vigilius and Mennas which must be at his first coming to Constantinople Anno 547 but that is nothing to this time after the Council It seems strange that Vigilius should pass for so great a Politician by the art used in this Epistle for if it were his I should think he never intended to confirm the fifth Council by it because he never names it which silence must proceed either from his fear to anger the Western Bishops with whom he joyned still in heart or from his hope that the bare recanting his Opinions would cajole the Emperor and his Greeks and if we consider his Hypocrisie and often changes both of these might make him omit the naming the fifth Council But being a Forgery we need not any conjectures about the reason of a non-entity Yet if I were convinced Vigilius writ this Epistle I should believe the date was false and that this was his first Recantation after he came to Constantinople before this Synod met which is the most probable reason why he did not name this fifth Synod viz. because no such had yet been It was not the Greeks but the Latins who put this Epistle to the end of the Acts of the fifth Synod for in their Vatican it was first pretended to be found but whoever added it must be very weak to imagin an unlawful Synod could be confirmed by a Popes private Opinion delivered six months after or that any body else should receive a Council upon his Authority who did not own it himself Photius lived 300 year after this Council had been owned for a General Council and what he saith may well be explained of the Letters of his which were read in the Council importing that once he was of their mind The Arabick Manuscript is so full of mistakes that its Authority must be inconsiderable it says that the living and dead were never excommunicated before this Synod and that the Popes profession of Faith was writ not to Eutychius but to the Emperor Justinian And all these Testimonies amount to no more than that which the Emperor and the Council both gave out that Vigilius was as indeed he had often declared of the Councils Opinion 'T is certain Pelagius the first Vigilius his immediate successor and who was with him at Constantinople did own this for a General Council and if Vigilius had changed his mind as Pelagius had done so as to confirm the fifth Council he must have known of it and for his own vindication would have pleaded this Writing of Vigilius to satisfie the Western Bishops who rejected his Communion and his silence of Vigilius consent and confirmation is next to demonstration that he know of no such thing and that no such thing ever was As for all the rest they owned it for a lawful General Council but not one of them knew of the subsequent consent of Vigilius The next thing in de Marca is the consideration of the reasons moving Vigilius to make this Decree the first of which is notoriously false For this forged Epistle saith that now the whole World and the Church was restored to Peace and our Author thinks the Illyrican and African Bishops were now reconciled to the Condemners of the three Chapters Whereas 't is plain Liberatus did not write his Breviary till Vigilius his death that is two year after the date of this feigned Epistle and he shews how woful a Schism and Scandal there was then in the Church especially in Africa And Victor one of the African Bishops of that side died in restraint after he had suffered much in defence of the three Chapters thirteen years after As to the Western Bishops how could their being restored to Peace be a motive to Vigilius to recant An. 553. when three year after his successor Pelagius was struggling with them to bring them to Peace and could not do it then without some force And our Author owns that the French Spanish and Italian Bishops did not come in till Pelagius had been some time in the Chair and Baronius saith the same so that his first reason is not so much as true I shall only add that Justinian acted very sincerely in this matter and Leontius slanders him in supposing otherwise for his Judgment was that the three Chapters were to be condemned both Opinions and Persons the Heretical Doctrins and Hereticks too if they had not recanted But perhaps Vigilius might act dispensatively in this change for it is likely he still kept a Nestorian Heart only this spoils his second reason why Vigilius writ this Epistle viz. Christ having enlightned his Mind God revealing and he diligently enquiring was now come to the knowledge of the Truth For if after all Vigilius did only confirm them dispensatively that supposes he did not believe the points to be either necessary or true but only such as might be professed for peace sake and if that were all what an Hypocrite must this Pope be to talk of a change of his Mind and coming to know the truth by Illumination Revelaâ—â—on and Study In vain doth he and his Patron alledge the Example of St. Augustin St. Paul and St. Peter for did St. Augustin retract things and pretend to be convinced of his Mistakes only dispensatively that is secretly believing still they might be true Did St. Paul only believe the Gospel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after his Conversion Or was St. Peter a Jew in his Heart after he consented to discharge the Gentiles from the Ceremonies of the Law Pelagius the Second's Arguments are good as to the Roman Clergy who sincerely opposed the truth for a time but upon Conviction as sincerely embraced it But to apply these instances to such a Proteus and Dissembler as Vigilius is to prostitute them rather than defend him who often dispensed with himself in the duties of Morality If Vigilius had gon to the Council he might have learned those two Rules de Marca speaks of in six days without the help of Revelation But the feigned Epistle says nothing of such Rules it pretends that Vigilius now understood the Person and Writings of Theodorus and the Writings of Theodoret and Ibas against Cyril were Heretical and that it was his duty to pronounce them Heretical
it be noted Domnus was condemned at Chalcedon for an Heretick in that he decreed silence should be kept about Cyril's twelve Chapters And by that Rule Vigilius would have been Heretical for his Decree Whereas the truth is he never made any such Decree for Justinian affirms that from his first coming to Constantinople until the Council he always was for condemning the three Chapters and as the Emperors messenger affirms to the 5th Council then assembled he often promised to joyn with them in it Nor did Vigilius observe his own Decree which is pretended to be made An. 547. the 21st of Justinian and to have silenced all Disputes For in the 22d year of that Emperor the two Roman Deacons above named accused Vigilius for condeming the three Chapters by their Leuers to divers Bishops In Justinian's 23d year Vigilius purges himself to Valentinianus from these Slanders by appealing to his Judgment sent unto Mennas to which he declares he then adhered In the Emperors 24th year he writ the like Apology to Aurelianus and as Baronius proves the same year he published his Sentence against Rusticus Sabinianus and others for defending the three Chapters Now how could he by word and writing thus sentence and punish all that disliked his Condemnation of the three Chapters and appeal to his Judgment in that case if there had been a revocation of it and a Synodal Decree of Taciturnity three year before Nor did Justinian know of or consent to any such Decree for Victor saith in his 22d year he writ for the Condemnation of the three Chapters compelling divers Bishops to condemn them The next year the Illyrian Bishops persuaded the Emperor not to proceed so so did Faeundus in the 24th year but he that year called the Council at Mopsvestia to condemn Theodorus In his 25th year Victor and Liberatus declared he dealt with the African Primates and Bishops to condemn these Chapters and got Zoilus Patriarch of Alexandria deprived for refusing it and in his 26th year just before the Council he Banished several obstinate Afrirican Bishops So it is very ridiculous in Baronius to speak of the Emperor's publishing his Edict An. 25th since it was published long before and to pretend he revoked it the next year since Justinian every year writ and acted in the defence of it We add that neither did Theodorus and the Catholicks observe this Decree of silence for Vigilius sentences them for writing against the defenders of these Chapters No nor yet did the Hereticks value it for they writ warmly for the three Chapters all that time Yea Victor notes that the Illyrian Synod in the 23d year of Justinian and the African in the 24th writ for the three Chapters Well but Baronius cites publick Acts for this Decree and the subsequent agreement between Vigilius and Mennas But these Acts are forged being dated An. 25. Justin An. 10. post consul Basil where Baronius places the suspension of Mennas and his submission next year after But Mennas died the 21st year of Justinian that is five year before as the Popes Legates prove in the sixth General Council and by that shew these Publick Acts were forged yea Baronius who here cites these Acts to colour over this Fable there owns the Acts to be forged and expresly says Mennas certainly died in the 21st year of Justinian So that we may conclude this Decree of Silence and Mennas suspension with the rest are a notorious Fable invented only to save the Credit of Pope Vigilius Chap. xvii And so is his confirming the fifth Council either before or after his supposed Exile which Baronius and others so boldly affirm For that he did not confirm it neither during its Session nor soon after Baronius proves because his Letters would then have been annexed to the Council And he confesses the Reason moving Pelagius the next Pope to confirm it was That he found the Eastern Church in a Schism by Vigilius his Constitution which could not have been if Vigilius in his Life had revoked that Constitution Again the Western Church rejected the fifth Council all the time of Vigilius for there could be found but two Western Bishops who would consecrate Pelagius after he was chosen Pope because be condemned the three Chapters saith Victor and as Baronius adds because they abhorred the fifth General Council yea a Council at Aquileia condemned the fifth Council An. 554 urging that Pope Vigilius did not agree with it and in this Opinion they remained till Pelagius the second 20 years after Vigilius death and more An. 577. instructed them that the Apostolick Seat understanding the Controversie better after Vigilius his time had changed its Judgment which Letter of this Pelagius is annexed to the fifth Council and by Binius compared to the Epistle of Leo to Flavianus Which Argument shews that Pelagius never heard that Vigilius changed his Judgment or confirmed the fifth Council As to Evagrius who saith Baronius with all the Greek Writers do affirm that Vigilius by his Letters consented to the Council since he did not this during the Council nor shortly after being banished we must assert he consented when he was freed from Exile So the Cardinal I Reply This is very fallacious for neither Evagrius nor any Greek Writer say any more than That Vigilius did by Letter consent to the fifth Synod But Evagrius adds yet would not be present in it By which it is clear the Historian means nothing but that consent which by word and writing he had often given as to the Synods Opinion before they met of which the fifth Council often complains because he denied it and flew off afterwards and it was these precedent Writings that both Nicephorus s and Photius mean Wherefore it is falsly done of Baronius to apply this to a subsequent Decree for confirming the fifth Council after it was ended Baronius his last Argument is That since Vigilius was banished for not consenting to the fifth Synod 't is not likely he should be released till he had confirmed it But first the consequence is not good for Justinian might restore him to gratifie so great a Subject as Narses and Narses might intreat the Emperour to oblige the Roman Clergy who then were Enemies to the fifth Synod Secondly which is worse The whole story of this Banishment and Release is fabulous For no Author but Anastasius mentions this last Exile who is very fabulous and here much mistaken for he saith Pelagius was present at this Release and then set free Whereas Victor who then was at Constantinople saith Vigilius died in Sicily the 16th year after Basilius his Consulship and that Pelagius was not re-called from banishment till the year after Vigilius his death and so could not as Anastasius saith be released with him Besides