accepted in Africa as authoritative; and, in fact, although S. Gratus, Bishop of Carthage, had been there, all recollection of the true Council of Sardica seems to have completely passed away from the mind of the African Church. But the Council of Nicaea was venerated in Africa as elsewhere, and its canons were received as authoritative. When the legates quoted the Sardican canon as if it were Nicene, the African bishops must have been thoroughly puzzled. They thought they knew the Nicene canons well, and this canon quoted by the legates, which allowed appeals to Rome, was completely new to them. It was not in the copy of the Nicene canons which Bishop Caecilian of Carthage, who had been present at the Council of Nicaea, had brought back with him to Africa;2 nor in any of the other copies, whether in Greek or Latin, which were preserved in the archives of the Church of Carthage. However, the bishops took a most conciliatory course, and wrote to Zosimus, telling him that the canon quoted by his legates was not in their copies of the Nicene canons, but that they would provisionally consent to observe it until further investigation had cleared the matter up. It is not certain whether Zosimus ever received this letter, as he died in the latter part of December in that year, and was succeeded by Boniface.

On May 25 of the following year, 419, a plenary council, at which all the African provinces were represented, was held at Carthage, under the presidency of S. Aurelius, the bishop of that see. Next to S. Aurelius sat Valentinus, the Primate of Numidia. After him Faustinus, the papal chief legate. Then followed in due order all the African bishops who were present, 217 in number, including S. Augustine and S. Alypius. Last of all sat the two Roman priests, Philip and Asellus, the junior legates of the pope. The council determined, in seventeenth) canon of Sardica; and as in the previous case, they attributed to the Council of Nicaea a canon which was really passed at Sardica.

At a Council of Carthage, held soon after the year 343, the Bishop of Carthage, S. Gratus, referred to the Council of Sardica by name, and recalled the provisions of the fifteenth (al. nineteenth) Sardican canon (Coleti, ii. 749). But the only Council of Sardica known to S. Augustine in 397, when he wrote to Eleusius (Ep. xliv., Opp., ii. 103), and in 406, when he wrote against Cresconius (Contra Crescon., iii. 34, et iv. 44, Opp., ix. 454, 509), was the Arianizing Council of Philippopolis. The reference to the Council of Sardica, in the report of the speech of Bishop Novatus, at the Council of Carthage, in May, 419 (Coleti, iii. 446), has evidently crept into the text from the margin.

2

My own belief is that Bishop Caecilian brought back from Nicaea a Greek copy of the canons. Maassen holds, without sufficient reason as it seems to me, that a Latin version of the canons was made at Nicaea, a copy of which was brought to Carthage by Caecilian. Compare pp. 139, 434.

3 At the council held in May, 419, S. Alypius, speaking of the canons alleged by Faustinus, said, evidently with a twinkle in his eye, "When we inspected the Greek copies of this Nicene Synod, somehow or other, I know not why, we utterly failed to find them there" (Coleti, iii. 445).

spite of the protest of the legate Faustinus, that they would write to the Bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, and ask them to send to Carthage authenticated copies of the Nicene canons, as preserved in the archives of their several churches, so that the question might be once for all settled whether the canon alleged by Pope Zosimus and his legates was really a genuine canon of Nicaea or not. They also determined to write to the new pope, Boniface, inviting him to make similar inquiries. Moreover, they ratified the action of the council held the year before, when Faustinus first arrived in Africa; and determined that provisionally they would act upon the canon alleged by the pope, which granted to bishops a restricted appeal from local synods to Rome; that, if on inquiry it should clearly appear that that canon was really Nicene, they would accept it absolutely, and act upon it in the future; but that, if it should appear that the pope had made some mistake, a council should be convoked which should decide what was to be done. As for Apiarius, he besought the council to grant him forgiveness; and then the legate Faustinus interceded for him; and so it was determined that he should be restored to communion and to the exercise of his priestly ministry, but should be required to remove out of the diocese of Sicca, where he had given much scandal. The council could not help observing that, even if the canons alleged by the legates were really Nicene and consequently binding in Africa, they gave no authority to the pope to summon bishops to Rome, nor to restore priests to communion in Rome after they had been excommunicated in their own diocese or province. Zosimus, while quoting the canons of Sardica to the Africans, had in no way observed them himself. The council, therefore, in its letter to Pope Boniface, writes as follows: "To the most blessed lord and honourable brother, Boniface; . . .' Then, after a summary of what had taken place, they continue, "We took care also to intimate last year by our letter to the same Zosimus, bishop of venerable memory, that we would for a short time permit these rules to be observed without any injury to him, until he had investigated the statutes of the Nicene Council. And now we request of your holiness to cause us to keep whatever was really ordained by the Fathers at Nicaea, and also to take care that those rules, which are written in the instructions brought by the legates, be really carried out by you in Italy ;" and then they quote the words of the Sardican canons alleged by the legates. They go on to say, "These rules we have at all events inserted in the acts of our council until the arrival of the genuine copies of the Nicene Synod. And should they be there contained, as they

were enacted, and as they appear in the commonitorium, which was quoted in our council by the brethren sent from the apostolic see, and should they also be observed strictly by you in Italy, we could by no means be compelled to endure such treatment as we are unwilling to mention, or to suffer what is unendurable." In other words, the council means to say, "If your alleged canons are really Nicene, we will keep them, but we must beg that they be kept strictly by you also. If you do keep them, there will be no pretence of undoing our African sentences in Rome, as Zosimus professed to restore Apiarius; and there will be no claim to summon our bishops to Rome, as was threatened by Zosimus in regard to our brother Urban, Bishop of Sicca;1 and there will be no sending of Roman legates to sit uninvited with our bishops to hear the appeals of presbyters. Such modes of action are unmentionable and unbearable."" Then remembering that Zosimus was now dead, and that Boniface was pope, they continue, "But we trust, by the mercy of our Lord God, that while your holiness presides over the Roman Church, we shall not have to endure such arrogance as that (non sumus jam istum typhum passuri); and that a course of proceeding will be maintained towards us such as ought to be observed, even without our having to speak about it." Such was the style in which this great council of more than two hundred bishops, under the guidance of such glorious saints as S. Augustine, S. Aurelius, and S. Alypius, thought that it was right and proper for them to address the pope. I leave you to consider whether any Roman Catholic synod would think of writing such a letter now. On the principles of the Vatican Council, they could not do it. On our Anglican principles, or rather on our Catholic principles, it would be the most natural thing in the world. How does this come about? It comes about, because S. Augustine and the African saints thought of the pope substantially as we should have thought of him, if, with our present views, we had lived in the fifth century. But the

The African Fathers had copied out at full length in their letter, from Zosimus' commonitorium, the Sardican canons, which require that, in the case of an appeal to Rome, the rehearing shall take place, not at Rome, but in the country where the cause began; and which in the case of presbyters grant no appeal to Rome of any sort or kind.

Zosimus seems to have been a disturber, not only of the African and Gallican churches, but also of his own local church at Rome. Mgr. Duchesne (Fastes Episcopaux de l'ancienne Gaule, i. 106) says concerning this pope, "Son esprit inquiet, son humeur cassante, avaient tellement troublé le clergé Romain lui-même qu'un schisme éclata sur sa tombe." For his dealings with the Gallican Church, see note 2 on pp. 151, 152.

The whole letter is given by Coleti (iii. 528-530), and also by Migne (P. L., xx. 752-756).

'Of course the extravagant papalism of later times, and especially the decrees

modern Roman Catholics, who accept the Vatican Council, think of him in a totally different way. We are quite content to find ourselves, in such a matter, on S. Augustine's side.

Before we go on with the story, we ought to notice that the pope apparently did not venture to base his claims to receive appeals on any inherent right of his see, derived from S. Peter. It was all very well to do that when writing to simple-minded bishops in Illyricum or Spain, but when writing to Africa, he knew that he was dealing with bishops, some of whom were the most learned and able theologians then alive. To use Petrine arguments of the Roman sort, when in controversy with them, would be to run the risk of having the whole fallacy of those arguments exposed with all the force and persuasiveness of such a pen as S. Augustine's. Pope Zosimus no doubt felt that discretion was the better part of valour, and therefore humbly based his claim on the grant of the Church, as expressed in the canons which he alleged, and which he wrongly called Nicene. This highly discreet method of proceeding ought to be remembered. It is very characteristic. However, though in one sense the pope may have acted discreetly, his whole proceeding was so utterly un-Catholic, that it called forth from the African bishops a well-deserved rebuke. The pope's action, in their view, was "intolerable," "unmentionable," and the outcome of "arrogance;" and they do not hesitate to use these very plain expressions when reviewing the whole matter in a letter to Zosimus' successor. There is, of course, in all this no cause for surprise. It is what one would expect from such great saints. But to return to our story. Towards the end of the year 419, replies from S. Atticus, Bishop of Constantinople, and from S. Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, arrived in Carthage. These two prelates sent correct copies of the Nicene canons, which were found to tally in substance with the copies already at Carthage.1 Naturally the Sardican canons alleged by Rome were not among them. A council might have been convened at once to put an end to the provisional acceptance of the Sardican system of appeals. But apparently the African Church preferred to wait until a convenient opportunity for reopening the matter occurred. Nothing is more remarkable throughout this history than the wisdom and moderation of the great men who at that time guided the African Church. The fitting opportunity did not of the Vatican Council, have forced us into a position into which S. Augustine was not forced.

On the documents sent to Carthage by S. Cyril, which seem to be preserved in the Theodosian MS. at Verona [Cod. Veron., 1x. (58)], see the very interesting paper by Mr. C. H. Turner, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, which appeared in the Guardian for December 11, 1895, pp. 1921, 1922.

in their judgement present itself until about seven years had passed. During that interval or parenthesis appeals to Rome from Africa were allowed in the case of bishops, in accordance with the agreement. The matter was reopened in consequence of fresh scandals arising in connexion with Apiarius. Since his restoration to communion he had been living at Tabraca, in the proconsular province. Here he acted in such a way that the inhabitants were obliged to accuse him of enormous crimes, and he was cut off from communion. Instead of attempting to justify himself, he went off to Rome, pretending that he had appealed to the pope, although he certainly never did appeal in any formal way. Of course the African bishops would never have allowed a mere priest to appeal to Rome; for such an appeal was not allowed even by the canons of Sardica. Appeals to Rome by priests in disciplinary causes were unknown in Africa until Apiarius, in his previous trouble, had first led the way. The African Church had promptly taken measures to prevent the repetition of such an irregular proceeding, by passing a canon in the great council of May, 418, which concluded as follows: "Whoever appeals to a court on the other side of the sea [ie. to Rome], may not again be received into communion by any one in Africa.' It is therefore evident that on this second occasion Apiarius did not appeal in any formal way. Such a formal act would not have been allowed. He simply slunk off to Rome, and besought the pope to admit him to communion. By this time Boniface was dead, and Celestine

4

1 Dom Coustant has well summarized (P. L., 1. 422, n.) Tillemont's argument in favour of the year 426 as being the probable date of the twentieth Carthaginian Council under Aurelius, the council which concluded the affair of Apiarius. The Ballerini (De Antiq. Collection. et Collector., pars ii. cap. iii. § 9, n. 59, P. L., lvi. 121) agree with Tillemont and Coustant.

2 Tillemont (xiii. 865) has accounted satisfactorily for the prolongation of the agreement until 426.

3 Compare Hefele, ii. 463, Eng. trans.

Hefele's Councils, Eng. trans., ii. 461 (see also p. 463); and compare Ballerinor. Obss. in Dissert. v. Quesnell., pars i. cap. v. n. 21, P. L., lv. 566. It is to be noted that the Ballerini and Hefele agree that it was the appeal of Apiarius which led to the legislation against such appeals in May, 418. It is worth while quoting the extraordinary explanation of this canon, given by Father Bottalla, S.J., a professor in S. Beuno's College, North Wales. He says (Supreme Authority of the Pope, p. 151), "The African Synod, in the above-mentioned canon, forbade nothing but the formal and judicial appeal of the inferior clergy to the see of Rome; it did not, and it could not, forbid their private recourse to the supreme pastor of the Church; and if, under any exceptional circumstances, the pope saw fit, he might suspend the effect of the general canon, and enable the condemned priest or deacon to lay a formal and judicial appeal before his court." Assuredly, if the Fathers of the African Church had accepted all this, they would never have ventured to meddle with a matter so completely beyond their control. In their letter to Celestine they expressly call on the pope to reject these private appeals to his see, which they describe as "improba refugia," a very proper title for such scandalous transactions.