had passed sentence on him; and that at a later stage, probably in 423, S. Augustine wrote to Pope Celestine (Boniface having died on the 4th of September, 422), imploring him not to reinstate Anthony in the see of Fussala, thereby acknowledging his right to do so.1 Will it be believed that the whole of this transaction happened during that interval of seven years when the African Church, in pursuance of its temporary compact, allowed bishops to appeal to Rome? The argument deducible from S. Augustine's action in this matter falls entirely to the ground, and ought never to have been put forward.

But there is one point connected with this case of Anthony of Fussala which it may be well to notice. When Pope Boniface sent messengers into Africa with letters ordering that Anthony should be reinstated in his see, if he had made a true statement of his case to the pope, the people of Fussala were threatened with coercion by the secular arm, and they were told that soldiers would be sent to Fussala to force them to obey the sentence of the apostolic see. Here we see the effects of the laws of Valentinian and Gratian. The decisions of the pope in such a case, though they had no canonical force in Africa except under the temporary compact, had complete legal validity, and they could be enforced by the whole power of the Roman Empire. No wonder that in places where the bishops did not rise to the height of heroic sanctity which characterized S. Augustine and some of his African brethren, the local churches gave way to the

1 Cf. S. Aug. Ep. ccix., Opp., ed. Ben., ii. 777-780. It appears from this letter that Anthony argued that he ought either to have been deprived of the episcopate altogether, or to have been left in possession of his see of Fussala. His contention was that a bishop could not be punished with a minor penalty. In his reply to this argument, S. Augustine, writing to the pope, naturally looks about for precedents in proof of the position that minor penalties had been in past times inflicted on bishops in sentences which had been sanctioned by the see of Rome. He says, "There are cases on record, in which the apostolic see, either pronouncing judgement or ratifying the judgement of others, became responsible for decisions, according to which certain bishops, who had been found guilty of certain kinds of wrong-doing, were neither deprived of the honour of the episcopate, nor left altogether unpunished. I will not search out cases very remote from our times, but I will mention recent cases." Then he mentions three cases of bishops, who had been punished recently with minor penalties. All the three cases had arisen in the African province of Mauritania Caesariensis. As Tillemont (xiii. 1036) suggests, they may all have belonged to the period between 418 and 426, during which the African Church allowed appeals to Rome. In some of these cases Rome may have ratified the African sentence; in others Rome may have softened a more stringent sentence, and may have appointed a minor penalty. As for the "cases very remote from our times," which S. Augustine declines to search out, they may have been cases which arose in the suburbicarian regions, in which the pope was metropolitan, or in Eastern Illyricum, where appeals to Rome were allowed. The explicit statements of the Council of Carthage cannot be overthrown by doubtful hypotheses concerning precedents of which we know nothing.

papal pretensions, and accepted law and justice from the pope's mouth. There is nothing more absolutely certain in the history of the Church than that the papal jurisdiction1 outside the suburbicarian provinces mainly arose out of the legislation of the State. One may truly say that Erastianism begat it, and forgery developed it. I except, of course, the very restricted jurisdiction given at Sardica by canons which were at first only received in a relatively small portion of the Church, and which were never received in the greater part of the East as applicable to the East.

Let us now pass from Africa to Gaul, and inquire how the new papal claims were treated there. I might draw your attention to the case of Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, a man of saintly life, who was treated very unbecomingly by Pope Zosimus. That pope ventured to summon Proculus to Rome, but to this summons Proculus paid no attention; and Zosimus took steps to deprive him of his see, no doubt trusting to the aid of the civil power to secure that these uncanonical acts, which constituted an invasion of the jurisdiction of the provinces of Gaul, should practically take effect. But the death of Zosimus put an end to the whole affair.2

I prefer, however, to dwell on the case of S. Hilary of Arles, because his righteous resistance to the arbitrary interference of Pope S. Leo, though it constitutes an additional reason for honouring his holy memory, was nevertheless the occasion of the issuing of another imperial rescript, which enlarged the papal power, and did much to rivet its chains on the churches of the Western empire. S. Hilary was Metropolitan of Arles, a see which appears to have enjoyed, in the fifth century, a certain pre-eminence among the metropolitical sees of Gaul. He was a great friend of S. German of Auxerre, a saint to whom our own island is so greatly indebted, in that he was God's instrument for putting down Pelagianism in the British Church. In the year 444 S. Hilary was visiting S. German at Auxerre. While he was there, various illustrious persons and others came to him and to S. German, bringing complaints against Chelidonius, Bishop of Besançon. I am bound to say that the complaints would not strike us, in the nineteenth century, as anything very

It may be well to call attention to the fact that I am dealing in the text with papal jurisdiction. The primacy of honour and influence enjoyed by the Roman Church, as an apostolic Church planted in the metropolis of the civilized world, can be traced back to sub-apostolic times.

2 For Mgr. Duchesne's treatment of the case of Bishop Proculus, see note 2 on pp. 151, 152.

In the fifth century Arles had succeeded Trier as the centre of the imperial administration of the prefecture of the Gauls. In consequence of this civil primacy a certain measure of pre-eminence would inevitably accrue to the bishop.

serious. But S. Hilary and S. German would, of course, look at them according to the ideas of the fifth century, and according to the actual discipline of the Church at that epoch. It appears that Chelidonius had, as a layman, married a widow; and the canons ordered that such a person should never be consecrated to the episcopate, even after his wife's death. A rule of that kind had been formulated at the Council of Valence, in the year 374,1 and it appears also in the decretal epistle of Pope Siricius to Himerius of Tarragona.2 Moreover, it was thoroughly accepted by S. Leo, and by the whole Western Church of that age. It was a sort of extension of S. Paul's rule, that a man who had been the husband of more than one wife was not a proper person to be ordained. Chelidonius had also, before his ordination, held some judicial office, in the fulfilment of which he had been obliged to condemn various people to death; and according to the ecclesiastical law this fact disqualified him for the episcopate. There was no question that if the allegations were wellfounded, then, according to the canons of the Church in that age, Chelidonius ought to be deposed. Accordingly, a council was summoned to meet at Besançon, at which both S. Hilary and S. German were present, and S. Hilary presided. Besançon was not in the province of Arles. Duchesne thinks that the region of Gaul, in which Besançon is situated, had not yet been organized under a metropolitan. If it be asked by what right S. Hilary did what he did in this matter in a place outside his province, the answer is obvious: "Hilaire avait sans doute agi en vertu du droit et même du devoir moral qui incombe à tout évêque de veiller autour de lui à ce que la discipline soit respectée." I quote the words of Duchesne.1 Anyhow, S. Hilary and the council determined that the facts were proved, and that Chelidonius ought to resign his office. This apparently he refused to do, and consequently the council proceeded to depose and excommunicate him, as a rebel against the authority of the Church.5 Thereupon Chelidonius went to Rome, and complained that he had been unjustly condemned. Tillemont says that Pope S. Leo, apparently without any investigation, admitted Chelidonius at once to communion. Herein, as Tillemont points out, S. Leo seems to have followed the example of his predecessors, Zosimus and Celestine, who, without proper inquiry, admitted the miserabie Apiarius to communion when he took refuge with them. The Roman Church seems to have been so

2 Ibid., ii. 1217.

3 1 Tim. iii. 2, 12.

1 Coleti, ii. 1067. Fastes Episcopaux de l'Ancienne Gaule, i. 112, 113. After Chelidonius' deposition Importunus was consecrated to fill the vacant see (see Tillemont, xv. 85).

possessed with the desire of domination, that it thought nothing of overthrowing the fundamental rules on which the discipline and unity of the Church rest. When S. Hilary heard what had happened at Rome, he started off on foot in the middle of winter, and, crossing the Alps, he arrived, still on foot, in the eternal city. He visited first the tombs of the two great apostles and the relics of the martyrs, and then he went to pay his respects to the pope. He begged him, very deferentially, to see that the Church's rule was not broken by the admission of persons to communion in Rome, who had been formally excommunicated in Gaul. S. Hilary_in_no way proposed to accept S. Leo as judge in this matter. The pope had no ground for claiming such a position. All that S. Hilary wished to do was to state clearly the facts of the case, and to beg the pope to maintain in Rome the discipline of the Church. S. Hilary had a great deal to put up with during his sojourn in the city. His biographer, S. Honoratus of Marseilles, tells us that he in no way feared those who threatened him; that he overcame those who disputed with him; that he did not yield to the powerful; that, even though he was in danger of his life, he would in no way admit to his communion a man whom he, in conjunction with such great men as S. German of Auxerre and the other Gallican bishops, had condemned.4 While he was in Rome he attended a

1 I think that the words used in the text are a not unfair description of the general spirit of the Roman Church, from the time of Damasus onwards; but I am not prepared to say that, in his admission of Chelidonius to communion, when that excommunicated bishop arrived in Rome, S. Leo was actuated by any wrong motive. In all probability he was firmly persuaded that he had a right to receive an appeal from the decision of a Gallican synod, and to rehear the case in Rome; and he may also have supposed that the effect of the sentence of the court below was suspended until the appeal had been heard. Holding these ideas, he would seem to himself to be acting rightly when he admitted Chelidonius to communion, although, according to the earlier discipline of the Church, which had never been canonically altered, his action cannot be justified. The primitive discipline is admirably illustrated by an interesting episode in the history of the Roman Church. When the heretic, Marcion, who had been excommunicated by his father, the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus, arrived in Rome about the year 140, and begged to be admitted to communion, the rulers of the Roman Church declared that they were unable to act in the matter contrary to the decision of Marcion's venerated father (cf. S. Epiph. Panar., haer. xlii.).

2 Duchesne (Fastes, i. 113), speaking of S. Hilary, says, "Les explications qu'il donna au pape, dans un langage assez rude, n'allaient à rien moins qu'à décliner la compétence du Saint-siège en pareille matière." The Abbé Malnory (Saint Césaire, p. 42) agrees.

It seems evident that the canons of Sardica were not received as binding in Gaul in the time of S. Hilary. If the limited appeal to Rome, allowed by the Council of Sardica, had been accepted by the Gallican Church, S. Hilary could never have told S. Leo "se ad officia non ad causam venisse" (Vit. Hilar. Arel., cap. xvii.). He would have had to allow that Chelidonius had a right to appeal, though he might have insisted that the appeal should be heard in Gaul, and not in Rome.

Cf. S. Honorat. Vit. S. Hilarii Arelatensis, in Quesnel's edition of S. Leo's works, edit. 1700, i. 369.

synod of bishops, at which Chelidonius_also was present, and, apparently, he shocked the delicate Roman ears by the plainness of speech which he used in asserting the independence of the Church in Gaul.1 He would not plead his cause before S. Leo, who, as S. Hilary rightly felt, had no jurisdiction in the matter. To the Roman mind this was insolence, and accordingly S. Hilary was actually put under arrest. As usual, the Church of Rome, in order to gain its point, fell back on the help of the civil power. However, when things had come to that pass, S. Hilary felt that it was time for him to return to Gaul. He therefore slipped away from his guards, and got back to Arles in the middle of February. S. Leo then acquitted Chelidonius, and issued an order that he should be re-established in his bishopric, on the ground that there was no proof that he had ever married a widow. Chelidonius was apparently re-established in his bishopric by the strong arm of the State. But S. Leo went further in the matter. He seems to have listened to all the tittle-tattle brought to his ears by those who felt aggrieved in any way by S. Hilary's saintly severity and apostolic spirit of discipline, and who were encouraged by what had happened to send their complaints to Rome. Tillemont and Fleury assert that S. Leo actually separated S. Hilary from his communion.2

1 S. Leo (Ep. x. cap. iii., P. L., liv. 630), speaking of S. Hilary's conduct at this synod, says that he uttered things "which it would be impossible for a layman to say or a bishop to listen to" (quae nullus laicorum dicere, nullus sacerdotum posset audire). In the preceding chapter of his letter, S. Leo had said that S. Hilary "would not suffer himself to be subject to the blessed Apostle Peter" (ut se beato Apostolo Petro non patiatur esse subiectum).

2 See Tillemont, xv. 80, 89, and Fleury, Hist. Eccl., 1. xxvii. § 5 (tom. vi. p. 269, edit. 1722). It is quite certain that S. Hilary did not communicate with S. Leo during the whole time that he was in Rome, for S. Leo (Ep. x. cap. vii.) says of him that "he thought it right to withdraw himself by a shameful flight (turpi fuga), having no share in the apostolic communion, of which he did not deserve to partake; God, as we believe, bringing this about, Who, in a way unexpected by us, both drew him to our judgement seat, and also brought to pass his secret departure in the midst of the investigation, to prevent his sharing in our communion." It seems to me that S. Leo implies that during the process of the investigation S. Hilary could not communicate with the Roman Church, but that he probably would have done so if he had remained to the end. It is to me uncertain whether S. Hilary's inability to communicate with S. Leo during the course of the investigation was the result of S. Leo's action, or of S. Hilary's own unwillingness. If the first view is correct, then S. Hilary must have been authoritatively suspended from communion, and so far Tillemont and Fleury would be justified. If the second view is correct, we have the spectacle of a great saint going to Rome and staying there for some time, but refusing to communicate with the pope. S. Hilary would hardly have acted in that way if he had held the Vatican doctrine of the papacy. Whichever way the question is decided, my argument remains unaffected. S. Hilary's disciple and biographer, S. Honoratus, tells us that while in Rome S. Hilary was threatened, was in peril of his life, and was put under arrest (Vita S. Hilar. Arelat., cap. xvii.). The knowledge of these facts may mitigate our view of the "shamefulness" of his flight. Even Ultramontane historians have been compelled to acknowledge that S. Leo's conduct towards S. Hilary was, to say the least, unfortunate. Thus Cardinal Baronius, speaking