admission of S. Meletius to full communion with Damasus in 380, and the supposed rupture of communion with the Meletians on the part of the West in 381, they rest on no substantial basis of historical testimony, but are, on the contrary, inconsistent with such evidence as we have, and must be regarded as mere mistakes, and consequently reference to them, either in the letter Quamlibet or in the letter Sanctum animum tuum, could not reasonably be expected.

The real truth is that there had been no reunion, and that there was no subsequent rupture. The Fathers of Aquileia bear witness that S. Meletius and his followers were not in their communion in September, 381, and the history of the negotiations between Antioch and the West shows that they never had been. As a matter of fact, though the news had not yet reached North Italy, S. Meletius had died about three months before. He died, as he had lived, outside the communion of Rome.1 He died president of a council which the Church venerates as ecumenical.2 And one may say with truth that from the day of his death the Catholic East, and from some later date the Catholic West, have honoured him as a hero of sanctity and orthodoxy. His name has been inscribed both in the East and in the West on the roll of the canonized saints.8

Before quitting the subject of S. Meletius, it will be well to gather together some of the more important facts, the truth of which seems to me to have been made plain in the course of the preceding investigation, and which throw light on the position of S. Meletius and on his relation to the Roman see.

the messenger travelled at the average speed, he might reach Milan on September 4. If we suppose that Gratian gave orders on the next day that a copy should be made and sent to S. Ambrose at Aquileia, it might reach him on the 11th or 12th of September, by which time the council had in all probability come to an end. 1 See Additional Note 75, p. 502.

Pope S. Gregory the Great, in a letter to the Eastern patriarchs (Registr., lib. i. ep. 25, P. L., lxxvii. 478), says, "I confess that I receive and venerate the four councils as I receive and venerate the four books of the Gospel"; and then the holy pope goes on to name expressly the Council of Nicaea, the Council of Constantinople, the first Council of Ephesus, and the Council of Chalcedon. For the main facts connected with the history of the recognition of the ecumenicity of the Second Council, see Appendix H, pp. 353-361.

The English Jesuit organ, The Month (September, 1893, p. 123), commenting on a passage included in the two earlier editions of this book, in which I expressed my belief that, "if Cardinal Wiseman's theory is true," S. Meletius "was a schismatic in life and a schismatic in death," said, "Such a conclusion, if wellfounded, would unquestionably tend to show a divergence of faith between the modern and the ancient Church, for the modern Church would not regard as a saint one who lived and died in schism." For myself, I think that the ancient Church would, equally with the Church of all ages, have refused to canonize any one whom it considered to have died in schism. But the ancient Church, unlike the modern Church of Rome, did not hold the view that those who are separated from the communion of the pope are in consequence of that separation ipso facto in a state of schism.

I have, I hope, first of all cleared the memory of the saint from the charge of heterodoxy. It is true that until the year 363 he did not formally accept the term ouooúotov, which he probably feared might be abused to support Marcellianism and Sabellianism. But all, or almost all, the other Eastern Catholic bishops and saints shared with him in that fear. As we have seen, S. Cyril of Jerusalem carefully avoided using the Nicene formula in his celebrated catechetical lectures. On the other hand, at the time when almost the whole episcopate, both in the East and West, signed the heretical creed of Ariminum, S. Meletius seems to have been one of the few who escaped that disgrace. In the presence of the persecuting Emperor Constantius, he boldly preached the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and he never swerved in any way from maintaining the true Godhead of our Lord, though he had in consequence to go three times into banishment, and spent nearly nine years, that is to say, about half his Antiochene episcopate, in exile. After his accession to the see of Antioch, he summoned a council at the first opportunity and accepted the creed of Nicaea, and, in union with S. Basil and S. Eusebius of Samosata, helped the Catholic bishops of the East to keep true to the faith all through the weary years of the persecution under Valens. At a time when the sees of Rome and Alexandria were still granting their communion to the heretic, Marcellus, S. Meletius went so far as to refuse S. Athanasius' proffered friendship, in order to avoid even the appearance of condoning the Marcellian "blasphemy." "

As regards S. Meletius' canonical position at Antioch, he was elected by the clergy and laity of the church in that city, the greater number of whom were Catholics; and the election was canonically confirmed by the bishops of the province and patriarchate. Some of these bishops were Arianizing in belief, or, at any rate, in policy, but they were in canonical possession of their sees, and were in communion with the bishops of the Eastern Church. Others of them, such as S. Eusebius of Samosata, were Catholics. If we If we are to believe the witness of S. Chrysostom, S. Meletius, within three or four weeks of his inthronization, had "delivered the city from the error of heresy, and had cut off the putrefying and

1 Dr. Rivington (Prim. Ch., p. 189) says that "eventually, scarcely more than eighteen or nineteen bishops in Christendom remained uncompromised.” This is an exaggeration. I could name thirty; and there were probably others, whose names have not been preserved.

2 44

"Blasphemy" is the term applied by the Council of Chalcedon to Marcellus' doctrine (see note 4 on pp. 325, 326). The fundamentally heretical character of the Marcellian teaching has been recognized in modern times by thinkers of such different schools as Bishop Lightfoot, Bishop Hefele, Dr. Gwatkin, Mgr. Duchesne, and Cardinal Newman. See pp. 480, 481.

incurable members from the rest of the body, and had brought back vigorous health to the multitude of the Church."1 S. Chrysostom's testimony is confirmed by the fact that a few weeks afterwards the great majority of the Antiochene Christians broke away from all communion with the Arians, and rather than separate themselves from the fellowship of S. Meletius, were content to be deprived of the use of their church buildings, and henceforth met for worship in the fields.

Yet a small section of orthodox believers in Antioch, the Eustathians, held aloof from the saint on the ground that the great Church of Antioch, over which he presided, had, ever since the exile of S. Eustathius in 331, been compromised by the Arianizing belief of its bishops, although those bishops had never been canonically deposed, and had, in fact, for twelve years enjoyed the communion of the Roman see, and had all along enjoyed the communion of the episcopate of the East. S. Eustathius himself before leaving Antioch had urged his disciples to refrain from separating from the bishops who should be appointed to succeed him, even though they might seem to be wolves. This appeared to him to be the best course for Catholics in Antioch to take under the circumstances, so that the policy of the Eustathians had been condemned beforehand by the saint, after whose name they were called. Unfortunately their leader, Paulinus, not only refused to communicate with S. Meletius, but allowed himself to be consecrated by the fanatical Lucifer, who, in consequence of the reprobation which this irregular act called forth, broke away from the unity of the Church, and died in schism. S. Basil, S. Eusebius, and the other leaders of the Eastern Catholics, always regarded S. Meletius as the one legitimate Bishop of Antioch, and refused their communion to Paulinus as being in their judgement an intruder. Paulinus, however, had the good fortune to be recognized at Alexandria.

For many years after the Council of Sardica the Roman Church refused her communion to all the Eastern churches. In 365 she somewhat imprudently granted her communion to Eustathius of Sebaste and other Semi-Arians, including some of the least satisfactory members of that party, who soon fell away into pneumatomachianism. In 372 she began to communicate with S. Basil, but she remained separate from both parties at Antioch until 375. Then she finally made her choice, and sent letters of communion to the Eustathians, recognizing Paulinus as sole Bishop of Antioch, and making him to be in a certain sense her representative in the East. It would appear that in consequence of the calumnies of the 1 S. Chrys. Hom. in S. Melet., Opp., ed. Ben., ii. 519.

Eustathians she regarded S. Meletius and S. Eusebius of Samosata as "Ariomaniacs," and, looking upon them in that light, she of course kept them where they always had been, namely, outside her communion. This state of separation between S. Meletius and Rome continued on to the end, during the remaining six years which intervened between Paulinus' recognition by Rome and S. Meletius' death.' It had no effect on the view of S. Meletius, which was taken by the Eastern Church. Full of gratitude for his saintly life and his noble stand against Arianism, and recognizing him as the sole legitimate Bishop of Antioch, the Eastern bishops rallied round S. Meletius in a great synod at Antioch, as soon as the death of Valens put a stop to the Arian persecution of the Church. Two years later, at the Second Ecumenical Council, the Eastern bishops again rallied round the saint, who presided over it; and he died, still out of communion with Rome, not very long after the council had begun its sittings.2

APPENDIX H.

On the way in which it came to pass that the Constantinopolitan Council of 381 was finally recognized by the whole Church as an Ecumenical Council (see p. 350).

IN considering the history of the gradual recognition of the ecumenicity of the Second Council, it seems convenient to begin with the fact that the Constantinopolitan Council of the year 382, in its synodical letter, twice calls the council held in the year immediately preceding "the Ecumenical Council."3 But the council of 382, when it thus attributed ecumenicity to the council of 381, must have used the word “ ecumenical” in a restricted

'Quite apart from the fact that S. Meletius' orthodoxy on the vital question of our Lord's co-equality and consubstantiality with the Father was doubted at Rome, he continued until his death to occupy the great see of Antioch in defiance of the pope, who recognized his rival. It was impossible for Damasus to communicate with S. Meletius until he had resigned his see, or until some compact, establishing either the joint-episcopate or the concurrent episcopate of S. Meletius and Paulinus, had been accepted and ratified by Rome. But none of these alternatives ever came to pass. There was no need for Damasus to excommunicate S. Meletius, because the latter had never been in the Roman communion, at any rate since the great rupture which followed the Council of Sardica.

2 Dr. Rivington (The Appeal to History, p. 25) considers that "the whole case of S. Meletius suggests the 'Roman' theory of Church government as in full working order"! Comment is needless.

3 Cf. Theodoret. H. E., v. 9.

sense. It must have meant to say that the council of 381 was a general council of the Eastern olkovμévn, or empire.1 For Theodosius had only summoned to that council the bishops of his own empire,2 and as a matter of fact there were no representatives of the episcopate of the Western empire present at it.

But although, so far as the intention of its summoner and the limited area from which it drew its members were concerned, the council of 381 was not ecumenical in the wide sense of that term, yet from the very first it had a right to be regarded as a council of the whole Eastern Church, and its decrees were canonically binding on that church. Moreover, as at the council's request, Theodosius ratified its decrees, their canonical authority was reinforced throughout the Eastern empire by the sanction of the State. It may, however, be doubted whether, in fact, much attention was paid to these decrees in Egypt during the seventy years which intervened between 381 and the date of the Council of Chalcedon.

It was otherwise at Constantinople and at Antioch. The Bishops of Constantinople took action at once in accordance with the provisions of the third Constantinopolitan canon of 381, and placed themselves at the head of the Eastern episcopate. Nectarius, for example, in 394 presided over a synod, at which Theophilus of Alexandria and Flavian of Antioch were present. S. Chrysostom practically acted as Patriarch over the three exarchates of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace, although patriarchal jurisdiction was not formally given to his see until the famous 28th canon was passed by the Council of Chalcedon. We have proof that S. Proclus in particular called attention in some synodical epistle or declaration to the precedence granted to his see by the third Constantinopolitan canon. Domnus of Antioch, writing to S. Flavian of Constantinople in September or October, 448, complained bitterly of Dioscorus of Alexandria, because the latter had accused him of cowardice, on the ground that he had, “in accordance with the canons of the holy Fathers," assented to the declaration of a Constantinopolitan Council, over which Proclus of blessed memory" had presided. Dioscorus had "reproached Domnus once and again concerning this matter, as if he had thereby betrayed the rights of the Churches of Antioch and Alexandria." In an earlier part of the same letter Domnus had narrated how Dioscorus, in an Alexandrian synod, had anathematized him as a

Theodoret (Haereticar. Fab., Compend., iv. 12, P. G., lxxxiii. 433) twice uses the term oikovμévη to denote the Eastern empire. Similarly S. Basil (Ep. ccxliii. § 1, Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 373), writing to the bishops of Italy and Gaul, speaks of the Western empire as ἡ καθ' ὑμᾶς οἰκουμένη.

2 Cf. Theodoret. H. E., v. 6.

3 Ibid., v. 28.

S. Proclus' episcopate lasted from 434 to 446.

Cf. Theodoret. Ep. lxxxvi. ad Flavianum, P. G., lxxxiii. 1280. This letter has been usually ascribed by mistake to Theodoret. A very slight study of it will convince the reader that it has a Bishop of Antioch for its author. A Syriac translation of it has now been discovered in the library of the British Museum (Additional MS. 14530). The translation forms part of the acts of the Latrocinium (compare the Abbé Martin's Pseudo-Synode d'Ephèse, p. 115, note 4, and see the same author's Actes du Brigandage d'Ephèse, pp. 139-143). In this Syriac translation the letter is ascribed to Domnus, and it was read as part of the evidence against Domnus at the Robber-council.