those times. Chrysostom meant that it was lawful for Peter, who was the first of the sacred band, that as he had made the opening speech about the election, so in that same speech he might have designated and selected some one, to whose election the others would afterwards have readily given their consent. By such a method of proceeding he would have been the first, not the sole elector. But Peter did not follow this course. He said indefinitely, 'Of these must one become a witness with us of the resurrection of Christ.' Chrysostom therefore draws attention to the modesty of Peter, who was unwilling to bias the judgements of the others." There can, I think, be no doubt that Bossuet was right in holding the view that S. Chrysostom had no intention of attributing to S. Peter the power to name the new apostle by his own sole authority. There is no solid ground for the paragraph in which Dr. Rivington triumphs over the venerable author of the Roman Question.

1 Def. Decl. Cler. Gall., viii. 17, Œuvres, xxxii. 627, ed. Versailles, 1817. Authority, PP. 72, 73.

LECTURE XII.

THE ACACIAN TROUBLES.

IN this lecture I intend to continue, and if possible to conclude, what I have to say on the true nature of the unity of the Church, giving further illustrations, from the sayings and actions of the saints, of the great principle, that separation from the communion of the see of Rome does not necessarily carry with it exclusion from the fellowship of the Catholic Church.

During the greater part of the last few lectures we have been considering the troubles caused by the Eustathian schism. I propose now to pass over nearly a hundred years, and to deal with the dissension which arose in the Church in consequence of the excommunication and deposition of Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, by Felix III. of Rome, in the year 484. By that time the Roman see had very much enlarged and consolidated its power. As we have seen, S. Leo had, in A.D. 445, obtained from Valentinian III. an imperial constitution, which, so far as the law of the State could effect such a result, subjected the bishops to the will of the pope. Moreover, at the Council of Chalcedon, in A.D. 451, although much was done which S. Leo disliked extremely, yet for the first time in the history of the Church the legates of the pope presided at an Ecumenical Council,2

1 See pp. 200, 201.

2 At the Council of Ephesus, although S. Cyril held Pope Celestine's proxy, empowering him to "join the authority" of the Roman see to that of his own Alexandrine see for the particular purpose of deposing and excommunicating Nestorius, if he should continue in the heresy which he openly avowed, yet, as Bossuet (Def. Cler. Gall., VII. xiii. 7) rightly observes, "Cyril had not been expressly delegated to the council, of which Celestine had as yet no thought when he commissioned Cyril to represent him." The pope sent other legates, namely, two bishops and a priest, to represent him at the council; and they in the pope's name promulgated his assent and the assent of all the West to what had been there done. Nevertheless Cyril, as being the highest dignitary present, presided, taking precedence of the legates who represented Celestine in the council. This was quite in accordance with the Church's ancient custom. So Hosius, though he was not the pope's legate, took precedence at Nicaea of the two priests who represented Silvester; and at Carthage S. Aurelius and the Numidian primate, Valentinus, took precedence of Faustinus, the legate of Pope Boniface. The fact that S. Cyril did not act as Pope Celestine's legate at Ephesus, but presided in virtue of the dignity of his own see of Alexandria, has been proved to demonstration and with full setting forth of the evidence by De Launoi (Epistolarum lib. viii.

and the sanction which the council gave to S. Leo's great dogmatic letter to S. Flavian of Constantinople, given, as it was, after careful examination and comparison of its statements with the writings of earlier Fathers, helped largely to consolidate the reputation of the Roman see for orthodoxy. Again, S. Leo presented the unusual spectacle of a pope who was also a theologian; and in the terse Latin of his sermons he had worked out what may be called the first systematic exposition of the papal interpretation of the great Petrine texts. S. Leo showed the way, and his successors boldly followed. One may mention specially Felix III. (483-492); Gelasius I. (492-496); Symmachus (498-514); and Hormisdas (514-523).1

The quarrel with Acacius began in the year 482, during the pontificate of Simplicius. There can be no question that Acacius was very much to blame, and it seems to me that he richly deserved to be deposed and excommunicated. He had been made Patriarch of Constantinople in A.D. 471, and for eleven years in all his public actions had appeared to be a champion of the Catholic faith, as it had been defined at Chalcedon. But in the year 482, the see of Alexandria having become vacant, John Talaia, an orthodox priest, was canonically elected 2 to the throne of S. Mark. Unfortunately, the letter which, according to custom, he wrote to the Patriarch of Constantinople, to announce his election and consecration, miscarried. Acacius took offence at the seeming want of courtesy, and he watched for opportunities, when he was conversing with the Emperor Zeno, to disparage the new Patriarch of Alexandria. He proposed to the Emperor that Peter Mongus, the Monophysite anti-patriarch, should be recognized as the true patriarch, on the condition that he should accept and promote the so-called Henoticon, a document inspired, if not drawn up, by himself, which was intended

Ep. 4, ad Antonium Faurum, edit. 1731, tom. v. pars ii. pp. 581-594). There is, however, one point of importance, which De Launoi has not brought out with such clearness as I think it deserves. He does indeed mention that on various occasions, when S. Cyril was not able to preside, the signature of Juvenal of Jerusalem precedes the signature of the Roman legates. But he does not point out that the reason for this precedence was that, when S. Cyril did not preside, Juvenal, who was next in rank to him, and was most certainly not a legate, acted as president (cf. Coleti, iii. 1165, and see Tillemont, xiv. 432).

1 Hilary (461-467) and Simplicius (467-483) intervened between S. Leo and Felix III., and Anastasius II. (496-498) intervened between Gelasius and Symmachus. Anastasius was less grasping and in every way more attractive than his immediate predecessors and successors.

2 It should, however, be mentioned that the Emperor Zeno wrote to Pope Felix III. later on, and informed him that John Talaia "had solemnly sworn that he would in no wise come forward as a candidate for the throne of Alexandria, and that having transgressed and violated his oaths he had been guilty of extreme sacrilege" (Evagr. H. E., iii. 20).

as a compromise on the basis of which Catholics and Monophysites might unite. It recognized the dogmatic decisions of the first three Ecumenical Councils, but, though it anathematized Eutyches, it was silent on the subject of the binding authority of the Chalcedonian definition.1 The Emperor fell in with Acacius' proposal, and Peter Mongus on his side accepted the Henoticon. Accordingly, he was enthroned at Alexandria as the patriarch recognized by the Emperor, and in his letters to Pope Simplicius and to Acacius he professed to accept the Council of Chalcedon. At heart he remained a Monophysite; and very soon, when he found that by his compliance with Catholic orthodoxy he was losing his old Monophysite adherents, he anathematized Chalcedon and the tome of S. Leo. Then again, when Acacius called him to account, he once more accepted "the holy Council of Chalcedon." ."2 Altogether he was a most unfit person to sit as a successor of S. Mark and S. Athanasius. Acacius had undoubtedly sullied his own orthodoxy by promoting Mongus' intrusion into the see of Alexandria, and by remaining in communion with him, when it became evident that the purity of his faith was more than doubtful.3

Meanwhile the true patriarch, John Talaia, had fled to Rome, where he was honourably received by Simplicius. That pope, however, died a few weeks after Talaia's arrival, and was succeeded by Felix III.; and to him Talaia addressed a formal petition and complaint, in which various charges were brought against Acacius. The pope sent two suburbicarian bishops, Vitalis of Truentum and Misenus of Cumae, as legates to Constantinople; they carried with them letters to Acacius and to the Emperor, and also a formal citation commanding Acacius to present himself without loss of time at Rome, there to answer before a synod (in conventu) of his brother-bishops the charges brought against him. When the legates arrived in Constantinople, they were first imprisoned and then bribed, and ultimately they gave in to the wishes of

1 It is important to remember that the Henoticon was not in itself heretical, but it needed to be supplemented by other tests, if Monophysites were to be excluded from communion (see Natalis Alexand. Hist. Eccl., ix. 615, edit. 1786, Bing. ad Rhenum).

The letter of Mongus to Acacius may be read in the Church History of Evagrius (iii. 17).

3 But it is difficult for us to judge with any certainty as to the degree of Acacius' faultiness. We do not know whether he had convincing proofs of Mongus' heresy. Heretics are often very slippery; and it should be remembered that in the fourth century the see of Rome was for a long while deceived as to Marcellus of Ancyra. The popes held him to be orthodox long after the Catholic bishops of the East had detected his unsoundness. S. Basil's complaints about the way in which the popes had "supported heresy" in the case of Marcellus have been quoted on p. 164.

4 Coleti, v. 217, 218.

the Emperor and the patriarch. They publicly communicated with Acacius and with the representatives of Peter Mongus, and during the course of the service the name of Mongus was recited in the reading of the diptychs. On the return journey they took back with them a letter from Acacius to Felix, in which Mongus was praised, and in which Acacius avowed that he held communion with him. The pope lost no time in summoning a council of the suburbicarian bishops, which met at Rome in July, 484. In that council the legates were deposed from the episcopate and excommunicated; and the pope passed sentence on Acacius. By that sentence Felix professed to deprive the Constantinopolitan patriarch of the episcopate and of Catholic communion, and to cut him off from being numbered among the faithful.1 The sentence was signed not only by the pope, but also by sixty-seven other Italian bishops.

As I have already said, I think that Acacius thoroughly deserved to be deposed and excommunicated. But it is quite another question whether the pope had authority to do what he did in the matter. He certainly had the right to separate Acacius from the communion of the Roman Church; and inasmuch as his sentence was sanctioned by the Roman synod, it would avail to cut Acacius off from the communion of the suburbicarian churches generally. But separation from the communion of the Roman Church, or even from the communion of all the churches of Central and Southern Italy, would not effect the separation of Acacius from the fellowship of the Catholic Church, unless the Roman sentence were confirmed by the episcopate at large, expressing its judgement either in an Ecumenical Council or in separate local councils. The tribunal, before which Acacius ought to have been brought, and which would have had authority to depose him and to cut him off from the unity of the Church, would have been the synod of the whole patriarchate of Constantinople, which included the three exarchates of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace.2 The

1 Coleti, v. 167-169.

Strictly speaking, the tribunal of first instance would have been the synod of the province, with an appeal to the synod of the patriarchate, whose decision was final, unless an Ecumenical Council were assembled to consider the case (see the so-called sixth canon of the second Ecumenical Council, a canon which was really enacted at the Constantinopolitan Council of 382). S. Chrysostom, in a letter to Pope Innocent I., describes how, when the Emperor Arcadius wished him to try Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, he begged to be excused, "knowing the laws of our fathers, and out of respect and honour to the man, having moreover letters from him, which pointed out that causes should not be drawn beyond the countries to which they belonged, but that the affairs of each province should be transacted therein” (S. Chrys. Ep. i. ad Innocentium Episc. Rom., Opp., ed. Ben., iii. 516). From this letter it appears clear that both S. Chrysostom and Theophilus agreed that a patriarch should be tried first of all by the bishops of his province. Moreover, as S. Chrysostom was writing to the pope,