Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/512

492 P P E D M chain and Eutychian heresies, and as tlie first author of the Collect, Leo would fill no unimportant place in the annals of Latin Christendom ; but his influence on church history in other respects is of a far deeper and more potent kind. In none was it followed by more important results than by the success with which he established the theory that all bishops who, in questions of importance, demurred to the decision of their metropolitan should be entitled to appeal to Rome. He obtained the recognition of this principle not only in Illyricum, as his predecessor Inno cent had done, but also in Gaul ; and the circumstances under which he did so in the latter province constitute the whole proceedings a memorable episode in church history. Celidonius, bishop of Besanc,on, had been removed from his bishopric by his metropolitan, the eminent Hilary of Aries, and determined to proceed to Rome to appeal against his sentence in person. He was followed thither by Hilary, who courageously protested against any exercise of the pontifical authority which should trench upon his own as metropolitan, and for which, in the present instance, it seems to be generally admitted that the canons of the church down to the time of Dionysius Exiguus (fl. 525) afforded no sanction. 1 Leo, however, not only annulled the sentence of deprivation, but condemned Hilary s entire conduct. The latter could only remonstrate in terms of energetic but ineffectual protest, and then took his departure from the city to die soon after at Aries. His name, along with that of Irenaeus, stands at the head of that long succession of able churchmen who, sometimes in conjunction with the temporal power and sometimes in dependently of it, have gained for the Gallican Church a character for systematic opposition to the encroachments of the Roman see which (if we except the Church of Utrecht) is unique among the communities of Western Catholicism. In a circular letter to the churches of Gaul, Leo subsequently passed a formal and deliberate censure upon Hilary s conduct ; and this measure was followed up by an imperial edict, in which, again, we have a remark able illustration of that compact between the state and the church which assumed such importance at a later period. In this decree of Valentinian III. (445) the primacy of Rome Rome is placed upon a triple basis the merits of St consti- Peter, the majesty of the city of Rome, and the authority ourt of ^ a counc ^ (sacrx synodi auctoritas). To which of the appeal. counc ^ s reference is intended is by no means clear ; but all bishops are required by this imperial edict to present themselves when summoned at the tribunal of the Roman pontiff (Novelise, ed. Hanel, pp. 172-5). As, prior to this time, the emperors themselves had always claimed, though they had not invariably exercised, the right of representing a supreme court of appeal, this transfer of such a preroga tive to Rome may fairly be regarded as marking the com mencement of a new era in the conception of the papal office. The chief obstacle to the recognition of the supremacy Influence of the Roman pontiff was now to be found in the revival >f Arian- o f Arianism, which, professed alike by the Goth and the Vandal, represented the dominant faith in the chief cities of northern Italy, as well as in Africa, Spain, and southern Gaul. But the rivalry thus generated only increased the disposition of the Catholic party to exalt the prerogatives of their head, and the attitude of Rome towards other churches continued to be more and more one of unques tionable superiority. In the year 483 Pope FELIX II. (or III.) ventured upon an unprecedented measure in citing Acacius, the patriarch of Constantinople, to Rome, to answer certain allegations preferred against him by John, 1 That is, unless we admit the genuineness of the canons of tlie council of Sardica (343), which probably few who have studied the evidence will be prepared to do. patriarch of Alexandria, whom he designates as " frater et coepiscopus noster " (Thiel, Epiatolx, p. 239). On Acacius refusing to recognize the legality of the letter of citation, he was excommunicated by Felix. The suc cessor of Felix, GELASITJS I. (492-496), refused to notify, as was customary, his election to the patriarch of Con stantinople, and by his refusal implicitly put forward a fresh assumption, viz., that communion with Rome implied subjection to Rome. Throughout the pontificate of Gela- sius the primacy of the Roman see was the burden of his numerous letters to other churches, and he appears also to have been the first of the pontiffs to enunciate the view that the authority which he represented was not con trollable by the canons of synods, whether past or present. In Italy these assumptions were unhesitatingly accepted. The Palmary Synod, as it was termed, convened in Rome during the pontificate of SYMMACHUS (498-514) formally disavowed its own right to sit in judgment on his admin istrative acts. Ennodius, bishop of Pavia (circ. 510), declared that the Roman pontiff was to be judged by God alone, and was not amenable to any earthly potentate or tribunal. It is thus evident that the doctrine of papal infallibility, though not yet formulated, was already virtu ally recognized. During the Gothic rule in Italy (493-553), its repre- The sentatives manifested the utmost tolerance in relation to Goti ^ religious questions, and showed little disposition to impose monai any restraints on the policy of the popes, although each monarch, by virtue of his title of " king of the Romans," claimed the right to veto any election to the papal chair. In the year 483, when Odoacer sent his first lieutenant, Basilius, from Ravenna to Rome, the latter was invested with the titles " eminentissimus " and "sublimis." The pope accordingly appeared as politically the subject of his Arian overlord. The advantage thus gained by the tem poral power appears to have been the result of its inter vention, which SIMPLICIUS (468-483) had himself solicited, in the elections to the papal office, and one of the principal acts of the Palmary Synod (above referred to) was to repudiate the chief measures of Basilius, which had been especially directed against the abuses that prevailed on such occasions, and more particularly against bribery by alienation of the church lands. The assertion of this authority on the part of the civil power was declared by the synod to be irregular and uncanonical, and was accordingly set aside as not binding on the church. The fierce con tests and shameless bribery which now accompanied almost every election were felt, however, to be so grave a scandal that the synod itself deemed it expedient to adopt the ordinance issued by Basilius, and to issue it as one of its own enactments. In order more effectually to guard against such abuses, BONIFACE II., in the year 530, obtained from a synod specially convened for the purpose the power of appointing his own successor, and nominated one Vigilius the same who ten years later actually suc ceeded to the office. But a second synod, having decided that such a concession was contrary to the traditions of episcopal succession, annulled the grant, and Boniface himself committed the former decree to the flames. At his death, however, the recurrence of the old abuses in a yet more flagrant form induced the senate to obtain from the court of Ravenna a measure of reform of a more com prehensive character, and designed to check, not only the simoniacal practices within the church itself, but also the extortion of the court officials. In the year 526 Dionysius Exiguus, a monk in Rome, Dio undertook the labour of preparing a new collection of the Exi; canons of the councils, and, finding his production favour ably received, proceeded also to compile a like collection

of the papal letters or decretals, from the earliest extant