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THE PAPACY.
141

"I pray you, therefore, to write letters declaring null and void all that has been done against me, granting me inter-communion with you as in the past, since I am condemned without a hearing, and since I am ready to justify myself before any impartial tribunal."

What was the tribunal to which he appealed? The Bishop of Rome affirms that there was no other except a council ; he expresses himself substantially to this effect in his letter to the clergy and people of Constantinople: "From the friendly letter that Germanus the priest and Cassianus the deacon have handed to me from you, I have gathered with an anxious mind the scene of woe you describe, and the afflictions and the trial that the faith has endured among you. This is an evil for which there is no other remedy than patience. ... I derive from the beginning of your affectionate epistle the consolation which I needed. ... Innocent bishops are driven from their sees. John, our brother and colleague., and your bishop, has been the first to suffer from this violence, without having been heard, and without our knowing of what he is accused. ... As regards the canons, we declare that only those made at the Council of Nicea should be recognized. ... Nevertheless, what remedy can be applied to so great an evil? There is no other than to convoke a council. ... Until we are able to obtain the convocation of a council, we cannot do better than to await from the will of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ the remedy of these evils. ... We are continually devising means to assemble a general council, where all dissensions may be set at rest at the command of God. Let us then wait, intrenched within the bulwark of patience."

We could multiply such texts ; but to what purpose, when all the facts demonstrate the errour of these Romish writers?

We will now endeavour to learn, with the aid of doc-