of his clergy, as the Bishop of Rome had addressed him in the name of the Roman council. The Bishop of Antioch replied, in order to give explanations; and Dionysius, not finding them sufficiently clear, wrote back to refute them. The bishops of Syria assembled at Antioch to judge Paul. They wrote to Firmilian of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and to Dionysius of Alexandria, praying them to come and judge with them. Had they thus written to the Bishop of Rome, the Romish theologians would have gloried in the fact, which, nevertheless, would prove nothing more in favour of the jurisdiction of that bishop, than it proves in favour of that of Firmilian or of Dionysius.
The latter could not present himself at the council, because of a serious malady that shortly after laid him in the tomb; but he wrote to the Council of Antioch a letter which was sent to the whole Church by a second council that terminated the case of Paul of Samosata.
This heretical bishop having wished to continue in the episcopal dwelling, the bishops, in order to have him expelled, wrote to the Emperor Aurelian at Rome, who, says Eusebius,[1] "decided most equitably, ordering the building to be given up to those to whom the Christian bishops of Italy and Rome should write."
The second Council of Antioch had written to the Bishop of Rome as well as to the successor of Dionysius in the see of Alexandria. The Church of Italy adhered to the sentence of the council against Paul of Samosata, who was driven from the Church.
It has been wished to find in the decision of Aurelian, a proof in favor of the universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, It is more accurate to say that the Emperor, in the affair upon which he had been consulted, wished to hear the testimony of bishops, who could not be reasonably challenged by either party, because they
- ↑ Eusebius Eccl. Hist. Book VII. chap. xxx.
