to dare to submit to the judgment of such a consistory—namely, to place oneself in the bosom of enemies and to offer oneself voluntarily to a death from violent injury and not by formal justice? That, indeed, is to be feared from the side of the law; that is to be evaded as a matter of morals; that human sense and reason flee from; that nature abhors. Therefore, he would be a fool who would dream of such a citation binding the one cited.” Nor ought the means of defence to be taken away which come from the law of nature, for the emperor himself has no right to withdraw those things which are provided by the law of nature.
Likewise, Pope Nicolas wrote to the emperor Michael, 3:5 [Friedberg, 1: 518]: "That suspects and enemies ought not to be judges, reason itself dictates, and it is proved by many examples. For what could any one give more acceptable and to be desired to an enemy than to commit a person to him to be assailed, who might greatly wish to hurt him?" This thing also the Constantinopolitan synod, Canon 6 [381 A. D.], is known to prohibit, and in the very same chapter [Friedberg, 1: 518] Pope Gelasius[1] a most brave assailer of heretics, says: "I ask for the tribunal to which they lay claim. Where can they carry their cases? Before those who are enemies and at the same time witnesses and judges? But to such a tribunal no human business should be committed. And if to a tribunal, where enemies are the judges, no human business should be carried, how much less ought cases of divine import, that is, ecclesiastical cases be carried! He that is wise, let him understand. And in truth, for this reason, the good emperor Justinian is known to have promulgated in his laws the same, when he said: 'He who thinks a judge partial may, before the trial begins, accuse him that the case may revert to another. For it is just as natural to shun the assaults of judges as to wish to flee from the sentence of enemies.' Thus St. John
- ↑ Mistake for Nicolas.
