The Church of England cleared from the charge of Schism

"Celidonius,64 finding himself deposed, had recourse to Rome, where he complained that he had been unjustly condemned. It seems that St. Leo, without further examination, at once admitted him to his communion, in which he may have followed what Zosimus and Cœlestinus did in respect of the miserable Apiarius, priest of Africa. But I know not what Canon or what rule of the Church justifies such a proceeding. St. Hilary learnt this at the severest time of winter. Nevertheless, all the discomforts and dangers of this season gave way to the ardour of his zeal and faith. He undertook to pass the Alps, and to go on foot to Rome; and this he accomplished, without having even a horse either to ride or to carry baggage. Being come to Rome, he first visited the relics of the Apostles and Martyrs. Next he waited on St. Leo; and having paid him the greatest respect, he besought him very humbly to please to order what respected the state of the Churches according to immemorial practice. Persons were seen attending at Rome on the holy altar who had been juridically and justly deposed in Gaul: he was obliged to address to him his complaints of this; and, if they were found correct, besought the Pope at least to stop by a secret order this violation of the Canons. If not, he would not trouble him further, not being come to Rome to bring an action, and make accusations, but to pay to him his respects, to declare to him the state of things, and to beseech him to maintain the rules of discipline. There is reason to believe that St. Hilary maintained that St. Leo had no right at all to take cognizance of this cause as judge, meaning, doubtless, that the Church of France was in the same condition as that of Africa, and had the same power to terminate causes which arose there, without an appeal elsewhere being allowed. St. Leo even sufficiently assures us that this was St. Hilary's view; and he takes occasion from it to accuse him of unwillingness to be subject to St. Peter, and to recognise the Primacy of the Roman Church: which would prove that all the holy Bishops of Africa did not recognise it, and give heretics a great advantage. St. Leo, on the other hand, maintained not only that the Churches of the Gauls had often consulted that of Rome in various difficulties – which had nothing to do with the matter in question – but, also, that they had often appealed to the Holy See, which had either altered or confirmed judgments pronounced by them. If we may be allowed to regard the depositions of St. Leo and St. Hilary as the claims of different parties, and to examine the matter to the bottom, according to the light which history sheds on it, we may say that we do not find that the Gallican Church had hitherto admitted, up to that time, any appeal to the Holy See; and that Zosimus, having wished to claim the right of judging Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, Proculus always maintained himself, in spite of all the efforts of this Pope. Meanwhile, as St. Leo, sufficiently jealous of the greatness of his See, found himself opposed by St. Hilary in a point of this importance, it is not surprising that he was susceptible of the bad impression given him of the conduct of this great saint, as we shall see hereafter. 'I dare not examine,' says the historian of St. Hilary, 'the judgment and the conduct of two men so great, especially now that God has called them to the possession of His glory. I confine myself to saying, that Hilary singly opposed this great number of adversaries; that he was not shaken by their menaces; that he laid the truth before those who would listen to it; that he prevailed over those who would dispute with him; that he yielded not to the powerful; in short, that he preferred running the risk of losing his life to admitting to his communion him whom he had deposed together with so many great Bishops.'

"Had St. Leo only required to have the affair reheard in the Gauls, agreeably to the Canons of Sardica, the only ones which the Church had hitherto made in favour of appeals to the Pope, St. Hilary would, perhaps, have consented; that is, if he were better acquainted with this Council than they were in Africa. But it is not apparent that such a rehearing was mentioned. And as to suffering the matter to be judged at Rome, St. Hilary, besides the other reasons which he might have, considered, doubtless, with St. Cyprian, that the proofs of the facts on which judgment must be made cannot be transported thither. So the Gallican Church has always maintained itself in the right, that appeals made to Rome be referred back to the spot. Though St. Hilary had protested that he was not come to engage in any dispute, nevertheless he did not refuse to take part in a conference, in which St. Leo heard him, together with Celidonius. Several Bishops were there. Notes were made of all that was said. St. Leo says that St. Hilary had nothing reasonable to answer; his passion carried him away to say things that a layman would not have dared to utter, and that the Bishops could not listen to. He adds that this haughty pride touched him to the quick, and that, nevertheless, he had used no other remedy than patience, not wishing to sharpen and increase the wounds which this insolent language caused in the soul of him who held it: that moreover, having received him at first as his brother, he only thought of soothing rather than vexing and paining him; and that indeed he did this to himself sufficiently by the confusion into which the weakness of his answers threw him. It is clear that St. Hilary would not answer on the main point of Celidonius's affair, because he maintained that St. Leo could not be judge of it. And we must not be surprised that the Romans found much insolence in the inflexible firmness with which he maintained it. Doubtless it was this pretended insolence which caused him even to be put under guard, which may surprise us in the case of a Bishop, and in an affair purely ecclesiastical. Among the insolent and rash expressions of which St. Leo in general complains, he remarks, in particular, that St. Hilary had often demanded to be condemned, if he had condemned Celidonius contrary to the rules of the Canons. He wished, then, that we should judge others by the rule which fully justifies St. Hilary. The saint, seeing that his reasons were not listened to, would not wait St. Leo's sentence. He preferred withdrawing secretly, while this affair was still being examined. So he escaped from his guards, and though it was still winter, left Rome, and returned to Arles, perhaps in February (445): so that when they sought for him to speak further on this matter, it was found that he was gone. St. Leo failed not to proceed, reversed the judgment delivered against Celidonius, declared him absolved and acquitted of the accusation of having married a widow, and restored him to his rank of Bishop, which he had already done at first, without having examined the affair."

There were other accusations made against St. Hilary, into which we need not enter. St. Leo wrote a very severe letter about him to the Bishops of Gaul: he accused him "of raising himself against St. Peter, and being unwilling to recognise his Primacy, as if all those who believe that a successor of St. Peter passes the bounds of the Canons were enemies of the Primacy of the Holy See. That would be to arm against the Popes in favour of heretics a great number of Fathers, of Saints, and of Councils."65 The result was that he took away from St. Hilary his rights of Metropolitan, and conferred them on the Bishop of Vienne, who had claims upon them. But this measure was so disliked by the suffragans of Arles, that he restored the See of Arles to most of its privileges under Ravennius, the successor of St. Hilary. However, this matter had even more important consequences. We will let the Roman Catholic historian, as before, describe them. "St. Leo apparently feared that the Bishops of the Gauls would not be sufficiently submissive to what he had ordered. And though he had made it a charge against St. Hilary that he had employed an armed force in affairs of the Church, for all that he recurred himself to the imperial power against him. He represented him to the Emperor Valentinian the Third as one who rebelled both against the authority of the Apostolic See, and the majesty of the Empire, and obtained of this prince, who was then at Rome, a celebrated rescript, addressed to the Patrician Aetius, general of the armies of the Empire, by which, under pretext of maintaining the peace of the Church, he forbids undertaking any thing whatever without the authority of the Apostolic See, or resisting its orders, which, says he, had always been observed inviolably up to Hilarius. He orders all Bishops to hold as law all that the authority of the Pope establishes, and all magistrates to compel by force to appear before the tribunal of the Bishop of Rome all persons cited thither, if they refused to go. It may be seen by what happened about this time to Atticus, Metropolitan of Nicopolis, in Epirus, how scandalous this employment of force was, and how opposed, according to St. Leo himself, to the gentleness of the Church. Valentinian adds, that the sentence given by St. Leo against St. Hilary, had no need of any one to be executed in the Gauls, since the authority of so great a Pontiff has a right to give any order to the Churches. He goes so far as to make it a charge against St. Hilary, to have deposed and ordained Bishops without consulting the Pope. He even names him a criminal of State on the score of his being charged with having employed the force of arms to establish Bishops, and to place them on a throne where they had only to preach peace. This law is dated the 6th of June, 445, and it is this which fixes the time of all this history. It is undoubtedly very proper, as says Baronius, to show that the Emperors have greatly contributed to establish the greatness and authority of the Popes. This is not the place to make other reflections upon it; but we cannot forbear saying that, in the mind of those who have any love for the liberty of the Church, and any knowledge of its discipline, this law will always as little honour him whom it praises as it will injure him whom it condemns. Pope Hilary quotes this law, and avails himself of the authority it attributes to the decisions of Rome."66 It would be presumptuous to add a word to the judgment of one who has made the first centuries of the Church his especial study. St. Hilary, on his return to Arles, made many attempts to reconcile the Pope to him, but all were fruitless, as he would not give up the point in dispute. "It seems," says Tillemont, "that he continued resolved to do nothing in prejudice of the rights he believed to belong to his Church, but that seeing the two great powers of Church and State united against him, he remained quiet and silent, occupied only in the work of his salvation, and that of his people." During the four years he survived, he redoubled his austerities and good works: he died in the odour of sanctity; and after his death, "St. Leo, though still persuaded that he was a presumptuous spirit, calls him 'of holy memory.' Yet, we have neither proof nor probability that he had restored him to his communion, from which he had cut him off."67 His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology.

Thus an encroachment, which had failed in Africa, succeeded through a conjuncture of circumstances, especially the intervention of the civil power, in Gaul. Of course it was made the stepping-stone to further advances. This one specimen may give us a notion how the lawful power of the Patriarch and the recognised pre-eminence of the one Apostolic See of the West had a continual tendency to develop, and won, by degrees, unlimited control over the original and acknowledged rights of the Bishops and Metropolitans. Still, even in the hands of St. Leo, this was merely an extraordinary interference. Ravennius, the successor of this very St. Hilary, was elected and consecrated by the Bishops of his province, who then announced it to Pope Leo, and received a congratulatory answer.68 He says himself to the Bishops of the province of Vienne, "It is not for ourselves that we defend the ordinations of your provinces, which perhaps Hilarius may, according to his wont, falsely state to you, to render disaffected the mind of your Holiness; but it is for you we claim them through our solicitude." And again: "Decreeing this, that if any one of our brethren in any province die, he who is known to be the Metropolitan of that province, should claim to himself the ordination of the Priest."69

So long as the election and consecration of Bishops and Metropolitans were thus free and canonical, the greatness of the central See could never depress and extinguish the essential equality of the Episcopate. Let it be remembered that St. Leo, with all his power and influence, consecrated no other Bishops than those of Southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, which were the bounds of his proper patriarchate; there his authority was direct and immediate; but in Africa, the Gauls, Spain, Illyricum, and the West generally, it was only properly exercised in matters beyond the range of the Bishops and Metropolitans. We suppose it is impossible to define a power which was to correct and restore in emergencies. The Bishops of the province of Aries afterwards besought Pope Leo to restore the primacy to Arles, and render, A.D. 450, this undoubted testimony to the Primacy of the Roman Church, and to the connexion between the rights of the Metropolitan and the Patriarch: —

"By the Priest of this Church (Arles) it is certain that our predecessors, as well as ourselves, have been consecrated to the High Priesthood by the gift of the Lord; in which, following antiquity, the predecessors of your Holiness confirmed by their published letters this which old custom had handed down concerning the privileges of the Church of Arles, (as the records of the Apostolical See doubtless prove;) believing it to be full of reason and justice, that as through the most blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, the holy Roman Church holds primacy over all the Churches of the whole world, so also within the Gauls the Church of Arles, which had been thought worthy to receive for its Priest St. Trophimus, sent by the Apostles, should claim the right of ordaining to the High Priesthood."70

The view on which St. Leo acted in these proceedings against St. Hilary is very plainly set forth in certain of his letters. Thus, "To our most beloved Brethren, all the Bishops throughout the province of Vienne, Leo Bishop of Rome… The Lord hath willed that the mystery of this gift (of announcing the Gospel) should belong to the office of all the Apostles, on the condition of its being chiefly seated in the most blessed Peter, first of all the Apostles; and from him, as it were from the head, it is His pleasure that His gifts should flow into the whole body, that whoever dares to recede from the rock of Peter may know that he has no part in the divine mystery. For him hath He assumed into the participation of His indivisible unity, and willed that he should be named what He himself is, saying, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church:' that the rearing of the eternal temple by the wonderful gift of the grace of God might consist in the solidity of Peter, strengthening with this firmness His Church, that neither the rashness of man might attempt it, nor the gates of hell prevail against it."71 So to his vicar the Bishop of Thessalonica, whom he was erecting into an Exarch over the ten Metropolitans of Eastern Illyricum: "As my predecessors to your predecessors, so have I, following the example of those gone before, committed to your affection my charge of government; that you imitating our gentleness might relieve the care which we in virtue of our headship (principaliter), by Divine institution, owe to all Churches, and might, in some degree, discharge our personal visitation to provinces far distant from us; since you can readily ascertain, by near and convenient inspection, what in every matter you might either by your own zeal arrange, or reserve to our judgment." "For we have entrusted your affection to represent us on this condition, that you are called to a part of our solicitude, but not to the fulness of our power… But if in a matter which you believe fit to be considered and decided on with your brethren," (the Bishops of the province,) "their sentence differs from yours, let every thing be referred to us on the authority of the Acts, that all doubtfulness may be removed, and we may decree what pleaseth God. For to this we direct all our solicitude and care, that the unity of mutual agreement and the maintenance of discipline be broken by no dissension, nor neglected by any slothfulness… For the compactness of our unity cannot remain firm, unless the bond of charity bind us into an inseparable whole; because, 'as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.' For it is the joining together which makes one soundness, and one beauty in the whole body: and this joining together, as it requires unanimity in the whole body, so especially demands concord among Priests. For though these have a like dignity, yet have they not an equal jurisdiction; (quibus cum dignitas sit communis, non est tamen ordo generalis;) since even amongst the most blessed Apostles, as there was a likeness of honour, so was there a certain distinction of power; and the election of all being equal, pre-eminence over the rest was given to one. From which type (forma) the distinction between Bishops also has arisen, and it was provided by an important arrangement that all should not claim to themselves power over all, but that in every province there should be one, whose sentence should be considered the first among his brethren; and others again seated in the greater cities should undertake a larger care, through whom the direction of the Universal Church should converge to the one See of Peter, and nothing anywhere disagree from its head."72

I think it fair to admit that the germ of something very like the present papal system, without, however, such a wonderful concentration and absorption of all power, is discernible in these words. I shall give further on, Bossuet's interpretation of their most remarkable expression. But it is also certain that such is not the view of the Church's government set before us by St. Cyprian, St. Augustin, St. Vincent of Lerins, and the Fathers generally, nor the one supported by the acts of the ancient Church. There is a very distinct tone in the teaching and acts of St. Leo, and the other Popes generally, from that of the contemporary Bishops and Fathers who had not succeeded to St. Peter's own see. It consists in dwelling on the Primacy so strongly, as quite to throw out of view the apostolic powers of other Bishops; whereas these latter dwell upon the apostolic powers of the episcopate generally; and, while they admit St. Peter's Primacy and that of the Roman see, place the government of the Church in the harmonious agreement of all. St. Leo's view, rigorously carried out, as it has been by the later Roman Church, substitutes St. Peter singly, for St. Peter and his brethren; and this usurpation, I repeat, we have to admit afresh, or else be accounted heretics and schismatics.

Now, as to the government of which St. Leo had the ideal before him, I must first remark that it was new. He says himself to the Bishop of Thessalonica: "The government of Churches in Illyricum, which we commit in our stead to your affection, following the example of Siricius of blessed memory, who to your predecessor Anysius of holy memory then first committed with a certain charge the supporting of the Churches of that province, which he desired to be maintained in discipline."73 That is, it was scarcely sixty years since Pope Siricius had selected the Bishop of the Metropolis to keep a watch over the maintenance of the canons. And now Pope Leo was already requiring the Metropolitans to consecrate no Bishop without first consulting the Bishop of Thessalonica as his vicar.

Secondly, this proceeding on the part of the Popes was not submitted to generally, even throughout the West. The "Codex Ecclesiæ Africanæ" is full of prohibitions against even appealing to "Bishops beyond the sea," i. e. the Pope. In St. Augustin's time, as we have seen, they positively forbad the Pope's interference with their internal government, and only submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption of the Vandals.

Thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the imperial authority. The process, in fact, of centralizing in the Church, ran completely parallel with that in the State. The law of Valentinian, above mentioned, is a strong proof of this. Of course the object of the emperors was to control the action of the Church through one Bishop made the chief. But it is somewhat remarkable that that Church which maintains a standing protest against the interference of the State with spiritual matters, (a protest for which she is worthy of all respect and admiration,) should owe to the support of the State, in different periods of her history, very much more of her power than any other Church. It may be that God rewards the fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the grant of that very temporal power which threatens them with destruction.

Now as we have had St. Jerome in a noted place appealing to Rome, and acknowledging her primacy, let us take another passage of his which, I think, implicitly denies St. Leo's view. Arguing then against the pride of the Roman deacons, in which city, as they were only seven in number, the office was in higher estimation than even the priesthood, which was numerous, he observes, "Nor is the Church of the Roman city to be considered one, and that of the whole world another. Both the Gauls, and the Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If you require authority, the world is greater than the city. Wherever a bishop is, be it at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or Alexandria, or Tanæ, he is of the same rank, the same priesthood. The power of riches, and the humility of poverty, make a bishop neither higher nor lower. But all are successors of the Apostles. But you say, how is it that at Rome a priest is ordained upon the testimony of a deacon? Why allege to me the custom of a single city? Why defend against the laws of the Church a fewness of number, which is the source of their pride?"74 The very force of St. Leo's view lies in the exact contradictory of St. Jerome's words: viz. the city is greater than the world, and this alone justifies and bears out the present claim of the Roman see, and its attitude both to those within, and to those without, its pale.

But fourthly, had this government, as imaged out by St. Leo, been submitted to not only in Gaul, Spain, Africa, and Illyricum, but throughout the West generally, all this would still be nothing for its catholicity, and therefore its binding effect, unless it had been allowed by the East. Now we have the strongest proof that it never was so allowed. This interference, and much more, the centralization pointed at, as it never would have been tolerated, so neither was it attempted, in the patriarchates of the East. There was far less danger of the patriarchal power becoming excessive, when it was possessed by five, who were a check to each other. St. Leo's influence and authority in the West were balanced by the exercise of like influence and authority in the East, originally by the sees of Alexandria and Antioch, and at this and later times still more by that of Constantinople. And though throughout the East the Bishop of Rome was reckoned the first of these in rank, yet the Easterns were governed entirely by their own Patriarchs. So far from there being any authority delegated by Rome to the Eastern Patriarchs, there was no appeal from them to Rome, that is to say, in a matter belonging to their particular government; for as to the general faith of the Church, in any peculiar emergency or violation of the usual order of procedure, there was an appeal, if not lawful, at least exercised, to any of the Patriarchs. Thus Theodoret of Cyrus, unjustly deposed by Dioscorus of Alexandria in the Latrocinium of Ephesus, flies "to the Apostolic throne" of St. Leo; "for in all things it is becoming that you should have the primacy. For your throne is adorned with many advantages. It has the sepulchres of our common Fathers and teachers of the truth, Peter and Paul. These have made your throne exceedingly illustrious. This is the height of your blessings."75 Though a supplicant, he addresses him only as first Bishop of the Church, not as monarch. It is a virtual denial of the present Papal authority, because a silence, where it would have been put forward, had it been known. So the heretic Eutyches, before the council of his own Patriarch, "when his deposition was read, appealed to the holy synod of the most holy Bishop of Rome, and Alexandria, and Jerusalem, and Thessalonica."76 Thus St. Isidore of Spain, in the sixth century, says: "The order of Bishops is fourfold; that is, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Bishops. In Greek a Patriarch is called the first of the Fathers, because he holds the first, that is, the Apostolic place, and therefore, because he holds the highest rank, he has such an appellation, as the Roman, the Antiochene, and the Alexandrine."77 Accordingly Gieseler says, "At the end of this period," (A.D. 451,) the four Patriarchs of the East "were held in their patriarchates for ecclesiastical centres, to which the other Bishops had to attach themselves for maintenance of ecclesiastical unity; and in conjunction with their patriarchal synod they formed the highest tribunal of appeal in all ecclesiastical matters of the patriarchate; whilst, on the other hand, they were treated as the highest representatives of the Church, who, through mutual communication with each other, were to maintain the unity of the universal Church, and without whose concurrence no decrees concerning the whole Church could be made."78