In 340, Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, the champion of orthodoxy, appealed to Julian I. from an unjust decision against him in the episcopal courts of the East. Julian I. called a council, to which he invited the Eastern bishops, who refused to attend, reversed the decision,[166:1] and completely acquitted Athanasius. He wrote a strong letter of reproof to the Arians in which he asserts Rome's canonical supremacy in initiating conciliar proceedings against ecclesiastical offenders.[166:2] The Council of Sardica confirmed the resolutions of the Roman Synod.[166:3]
It was decreed that any bishop, who might feel himself aggrieved by an unfair trial, could have the judges write to the Bishop of Rome asking for a new trial at which, if it seemed wise, priests representing the Bishop of Rome could be present.[166:4] Meanwhile, pending the trial, no successor to the office of the accused could be named. This action made the Bishop of Rome referee to decide, however, not the case itself, but whether there ought to be a new trial. The right was conferred "in honour of the memory" of St. Peter and hence it was soon claimed as an inherent prerogative of the apostolical See of the West. Later on it was positively asserted that these canons gave an appeal to the Church of Rome in all episcopal cases. Whatever the original intent may have been, the fact remains that this new power was an important factor in the evolution of papal supremacy. The Pope was given a power previously possessed exclusively by the
Emperor.[167:1] In 378, Emperor Gratian added civic sanction to the judicial authority of the Bishop of Rome by compelling accused bishops to go to Rome for trial.[167:2] Ultimate appellate jurisdiction was definitely assigned to the Pope by Emperor Valentinian III. in 445, when, of his own motion, causes could be called to Rome for papal decision.[167:3] Emperor Gelasius (496) approved in very positive terms the judicial supremacy of the Bishop of Rome.[167:4] And Gregory the Great (604) assumed it as an indisputable fact that every bishop is subject to the See of Peter.[167:5]
After this period cases were continually referred to Rome for adjustment. St. Basil, Archbishop of Cæsarea, appealed to Damasus I., the latter part of the fourth century, for protection. In 398 the Emperor ordered Flavian of Antioch to proceed to Rome for trial. He refused to go, but compromised with the Pope. St. John Chrysostom, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and head of the whole Eastern Church, early in the fifth century, appealed to Innocent I. against the persecutions of Empress Eudoxia and for restoration to his see.[167:6] Apiarius, a priest of Africa, appealed to Pope Zosimus against the censure of his bishop in 416. The Pope vindicated the priest against his bishop, and ordered the latter either to revoke the
censure or to appear at Rome for trial.[168:1] St. Augustine's letter to Pope Celestine in 424 shows that it was a common thing to refer disputes to Rome for settlement.[168:2] Both St. Cyril and the Nestorians appealed to Pope Celestus, who decided in favour of St. Cyril. Theodoret, the Church historian, when condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 449, appealed to Leo I., who asserted that he could hear appeals from any source as a court of first and last resort.[168:3] These appeals, and many other similar cases, which could be cited both East and West,[168:4] show the growing power of the Roman Pope, and enabled him to make real the theory of his supremacy. To enable the successor of St. Peter to adjudicate cases more easily, vicars were appointed in various parts of the papal empire to decide finally on all cases, not reserved by the Pope. This arrangement greatly enlarged papal jurisdiction by encouraging and facilitating appeals.
4. The removal of the capital of the Empire from Rome to Constantinople in 330, left the Western Church, practically free from imperial power, to develop its own form of organisation. The Bishop of Rome, in the seat of the Cæsars, was now the greatest man in the West, and was soon forced to become the political as well as the spiritual head. To the Western world Rome was still the political capital—hence the whole habit of mind, all ambition, pride, and sense of glory, and every social prejudice favoured the evolution of the great city into the ecclesiastical capital. Civil as well as religious disputes were referred to the
successor of Peter for settlement. Again and again, when barbarians attacked Rome, he was compelled to actually assume military leadership. Eastern Emperors frequently recognised the high claims of the Popes in order to gain their assistance. It is not difficult to understand how, under these responsibilities, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, established in the pre-Constantine period, was emphasised and magnified after 313. The importance of this fact must not be overlooked. The organisation of the Church was thus put on the same divine basis as the revelation of Christianity. This idea once accepted led inevitably to the mediæval Papacy. The priesthood came, in consequence, to assume all the powers of the great Founder. The Mosaic forms, as well as the Roman Empire, suggested convenient models and authoritative examples for the new structure. It is not difficult to detect in the oligarchical Church polity of the fourth and fifth centuries a yearning for unity. It was but natural, therefore, that Rome should boldly take the remedy into her own hands and pose as the authorised representative of the visible unity demanded by the Christian world. The position Rome had already attained and the worthy part played in the organisation and spread of the gospel gave her a superior advantage, and enabled, nay compelled, her bishop to become the one high-priest, the "universal bishop."
5. In the fourth and fifth centuries the Petrine theory was generally accepted by the Church Fathers East and West.[169:1] The theory had become a dogmatic principle of law founded upon historical facts. Optatus, the African Bishop of Mileve (c. 384), strongly asserted the visible unity of the Church and the
immovable Cathedra Petri, with the Roman Bishop as Peter's successor.[170:1] Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) gave the Bishop of Rome the same position in the Church that the Emperor had in the Empire,[170:2] and recognised him as the great champion of orthodoxy, but at the same time called Peter's primacy one of confession and faith, not of rank. He put Paul on an equality with Peter. Jerome (d. 419) recognised the Pope as the successor of Peter and said, "Following none but Christ, I am associated in communion with . . . the chair of Peter. On that rock I know the Church to be built."[170:3] Innocent I. (414) made a magnificent defence of the theory. Augustine (d. 430), the greatest of the Latin Fathers, admitted the primacy of Peter and recognised the Roman Bishop as his successor.[170:4] In his remarkable book, the City of God, he did more than all the Fathers to idealise Rome as the Christian Zion. Maximus of Turin (d. 450) and Orosius (d. 5th century) bore similar testimony. The Greek Fathers uniformly spoke of Peter in lofty terms as the "Prince of Apostles," the "Tongue of the Apostles," the "bearer of the keys," the "keeper of the kingdom of Heaven," the "Pillar," the "Rock," et cetera, but they held generally that Peter's primacy was honorary, and that he transferred his power to both the Bishop of Antioch and the Bishop of Rome.[170:5] But these modifications of the Petrine theory did not arrest the evolution of the papal power. The important historical
fact to be taken into account is, that the belief in the supremacy of St. Peter's successor was quite generally recognised and accepted.