The Bishops of Gaul, viz. Simplicius of Vienne, Hilarius of Narbonne, and Proculus of Marseilles, amazed and astonished at the Temerity of the Bishop of Rome, openly refused to acknowlege his Authority, or submit to his Sentence. Zosimus, highly provoked at the Opposition he met with, writ several threatening Letters to Hilarius and Proculus, as if he were determined to cut them off from his Communion, if they did not yield, and acknowlege Patroclus for their Metropolitan. As for Simplicius, he seems to have acted with less Vigour on this Occasion than the other Two; and it was perhaps on that Account that he has been sainted. Hilarius too yielded at last, not to the Menaces of Zosimus, which he made no Account of, but to those of Count Constantius, the avowed Patron of Patroclus[[1569]], whom he allowed, on that Consideration, to ordain a Bishop at Lodeve, within the Limits of his Province, which was owning him for his Metropolitan. But nothing could shake the Firmness and Constancy of Proculus. Zosimus, thinking he could frighten him into a Compliance, began with reproachful Language; from Reproaches he proceeded to Menaces; and from Menaces, to summon him to Rome, to answer there for his presuming to ordain Bishops in a Province (the Second Narbonnese) that had been adjudged by the Apostolic See to the Metropolitan of Arles. |especially by Pro-
culus Bishop of Marseilles.| But Proculus made so little Account of his Reproaches, Menaces, and Summons, that I do not even find he returned them an Answer. It is at least certain, that he did not obey the Summons, and that he continued to exercise the same Jurisdiction, which he had exercised before, opposing to the repeated and peremptory Orders of Zosimus a Canon of the Council of Turin, appointing him Metropolitan of the Narbonnensis Secunda[[1570]]. Zosimus, transported with Rage in seeing his Authority thus slighted, writ Three Letters, all dated the 29th of September 417. viz. one to the People and Clergy of the Province of Vienne, another to those of the Second Narbonnese, and the third to Patroclus. In the Two former he inveighs bitterly against Proculus, and confirms anew to Patroclus the Metropolitan Dignity and Jurisdiction, which have been so unalterably intailed, says he, on the See of Arles, by the Decrees of the Fathers and Councils, that it exceeds even the Power and Authority of the Roman Church to transfer them to, or intail them upon, any other[[1571]]. This was disclaiming, in the plainest Terms, the Power of dispensing with the Canons, which has since proved so beneficial to the Apostolic See. And yet Zosimus was acting the whole Time in direct Opposition to the Fourth Canon of the Council of Nice, vesting, as it was understood by the subsequent Councils, the Bishop of each Metropolis with the Metropolitan Dignity and Jurisdiction over the whole Province. Zosimus, in his Letter to Patroclus, encourages him to resume and exercise, in spite of Proculus, the Metropolitan Jurisdiction over the Second Narbonnese, which Proculus had so unjustly invaded and usurped. |Proculus excommunicated and deposed by Zosimus.| This Patroclus durst not attempt, tho’ seconded by the whole Power of the Apostolic See; which wrought the Pride, Ambition,and Resentment of Zosimus to such a Pitch, that, giving the Reins to his Passion, he thundered the Sentence of Excommunication against Proculus, declared him unworthy of, and degraded from, the Episcopal Dignity, and committing the Church of Marseilles to the Care of Patroclus, commanded him to exercise there the Jurisdiction with which he was vetted. The Power of the Apostolic See was now exhausted, and, what drove Zosimus almost to Despair, exhausted to no Effect: for Proculus, to shew how little Regard he paid to the Sentence pronounced against him at Rome, ordained a Bishop soon after he was acquainted with it. |But continues to discharge the Functions of his Office.| Zosimus, sensible that the Authority of his See was here at stake, would not abandon the Attempt. He writ Two Letters more on the same Subject, one to Patroclus, exhorting him to exert, with Vigour and Severity, the Power with which he was vested; and at the same time commanding him to declare, in his Name, that he should never be prevailed upon to acknowlege those whom Proculus had ordained. The other Letter was to the People, Clergy, and Magistrates of Marseilles; stirring them up against Proculus, and encouraging them to drive him out, and receive another in his room at the Hands of Patroclus. These Letters occasioned great Disturbances in the Church of Marseilles, which was now rent into Two opposite Parties, some refusing to acknowlege Proculus, and others declaring that they would acknowlege no other[[1572]]. But, in spite of the utmost Efforts of Zosimus, of Patroclus, and their Partisans, Proculus still kept his Ground, still continued to exercise all Episcopal as well as Metropolitan Functions, as he had formerly done. He thought even the Evils attending a Schism of a less dangerous Tendency than those which he apprehended from the Encroachments of the Bishops of Rome. |His Steadiness in opposing the Encroachments of Rome.| Had all the Prelates thus stood up in Defence of their just Rights and Privileges against the Papal Usurpations, the Church had never been reduced to that deplorable Thraldom, which she groaned under for so many Ages. But, alas! there have been in all Times but too many Simplicius’s, who, out of a mistaken Principle, have chosen rather to yield to an encroaching Power, than to raise Disturbances, and forego their own Ease, by withstanding it; but too many Patroclus’s, who, to gratify their own Ambition, have prostituted their sacred Dignity to the ambitious Views of the Pope, and raised him, at the Expence of their own Order, that they might be raised by him in their Turn. Proculus, though deposed, excommunicated, calumniated, persecuted by Zosimus and his Tools, kept to the last Possession of his See; nay, and was acknowleged for lawful Bishop of Marseilles, for Metropolitan of the Second Narbonnese, not only by the Bishops of Gaul, but likewise by those of Africa[[1573]]. He was still alive in 427. when he condemned the Monk Leporius for maintaining Christ to have been born Man only, but to have deserved, by his good Works, to become God[[1574]]. The Encomiums bestowed on him by the Council of Turin, by St. Jerom, and Tiro Prosper, as I have observed above, are a sufficient Confutation of all the Calumnies uttered against him by Zosimus, and the rest of his Enemies.
Zosimus dies.
The last Letters of Zosimus, that is, his Letters to Patroclus, and the People of Marseilles, are dated the 5th of March 418. and he died in the Latter-end of the same Year, on the 26th of December, says Baronius[[1575]], upon the Authority, we may suppose, of some antient Pontifical[[N64]].
[N64]. He is said to have been buried near the Body of St. Laurence, on the Tiburtine Way, on the 25th or 26th of December, according to Anastasius the Bibliothecarian[[1]]; but on the 27th, according to an antient Pontifical, which agrees better with the Letters of Symmachus concerning the Election of his Successor Boniface: so that he may have governed One Year Nine Months and Eight or Nine Days, which is the Time that Prosper allows him[[2]].
[1]. Anast. c. 42.
[2]. Vide Pontaci not. in chron. Prosp. p. 777.
The Distemper which he died of lasted a long time, and was attended with such violent Fits, that he was often thought to be dead before he died. It was during his Illness that he writ his last Letters; and yet they are no less remarkable than the rest for that Fire and Vivacity, that Strength of Expression, and even that Elegance and Purity of Diction, that were peculiar to him. |His Character.| He was a Man of great Address in the Management of Affairs; well knew how to turn every thing to his Advantage; and in the several Disputes which he engaged in, he forgot nothing that could any ways distress those who opposed him. He was apt to engage too rashly, giving an intire Credit to those who, by a servile Submission, flattered his Ambition; and when he had once engaged in a Cause, as he was of a haughty and imperious Temper, impatient of Controul, passionate, headstrong, full of, and elated with, the Dignity of the Apostolic See, it required the greatest Art and Address in his Brethren to bring him into their Measures, and with-hold him from raising fatal Divisions in the Church. His whole Conduct and Behaviour towards them, the haughty and peremptory Style, which he assumed in writing to them, sufficiently shew that he looked upon them as infinitely below him, as bound to yield a blind Obedience to all his Commands, and submit, without Reply, to all his Decisions: and it is not to be doubted but, had he lived longer, and not met with the vigorous Opposition which he did from the Bishop of Marseilles, he would have made great Progress towards reducing his Fellow-Ministers and Fellow-Labourers, as they are styled by St. Cyprian, to that State of Dependence, not to say Slavery, which in the End they have been reduced to by his Successors. He was the first who made use of the Expression, For so it has pleased the Apostolic See[[1576]], an Expression which his Successors have all adopted, as the Language of the highest Authority, and such as exempted them from giving any Account either of their Actions, or of the Motives, that prompted them so to act. But, to paint Zosimus to the Life, we want no other Colours than those, which the African Bishops, who were but too well acquainted with him, have furnished us with in the Letter which they writ to his Successor Boniface. We hope, say they, that since it has pleased the Almighty to raise you to the Throne of the Roman Church, we shall no longer feel the Effects of that worldly Pride and Arrogance, which ought never to have found room in the Church of Christ[[1577]]. In the same Letter they complain of their having been made to endure such things as it was almost impossible for them to endure, which however they were willing to forget. Hard indeed and tyrannical must the Treatment have been, which they met with at the Hands of Zosimus, since it could extort from so many venerable Prelates a Complaint of this Nature, and that in a Letter to his immediate Successor. |Zosimus sainted by a Mistake of Baronius.| Zosimus however has been sainted, and is now worshiped by the Church of Rome as a great Saint, not so much in regard of his own Merits, as by a Blunder of Baronius in revising and correcting the Roman Martyrology. The Case is pretty singular, and may not be thought quite unworthy of a Place here, by reason of the Consequences, which every Protestant Reader may draw from it. In the Martyrology of Bede was marked, St. Zosimus Martyr, who suffered for the Confession of the Faith. This Martyr an ignorant Transcriber mistook for the Pope of the same Name, and, concerned to find so little said of so great a Saint, set down all he knew of him. This Copy Baronius perused, and, reading there what the Transcriber had added of his own, concluded the Saint mentioned in that Place to be Pope Zosimus, and accordingly, upon the supposed Authority of Bede, allotted him a Place among the other Saints in the Roman Martyrology. As for his being said to have suffered Martyrdom for the Confession of the Faith, Baronius ascribed that to the Ignorance of the Transcriber, making but one Saint out of two, though they lived at so great a Distance of Time from each other; for the Martyr lived in the earliest Times, and is mentioned by St. Polycarp, who flourished Two hundred Years and upwards before the Pontificate of Zosimus. To this double Blunder of the Transcriber and Baronius is Zosimus indebted for the Worship and Honours that are publicly paid him in the Church of Rome. Indeed that Church is not more grosly deluded in paying an idolatrous Worship to Saints, upon the Authority of her Infallible Guide, than in the Objects to whom that Worship is paid[[N65]].