The refusal of St. Leo to confirm the twenty-eighth canon gave rise to the report that he had refused to confirm the acts of the council, and the Eutychians, against whom its definitions of faith were directed, began to raise their heads and boldly assert that they were not condemned, that the definitions of the council against them counted for nothing, since the Roman pontiff had refused to confirm them, as he refused to confirm the doings of the Ephesian Latrocinium. The imperial court became alarmed, and the emperor wrote to St. Leo for an explicit statement of what he had done. St. Leo answers that he has confirmed all the decrees of Chalcedon defining the faith, but that he has not confirmed the decree erecting the church of Constantinople into a patriarchal church. This fact does not seem to favor the author's theory that the Roman pontiff was held to have only a primacy of honor, nor that St. Leo did not claim universal jurisdiction.
It will have been observed that the council of Chalcedon undertakes to support, very illogically indeed, the twenty-eighth canon on the authority of the third canon of the first council of Constantinople, which gave the bishop of Constantinople simply the primacy of honor after the bishop of Rome. But St. Leo, in the letter to the empress just cited, denies the authority of that canon, on the ground that it had never been communicated to Rome, and therefore could have no effect.
We have dwelt at great length on the sixth canon of Nicaea, the third canon of Constantinople, and twenty-eighth of Chalcedon, because they are the author's three strongholds, and we have wished to show that they do not in the least aid him—do in no sense contradict the papal authority, but, as far as they go, tend to confirm it. The author claims St. Leo as a witness against the Catholic doctrine of the papal supremacy, and we have thought it well to show that he has in him about such a witness as he had in St. Cyprian, or as he would have in our holy father, Pius IX., now gloriously reigning. Leo Magnus is our ideal of a pope, or visible head of the universal church, and we cannot sufficiently admire the hardihood or the stupidity that would claim him as a witness against the primacy he adorned, and the papal authority which he so gracefully and so majestically wielded, and with such grand effects for the church and the empire. No nobler man, no truer saint, no greater pontiff ever sat in the chair of Peter, and no higher or more magnificent character is to be found in all history. Sancte Leo Magne, ora pro nobis.
The author says, p. 102: "The canons of the first oecumenical councils throw incontestably a strong light upon the prerogatives of the bishop of Rome. They are the complement to each other. The twenty-eighth canon contains nothing less than the doctrine we defend, even though the opposition of the West in the person of the bishop of Rome should strip it of its oecumenical character, as certain theologians maintain." M. Guettée finds but two canons that in any respect favor his doctrine, the third of the second general council, and the twenty-eighth of the fourth, neither of which was ever accepted by the universal church, and both of which have remained from the first without Catholic authority. A doctrine sustained or favored only by irregularity and violent innovation needs no refutation. "St. Leo," the author continues, "did not protest against it, (the twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon,) as opposed to the divine and universal authority of the see of Rome, for which he claimed only an ecclesiastical primacy, but simply because it infringed upon the sixth canon of the council of Nicaea." That he claimed only an ecclesiastical primacy for his see is not true, for he claimed to annul the canon by authority of Peter. Nor did he object to it only because it infringed the sixth canon of Nicaea, but because it contained a grave innovation in the constitution of the church, and attempted to found the authority of bishops on a temporal instead of a spiritual and apostolic basis. It proposed to change entirely the basis of the pontifical authority, which had hitherto rested on Peter, and to make it rest on the empire. The church of Constantinople was not an apostolic see, and only the bishop of an apostolic see could be clothed with patriarchal authority. This seems to us to be the great objection of St. Leo. Therefore, he writes to the emperor, as already cited: "Let not the bishop of Constantinople disdain the imperial city, which he cannot make an apostolic see." Hitherto only apostolic sees, and indeed only sees founded by Peter, had been clothed with the authority of patriarchal sees; and to give to a non-apostolic and non-Petrine church authority over other metropolitan churches was to strike at apostolic authority itself, and especially at that of Peter. The whole organization of the church was from the first based on Peter as the immediate representative of Christ and prince of the apostles. The twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon was therefore aimed at Peter, and in the name and by the authority of Peter, whom he fully represented, St. Leo annulled it, and declared it void, and the author, without knowing well what he concedes, says: "St. Leo was right."
"One fact is certain, that they (the Roman pontiffs) did not convoke the first four oecumenical councils, that they did not preside over them, and that they did not confirm them." This is certain only of the second general council, or first of Constantinople. But suppose it, what follows? Simply that they were not councils of the church at all—which will be very pleasant news to Unitarians and Rationalists, who wish a Christianity without Christ—and can have the authority of general councils only by the ex-post facto sanction of the universal church; but, as the two canons on which the author bases his anti-papal theory have never received that sanction, they have no authority, and never have had any. Hence, the author's theory, on any ground he chooses, has nothing in the church to sustain it. We shall, therefore, pass over what he adduces to prove the part taken by the civil authority in the councils, with the simple remark that the acts of several of them depend entirely on the confirmation of the Roman pontiff and the ex-post facto sanction of the church for their authority.
M. Guettée's proofs are not seldom proofs of the contrary of what he alleges. "It is undeniable fact," he says, p. 118, "that the dogmatic letter addressed by St. Leo to the fathers of the council was there examined, and approved for this reason: that it agreed with the doctrine of Celestine [his predecessor] and Cyril, confirmed by the council of Ephesus." That the letter was read in the council, and that the council adopted its definitions of faith, is true; but that it was approved for the reason alleged does not appear from the proofs the author adduces. He continues, pp. 118, 119: "At the close of the reading, the bishops exclaimed: 'Such is the faith of the fathers; this is the faith of the apostles. We all believe thus. Anathema to those who do not thus believe. Peter has spoken by Leo. Thus taught the apostles. Leo teaches according to piety and truth, and thus has Cyril taught.'" Any one not bent on proving the papacy schismatic would gather from this that the bishops approved of the letter because they recognized in it the doctrine of the apostles and the tradition of the fathers.
The author imagines that he gets an argument against the papacy from St. Leo's refusal to accept the title of universal bishop offered him by the council of Chalcedon, as we learn from Pope St. Gregory the Great. He also thinks the argument is strengthened by the fact that St. Gregory himself disclaimed it; and he therefore claims both of these great pontiffs and great saints as witnesses against the pretensions of the bishops of Rome. If they had believed in their jurisdiction by divine right over the whole church, would they have refused the title of universal bishop?
John the Faster, Bishop of Constantinople, on some occasion summoned a particular council, and signed its acts, which he transmitted to Pope Pelagius II. as universal patriarch, for which, as St. Gregory says, Pelagius, "in virtue of the authority of the apostle St. Peter, nullified the acts of the synod." Gregory succeeded Pelagius, and immediately on his accession to the pontificate wrote to the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, condemning the title, and warning them and the whole church of the danger it threatened; and also he wrote to John the Faster himself, admonishing him of the impropriety of the title, not only as savoring of pride and vanity, but as involving a most serious error against faith, and beseeching him to lay it aside, lest he be obliged to cut him off from the communion of the church, and depose him from his bishopric. He does not at all disclaim his own authority as supreme pastor and governor of the universal church, but quietly assumes it. Thus, he writes to the emperor Maurice, as cited by the author: "All who know the gospel know that the care of the whole church was confided by our Lord himself to Peter, the first (St. Gregory says prince) of all the apostles. Indeed, he said to him, 'Peter, lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.' Again he said to him: 'Satan has desired to sift thee as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.' It was also said to him: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' He thus received the keys of the celestial kingdom; the power to bind and loose was given him; the care of all the church and the primacy [principatus—principality, or primacy of jurisdiction] were committed to him, and yet he did not call himself universal apostle. But that holy man John, (bishop of Constantinople,) my brother in the priesthood, [cosacerdos,] would fain assume the title of universal bishop! O tempora! O mores!" (Pp. 212, 213.)
"It is certain," St. Gregory continues, "that this title was offered to the Roman pontiff by the venerable council of Chalcedon, to honor Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles. But none of us has consented to use this particular title, [title of singularity,] lest by conferring a special matter on one alone, all priests would be deprived of the honor which is their due. How, then, while we are not ambitious of the glory of a title which has been offered us, does another, to whom no one has offered it, have the presumption to take it?" (Pp. 214, 215.)