It is certainly true that the author of the Isidorian decretals, as he himself avows in the preface, wished to give a complete code of ecclesiastical laws to the clergy, though for the greater part he insists on such points of discipline as were at that time greatly endangered and often neglected.
"The immediate object," says Janus, "of the compiler of this forgery was to protect bishops against their metropolitans and other authorities, so as to secure absolute impunity." (P. 77.)
This should be effected, of course, by the right of appealing to Rome, and, consequently, making the pope the supreme judge of all the bishops and clergy, that is, of the entire church. These are the principles that worked their way and became dominant; and that they "revolutionized the whole constitution of the church, introducing a new system in place of the old on that point," our authors assert "there can be no controversy among candid historians." (P. 79.) With all deference to the historical erudition of our authors, we cannot refrain from interrogating history and assuring ourselves of the truth of these grave charges.
Having once granted that Christ intrusted Peter and his successors with the chief care of his flock—both pastors and people—it is impossible to suppose that in this supreme charge should not be included the right of hearing appeals and giving final decision; for where could this preëminence find any application, if the whole church be thus cut off from communicating with its head?
The Synod of Sardica had formally defined this right of hearing appeals in several of its canons, as our authors acknowledge, though their efforts to cancel this ancient testimony and to do away with the binding force of these canons are useless and unavailing; for the canons of the Council of Sardica[224] did nothing more than solemnly acknowledge what had been handed down from apostolic times, attesting the doctrine of the church as fully practised long before. We may be permitted to signalize two most remarkable and indubitable instances from history. Marcianus, Bishop of Arles, having espoused the heretical doctrine of Novatian, was denounced by Faustinus of Lyons, and other bishops, to the see of Rome; at the same time Faustinus also informed St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who, in his turn, begged Pope Stephen to terminate this affair by his power as supreme pastor of the church, requesting the deposition of Marcianus and the appointment of another in his place.[225] Another no less conspicuous proof we find in the fact of the two Spanish bishops, Basilides and Martial, in which case St. Cyprian[226] approved of the action of Pope Stephen, and saw no usurpation of power when the latter restored Basilides to his bishopric, and only regretted that by a false statement of facts the pope was misled and deceived.[227] Our argument becomes more conclusive from the following great event in the eastern church, where the jurisdiction in the greater causes (causæ majores) appears in most resplendent light. In the case of Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, when the Eusebians,[228] supported by the weak and tyrannical Emperor Constantius, drove him from his episcopal see, we find, first, that a numerous assembly of Egyptian bishops who met at Alexandria appealed to Pope Julius I. After the Arian Synod of Antioch in 314, Gregory, a Cappadocian, was forced on the episcopal see of Athanasius, and the latter, with the Bishops Marcellus of Ancyra, Lucius of Adrianople, Asclepas of Gaza, Paul of Constantinople, and many others, fled to Rome, imploring the protection of Pope Julius, who caused a synod to be held in 343, at which a great number of eastern prelates from Thrace, Cœlésyria, Phœnicia, and Palestine attended. The case of St. Athanasius and his fellow-exiles was examined, and they were declared innocent of the charges brought against them, and reinstated in their sees, from which only violence and force kept them for some time. Here, then, we have another argument for these high prerogatives exercised by the Bishop of Rome four years before the Synod of Sardica. Confront this fact with the following passage from our authors:
"Only after the Sardican Council, and in reliance solely on it, or the Nicene, which was designedly confounded with it, was a right of hearing appeals laid claim to."[229]
We have to deal with men of far too evasive minds, in the authors of this "contribution to ecclesiastical history," to limit ourselves to any one point of their argumentation. If, on the one hand, we adduce from history long before the existence of the Isidorian forgeries, the testimony of such great and holy popes as Innocent I.,[230] Zozimus,[231] Boniface I.,[232] Celestine I., Leo the Great,[233] Gelasius I.,[234] and even before, Julius I.,[235] (337 to 352,) who all claim, assert, and exercise the right of final decision as supreme judges for both east and west, from whom there is no appeal, and this, too, in all great and weighty matters, (graviora negotia,) as Pope Gelasius says; then we are told that this right rests only on the canons of Sardica, and that the "fathers gave the see of Rome the privilege of final decision." If, on the other hand, we show ourselves satisfied with so ancient and indubitable an authority as the great Synod of Sardica, why, then, does Janus resort to the simple expedient of declaring that the "Sardican canons were never received at all in the east"? Nor can his bon-mot, in styling greater causes (in which final decision is reserved to the Roman see) an "elastic term," supply the want of logic and historical accuracy. A slight acquaintance with the historical incidents connected with the Council of Sardica[236] will at once convince every unbiased mind that the opposition came from a party of reckless Eusebians, who withdrew from the synod when they could not attain their nefarious object, and repaired to Philippolis in order to crown their treacherous proceeding by excommunicating such holy and illustrious prelates as Athanasius and the aged Hosius, legate of Pope Julius, and even the pontiff himself, who remained steadfast in their defence of the Nicene doctrines. And such are the reasons, let it be observed, which cause Janus to say that the canons of Sardica were not at all received in the east. What can be a more convincing proof than their insertion into collections or codes of law compiled by official authority,[237] having been inserted not only in the Latin collection of Dionysius,[238] under the pontificate of Anastasius II., about the year 498, and later in the Spanish code called Liber Canonum, commonly attributed to Isidore of Seville, but also in the Greek collection of canons by John Scholasticus, and in the Nomocanon compiled by the same author, who died Patriarch of Constantinople in 578.[239]
From these premises we arrive at the following conclusions: 1st, that the right of appeal to Rome and her jurisdiction, in all greater causes, was taught and practised in the church at least four centuries before the Isidorian decretals were known; 2d, that the jurisdiction of the pope as supreme judge of the whole church is triumphantly attested by historical documents of the same age; 3d, that the canons of Sardica acknowledged a divine right of the bishops of Rome—merely introducing a new form that affected the application and exercise of this right, from which, however, the popes could deviate for reasons of wise and prompt administration.[240]
In this connection we must briefly notice another charge made by Janus, namely, that on the fabrication of pseudo-Isidore,