terrible of all the Northern conquerors, before the imposing sanctity, as it was universally believed, of Pope Leo, blended again in indissoluble alliance the sacred security of Rome with the authority of her bishop. Leo himself, as will be hereafter seen, exalts St. Peter and St. Paul into the Romulus and Remus of the new universal Roman dominion.

It was at this period (the commencement of the fifth century), when the Imperial power was declining Accession of towards extinction in the hands of the feeble Ho- Innocent. norius, and the Roman arms were for the last time triumphant, under Stilicho, over the Northern barbarians, that a prelate was placed on the episcopal throne of Rome, of a bolder and more imperious nature, of unimpeachable holiness, who held the pontifical power for a longer period than is usual in the rapid succession of the bishops of Rome. Ambrose was now dead, and there was no Western prelate, at least in Europe, whose fame and abilities could obscure that pre-eminence, which rank and position, and, in his case, commanding character, bestowed on the Bishop of Rome. Innocent, like most of the geater Popes, was by birth, if not a Roman, of the Roman territory. He was born at Albano. The patriotism of a Roman might mingle with his holier aspirations for the spiritual greatness of the ancient mistress of the world. Upon the mind of Innocent appears first distinctly to have dawned the vast conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy, dim as yet and shadowy, yet full and comprehensive in its outline.

A.D. 402.

Up to the accession of Innocent, the steps by which the See of Rome, during the preceding century, had advanced towards the legal recognition of a supremacy, were few but not unimportant; the first had been made by the Council of Sardica, the renown of whose resolute orthodoxy gave it peculiar weight in all parts of Christendom, where the Athanasian Trinitarianism maintained its ascendancy. It is not difficult to trace the motives which

There is an expression in one of St. Jerome's letters, which, taken literally, asserts Innocent to have been the son of his predecessor Anastasius. Qui

apostolicæ cathedræ et supradicti viri successor et filius est. Is it to be presumed, that this is an incautious metaphor of St. Jerome?

Sardica 347.
Rimini 359.

influenced the Bishops at Sardica. Great principles are often established by measures which grow out of temporary interests. The Western orthodox Bishops at Sardica hardly escaped being out-numbered by their heretical adversaries; there were ninety-four on one side, seventy-six on the other. Had not the turbulent, but irresolute, minority withdrawn to Philippopolis, and there set up a rival synod, the issue might have been almost doubtful; at all events, where parties were so evenly balanced, intrigue, accident, activity on one part, supineness on the other, or the favour of the Emperor, might summon an assembly, in which the preponderance would be in favour of Arianism (it was so a few years after at Rimini); and thus might heresy gain the sanction of a Council of Christendom. But Rome had, up to this time, before the fall of Liberius, so firmly, so repeatedly, so solemnly, embraced the cause of Athanasius, that it might seem to be irrevocably committed to orthodoxy; an appeal to Rome, therefore, would always give an opportunity to an orthodox minority, to annul or to suspend the decrees of an heretical Church. In all causes, therefore, of bishops (and not merely were the bishops in general the chief members of Councils, but the first proceeding of all the Councils, at this period, was to depose the prelates of the opposite party) an appeal to Rome would both secure a second hearing, by more favourable judges, of the subject under controversy, and might maintain, notwithstanding adverse decrees, all the orthodox bishops upon their thrones. The Council of Sardica, therefore, in its canons, established the law, that on an appeal to the Bishop of Rome, he might decide whether the judgment was to be reconsidered, and appoint judges for the second hearing of the cause; he might even, if he thought fit, take the initiative; and delegate an ecclesiastic "from his side," to institute a commission of inquiry.'

The right of appeal to Rome, thus established by

Et si judicaverit renovandum esse judicium, renovetur, et det judices; si autem probaverit, talem causam esse, ut non refricetur, ea quæ acta sunt, quæ

decreverant, confirmata erant. Can 3.Can. 5 permits him to send this presbyterum a latere. Mansi, sub ann.

Law of

ecclesiastical, was confirmed by Imperial authority during the reign of Valentinian II. Up to that time A.D. 381. the Emperors, if they did not possess by the Valentinian. constitution of the Church, exercised nevertheless by virtue of their supreme and indefeasible authority, and by the irresistible, and, as yet rarely contested, tenure of power, the right of summary decision in religious as in civil causes. A feeble emperor would willingly devolve, on a more legitimate court, these troublesome and perplexing affairs. To a monarch, another spiritual Monarch would appear at once the most natural and the most efficient delegate to relieve him from these burthens; he would feel no jealousy of such useful and unconflicting autocracy; and the Western Emperor would of course invest in this part of the Imperial prerogative the Bishop of the Imperial City.

Now too the temporal power, the Empire, was sinking rapidly into the decrepitude of age, the Papacy rising in the first vigour of its youthful ambition. Honorius was cowering in the palace of Ravenna from the perils which were convulsing the empire on all sides, while the provinces were withdrawing their doubtful allegiance, or in danger of being dissevered from the Roman dominion. Innocent was on the episcopal throne of Rome, asserting his almost despotic spiritual control over those very provinces.

Innocent, in his assertion of supremacy, might seem to disdain the authority of Council or Emperor. He declares, in one of his earliest epistles, that all the churches of the West, not of Italy alone, but of Gaul, Spain, and Africa, having been planted by St. Peter and his successors, owe filial obedience to the parent See, are bound to follow her example in all points of discipline, and to maintain a rigid uniformity with all her usages." To the minutest point Rome will again be the legislator of the world; and it is singular to behold a representative, as it were, of each of these provinces bringing the first fruits of that deference,

Cum sit manifestum in omnem Italiam, Gallias, Hispanias, Africam atque Siciliam insulasque intervenientes nullum instituisse ecclesias nisi eos quos venerabilis Apostolus Petrus ejusque succes

VOL. I.

sores constituerint sacerdotes. Epist. ad Decent. Episcop. Eugubin.

Jaffe dates this Epist. 416. March 19. Labbe, ii. p. 1249.

H

which was construed into unlimited allegiance, to the feet of the majestic Pontiff. The Bishop of Rouen requests from the Bishop of Rome, the rules of ecclesiastical discipline observed within his See." Innocent approves the zeal of the Gaulish Bishop for uniformity, so contrary to the lawless spirit of innovation, which prevailed in some parts of the Christian world; and sends him a book containing certain regulations of peculiar severity, especially as to the celibacy of the clergy. Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, is 404. Feb. 15. commended in a still more lofty and protecting tone of condescension for his wise recourse to the See of Rome, rather than the usurpation of undue authority. To the Spanish Synod of Toledo, the Bishop of Rome speaks something in the character of an appellant judge. The province of Illyricum, including Macedonia and Greece, on the original division, had been adjudged to the Western 405. Feb. Empire. The Bishop of Rome exercised a certain jurisdiction, granted or recognised by the Council of Sardica, as the Metropolitan of the West. Damasus had appointed the Bishop of Thessalonica, as a kind of legate or representative of his authority. Innocent, in his epistle to the Bishops of Macedonia, expresses a haughty astonishment that his decisions are not admitted without examination, and gravely insinuates that some wrong may be intended to the dignity of the Apostolical See. More doubtful was the allegiance of Africa. At the commencement of Innocent's pontificate, his influence with the Emperor was solicited for the suppression of the obstinate Donatists. Towards the close of his life, a correspondence took place concerning Pelagius and his doctrines. The

A.D. 414.

h In the third rule, which gives the provincial synods of bishops supreme authority in their own province, the words "sine prejudicio tamen Romanæ ecclesiæ, cui in omnibus causis debet reverentia custodiri," are rejected as a late interpolation. Epist. ad Victricium. Labbe, ii. p. 1249.

Dilectio tua institutum secuta prudentium, ad sedem apostolicam referre maluit, quid de rebus dubiis custodiri deberet, potius quam usurpatione præsumptâ, quæ sibi viderentur, de singulis

obtinere. Ad Exup. Episc. Tol. Labbe, ii. p. 1254.

In quibus (epistolis) multa posita pervidi quæ stuporem mentibus nostris inducerent, facerentque nos non modicum dubitare utrum aliter putaremus an ita esse posita, quemadmodum personabant. Quæ cum sæpius repeti fecissem, adverti, sedi apostolicæ ad quam relatio, quasi ad caput ecclesiarum missa esse debebat, aliquam fieri injuriam, cujus adhuc in ambiguum sententia duceretur. Epist. xxii. ad Episc. Macedon. Labbe, ii. 1272.

African Churches, even Augustine himself, did not disguise their apprehension, that Innocent might be betrayed into an approbation of those tenets; they desired to strengthen their own stern and peremptory decrees with the concurrence of the Bishop of Rome. The language of Innocent was in his wonted imperious style; the A.D. 417. African Churches seem to have treated his pretensions to superiority with silent disregard.

In the East, Constantinople, Alexandria, and even Antioch, were driven by their own bitter feuds Innocent and and hostilities, to court the alliance of Rome; Chrysostom. it could hardly be without some compromise of A.D. 404. independence.

In espousing the cause of Chrysostom against his rival Theophilus of Alexandria, Innocent took that side which was supported by the better and wiser, as well as by the popular voice of Christendom. He was the fearless advocate of persecuted holiness, of eloquence, of ecclesiastical dignity, against the aggressions of a violent foreign prelate, who was interfering in an independent diocese, and against the intrigues of a court notoriously governed by female influence. The slight asperities of Chrysostom's character, the monastic austerities which seemed to some ill suited to the magnificence of so great a prelate, the aggressions on the privileges of some churches not strictly under his jurisdiction, but which were notoriously ventured for the promotion of Christian holiness, by the suppression of simony, and other worse vices; these less obvious causes of Chrysostom's unpopularity hardly transpired beyond the limits of his diocese, were lost in the dazzling splendour of his talents and his virtues, or forgotten among his cruel wrongs. Chrysostom appeared before the more distant Christian world as the greatest orator who had ever ascended the pulpit of the church. His name, the Golden Mouth, expressed the universal admiration of his powers. After having held Antioch under the spell of his oratory for many years, he had been called to the episcopal throne of the Eastern Metropolis by general acclamation. Now,

J Compare Hist. of Christianity, b. iii. c. ix.