Such, then, was the general conception of the Bishop of Rome's place in the Church, which obtained in the Western Empire at the time when Theodosius issued in the East the rescript of A. D. 380, with which we began,-requiring all his subjects to be of that religion which the Apostle Peter delivered to the Romans, and which was then followed by "the Pontiff Damasus and Peter the Bishop of Alexandria." Theodosius had been under the instruction of Acholius of Thessalonica, by whom he was baptized, and Damasus had cultivated intimate relations with that prelate, making him his agent to watch the Arians in the East; and it was doubtless under this influence that the decree was shaped in the form which gave Damasus such prominence. But this edict, which is of historical importance for the title it gives to the Bishop of Rome, is of much less consequence otherwise than has been sometimes assumed. It was in fact but a temporary expedient, provisionally reorganizing the Eastern Church preparatory to a General Council, which was held the following year, and which finally settled the Arian troubles and at the same time excluded the " pontifical" authority from the East by the impassible barrier of the Second Canon of Constantinople. Some misconceptions of the scope of this edict need to be corrected. In the first place it is not true that Theodosius decreed that those should be considered Catholics who were in communion with Damasus, as Theodoret represents;' for as a matter of fact, the majority of those whom he acknowledged as Catholic, and to whom he gave the control of the Council of Constantinople, when it met, were not at this time in communion with the see of Rome. Theodoret himself relates an incident which shows this: When Sapor, the commander, arrived in Antioch and proclaimed the mandate of the Emperor, Paulinus promised to communicate on the subject with Damasus. Apollinaris also made the same promise; but this he did in order to conceal the heterodoxy of his opinions. St. Melitius remained a quiet spectator of their contention. The wise Flavius, who ranked at that period among the presbyters, addressed Paulinus in the following manner, in the presence of Sapor: "If you are in communion, O friend, with Damasus, prove to us clearly that your doctrines are in accord ance with his. He declares that in the Trinity there is one substance and three per 'Theodoret B. V. c. II. Theodoret attributes the law to Gratian, but it is evidentlythe edict under consideration. sons; you, on the contrary, deny that there are three persons in the Trinity. If you agree with him in doctrine, you shall receive authority over the Churches." Having thus convicted and silenced Paulinus, he next addressed Apollinaris. * * * Then Melitius, the mildest of men, addressed Paulinus in a kind and affectionate manner: "As God," said he, "committed to me the care of the flock, and as you have received the charge of another, and as our respective sheep hold the same doctrines of relig ion, let us, O friend, unite our flocks; let us throw aside all contests for superiority, and tend with equal assiduity the sheep entrusted to us. If the Episcopal chair of this city be to us a matter of contention, let us place the Holy Gospel upon it, and let us seat ourselves on each side of it. If I die first, you, O friend, will become the only ruler of the flock, but if your death occur before mine, I will, as far as I am able, tend the flock alone." Paulinus, however, refused to comply with the offer so kindly and affectionately made by Melitius. The general, after reflecting on what had been stated, gave up the Churches to the holy Melitius.' Paulinus, it is only necessary to state further, had been in communion with Damasus, while Melitius was not. But as Melitius held the Catholic faith, the matter of communion was not considered. But further, this measure, as has been said, was only provisional and preparatory to the holding of the General Council of Constantinople in the next year (A.D. 381), by which the faith was finally settled in the form which the Nicene Creed has borne from that time forward. After the adjournment of that Council, Theodosius issued another rescript, which must by all means be compared with that we are now considering. Says Fleury : In compliance with what the Council desired; the Emperor Theodosius made a law bearing date the third of the Calends of August, i. e. the thirtieth of July, in this year 381, by which he orders all the Churches without further delay to be put into the hands of those Bishops who confessed the Holy Trinity, acknowledging the Divine Nature subsisting in three equal Persons; and who were in communion with Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople; in Egypt, with Timotheus of Alexandria; in the East, with Pelagius of Laodicea and Diodorus of Tarsus; in the proconsular Asia and Diocese of Asia, with Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, and Optimus of Antioch [in Pisidia]; in the Diocese of Pontus, with Helladius, Bishop of Caesarea, with Octreius of Meliteus, and Gregory of Nyssa, and moreover with Terentius, Bishop of Scythia, and Marmarius of Marcianople. Those who would communicate with all these Bishops were to be in possession of the Churches, and those who did not agree with them concerning the faith, were to be driven out from them as notorious heretics, and never have them restored for the future, that the Nicene Faith might continue inviolable.2 'Theodoret, B. V. Ch. III. "Newman's Fleury, Vol. L. p. 21. We give, in conclusion, the Second Canon of the Council of Constantinople, which, as we have said, effectually excluded the "Pontificate" from the affairs of the East: Let not Bishops go out of their Diocesis' to churches out of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the Churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the Canon, administer the affairs of Egypt, and the Bishops of the East the affairs of the East only, with a salvo to the ancient privileges of the Church of Antioch, mentioned in the Nicene Canons. Let the Bishops of the Asian Dioceses administer the Asian affairs only; and they of Pontus, the Pontic, and they of Thrace the Thracian; and let not Bishops go out of their Dioecesis to ordinations or any other administrations, unless they be invited. And the aforesaid Canon concerning Dioceses being observed, it is evident that the Provincial Synod will have the management of every Province, as was decreed at Nice. The Churches of God amongst the barbarians must be governed according to the customs which prevailed with their ancestors. A single remark by way of application (as the preachers say). The spirit of political intrigue introduced by Damasus into the traditions of the See of Rome, and of which this passage in its history is an example, has clung to it from that day to this; and the pontiffs of that Church by long practice have attained perfection in the art. If any one thinks that Romanism in the United States is free from this spirit, his simplicity is admirable. The Greek Church, as its action at Constantinople and Chalcedon, and for a thousand years after Constantinople and Chalcedon, demonstrates, understood Rome, and has been able to defend itself against her. The newly restored German Empire understands Rome. And if we of the American nation and American Catholic Church are not equally wise, it is because we refuse to read the lessons of history, and the fault will be our own. JOHN H. EGAR. 'The Diocesis, it must be remembered, was not the modern Diocese but a division of the Empire, including the Provinces. There were thirteen Dioceses which were subdivided into 118 Provinces, and these into several thousand sees. SAVONAROLA. There are certain places in the world which affect us in the way that some old strain of music does as it brings the light of other days around us. We always associate the music and the place together. The one invariably suggests the other. Florence is one of these marked places. We always think of Dante and Tasso and Savonarola when we think of that charming city. There is Dante's empty tomb, for his body still reposes at Ravenna, and there is Savonarola's cell, and Tasso's home-and their checkered history is indissolubly linked with that of the fair city itself. There has always been something strangely suggestive about Italian Reformers. They have loved their country with a Southern vehemence which, for the most part, has insured for them while living, the fiercest persecution, but when they have passed away, the sons of those who stoned the prophets seem as if they could not gather costly stones enough with which to honor their once banished As Lord Byron says in Childe Harold: names. "Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, There is no one who did more for his native city and his national church than the great religious and political reformer Savonarola, and there is no one who suffered greater indignities at the hands of his fellow citizens than he. His native historians and his own letters have portrayed to posterity his strange character and career, -and the greatest of living novelists, in one of her most striking works, has painted for us in a Shakespearian manner, the person and surroundings of Savonarola as seen through the history of Romola. Tito Melema in his Greek atheistic selfishness, the old Father in his richer philosophical Paganness, Romola in her aspirations after truth and duty, and the impassioned Friar with his visions and revelations from the Lord, all help to make very true and very vivid the varied personelle of the period. The elements found in the Florence of Savonarola's history are exactly those of George Eliot's story. Lorenzo De Medici was then at the height of his fame and power when Savonarola came to Florence. Fetes, dances, masquerades, and tournaments occupied continually the gay and restless thoughts of the Florentines. The past of liberty and all the State troubles seemed to be forgotten in the deliciousness of Epicureanism. It was like the Rome of Augustus-full of past heroisms and present sensuous delights. The towers of the palaces and the rich mellifluous bells that in other days called the hostile clans of the city to their rallying points for the street conflict, now only rang forth the invitation to the dance or the Saturnalia. Lorenzo, with the wits and artists who lived in the smile of his favours, honored art and culture in all its forms and did his utmost to make Florence the gay metropolis of Europe, as Napoleon III. so effectually did with Paris. Women were versed in Latin and Greek; questions of architecture, painting, music, sculpture, were the familiar topics of conversation in the streets; and all Florence was one broad belt of connoisseurship. Artists were petted and wheedled in the way in which popular actors are treated now-a-days. Poets were honored, and philosophers dealt out their neat and popular little systems in an elegant and recherché manner. The traditionalism of the Church bound the leaders of the State to the old regime of Papal Rome, but religion at the best was a thing of ceremonial form, and was, to those who thought most upon the subject, an open question. The remark of Pope Leo X., that "after all, the fable about Jesus Christ was a grand stairway to power," described completely the opinion of the Medicean Court. They clung to the hierarchy of Rome as one of the established facts of the period-but it was only taken because it was found ready-to-hand; not because it or its teachings were in any way believed. |