noticed. First, the pretty flourish about "honoring the memory of Peter the Apostle" means no more than that Rome was an Apostolic see of much dignity, where the faith was securely preserved.

The motive that underlay their canons required that they should state the case for Rome as strongly as they could, and this is all that they can say. "Let us honor the memory of Peter the Apostle." It does not necessarily imply, it cannot in fact imply, more than this. The faith of Peter is found there especially.

Second, this whole arrangement is something quite new. "Let us honor, if it please your charity!" That thoroughly implies that they were under no obligations to do anything of the sort, if they did not please. If such appeals had always gone to the Bishop of Rome before, and had been recognized by Christendom as belonging to him by right, such a phrase would have been absurd. and indecent. Imagine a modern Roman council venturing to use such language about appeals to the Pope.

Third, it should be noted, certainly, that the letters are to be written to "Julius, the Bishop of Rome." But I must mention that point, of which much has been made by Protestant writers, only to dismiss it. The fifth canon, as we shall see, has "the bishop of Rome" with out limitation.

I cannot think that the name of Julius was inserted here to limit the proposal to his occupation of the see.*

There remains still a fourth point worthy of our most careful consideration. There is no suggestion at all here of sending any appeal to be heard at Rome, nor yet by any court of the Roman bishop. It is only suggested that when a bishop claims to have been unjustly deposed, the comprovincials who tried the case should write to Julius, Bishop of Rome, their statement of the matter, and that if he thought their judgment not probably just, he might commit the case for rehearing to the bishops of the province next to that where the case arose, with the single further privilege of sending asses

*I would suggest two possible motives for inserting the name of Julius here. In days when communication even between great centres was so difficult and so limited, compared with what it is now, these canons might come to be added to the collections of many sees where the name of the Bishop of Rome was not familiar. It would be convenient, even some years later, to be able to address a letter "to Julius, Bishop of the city of the Romans, or to any who shall have succeeded him in that office," rather than merely the Bishop of the Roman Church."

to

On the other hand,-for my second suggestion is some、 what of an opposite kind,—the mention of the name of Julius would be conciliatory to some, where Julius was well known as a man of character and power.

sors, if he chose,† to take part in the new trial. This privilege of ordering a new trial by a new set of judges, even with the further privilege of sending some of the new judges one's self, may indeed be called “an appellate jurisdiction," but it is a curiously different thing from what appellate jurisdiction now means to the Roman see.

But all this is to be where the original judges will consent to send their action to Bishop Julius for review. Suppose they do. Then it is very properly added by our fourth Sardican canon that they must not treat the deposed bishop's see as vacant, and put another person into it, unless and until the Bishop of the Romans has taken cognizance of the matter and decided that the appellant has no case for rehearing. This is, of course, only decent. If judges invite a review of one of their decisions, they cannot at the same time treat their own decision as a finality. The fourth canon needs no comment.

But if the judges are not willing to invite such a review of their acts, the fifth Sardican canon

It might be a question whether "let him appoint judges," in Canon 3, means (a) “let him appoint which of several neighboring provinces is to be the scene of the new trial," or (b) "let him pick out frɔm among the bishops of some neighboring province a group who shall act as triers,” or (c) “let him send assessors." The analogy of Canon 5 determines in favor of this last.

proposes a relief for the deposed bishop, which he may take into his own hands.

Bishop Hosius said (all these canons are thus introduced with the proposer's name): "It is our pleasure that if any bishop be accused, and the bishops of his district shall have assembled, and removed him from nis position, and he shall have fled as an appellant to the most blessed Bishop of the Church of the Romans, and he be willing to hear him, and shall think it proper to have a new investigation of the man's case, he shall vouchsafe to write to those brother bishops who are next neighbors to the province (of the accused), that they may search diligently and accurately into every charge, and give their votes upon the case according to what they believe to be true. And if any one claiming that his case should be reheard, shall also succeed by his petition in inducing the Bishop of the Romans to send presbyters from his own surrounding, it is to be within the power of the bishop himself to do` whatever he may consider to be desirable and determine to be necessary-that some be sent out to act as judges along with the bishops, having the authority of him by whom they were sent, and this to be a settled thing; or if he thinks that the bishops are sufficient to try the case, and decide it, he shall do whatever seems to his most excellent judgment desirable."

This is the same as the third canon, except that the motion comes from the deposed bishop exclusively, his original judges being assumed to be unwilling to have the case reviewed. That would be the most common condition. It was the condition of Athanasius himself. Such a bishop was here encouraged to go to the Bishop of Rome and complain that he had not had justice done him; and then it was proposed that the Bishop of Rome should ask the bishops of the next province, as before, to hear the case anew. Also, as before, the Bishop of Rome might send some of his own presbyters to the place of the new trial, to act as assessors therein, or if he thought that justice was perfectly safe without that precaution, he might leave it to the new court of the neighboring bishops only. Those sounding words, "It is to be within the power of the bishop himself to do whatever he may consider to be desirable and determine to be necessary," mean only that he can use his own judgment about this matter of sending assessors to take part in a new trial,-only this and nothing

more.

This is all that the Sardican fathers proposed. At the risk of being tedious, I am going to repeat that they manifestly proposed a new thing, and that even this new proposition manifestly gave no authority for any bishop of Rome to hear, either