a number of provinces and perhaps some hundreds of bishops' sees in it,—“ The bishops of a diocese are not to invade churches lying outside of their bounds, nor bring confusion on the Churches; but let the Bishop of Alexandria, according to the canons, alone administer the affairs of Egypt." And so it goes on with a series of examples too long to quote; but note that cruel phrase, “according to the canons." It means, of course, "according to the general tenor of that body of law that has gained general acceptance in the Church."

The Sardican canons, which had, with all purity of purpose, and with the support of Athanasius and Hosius, proposed a different treatment of episcopal rights and responsibilities, are here ignored as if they were no canons at all. I suppose that that was just the way the 150 Fathers felt about it.

"And the aforesaid canon concerning dioceses being observed," so the Council goes on to say: "It is manifest that in every province the synod of the province will administer matters, in accordance with the decisions of Nicæa." I cannot do better than subjoin the comment of the Roman Catholic scholar, Bishop Hefele: "This canon further orders that in each ecclesiastical province the provincial synod shall govern, and therefore that in those provinces into which the patriarch

ate is divided, the patriarch or chief metropolitan is not to exercise entire power. This the Synod of Nicea had already tried to prevent. THEREBY, TOO, THE APPEAL TO ROME WAS EXCLUDED."*

The second canon of Constantinople had thus provided negatively. No bishop was to interfere in a diocese outside his own. The sixth canon of the same council provides in a positive way for the matter of appeals. If the Provincial Synod cannot settle matters, "the parties must betake themselves to a greater synod of the bishops of that diocese called together for this purpose."

The closing words of the canon are noteworthy. "And if anyone despising what has been decreed concerning these things shall presume to annoy the ears of the emperor, or the courts of temporal judges, or dishonoring all the bishops of the province shall dare to trouble an ecumenical synod, such a one shall by no means be admitted as an accuser, inasmuch as he has cast contempt upon the canons, and brought reproach upon the order of the Church."

Here are three important points, on which we have the judgment of an ecumenical council.

(1) For a bishop to make an appeal from his

*The small capitals are of course mine; but the judgment is Bishop Hefele's, and is crushing enough as he prints it himself -Hefele's History of the Councils, Oxenham's Translation, edition of 1876, vol. ii., p. 356.

comprovincial bishops to any power beyond the bishops of neighboring provinces in the same civil diocese of the empire, was to cast contempt upon the canons which the General Church approved. The Sardican proposal, then, is condemned as a sort of contempt of court, as having been "in contempt" of all the general course of legislation in the Church.

(2) Any such appeal by a bishop dishonors all the bishops of his province. Precisely. That is just what Sardica did. In their distress and dismay at the increasing corruption and treachery that was spreading through the East, Athanasius. and Hosius agreed in recommending a policy which implied that the Church's bishops could not be trusted in some large spheres of the Church's action. Constantinople refused this policy of despair, and looking through the already breaking clouds, insisted on a general policy of trust in the honor and honesty of the Church's heads. If the Church was to be saved at all, it could best be saved on its old familiar lines.

(3) There is no mention of appeals to Rome here at all. Why? Canon II. had already cut them off, for one thing. Even Hefele acknowledges it. But why were they not mentioned for condemnation with the other false policies, of appeals to the emperor, appeals to civil courts, and appeals to an ecumenical council? Manifestly

because they did not

Occur. The Sardican

scheme had fallen so utterly flat, that churchmen who disapproved of it found no examples of it to trouble themselves with. Eastern bishops did run to the emperor. They did go to civil courts improperly. They did carry to a general council complaints too petty to call for so august settlement. They did not find themselves attracted toward the Bishop of Rome enough to make it worth while, right here, to mention him. Such is the judgment of Constantinople upon Sardica, of the ecumenical council accepted by the whole Church upon upon the unauthoritative assembly, whose scheme the whole Church set aside.

V.

THE UNQUIET GHOST OF SARDICA, AND SOME STEPS IN THE PROGRESS OF THE AP

PEAL TO ROME.

Here ought to end the history of the Sardican Canons of Appeal. Set aside by a general council, they should have had no further influence upon the Church's legislation or administration. They never had, as I stated at the beginning of this lecture, unless by mistake or misrepresentation. Yet such mistaking and misrepresenting were made, and made persistently. The real canons of Sardica were slain at Constantinople, or

if they were dead already, they were there buried, never to rise again, but their ghosts walked the stage uneasily in the western world, and helped. to deepen tragedy there.

1. Their first open appearance in this guise is in A.D. 418 and in North Africa.

Apiarius, a priest of Sicca, accused of infamous sins and crimes, goes to Rome and enlists the favor of the Bishop Zosimus. Zosimus grants the man communion, and even sends a legate and letters to Carthage with a demand upon the North African Church. Apiarius must be restored to his position, or his bishop, Urban, must come to Rome to answer the charges of injustice that have been preferred against him. With this the messenger of Zosimus produces three canons, labelled XXI., XXII., XXIII., of Nicæa. Will it be believed? They are no other than our Sardican canons, with most shameless fraud or with most shameful ignorance, imposed as Nicene.

A general council of the bishops of all the African provinces is assembled (at Carthage, A.D.419). They all know only twenty canons of Nicæa, and none such as these; but to charge their venerable brother of Rome with forgery is impossible. They point out with much dignity that even the canons in question admit no appeal of a mere priest (such as Apiarius) to the Bishop of Rome, and that no bishop (such as Urban) can under their authority