ST PETER IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN BISHOP OF ANTIOCH. 111 did ill in thwarting them, or the church had done it in establishing them, so as to condemn his practice. 10. It was against rule that any bishop should desert one chùrch and transfer himself toanother (Apost. Can. xiv.); and indeedagainst reason, sucha relation and endearment being contracted between a bishop and his church which cannot well be dissolved. But St Peter is by ecclesiastical historians reported, andbyRoman- ists admitted, to have beenbishopof Antioch for sevenyears together.' He therefore did ill to relinquish that church, " that most ancient and truly apostolic church of Antioch,"6 as the Constantinopolitan fathers called it, and to place his see at Rome. This practice was esteemed bad, and of very mischievous conse- quence; earnestly reproved, as heinously criminal, by great fathers; severely condemned by divers synods. Particularly, a transmigration from a lesser and poorer to a greater and more wealthy bishopric, which is the present case, was checked by them, as rankly savouring of selfish ambition or avarice. The synod of Alexandria (in Athanasius), in its epistle to all catho- lic bishops, says that Eusebius, by passing fromBerytus toNicomedia, " had annulled his episcopacy,' making it "an adultery," worse than that which is committed by marriage upon divorce. " Eusebius," say they, " did not consider the apostle's admonition, `Art thoubound to a wife? do not seek to be loosed:' for if it be said of a woman, how much more of a church, of the same bishopric, to which one being tied ought not to seek another, that he maynot be found also an adulterer, according to the holy Scripture ? "' Surely when they said this, they forgot what St Peter was said to have done in that kind; as did also the Sardican fathers in their synodical letter, ex- tant in the same Apology of Athanasius, condemning " translations from lesser cities unto greater dioceses."' The same practice is forbidden by the synods of Nice I., of Chalce- don, of Antioch, of Sardica, of Arles I., &c.6 In the synod under Mennas, it was laid to the charge ofAnthimus, that having been bishopof Trebisond, he had "adulterouslysnatched the see of Constantinople, against all ecclesiastical laws and canons."' TOU paE AX,' uh -p0U 9pevoy 11 'AYmsoxámV issya%.1 r0T.tu Ë,xu.Theodor., Ep. lxxxci. The great cityof the Antiochians has the throne of the great St Peter." 2 T1iv xpscßumdmnv xai ävmmç dxo7'ma,sxñv ixxxnaíay. Theod., V. 6. s 'Axupcávas aúmñv. Athanas. Apol. ii. p. 726. 4 Oú auvopmv mó vrapáyycxpra, 11Sseas yuvasxi, pad Caímss xúrF,,v' si á's áx1 yUVasxóç rl p`nmóv, xóom psmxxov ár1 áxxxnvias áx mñç ale-;is sxso'zaxñÇ, , ó e;" ,(W5 äxxnv ovx 4sixss Cnmsïv, ïva ps7 aai psaxós vrapá 704 »slag súpimxsmas ypagaïsSyn. Alex., apud Athan., p. 727. 5 Tá5 pssmaAáous áxó vráxsmv sis /.csiCavas xaposxías. Ibid, p. 765. s Syn. Nie., can. xv. Syn. Chale., can. v.; Syn. Ant., can. xxi.; Syn. Sard., can. i.; Syn. Arel., can. xxii.; Grat. Caus. viii. qu. I, cap. 4. ñSuvsíAn pcosxsxms mòv mñvls mñç óxsms dpxsspan s.ls tippxdo'as 94 óvov xapic a.d,ma5 mcvç lxxxanae.rsxobs 9sap494 sal xavóvas. Cone. sub Henn. p. 9.
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