112 TRANSLATIONS WERE HELD TO BE UNCANONICAL. Yea, great popes of Rome (little considering howpeccant therein their predecessor Pope Peter was), Pope Julius and Pope Damasus, greatly taxed thispractice ;' the latter ofwhom, inhis synodat Rome, excommunicated all those who should commit it.' In like manner Pope Leo I :" If any bishop, despising themean- ness of his city, seeks for the administrationofa more eminent place, and, upon any occasion whatsoever, transfers himself to a greater peo- ple, he shall not onlybe driven out of another's see, but also lose his own," 3 &c. These laws wereso indispensable, that, in respect to them, Constan- tine IVI., [the Great,] who much loved and honoured Eusebius, ac- knowledging him, in the common judgment of the world, deserving to be bishop of the whole church, did not like that he should accept thebishopric of Antioch, to which he was invited; and commended his waiving it, as an act not only " consonant to the ecclesiastical canons," but "acceptable to God, and agreeable to apostolical tradi- tion:" so little aware was the good emperor of St Peter being translated from Antioch to Rome. In regard to the same law, GregoryNazianzen, a personof so great worth, and who had deserved so highly of the church at Constanti- nople, could not be permitted to retain his bishopric of that church, to which he had been called from that small one of Sasima. " The synod," says Sozomen, " observing the ancient laws and the eccle- siastical rule, received his bishopric fromhim, being willinglyoffered, nowise regarding the great merits of the person : "5 the which synod surely would have excluded St Peter from the bishopric of Rome. And it is observable that Pope Damasus approved and exhorted those fathers to that proceeding.' We may, indeed, observe that Pope Pelagius II. excused the translation of bishops by the example of St Peter. " For who ever v P. Jul. L, apud Athan. in Apel. ii. p. 744. a T,'; lì d,r ix arlerZv II; grip.; ixxJ.nulaç toso-s .AÓVTae äxpr TovojTau 29ló ñe f1(.oaTiraç z9rvavia; dT.T.9Tpiauç Ixotteo, áxpr oV 92.p4 aÚT6e imavíJ.Booer Tag maste, i, age 9riZmov lxarpo- ,-ovñBneay.Theod., v. 11. "Those that pass from their own churches toother churches, we esteem so long excommunicate, or strangers from our communion, till such time as they return to the same cities where theywere first ordained. 3 Si quis episcopus, mediocritate civitatis sum despecta, administrationem loci cele- brioris ambierit, et ad majorem se plebem quacunque occasione transtulerit, non solum a cathedra quidempellatur aliena, sed carebit et propria, &c. P. Leo. I., Ep. lxxxiv. c. 4. 4 Euseb. de Vit. Const., iii. 61. 5 'A??' ;tear; folioJo; xai Toúç 9roTpiavv; vóaovs, xal 5ìV locooXnetcomoav Td ry 00,41-1-0uca, ó Mama map' ixárroç a'maiJ.nga, ionSiv a18avAarva .r s Tofv d43; m)vaovsumtvamedv.Sezom., vii. 7. 3 Illud prmterea commoneo dilectionem vestram, nepatiamini aliquem contra statuta majorum nostrorum de civitate alia ad aliam transduci, et deserere plebem sibi com- missam, &c. P. Damani Épist., apud Holsten., p. 41, et R. Marc., v. 21. "Moreover, this I advise you, that out of your charity you would not suffer any one, against the decrees of our ancestors, to be removed from one city to another, and to forsake the people committed to his charge," &c.
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