SCANDALOUS ELECTION OF ROMAN BISHOPS. 131 amen, that çç the prelacy was got less by virtue than by naughtiness; and that episcopal throneswere allotted to themore powerful rather than to the more worthy."' And declaring his mind or wish, that elections of bishops should "rest only or chiefly on the best men, not on the wealthiest and mightiest, nor on the impetuousness and unreasonableness of the people, and amongthem on those whoare most easily bribed, ' where- by he intimates the common practice, he subjoins, " But now I can hardly avoid thinking that the civil governments are better ordered than ours, which are reputed to have divine grace attending them." And that the Roman elections in that time were come into that course, we may see by the relationand reflections of an honest pagan historian [Ammianus Marcellinus] concerning the election of Pope Damasus, contemporary of Gregory Nazianzen. "Damasus and Ursi- nus," says he, " above human measure burning with desire to seize the episcopal see, having lost their tempers, engaged in a fierce battle ;"3 in which conflict, upon one day, in the very church, an hundred and thirty persons were slain.' So did that great pope get into the chair! Thus, as the historian reflects, the "wealth and pomp of the place naturally provoked ambition"' by all means to seek it, and caused fierce contentions to arise in the choice; whence, commonly, wise andmodest persons being excluded from any capa- city thereof, any ambitious and cunning man who had the art or the luck to please the multitude would byviolence obtain it; which was a goodly way of constituting a sovereign to the church. Thus it went, within three ages after our Lord; and afterwards, in the declensions of Christian simplicity and integrity, matters were not like to bemended, but indeed rathergrewworse, as,beside the reports and complaints of historians, how that commonly by ambi- tious prensations [violent seizures], by simoniacal corruptions, by political bandyings, by popular factions, by all kinds of sinister ways, men crept into the place, appears by those many dismal schisms, which gave the church many pretended heads but not one certain one; as also by the result of them, being the choice of persons very unworthy and horribly flagitious.' r Oú 1 'p i, ápsmñs Iawxxav, i zazoupyias s aposópia, oLbé mi,v aisrwm[wv I<isxxav, r", óvvamw- mspwv of 9pávra. Naz., Or. xx. p. 335. 3 'Erb' oiç Ds, máç morasmas orpoßo).aç zsiaAar Svor 3 ömr dxroma dxxá fa s, f° Icm moil sixapw- mdmors ma xai $uvamwmdmorç, rip gopá Ssllaov zai cixoyii', xai moiTs,v aúmmv Iadxroma mais súwvo- wkrorç vúv bé xrvSvvsénu màs Snlao4Ìas ápxáç simaxmwmípreç Úgraxalaßdvs(v .7-i, ;psTipsa, a(Ç 3 9sia xa'prçsarrgnai smar. Greg. Haz., Or. six. p. 310. 3 Damasus et Ursinus supra humanummodum ad rapiendam episcopalem sedem ar- dentes seissis studiis acerrime conflictabantur. Ain. Marcell., lib. xxvii. a Sozom. vi. 32. 3 Neque ego ab uno ostentationem rerum considerans urbanas-am, hujus rei cupidos, &c! Id. ibid. 6 Damasus II. pontificatum per vim occupat, nullo cleri populique consensu; adeo
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