SILENCE OF POPES THEMSELVES. 147 his senseand gives his advice without any restraint or awe; he spares not upon occasion to reprove their practices and to reject their opi- nions; he, in his addresses- to them and discourses of them, styles them brethren and colleagues; and he continually treats them as such, upon even terms.' " When," says he to the clergy of Rome, " dearest brethren, there was among us an uncertain rumour concern- ing the decease of the good man my colleague, Fabianus."' Upon which words Rigaltius had cause to remark, "How like an equal and fellow-citizen does the bishop of Carthage mention the bishop of Rome, even to the Roman clergy! ' 5 But would not any man now be deemed rude and saucy who should talk in that style of the pope? Pope Cornelius, also, to St Cyprian has some epistles,' in which no glimpse appears of any superiority assumed by him. But of St Cyprian's judgment and demeanour toward popes we shall have occasion to speak more largely, in a way more positively opposite to the Roman pretences. Eusebius cites divers long passages out of an epistle of Cornelius to Fabius, bishop of Antioch, against Novatus;5 wherein no mark of this supremacy appears, although the magnitude and flourishing state of the Roman church is described, for aggravation of Novatus' schism and ambition. Pope Julius hasa notable longepistle, extant in one of Athanasius' Apologies, to the bishops assembled at Antioch, in which he had the fairest occasion that could be to assert and insist upon this sovereign authority, they flatly denying and impugning it, questioning his pro- ceedings as singular, supposing him subject to the laws of the church no less than any other bishop, and downrightly affirming each of themselves to be his equal ;about which point he thought good not to contend with them; but, waiving pretences to superiority, he justi- fies his actions by reasons grounded on the merit of the cause, such as any other bishop might allege. But this epistle I shall have more particular occasion to discuss. Pope Liberius has an epistle to St Athanasius, in which he not only, for his direction and satisfaction, inquires his opinion about the point, but professes, in compliment perchance, that he shall obedi.. ently follow it. " Write," says he, " whether you think as we do, and hold the saine things in the true faith, that I may be undoubtedly 1 Et quamqum seism, frater charissime, pro mutua dilectione, quam debemus et ex- hibemus invicemnobis, florentissimo illic clero tecum proesidenti, &c. Ep. lv. "And although I know, most dear brother, out of the mutual love and respect which we owe and yield one to another," &c. 2 Cum de excessuboni viri college mei, rumor apud nos incertus esset, college cha- rissimi, &c.Cypr., Ep. iv. $ Quam ex æquo et civilis mentio episcopi Romani ab episcopo Carthaginis apud clerum!Rigalt., ibid. 4 Cypr., Ep. xlvi., xlviii. s Euseb. vi. 43.
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