152 NO APPEAL TO THE POPE INDISPUTES. It is true that the later popes, Siricius, Anastasius, Innocent, Zosimus, Bonifacius, Celestinus, &c., after the Sardican council, in their epistles to the westernbishops, over whom they had encroached, and who were overpowered by them, &c., speak in a somewhat more lofty strain ; but are more modest toward those of the east, who could not bear, &c., [to be treated in the same style of overweening arro- gance.]* 22. Farther: it is most prodigious that in the disputes managed by the fathers against heretics, [such as] the Gnostics, Valentinians, Marcionites, Montanists, Manichees, Paulianists, Arians, &c., they should not, even in the first place, allege and urge the sentence of the universal pastor and judge as a most evidently conclusive argu- ment, as the most efficacious and compendious method of convincing and silencing them. Had this point been well proved and pressed, then, without any more concertations [contentions], from Scripture, tradition, reason, all heretics had been quite defeated; and nothing then could more easily have been proved, if it had been true, when the light of tradition shone so brightly,nothing, indeed, had been to sense more conspicuous than the continual exercise of such an authority. We see now, among those who admit such an authority, how surely, when it may be had, it is alleged, and what sway it has to the determinationof any controversy; and so it would have been then, if it had been then as commonly known and avowed. 23. Whereas several of the fathers purposely treat on methods of confutingheretics, it is strange they should be so blind and dull as not to hit on this most proper and obvious way of referring debates to the decision of him to whose office of universal pastor and judge it belonged: particularly, one would [may well] wonder at Vincen- tius Lirinensis, that he on set purpose, with great care, discoursing about the means of settling points of faith, and of overthrowing heresies, should not light upon this notable way, by having recourse to the pope's magisterial sentence, yea, that indeed he should exclude it; for he, " after most intent study and diligent inquiry, consulting the best and wisest men,' could find but two ways of doing it. " I," says he, " always, and from almost every one, received this answer, That if either I or any other would find out the frauds and avoid the snares of upstart heretics, and continue sound and upright in the órxñ n ", zai vraatzs fge uv ev p :rri., /.cóvv, yelp ierrv, dg-is Unmet, riss zrvñou; ?CZ, croiirav raraars.xar zararyiawv, &c.- -SOZ., viii. 26. ' This is a specimen of the many blanks in the original manuscript, which the author had intended to fill up had he been spared to revise it for the press. We have attempted to complete the sentence from the connection. En. t Saepe igitur magno studio, et summa attentione perquirens a quamplurimis sancti- tate et doctrina præstantibus viris, &c. P. 316 (in edit. Balm.)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=