198 EQUALITY OF BISHOPS IN THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. Wherefore, Bellarmine himself confesses that in those times, be- fore the Nicene synod, " the authority of the pope was not a little hindered; so that, because of continual persecutions, he could not freely exercise it."' The church, therefore, could so long subsist without the use of such authority, by the vigilance of governors over their flocks, and the friendly correspondence of neighbour churches; and, if he would let it alone, it might do so still. That could be no divine institution which had no vigour in the first and best times, but an innovation raised by ambition. VII. The ancients, when occasion required, maintained their equality of office and authority, particularly in respect to theRoman bishops; not only interpretatively by practice, but directlyand form- ally, in express terms, asserting it. Thus, when Felicissimus and his complices, being rejected by St Cyprian, applied themselves to Pope Cornelius for his communion and countenance, St Cyprian affirmed that to be an irregular and unjust course, subjoining, " Only to a few desperate and wicked persons, the authority of the bishops constituted in Africa, who have already judged of them, seems less;"'that is, inferior to any other authority, particularly to that of Rome, unto which they had re- course. What other meaning could he have? Does not his argu- ment require this meaning? Another instance is that of the fathers of the Antiochene synod,' being ninety-seven bishops; which St Hilary calls " a synod of saints assembled ;"4 the decrees whereof the catholic church admitted into its code, and the canons whereof popes have called "venerable."' These, in their epistle to Pope Julius, complaining of his demeanour in the case of Athanasius, flatly asserted to themselves an equality with him. "They did not," as Sozomen recites out of their epistle, " think it equal that they should be deemed inferiors, because they had not so large and numerous a church. "' That pope himself testifies the same in his epistle to them, extant in the second Apology of Athanasius. " If," says he, " ye truly con- ceive the honour of bishops to be equal and the same; and ye do not, as ye write, judge of bishops according to the magnitude of 1 Verumenim est impeditam fuisse eo temporenon parum pontificia auctoritatem... . propter persecutiones continuas non potuisse Romanos pontifices libere exercere eam, quam a Christo acceperant auctoritatem, &c. Bell. de R. P. ii. 17. 2 Niai si paucis desperatis et perditis minor esse videtur auctoritas episcoporum in Africa constitutorum, qui jam de illis judicaverunt, &c, 3 Fides quam exposuerunt qui affuerunt episcopi 97, &c.Hilar. de Synodis., p. 367. + Congregatam sanctorum synodum.Hilar., ibid. 5 Venerabiles Antiocheni canones. P. Nee. L, Ep. ix. p. 519. n o aapá 4G?' .rá óevrepüa 9ipHY AV,vv, ó.r, k.fy.h., 9ra.4054 ixnxnoia; ar73>vvn- 45wa.Soz. iii. 8.
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