TIIE EMPEROR, AND NOT THE POPE, CONVENED COUNCILS. 245 as by licence from the pope's holiness, but in their own name and authority they act; which were very strange if the popes had any plea then commonly approved for such a power. As commonly emperors called synods by the suggestion of other bishops,' so again there be divers instances of popes applying them- selves to the emperors with petitions to indict synods; wherein some- times they prevailed, sometimes they were disappointed. So Pope Liberius requested of Constantius to indict a synod for deciding the cause of Athanasius. " Ecclesiastical judgment," said he, as Theo - doret reports, " should be made with great equity; wherefore, if it please your piety, command a judicatory to be constituted."' And in his epistle to Rosins, produced by Baronies, he says, " Manybishops out of Italy met together, who together with me had besought the most religious emperor that he would command, as he had thought fit, the council of Aquileia to meet."' So Pope Damasus, having a desire that a general synod should be celebrated in Italy for repressing heresies and factions then in the church, obtained the imperial letters for that purpose directed to the eastern bishops, as they in their epistle to the western bishops inti- mate: "But because, expressing a brotherly affection toward us, ye have called us, as your own members, by the most pious emperor's letters, to that synod which, by the will of God, ye are gathering at Rome."' It is a wonder that Bellarmine should have the confidence to allege this passage for himself.' So again, Pope Innocent I. beingdesirous to restore St Chrysostom, as Sozornen tells us, " sent five bishops and two priests of the Roman church to Honorius, and to Arcadius the emperor, requesting a synod, with the time and the place thereof."6 In which attempt he suffered a repulse; for the courtiers of Arcadius repelled those agents, " as troubling another government, which was beyond their bounds, ' or wherein the pope had nothing to do that they knew of. So also Pope Leo I. (whom no pope could well exceed in zeal to maintain the privileges and advance the eminence of his see) in 1 EiprT.aç ... sixáTmç sizes vsúpsaor .roü víau 0saaoiau Tá oxñsr.r a T In`ra p ñt ç Órfa evTOç Tñs Ir 'E(pfoca 9rproTnv oúvoSav áxroóñvar. Evagr. i. 3. 2 . dd9rsp sÌ eau 4,06 Tn siOfißsÌe, xpsT$pros ouoTaAñvar xí).ss,ssv.Theod. E. 16. Multi ex Italia episcopi couvenerunt, qui mecum religiosissimum imperatorem fuerant deprecati, ut juberet sicut ipsi placuerat, dudum coneilium Aquileiense congre- gari. .Baron., ann. 353, § 19. 'Evrs,Báv s vros Tire áósx4rx,, orspi ñpcäç áyáa'nv I9rraefirlassuEYs,, 05í'5B5 So.) Tñç'PZpsnç 0ssI ¡rouxñou ovyxpsrsIvrsç, xai ñ¡saç ¿ç olzsia p,íXs orpsesxaT.foszchs Srá s , Toü 9so10,47- TáTOU ß esXfaç ypaps sass,,.Theod. v. 9. 6 Bell. de Pont. R. ii. 13. 6 nf,rs,u sy i91'ICxóyr5Uç ocrisTs xai orpso imipauç Srio Tñç `Peepsaiav ixxinoiaç srps'ç `Ovo4s,. sal 'Ap s lssv r?, fiao0.ia, ouvsIs, ai'aíoomaç, war xarpás Ta?Tnç xal Tóvrev. SOZ. "Flit 28. 7 'of Ú9ry ''Ìfa' Cpx' isaxT.4a sv ,. Ibid.
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