THE POPE SUBJECT TO THE LAWS OF THE CHURCH. 275 Seeing, therefore, provincial synods were more ancient thangeneral, and gave pattern to them, if [though] we granted the same privi- lege to the pope in general synods as the metropolitans had inpro- vincial (which yet we cannot do with any good reason or ground), yet could not the pope thence pretend to an authority of making laws by himself. 4. It was then a passable [current] opinion, that lee, as one, was in reason obliged to yield to the common judgment of his colleagues and brethren; as the Emperor Constantius told Pope Liberius, that "the vote of the plurality of bishops ought to prevail."' 5. When Pope Julius seemed to cross a rule of the church by communicating with persons condemned by synods, the fathers of Antioch "smartly recriminated against him, showing that they were not to receive canons from him."' 6. So far was the pope from prescribing laws to others, that he was looked upon as subject to the laws of the church no less than others: as the Antiochene fathers supposed, "complaining to Pope Julius of his transgressing the canons;'a3 which charge he does not repel by pretending exemption, but by declaring that he had not offended against the canons, and retorting the accusation against themselves,; as the African fathers supposed, when they told Pope Celestine that he could not admit persons to communion which had been excommunicated by them, that being contrary to a decree of the Nicene synod;' -as the Roman church supposed itself, when it told Marcian that they could not receive him without leave of his father who had rejected him.' This the whole tenor of eccle- siastical canons shows; they running in a general style, never except- ing the pope from the laws prescribed to other bishops. 7. The privilege of dispensing with laws had then been a strange hearing, when the pope could in no case dispense with himself for infringing them, without bringing clamour and censure upon him.' 8. It had, indeed, been a vain thing for synods with so much trouble and solemnity to assemble, if the pope without them could have framed laws, or could with a puff of his mouth have blown away the results of them by dispensation. ' T1o Yáp 1 o o larozóoorrov ; vk;rpos ioxúary ápafxer.Theod. ii. 16. Ka,, r oSpáPy'V Or' irrssoX;s aorta oaxorlso Pre 'i,,d4, ' Y ónloïvrras ¡<ñ óaiv KO:VOYI- roPar rap' aúroï.-Boer. ü. 15. s .17.4£75. ¿'e rap xavávas ror%osorar ;114; iloápol].aoAa, Re. P. Julii Ep. apud Athanas. in Apol. ii. p. 748. Tviç plow of raga xavávas rpápavrrso, ;,para, &c. p. 748. 4 M.SE 404 rap' ;/a.m "v ároxarvvváirrou;, &o. -Ep. adP. Celest. L 01 ósválosAeo tons sñç irrrparlis sot"; 'npcíoo ra.rpós sou rroïro rorñoar.Epiplt. Hoer. 42. e It was then a maxim becoming the mouth of a pope : Universæ pacis tranquillitas non aliter poterit custodiri, nisi sua canonibus reverentia intemerata servetur. P. Leo L, Ep. lxii. "The tranquillity of auniversal peace cannot otherwise be kept, un- less due reverence bepaid to the canons."
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