THE CASES OF DIOSCORUS AND OTHERS VAINLY ALLEGED. 309 condemned, and deposed; whichhad been. done long before if in the pope, his professed and provoked adversary, there had been sufficient power to effect it. Bellarmine also alleges Pope Sixtus III. deposing Polycronius, bishop of Jerusalem. But no such Polycronius is to be found in the registers of bishops then, or in the histories of that busy time, be- tween the two great synods of Ephesus and Chalcedon; and the Acts of Sixtus, upon which this allegation is grounded, have so many in- consistencies, and smell so rank of forgery, that no conscionable nose could endure them, and any as prudent man," as Binius himself con- fesses, " would assert them to be spurious:" wherefore Baronius himself rejects and despises them, who gladly would lose no advan- tage for his master.1 Yet Pope Nicholas I. precedes Bellarmine in citing this trash; no wonder, that being the pope who avouched the wares of Isidore Mercator.' They allege Timotheus, the usurper of Alexandria, deposed by Pope Damasus;3 and they have, indeed, the sound of words attesting to them: " These are heads upon which theblessed Damasus deposed the heretics Apollinarius, Vitalius, and Timotheus."4 The truth is, that Apollinarius [or Apollinaris], with divers of his disciples, in a great synod at Rome, at which Peter, bishop of Alexan- dria, together with Damasus, was present, was condemned and dis- avowed for heretical doctrine; whence Sozomen says that " the Apol- linarian heresy was by Damasus and Peter, at a synod in Rome, voted to be excluded from the catholic church.' On which account if we conclude that the pope had an authority to depose bishops, we may by like reason infer that every patriarch and metropolitan had a power to do the like, there being so many instances of their having condemned and disclaimed bishops sup- posedlyguilty of heresy: as, particularly, John of Antioch, with his convention of oriental bishops, pretended to depose Cyril and Mem- non as guilty of the same Apollinarian heresy, alleging that to " ex- scind them was the same thing as to settle orthodoxy;"B which deposition was at first admitted by the emperor. The next instance is of Pope Agapetus in Justinian's time (for so deep into time is Bellarmine fain to dive for it) deposing Anthimus, 1 Baron., ann. 433, § 38, 39. ' P. Nic. I., Ep. viii., ad Mich. 8 Fac. Herrn., p. 150. ! Ta-umá ior, má XEVIA.aite 10' o7;ó mpropaazápraç Aá¡aavos xaAal).ar 'A,r Xo pro,, xai Brrá- .irev,, xai Trpc(Aaov moib aipamrzouç.Orient. ad Itufum, apud Bin., p. 396. Mai 'V o3, maúmnv mñv a'ppaory aiç vroxloúç Ëprarr mpmmos Aá¡<aooç ó 'Pmpaaimv iriçzo ras, ,,aÌ nirpaç ó 'A).agavlpaiaç, ouvólau yavolaivnç i, Prñan áa.T.ompiav mrya zadóT.uu bxzxnoiae ikn- mieavma. Soz. vi. 25. s Tó yáp mo'imous izzáa.ar only i'mapbv iory i ópAO14 u amñoar.Relat. Orient. adImp. in Act. Eple. p. 380. 'Oil, 'lui y3, mñ, yvwproAaioav rafá 73; Eûçaßaiaç úpom -r Nsiroplow xai liupí?J.au, xai Mipcvovoç zaAaipaçry ils,ápasAa. Act. p. 385.
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