BELLARMINE'S CASES OF APPEAL REFUTED. 329 was such an appeal made? what custom could there be favourable to such a pretence? But what his appeal imported is best interpretable by the pro- ceeding consequent, which was, not the pope's assuming to himself the judicature, either immediately or by delegation of judges, but endeavouring to procure a general synod for it; which endeavour appears in many epistles toTheodosius and to his sister Pulcheria, soliciting that such a synod might be indicted by his order. " All the bishops," says Pope Leo, " with sighs and tears supplicate your grace, that because our agents faithfully reclaimed, and bishop Fla- vianus presented them a libel of appeal, you would command a general synod to be celebrated in Italy.' Dioscorus and his party would scarce have been so silly as to con- demn Flavianus if they had known (which, if it had been a case clear in law or obvious in practice, they could not but have known) that the pope, who was deeply engaged in the same cause, had a power to reverse and revenge their proceedings. Nor would the good Emperor Theodosius so pertinaciously have maintained the proceedings of that Ephesine synod if he had deemed the pope duly sovereign governor and judge, or that a right of ultimate decision upon appeal appertained to him. Nor had the pope needed to have taken so much pains in procuring a synod, if he could have judged without it. Nor would Pope Leo, a man of so much spirit and zeal for the dignity of his see, have been so wanting to the maintenance of his right as not immediately to have proceeded unto trial of the cause, without precarious attendance for a synod, if he thought his pretence to such appeals as we now speak of to have been good or plausible in the world at that time. The next case is that of Theodoret. His words, indeed, framed according to his condition, needing the patronage of Pope Leo, being then high in reputation, sound favourably; but we, abstracting from the sound of words, must regard the reason of things. His words are these: " I expect the suffrage of your apostolic see, and beseech and earnestly entreat your holiness to succour me, who appeal to your right and just judicature."' He never had been particularly or personally judged, and there- fore did not need to appeal as to a judge; nor, therefore, is his appli- cation to the pope to be interpreted for such, but rather as to a cha ' Omnes mansuetudini vestry cum gemitibus et lacbrymis supplicant sacerdotes, ut quia et nostri fideliter reclamarunt, et eisdem libellumappellations Flavianus epic. copus dedit, generalem synodum jubeatis intra Italiam celebrari, &c. P. Leo, Ep. xxv. 2 'Eyed l , .r, ,u orEp f íu 45 lxfi4EÚa, zee) 4,, sñv 6yl4g4a israpúval ¡.c:v 4ó bpAàr ú¡cmv xai liyavav i2'rxaT.ev('ivrd x i4ñp>v.-Theod., Ep. exiii. ad P. Leonem.
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