Part I, Chapter 8, 2

The Bishops of Aquileia and Millain ordained one another, and therefore were of equal authority, and alike subject to the See of Rome. Pope Pelagius, about the year 557, testified to this in the following words:⁷ "It was an old custom," he said, "that because of the length or the difficulty of the journey it had been a burden for them to be ordained by the Apostolic See, so that the Bishops of Millain and Aquileia should ordain one another." These words imply that the ordination of these two Bishops belonged to the See of Rome. When Laurentius, Bishop of Millain, had excommunicated Magnus, one of his Presbyters, and had died,⁸ Gregory the Great absolved Magnus, and sent the Pallium to the newly elected Bishop Constantius, whom the next year⁹ he rebuked for partiality in judging Fortunatus, and ordered him to send Fortunatus to Rome to be judged there; four years later¹⁰ he appointed the Bishops of Millain and Ravenna to hear the case of one Maximus; and two years after that, namely A.C. 601, when Constantius was dead, the people of Millain had elected Deusdedit his successor, and the Lombards had elected another,¹¹ Gregory wrote to the Notary, Clergy, and People of Millain that by the authority of his Letters Deusdedit should be ordained, and that he whom the Lombards had ordained was an unworthy successor of Ambrose; from this I gather that the Church of Millain had continued in this state of subordination to the See of Rome ever since the days of Ambrose, for Ambrose himself acknowledged the authority of that See. "The Roman Church,"¹² he said, "does not have this custom, whose pattern and form we follow in all things." And a little later: "In all things I wish to follow the Roman Church." And in his Commentary upon 1 Tim. iii.: "Although the whole world belongs to God, still his house is called the Church, whose ruler today is Damasus." In his Oration on the death of his brother Satyrus, he relates how his brother, coming to a certain city of Sardinia, "sent for the Bishop of the place and asked him whether he was in communion with the Catholic Bishops, that is, with the Roman Church." And together with the Synod of Aquileia A.C. 381, in a synodical Epistle to the Emperor Gratian, he said: "Your clemency had to be implored not to allow the Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world, and that most sacred faith of the Apostles, to be disturbed; for from it flow the rights of venerable communion for all." The Churches therefore of Aquileia and Millain were subject to the See of Rome from the days of the Emperor Gratian. Auxentius, the predecessor of Ambrose, was not subject to the See of Rome, and consequently the subjection of the Church of Millain began with Ambrose. This Diocese of Millain contained Liguria with Insubria, the Alpes Cottiæ and Rhætia; and was divided from the Diocese of Aquileia by the river Addua. In the year 844, the Bishop of Millain broke off from the See of Rome, and continued in this separation about 200 years, as is thus related by¹³ Sigonius: "In the same year Angilbert, Archbishop of Millain, broke away from the Roman Church for a cause but little understood, and his example had such force in later times that the Church of Millain did not return to Roman obedience and authority until two hundred years afterward."

The Bishop of Ravenna, the Metropolis of Flaminia and Æmilia, was also subject to the Pope: for Zosimus, A.C. 417, excommunicated some of the Presbyters of that Church, and wrote a letter of instruction about them to the Clergy of that Church as a branch of the Roman Church: "In his own," he said, "that is, in our Roman Church." When those of Ravenna, having elected a new Bishop, gave notice of it to Pope Sixtus, the Pope set him aside, and¹⁴ ordained Peter Chrysologus in his room. Chrysologus, in his Epistle to Eutyches, extant in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, wrote thus: "In our zeal for peace and faith, we cannot hear cases of faith without the consent of the Bishop of the city of Rome." Pope Leo I., being consulted by Leo, Bishop of Ravenna, about some questions, answered him by a decretal Epistle A.C. 451. And Pope Gregory the Great,¹⁵ rebuking John, Bishop of Ravenna, over the use of the Pallium, told him of a Precept of one of his predecessors, Pope John, commanding that all the Privileges formerly granted to the Bishop and Church of Ravenna should be kept; to this John returned a submissive answer; and after his death Pope Gregory ordered a visitation of the Church of Ravenna, confirmed the privileges heretofore granted to them, and sent his Pallium, as of ancient custom, to their new Bishop Marinian. Yet this Church at times revolted from the Church of Rome, but returned again to its obedience.

The rest of Italy, with the Islands adjacent, containing the suburbicarian regions, or ten Provinces under the temporal Vicar of Rome, namely 1Campania, 2Tuscia and Umbria, 3Picenum suburbicarium, 4Sicily, 5Apulia and Calabria, 6Brutii and Lucania, 7Samnium, 8Sardinia, 9Corsica, and 10Valeria, constituted the proper Province of the Bishop of Rome. For the Council of Nice in their fifth Canon ordained that Councils should be held every spring and autumn in every Province; and according to this Canon, the Bishops of this Province met at Rome every half year. In this sense Pope Leo I. applied this Canon to Rome, in a decretal Epistle to the Bishops of Sicily, written when Alippio and Ardabure were Consuls, A.C. 447. "It has been healthfully established," he said, "by the holy fathers that there must be two assemblies of Bishops in every year, and that three of you always come to Rome on the third day before the Kalends of October to join the eternal council. And this custom must be kept by you without dissimulation, because with the help of God's grace it will be easier to ensure that no scandals arise and no errors are born in the churches of Christ; since everything has always been treated in communion before the Apostle Peter, so that all the Decrees of the Canons may remain inviolate among all the Lord's priests." The Province of Rome therefore comprehended Sicily, with so much of Italy and the neighboring Islands as sent Bishops to the annual Councils of Rome; but it did not extend into the Provinces of Ravenna, Aquileia, Millain, Arles, &c., those Provinces having Councils of their own. The Bishops in every Province of the Roman Empire were convened in Council by the Metropolitan or Bishop of the head city of the Province, and this Bishop presided in that Council: but the Bishop of Rome did not only preside in his own Council of the Bishops of the suburbicarian regions, but also gave Orders to the Metropolitans of all the other Provinces in the Western Empire, as their universal governor; as may be further seen from the following instances.

Pope Zosimus, A.C. 417, cited Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, to appear before a Council at Rome for illegitimate Ordinations, and condemned him, as he mentions in several of his Epistles. Pope Boniface I., A.C. 419, upon a complaint of the Clergy of Valentia against Maximus a Bishop, summoned the Bishops of all Gallia and the seven Provinces to convene in a Council against him, and said in his Epistle that his predecessors had done the same. Pope Leo I. called a general Council of all the Provinces of Spain to meet in Gallæcia against the Manichees and Priscillianists, as he says in his decretal Epistle to Turribius, a Spanish Bishop. And in one of his decretal Epistles to Nicetas, Bishop of Aquileia, he commands him to call a Council of the Bishops of that Province against the Pelagians, which might ratify all the Synodal Decrees which had been already ratified by the See of Rome against this heresy. And in his decretal Epistle to Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, he ordained that the Bishop should hold two Provincial Councils every year, and refer the harder causes to the See of Rome; and if upon any extraordinary occasion it should be necessary to call a Council, he should not be troublesome to the Bishops under him, but content himself with two Bishops out of every Province, and not detain them above fifteen days. In the same Epistle he describes the form of Church-Government then set up, to consist in a subordination of all the Churches to the See of Rome: "From this form," he said, "has likewise arisen the distinction of the Bishops; and by a great arrangement it was provided that not all should claim everything for themselves, but that in each Province there should be one whose opinion would hold first place among the brothers, and again certain others set in the larger cities who would take on a greater charge, through whom the care of the one universal Church would flow to the one See of Peter, and nothing be severed from its head. Therefore let whoever knows that he is set over some not take it badly that another is set over him; but let him render the obedience he himself demands, and since he is unwilling to bear the burden of a heavy load, let him not dare to impose an unendurable weight on others." These words sufficiently show the monarchical form of government then set up in the Churches of the Western Empire under the Bishop of Rome, by means of the imperial Decree of Gratian, and the appeals and decretal Epistles grounded thereupon.

The same Pope Leo, having in a Council at Rome passed sentence upon Hilary, Bishop of Arles, for what he had done by a Provincial Council in Gallia, took the occasion to procure the following Edict from the Western Emperor Valentinian III. for the more absolute establishment of the authority of his See over all the Churches of the Western Empire.

The Emperors Theodosius and Valentinianus, Augusti, to Aetio, Illustrious Man, Count and Master of both services, and Patrician.

It is certain both to us and to our empire that our one resource is the favor of the heavenly Divinity, and that to win it our Christian faith and the religion we hold in reverence do especially plead. Since, therefore, the merit of Saint Peter, who is the prince of the episcopal crown, and the dignity of the city of Rome, and likewise the authority of the sacred Synod, have established the Primacy of the Apostolic See, and no presumption may strive to undertake anything unlawful apart from the authority of this See, for only then will the peace of the Churches be preserved everywhere, if the whole body recognizes its Ruler. While these things had been kept inviolably until now, Hilary of Arles, as we have learned from the faithful report of the venerable man Leo, Pope of Rome, attempted certain unlawful things with a stubborn boldness, and therefore an abominable turmoil seized the Churches beyond the Alps, as a very recent example best shows. For Hilary, who is called Bishop of Arles, invaded the Roman Church of the city without the Pontiff being consulted, usurping for himself the ordinations of Bishops that were not his due through sheer rashness. For he removed some unfittingly, and ordained others indecently, against the will and resistance of the citizens. And because those he ordained were not readily received by those who had not chosen them, he gathered an armed force, blockaded the gates of the walls in hostile fashion either by siege or by assault, and led them to the seat of rest to proclaim peace through wars. After such deeds as these, committed against the Majesty of the Empire and the reverence due to the Apostolic See, had been examined in order at the hearing of the religious man, the Pope of the City, a settled sentence was passed against him concerning those he had ordained wrongfully. That sentence would indeed have held force throughout Gallia even without an Imperial Sanction, for what would not be permitted by the authority of the Pontiff? But this consideration also prompted our own command. From now on it shall not be lawful for Hilary, whom only the mild kindness of the Bishop still allows to be called Bishop, nor for anyone else, to mix arms into ecclesiastical affairs, or to resist the commands of the Roman Prelate; for by such attempts the faith and reverence due to our Empire are violated. Not only do we remove this, which is a crime of the greatest magnitude, but so that even the slightest disturbance may not arise among the Churches, or the discipline of religion be seen in any way diminished, we decree by this perpetual sanction that neither the Bishops of Gaul nor those of other Provinces may attempt anything contrary to ancient custom without the authority of the venerable man, the Pope of the eternal City. But whatever the authority of the Apostolic See has enacted or shall enact, let it be law for them and for all, so that whichever of the Bishops, summoned to the judgment of the Roman Prelate, fails to come, may be compelled to appear by the Governor of that Province; all things being preserved that our divine ancestors granted to the Roman Church, Aetio, most beloved father of the Augustus. Therefore your illustrious and splendid Magnificence shall, by the authority of this present Edictal Law, ensure that the provisions above set down are observed, with a fine of ten pounds of gold to be at once exacted from every Judge who suffers our commands to be violated. May the Divinity preserve you for many years, dearest father. Given at Rome on the eighth day before the Ides of June, in the sixth consulship of Valentinianus, A.C. 445. By this Edict the Emperor Valentinian enjoined an absolute obedience to the will of the Bishop of Rome throughout all the Churches of his Empire; and declares that for the Bishops to attempt anything without the Pope's authority is contrary to ancient custom, and that the Bishops summoned to appear before his judgment must be carried there by the Governor of the Province; and he ascribes these privileges of the See of Rome to the concessions of his dead Ancestors, that is, to the Edict of Gratian and Valentinian II. as above; by which reckoning this dominion of the Church of Rome was now of 66 years standing; and if in all that time it had not been sufficiently established, this new Edict was enough to settle it beyond all question throughout the Western Empire.

Hence all the Bishops of the Province of Arles, in their Letter to Pope Leo, A.C. 450, petitioning for a restitution of the privileges of their Metropolitan, say: "Through blessed Peter, the prince of the Apostles, the most holy Roman Church held the primacy over all the Churches of the whole world." And Ceratius, Salonius and Veranus, three Bishops of Gallia, say, in their Epistle to the same Pope: "Moreover, we grow in a great and indescribable joy that is peculiarly ours because of you: that special page of your teaching is so celebrated in the gatherings of all the Churches, that with the truly harmonious judgment of all it is declared: deservedly is the primacy of the Apostolic See established there, where still the oracles of the Apostolic spirit are revealed." And Leo himself, in¹⁶ his Epistle to the metropolitan Bishops throughout Illyricum: "Because our care is stretched through all the Churches, the Lord requiring this of us, who in reward for his faith committed the primacy of apostolic dignity to the most blessed Apostle Peter, establishing the universal Church on the solidity of its foundation."

While this Ecclesiastical Dominion was rising up, the northern barbarous nations invaded the Western Empire, and founded several kingdoms tin this, of different religions from the Church of Rome. But these kingdoms by degrees embraced the Roman faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's authority. The Franks in Gaul submitted at the end of the fifth century, the Goths in Spain at the end of the sixth; and the Lombards in Italy were conquered by Charles the Great A.C. 774. Between the years 775 and 794, the same Charles extended the Pope's authority over all Germany and Hungary as far as the river Theysse and the Baltic Sea; he then set him above all human judgment, and at the same time assisted him in subduing the City and Duchy of Rome. By the conversion of the ten kingdoms to the Roman religion, the Pope only enlarged his spiritual dominion, but did not yet rise up as a horn of the Beast. It was his temporal dominion which made him one of the horns: and this dominion he acquired in the latter half of the eighth century, by subduing three of the former horns as above. And now, being arrived at a temporal dominion, and a power above all human judgment, he reigned¹⁷ with a bearing bolder than his fellows, and¹⁸ times and laws were henceforward given into his hands, for a time, times, and half a time, or three times and a half; that is, for 1260 solar years, reckoning a time for a Calendar year of 360 days, and a day for a solar year. After which¹⁹ the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, not at once, but by degrees, to consume and destroy it to the end.²⁰ And the kingdom and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall, by degrees, be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

Notes to Chap. VIII.

1 See the Annals of Baronius, Anno 381. Sect. 6.

2 Populos Galliciæ.

3 Hormisd. Epist. 24. 26.

4 The words, sine auctoritate, seem wanting.

5 Vide Caroli a S. Paulo Geographiam sacram, p. 72, 73.

6 Greg. M. lib. 1. Indic. 9. Epist. 16.

7 Apud Gratianum de Mediolanensi & Aquileiensi Episcopis.

8 Greg. M. lib. 3. Epist. 26. & lib. 4. Epist. 1.

9 Greg. lib. 5. Epist. 4.

10 Greg. lib. 9. Epist. 10 & 67.

11 Greg. lib. 11. Epist. 3, 4.

12 Ambros l. 3. de sacramentis, c. 1.

13 Sigonius de Regno Italiæ, lib. 5.

14 See Baronius, Anno 433. Sect. 24.

15 Greg. M. lib. 3. Epist. 56, 57. & lib. 5. Epist. 25, 26, 56.

16 Epist. 25. apud Holstenium.

17 Dan. vii. 20.

18 Ver. 25.

19 Ver. 26.

20 Ver. 27.

The Bishops of Aquileia and Millain ordained one another, so they had equal authority and were both subject to the See of Rome. Pope Pelagius stated this around the year 557 in these words:⁷ "It was an old custom," he said, "that because of the length and difficulty of the journey it had been a burden for them to be ordained by the Apostolic See, so that the bishops of Millain and Aquileia ought to ordain one another." These words show that the ordination of these two Bishops belonged to the See of Rome. When Laurentius, Bishop of Millain, had excommunicated Magnus, one of his Presbyters, and had then died,⁸ Gregory the Great absolved Magnus and sent the pallium to the newly elected Bishop Constantius. The next year⁹ Gregory rebuked Constantius for favoritism in judging Fortunatus, and ordered him to send Fortunatus to Rome to be judged there. Four years later¹⁰ he appointed the Bishops of Millain and Ravenna to hear the case of a man named Maximus. Two years after that, in A.C. 601, Constantius was dead, the people of Millain had elected Deusdedit as his successor, and the Lombards had elected another man.¹¹ Gregory wrote to the Notary, the Clergy, and the People of Millain that Deusdedit should be ordained by the authority of his letters, and that the man the Lombards had ordained was an unworthy successor of Ambrose. From this I conclude that the Church of Millain had stayed in this state of subordination to the See of Rome ever since the days of Ambrose, because Ambrose himself acknowledged the authority of that See. "The Roman Church,"¹² he said, "does not have this custom, whose model and pattern we follow in all things." And a little later: "In all things I want to follow the Roman Church." In his Commentary upon 1 Tim. iii he wrote: "Although the whole world is God's, his household is still called the Church, whose ruler today is Damasus." In his Oration on the death of his brother Satyrus, he tells how his brother came to a certain city in Sardinia, called for the bishop of the place, and asked him whether he was in communion with the Catholic bishops, that is, with the Roman Church. And acting together with the Synod of Aquileia in A.C. 381, in a synodical letter to the Emperor Gratian, he said: "Your mercy had to be begged not to allow the Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world, and that sacred faith of the Apostles, to be disturbed; for from it flow the rights of venerable communion for all." The Churches of Aquileia and Millain were therefore subject to the See of Rome from the days of the Emperor Gratian. Auxentius, the predecessor of Ambrose, was not subject to the See of Rome, so the subjection of the Church of Millain began with Ambrose.

This Diocese of Millain held Liguria together with Insubria, the Alpes Cottiæ and Rhætia, and the river Addua separated it from the Diocese of Aquileia. In the year 844 the Bishop of Millain broke away from the See of Rome and stayed separate for about 200 years, as¹³ Sigonius relates: "In that same year," he writes, "Angilbert, Archbishop of Millain, broke away from the Roman Church for reasons that were little understood, and his example had such effect afterward that the Church of Millain did not return to the obedience and authority of Rome until two hundred years later."

The Bishop of Ravenna, in the metropolis of Flaminia and Æmilia, was also subject to the Pope. For Zosimus, in A.C. 417, excommunicated some of the Presbyters of that Church and wrote a warning letter about them to the Clergy of that Church as a branch of the Roman Church: "In their own," he said, "that is, in our Roman Church." When the people of Ravenna had elected a new Bishop and gave notice of it to Pope Sixtus, the Pope set his election aside and¹⁴ ordained Peter Chrysologus in his place. Chrysologus wrote thus to Eutyches, in a letter still kept in the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon: "For the sake of peace and faith, we cannot hear cases of faith without the consent of the bishop of the city of Rome." Pope Leo I. was consulted by Leo, Bishop of Ravenna, about some questions, and answered him in a decretal letter in A.C. 451. And Pope Gregory the Great,¹⁵ rebuking John, Bishop of Ravenna, about the use of the pallium, told him of a precept from one of his predecessors, Pope John, which commanded that all the privileges formerly granted to the Bishop and Church of Ravenna should be kept. To this John gave a humble answer. After his death Pope Gregory ordered a visitation of the Church of Ravenna, confirmed the privileges granted to them before, and sent his pallium, following the ancient custom, to their new Bishop Marinian. Still, this Church sometimes broke away from the Church of Rome, and then returned to its obedience.

The rest of Italy, with the nearby islands, contained the suburbicarian regions, or ten provinces under the temporal Vicar of Rome: 1 Campania, 2 Tuscia and Umbria, 3 Picenum suburbicarium, 4 Sicily, 5 Apulia and Calabria, 6 Brutii and Lucania, 7 Samnium, 8 Sardinia, 9 Corsica, and 10 Valeria. Together they made up the proper Province of the Bishop of Rome. For the fifth Canon of the Council of Nice ordained that councils should be held every spring and autumn in every province; and following this canon, the Bishops of this Province met at Rome every half year. Pope Leo I. applied this canon to Rome in this sense, in a decretal letter to the Bishops of Sicily, written when Alippius and Ardabur were consuls, A.C. 447. "It has been laid down in the healthiest way," he said, "by the holy fathers, that there should be two meetings of bishops each year. Let three of you always come to Rome, on the third day before the Kalends of October, to join the lasting council. And let this practice be kept by you without any excuse, because with God's help it will be easier to make sure that no scandals and no errors arise in the churches of Christ; since everything has always been handled in communion before the Apostle Peter, so that all the decrees of the canons remain unbroken among all the Lord's priests." The Province of Rome therefore included Sicily, along with so much of Italy and the neighboring islands as sent Bishops to the annual councils at Rome. It did not extend into the provinces of Ravenna, Aquileia, Millain, Arles, and the rest, because those provinces had councils of their own. In every province of the Roman Empire the Bishops were gathered in council by the metropolitan, or the Bishop of the chief city of the province, and that Bishop presided over the council. But the Bishop of Rome not only presided over his own council of the Bishops of the suburbicarian regions; he also gave orders to the metropolitans of all the other provinces in the Western Empire, as their universal governor. The following cases show this further.

Pope Zosimus, in A.C. 417, summoned Proculus, Bishop of Marseilles, to appear before a council at Rome for illegitimate ordinations, and condemned him, as he mentions in several of his letters. Pope Boniface I. in A.C. 419, on a complaint of the Clergy of Valentia against Maximus a Bishop, summoned the Bishops of all Gallia and the seven provinces to gather in a council against him, and said in his letter that his predecessors had done the same. Pope Leo I. called a general council of all the provinces of Spain to meet in Gallæcia against the Manichees and Priscillianists, as he says in his decretal letter to Turribius, a Spanish Bishop. And in one of his decretal letters to Nicetas, Bishop of Aquileia, he ordered him to call a council of the Bishops of that province against the Pelagians, which could ratify all the synodal decrees already ratified by the See of Rome against this heresy. And in his decretal letter to Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, he ordered that Bishop to hold two provincial councils every year, and to refer the harder cases to the See of Rome. If a council had to be called on any extraordinary occasion, he should not trouble the Bishops under him, but should make do with two Bishops from every province, and should not keep them more than fifteen days. In the same letter he described the form of church government then set up, which consisted in a subordination of all the churches to the See of Rome: "From this form," he said, "a distinction among bishops also arose, and great arrangement made provision so that not everyone would claim everything for himself. In each province there would be one whose opinion counted first among the brothers, and again certain men placed in the larger cities would take on a greater care, through whom the care of the whole Church would flow to the one See of Peter, and nothing would stand apart from its head. So whoever knows that he is set over some others should not resent that someone is set over him; he should pay the same obedience he demands, and just as he does not want to carry the heavy load of a great burden, he should not dare to lay an unbearable weight on others." These words show plainly the monarchical form of government then set up in the churches of the Western Empire under the Bishop of Rome, by way of the imperial Decree of Gratian and the appeals and decretal letters grounded upon it.

The same Pope Leo, having passed sentence in a council at Rome on Hilary Bishop of Arles, for what he had done through a provincial council in Gallia, took the chance from this to get the following Edict from the Western Emperor Valentinian III. which established the authority of his See over all the churches of the Western Empire more completely.

The emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, Augusti, to Aetius, a distinguished man, Count and Master of both services, and Patrician.

"It is certain both to us and to our empire that the one protection lies in the favor of the heavenly Divinity, and to win that favor our Christian faith and the religion we revere help above all. So the merit of Saint Peter, who is the prince of the episcopal crown, and the dignity of the city of Rome, have confirmed the primacy of the Apostolic See, and the authority of the sacred Synod has strengthened it, so that no unlawful presumption may try to do anything against the authority of that See. For the peace of the churches will be kept everywhere only when the whole body recognizes its own ruler. While these things had so far been kept without violation, Hilary of Arles, as we have learned from the faithful report of the venerable man Leo, Pope of Rome, tried with a stubborn boldness to undertake unlawful things, and because of that an abominable turmoil struck the churches beyond the Alps, as a very recent example shows. For Hilary, who is called Bishop of Arles, invaded the Roman Church by taking on himself, out of sheer rashness and without the bishop of that city being consulted, episcopal ordinations that were not his to give. He removed some men without proper grounds, and ordained others in an unseemly way, against the will and resistance of the citizens. And because those men were not easily accepted by the people who had not chosen them, he gathered an armed force for himself, and either blockaded the gates and barriers of the walls by siege in the manner of an enemy, or broke them open by attack, and led wars to preach peace at the seat of rest. After such acts against the majesty of the Empire and against the reverence owed to the Apostolic See had been examined one by one in the court of the religious man, the Pope of the City, a settled sentence was passed against him by some of those he had ordained badly. That sentence itself would in fact have held force throughout Gaul even without an imperial sanction: for what would not be allowed by the authority of the Pontiff? But this same reasoning also called for our own command. From now on it shall not be lawful for Hilary, whom the mild kindness of the Bishop still allows to be called bishop, nor for anyone else, to mix arms into church matters, or to resist the commands of the Roman prelate; for such bold acts violate the faith and reverence owed to our Empire. We remove not only this, which is a crime of the highest kind; but so that no slight disturbance may arise among the churches, or the discipline of religion appear in any way reduced, we decide by this lasting decree that neither the bishops of Gaul nor those of other provinces may try anything against the old custom without the authority of the venerable man, the Pope of the eternal City. But whatever the authority of the Apostolic See has laid down or shall lay down shall be law for them and for all. So whichever bishop, summoned to the judgment of the Roman prelate, fails to come, shall be forced to appear by the Governor of that province, while all is kept that our divine ancestors granted to the Roman Church, Aetius, most beloved father of the Augustus. Therefore your illustrious and splendid magnificence shall, by the authority of this present edictal law, make sure that the provisions above are kept, and shall at once demand a fine of ten pounds of gold from every judge who allows our commands to be violated. May the Divinity keep you for many years, most beloved father. Given on the eighth day before the Ides of June, at Rome, in the sixth consulship of Valentinian Augustus, A.C. 445." By this Edict the Emperor Valentinian ordered absolute obedience to the will of the Bishop of Rome throughout all the churches of his Empire, and declared that for the Bishops to attempt anything without the Pope's authority is contrary to ancient custom, and that Bishops summoned to appear before his judgment must be carried there by the Governor of the Province. He ascribed these privileges of the See of Rome to the grants of his dead ancestors, that is, to the Edict of Gratian and Valentinian II. as above. By this count the dominion of the Church of Rome was now 66 years old. And if in all that time it had not been firmly enough established, this new Edict was enough to settle it beyond all question throughout the Western Empire.

For this reason all the Bishops of the Province of Arles, in their letter to Pope Leo, A.C. 450, asking that the privileges of their metropolitan be restored, said: "By blessed Peter, the prince of the Apostles, the sacred Roman Church held the chief place above all the churches of the whole world." And Ceratius, Salonius and Veranus, three Bishops of Gallia, said in their letter to the same Pope: "Moreover we grow in a great and indescribable joy of our own, because that special page of your teaching is celebrated in the gatherings of all the churches, so that the truly agreeing judgment of all is declared: the chief place of the Apostolic See was rightly established there, where even now the oracles of the apostolic spirit are opened." And Leo himself, in¹⁶ his letter to the metropolitan Bishops throughout Illyricum: "Because our care is stretched through all the churches, at the demand of the Lord, who for the reward of his faith committed the primacy of apostolic dignity to the most blessed Apostle Peter, establishing the universal Church on the solidity of its foundation."

While this ecclesiastical dominion was rising up, the northern barbarous nations invaded the Western Empire and founded several kingdoms there, with religions different from the Church of Rome. But these kingdoms in time embraced the Roman faith, and at the same time submitted to the Pope's authority. The Franks in Gaul submitted at the end of the fifth Century, the Goths in Spain at the end of the sixth; and the Lombards in Italy were conquered by Charles the Great in A.C. 774. Between the years 775 and 794 the same Charles extended the Pope's authority over all Germany and Hungary, as far as the river Theysse and the Baltic Sea; he then set him above all human judgment, and at the same time helped him subdue the City and Duchy of Rome. By the conversion of the ten kingdoms to the Roman religion, the Pope only enlarged his spiritual dominion, and did not yet rise up as a horn of the Beast. It was his temporal dominion that made him one of the horns, and he acquired this dominion in the latter half of the eighth century, by subduing three of the former horns as above. Now that he had come to a temporal dominion and to power above all human judgment, he reigned¹⁷ with a look bolder than his fellows, and¹⁸ times and laws were from then on given into his hands, for a time, times and half a time, or three times and a half; that is, for 1260 solar years, counting a time as a Calendar year of 360 days, and a day as a solar year. After that¹⁹ the judgment is to sit, and they shall take away his dominion, not at once but little by little, to consume and to destroy it to the end.²⁰ And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall little by little be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.

Notes to Chap. VIII.

1 See the Annals of Baronius, Anno 381. Sect. 6.

2 Populos Galliciæ.

3 Hormisd. Epist. 24. 26.

4 The words, sine auctoritate, seem wanting.

5 See Caroli a S. Paulo, Geographiam sacram, p. 72, 73.

6 Greg. M. lib. 1. Indic. 9. Epist. 16.

7 Apud Gratianum de Mediolanensi & Aquileiensi Episcopis.

8 Greg. M. lib. 3. Epist. 26. & lib. 4. Epist. 1.

9 Greg. lib. 5. Epist. 4.

10 Greg. lib. 9. Epist. 10 & 67.

11 Greg. lib. 11. Epist. 3, 4.

12 Ambros l. 3. de sacramentis, c. 1.

13 Sigonius de Regno Italiæ, lib. 5.

14 See Baronius, Anno 433. Sect. 24.

15 Greg. M. lib. 3. Epist. 56, 57. & lib. 5. Epist. 25, 26, 56.

16 Epist. 25. apud Holstenium.

17 Dan. vii. 20.

18 Ver. 25.

19 Ver. 26.

20 Ver. 27.