Summa de Ecclesia

Just as it pertains to the Roman pontiff as prince of the Church to approve universal councils if they have proceeded well, and to honour them by confirming with his authority, so it is his to correct, reprove and quash those councils which are found to have been celebrated to the ruin of faith or the disturbance of the whole Church; retracting and condemning what was done less justly and less well, as is clear of the council of Ariminum, because in it faith was wounded and infidelity was subscribed, Pope Damasus annulled it, as we have already said above in chapter 58. Likewise the same is clear of the second council of Ephesus, which, though gathered by apostolic authority and venerable by a most ample number of prelates, and it is manifest that, as Pope Leo says, in it neither justice, nor moderation, nor the religion of faith was observed, the same most blessed Pope Leo not only removed it without the assent of that synodal congregation, but also condemned, quashed and reproved it, by the lesson of him who says in Esa. 79: Loose the bands of impiety, and for its correction instituted the synod of Chalcedon by his authority. For the condemnation of this evilly conducted synod, Galla Placida, ever Augusta, writes most beautifully to Helene, praying the most pious ever Augustus that Pope Leo be permitted to judge of that synod as pertained to him by right of his primacy, saying thus: Since therefore to blessed Peter we have given our presence, there, with a multitude of priests, Leo the Roman Pope surrounded, approached you for the dignity of his place, who on account of the imposed sorrow of his grief could not fully insinuate his desire in the proceedings; yet the constancy of the wisdom of the priest prevailed, that he restrained his tears a little and set forth the cause of the vexed faith as its avenger in manifest speech. In which speech we have known our catholic faith to be troubled, which from our divine father Constantine the parents of our race have kept; therefore let thy clemency deign, according to the catholic faith (which it has ever done with us and now likewise seems to conspire), that whatever was constituted in that tumultuous miserable council (namely the Ephesine) be removed with all force, and with all things remaining entire, the episcopal cause be sent to the judgment of the apostolic see (in which first Peter, the most blessed of the apostles, who also receiving the keys of the kingdom of heaven held the principate of the priesthood). So she. Likewise for the same cause, writing to the emperor Theodosius, she says thus: While in the very entrance of the city we had this care, that we render worship to blessed Peter, in adoring the very altar of the martyrs the reverend bishop Leo, retaining himself a little after prayer, wept before us on account of the catholic faith, and below. For this grace therefore let thy mildness, resisting so great tumults, command the immaculate integrity of the faith of the catholic religion to be kept, that according to the form and definition of the apostolic see, which we also firmly venerate as excelling, the institutions of the priesthood remaining in all things unharmed, Flavian be transmitted to the judgment of the council and of the apostolic see, in which that first one who was worthy to receive the heavenly keys ordained the principate of the episcopate. So she. Likewise for the same cause and with the same faith Valentinian the Emperor, writing to Theodosius the Emperor, says thus: When I had come to the city of Rome to appease the divinity, on the following day I proceeded to the basilica of blessed Peter the apostle, and there I was asked by the Roman bishop, and by others gathered with him from diverse provinces, to write to your mildness concerning the faith which, since it is the conserver of souls, is said to be troubled, which, handed down by our elders, we ought to defend with all fitting devotion, and to preserve unharmed in our times also the dignity of veneration proper to blessed Peter the apostle, so that the most blessed bishop of the Roman city, to whom antiquity conferred over all the principate of the priesthood, may have place and faculty of judging concerning faith and priests. So he. From these it is manifestly clear that it pertained to the Roman pontiff by right of his principate to judge concerning whatsoever congregations of priests, if it should happen in any way to be stained. Which holy pope Dionysius, writing to Severus the bishop, says: Of old and from the beginning we have so received ¹ from blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, the trust that we have authority, with the Lord helping, to succour the universal Church, and to correct and amend by apostolic authority whatever is harmful; for to this end the providence of the divine dispensation constituted degrees and diverse orders to be distinct, that thus, while the lesser show reverence to the greater, and the greater show love to the lesser, one concord be made from diversity woven together, and the administration of each be carried on by reason of offices. So he. Of this authority indeed of the Roman pontiff in quashing councils evilly celebrated, and this by his own authority with which he was endowed by Christ, when it was said to him: Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, etc., Pope Nicholas speaks in that glorious epistle which he writes to the archbishops, metropolitans and bishops subject to the see of Constantinople, making a fair testimony, saying thus: Following also the footsteps of our fathers and predecessors, who were wont to quash even councils of pontiffs evilly celebrated, if any associate sayings are oft repeated or perchance exemplars of the epistle, etc. Whence in the acts of the eighth synod concerning Pope Nicholas it is thus found: Then knowing, Pope Nicholas, namely what his associate had done against Ignatius, and searching all things, held a synod, and convoked all the western bishops, archbishops and metropolitans, and all the clergy of the holy Roman Church and the whole senate of the Roman princes, and they condemned Liberius and the council of the malignant, which was made against the most holy man Ignatius, and he deposed the apocrisiarii who had come hither, namely Raydeald and Zachary, and repelled them from all sacerdotal honour and all communion, since they had communicated and consented, and had constituted the invader and adulterous associate, and disowned the council of the malignant. So he. Likewise the synod gathered at Rome in the time of Adrian, who followed Nicholas, supplicating that he pursue what Pope Nicholas had begun, says thus: Wherefore we pray thee, O angelic pope, that having the same spirit and the same zeal of piety which thy most fervent prelate brethren also had, the conventicle with its acts which was lately gathered at Constantinople against the truth under the tyrannically reigning Michael be so cut off by the scythe of your sentence, that no force of it, no vestige of it at all remain, but to its damnation or execration the crime be in all ways likened to a synod or to the Ephesine latrociny. And below Adrian himself, pursuing the petition of the aforesaid synod, says thus: The conventicle of vanity by the associate and his abettor Michael, namely reigning tyrannically at Constantinople, gathered against the reverence and privilege of the apostolic see, as enemy of truth and filled with all falsehood, which also killing the souls of those consenting to it we decree to be likened to the Ephesine latrociny; and its execrable acts, in whatsoever monuments they be found inserted, by the authority of the supreme judge Jesus Christ and of the holy princes the apostles Peter and Paul and of our mediocrity we decree to be wholly abolished, so that they be handed over to be devoured by fire and be struck with perpetual anathema. Likewise also concerning the other writings which by the authors already named were published at diverse times against the same see, we define to be done in all ways. So he. Likewise the same Pope Adrian, writing to Tarasio² the patriarch in the seventh synod, says thus: Let your holiness suggest to the pious Emperors, that in the first place that Pseudo-syllogus (that is, false assembly) which without the apostolic see was irregularly convened in mere assembly against the tradition of the venerable fathers concerning the divine images be anathematized, our apocrisiarii being present, and every tare be rooted out from the Church, and the word of our Lord Jesus Christ be fulfilled: because the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and again: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth etc., whose see, holding the primacy throughout the whole orb of lands, shines forth, and stands the head of all churches of God. So he. Likewise the same Pope Pelagius testifies, writing to all bishops constituted throughout Dardania, as lord Aymarus testifies in the book on synods, and it is also found in ch. Cuncta, 9, q. 3, where he speaks thus: The whole Church throughout the world knows that the most holy Roman Church has right to judge concerning every church, nor is it lawful for anyone to judge concerning its judgment; since to it appeal must be made from whatsoever part of the world, but from it no one is permitted to appeal. But neither do we pass over this, that the apostolic see oftentimes, in the manner of the elders, even with no preceding synod had faculty of absolving whom or those whom an unjust synod had condemned, and of condemning, with no synod existing, those whom it behoved; and this indeed by its primacy which blessed Peter the apostle held by the voice of the Lord and will ever hold. For a synod had assigned Athanasius of holy memory, whom yet the apostolic see, being excepted, absolved, because it did not consent to the condemnation of the Greeks. So too Flavian the pontiff, condemned by the congregation of the Greeks, in like tenor — since the apostolic see did not consent to it — [the see] by its own authority condemned Dioscorus, who had been received there, prelate of the second see, and by not consenting with sole authority removed the impious synod; alone it decreed that Chalcedon should be a synod. So he. To this sentence (as lord Aymarus adds) other most holy fathers, namely Calixtus, Fabian, Sixtus, Sylvester, Julius and the rest innumerable give assent, which truth embraced from God they so held that they resolved rather to die than to lie. So Aymarus. Likewise blessed Gregory in the register, writing to Eulogius and Anastasius the bishops, says thus: Indeed eight years ago, in the time of Pelagius my predecessor of holy memory, our brother and fellow bishop John, seeking occasion from another cause in the city of Constantinople, made a synod, in which he strove to call himself universal; which as soon as my predecessor himself learned, having dispatched his apostles, by the authority of St. Peter the apostle he quashed the acts of that synod. So he.