against Damasus; and, had not these machinations been thwarted by the emperors, the Church had well nigh been despoiled omnibus ministeriis, since, when he who had been made judge over all, was defending himself, there was no one to try the guilty or the factious invaders of the episcopacy.

This language from clergy of the diocese of Milan is singular; but their request to the emperors is still more so. It will be best learnt from the imperial reply, the part of it more immediately relating to this inquiry, and directed to one Aquilinus, a vicar. After enumerating all the cases of a defiance of judicial sentence mentioned by the bishops in their letter, and soundly rating the authorities for permitting them, the emperors declare their will, that if any one shall be condemned by the sentence of Damasus, passed with the advice of five or seven bishops, or Catholics, and shall unjustly seek to retain his Church, or if any one summoned to undergo a trial before the bishops, shall contumaciously keep away, he shall be conveyed to Rome to undergo the trial before the episcopal judges, either by the prætorian prefects of Gaul and Italy, or by proconsuls, or by vicars; or if such ferocity shall be exhibited in parts still more distant [longinquioribus partibus], the trial shall take place before the metropolitan bishop of the province; but if the criminal be the metropolitan himself, he must of necessity immediately attend at Rome, or before those judges whom the Roman bishop shall appoint. But if the judgment of the metropolitan is for any cause suspected,

leave is given to appeal to the Roman bishop, or to a council of fifteen neighbouring bishops, provided that the cause has not been investigated. Such is the substance, if it had been genuine, of a very remarkable rescript; indeed, quite as startling as Victor's or Stephen's excommunications: and it partakes of one of their peculiarities. Although an exceedingly practical document, it is not in the Theodosian code; nor is there any record that any one had ever seen it, or used it. A few words will suffice to show its character. To whom is it directed? to one Aquilinus, a vicar. Vicar of what country? It has no date. No consul's name appears. Neither does it say where the emperors were residing at the time. It is a law, too, affecting the duties of the highest officers of the state, the prætorian prefects of Gaul and Italy; the proconsuls—but of what country is not stated; and vicars-but what vicars we are not told and yet it is directed to one Aquilinus, a vicar. They will have to learn their duties from one Aquilinus, a vicar, should they ever hear of the rescript.

Such a document is a manifest forgery. Then observe its contents. It is clearly intended to relate to the Oriental empire. It speaks of proconsuls, but I believe that there was but one in the West, and that was in Africa. And after enumerating the prefectures, it speaks of more distant provinces. Had these been within the Western limits the guilty parties had to be forwarded to Rome, but being without, the metropolitan is to

examine into these offences, except the metropolitan is the guilty party himself, or except his judgment was suspected; in the former case he was to go to Rome and stand his trial there; in the latter the appeal was to the Roman bishop, or to fifteen neighbouring bishops.

Consequently, it was the opinion of Sirmond, and it is the natural interpretation of the Documents, that the Council had been summoned by the emperors when they were sole masters of the Roman world, that is, between the ninth day of August, A. D. 378, the day of the death of Valens, and the nineteenth of January, A. D. 379, the day when Theodosius was assumed into the empire. Let us see, then, what we have to believe, in order to support the genuineness of these documents. Where was Gratian at the beginning of these five months? The battle of Adrianople was fought on the ninth of August, A.D. 378. At that time Gratian was in Dacia Ripensis, hurrying onward by forced marches to join his uncle. The rescript, therefore, summoning the Council must have been obtained from him after that battle; not only so, but after the Italian bishops had heard of that battle, and of his being practically sole emperor of East and West, and while he was on his way into the East. We must believe, also, that after the rescripts had been received, and the summonses served in all parts of Italy, the Council assembled. Much appears to have been done in it before it separated. We must believe, also, that after it had separated, this letter being sent after

him, had to travel perhaps as far as Constantinople, and that the rescript was obtained before the nineteenth of January, A.D. 379; and we must believe, what is almost the most incredible part of the story, that he would, in his distressing position, have thought of conferring on a Western bishop authority over Oriental bishops, and ecclesiastically subjecting the East to the West, at a time, too, when he, a youth, was resigning the Eastern empire to a most approved and consummate general. The act would not only have been an insult, which would in all likelihood have been immediately resented by the person whom he was about to make his equal, if not his master, to say nothing of the feelings of the Oriental Churches, but it would have been a folly also, a piece of waste paper, which, in the next moment, would have been put in the fire. Of course there is no record of this wonderful and practical law, which exempts the Church from secular jurisdiction, and confers the authority of the state on the Roman prelate. No one, as far as we know, ever heard of it, or used it.

No more need be said.

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No. XI. PAULINUS AND VITALIS.

OUR next subject of enquiry is whether there were any such personages as Paulinus and Vitalis, who are said to have been bishops of Antioch in the fourth century.

There is a relation in the historians, supported by some writings which I believe to be spurious, that, A.D. 362, Lucifer, bishop of Carali, in Sardinia, consecrated Paulinus, a presbyter of Eustathius, the deposed bishop of Antioch, as bishop of that see, in the lifetime of Meletius,—that about A.D. 375, this Paulinus was recognised by the Roman and Western prelates as bishop of the Catholics of Antioch, they having always refused to acknowledge Meletius because he had been translated, or had received Arian consecration,that about the same time a third bishop, Vitalis, appeared, who had been consecrated by Apollinaris the heretic; that each of these three prelates claimed to be in communion with the Roman see, and urged that communion as their title to the bishopric of Antioch, while the Roman Church would only recognise Paulinus. The story then proceeds that Paulinus died, and was succeeded by one Evagrius, that he soon after died, and that no successor to him was appointed, -that, by one means or another, the Roman prelate was persuaded to recognise Meletius's successor Flavian, and so peace was again restored to the Church of Antioch. The drift of this story was to assert the