Page:Guettée papacy.djvu/204

200 reviews the decree of the Council of Chalcedon, which granted the second rank in the Church to the Bishop of Constantinople. He pretends that this decree is of no force because it was rejected by the Roman see. Why, then, does this see take for the foundation of its argument the Council of Nicea, as having of itself a superiour authority, to which Rome herself should submit? Was it not because the Council of Nicea was œcumenical? But was not the Council of Chalcedon equally so, and hence was not its authority the same as that of the Nicene Council?

Evidently Rome, by reason of her antipathy against Constantinople, put herself in a false position. To escape from it there was but one course open to her, namely, to proclaim that she held her authority from God, and was superiour to that of the councils. This course she took. She so affirmed timidly at first, openly when she saw a favorable opportunity.

These papal tendencies first appeared in the letters and instructions from the Popes in matters connected with those troubles which had arisen from the pretended deposition of Acacius. Nearly the entire East regarded this sentence as null. The Popes sustained it, and confounded that affair with that of the Council of Chalcedon, in order to give it more importance; nevertheless, the prevailing doctrine even in these documents, is that the council could alone determine the basis of reconciliations, thus excluding the idea of a central and sovereign authority at Rome or elsewhere. That thought chiefly pervades the writings of Gelasius and Hormisda, who took the chief part in the troubles of the East. Peace was restored in a council held at Constantinople, (A.D. 519,) and upon conditions discussed with equal authority by either side. When, in 525,