It is needless to add, that the cause of Cyprian, just in itself, and thus advocated, was wholly

pretended authority he sent his legate into Africa, to hear the cause of Apiarius. It so happened that a Synod of two hundred and seventy Bishops, among whom was the great St. Augustine, was assembled at that time; and they all replied, that they knew of no such Canon among those of Nice; and after six years, during the whole of which time it should seem the imposition was attempted, they declared their final decision, that the Nicene Fathers had determined the contrary to what was pretended by the Roman legates ; that delinquent Clergymen were thereby left to the judgment of their own Bishops, and Bishops to that of their Metropolitans; and that all such matters should be determined in the places where they arose that the grace of the Holy Spirit would not be wanting in each province, for the right ordering of all such matters; and that they could find no decree of the Fathers which justified the proceedings of Rome in sending legates to them.

But, secondly, it was not without a reason that the power then given to Julius, Bishop of Rome, was limited in the Sardican Canons to him personally. The Council of Sardica met to restore St. Athanasius, and to provide for the continued security of the orthodox. Now the Emperor had the same privilege of granting a re-hearing which is here given to Julius: and the then Emperor was Constantius, an Arian, of that very sect against whose machinations the Canons in question were intended as safeguards. The exigency, then, arising from the heterodoxy of the present Emperor, was met by transferring one of his privileges, by an internal arrangement of the Church, to the present Bishop of Rome. The whole matter was an expedient, and fell to the ground, both according to the letter and to the spirit of the Canons in question, when the present necessity was passed.

But although that just stated is the nearest approach towards giving to Rome a power of hearing appeals, yet it is

triumphant at Rome and elsewhere; indeed he tells us, that by the very fact of the ordination of Fortunatus, the faction which adhered to him was diminished almost to nothing, so that they could scarce number among their adherents, lay or cleric, so many as had joined in their condemnation": for this shameless act opened the eyes of all who were hitherto deceived by the pretensions of that party, and by the hope of being re-admitted into the Church by their means, the possibility of which was now precluded. I do not know that we hear any thing more of this desperate faction.

The ordination of Maximus by the Novatian party at Carthage was still more obscure; and scarce gives us an opportunity of mentioning, that there were now three rival Bishops in Carthage. The only account which Cyprian deigns to give of this latter pretender is contained in the following passage of the letter so often lately quoted. "It is scarcely consistent with the majesty of the Catholic Church, to notice

not the nearest approach to the like power given to another Church the nearest approach to the power now claimed by Rome that was ever given to any Church, was given by the Fathers assembled at Chalcedon to the See of Constantinople. See Canon ix. of that Council.

In the whole matter of this note, consult Johnson's Vade Mecum ; and see also Palmer's Treatise on the Church of Christ, part ii. ch. 2.

the impudent attempts of heretics and schismatics; I hear, however, that a party of the Novatians have lately sent as their Bishop into these parts, one Maximus, whom I had already excommunicated." The best use to make of such accounts, is to collect from them the testimony even of heretics to the necessity of that discipline which the Catholic Church has ever maintained. It seems that in those days it was not thought possible to assume even the external figure of a Church, without the presence of a Bishop: and that too, a Bishop of that particular Church, where the schismatics assembled. It would have seemed monstrous then to have assumed the character of a Christian Church without a Bishop, or of a Christian Church, in London for instance, under a Bishop of Olena. But some in these wiser days seem to think otherwise.

CHAP. X.

PERSECUTION RENEWED ON OCCASION OF THE PLAGUE.—

CYPRIAN'S APOLOGETIC LETTER ΤΟ DEMETRIAN.-HIS EPISTLE TO THE THYBARITANI.-THE PENITENT LAPSED ADMITTED TO COMMUNION, IN ANTICIPATION OF PERSECUTION. THE EXHORTATION ΤΟ MARTYRDOM.-ST. CYPRIAN'S LAST LETTER TO ST. CORNELIUS.-DEATH OF CORNELIUS.-OF LUCIUS.-HOW FAR PERSECUTION A TEST OF TRUTH.

BEFORE Cornelius received the account of Fortunatus and his schism, a new scene of persecution had opened upon the Church; for Cyprian says, that he had been called for by the enraged populace to the lions, while he was writing the Epistle last mentioned: the blood of a Christian Bishop being required as the most acceptable libation upon the sacrifices offered to appease the wrath of Apollo the destroyer, or to propitiate Apollo the pre

server.

The plague having lately raged with extraordinary fury over almost the whole of the empire, Gallus and Volusianus had struck coins with the inscription APOLLONI SALUTARI, and had appointed

LIFE AND TIMES OF ST. CYPRIAN.

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sacrifices to be offered to the same deity. In these sacrifices the Christians of course refused to join; and thus they offered first to the populace, and then to the state, a specific occasion of wreaking on them the vengeance of that malicious and cruel superstition, which imputed to them every evil that afflicted this lower world.

This is a fair example of the way in which the Christian Church generally suffered under some imputation, as absurd as it was impious and malicious; and became the victim first of popular rage, and eventually of an authorized and organized persecution. Whenever the empire suffered, whether from the consequences of natural convulsions, or from the famine or disease attending on unfruitful or unhealthy seasons, or from invasion by foreign foes, or from the crimes of political incendiaries, or from the impudence or immorality of emperors, the first effect was popular discontent and commotion; and then the hated religion of JESUS was cast out to the people, that they might expend on it all their rage. If the first occasion of the discontent was such as we naturally refer to supernatural agencies, as famine or pestilence, so much the more directly did the imputation and the penalty fall upon the Christians; for they were the avowed enemies of the gods, whose vengeance was supposed to be excited against the empire for har

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