The Romish theologians exult in these canons. Yet it is only necessary to read them carefully to perceive that they are altogether contrary to that system. In fact, the council, far from recognizing in the Bishop of Rome an universal and divine authority, did not even sanction, in any general manner, the usage which had grown up of appealing to the Bishop of Rome as the representative of the West. It merely so decided for certain particular cases. Beside the bishops of the great sees, whom the Arians persecuted, and whose cause it was the province of the councils to judge, there were many less important bishops and priests in the East, whose causes the entire Church could not consider.[1]
It is these bishops that the council refers, in the last resort, to Julius, Bishop of Rome. It does not refer them to the Bishop of Rome generally, but to Julius. Nor does it make this rule obligatory; the appeal is purely optional; and lastly, the council proposes to honour the memory of St. Peter by granting to a Bishop of Rome a prerogative which it considers new and exceptional. Is not such a decision tantamount to a formal declaration that the Pope had no legal rights, even in the decision of questions of discipline and the general government of the Church? If the council had believed that the Pope had any right whatever, would it have thought to do him so great an honour in granting him a temporary prerogative?
The council published its declarations in several synodical letters,[2] in which are examined in detail the cases of St. Athanasius and the other orthodox bishops persecuted by the Arians, and unjustly deprived by them of their sees.
