observance of the canonical forms. He died the following year, and was quite as uncanonically succeeded by Atticus.
These renewed persecutions did not cool the zeal of St. Chrysostom's friends. Several of them took refuge in Rome and brought to Innocent a letter from those of the clergy and people of Constantinople who remained faithful to their bishop. Innocent answered, consoling them and endeavouring to inspire them with the hope that God would soon deliver them by means of the œcumenical council which he was labouring to have assembled.
It was to a lawful council that Chrysostom and his friends had appealed; and Innocent, far from assuming the right to determine the affair by his own authority, placed all his hopes as well in the council.
These facts speak loudly, and need no comment.
Other bishops of the West were of the same opinion. The Bishop of Aquileia, in particular, joined his efforts to those of Innocent, in order to obtain from Honorius the convocation of a council in the West that should consult upon the means of terminating the affair that so justly engaged their thoughts. The Italian bishops assembled by order of Honorius and gave as their opinion, that an œcumenical council should be assembled at Thessalonica, whither the bishops of the East and West could go with equal facility; and that such a council was necessary in order to close the discussion by a final award.
They prayed him to write to this effect to Arcadius. Honorius wrote to ask Innocent to send him five bishops, two priests and one deacon, to carry the letter which he should write to his brother. It was the third that he wrote him on the same subject.
In view of the difficulties raised by Arcadius against the convocation of a council, this was certainly a proper occasion for the Pope of Rome to settle the question himself, in virtue of his sovereign authority, if he had
