canon of Nicea; but it is unfortunate that the forger should betray himself, even by his style,[1] which cannot be antecedent to the date of the manuscript itself, namely, the middle ages. In a Roman manuscript, at the head of the sixth canon, we read: "The Roman Church always had the primacy." These words, which we might otherwise adopt, are copied from the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, and in no wise belong to those of Nicea any more than this other formula interpolated in another manuscript, "Let the Roman Church have the primacy forever." All these additions were unknown in the ninth century, since the author of the Fausses Décrétales, who was then living, and who would not have failed to profit by them, has given the canons of the early councils, according to Dionysius Exiguus. This learned man, who made his collection of the canons at Rome itself, died in the first half of the sixth century. According to Cassiodorus, he had a perfect acquaintance with Greek; his version, consequently, deserves entire confidence, and in it we find none of the preceding additions; but it is thus we find the sixth canon of the Nicene Council:
"Let the ancient custom be preserved, that exists in Egypt, Lybia, and Pentapolis, that the Bishop of Alexandria have authority in all these countries, since that has also passed into a custom for the Bishop of Rome. Let the churches at Antioch and in the other provinces preserve also their privileges. Now, it is very evident, that if any one be made bishop without the concurrence of the metropolitan, the great council declares that he may not be bishop," etc., etc.
The object of this canon was to defend the authority
- ↑ We give it as a specimen of its kind: Cum igitur sedia apostolicæ primatum, sancti Petri meritum qui princeps est episcopalis coronæ et Romanæ dignitas civitatis, sacræ etiam synodi firmavit auctoritas. It is only necessary to have read two pages of the Ecclesiastical Remains of the Fourth Century, to discover at first sight the fraud, and be persuaded that this ambitious and uncouth verbiage is of a much later age.
