As for the Letter from the Council of Nice to Sylvester, his Answer, the Acts of a Council of 275 Bishops, supposed to have been held by him, at the Request of the Fathers of Nice, to confirm their Canons and Decrees^[N12], his Letter to the Bishops of Gaul, in favour of the Church of Vienne; the Acts of Two other Councils, said to have been held by him at Rome; they are all Pieces universally rejected by Men of Learning, and deemed no less fabulous than the Instrument of Constantine’s Donation, and that Prince’s Journey with Sylvester to the Council of Nice, as it is related in the Acts of the latter, even in those which F. Combesis published in 1660. They are in Greek, and that Writer undertakes to defend them as genuine^[656]; but we need no other Proof than the Account they give of that Journey, to conclude them incapable of being defended. Sylvester died on the 31st of December 335. after having governed the Church of Rome for the Space of Twenty-one Years, and Eleven Months^[657].

Sylvester was succeeded by Mark, on the 18th of January 336. He is passed over by Theodoret^[658], but named by Optatus^[659], Ruffinus^[660], St. Austin^[661], St. Jerom^[662], and Sozomen^[663]. We know nothing certain either of his Life or Administration. |The Bishop of Rome
ordained by the
Bishop of Ostia.| Anastasius indeed tells us, that by him the Bishop of Ostia was first appointed to ordain the Bishop of Rome, and to carry the Pallium or Pall; where Baronius observes, that the Pall is here mentioned for the First time^[664]. But Anastasius is not a Writer we can depend upon. It is certain, however, that the Bishops of Ostia have long enjoyed this Privilege; for it is mentioned by St. Austin^[665], and likewise in a Memorial presented by the Clergy of Rome in 418. to the Emperor Honorius, on Occasion of the Election of Pope Zosimus^[666]. The Letter which the Bishops of Egypt are said to have written to this Pope, and his Answer to them, are rejected even by Baronius^[667], and very justly; for the Pope’s Answer is dated Eighteen Days after his Death. He died on the 7th of October the same Year he had been chosen^[668], and was buried in the Cœmetery of Balbina, which was thenceforth called after his Name^[669]. His Body is now worshiped in the Church of St. Laurence at Florence, though no Mention is made by any Writer of its having ever been translated thither^[670].

Upon the Death of Mark the See was vacant for the Space of Four Months, that is, to the 6th of February 337. when Julius was chosen^[671]. He is said to have held a Council of an Hundred and Sixteen Bishops in the December of the same Year^[672]. But the Date of this Council puts Baronius to a Stand; for in the Date are marked the Consuls, the Year of the Emperors, and the Indiction. Now, according to the Consuls, it must have been held in 337. according to the Year of the Emperors, in 340. and, according to the Indiction, in 347. The Annalist spares neither his Words nor his Labour to solve, or rather to patch up, this Difficulty; but, being sensible, after a long, tedious, and puzzling Descant, that he labours in vain, he concludes, that the Text has been altered^[673]. He might have saved himself a great deal of Trouble, by owning at once what has been plainly proved since by Blondel^[674], viz. that no such Council was ever held.

When Julius was raised to the Pontificate, the celebrated Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, lived in Banishment at Treves; but the Year following he was allowed to return to his Church by the Three Emperors, Constantine, Constantius, and Constans, who had succeeded their Father in 337. |The Arians write to
Julius against Athan-
asius.| The Eusebians, that is, the Arian Faction headed by Eusebius Bishop of Nicomedia, at whose Instigation he had been banished by Constantine, alarmed at his Return, writ bitter Letters against him to the Three Princes, and likewise to the Bishop of Rome. To the latter they dispatched with their Letters Macarius a Presbyter, and the Two Deacons Martyrius and Hesychius. Athanasius no sooner heard of this Embassy than he, in his Turn, dispatched some Presbyters to oppose the Attempts of his Enemies, and defend his Innocence against the Calumnies, which he well knew they were sent to spread against him, not only at Rome, but all over the West^[675]. |They desire Julius
to assemble a Council.| Upon their Arrival, Macarius privately withdrew from Rome, and the other Two were so confounded by the Deputies of Athanasius, at a private Conference held before the Pope, that, to gain Time, they had no other Resource but to appeal to a Council, which they begged the Pope to assemble, and to give timely notice thereof both to Athanasius and the Eusebians. They bragged that, before the Council, they would make good the Charge they had brought against Athanasius, and offered to take Julius himself for their Judge^[676]. This Offer, we may be sure, was readily accepted by the Bishop of Rome, who immediately writ to Athanasius inviting him to the Council, and at the same time desired the Deputies of the Eusebians to acquaint their Party, that, agreeably to their Request, a Council should be soon convened. Athanasius, upon the Receipt of the Pope’s Letter, set out, without Delay, for Rome, where he arrived in the Latter end of the Year 339. After his Arrival the Bishop of Rome dispatched Elpidius and Philoxenes, Two of his Presbyters, with Letters to the Eusebians, summoning them to the Council, which their Deputies had demanded, and acquainting them with the Time and Place in which it was to be held^[677]. The Place was Rome, and the Time the Month of June 341. according to the most probable Opinion. |They decline appear-
ing at the Council of
Rome; assemble one
at Antioch; and there
depose Athanasius;| The other Bishops assembled at the Time appointed; but the Eusebians, instead of appearing at the Council of Rome, which had been convened at their Request, assembled one at Antioch, and there, without waiting for the Determination of Julius, whom they had chosen for their Judge, deposed Athanasius, and appointed Gregory Bishop of Alexandria in his room; nay, they even detained the Deputies sent by the Pope till the Time appointed for the Meeting of the Council was expired, that they might afterwards plead, as they did, the Shortness of the Term prescribed for them to meet in^[678]. |who is declared
innocent in the
Council of Rome.| In the Council of Rome the Cause of Athanasius was examined, and he, after the strictest Scrutiny, declared innocent with one Voice by the Fifty Bishops who composed it^[679]; so that Julius and the rest continued to communicate with him as a Bishop^[680], which was declaring him unlawfully deposed. Several other Bishops, who had been deposed by the Arians, came to lay their Complaints before the Council, and, among the rest, Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra, and Paul Bishop of Constantinople. The former had been condemned as an Heretic by a Council held at Constantinople in 336. and consisting intirely of Arian Bishops. As nobody appeared against him during the Fifteen Months he continued at Rome, and the Declaration of his Faith, which, at the Request of Julius, he gave under his own Hand, was judged quite orthodox by the Pope and the Council, he was readmitted to the Communion of the Catholic Church^[681]. But whether they did not judge too favourably of his Belief, may be very much questioned: Epiphanius at least was no-ways satisfied with it^[682]. And truly it would be no easy Task to clear him from the Heresy of Sabellius and Samosatenus, denying the Trinity of the Divine Persons^[683]: but to examine so perplexed and intricate a Point, would be foreign to my Purpose. |Neither Athanasius
nor any other
Bishop restored by
Julius.| Socrates^[684] and Sozomen^[685] write, that Julius, by the Authority of his See, reinstated all the Bishops who had been displaced by the Arians; that he supported and defended their Innocence with Letters full of Vigour and Liberty; severely reprimanded those who had deposed them; summoned some of them to appear at Rome, in a limited Time, to justify their Conduct; and, lastly, that he threatened to treat them as they deserved, if they did not forbear raising Disturbances in the Church. In virtue of these Letters, says Socrates, the Bishops were restored to their Sees. But Sozomen names only Athanasius, and Paul Bishop of Constantinople. It is surprising, that the Advocates for the See of Rome should allege the Testimony of these two Writers, to prove that the Authority of the Bishop of Rome was acknowleged by the Orientals; that his Jurisdiction was universal; when they themselves must know (for I cannot suppose them so ignorant as not to know) that the Historians whom they quote were grosly mistaken. For it is manifest from Athanasius^[686], that Julius writ only two Letters to the Eusebians; one before the Council met, inviting them to it; and the other, while the Council was still sitting, which I shall speak of hereafter; and in neither of these does Julius take upon him either to threaten or command. The above-mentioned Historians seem to have jumbled these two Letters together, and to have made a Third out of them, with some Improvements of their own. As to his restoring the deposed Bishops to their Sees, it is certain he did not, since Athanasius continued in the West till the Year 349. when he was restored by the Council of Sardica. Paul indeed was reinstated sooner, but not till the See of Constantinople became vacant by the Death of Eusebius, who had been translated from Nicomedia to that City. I appeal to the Roman Catholics themselves, and leave them to judge whether it is at all probable, that the Emperor Constantius, and the Oriental Bishops, incensed as they were against Paul and Athanasius, whom they had condemned and deposed in Two Synods, should, out of Respect to the Pope, suffer them thus tamely to return to their Sees, and drive out those whom they had placed in their room. This had been owning themselves guilty, and reversing the Sentence they had but lately pronounced, which, as will appear, they were no-ways in an Humour to do.

While the Council of Rome was yet sitting, the Pope’s two Deputies, Elpidius and Philoxenes, returning from the East, delivered to Julius a Letter from the Eusebians, which may pass for a Master-piece of the Kind; for, without departing from, or intrenching upon, the Respect that was due to the Bishop of the Imperial City, they, at the same time, commend, censure, menace, and rally him in a most cruel Manner. They begin with alleging several frivolous Excuses for not appearing at the Council, such as the Persian War, which, by the way, did not prevent their assembling at Antioch; the Shortness of the Term prescribed for their Meeting; the Pope’s writing only to some of them, and not to all, as he ought to have done; and finally, his writing to them in his own Name alone, which was tacitly taxing him with taking too much upon him. They then launch out ironically, it seems, into the highest Encomiums on the Church of Rome, styling her the first of all Churches, the School of the Apostles, the Metropolis of true Piety. However, the first Preachers of the Gospel, add they, came out of the East; and, after all, we ought to be looked upon as Inferiors to none, though perhaps we may not have such numerous and flourishing Churches as some have, since the want of Numbers may be abundantly supplied by the Piety of a few. As to Rank, we are all equal, the Greatness of the Cities, in which we preside, adding nothing to the Dignity we all enjoy. In the next place, they express great Concern at the little Regard shewn by some to the Decisions of Councils, which ought to be revered by all, and deemed immutable. This was modestly censuring the Pope for not acquiescing to the Decrees of the Councils of Tyre and Constantinople condemning Athanasius. |and threaten to
separate themselves
from his Communion.| In the End they allege several Things both against Athanasius, and Marcellus Bishop of Ancyra; and conclude with telling Julius, that if he renounced all Correspondence and Intercourse with the Bishops they had deposed, and acknowleged those they had placed in their room, they would continue to communicate with him; but if he refused to comply with their Decisions and Decrees, they should think themselves obliged to act in a very different Manner^[687]. Julius was so mortified with this Letter, that he suppressed it for some time, hoping the Eusebians would send Deputies, who, he presumed, would express their Sentiments by Word of Mouth, and in a different Style. But, none appearing, he was obliged to lay the Letter he had received before the Fathers of the Council, who, after expressing the greatest Indignation against the Eusebians, advised the Pope to answer it; which he did accordingly, by that excellent Letter, which has been preserved intire among the Works of Athanasius. |Julius’s Answer
to their Letter.| He begins with complaining, in very modest Terms, of the Animosity they betrayed in their Letter, to which he thought he had given no Occasion; unless they had taken it amiss, that he had summoned them to the Council; which he could not persuade himself they did, since, at the Request of their Deputies, he had appointed the Council to meet, and, at their Request, invited them to it. As for the Regard due to the Decrees and Decisions of Councils, he told them, that they had trespassed the first against the Decrees of the Oecumenical Council of Nice, by admitting the Arians to their Communion, which he conceived to be more criminal in them, than it was in him to receive Athanasius and Marcellus. He reproaches them with another Transgression of the Canons of the Church, namely with that of passing from one Bishoprick to another, which Eusebius had done. He then justifies his Conduct with regard to Athanasius and Marcellus; exhorts the Eusebians, with great Zeal and Earnestness, to find out some Remedy against the Evils and Disorders that reigned in the East, which he describes at Length; and concludes with complaining of the Orientals for condemning and deposing Bishops, those especially of the Apostolic Sees, without the Concurrence or Knowlege of their Brethren in the West^[688].

Julius, finding his Letter made no Impression on the Eusebians, applied with several other Bishops to the Emperor Constans, who, at their Request proposed to his Brother Constantius the assembling of an Oecumenical Council, in order to put an End to those unhappy Divisions. |The Council of
Sardica.| To this Proposal Constantius agreed; and accordingly, by the Command of the two Princes, a numerous Council met in 347. at Sardica, the Metropolis of Dacia in Illyricum^[689]. Julius, apprehending it dangerous to abandon his Flock at that Juncture, did not assist in Person, but by his Deputies Archidamus and Philoxenes, who signed in his Name^[690]. The Orientals came, but withdrew soon after, upon the Council’s refusing to exclude Athanasius, and some others, whom they had condemned^[691]. But by the orthodox Bishops, who remained, the Acts of the Council of Rome were confirmed, Athanasius and Three other Bishops declared innocent; and those, who had been placed in their room, not only deposed, but anathematized, and intirely cut off from the Communion of the Catholic Church^[692]. The Council, before they broke up, writ several Letters; and, among the rest, one to the Emperors; one to the Bishop of Rome; and a circular Letter to all the Bishops of the Catholic Church, acquainting them with what had passed, and exhorting them to join the Council, and declare to the World, that they accepted their Decrees by subscribing to them^[693]. The circular Letter was subscribed first by the great Osius Bishop of Cordoua, and in the Second place by the Pope’s Legates^[694]. In their Letter to Julius they beg him to notify their Decrees to the Bishops of Sardinia, Sicily, and Italy, lest any of them should receive Letters of Peace and Communion from the Bishops they had condemned^[695]. In this Letter the Council says, or rather is made to say, That it is very meet or reasonable, that all Bishops should acquaint their Head, that is, the See of St. Peter, with what passes in their respective Provinces^[696]. I agree with Blondel^[697], that this Passage is foisted in; but cannot acquiesce to the only Reason he alleges to support his Opinion, viz. the Barbarity of the Latin Expression (valde congruentissimum est); for such a Slip might easily escape Men wholly bent on defending the Truth, and speaking it; and besides, we are not certain, that this Letter was originally written in Latin. The want of Connexion between that Sentence, and what is said both before and after it, is, I think, a more convincing Proof of Forgery.

By the Council of Sardica several Canons were made; but I shall only take notice of those that regard the Bishop of Rome. By the Third Canon in the Greek, or the Fourth in the Latin Translation by Isidorus, it is ordered, that if any Bishop shall think himself unjustly condemned, his Judges shall acquaint the Bishop of Rome therewith, who may either confirm the first Judgment, or order his Cause to be re-examined by such of the neighbouring Bishops as hehe shall think fit to name^[698]. Osius, who was greatly addicted to the See of Rome, begged the Council to grant this Honour to the Memory of St. Peter. The Fourth Canon, according to the Greek, adds, That the See of the deposed Bishop shall remain vacant till his Cause shall be judged by the Bishop of Rome. By the Fifth Canon, which by some Mistake is the Seventh in Dionysius Exiguus, it is ordered, that if a Bishop, condemned in his own Province, shall chuse to be judged by the Bishop of Rome, and desires him to appoint some of his Presbyters to judge him in his Name, together with the Bishops, the Bishop of Rome may grant him his Request. |The Practice of ap-
pealing to the Pope
first introduced.

Several Circumstances
concur in his Favour.| Thus was the pernicious Practice of appealing to the Pope first introduced and authorized. It must be observed, that the Oriental Bishops had all left the Council: those who remained were all zealous Opposers of Arianism. At the Head of their Party was the Bishop of Rome. In the Heat of their Zeal they thought they could not confer too much Power upon him; and so made a Concession intirely repugnant to the Discipline of the primitive Church, and which he could never have obtained, had not those Dispositions worked strongly in his Favour. This will not be surprising to those, who have attended to History, and seen how much the Ambition of Princes, and Heads of Factions, is often advanced beyond its due Bounds by the indiscreet Fervour of Party-Zeal. To the Council of Sardica, acting under this Influence, the See of Rome is indebted for the so much boasted Privilege of receiving Appeals; and Julius was very thankful for it. |The Popes claim
as their original
Right, what was
granted them as a
Favour.| But his Successors, looking upon such an Obligation as a Diminution of their pretended Sovereignty, have had the Assurance to claim it as their original Right: but that such a Right was unknown to their great Friend Osius, to the Fathers of the Council, nay, and to the Pope himself, and his Legates, is manifest, since what they now claim as their original and inherent Right, was by Osius begged of the Council as a Favour, and, as such, granted by the Council, and accepted by the Pope and his Legates. This Power of receiving Appeals, only with respect to the judging and deposing of Bishops, has been extended by the Popes to all Causes; and great Encouragement has been given to such as recurred to their Tribunal on the slightest Occasions. Concerning Appeals in the smallest Causes, we would have you to know, that the same Regard is to be had to them, for how slight a Matter soever they be made, as if they were for a greater, says Pope Alexander III. in his Letter to the Bishop of Worcester^[699]. The scandalous and intolerable Abuse of this Power in the Popes has obliged several Princes, even when Superstition most prevailed, to restrain their Subjects by severe Laws from recurring to Rome. Nay, other Councils of far greater Authority than that of Sardica, finding no other Means to put a Stop to the daily Encroachments of the See of Rome, have thought it necessary to revoke the Privilege, which that Council had too rashly granted, as we shall see in the Sequel of the present History.

It had been decreed but Six Years before, by the Council of Antioch, that, if the Bishops of the same Province disagreed in judging one of their Brethren, the Metropolitan might call in those of the neighbouring Province to judge with them; but if they agreed, and were unanimous either in condemning or absolving, their Judgment should be irreversible. Both these Decrees were revoked by the present Council, though intirely agreeable to the antient Practice and Discipline of the Church. |The Pope has no
Power to summon
Bishops to Rome.| But yet this Council, however favourable to the Pope, did not grant him the Power of summoning Bishops to Rome, in order to be judged there by him. He was only impowered to examine the Judgment given in the Province; and, in case he found it to be wrong, to order another in the same Province, to invite to this new Synod the Bishops of the next Province, and to send his Legates to it as he thought fit.

At this Council the Pope’s Legates assisted; but Osius presided, as we are told in express Terms by Theodoret^[700], by Sozomen^[701], and by the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon^[702]. Besides, his Name is the first in the Subscriptions, as they have been transmitted to us by Athanasius, who assures us, that Osius was the Chief, and presided in all the Councils at which he assisted. He signed the first, and in his own Name: after him signed the Legates, not in their own, but in the Pope’s Name; Julius Romæ per Archidamum & Philoxenum Presbyteros; which is a sufficient Confutation of De Marca, and the other Popish Writers, pretending, without the least Foundation, that Osius presided in the Name of Julius.

It is to be observed, that the Canons of this Council were never received in the East, nor even in the West by the Bishops of Africa; and that they were not inserted by the Council of Chalcedon into the Code of Canons approved by them, as Rules to be universally observed: so that, after all, the so much boasted Council of Sardica is a Council of no great Authority. Of this the Popes themselves were well apprised; and therefore, recurring to Fraud, attempted, as we shall see hereafter, to impose upon the World the Canons of Sardica as the Canons of Nice.

Athanasius, though declared innocent by the Council, did not think it adviseable to return to his See, being informed, that the Eusebians had prevailed upon the Emperor Constantius to issue an Order, impowering and commanding the Magistrates of Alexandria to put him to Death, without further Tryal, in what Place soever he should be found within the Precincts of that Jurisdiction^[703]. |Is recalled by
Constantius.| He therefore retired to Naissus in Upper Dacia, and there continued from the year 347. to 349. when Constantius chose rather to recall him, and the other exiled Bishops, than engage in a Civil War, with which he was threatened by his Brother, if he did not^[704]. Before his Departure for the East he went to Rome, to take his Leave of that Church, and his great Protector Julius, who, on that Occasion, writ an excellent Letter of Congratulation to the Presbyters, Deacons, and People of Alexandria. Of this Letter we have Two Copies, the one in Socrates^[705], and the other in Athanasius^[706]. The former contains great Commendations of that Prelate, which, out of Modesty, were, as I conjecture, omitted by him.

Julius had, soon after, the Satisfaction of receiving a solemn Retractation made by Ursacius Bishop of Singidunum, and Valens Bishop of Mursus, Two of Athanasius’s most inveterate Enemies, publicly owning, that whatever they had said or written against him was utterly false, groundless, and invented out of pure Malice: at the same time they embraced his Communion, and anathematized the Heresy of Arius, and all who held or defended his Tenets. This Act Valens writ with his own Hand, and Ursacius signed it; whereupon they were both admitted by Julius to the Communion of the Church^[707][N13]. This Retraction, though not at all sincere, but merely owing to Policy, greatly contributed to the Justification of Athanasius. I find nothing else in the Antients, concerning Julius, worthy of Notice. |Julius dies.| He died on the 12th of April 352. having governed the Church of Rome Fifteen Years, Two Months, and Six Days^[708]. He is said to have been buried in the Cœmetery of Callistus, on the Aurelian Way, where he had built a Church^[709], and to have been removed from thence in 817. by Pope Paschal I. to the Church of St. Praxedes, and again from that, by Innocent II. in 1140. to St. Mary’s beyond the Tyber^[710]. Bede, whom the Authors of the modern Pontificals have followed, tells us, in his Martyrology^[711], that Julius was sent into Banishment, where he suffered much for the Space of Ten Months, till the Death of Constantius, a zealous Promoter of Arianism. |Julius was not
banished by
Constantius.| But that Historian was certainly mistaken, since Constantius was never Master of Rome in Julius’s Time, and his Brother Constans was a great Friend to Julius, and all the orthodox Bishops. |Spurious Pieces
ascribed to him.| Of the many Writings ascribed to Julius, none, except his Two Letters, are authentic, the one to the Eusebians, and the other to the Church of Alexandria, of which we have spoken above. Leontius of Byzantium mentions Seven Epistles, which, in the Latter-end of the Sixth Century, were ascribed to Julius^[712]; but, at the same time, he assures us, that they were not written by him, but by Apollinaris the Heresiarch; and the Monks of Palæstine, in the Account they gave of the Eutychians, in the Time of the Emperor Anastasius, assure us, that they seduced great Numbers of People, by ascribing the Works of Apollinaris to the Fathers, namely to Athanasius, to Gregory Nazienzen, and to Julius^[713]. Gennadius ascribes to Julius a Letter to Dionysius Bishop of Corinth, greatly favouring of the Heresy of Eutyches and Timotheus^[714]; but Leontius of Byzantium evidently proves that Letter to have been written by Apollinaris; and as his it is quoted by his Two Disciples Valentine and Timotheus^[715]. The Orientals have a Liturgy, which they suppose to have been composed by Julius: this Supposition, however groundless, shews him to have been in great Repute in those Parts^[716].