the few who differ from the judgment, or by the reason of
the case itself; and the concurring judgment of the majority may show no
more than the force of a general prejudice, which only a very few
individuals were sensible enough to resist.

[Footnote 15: Cod. Theodos. lib. i. tit. iv. The edict is issued in the
name of the emperors Theodosius (the younger) and Valentinian (the
younger), in the year A.D. 426.]

In fact, it would greatly help to clear this question if we understand
what we mean by allowing, or denying, the authority of the so-called
fathers. The term _authority_ is ambiguous, and according to the sense
in which I use it, I should either acknowledge it or deny it.--The
writers of the first four, or of the first seven centuries, have _an_
authority, just as the scholiasts and ancient commentators have: some of
them, and in some points, are of weight singly; the agreement of many
of thorn has much weight; the agreement of almost all of them would have
great weight. In this sense, I acknowledge their authority; and it would
be against all sound principles of criticism to deny it. But if, by
authority, is meant a _decisive_ authority, a judgment which may not be
questioned, then the claim of authority in such a case, for any man, or
set of men, is either a folly or a revelation. Such an authority is not
human, but divine: if any man pretends to possess it, let him show God's
clear warrant for his pretension, or he must be regarded as a deceiver
or a madman.

But it may be said, that an authority not to be questioned was
conferred, by the Roman law, on the opinions of a certain number of
great lawyers: if a judge believed that their interpretation of the law
was erroneous, he yet was not at liberty to follow his own private
judgment in departing from it. Why may not the same thing be allowed in
the church? and why may not the interpretations of Cyprian, or
Athanasius, or Augustine, or Chrysostom, be as decisive, with respect to
the true sense of the Scripture, as those of Gaius, Paulus, Modestinus,
Ulpian, and Papinian, were acknowledged to be with respect to the sense
of the Roman law?

The answer is, that the emperor's edict could absolve the judge from
following his own convictions about the sense of the law, because it
gave to the authorized interpretation the force of law. The text, as the
judge interpreted it, was a law repealed; the comment of the great
lawyers was now the law in its room. As a mer