the power to expel Calendion from Antioch, and, without knowledge
of the Apostolic See, put in again the heretic Peter, who had been
condemned by himself? Certainly if the rank of cities is considered, that
of the bishops of the second and third see is greater than that of the see
which not only holds no rank among bishops, but has not even the rights of
a metropolitan. The power of the secular kingdom is one thing, the
distribution of ecclesiastical dignities is another. The smallness of a
city does not diminish the rank of a king residing in it; nor does the
imperial presence change the measure of religious rank. Let that city be
renowned for the power of the actual empire; but the strength, the liberty,
the advance of religion under it consists in religion holding its own
undisturbed measure in the presence of that power." Then he refers to the
fact how, forty years before, the emperor Marcian himself interceded with
Pope Leo to increase the dignity of that see, but could obtain nothing
against the rules; and then gave the highest praise to St. Leo, because
nothing would induce him to violate the canons, and to the other fact that
Anatolius, himself bishop of Constantinople, confessed that it was rather
his clergy than himself who made this attempt, and that all lay in the
power of the Apostolic See. And, thirdly, did not St. Leo, who confirmed
the Council of Chalcedon, annul in it whatever was done beyond the Nicene
canons? If it was said that, in the case of the bishops of Alexandria and
of Antioch, it was rather the emperor who had acted than Acacius, should
not a bishop suggest to a Christian prince, whose favour he enjoyed to the
utmost, that he should suffer the Church to keep her own rules, and
judgment on bishops should be given by bishops in council. If a bishop was
the greater for being bishop of the imperial city, should he not be the
more courageous in suggesting the right course? Then he quotes Nathan
before David, and St. Ambrose before Theodosius, and St. Leo reproving the
second Theodosius for excess of power in the case of the Latrocinium of
Ephesus; and Pope Hilarus reproving the emperor Anthemius, and Pope
Simplicius and Pope Felix resisting not only the tyrant Basiliscus, but the
emperor Zeno, and they would have succeeded if he had not been urged on by
the bishop of Constantinople. "And we also," adds the Pope, "when Odoacer,
the barbarian and heretic, held the kingdom of Italy, when he commanded us