those souls whom God
has reserved to His own examination have no fear of their judges. The
guilty has with Him no one to suggest excuse, when the witness of the deeds
is the same as the Judge. If you say, Such will be the condition of all
souls in that trial; I shall reply,[90] To one only was it said, Thou art
Peter, &c. And further, that the dignity of that see has been made
venerable to the whole world by the voice of holy pontiffs, when all the
faithful in every part are made subject to it, and it is marked out as the
head of the whole body."

From the whole of this history we deduce the fact, that the enmity of the
eastern emperor was able by bribing a party at Rome to stir up a schism
against the lawful Pope, which had for its result to call forth the witness
of the Italian and the Gallic bishops respecting the singular prerogatives
of the Holy See. They spoke in the person of Ennodius and Avitus. We have,
in consequence, recorded for us in black and white the axiom which had been
acted upon from the beginning, "the First See is judged by no one".

Let us see on the contrary what the same emperor was not only willing but
able to do in the city which had succeeded to Rome as the capital of the
empire, in which Anastasius reigned alone.

In the year 496, Anastasius had found himself able, as we have seen, to
depose, by help of the resident council, Euphemius of Constantinople. As
his successor was chosen Macedonius, sister's son of the former bishop,
Gennadius, and like him of gentle spirit, "a holy man,[91] the champion of
the orthodox".[92] However much the opinion was then spread in the East
that a successor might rightfully be appointed to a bishop forcibly
expelled from his see, if otherwise the Church would be deprived of its
pastor--an opinion which Pope Gelasius very decidedly censured--Macedonius
II. felt very keenly the unlawfulness of his appointment. When the deposed
Euphemius asked of him a safe conduct for his journey into banishment, and
Macedonius received authority to grant it, he went into the baptistry to
give it, but caused his archdeacon first to remove his omophorion, and
appeared in the garb of a simple priest to give his predecessor a sum of
money collected for him. He was much praised for this. Yet Macedonius had
to subscribe the Henotikon. Hence he experienced a strong opposition from
the monks, who, in their resolute maintenance of the Council of Chalcedon,
declined communion with him; s