ere so infamous and
incredible as to draw groans from the whole Council; after which he was for
ever deprived of all ecclesiastical administration.

"The Bishops wrote a synodical letter to Pope Coelestine, in which they
conjure him, for the future, not to receive to his communion those who have
been excommunicated by them; since this was a point ruled by the Nicene
Council. For, they added, if this be forbidden with respect to the minor
Clergy, or Laymen, how much more did the Council intend its observance in
respect to Bishops? Those, therefore, who are interdicted from communion in
their own provinces, ought not to be restored by your Holiness too hastily,
and in opposition to the rules; and you ought to reject the Priests, and
other Clergy, who are so rash as to have recourse to you. For no ordinance
of our fathers has deprived the Church of Africa of this authority, and the
decrees of the Nicene Council have subjected the Bishops themselves to
their respective Metropolitans. _They have ordained with great wisdom and
justice, that all matters should be terminated in the places when they
arise; and did not think that the grace of the Holy Ghost would be wanting
in any province to bestow on its Bishops the knowledge and strength
necessary for their decisions; especially, since whosoever thinks himself
wronged, may appeal to the Council of his province, or even to a General
Council, unless it be imagined that God can inspire a single individual
with justice, and refuse it to an innumerable multitude of assembled
Bishops. And how shall we be able to rely on a sentence passed beyond the
sea, since it will not be possible to send thither the necessary witnesses,
whether from the weakness of sex, or of advanced age, or any other
impediment? For that your Holiness should send any one on your part we can
find ordained by no Council._"

"With regard to what you have sent us by our brother, Faustinus, as being
contained in the Nicene Council, we find nothing of the kind in the more
authentic copies of that Council, which we have received from our brother,
the Bishop of Alexandria, and the venerable Atticus, of Constantinople, and
which we formerly sent to Boniface, your predecessor, of happy memory. For
the rest, whoever desires you to delegate any of your clergy to execute
your orders, we beseech you not to comply, lest it seem that we are
introducing the pride of secular dominion into the Church of Christ, which
ought to exh