296 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590
to give. So early as 385, Siricius, as we liave before observed, issued a decretal letter to a Spanish bishop. The epistles oi Leo to Bishop Turibius of Asturica, and the bishops of Gaul and Spain,' are instances of the same authoritative style. Simplicius (467-483) appointed the bishop Zeno of Sevilla papal vicar,' and Gregory the Great, with a paternal letter, conferred the pallium on Leander, bisliop of Sevilla.'
In Gaul, Leo succeeded in asserting the Roman jurisdiction, though not without opposition, in the affair of the archbishop Hilary of Aries, or Arelate. The afiair has been differently represented from the Gallican and the ultramontane points of view." Hilary (born 403, died 449), first a ligid monk, then, against his will, elevated to the bishopric, an eloquent preacher, an energetic prelate, and the first champion of the freedom of the Gallican church against the j)retensions of Rome, but himself not free from hierarchical ambition, deposed Celidonius, the bishop of Besan^on, at a council in that city {synodus Vesontionensis), because he had married a widow before his ordination, and had presided as judge at a criminal trial and pronounced sentence of death ; which things, according to the ecclesiastical law, incapacitated him for the episcopal office This was unquestionably an encroachment on the province of Vienne, to which Besan§on belonged. Pope Zosimus had, indeed, in 417, twenty-eight years before, appointed the bishop of Aries, which was a capital of seven provinces, to be papal
• Ep. 93 and 95; Mansi, vi. 131 and 132. » Mansi, vii. 972. ' Greg. Ep. i. 41 ; Mansi, ix. 1059. Comp. Wiltsch, i. 71.
* This difference shows itself in the two editions of the works of Leo the Great, respectively : tliat of the French Pasqdier Quksnel, a GalHcan and Jansenist (exiled 1681, died at Brussels 1719), which also contains the works, and a vindication, of Hilary of Aries (Par. 1673, in 2 vols.), and was condemned in 167G by the Gongregation of the Index, without their even reading it ; and that of the two brothers Ballerini, which appeared in opposition to the former (Ven. 1755-1757, 8 vols.), and represents the Italian ultramontane side. Comp. further on this contest of Hilarius Arelatensis (not to be confounded with Ililarius Pictaviensis, Hilarius Narbonensis, and others of the same name) with Pope Leo, the Vita Hilarii of Honoratus Massiliensis, of about the year 490 (printed in Mansi, vi. 461 sqq., and in the Acta Sanct. ad d. 5 Maji) ; the article by Perthel, in lUgen's Zeitschrift for List. Theol. 1843 ; Greenwood, 1. c. i. p. 350-356 ; Milman, Lat. Christianit»-, i. p. 269-276 (Amer. ed.); and the article "Ililarius" in Wct/.er iuid Welte's Kircheo lexic vol. v. p. 181 sqq.
§ 59. CONFLICTS OF THE LATIN rATKIAKCHATE 2^97
vicar in Gaul, and had granted him metropolitan rights in the provinces Yiennensis, and I^Tarbonensis prima and secunda, though with the reservation of caiism majores.^ The metro politans of Yienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles, hov/ever, did not accept this arrangement, and the succeeding popes found it best to recognize again the old metropolitans." Celidonius appealed to Leo against that act of Hilary. Leo, in 445, assembled a Roman council {concilium sacerdotum)^ and reinstated him, as the accusation of Hilary, who himself journeyed on foot in the winter to Rome, and protested most vehemently against the appeal, could not be proven to the satisfaction of the pope. Li fact, he directly or indirectly caused Hilary to be imprisoned, and, when he escaped and fled back to Gaul, cut him oflT from the communion of the Roman church, and deprived him of all prerogati\'es in the diocese of Yienne, which had been only temporarily conferred on the bishop of Aries, and were by a better judgment {sententia meliore) taken away. He accused him of assaults on the rights of other Gallican metropolitans, and above all of insubordination toward the principality of the most blessed Peter ; and he goes so far as to say : " Whoso disputes the primacy of the apostle Peter, can in no way lessen the apostle's dignity, but, pufi^ed up by the spirit of his own pride, he destroys himself in hell." ' Only out of special grace did he leave Hilary in his bishopric. N'ot satisfied with this, he applied to the secular arm for help, and procured from the weak Western emperor, Yalentinian III., an edict to -^tius, the magister militum of Gaul, in which it is asserted, almost in the words of Leo, that the whole world {universitas ; in Greek, olKovfievq) acknowledges the Roman
* " Nisi magnitudo causae etiam nostrum exquirat examen." Gieseler, i, 2, p. 218; Greenwood, i. p. 299.
* Comp. Bonifacii I Epist. 12 ad Hilariuui Narbon. (not Arelatensem), a. d. 4i2, in Gieselor, p. 219. Boniface here spealis in favor of tlie Nicene principle, that each metropolitan should rule simply over one province. Greenwood overlooks this change, and hence fully justifies Hilary on the ground of the .appointment of Zosimus. But even though this appointment had stood, the deposition of a bishop was Btill a causa major, which Hilary, as vicar of the pope, should have laid before hirn for ratification.
' Leo, Epist. 10 (aL 89) ad Episc. provincial Yiennensis. WhU an awful per version this of the iriie Christian stand-point !