see, but as legate.

The two priests signed next, and then Alexandria, Antioch, and
Jerusalem. Some writers have en- deavoured to evade the force of this fact, by
suggesting that Hosius was made president, as the emperor's favourite, and from
general respect for his character. One can hardly sup- pose that the suggestion could
be due to anything but the exigencies of a theory which is opposed to the idea that
Rome presided. Could anything be more entirely opposed to all that we know of the
relationship between the greater and lesser sees of Christendom than the supposition
that the emperor's will placed an inferior Western see over the Sees of Eome,
Alexandria and Antioch ? It is admitted on all hands, that long before the Council of
Nice the See of Rome was con- sidered to be the See of Peter, and we have
already seen that there is irrefragable proof that Alexandria acted as at least in some
sense subordinate to Rome. It is freely admitted on all sides that Rome had a
primacy of honour by those who deny her primacy of jurisdiction. Yet, according to
this strange theory, her primacy of honour did not involve even the pre- sidency at
the first (Ecumenical Council. What did that primacy of honour involve ? Further, the
sees are, even on this theory, placed in their usual order after the president's
signature, viz. first the papal legates, then Alexandria, and then Antioch. But we are
asked on this theory to believe that above these greater sees thus placed in their
order, a lesser see of the West signed, not as representing the first see in
Christendom, but as president — Cordova, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem !
I have said that this supposed arrangement could only have been by the emperor's
desire, for it is impossible to suppose that Papal legates suggested such an order, or
that Alexandria and Antioch would otherwise have suffered a suffragan of the West to
take precedence, when a question as to their own jurisdiction over their suffragans
was coming o
But it is not certain that he did ; ^ and he was the bishop of the place, and the
council was in no sense oecumenical, but was convened under peculiar
cu'cumstances (cf. p. 145). Hosius was not Bishop of Nice, but of a see in Spain.
And is it con- ceivable that, if Hosius had acted as president, a lesser Western see
over all the great Eastern sees, in the East, the precedent would never have been
quoted ? Could the Council of Chalcedon have blamed Dioscorus for sitting as
president in the presence of papal legates, by the express order of the emperor, at
the Robber Council of Ephesus, and no one have pressed the point that at Nice
even a lesser Western bishop had sat above even Rome, not to speak of Alexandria
and Antioch ? The idea is so unsupported by any historical evidence, that it would
have been natural to pass it by, had not several recent writers made a chivalrous
attempt at foisting it into the historj^ of the council.
It is, then, on the list of signatures alone that such writers rely ; it is from the same
list that we may derive a sound argument for the presidency of the Pope at this
council. It is not only from the account of Gelasius of Cyzicus that the proof is
derived, but from the inherent improbability (I had almost said impossibility) of the
opposite theory, granting the accuracy of the list of signatures, which is not denied.
These lists, referred to by Gelasius, supported by the strongest internal probability,
and the analogy of the mode of proce- dure at subsequent councils, constitute an
amount of evidence which is opposed merely by the fact that Hosius' name occurs
first, and the assumption that he signed in his own right.
And it is necessary also to protest against the idea that in this instance Gelasius of
Cyzicus may be discarded as of no value.^ Photius of Constantinople, before his fall,
bracketed Hosius and the two Roman priests as forming the Papal lega- tion, quoting
Gelasius. And Photius must have been relying not only on his own judgment, but
also on an Eastern tradition to the same effect. But Gelasius of Cyzicus could
hardly
have created an Eastern tradition. Besides, Gelasius is not giving his own authority,
which would be of comparatively little worth, but professes to be coj^ying from older
lists. What is the exact authority of those lists no one can say ; but Gelasius
evidently had some other lists besides the one from which Eusebius copies, and they
agreed on this point. The Eastern tradition in favour of the presidency of Rome at
the council must have been strong for it to be adopted as it has been into the
Grfeco-Paissian liturgy. In the office of St. Sylvester the following address to him in
reference to the council occurs : — * Thou hast shown thyself the supreme one of
the Sacred Council, 0 initiator into the sacred mysteries, and hast illustrated the
Throne of the Supreme One of the Disciples.' Here is the presidency of the Council
of Nicaea attributed to St. Sylvester, as the successor of St. Peter, * the supreme
one of the Apostles.'
That the legates exercised a real influence is involved in the statement, made in the
same century by St. Damasus and a sjaiod of ninety bishops, that the 318 bishops
at Nicaea were * directed from the city of the most holy Bishop of Rome ' in the
work of the council, whilst the Council of Rome in A.D. 485 states that tho 318
bishops there assembled ' referred the confirmation of things and the authority to the
holy Roman Church.'
II. The official records have perished, probably destroyed by the Arians when m
possession of the Eastern sees. Hence it is not open to argue anything from the
silence of the l)ishops on this or that subject. It would be arguing, not from the
silence of the council, but from the absence of records. When Mr. Puller saj's that
'undoKhtedli/,^ if the idea ' {i.e. of a primacy of jurisdiction as possessed by the
Bishop of Rome) ' had been presented to the synod, and if any claim on behalf of
the Pope had been urged as of divine right, there can he no question that a
repudiation of such claim it^ould have been m.a,de iminmistakahle terms,' he is
arguing not from history but from preconceived ideas. But when he goes on to say, *
Bu