Note N70 — St. PETER (continued 9)

Schelstrate would make us believe, that Gregory the Great prevailed upon the African Bishops to revoke the Canon forbidding the Presbyters and inferior Clergy to appeal to Rome[1]; and Davidius, That the Africans changed their Minds with respect to the Appeals of Bishops, as soon as they were informed, that such Appeals had been allowed, and approved of, by the Council of Sardica[2]. But neither alleges any solid Reason, or even Conjecture, to prove Facts of such Importance; nay, what Davidius advances is certainly false, since the Canons forbidding all Appeals to Rome, made at this time, were still quoted among the other Canons of the African Collection in 825. and confirmed by a Council held at Carthage that Year[3]. Some pretend that Celestine separated himself on this Occasion from the African Bishops, and that this Separation continued between their Churches, and that of Rome, till the Beginning of the VIIth Century, when Eulalius of Carthage, and his Collegues, desirous of putting an End to the Schism, revoked all the Canons that had been made in 426. derogatory to the Rights of the Roman See[4]. This they advance upon the Authority of a Piece commonly ascribed to Pope Boniface II. But that Piece is so evidently supposititious, that Baronius himself is forced to give it up.