us in the case of a Bishop, and in an affair purely ecclesiastical. Among the insolent and rash expressions of which St. Leo in general complains, he remarks, in particular, that St. Hilary had often demanded to be condemned, if he had condemned Celidonius contrary to the rules of the Canons. He wished, then, that we should judge others by the rule which fully justifies St. Hilary. The saint, seeing that his reasons were not listened to, would not wait St. Leo's sentence. He preferred withdrawing secretly, while this affair was still being examined. So he escaped from his guards, and though it was still winter, left Rome, and returned to Arles, perhaps in February (445): so that when they sought for him to speak further on this matter, it was found that he was gone. St. Leo failed not to proceed, reversed the judgment delivered against Celidonius, declared him absolved and acquitted of the accusation of having married a widow, and restored him to his rank of Bishop, which he had already done at first, without having examined the affair." There were other accusations made against St. Hilary, into which we need not enter. St. Leo wrote a very severe letter about him to the Bishops of Gaul: he accused him "of raising himself against St. Peter, and being unwilling to recognise his Primacy, as if all those who believe that a successor of St. Peter passes the bounds of the Canons were enemies of the Primacy of the Holy See. That would be to arm against the Popes in favour of heretics a great number of Fathers, of Saints, and of Councils."[65] The result was that he took away from St. Hilary his rights of Metropolitan, and conferred them on the Bishop of Vienne, who had claims upon them. But this measure was so disliked by the suffragans of Arles, that he restored the See of Arles to most of its privileges under Ravennius, the successor of St. Hilary. However, this matter had even more important consequences. We will let the Roman Catholic historian, as before, describe them. "St. Leo apparently feared that the Bishops of the Gauls would not be sufficiently submissive to what he had ordered. And though he had made it a charge against St. Hilary that he had employed an armed force in affairs of the Church, for all that he recurred himself to the imperial power against him. He represented him to the Emperor Valentinian the Third as one who rebelled both against the authority of the Apostolic See, and the majesty of the Empire, and obtained of this prince, who was then at Rome, a celebrated rescript, addressed to the Patrician Aetius, general of the armies of the Empire, by which, under pretext of maintaining the peace of the Church, he forbids undertaking any thing whatever without the authority of the Apostolic See, or resisting its orders, which, says he, had always been observed inviolably up to Hilarius. He orders all Bishops to hold as law all that the authority of the Pope establishes, and all magistrates to