tical office upon any one, or to go into any other country, nor to stand in a favorable light in his own city; that he might retain only the dignity and name of the office; but, otherwise, that those who had been appointed by him presbyters, as he pretended, after being confirmed by a more solemn ordination, might be admitted into the communion of the Church on this condition: "to be sure," such were the words of the Synod, "they may hold the rank of the ecclesiastical dignity and ministry, but yet, they are to be inferior, in all respects, to all the presbyters in every province, and, to those clergymen who, turning back again, shall have been ordained by that most honorable man, our colleague, Alexander."[1]
THE BOOK OF JUDITH APPROBATED, AS SACRED.
"The great Council computed the Book of Judith," says St. Jerome, "among the number of the sacred Scriptures, as we glean from history." This book was placed by the Hebrews among the Hagiographa; that is, those Scriptures which belonged neither to the penteteuch nor the prophetical books.[2]
- ↑ See the synodical epistle sent to the Church of Alexandria. Theodoret says this letter was sent from the Council to the Alexandrian Church; but he does not state how it was despatched thither, or, at what precise day, during the synodical deliberations, it was written. The object of it was, he says, to inform that church, what had been decreed respecting the Meletian innovations.
- ↑ There is a false tradition handed down to us, that this great first Council of the Christian bishops decreed what books of the Bible should be held canonical. Other councils passed such decrees.
and ordained bishops and clergymen over them not under the See of Alexandria, and not holding communion with the Catholics.
