Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/117

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
SLAVERY. DELIVERANCE. ORDINATION
113

distress. During many centuries our predecessors, since the first days, have continued to bear their testimony. At no time has the church lacked confessors. In the Lord I can offer to you no better counsel than that given by my most reverend predecessor in the faith. Bishop Niquinta, during the memorable council of Toulouse in 1167. He said: ‘The seven churches of Asia in Apostolic days were divided among themselves. But no church harmed another or bore aught but charity for another. We are also divided, and my counsel is that we retain the essential verities of our common faith, that we nourish our souls in the grace of the Paracletos, and if we entertain speculative dogmatizings let us do so in humility and charity. We are happily united to-day in spiritual communion. We number among us many brethren from remote churches. We see Philip Paternon, grandson of that Philip who testified nobly at Florence in 1228. We have Pietro Felice, who represents the church of Barcelona, and inherits the fidelity of our brother Arnaldus of Leon in 1230. We have Theoderic, who bears to us love from Treves as his predecessor did in 1231, where he and others sealed their testimony in the flames in 1238. We have Prokop, one of the poor of Lyons, and many of his brethren who have restored this land since the devastation of the Tartars. We have representatives here of the church at Milan, at Viterbo, at Correggio, at Strassburg, at Passau, at Donnezach, at Bajolo, at Vincentina, at Florence, at Spoleto, at Toulouse, at Carcassonne, at Albi, at Sla-