You falsifie the wordes of Socrates, for thus be sayth, For euen till that tyme the Nouatians florished maruellously at Rome, and had manye Churches and had gathered* 1.1 muche people. But enuie tooke holde of them, when as the Byshopprike of Rome and of Alexandria nowe a good whyle was passed beyonde the Limites of Priesthoode to an out∣warde Dominion. He sayth not leauing the sacred function, were degenerate to a se∣cular rule and dominion, as you translate it.
But why doth Socrates burste out into thys reprehension of them, euen bycause* 1.2 they expelled the Nouatian heretikes, of whome Socrates was a fautor, as it may ap∣peare in Nicephorus, wherefore he dothein that place affectionately, and vniustly re∣proue both the Byshop of Rome, and Alexandria, for stoutly resisting those heretikes and expelling them from their Churches, especially they nowe increasing to so great a multitude, as it may séeme by Socrates wordes they dyd. And althoughe the words of Socrates whiche I haue alreadie recyted iustifie this to be true, yet doth his words followyng declare the same more euidently. For he commendeth the Byshop of Con∣stantinople bycause he friendly interteyned the Nouatians, & suffered them quietly to remayne wythin the Citie, and yet it is certayne, that the Byshop of Constanti∣nople, had as large authoritie as the Byshop of Alexandria, wherefore Socrates in thys poynt is no more to be beléeued against those Byshops, than you are against the* 1.3 Byshoppes in thys Churche, whose authoritie you maligne vpon the lyke occa∣sion.