ABSTRACT
In April of 313 Constantine received a petition addressed to him by certain Christians in North Africa and forwarded to him by the proconsul Anullinus. The petitioners had a grievance against Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage, and asked Constantine to appoint from among the bishops of Gaul judges to hear their case (from Gaul, because there had been no persecution there, they said). It is to be noted that the petitioners addressed themselves
not to the bishop of Rome, but to the emperor, thus recognizing him as arbiter of church affairs. It was not, however, the first time that an emperor had acted as a judge in church affairs: forty years earlier Aurelian had been asked to judge a dispute between the church of Antioch and Paul of Samosata, its deposed bishop, over church property.
