deserts the Chair of Peter on which the Church was founded, does he trust that he is in the Church?"[1]
Whether the passages underlined are Cyprian's or unauthorised interpolations, is the critical difficulty. They appear in the earlier printed editions, not, however, without editorial misgivings. But the modern critical text[2] omits them. Many Roman theologians do the same. Leo XIII. himself omits them in his Encyclical on the unity of the Church. On the other hand, their genuineness is still asserted by certain Protestant and Roman writers. In any case all that they affirm is a Primacy. No modern Romanist of the historical school would quote them as affirming infallibility. Under these circumstances perhaps it will be best to confine attention to words whose genuineness no one disputes. The Ultramontane emphasised Cyprian's statements on the Primacy: the opposing school, his statements on Episcopal equality. The former quoted "the principal Church, whence sacerdotal unity arose"; the latter "the episcopate is one, it is a whole, in which each enjoys full possession"; and again, "the rest of the Apostles were that which Peter was, endowed with equal partnership, both of honour and office."
Minority Bishops asserted in the Vatican Council, on the ground of these two passages, that Ecclesiastical power was divinely entrusted to Peter and to the other Apostles; and that it was derived from them to their successors by Divine institution. Accordingly the minority complained that the exclusive consideration of Papal authority was irreconcilable with Catholic truth and Cyprianic principles. The equal authority of the episcopate deserved and required an equal
