istry; but from this to an authority over the whole Church is a long step.
The whole argument of St. Optatus proves this to have been his idea in the preceding texts.
"Our angel,"[1] he says, "dates back to St. Peter — yours only to Victor.[2] Address yourself, if you like, to the seven angels which are in Asia; to our colleagues — those churches to whom St. John wrote, and with which you are evidently not in communion. Now all outside of these seven churches is foreign. If you have any one of the angels of the seven churches with whom you are one, you commune through him with the other angels; through them with the churches, and through the churches with us. Such not being the case, you have not the characteristics of a Catholic church — you are no true Catholics."
Such is a faithful analysis of the argument of St. Optatus. He does not seek in his work to prove that the legitimate Bishop of Rome had universal authority — he only proves that he was descended in direct line from the Apostles, and that his Donatist rival was illegitimate. He proves that all the Apostolic churches of the East were in communion with the Apostolic Bishop of Rome, and that, consequently, the Donatists were not in Catholic or universal unity. We really cannot see how such teaching can be quoted to support the pretensions of the modern Papacy. Nay, more. We may certainly justly quote it against them.
We have now reviewed the strongest texts upon which the Ultramontanes and modern Gallicans have rested their theories about the Papacy. The former see in them the papal autocracy, the latter a limited monarchy of which the Pope is the head — not absolute nor infallible, but subject to the laws and decrees of the coun-
