Christ's Apostles, so it remains to the end according to the promise of our Lord and Saviour himself, who says in the holy Gospels to the Prince of his disciples: Peter, Peter, behold Satan sought to have you, that he might sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail, and do you, being converted, confirm your brethren. He bids him confirm his brethren, and it is known to all people that the Apostolic Pontiffs, predecessors of my unworthiness, have always confidently done so."[1]
We have, then, as the belief of these Fathers that (i) Peter was the Prince of the Apostles and the Rock, (2) the Roman Pontiffs succeed him in this office, (3) therefore the Roman Bishop has jurisdiction over the whole Church of Christ, (4) and the faith of his Church is the standard of orthodoxy for all Christians. And these four points make up exactly what Catholics believe about the Pope.
We may here add a word about the Roman Emperors who reigned at Constantinople. They were always ready to magnify their Patriarch, always shamelessly interfering in ecclesiastical matters, the worst enemies of the liberty of the Church, continually trying to enforce some new ordinance or dogma of their own by their civil power, and so continually in opposition to the Pope. Yet, until Cæsar went into open schism, even Cæsar knew who was the bond of union and the visible centre of the Catholic Church. The Code of Roman Law does not seem the sort of book in which one would find arguments for the Roman Primacy. Yet it contains the edict of Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius (in 390): "We desire that all the peoples who are governed by the laws of our Clemency shall profess the religion which Peter, the divine Apostle, taught to the Romans, which is manifest as the one still left there by him, which, as is well known, is followed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of Apostolic holiness; that, according to the Apostolic teaching and the faith of the Gospel, we believe in one Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in equal majesty in the Holy Trinity. We command that those who follow this law be called
- ↑ Ep. ad Const. III.
