De Ecclesia Christi

« 1°. Christ God himself, just as he instituted the primacy in Peter, so with no less divine right instituted this primacy as perpetual in his visible Church, so that in a perpetual series single successors take up single predecessors; this institution of perpetuity and succession, described in the Gospels, is to be believed with divine faith. 2°. After Peter, bearing in his own person the primacy entrusted to him by Christ, had founded and taken to himself the episcopate or Roman see, and dying had left it vacant with the claim of succession both in the primacy and in the Roman episcopate, the very mode of succession in the primacy was determined, so that legitimate succession in the Roman episcopate is succession in the primacy over the universal Church; for the universal Church has always and everywhere understood the divine right of succession in this way, as the agreeing teaching of Councils, Roman Pontiffs and the other Fathers demonstrates, which declares the evident and perpetual fact of the union of the primacy with the Roman see of Peter. »

I. The visible institution of the rock of the Church, confirmer of the brethren, shepherd of the sheep of Christ, in the single person of Simon Peter, as demonstrated in the preceding thesis, also contains the institution of a perpetual succession in the same office and the same power, created by Christ God in Peter as at the beginning and, as it were, the first member of the whole perpetual series of successors. « You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven. I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and you, once converted, strengthen your brethren. Feed my sheep. »

a) The object assigned to and made subject to the power and acts of Peter, as shown above, is expressed in four equivalent ways, one and the same thing. For all the brethren who are to be confirmed, viewed together, « the brotherhood that is in the world, » the sheep of Christ to be fed, viewed together, « one flock and one shepherd » signify the same thing as the Church of Christ built upon the rock, and the kingdom of heaven in which all things pertaining to it are bound and loosed by the keys given to Peter. Now this Church of Christ (the kingdom of heaven on earth, one brotherhood, one flock of Christ the chief of shepherds), by his promise and institution, will persist until the consummation of the age, which we rightly presume here and shall demonstrate further below; and moreover, in this very declaration of the rock, it is promised, since the end and office of this foundation, once established, is said to be that the gates of hell never prevail against the Church. Therefore Christ joins with his Church, which is to be perpetually preserved, and institutes in it, as the ministerial and instrumentally efficient cause of its perpetual preservation, the office and power of Peter, as visible rock, administrator of the keys, confirmer of the brethren, shepherd of the sheep. Therefore, just as the perpetuity of the Church, so no less the perpetuity of Peter's office and power was promised and instituted by Christ; finally, indeed, this office is for the sake of that Church, but efficiently this office is in some way prior to that Church.

b) Let us consider the acts of this office and power instituted in Peter. The Church of Christ built upon the rock is understood not in a material sense but in the theological sense, as the « spiritual house » of the faithful, namely those whom the Apostles call « called into the fellowship of the Son of God Jesus Christ, » and who have « fellowship with one another » (1 Cor. I. 9; 1 John I. 3, 7). Accordingly also the rock, in a sense homogeneous with this spiritual house, is understood to be the one who, by supernatural power and by the acts of that power, sustains this fellowship of the faithful against the gates of hell, rules it, and holds it in unity; acts which Christ himself designates as binding and loosing whatever pertains to the kingdom of God, confirming in faith, feeding in the sense explained above. But these acts toward the Church are enjoined by Christ not only as past acts, which, once exercised by Peter, have since ceased; indeed they cannot be understood except as exercised, through all the age in which the Church to which they refer as to their object endures, by a man instructed with that power and that office. Therefore Peter, as instructed by Christ with that power and that office toward the Church, living perpetually, by his acts sustains, as the one visible rock, the one Church; governs it by binding and loosing with the supreme power of the keys; confirms in faith; feeds by teaching, ruling, sanctifying, by the norms and modes instituted by Christ. But this perpetuity is not in the person of Peter, to whom it was foretold, in the very institution of the office, that he would glorify God by his death (John XXI. 19). Therefore, in Peter, to whom singularly, above all the other Apostles and in express distinction from all of them, that supreme office in and over the Church was committed as to one, perpetuity was instituted in such a way that, in the same power and the same offices, single successors always take up single predecessors by perpetual succession, from Peter as the first root of the whole series, for as long as the Church stands, built upon this rock, whose force and nature remain the same from the institution itself in each successor, confirmed by Christ through the rock itself, so that the gates of hell do not prevail against it. Since therefore the power instituted in Peter, to be propagated to successors, was instituted equally for these individuals, and is perpetually derived from Christ, the head of the Church and prince of its shepherds, to be exercised in his name in his Church; each one, equally with Peter, is and is called Vicar of Christ in the kingdom of Christ on earth. Nevertheless, because, as we have seen, in the very institution of the power, under the name of Peter as the first root of the whole series, all his successors are comprehended; and because, therefore, Peter can rightly be said, and is said by the Fathers, not indeed in his own person but in his power, « to live until this time and always in his successors » (Philip the legate, at the Council of Ephesus), « whose power lives in his see and whose authority excels, » as St. Leo says (sermon 2, c. 3): the Fathers signify this succession in the same power when they call the successors of Peter Vicars of Peter, or even Vicars of the apostolic see (St. Gelasius, letter 4 to the emperor Anastasius). They are Vicars of Christ because they act in the place of Christ, in a power originally proper to him and to be exercised in his name; they are Vicars of blessed Peter, insofar as they receive his place, succeeding in the same power instituted by Christ; and in the same sense, Vicars of the apostolic see, insofar as, in the power which the Apostle, adorned with the glorious effusion of his blood, left to be propagated in this his see, they succeed in the place of that same Apostle.

II. This perpetual succession in Peter's primacy, which we have shown to be contained in the very words of the promise and institution, has always been celebrated in the faith and profession of Christian antiquity; indeed, what we chiefly look at here, the mode of succession itself, has been recognized as certain and indefectible, both by the common profession of all ages and by historical facts. For just as the power instituted in Peter, as we described it in the preceding thesis, was always believed and proclaimed to be in force in each successor of Peter, so the succession of Peter was never heard of or acknowledged except as the succession in the Roman see of Peter, which he himself, consecrating it by martyrdom as his own chosen episcopate, and so by his deed already unchangeable, raised from the see or episcopate of a particular Church to the see and episcopate of « a more powerful principality, » as Irenaeus says; so that in the heirs of this Roman see Peter always lives, namely by reason of the full power instituted in him, and is recognized and proclaimed by Councils, by the Roman Pontiffs themselves, and by the other Fathers.

1°. Concerning the profession of the erection of the Roman see by Peter, and therefore of the office and power of Peter in the successor of this Apostolic see, the Fathers of the Council of Sardica say that they « honour the memory of the holy Apostle Peter » in Julius, the Roman bishop (can. 3); which they explain in their synodal letter to Julius himself: « for this will seem best and most congruous, if from each province the priests of the Lord refer to the head, that is to the see of the Apostle Peter » (Coustant, letter 3 among the letters of Julius) ¹. At the Council of Ephesus, Philip, legate of the apostolic see, in order to confirm the solemn definition and condemnation of Nestorius, declared as a profession notorious to all ages that all the prerogatives instituted in Peter remain the same in the successors of his Roman see. « You holy members (the Fathers of the ecumenical Council) have joined yourselves to the holy head (Celestine) in condemning the heretic; for your blessedness does not ignore that the blessed Apostle Peter is the head of all faith, and even of the Apostles... It is doubtful to no one, or rather it is known to all ages, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, and pillar of faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church... lives and exercises judgment in his successors, to this time and always (in all the time elapsed hitherto and all future time). Of him, therefore, the successor in due order (namely in the perpetual series ordained by Christ) and locum tenens (κατὰ τάξιν ὁ διάδοχος καὶ τοποτηρητής) ² our holy and most blessed Pope Celestine, the bishop, sent us, as supplying his presence, to this holy synod. » (Hard. T. I, pp. 1471, 1478.) At the Council of Chalcedon, after the letter of Leo, the Roman Pontiff, had been read, the Fathers professed by acclamation: « anathema to him who does not believe thus; Peter has spoken through Leo » (Hard. II, p. 306.). The profession of the Fathers of the sixth Council about the Roman Pontiff Agatho is the same: « the chief of the Apostles contended with us; for we had as supporter the imitator of him and successor of the see... the ink seemed (in both letters, to the council and to the emperor), and through Agatho Peter was speaking » (Hard. III, p. 1422; cf. pp. 1159, 1287.). To the apostolic legates at the seventh Council, Hadrian I gave two letters, one to the emperor Constantine and his mother Irene, the other to Tarasius, bishop of Constantinople. Both being read in the Council, « the holy synod said: the whole most sacred synod thus believes, thus thinks, thus defines dogmas. » Then, to the explicit question put by the two legates of the Pontiff, whether they admit the letters of the most holy Pope of elder Rome, « the holy synod said: we follow, and receive, and admit. » Tarasius then professed in his own letter to the Pontiff that by the same letters he had « directed the whole body, as the eye, into the path of rectitude and truth, and so the Catholic Church had received unity. » Now in each letter the Pontiff expressly declares the perpetual succession, in the Roman see, of the whole power of Peter instituted by Christ. « The prince of the Apostles, blessed Peter himself, who first presided over the apostolic see, left to his successors, who are to sit perpetually in his most sacred see, the principate of his apostolate and of pastoral care; to whom also the power of authority, just as it was conceded to him by our Saviour the Lord God, he himself also conferred on his successors the Pontiffs and handed it down by divine command » ³ (Hard. IV, pp. 82, 94, 102, 510.). In the eighth Council the Fathers published the profession of faith proposed by the Roman Pontiff Hadrian II (drawn from the formula long since prescribed by the Pontiff Hormisdas against the Acacian schism), by which it was declared that the things said to Peter pertain equally to the apostolic see of Peter. For, they say, « in the apostolic see the Catholic religion has always been kept unstained and the holy doctrine celebrated »; and therefore it is necessary « to be in the one communion which the apostolic see proclaims, » « because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ, who says you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, cannot be passed over » (Hard. V, pp. 773, 774.) ⁴ cf. Council of the Vatican, session 4, c. 4.

2°. In the same way the Roman Pontiffs, not only with bishops and Churches to which they wrote not contradicting but readily agreeing, claimed that the whole power instituted by Christ in Peter was conferred on themselves just as on Peter himself, and that this was and is to be recognized always by the universal Church, for no other reason than that they are the successors of Peter in the Roman see, or in this particular Church which Peter singularly took to himself. St. Siricius professes himself the heir of Peter's office and power, and therefore as one person with him. « We bear the burdens of all (in the whole Church) who are weighed down; nay rather, the blessed Apostle Peter bears these in us, who, we trust, protects and guards us, heirs of his administration, in all things » (letter 1 to Himerius of Tarragona, n. 1). Hence to violate « the rule » prescribed by Peter's heir is the same as to be torn away from « the solidity of the apostolic rock, upon which Christ built the universal Church » (ibid., n. 3). Thus the supreme power of blessed Peter, of the apostolic see, and of whichever Roman Pontiff is then in office, is always traced back to one and the same in the letters to the Churches of the West and of the East. Let there be consulted Innocent I (letter 29, n. 1, to the Council of Carthage), Zosimus (letter 2, n. 1; letter 12, n. 1, to Aurelius and the bishops of Africa), Boniface I (letters 4, 5, 13, 14, 15, to Rufus of Thessalonica), Celestine I (letter 3, to the bishops of Illyria; letter 25, n. 9, to the people of Constantinople), and Xystus III (letter 6, n. 5, to John of Antioch).

« In seeking out the affairs of God, says Innocent, keeping the examples of ancient tradition, you have resolved that the matter is to be referred to our judgment, knowing what is owed to the apostolic see, since all of us who are placed in this position (in the series of Pontiffs) wish to follow the Apostle himself, from whom the episcopate itself and all the authority of this name emerged. Following him, we know how to condemn evils as well as to approve what is praiseworthy. » For indeed the ancient Fathers « decreed not by human but by divine judgment that whatever was to be dealt with, even in provinces separated and remote, they would not deem finished until it came to the knowledge of this see, so that by its whole authority whatever just pronouncement had been made would be confirmed, and the other Churches would take it from it. » These words of Innocent, spoken in condemnation of the Pelagian heresy, were afterward repeated in almost the same words by the African bishops, asking the condemnation of monothelitism, in a letter to Pope Theodore, which was read and approved in the Lateran Council under Martin I (Hard. T. III, p. 734.). Innocent asserted for himself full and universal authority (so that whatever was dealt with in distant and separated provinces would be confirmed by the whole authority of this see) in condemning evils and approving goods, because the Roman See is the Apostolic See (of the Apostle Peter, namely), in which all desire to follow the Apostle. The Africans express this on their own part thus: to the apostolic see, « in honour of the most blessed Peter the decrees of the Fathers decreed a peculiar reverence, in seeking out the things of God, which must altogether and carefully be examined, and most of all rightly by the very apostolic summit of the prelates, whose ancient care it is to condemn evils as well as to approve goods... so that by its authority whatever just pronouncement had been made would be confirmed, and the other Churches would take thence, as from their native fountain of preaching, the beginning, and through the diverse regions of the world the sacraments of saving faith would remain incorrupt » (the mysteries and dogmas of saving faith). When here and elsewhere the « decrees of the Fathers » are invoked, it is evident that these must be understood as decrees declaring (through the key of teaching and doctrine) the power divinely instituted in Peter, not as decrees constituting it (through the key of jurisdiction properly so called and of ecclesiastical legislation alone), just as Innocent said of the whole power of Peter in the Roman Pontiff, that « the Fathers decreed not by human but by divine judgment. » This very thing, and the inheritance of Peter's power over the universal Church by reason of succession in the particular see of the Roman episcopate, the others we have cited taught luminously. « So great a power has canonical antiquity, by the judgments of all, wished this Apostle to have (namely by declaring it), from the very promise of Christ our God, that he could both loose what was bound and bind what was loosed; a like condition of power was given to those who had merited the inheritance of the see; for he himself has care both of all the churches and especially of this one where he sat ⁵; nor does he suffer anything of the privilege (of the Church where he had sat) to waver by any breath of opinion (that is, to be called into doubt), the Church for which he himself established the foundations of his name, firm and dulled by no disturbances ⁶ and which no one rashly attacks without peril to himself. Since therefore Peter, of such authority, is the head, and the following zeal of all our forebears has confirmed it (after the promise and institution of Christ God, the zeal of the forebears confirmed it by theoretical and practical tradition), so that the Roman Church, whose place we govern and whose name of power we hold (Peter's, the apostolic successor in the power of Peter), is strengthened by human as much as by divine laws and all disciplines, it is not hidden from you;... nevertheless, since we have so much authority that none may retract our judgment, we have done nothing that we did not of our own accord report to your knowledge by our letters. » Boniface I (letter 4) says that the rights of the power received from Peter by the Lord's voice constitute the Roman see, because it is the see of Peter, « the foundation and spiritual rock of the Church. » For (from letter 14), « the universal institution of the newborn Church took the beginning of its honour from blessed Peter, in whom its governance and foundation consist... The precepts of the Nicene synod testify to nothing else, so that it dared to establish nothing above him (Peter, who then was, and in every age is, the Roman Pontiff), since it saw that nothing could be conferred above his merit (above what he merited to obtain from Christ); it knew, finally, that all things had been granted to him by the Lord's word. It is certain therefore that this (the Roman Church) is, to the Churches spread throughout the whole world, as the head of its members, and whoever cuts himself off from her becomes an exile from the Christian religion, since he has not begun to be in the same compact » ⁷. Thus also from letter 15: « there remains (for Boniface, and for any time before or after) the care of the universal Church, received by the blessed Apostle Peter from the Lord's sentence, from him; since it is known, the Gospel bearing witness, that it is founded in him; nor can its honour ever be empty of cares, since it is certain that the sum of things depends on its deliberation (of Peter, namely, not deliberating and judging in heaven but on earth). These things extend my mind even to the regions of the East. » He then demonstrates that « the greatest Churches of the East, in great affairs in which greater disputation was needed, always consulted the Roman see, » and proves it by the examples of the Churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, and of all the East in general. In agreement with all these predecessors, Celestine I (letter 3) says: « we are chiefly bound by care for all, to whom Christ, when he gave the keys of opening and closing to the holy Apostle Peter, granted the necessity of dealing with all things. » Hence Celestine (letter 25) simply attributes his judgment against Nestorius to blessed Peter, just as we have seen the Councils profess that the most blessed Peter always lives in his successors and exercises judgment and contends and speaks. « Nor, however, did the blessed Apostle Peter forsake those so gravely labouring (the clergy and people of Constantinople); for when the rot, horrible to all, had persuaded that such an ulcer must be cut off from the ecclesiastical body, we offered a fomentation with the iron (Celestine promising pardon to the one who returns to his senses); but he, abusing our zeal... spurning the remedy, chose to be cut off. » In the same cause, after John of Antioch, a supporter of Nestorius, at length agreed with his Eastern bishops to the condemnation of the heresiarch, Sixtus III, successor of Celestine, wrote to John congratulating him on his return to the unity of the Church: « you have learned by the outcome of the present business what it is to think with us: the blessed Apostle Peter, in his successors, has handed down what he received... Not a little burden, not a little labour, lies upon us, that the Church of the Lord may be without stain or wrinkle. »

St. Leo, in the same way as the Pontiffs before him whom we have seen, distinguishes in every place these two things: first the merits and intercession of blessed Peter before God, which are proper and personal to him in heaven; then the power, the office and the duty of governing the universal Church, which, as they were conferred on him by Christ, so remain always the same in Peter's see and in Peter's heir, that is, in the Roman see for each of its successors. « Nor is the pious condescension and faithful love of the most blessed Apostle Peter absent from this assembly... proving the most orderly charity of the whole Church, which in Peter's see receives Peter, and from the love of so great a shepherd does not grow lukewarm even in the person of so unequal an heir » (sermon 2, c. 2). « The disposition of truth therefore remains, and the blessed Peter, persevering in the received strength of the rock, has not left the governance of the Church that he had taken up... If therefore anything is rightly done by us, and rightly discerned by us, if anything is obtained from the mercy of God by daily supplications, it is of his works and merits, in whose see his power lives and his authority excels... in the person of my humility let him be understood, let him be honoured, in whom both the care of all the pastors and the keeping of the sheep committed to them perseveres, and whose dignity does not fail even in an unworthy heir » (sermon 3, cc. 3, 4). « To the see of the blessed Apostle Peter men gather from the whole world, and that universal love of the Church, commended to him by the Lord (John XXI. 15–17), is also demanded by our dispensation... There is joined to this, moreover, not only the apostolic but also the episcopal dignity of the most blessed Peter, who does not cease to preside over his see, and obtains an unfailing fellowship with the eternal priest; for that solidity which he himself, made a rock, received from the rock Christ, has passed over also into his heirs » (sermon 5, cc. 2, 4; cf. sermon 82, c. 1; letter 6, c. 2; letter 10, cc. 1, 2). That is, the episcopal dignity in the particular Church of the Roman see is already joined with the apostolic dignity conferred by Christ on Peter over the universal Church; and this dignity is the indefectible participation or fellowship of Peter in both, with the eternal priest Christ. But how the apostolate can be and is indefectible in the Church with the episcopate of Peter, now deceased, the holy Pontiff gives the reason: for the solidity of the rock, that is, the whole prerogative by which Peter was made a rock by Christ the rock, passes into the individual heirs of Peter.

Gelasius I, the most courageous defender of faith and of catholic unity, vindicated this same doctrine against the Emperor Anastasius and the bishops of Constantinople in the Acacian schism and the monothelite heresy. « For by what reason or consequence is it to be deferred to other sees, if the first see of the most blessed Peter does not receive the ancient and venerable reverence, through which the dignity of all priests has always been strengthened and confirmed (what St. Gregory later said: my honour is the solid vigour of my brethren), and to which the most ancient honour was adjudged (al. vindicated) by the unconquered and singular judgment of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers (of Nicaea) ⁸? since they remembered the Lord's sentence: you are Peter... I have prayed for you... feed my sheep (Matt. XVI.; Luke XXII.; John XXI.)... so that one structure of the body of Christ might be shown, which might come together to one head in the most glorious fellowship of love;... and our elders, those reverend masters of the Churches (the Nicene or Sardican Fathers), to that see which the prince of the Apostles, Peter, had occupied, filled with Christ's charity, sent the principles taken of their priesthood (cf. the Fathers cited in the preceding thesis, n. IV. 2.), asking thence the weightiest strengthenings of firmness for their own solidity. » Among other things he concludes thus: « Christ willed that one of them (the Apostles) should be prince, and by a wonderful dispensation he directed him to Rome, the mistress of the nations, that in the chief city, or the first, he might direct Peter first and chief; and there, adorned with the glorious effusion of his blood, he rests in an external hospice, granting to the see which he himself blessed, that it may never be conquered by the gates of hell, according to the Lord's mission, and that it may be the safest harbour for all who are tossed about (for the firmness of faith and the unity of communion). » (letter 8, or the treatise against the Acacian schism). « If it is fitting that the hearts of the faithful submit to all priests who treat divine things rightly in general, how much more must the consent of the prelate of that see be sought, whom the divine highness willed to excel all priests, and whom the continuing piety of the general Church has ever celebrated? Where your piety (the emperor's) evidently observes that by no human counsel whatsoever can anyone raise himself against the privilege or confession of that one (namely, against the supreme power of Peter or the doctrine of faith abiding in each successor), whom the voice of Christ placed above all, whom the venerable Church has always confessed and has as primate » (letter 4 to the emperor Anastasius Augustus). The Roman see is that which « both confirms by its authority each of the synods and keeps them in continued moderation, for its principate, namely, which blessed Peter the Apostle received by the Lord's voice, and which the Church, subsequently following, has held always and holds » (letter 7, to the bishops of Dardania; Hard. T. II, pp. 893, 907, 919). In the Roman Council of the year 496, under Gelasius, what had already been declared by other Fathers about the primacy of the Roman Church is repeated: « Although there is one bridal chamber of Christ in all the Catholic Churches throughout the world, yet the holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church is preferred to the other Churches by no synodal constitutions, but obtained the primacy by the evangelical voice of the Lord and our Saviour: you are Peter, he says, and upon this rock I will build my Church » (Hard. T. II, p. 938.).

St. Gregory the Great, to pass over others for the moment, derives the power and pastoral care which he exercised in many ways over all the Churches from nothing else than this: that the Roman see which he holds is the see of Peter, the Apostolic see. Ordering a council to be held in Numidia to discuss the cause of Bishop Maximian, opposing the general snares of the old enemy against « the shepherds of the Lord's sheep » with his own general care of the Churches, he says: « but we, who though unworthy have undertaken the Apostolic see to be governed in place of Peter, prince of the Apostles, are compelled by the very office of the pontificate to resist the general enemy with the efforts we are able to make » (book II, letter 48, to Columbus). So too, he praises John, Bishop of Syracuse, who had reported something about the cause of the primacy in the province of Byzacena in Africa to the Pontiff, because « he does not cease to show his love for the blessed Apostle Peter. » About that Byzacenian primate he says: « because he says he is subject to the apostolic see, if some fault is found in bishops, I know not what bishop is not subject to it; but when no fault calls for it, all are equal according to the reason of humility » (book IX, letter 59, to John of Syracuse). « Yet we admonish that the reverence of the apostolic see be disturbed by the presumption of no one; for then the state of the members remains whole, if no injury strikes the head of the faith » (book XIII, letter 37, to John, bishop of Palermo). Treating of the confirmation of the election and the permission of the consecration of the Bishop of Milan, he says: « by how much the apostolic see, by God's authority, is known to be preferred to all Churches, by so much, among many cares, does it also very greatly trouble us, where our decision is awaited for consecrating a bishop »; but he orders his delegate, the subdeacon John, to act in this matter so that « the apostolic see may keep its own vigour, and may not diminish for others their rights granted by itself » (book III, letter 30, to John, subdeacon). The authority by which his predecessor Pelagius II, and Gregory himself, most sharply opposed the usurpation of John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, who boasted that he was ecumenical patriarch ⁹, he derives from St. Peter. « John held a synod in the city of Constantinople, in which he tried to call himself universal; which my predecessor Pelagius, as soon as he learned of it, by letters sent by the authority of the holy Apostle Peter, annulled the acts of that synod » (book V, letter 43, to Eulogius of Alexandria and Anastasius of Antioch, patriarchs).

Gregory saw, and declared sufficiently, that the statement by which a patriarch or bishop is called universal can have a double sense: the first, that only the supreme power over the universal Church is expressed. In this sense the appellation is owed, as to Peter, so to his successors alone, and it was attributed to them, not unreasonably but with every right, in the Council of Chalcedon and by other Fathers ¹⁰; yet they did not want to use it because of the other sense, which could be suggested by it: as if there were one bishop in the Church, and no others were bishops of their own peoples, but only vicars of that universal bishop. In this second sense, therefore, neither can Peter be called universal apostle, as if the other Apostles were not true Apostles, nor can the successors of Peter be called universal bishops, lest the name and power of bishops be taken away from all the others. But in the case of the Constantinopolitan or any other bishop, the name and the thing signified by the name, in either sense, is « against the evangelical sentence, against the blessed Apostle Peter also (whose rights over the universal Church are thereby violated), and against all the Churches (each of which has its own bishops), and against the statutes of the canons » (which declare the Alexandrian see second and the Antiochene third after the Roman) (book V, letter 21, to Constantina Augusta). Hence he adds in the same place: « in this cause your piety must in no way despise me, because although the sins of Gregory are so great that he ought to suffer such things, the sins of the Apostle Peter are nil, so that he should deserve to suffer these things in your times... and on account of our sins, who serve him (Peter) unworthily, let his honour among you in no way be diminished. » Moreover, if anyone in a synod does not guard himself against attributing this appellation to the bishop of Constantinople, « let him know himself separated from the peace of blessed Peter, the prince of the Apostles » (book IX, letter 68, to Eusebius of Thessalonica).

What we have said about the thing and the name universal in the Roman Pontiff, we have as declared in the words of Gregory: « It is clear to all who know the Gospel that the care of the whole Church was committed by the Lord's voice to the holy Apostle Peter, prince of all the Apostles. » Adducing the texts of John XXI., Luke XXII., Matthew XVI., he goes on: « Behold, he received the keys of the heavenly kingdom, the power of binding and loosing is given to him, the care of the whole Church and the principate is committed to him, and yet he is not called universal Apostle... Certainly, for the honour of blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, it was offered to the Roman Pontiff through the venerable Council of Chalcedon ¹¹; but none of them ever agreed to use this name of singularity (as long as the suspicion of singularity, that is, that a single bishop in the Church might be signified, could lie hidden), lest, when something private were given to one (a private episcopate, that is, proper to one in the sense of singularity), all priests should be deprived of the honour owed to them... I am the servant of all priests, insofar as they live as priests; for he who, through the swelling of empty glory, raises his neck against the omnipotent Lord and against the statutes of the Fathers, I trust in the omnipotent Lord, because he will not bend my neck to himself, not even with swords » (book V, letter 20, to Maurice Augustus). He repeats nearly the same in book V, letter 43, to the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch: « through the holy Council of Chalcedon this title of universality was offered to the Pontiff of the apostolic see, which, by God's disposition, I serve... but far be it, far be it from the mind of a Christian to wish that anyone should take this for himself, whereby the honour of his brethren would seem diminished in however small a part. » Meanwhile this appellation of the successor of Peter had so clung to minds that Eulogius of Alexandria, in one and the same letter to Gregory, in which he promised that « he would no longer write to certain persons (to John of Constantinople) the proud titles which came from the root of vanity, » nevertheless called Gregory himself « universal Pope. » About this the holy Pontiff complains, replying to Eulogius: « I do not count it an honour, in which I know my brethren lose their honour. For my honour is the honour of the universal Church; my honour is the solid vigour of my brethren. Then I am truly honoured, when the honour due to each one is not denied to them ¹². If indeed your holiness calls me universal Pope ¹³, you deny that you yourself are this (namely a bishop), which you profess me to be as universal (the sole bishop in the Church)... And indeed your holiness knows that in the holy Council of Chalcedon, and afterward by the following Fathers, this was offered to my predecessors (in another, genuine sense); but nevertheless none of them wished to use this word, so that, while they loved the honour of priests in this world, they might keep their own with almighty God » (book VIII, letter 30, to Eulogius).

I will still recall Gregory's most friendly letter to Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, in which, as he often does, he joins the doctrine of the whole power of Peter, always living in his Roman see, with a profession of profound humility and of intimate charity and special union, out of regard for the Apostle Peter, with the see of Alexandria and that of Antioch. There are, he says, three sees of one Peter, but in a manner certainly diverse: the Roman, in which he rested, is raised properly into the see of Peter, so that he himself, with the power divinely instituted in himself, perpetually sits in it in each of his successors; the Alexandrian is Peter's, through his disciple Mark, whom Peter himself set up as bishop there; and lastly the Antiochene is Peter's, because he instituted it and sat in it for a while, though he was to depart; but in that departure he left as bishop there a disciple (Evodius), as he left Mark at Alexandria, and he did not share with him, nor could he share, the supreme power over the universal Church, instituted by Christ, and therefore by divine right, in a singular way in his own person. Therefore, just as the three sees are Peter's in different ways, so too the three are truly one see only by a moral unity, insofar as, for the reasons mentioned, the disciple sees are bound by special bonds of obedience and charity toward the master see, out of regard for Peter; as Gregory elsewhere writes to Eulogius: « there is something which binds us, by a certain peculiarity, toward the Church of Alexandria, and compels us by a special law to be more ready in her love; for, as is clear to all, the blessed Evangelist Mark was sent to Alexandria by the holy Apostle Peter, his master; so we are bound by the unity of this master and disciple, so that I myself seem to preside over the see of the disciple on account of the master, and you over the see of the master on account of the disciple (with this difference, namely, that between the master, who teaches and rules, and the disciple, who learns and obeys). And moreover we are bound to this unity of hearts also by the merits of your holiness, whom we know to follow the institutions of their author for salvation, and whom we feel to turn with all devotion to the bosom of their master, whence the preaching of salvation there arose » (book VI, letter 60). The words of Gregory in that letter, of which we began to speak, are these: « Your most sweet holiness has said much in your letters about the chair of the holy Peter, prince of the Apostles, saying that he himself sits in it even now in his successors. And indeed I... have gladly received all that was said there... For who does not know that the holy Church has been established in the solidity of the prince of the Apostles, who carried the firmness of his mind into his name, so that he was called Peter from the rock (petra)? To whom it is said by the voice of truth: to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven (the text of Matt. XVI., Luke XXII., John XXI. is cited). Therefore, though there are many Apostles, yet for the principate itself the single see of the prince of the Apostles has prevailed in authority, which in three places is the see of one. For he himself raised up the see in which he deigned to rest and to end the present life; he himself adorned the see to which he sent the Evangelist, his disciple; he himself established the see in which he sat for seven years, though he was about to depart. Therefore, since the see is of one and is one, over which by divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you I impute to myself; if you believe anything good of me, impute it to your merits, because in him we are one, who said: that they may all be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us » (book VII, letter 40, to Eulogius) ¹⁴. (On the preaching of the title universal bishop and on the unity among the three sees, see the learned remarks of Hincmar of Reims, opuscules against Hincmar of Laon, cc. 16, 17; Migne T. CXXVI, pp. 334–337, 345–350.).

3°. After the lucid doctrine of the Gospels themselves, that the supreme power instituted in Peter is to be propagated perpetually through each of his successors; and after the manifold declaration of the Councils and Pontiffs, who were recognized by the universal Church as heirs of Peter in the same power, of the same propagation, together with the very mode of succession through the Roman episcopate, which Peter, taking it to himself peculiarly, left empty in dying; there is no need to bring in other witnesses to the same fact, which has always been notorious, public and perpetual in the whole Church.

They demonstrate the truth of the Church of Jesus Christ, and the foundation of its unity in faith and communion, from the principate of Peter in the Roman Church; with which, because of that principate instituted by Christ, all who are everywhere, in one faith handed down, and in communion, must necessarily agree with acknowledgment of that principate. They acknowledge that this whole right and office of the principate belongs to the successors of Peter in that very Roman Church, whom they either enumerate singly down to their own times, or comprehend in general and implicitly. Irenaeus, showing what is the one true faith handed down by the Apostles in all the Churches, and how all of these are one Church of Jesus Christ, demonstrates it from the Roman Church alone, because the more powerful principality from the founding Apostles Peter and Paul ¹⁵ established in this Church makes it necessary for all Churches to come together with it in faith and communion. The integrity of faith in the Roman Church was handed down for all Churches from the Apostle founders onward and is kept through the succession of the individual Bishops; and so, as in these individuals the episcopate is propagated from the first Bishop and founder Peter, so in this episcopate of the Roman Church is included, for each of them, that more powerful principality, by which alone the integrity of faith and tradition is kept for all Churches, because it is only on account of that principality that it is necessary for all to come to the Roman Church and be united with it in faith and communion. « Since it would be very long in such a volume to enumerate the successions of all the Churches, we confound all those who in any way... gather otherwise than they ought (who set up their synagogues, whether heretical or schismatic), by indicating the tradition from the Apostles which the greatest and most ancient (ἀρχαιοτάτης, most ancient, not in time but in authority) and to all known Church, founded and established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, has, and the faith proclaimed to men, coming down to us through the successions of Bishops. For to this Church, on account of its more powerful principality, every Church must necessarily come, that is, the faithful who are on every side; in which (through which, or by whose help) the tradition which is from the Apostles has always been kept by those who are on every side. The blessed Apostles, therefore, founding and instructing the Church, handed to Linus the office of the episcopate for governing the Church (τὴν τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς λειτουργίαν ἐνεχείρισαν)... Anacletus succeeds him (enumerating the individuals in order he concludes): now in the twelfth place Eleutherius holds the episcopate from the Apostles (τὸν τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ἀπὸ τῶν Ἀποστόλων κατέχει κλῆρον). By this order (τάξει) and succession, the tradition which is from the Apostles and the proclamation of truth have come down to us. And this demonstration is most full, that there is one and the same life-giving faith, which has been kept and handed down in the Church from the Apostles until now in truth » (Irenaeus, book III, c. 3).

Through the same « compendium of truth », as we saw above (thesis X, n. IV. 2.), Cyprian demonstrates the unity of the faith and of the Church against all heresies: « the proof is easy for faith by the compendium of truth. The Lord speaks to Peter: I say to you, that you are Peter... and the primacy is given to Peter, so that one Church of Christ and one chair (over the whole Church) may be shown » (see the rest cited there by us). In a similar account of the successors of Peter, Optatus of Milevis puts the chair of Peter as the first gift of the Church: « Therefore you cannot deny that you know that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was first conferred on Peter, in which sat Peter, the head of all the Apostles..... in which one chair unity might be kept by all. » He says that this centre of all Catholic unity, the very same chair of Peter, always remains and is recognized by all, through the perpetual succession of the Roman Bishops. « Therefore the one chair, which is first among the gifts, was occupied first by Peter, to whom Linus succeeded, to Linus Clement (he enumerates the following)... to Damasus Siricius, who is our associate today (namely, an associate in the episcopal order, not in the power of the chair, in which, being one, its one holder can have no associate), with whom, together with us, the whole world agrees in one fellowship of communion through the exchange of letters of communion. » Anyone can see that Optatus expresses the same doctrine as Irenaeus, in words, if not the same, certainly most similar. Then against the Donatists he concludes, which holds equally against all others, whether heretics or schismatics, because all of them do not agree with the one Roman chair of Peter in one fellowship of communion. « Give the origin of your chair, you who wish to claim the holy Church for yourselves... If Victor (the first of their own whom the Donatists had sent from Africa to Rome under the name of bishop) were asked where he sat, he could neither show that anyone had been there before him, nor point to any chair except one of pestilence; for the disease of pestilence sends dead men to the underworld, which underworld is known to have its gates, against which gates we read that the saving keys were received by Peter, our prince, to whom it was said by Christ: to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell will not conquer them. Whence then is it, that you strive to usurp the keys of the kingdom of heaven, you who, against the chair of Peter (against the successors in the chair of Peter, with whom in one fellowship of communion you did not agree, setting up for yourselves in the city of Rome a chair of pestilence against the chair of Peter, as the centre of your sect, without predecessors reaching back to Peter), fight sacrilegiously with your presumptions and audacities? » (Optatus, book II, nn. 2–5.).

Augustine argues in the same way. « If the order of bishops succeeding one another is to be considered, how much more certainly and truly healthfully do we count from Peter himself, to whom, bearing the figure of the whole Church, the Lord said: upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not conquer it. For to Peter Linus succeeded, to Linus Clement... to Siricius Anastasius. Into that order of bishops, which is led from Peter to Anastasius, who now sits in the same chair, even if some traitor (of the sacred books, whose crime the Carthaginian bishop Caecilian was falsely accused of, by which they covered their schism), had crept in at those times, it would prejudice nothing to the Church nor to innocent Christians, for whom the Lord, foreseeing, said of the evil prelates: what they say, do; but what they do, do not do, for they say and do not. That the hope of the faithful may be certain, which, placed not in man but in the Lord, may never be scattered by the tempest of sacrilegious schism » (letter 53, nn. 2, 3.). Namely, in the chair of Peter, there is one thing, the infallibility of the magisterium and the authority of the sacred rule, which the Lord conferred on Peter perpetually as representing the Church; and another thing, the holiness of morals, to which he gave grace but did not promise impeccability. In the same sense Augustine elsewhere shows that perpetual succession in the chair or see of Peter, with the power of feeding all the sheep of Christ, is a bulwark against the storm of heresy and sacrilegious schism. « Count the priests even from the very see of Peter, and in that order of the Fathers see who succeeded whom; this is the rock which the proud gates of hell do not overcome. » (Psalm against the party of Donatus.) « In the bosom of the Catholic Church... from the very see of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord committed his sheep to be fed after the resurrection, up to the present episcopate (of the city of Rome, namely in the see of Peter) the succession of priests holds me » (against the letter of the foundation, c. 4).

The same connection of the Roman Church or chair with the succession in the power or see of Peter is found among other Fathers; for the Roman see itself, and no other ever, is acknowledged and celebrated as the see of Peter with all the prerogatives instituted in Peter. Cyprian: « Cornelius was made bishop... when the place of Fabian, that is, the place of Peter and the step of the priestly chair, was vacant » (letter 52, p. 68, to Antonianus). Hence he proclaims the Roman Church « the root and mother of the Catholic Church » (letters 42 and 45, to Cornelius); « the chair of Peter and the principal Church, whence the unity of priests arose » (letter 55, p. 86, to the same). Firmilian, though led astray in error about baptism among heretics and angry against the Pontiff, confesses the same connection: « Stephen, through succession, claims to hold the chair of Peter, and glories in the place of his episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession of Peter, upon whom the foundations of the Church have been laid » (letter 75, p. 148, among those of Cyprian). To defend Damasus, the Roman Pontiff, against the anti-pope Ursinus (Ursicinus), the Bishops of the Council of Aquileia write to the emperors: « The Roman Church, the head of the whole Roman world, and that most sacred faith of the Apostles, your clemency should have been asked not to let them be disturbed; for from it the rights of the venerable communion flow forth to all » (among the letters of St. Ambrose, letter 11, n. 4, T. II, p. 811). Hence the same Ambrose praises his brother Satyrus, because, about to be baptized by an unknown bishop, he first asked « whether he agreed with the Catholic bishops, that is, with the Roman Church » (On the death of his brother, T. II, p. 1127). In the same cause against the anti-pope Ursinus, the bishops of the Roman Council of the year 378 write to the emperors. Damasus: « although he is equal in office (in episcopal or order power), yet the prerogative of the apostolic see (of the Apostle Peter) excels » (Hard. I, p. 841). Jerome held the Roman Pontiff Damasus and the chair of Peter and the rock of the Church as one and the same thing, when the matter was the magisterium of doctrine (whether the divine hypostases are to be called one or three) and catholic communion. « I associate myself with your beatitude, that is, with the chair of Peter; I know the Church is built upon that rock; whoever eats the lamb outside this house is profane... whoever does not gather with you scatters; that is, whoever is not Christ's is Antichrist's » (Jerome, to Damasus, letter 14; cf. letter 16). So too St. Chrysologus proclaims Pope Leo as Peter living and presiding in his own see, and therefore warns the heresiarch Eutyches to submit himself to his judgment: « since blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own see, gives the truth of faith to those who ask it » (among the letters of St. Leo, letter 25, c. 2). The bishops of the province of Arles write to the same St. Leo: « Through the most blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, the most holy Roman Church holds the principate over all the Churches of the whole world » (among the letters of St. Leo, letter 65, c. 2).

III. All that has been demonstrated in this thesis is reduced to this summary.

Christ God himself, by words and deeds recorded in the Gospel, instituted in Peter the supreme and universal power of the rock and head of the Church, to last perpetually; and so he instituted it to be propagated to each of the successors and heirs of Peter. For the words of promise and institution, « upon this rock I will build my Church; I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; confirm your brethren; feed my sheep, » were indeed spoken to Simon; but insofar as he became Peter, destined always to live by reason of the office, the perpetual charge and the power instituted in the same words, and therefore in their whole meaning and efficacy they pertain equally to each of the successors of Peter, who are to succeed one another in a perpetual series.

Therefore the perpetual succession in the supreme power was declared and instituted in the Gospel words no less than the power itself; but the mode of succession is not signified by the words themselves in the individual. Yet it is contained in the very nature of a visible office that is to endure through succession in the visible Church: the mode of succession must be visible, that is, easily knowable and manifest to all; and so far the mode of succession in general can be said to be determined by the divine institution itself. But indeterminate genera do not exist concretely in the nature of things; determinate individuals do. Therefore it pertained, from the very institution of the primacy and of perpetual succession in it, to the divine supernatural providence of Christ the founder toward his Church built upon the rock, that the mode of succession itself, by which this rock perdures perpetually, should be determined as manifest and certain, and so determined in the individual, not fluctuating but constant. Now it is established from the witnesses cited above that this one mode of succession, and no other, has always, everywhere, and by all, been recognized and proclaimed in the Church:

a) That the Roman Bishop succeeds to all the rights of sacred teaching and rule, which were instituted by Christ in Peter as perpetual and to be propagated to each of the successors of Peter; whence, as regards these rights and offices, the individual Roman Bishops are one moral person with Peter. « In Julius the memory of the Apostle Peter is honoured, so that the priests of the Lord refer to the head, that is, to the see of the Apostle Peter; » « the blessed Apostle Peter bears the burdens of all in Siricius; » « Innocent and Theodore are the summit of prelates in the honour of the most blessed Peter; » « what is the authority of Peter, there is a like condition of power in Zosimus; » « the universal care of the Church remains with the blessed Peter in Boniface; » « the most blessed Peter lives and exercises judgment in Celestine; » « to Celestine Christ granted the necessity of dealing with all things in the holy Apostle Peter; » « Peter has spoken through Leo, through Agatho; » « in Leo, Peter has not abandoned the helm of the universal Church; » « the principate received from the Lord's voice, blessed Peter held always, and holds in Gelasius. »

b) This succession into the whole power divinely instituted in Peter is asserted and believed from this very thing, and from this alone, that someone legitimately succeeds in this particular episcopate, which Peter, prince of the Apostles, took to himself as bishop. Namely, Peter, invested by Christ God with primatial, apostolic and ordinary power (that is, supreme, universal, and perpetually remaining in legitimate successors), taking to himself the Roman episcopate or Roman see, by this very act made that see the apostolic, primatial, or Petrine see; which he, dying, left vacant not only negatively, in that no one now sat in it, but with a right and positive exigency, so that another and another, according to the divine ordinance, perpetually succeed in that same ordinary Petrine power. Hence there is not a double succession, one in the Roman episcopate instituted by Peter, another in the primacy instituted by Christ; but since the fact of Peter is posited, who, dying, left his whole power, both primatial and the episcopal power of the City included in it, in his apostolic Roman see, now vacant, that is, requiring a successor to the primacy and to the included episcopate of the City, the succession is now one, not separated but distinct according to a twofold reason. We shall say more about this below. You have the doctrine, confirmed sufficiently above by the universal profession of the Fathers. « When the place of Fabian is vacant, the place of Peter is vacant, and Cornelius succeeds in the place of Peter; » « Siricius, the heir of Peter's administration; » « the Africans knew what is owed to the apostolic see, in which place Innocent is set; » « the successor and locum tenens of Peter, the most blessed Pope Celestine; » « an equal condition of power (taught in the Gospel as conferred on Peter by Christ) is given to those who have merited the inheritance of the see; for he himself has care both of all the Churches and of this, the Roman, most of all, where he sat, on which he established the foundations of his name; » « moreover there is joined not only the apostolic (of the primacy over the universal Church) but also the episcopal (of the Roman Church and see) dignity of Peter, who does not cease to preside over his see; for that solidity which he himself, made a rock, received from the rock Christ, has also poured itself into his heirs; » « the most orderly charity of the whole Church (so that all may be one visibly in the visible head, invisibly in the invisible head Christ), in the see of Peter receives Peter, and from such love of the shepherd (the love in question is formally love of him as furnished by Christ with the right and office of shepherd) does not grow cold even in the person of so unequal an heir; » « to the first see of the most blessed Peter the ancient and venerable reverence is paid... which see, by the sentence of the Lord (in the Gospels), received the principate in the blessed Peter, so that there might be one head, one structure of the body of Christ, one Church; » « whom Christ willed to be one prince of the Apostles, Peter, by a wonderful dispensation he directed to Rome, the mistress of the nations, and there, adorned with the glorious effusion of his blood, rests in an eternal hospice, granting to the see which he himself blessed that it may never be conquered by the gates of hell, according to the Lord's mission (in Peter, who was sent, the see has a mission and a promise from the Lord himself), and may be the safest harbour for all who are tossed about; » « although there are many Apostles, yet for the principate itself the single see of the prince of the Apostles has prevailed in authority » (which see, therefore, is apostolic not only historically, like the sees of other Apostles, for example of James, in that its first bishop was an Apostle, who could not leave the extraordinary prerogatives of the apostolate to his see; but it is the apostolic primatial see, because the primacy, or principate, or more powerful principality, was in Peter an ordinary office, equally valid for his successors). The sum of all is what Hadrian I, embracing the doctrine of the Gospels, of the Councils and of the preceding Fathers, wrote to the seventh Council, and what « the whole most sacred synod, believing thus, thinking thus, defining dogmas thus » accepted: « the prince of the Apostles, blessed Peter himself, who first presided over the apostolic see, left the principate of his apostolate and of pastoral care to his successors, who are to sit perpetually in his most sacred see; to whom he himself also, by divine command, conferred and handed down the power of authority, as to his successors the Pontiffs, just as it was granted to him by our Saviour the Lord God » ¹⁶.

c) On account of this union of succession in the fullness of power divinely instituted in Peter with succession in the particular Church or Roman see, the primacy of the Roman Church itself over the universal Church is celebrated by the Fathers. For since Peter, reserving for himself the episcopate of the particular Roman Church, held it as included in his divine primacy over the universal Church, it is most truly said, by reason and only by reason of this inclusion of the Roman episcopate in the universal divine primacy, that the Roman Church itself holds the primacy over the universal Church. This union of the Roman episcopate with the primacy is therefore the only thing the Fathers teach when they celebrate the primacy of the Roman Church over the universal Church. Given this union, posited by the fact of Peter, whoever succeeds Peter in the Roman Church holding the primacy, by that very fact succeeds in the primacy; and conversely, no one can succeed Peter in the primacy without by that very fact succeeding in the Roman episcopate, which is already included in the primacy.

Because the Roman Church, founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul, has Bishops as successors of Peter in a perpetual series, therefore in it is the more powerful principality: « to this Church, on account of its more powerful principality, every Church (in faith and communion) must necessarily come together, that is, those who are faithful from every side; » « it is the chair of Peter and the principal Church, whence the unity of priests arose; » « the root and mother of the Catholic Church; » « the Roman Church, from which the rights of the venerable communion flow forth to all; » « Peter has the care both of all the Churches and most of all of this one where he had sat, for which he himself established the foundations of his name, firm and dulled by no disturbances, so that the Roman Church may be made firm by human as well as divine laws and by all disciplines; » « it is certain that the Roman Church is, to the Churches spread throughout the whole world, as the head of its members; » « through the most blessed Peter the most holy Roman Church holds the principate over all the Churches of the whole world; » « the holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church is preferred to the other Churches by no synodal constitutions, but obtained the primacy by the evangelical voice of our Lord and Saviour. »

Let it therefore stand, as in the thesis we undertook to demonstrate from the doctrine of all Christian antiquity, that the perpetual succession in the primacy which Christ himself instituted was always understood and proclaimed in the Church, in such a way that the Roman see of Peter is already the apostolic primatial see over the universal Church; and therefore legitimate succession in this Roman episcopate, in this see of Peter, is succession in the primacy of Peter divinely instituted.