pointed and guided by God, are on terms of brotherly
intercourse and exchange, and each bishop represents the whole
significance of the episcopate.[176] Hence the individual bishops are no
longer to be considered primarily as leaders of their special
communities, but as the foundation of the one Church. Each of these
prelates, however, provided he keeps within the association of the
bishops, preserves the independent right of regulating the circumstances
of his own diocese.[177] But it also follows that the bishops of those
communities founded by the Apostles themselves can raise no claim to any
special dignity, since the unity of the episcopate as a continuation of
the apostolic office involves the equality of all bishops.[178] However,
a special importance attaches to the Roman see, because it is the seat
of the Apostle to whom Christ first granted apostolic authority in order
to show with unmistakable plainness the unity of these powers and the
corresponding unity of the Church that rests on them; and further
because, from her historical origin, the Church of this see had become
the mother and root of the Catholic Church spread over the earth. In a
severe crisis which Cyprian had to pass through in his own diocese he
appealed to the Roman Church (the Roman bishop) in a manner which made
it appear as if communion with that Church was in itself the guarantee
of truth. But in the controversy about heretical baptism with the Roman
bishop Stephen, he emphatically denied the latter's pretensions to
exercise special rights over the Church in consequence of the Petrine
succession.[179] Finally, although Cyprian exalted the unity of the
organisation of the Church above the unity of the doctrine of faith, he
preserved the Christian element so far as to assume in all his
statements that the bishops display a moral and Christian conduct in
keeping with their office, and that otherwise they have _ipso facto_
forfeited it.[180] Thus, according to Cyprian, the episcopal office does
not confer any indelible character, though Calixtus and other bishops of
Rome after him presupposed this attribute. (For more details on this
point, as well as with regard to the contradictions that remain
unreconciled in Cyprian's conception of the Church, see the following
chapter, in which will be shown the ultimate interests that lie at the
basis of the new idea of the Church).

_Addendum I._--The great confederation of Churches which Cyprian
presupp