was not submitted to
generally, even throughout the West. The "Codex Ecclesiae Africanae" is
full of prohibitions against even appealing to "Bishops beyond the sea,"
_i.e._ the Pope. In St. Augustin's time, as we have seen, they positively
forbad the Pope's interference with their internal government, and only
submitted to it after they had been enfeebled by the irruption of the
Vandals.

Thirdly, this power was set up very much indeed by help of the imperial
authority. The process, in fact, of centralizing in the Church, ran
completely parallel with that in the State. The law of Valentinian, above
mentioned, is a strong proof of this. Of course the object of the emperors
was to control the action of the Church through one Bishop made the chief.
But it is somewhat remarkable that that Church which maintains a standing
protest against the interference of the State with spiritual matters, (a
protest for which she is worthy of all respect and admiration,) should owe
to the support of the State, in different periods of her history, very much
more of her power than any other Church. It may be that God rewards the
fearless maintenance of spiritual rights by the grant of that very temporal
power which threatens them with destruction.

Now as we have had St. Jerome in a noted place appealing to Rome, and
acknowledging her primacy, let us take another passage of his which, I
think, implicitly denies St. Leo's view. Arguing then against the pride of
the Roman deacons, in which city, as they were only seven in number, the
office was in higher estimation than even the priesthood, which was
numerous, he observes, "Nor is the Church of the Roman city to be
considered one, and that of the whole world another. Both the Gauls, and
the Britains, and Africa, and Persia, and the East, and India, and all
barbarous nations, adore one Christ, observe one rule of truth. If you
require authority, _the world is greater than the city_. Wherever a bishop
is, be it at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, or
Alexandria, or Tanae, he is of the same rank, the same priesthood. The
power of riches, and the humility of poverty, make a bishop neither higher
nor lower. But all are successors of the Apostles. But you say, how is it
that at Rome a priest is ordained upon the testimony of a deacon? Why
allege to me _the custom of a single city_? Why defend against the laws of
the Church a fewness of number, which is the source of their pride?"[74