y, notwithstanding the famous 28th Canon of
Chalcedon, not either claimed or granted merely because Rome was the
imperial city. It was explicitly claimed by the Bishop of Rome himself, and
as freely conceded by others to him, as in a special sense successor of St.
Peter. From the earliest times that the Church comes before us as an
organized body, the germ at least of this preeminence is observable. From
the very first, the Roman Pontiff seems possessed himself, as from a living
tradition which had thoroughly penetrated the local Roman Church, with a
consciousness of some peculiar influence he was to exercise on the whole
Church. This consciousness does not show itself here and there in the line
of Roman Pontiffs, but one and all, whatever their individual characters
might be, seem to have imbibed it from the atmosphere which they breathed.
St. Victor, and St. Stephen, St. Innocent, St. Leo the Great, and St.
Gregory, are quite of one mind here. That they were the successors of St.
Peter, who himself sat and ruled and spoke in their person, was as strongly
felt, and as consistently declared, by those Pontiffs who preceded the time
of Constantine, and who had continually to pay with their blood the price
of that high preeminence, as by those who followed the conversion of the
empire, when the honour of their post was not accompanied by so much
danger. We are speaking now, be it remembered, of the feeling _which
possessed them_. The feeling of their brother Bishops concerning them may
have been less definite, as was natural: but, at least, even those who most
opposed any arbitrary stretch of authority on their part, as St. Cyprian,
fully admitted that they sat in the See of Peter, and ordinarily treated
them with the greatest deference. This is written so very legibly upon the
records of antiquity, that I am persuaded any one, who is even very
slightly acquainted with them, cannot with sincerity dispute it. I cannot
think Mr. Newman has the least overstated the fact when he says, "Faint
they (the ante-Nicene Testimonies to the authority of the Holy See) may be
one by one, but at least they are various, and are drawn from many times
and countries, and thereby serve to illustrate each other, and form a body
of proof. Thus, St. Clement, in the name of the Church of Rome, writes a
letter to the Corinthians, when they were without a Bishop. St. Ignatius,
of Antioch, addresses the Roman Church, and it only out of the Churches to
w