t of the Bishops to govern each in his own diocese. They derived
their authority by transmission from the Apostles, as the Bishop of Rome
from St. Peter; the one was as much recognised as the other. They were not
his _delegates_, but his _brethren_. Frater and Co-episcopus _they style
him_, as he styles them, for hundreds of years after the Council of Nicea;
owing him, indeed, and willingly rendering him the greatest deference, but
never so much as imagining that their authority was derived from him. This
fact, too, lies upon the face of all antiquity, and is almost too notorious
to need proof. If, however, any be wanted, it is found in the names which
Bishops bore both then, and for a long time afterwards, and in their mode
of election and their jurisdiction. For their names: "It must first be
confessed," says a very learned Roman Catholic, who, in his humility,
shrunk from the Cardinalate offered to him for his services to the papal
see, "that the name of Pope, of Apostle, of Apostolic Prelate, of Apostolic
See, was still common to all Bishops, even during the three centuries which
elapsed from the reign of Clovis to the empire of Charlemagne;" and he adds
presently: "These august names are not like those vain and superficial
titles with which the pride of men feeds itself; they are the solid marks
of a power entirely from Heaven, and of a holiness altogether Divine."[5]
Indeed, the view which every where prevailed was that so admirably
expressed by St. Cyprian: "Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in
solidum pars tenetur."[6] "The Episcopate is one; it is a whole in which
each enjoys full possession." St. Isidore, of Seville, says: "Since also
the other Apostles received a like fellowship of honour and power with
Peter, who also were scattered throughout the whole world, and preached the
Gospel; whom, at their departure, the Bishops succeeded, who are
established throughout the whole world in the seats of the Apostles."[7]
But Pope Symmachus (A.D. 498-514) has expressed the equality and unity of
the Episcopate and Apostolate between the Pope and all Bishops, by the
highest and most sacred similitude which it is possible to conceive. "For
inasmuch as after the likeness of the Trinity, whose power is one and
indivisible, the priesthood is one in the hands of various prelates, how
suits it that the statutes of the more ancient be broken by their
successors?"[8] We are told by the same author: "Pope Hormisdas (A.D.
514-5