may be hence understood, because to Peter
alone Christ said, Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in
heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;
and again, in the Gospel, when on the Apostles alone Christ breathed and
said, Receive the Holy Ghost: whose sins ye remit they are remitted, and
whose ye retain, they are retained. _Therefore the power of remitting sins
was given to the Apostles and the Churches which they, being sent by
Christ, set up, and to the Bishops who have succeeded them by ordination in
their stead_.... And here I am justly indignant at this so open and
manifest folly of Stephen, because, glorying as he does in the rank of his
Episcopate, and maintaining that he holds the succession of Peter, upon
whom the foundations of the Church were laid, he introduces many other
rocks, and sets up new buildings of many Churches, while he affirms, on his
own authority, that Baptism is in them.... Nor does he perceive that the
truth of the Christian rock is clouded over by him, and in a manner
abolished, who thus betrays and deserts unity.... You Africans can say
against Stephen, that, when the truth became known to you, you relinquished
an erroneous custom. But we join custom also to truth, and to the custom of
the Romans oppose a custom indeed, but that of truth, holding from the
beginning this which has been delivered down from Christ, and from the
Apostles." He had said before, "One may know that those who are at Rome do
not in all things observe what has been delivered down from the beginning,
and vainly allege the authority of the Apostles, even by this, that in
celebrating Easter, and in many other sacred rites, one may see there is
among them certain variations; nor are all things there kept as they are
kept at Jerusalem; just as in very many other provinces also, according to
the diversity of places and names, there are variations; nor yet on this
account have the peace and unity of the Catholic Church ever been departed
from. Which now Stephen has dared to do, breaking peace towards you, which
his predecessors always kept with you, in reciprocal love and honour;
casting, too, shameful reproach (infamans) on the blessed Apostles, Peter
and Paul, as if they had handed this down, &c." The letter concludes with
an apostrophe to Stephen, which only a regard to truth induces us to quote,
so painful is its vehemence, though it proves _ex abundanti_ the point we
are upon