can only be maintained by preserving this supremacy of the Roman See; and, finally, that Stephen, Bishop of Rome, was supreme above all other Bishops, and that, were all the Apostles but Peter then alive, they would be subject to him. But what Cyprian did actually maintain in his treatise on the Unity of the Church was (1) that the Apostle Peter received the first grant of the power of the keys, so that the origin of the Church was in him, but (2) that afterwards the very same honor and power were conferred upon the rest of the Apostles; (3) that all Bishops, as successors of the Apostles, had coequal power and authority; and (4) that Stephen, Bishop of Rome, had no dominion over his brother Bishops of other Sees.1

Cyprian's maxim, "Ecclesia in Episcopo, then, has no affinity with the maxim on which the Church of Rome stands to-day, "Ecclesia in Papa"; but is radically and irreconcilably opposed to it. The Constitutional Primacy which he conceded to the Bishop of Rome had nothing in common with the Absolutism which in late ages was built up upon the foundation of the spurious Isidorian Decrees. It may be difficult to be

2

I See Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. v., pp. 557-8.

"Great

2 Gieseler, writing of the Ante-Nicene period says: stress was laid on the perfect equality of all Bishops, and each in his own diocese was answerable only to God and his conscience. Nor were they likely to allow any peculiar authority to the Successor of Peter, inasmuch as they attributed to Peter no superiority over the other Apostles. In the West, indeed, a certain regard was paid to the Church of Rome as the largest, and

absolutely sure of the true reading of the passage cited above, but whatever the reading we must interpret it in the light of the known views of this Father elsewhere stated. Of two possible interpretations of his language, we must prefer that which is in harmony with, not that which contradicts, his general system. If Cyprian had written, "The primacy is given to Peter" (Primatus Petro datur), we would have to enquire what kind of primacy did he mean? And the following among many passages, would suffice to show that he did not dream of such a primacy as Rome claims to-day:

"Neither did Peter, whom the Lord chose to be first, and upon whom he built His Church, when he afterwards disputed with Paul concerning circumcision, claim or assume anything arrogantly or insolently, as to say that he held the primacy and ought to be obeyed by those who were new (in the faith) and by those who came after him."

the only one in that region founded by an apostle; but by no means were any peculiar rights conceded to it over the other churches. . . As all the bishops were supposed to be of like dignity and power, they maintained their common right

...

to interfere in any case where a bishop had transgressed the established rules of the Church." (I. 153-155.) See the copious citations given by Gieseler in support of these conclusions.

Cyprian uniformly addresses Pope Cornelius and Pope Stephen as equals, using the terms frater and collega. He does not hesitate to reprimand and reprove them. In the affair of the Spanish bishops Basilides and Martialis (A.D. 256) in which Cyprian was called upon to mediate, he "rejected the decision of the bishop of Rome in their favor."

(Nec Petrus, quem primum Dominus elegit, et super quem ædificavit ecclesiam suam, cum secum Paulus de circumcisione postmodum disceptaret, vindicavit sibi aliquid insolenter aut arroganter assumpsit, ut diceret se primatum tenere, et obtemperari a novellis et posteris sibi oportere.) Epist. 71.

XIII

WITNESS OF THE GREEK CHURCH TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF NATIONAL CHURCHES

THE following passage from the Encyclical already several times quoted exhibits the complete harmony of the Greek Church with the Anglican as to the independence of national churches in the early Christian centuries:

XVI. Each autocephalous church, both in the East and the West, was, during the ages of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, entirely independent and selfgoverning. And as the bishops of the autocephalous Eastern Churches, so also those of Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany, and Britain, administered their churches by means of their own local synods; the bishop of Rome possessing no right of interference, since he also was amenable and obedient to synodical decisions. But in case of weighty questions, which required the sanction of the entire Church, recourse was had to an Ecumenical Council, which alone was, and still is, the high tribunal of the Church, as a whole. The bishops were independent of each other and entirely free within their own boundaries, being subject only to synodical ordinances, and taking their seats in such synods as equals; and no one of them

ever laid claim to sovereign rights over the whole Church. But if certain ambitious bishops of Rome raised at times overbearing pretensions to an absolutism foreign to the traditions of the Church, they were duly refuted and reprimanded. It is proved, therefore, inaccurate and manifestly erroneous, that which his Beatitude Leo XIII. avers in his encyclical, namely, that prior to the time of Photius the name of the See of Rome was holy unto all the nations of the Christian world, and that the East as well as the West, with one accord and without opposition, submitted to the Roman high priest, as successor of the apostle Peter and consequently as vicar of Jesus Christ upon earth.

XVII. During the nine centuries of the Ecumenical Councils the Eastern Orthodox Church never recognized the unswerving pretensions to supremacy put forward by the bishop of Rome, nor did she ever submit to them, as the history of the Church testifies. The independent relations between East and West are clearly and manifestly evident from the following brief but noteworthy sentences of Basil the Great, in his letter to Eusebius among the saints, bishop of Samosota: "Verily, it is the nature of a haughty disposition, if indulged, to exceed itself in haughtiness. For if the Lord is gracious unto us, what need have we of other aid? But if the wrath of God continues, who will help us against the superciliousness of the West (those men) who neither know the truth nor will admit of learning it, but, having preconceived false suspicions, do not those things which they did before in the matter of Marcellus?" Later again, towards the close of the ninth century, Photius, that sacred and luminous hierarch, when