So much for the equality of the names of Bishops in the fourth century, which recognises the essential equality and unity of their office. The laws in force respecting their consecration and jurisdiction are as decisive. Every Bishop, after being elected by the Clergy and people, and the assembled provincial Bishops, was consecrated by the Metropolitan of his province, except, indeed, in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, where the Primate, as we have seen, and not the Metropolitans under him, consecrated all Bishops. Where a Metropolitan had no immediate superior, in case of a vacancy, the Bishops of his own province consecrated him, as in the case of Carthage. Whatever might be the particular privileges of Patriarchs and Metropolitans, as a general rule, no one Bishop had direct jurisdiction in the diocese of another. The Bishops of the great sees, specially Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, announced their accession to each other, together with a profession of the orthodox faith. But as for any jurisdiction emanating from Rome to the great Bishops of the east, such a thing was never even imagined. Let us even rest the whole question on this important point, for it is absolutely necessary to the Papal theory; and I do not think any vestige of such a doctrine can be found in the first six centuries. At least, let it be shown; for, to assert it in the face of Canons which imply a system the very reverse of it, is merely begging the whole question. That in cases of difficulty, or disputed succession, or heresy, or schism, the voice of the Bishop of Rome would have great weight, is, indeed, indisputable. When the ship of the Church was in distress, whom should we expect to see at the rudder but St. Peter? Thus St. Jerome, himself baptized at Rome, naturally looks to Rome in this difficulty. Mr. Newman says:12 "The divisions at Antioch had thrown the Catholic Church into a remarkable position; there were two Bishops in the see, one in connexion with the East, and the other with Egypt and the West, – with which, then, was Catholic Communion? St. Jerome has no doubt upon the subject. Writing to St. Damasus, he says: 'Since the East tears into pieces the Lord's coat, and foxes lay waste the vineyard of Christ, so that among broken cisterns, which hold no water, it is difficult to understand where the sealed fountain and the garden inclosed is, therefore by me is the chair of St. Peter to be consulted, and that faith which is praised by the Apostle's mouth, thence now seeking food for my soul where of old I received the robe of Christ. Whilst the bad children have wasted their goods, the inheritance of the Fathers is preserved uncorrupt among you alone. There the earth from its fertile bosom returns the pure seed of the Lord a hundred fold: here the grain buried in the furrows degenerates into darnell and tares. At present the Sun of Righteousness rises in the West; but in the East that fallen Lucifer hath placed his throne. You are the light of the world: you the salt of the earth: you the vessels of gold and silver: but here the vessels of earth or wood await the iron rod and the eternal flame.' Therefore, though your greatness terrifies me, yet your kindness invites me. From the Priest the sacrifice claims salvation; from the Shepherd the sheep claims protection. Let us speak without offence: I court not the Roman height: I speak with the successor of the Fisherman, and the disciple of the Cross. I, who follow none as my chief but Christ, am associated in communion with thy blessedness; that is, with the See of Peter. On that rock the Church is built I know. Whoso shall eat the Lamb outside that house is profane… I know not Vitalis (the Apollinarian); Meletius I reject; I am ignorant of Paulinus. Whoso gathereth not with thee, scattereth; that is, he who is not of Christ is of Antichrist."13
Considering all the circumstances of the case, no one can wonder at St. Jerome's application. When it is remembered that the Roman See, up to that time, had been free from all suspicion of heresy, and that the Arian controversy was the one in question, and that he himself, of full manhood, had been baptized, and had lived at Rome, the force of his language is hardly surprising. His words certainly prove, what, I suppose, no student of antiquity can doubt, the Primacy of the Roman See: but could there be a greater unfairness than to apply their bare letter to a state of things totally changed? or to consider expressions proving the primacy of Rome, as claimed in the fourth century, to prove equally a supremacy as claimed in the nineteenth, which is as different from the former as one thing can well be from another. This very St. Meletius, a man of pre-eminent sanctity of life, the ordainer of St. Chrysostom, dies, it would appear, out of communion with Rome, and has ever been accounted a saint in the Western as well as in the Eastern Church.
But to recur to the point of jurisdiction at the time of the Nicene Council. It is beyond question, both from the acts of that Council, and from the Apostolic Canons, which represent the Eastern Church in the second and third centuries, that, whatever the pre-eminence of Rome might consist in, there was no claim whatever to confer jurisdiction on Bishops out of the Roman Patriarchate, then comprising Italy, south of Milan, and Sicily. Even differences, any where arising, were to be settled in Provincial Councils. "It is necessary to know, that, up to the Council of Nicea, all ecclesiastical affairs had been terminated in the Councils of each Province; and there had been but very few occasions in which it had been necessary to convoke an assembly of several Provinces. The Council of Nicea, even, only speaks of Provincial Councils, and orders that all things should be settled therein."14 The testimony and conduct of St. Cyprian will illustrate the Roman Primacy, to which Mr. Newman claims him as a witness. And such he is beyond doubt. In his fifty-fifth letter, which begins, "Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting;" he complains bitterly to that Pope that Felicissimus and his party "dare to set sail, and to carry a letter from schismatical and profane persons to the see of Peter, and to the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise; nor consider that they are the Romans whose faith had been praised by the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access." This Mr. Newman considers a pretty strong testimony in his "cumulative argument" for the authority of Rome. It would be as well, however, to go on a little further, and see what was the cause of St. Cyprian's vehement indignation. It was, that Felicissimus ventured to appeal to Pope Cornelius, when his cause had already been heard and settled by St. Cyprian, at Carthage. "But what was the cause of their coming and announcing that a Pseudo-Bishop had been made against the Bishops? For, either they are satisfied with what they have done, and persevere in their crime, or, if they are dissatisfied, and give way, they know whither they may return. For, since it has been determined by all of us, and is both equitable and just, that the cause of every one be heard there where the crime has been committed, and to every shepherd a portion of the flock is allotted, which each one rules and governs, as he is to give an account of his doings to the Lord, it is certainly behoving that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor break the close harmony of Bishops with their deceitful and fallacious rashness, but should plead their cause where they may find both accusers and witnesses of their crime; unless to a few desperate and abandoned men the authority of the Bishops seated in Africa seem less, who have already judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the weight of their sentence, their conscience, bound by many snares of crimes. Their cause has been already heard, their sentence already pronounced; nor is it becoming to the judgment of priests to be reprehended by the levity of a fickle and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says, 'Let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay.'" Let any candid person say, whether he who so wrote to one whom he acknowledged as the successor of St. Peter, could have imagined that there was a Divine right in that successor to re-hear not only this, but all other causes; to reverse all previous judgments of his Brethren by his single authority; nay, more, to confer on all those Brethren their jurisdiction "by the grace of the Apostolic See."15
Another letter of St. Cyprian to another Pope, St. Stephen, will set forth both his view of the Primacy, and of the Episcopal relation to it. He wishes St. Stephen to write a letter to the people of Arles, by which their actual Bishop Marcian, who had joined himself to the schismatic Novatian, might be excommunicated, and another substituted for him. This alone shows how great the authority of the Bishop of Rome in such an emergency was. But the tone of his language is worth considering. It is just such incidents as these which are made use of by Roman Catholic controversialists in late times to justify the full extent of Papal power now claimed.16 "Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting.