come to us from all Churches, we take special care of you," and he says why this various business always comes to him from all Churches: "For we especially are concerned about all, since Christ gave us the duty (necessitas) of arranging all things in St. Peter the Apostle when he gave him the keys to open and to shut."[1]
St. Jerome (c. 331–420) had been the secretary of Pope Damasus (366–384). Years afterwards he still remembered how much work he had then done: "When I was helping Damasus, Bishop of the City of Rome," he writes, "and was answering the consultations of synods from East and West,"[2] … Theodoret of Cyrus († 458) was deposed by the Robber Synod of Ephesus in 449. He at once appeals to Pope Leo the Great: "We beg, and pray, and entreat and humbly implore your Holiness to bring help to the Churches of God that are tossed in this storm. … And I await the sentence of your Apostolic See, and I beg and implore your Holiness to help me, who appeal to your right and just tribunal, and to order me to come to you and to show you that my teaching follows in the footsteps of the Apostles. … Above all, I beg you to tell me whether I am to accept this unjust deposition or not; for I await your sentence. And if you order me to abide by the judgement, I will do so, and I will no longer trouble any man, but will await the just judgement of God our Saviour."[3] At the same time he writes to a Roman priest Renatus (afterwards one of the Legates at Chalcedon): "I beg your Holiness to persuade your most holy and most blessed Archbishop (St. Leo) to use his Apostolic authority and to order us to hasten to your synod. For that most holy see has for many reasons the primacy over the Churches in the whole world, and especially for this reason that it has remained unspotted by heresy, nor has any one of contrary opinion sat therein, but it has kept entire the Apostolic grace. We agree to whatever sentence you may pronounce, trusting in the justice of your judgement."[4] Nor was
