But a further organization arranged the relations of the bishops to each other; and from the beginning we find some bishops exercising jurisdiction over their fellow bishops beyond the boundaries of their own dioceses. Now the most important example of the authority of one bishop over others is the universal jurisdiction exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the whole Catholic Church. But this question has been so often discussed, the evidences of the Roman Primacy during the first centuries have been so often produced, that we need not dwell upon them again here. We see the Roman Church in the 1st century sternly commanding the Christians of Corinth (a city far away from her own diocese) to receive back their lawful ecclesiastical superiors, and concluding with just such words as a Pope would use to-day: "If they do not obey what he (God) says through us, let them know that they will be involved in no small crime and danger, but we shall be innocent of this sin."[1] We hear St. Ignatius greeting the "Presiding Church in the place of the Roman land," as the "president of the bond of love."[2] We know that the Greek Bishop of Lyons, St. Irenæus († 202), finding it too long to count up all the Churches, is content to quote against heretics "the greatest, most ancient and best known Church, founded and constituted by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul, at Rome," because "every Church,
- ↑ 1 Clem. ad Cor. 59, 1, 2.
- ↑ Ad Rom. Sal. These translations are not admitted by every one, but Funk's defence of them (Pp. Apost. ad loc. and Kirchengesch. Abhdlgen. i. 1) seems conclusive.
superiority over priests rather to custom than to our Lord's institution. Against this notice: (1) St. Jerome is much too late to be of any value as a witness. Centuries before his time we find monarchical episcopacy everywhere set up, everywhere accepted as a divine institution. (2) He wrote at the time of a quarrel between the priests of Alexandria and their bishop, in which he, himself only a priest, with his usual vehemence, took the side of his own order. (3) He in many other places plainly shows his consent in this question with the rest of the Christian world, e.g., "Without leave of the bishop, neither priest nor deacon may baptize" (c. Lucif. n. 9); "What Aaron, his sons, and the Levites were in the temple, that are bishops, priests, and deacons in the Church" (Ep. 146). Even in the heat of the Alexandrine quarrel he asks: "What does a bishop do more than a priest, except to ordain?" (ibid.). Which is, of course, what makes all the difference.
