by the name of Catholic Christians, and we judge the others to be mad and foolish to bear the shame of a heretical belief. Nor shall their conventicles be called churches."[1] St. Damasus was Pope from 366 to 384. With his name the Emperors couple that of Peter, the Patriarch of the second see in Christendom, which had been the bulwark of the faith in Arian times (Athanasius). But the standard by which they measure who is to be called a "Catholic Christian" is the faith left by St. Peter at Rome.
Gratian (Emperor from 375–383 in the West, while Theodosius I reigned in the East) ordered that "those bishops who had been banished (by his Arian predecessors) should be restored to their flocks, and that the sacred buildings should be given to those who embrace the communion of Damasus."[2] We have seen what Pope Agatho wrote to Consiantine III (668–685, cf. p. 60). Constantine answers to Agatho's successor, Pope Leo II (682–683, Agatho had died meanwhile): "With the eyes of our mind We saw him, as it were the very Prince of the Apostolic choir himself, as Peter the Bishop of the first See, divinely proclaiming the mystery of the whole dispensation."[3]
The great Justinian (527–565) in 533 sends a profession of his faith to Pope John II (533–535), whom he calls the "Head of all the Churches."[4] He puts into his Codex the profession he had made to Agapitus (535–536) and the Pope's answers[5]; and he calls the Roman See "the source of the priesthood (fons Sacerdotii)" and "the venerable See of the most high Apostle Peter." "No one doubts," he says, "that the height of the Supreme Pontificate is at Rome."[6] So well does he know what is the result of schism with the Roman See that, while he is persecuting and ill-using Pope Vigilius (540–555), he imagines a subtle distinction between the Chair of Peter and its occupant, that people may believe that he is in perfect peace with the one while he is harrying the other.[7]
It is usual to speak of the time from Justinian I (527) to
