again, he chiefly and especially, having a faith firm above all, and unchangeable in our Lord God, was found worthy to convert and to confirm his fellows and his spiritual brethren who were shaken.'[1]
Pope St. Vitalian, a.d. 669, says, in a letter to Paul, Archbishop of Crete, 'What things we command thee and thy Synod according to God and for the Lord, study at once to fulfil, lest we be compelled to bear ourselves not in mercy but according to the power of the sacred canons, for it is written: The Lord said, "Peter, I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not, and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren." And again: "Whatsoever thou, Peter, shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."'[2]
The quotations given in the Pastoral Letter of last year, united with these, afford the following result. The application of the promise Ego rogavi pro te, &c. to the infallible faith of Peter and his successors, is made by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Leo, St. Gelasius, Pelagius II., St. Gregory the Great,
- ↑ Princeps apostolorum Petrus pascere primus jussus est oves Catholicæ Ecclesiæ, cum Dominus dicit, Petre, amas me? Pasce oves meas; et iteruni ipse præcipue ac specialiter firmam præ omnibus habens in Dominum Deum nostrum et immutabilem fidem, convertere aliquando et confirmare exagitatos consortes suos et spiritales meruit fratres. Labbe, Concil. tom. vii. p. 107.
- ↑ Quæ præcipimus tibi secundum Deum et propter Dominum tuæque synodo, stude illico peragere, ne cogamur non misericorditer sed secundum virtutem sacratissimorum canonum conversari. Scriptum namque est, Dorninus inquit, Petre, rogavi pro te ut non deficeret fides tua; et tu aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos. Et rursum, Quodcunque ligaveris, etc.—St. Vitalian, epist. i. in Labbe, Concil. tom. vii. p. 460.
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