Catholics from all parts of the world. Now what was the motive of this assemblage? It was simply the faith that Pius the Ninth is successor of Peter and heir of all his primacy with all its prerogatives and gifts. Since the Council of Chalcedon and of the second of Lyons—for the number at the Lateran Council is doubtful—500 bishops had never assembled together: at Chalcedon, where they exclaimed "Peter has spoken by Leo," Leo was not there. But in Rome at this time Peter's successor was at their head. It was not only the festival of the martyrdom of Peter, but of his primacy over all the world. The bishops, when they met around his tomb in the great Basilica of Constantine, knew that they were making a profession of faith in the primary of his successor.
4. It does not belong to the story of the Vatican Council to describe the external ceremonial of the Centenary; but it does emphatically belong to the right appreciation of the acts of the Vatican Council that the bearing of the Centenary upon it should be fully understood. It is not too much to say that of the proximate causes of the definition of the infallibility, the Centenary of St Peter's martyrdom was the most powerful. And this, I hope, will be made clear by a simple narrative of facts.
The solemnities of the Centenary consisted in the following acts:—
