318 TUIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-500.
Special direction of divine providence, tliat Peter labored and died in Rome, and sleeps with thousands of blessed martyrs in liolj ground. The centre of worldly empire alone can be the centre of the kingdom of God. Yet the political position of Rome would be of no importance without the religious considerations. By Peter was Rome, which had been the centre of all error and superstition, transformed into the metropolis of the Christian world, and invested with a spiritual dominion far wider than her former earthly empire. Hence the bishopric of Constantinople, not being a seden ajwstolica^ but resting its dignity on a j^olitical basis alone, can never rival the Roman, whose primacy is rooted both in divine and human i-ight. Antioch also, where Peter only transiently resided, and Alexandria, wliere he planted the cliurch through his disciple Mark, stand only in a secondary relation to Rome, where his bones repose, and where that was completed, which in the East was only laid out. The Roman bishop is, therefore, the primus omnium episcojoorum, and on him devolves the. plenitudo potestatis^ the solicitudo omnium pastorum, and commimis cur a universalis ecclesicB.^
Leo thus made out of a primacy of grace and of personal fitness a primacy of right and of succession. Of his person, indeed, he speaks in his sermons with great humility, but only thereby the more to exalt his official character. He tells the Romans, that the true celebration of the anniversary of his accession is, to recognize, honor, and obey, in his lowly person, Peter himself, M'ho still cares for shepherd and flock, and whose dignity is not lacking even to his unworthy heir.'
' These views Leo repeatedly expresses in his sermons on the festival of St. Peter and on the anniversary of his own elevation, as well as in hia official letters to the African, Illyrian, and South Gallic bishops, to Dioscurus of Alexandria, to the patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople, to the emperor Marcian and the empress Pulcheria. Particular proof paflsages are unnecessary. Comp. especially Ep. x., xi., xii., xiv., civ.-cvi. (ed. Bailer,), and Perthel, 1. c. p. 226-241, where the chief passages are given in full.
' *' Cujus dignitaa etiam in indigno ha;rede non deficit," Sermo iii. in Xat^l. (trdin. c. 4 (vol. i. p. 13, ed. Ball.). "Etsi nccessariiim est trepidaie dc mcrito, religiosum est tamen gauderc de dono : quonlam qui mihi oneris est auotyr, ipse est aKlministrationis adjutor." Serm. ii. c. 1.
§ 63. LEO THE GKEAT. 319
Here, therefore, we already Lave that characteristic combination of humility and arrogance, wliich has stereotyped itself in the expressions : " Servant of the servants of God," " vicar of Christ," and even " God upon earth." In this double consciousness of his personal unwortliiness and his official exaltation, Leo annually celebrated the day of liis elevation to the chair of Peter. While Peter himself passes over his prerogative in silence, and expressly warns against hierarchical assumption,* Leo cannot speak frequently and emphatically enough of his authority. While Peter iji Antioch meekly submits to the rebuke of the junior apostle Paul,'' Leo pronounces resistance to his authority to be impious pride and the sure way^to^hell.' Obedience to the pope is thus necessary to salvation. Whosoever, says he, is not with the apostolic see, that is, with the head of the body, whence all gifts of grace descend throughout the body, is not in the body of the church, and has no part in her grace. This is the fearful but legitimate logic of the papal principle, which confines the kingdom A' God to the narrow^ lines of a particular organization, and makes the universal spiritual reign of Christ dependent on a temporal form and a human organ. But in its very first application this papal ban proved itself a irutum fulmen^ when in spite of it the Galilean archbishop Hilary, against whom it was directed, died universally esteemed and loved, and then was canonized. This very impracticability of that principle, which would exclude all Greek and Protestant Christians from the kingdom of heaven, is a refutation of the principle itself.
In carrying his idea of the papacy into efiect, Leo displayed the cunning tact, the diplomatic address, and the iron consistency which characterize the greatest popes of the middle age. The circumstances in general were in his favor : the East rent by dogmatic controversies ; Africa devastated by the barbari-
• 1 Pet. V. 3. » Gal. ii. 1 1.
* Ep. X. c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. p. 634 ; ed. Migne, vol. 54, p. 630), to the Gallican jishops in the matter of Hilary: "Cui (sc. Petro) quisquis priucipatutn ajstimat denegandum, illius quidem nuUo modo potest minuere dignitatem ; sed inflatut ^ritu siipcrbiee suce semetipsum in inferna demergit." Comp. Ep. clxiv. 3 ; elvii. b