Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

The Exigency of Truth. 25
stronger than Councils speak concurrentlyin this
direction. A modern writer has "from
said,
the very first the Roman Pontiff seems possessed
himself , as from a living tradition which had
thoroughly penetrated the local Roman Church,
with a consciousness of some peculiar influence
he was to exercise on the whole Church. This
consciousness does not show itself here and there
in the line of Roman Pontiffs, but one and all,
whatever their individual characters might be,
seem to have imbibed it from the atmosphere
which they breathed. S. Victor and S. Stephen,
S. Innocent, S. Leo the Great and S. Gregory,
are quite of one mind here." Others, it may be
admitted, did not so readily allow it ; but in
course of time it was conceded, and surely not
without a Divine intent. The very notion
of a. Primacy in a Church could only arise
after the Church had grown from its small
beginnings. There could be no Archbishops
till Bishops were multiplied, nor Patriarchs
until there were many Provinces. On mere
grounds of policy, I can see no reason at all
why the Church in bringing her Chief Rulers
into a narrower and narrower compass should
not ac last have agreed to a Monarchy. At the
time of the Great Schism the Monarchical idea
had got so far into the Church s mind, that the
* Allies 1
s Church of England cleared from the Charge of
Schism, 2nd edit., p. 19.