A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

523efficient and generally gratefully recognized authority. In thedevelopment of the papal idea the first stadium was completedwith the pontificate of Leo the Great (440-461), who, fullyconscious of the inherited Petrine prerogatives, expressed themthe most clearly, persistently, and, on the whole, most successfullyof any pontiff before Gregory the Great. Leo, therefore,stands at the end of a development marked by the utterances ofVictor, Cornelius, Siricius, Innocent I, Zosimus, Boniface I, andCelestine. For their statements of the authority of the Romansee, see Denziger, under their names, also Kirch and Mirbt. Thewhole may be found combined in one statement in Schwanne,Dogmengeschichte, I, 413 f.; II, 661-698. [477]Additional source material: In English there is comparativelylittle except the writings of Leo, see especially Sermones 2,82, 84; Epistulæ 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 105, 167; Jerome,Ep. 146, ad Evangelum. Kirch, Mirbt, and Denziger givemany references to original texts and citations.(a) Leo the Great, Sermo 3. (MSL, 55:145 f.)On the prerogatives of Peter and his see.Ch. 2. … From His overruling and eternal providence we havereceived also the support of the Apostle's aid, which assuredlydoes not cease from its operation; and the strength of the foundation,on which the whole lofty building of the Church is reared,is not weakened by the weight of the temple that rests upon it.For the solidity of that faith which was praised in the chief of theApostles is perpetual; and, as that remains which Peter believedin Christ, so that remains which Christ instituted in Peter. Forwhen, as has been read in the Gospel lesson [i.e., for the day],the Lord has asked the disciples whom they believed Him tobe, amid the various opinions that were held, the blessed Peterreplied, saying: “Thou art the Christ,” etc. [Matt. 16:16-19].