Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

FOUNDATION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 43whose authority is pre-eminent in his own See - forthrouhout the whole Church Peter is daily saying,' Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God,' andevery tongue confessing the Lord is imbued with theteaching of that word of His." For. f " out of thewhole world Peter alone is chosen to preside overthe calling of all the nations, over the whole numberof the Apostles, and all " the Fathers of the Church : sothat though there be in the people of God manypriests and many shepherds, yet Peter rules allwith ordinary whom Christ rules with sovereignpower."1Now, from the time of Zeno onwards the Greekphilosophy had, in a certain sense and degree, takenup the standing-ground of religion. It essayed tosatisfy the human mind in its aspirations after truth,to afford man a security for a happy life, independentof outward circumstances, to supply him with acompensation for the loss of political freedom by itsintrinsic principles, to teach him, if not how to die,at least how to live. Such is the part assigned toit in the name of all who went before them by Ciceroand by Seneca. Such was notoriously the Stoicboast. We are, then; entitled to ask how it stoodas to these three powers, doctrine, morals, and worship,in the intimate connection of which the perfection ofsociety consists.As to the first, its primary object was to attaintruth with respect to the universe and man its occupant.If we abstract that portion of its teachingwhich was the continuation of the original traditiondescending to the Greeks as to all other men fromthe patriarchal religion, only by the force of the human1 St. Leo, Serm. iii. 3, iv. 2.