{14c} “What say you to the expunging the name of Felix, Bishop of Rome, out of the Diptychs of the Church by Acacius, the Patriarch of Constantinople? What say you to Hilary’s Anathema against Pope Liberius!”—Stillingfleet’s “Vindication,” p. 408. {15a} St. Jerome affirms, that a Bishop, in whatever diocese, whether of Rome, of Eugabium, &c., is of the same power (_ejusdem meriti_) and of the same rank in the priesthood (_ejusdem sacerdotii_) with his Episcopal brethren. “For,” he adds, “they are all alike successors of the Apostles.” This admission from the Secretary of Pope Damasus is very remarkable.—Epist. ad Evag. {15b} Vid. Lab. tom. iv. p. 817.—Grier’s Epitome of the General Councils, pp. 61. 94. {16a} Ruffinus, in his translation and abstract of the Nicene Canons, gives the sixth of them in these words: “The ancient custom of Alexandria and of Rome shall still be observed, that the one shall have the care or government of the Egyptian, and the other that of the suburbicary churches.”—_Ut apud Alexandriam et in urbe Româ vetusta consuetudo servetur_, _ut vel ille Ægypti vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat_. Ruffin. Hist. lib. i. c. 6.—See also Bingham’s Antiquities, Book ix. chap. 1, sec. 9. {16b} _Universalitatis nomen quod sibi illicitè usurpavit nolite attendere_:—_nullus enim Patriarcharum hoc tam profano vocabulo unquam utatur_.—_Perpenditis_, _fratres carissimi_, _quid e vicino subsequatur cum et in sacerdotibus erumpunt tam perversa primordia_. _Quia enim juxta est ille de quo scriptum est_; _Ipse est rex super universos filios superbiæ_.—Pap. Pelag. ii. epist. 8. {17a} _Nullus unquam decessorum meorum hoc tam profano vocabulo uti consensit_: _quia videlicet si unus patriarcha universalis dicitur_, _patriarcharum nomen cæteris derogatur_. _Sed absit_, _hoc absit à Christianá mente id sibi velle quenquam arripere unde fratrum suorum honorem imminuere ex quantulâcunque parte videatur_!—Pap. Gregor. i. lib. iv. epist. 36. {17b} _Ego vero fidenter dico_, _quia quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat_, _vel vocari deciderat_, _in elatione suâ Anti-christum præcurrit_; _quia superbiendo_, _cæteris præponit_.—Pap. Gregor. i. lib. vi. epist. 30. Attempts have been made to reconcile the language of Pelagius and Gregory, with the assumption, by their immediate successors, of the very supremacy which those two Popes so strongly reprobate. The utter futility of such attempts, the reader will see thoroughly established by Stillingfleet in his “Vindication,” part ii. chap. vi. {19} “I would fain know whether there be any certainty that every Pope is a good Christian, or whether he may not be (in the sense of the Scripture) of the world? If not, how was it that Bellarmine should have cause to think that such a rank of them went successively together to perdition?”—Chillingworth’s Works, vol. iii. p. 359.