But to recur to the point of jurisdiction at the time of the Nicene Council. It is beyond question, both from the acts of that Council, and from the Apostolic Canons, which represent the Eastern Church in the second and third centuries, that, whatever the pre-eminence of Rome might consist in, there was no claim whatever to confer jurisdiction on Bishops out of the Roman Patriarchate, then comprising Italy, south of Milan, and Sicily. Even differences, any where arising, were to be settled in Provincial Councils. "It is necessary to know, that, up to the Council of Nicea, all ecclesiastical affairs had been terminated in the Councils of each Province; and there had been but very few occasions in which it had been necessary to convoke an assembly of several Provinces. The Council of Nicea, even, only speaks of Provincial Councils, and orders that all things should be settled therein."[14] The testimony and conduct of St. Cyprian will illustrate the Roman Primacy, to which Mr. Newman claims him as a witness. And such he is beyond doubt. In his fifty-fifth letter, which begins, "Cyprian to his brother Cornelius, greeting;" he complains bitterly to that Pope that Felicissimus and his party "dare to set sail, and to carry a letter from schismatical and profane persons to the see of Peter, and to the principal Church, whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise; nor consider that they are the Romans whose faith had been praised by the preaching of the Apostle, to whom faithlessness can have no access." This Mr. Newman considers a pretty strong testimony in his "cumulative argument" for the authority of Rome. It would be as well, however, to go on a little further, and see what was the cause of St. Cyprian's vehement indignation. It was, that Felicissimus ventured _to appeal to Pope Cornelius_, when his cause had already been heard and settled by St. Cyprian, at Carthage. "But what was the cause of their coming and announcing that a Pseudo-Bishop had been made against the Bishops? For, either they are satisfied with what they have done, and persevere in their crime, or, if they are dissatisfied, and give way, they know whither they may return. For, since it has been determined by all of us, and is both equitable and just, that the cause of every one be heard there where the crime has been committed, and _to every shepherd a portion of the flock is allotted, which each one rules and governs, as he is to give an account of his doings to the Lord_, it is certainly behoving that those over whom we preside should not run about, nor break the close harmony of Bishops with their deceitful and fallacious rashness, but should plead their cause where they may find both accusers and witnesses of their crime; _unless to a few desperate and abandoned men the authority of the Bishops seated in Africa seem less_, who have already judged concerning them, and have lately condemned, by the weight of their sentence, their conscience, bound by many