snares of crimes. Their cause has been already heard, their sentence already pronounced; nor is it becoming to the judgment of priests to be reprehended by the levity of a fickle and inconstant mind, when the Lord teaches and says, 'Let your conversation be yea, yea; nay, nay.'" Let any candid person say, whether he who so wrote to one whom he acknowledged as the successor of St. Peter, could have imagined that there was a Divine right in that successor to re-hear not only this, but all other causes; to reverse all previous judgments of his Brethren by his single authority; nay, more, to confer on all those Brethren their jurisdiction "by the grace of the Apostolic See."[15] Another letter of St. Cyprian to another Pope, St. Stephen, will set forth both his view of the Primacy, and of the Episcopal relation to it. He wishes St. Stephen to write a letter to the people of Arles, by which their actual Bishop Marcian, who had joined himself to the schismatic Novatian, might be excommunicated, and another substituted for him. This alone shows how great the authority of the Bishop of Rome in such an emergency was. But the tone of his language is worth considering. It is just such incidents as these which are made use of by Roman Catholic controversialists in late times to justify the full extent of Papal power now claimed.[16] "Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. Faustinus, our colleague at Lyons, dearest brother, hath more than once written to me, signifying what I know has certainly been reported to you also, both by him, and by the rest of our brother-Bishops, in that province, that Marcian of Arles, has joined himself to Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic Church, and from the agreement of our body and priesthood.... This matter it is our duty to provide against and remedy, most dear brother, we, who considering the Divine clemency, and holding the balance of the Church's government, so exhibit to sinners our vigorous censure as not to deny the medicine of Divine goodness and mercy to the restoration of the fallen and the healing of the wounded. Wherefore it behoves you to write a very explicit letter to our fellow Bishops in the Gauls, that they may not any longer suffer our order (_collegio nostro_) to be insulted by Marcian, obstinate, haughty, the enemy both of piety to God, and of his brethren's salvation.... For, therefore, most dear brother, is the numerous body of priests joined together in mutual concord, and the bond of unity, that _if any one of our order_ attempt to make a heresy, and to sever and lay waste the flock of Christ, the rest may fly to the rescue, and, like useful and merciful shepherds, collect the Lord's sheep into a flock.... For, although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock; and we ought to collect and cherish all those sheep which Christ sought with His own blood and passion.... For we must preserve the glorious honour _of our predecessors_,