But it was reserved for a more celebrated controversy, fully to bring out St. Cyprian's view of the relation of the Bishop of Rome to the rest of the Episcopal body: I mean, of course, the controversy whether heretics should be admitted into the Church by rebaptization or by the imposition of hands. I most fully believe, be it observed, that Cyprian acknowledged the Roman Primacy, that he admitted certain high prerogatives to be lodged in the Roman Pontiff, as St. Peter's successor, which did not belong to any other Bishop. It is this very thing which makes his conduct the more remarkable. He took a very strong view on one side of the controversy in question: and St. Stephen took an equally strong one on the other. St. Stephen, we all know, turned out to be right. That fervent Pontiff, it may be remarked, when St. Cyprian would not give up his view, seemed inclined to treat him much as St. Gregory the Seventh did a refractory Emperor, or St. Innocent the Third, the dastard tyrant John. This may be very satisfactory to the modern defenders of Papal omnipotence, but St. Cyprian's conduct is not so at all. St. Cyprian called a Council of Bishops of the provinces of Carthage and Numidia; they attended to the number of seventy-one, and decided that heretics should be rebaptized. St. Cyprian informs the Pope of the decision of himself and his colleagues. After saying that they had found it necessary to hold a council, he proceeds--[18]"But I thought I ought to write to you and confer with your gravity and wisdom concerning that especially which most belongs to the authority of the priesthood, and to the unity alike and dignity of the Catholic Church derived from the ordering of a Divine disposition.... This, most dear Brother, we have brought to your knowledge on account both of the honour we share with you, and of our single-hearted affection, believing that what is both religious and true is acceptable to you also according to your true religion and faith. But we know that some are unwilling to give up an opinion they have once imbibed, nor easily change their mind; but, without interruption to the bonds of peace and concord with their colleagues, retain certain peculiarities which have once grown into usage among themselves." (Such is the manner in which St. Cyprian mentions a judgment deliberately expressed by a Pope on a matter of high discipline, which involved a point of faith.) "In which matter we too do violence and give the law to no one, inasmuch as _every Bishop has the free choice of his own will in the administration of the Church, as he will give an account of his acts to the Lord_." St. Stephen received this decision of the African Council so ill, that he would not even see the Bishops who brought it, nor allow the faithful to offer them common hospitality. So important in his eyes was the matter in dispute. St. Cyprian reports his answer in a letter to his Brother-Bishop