had sent you letters about him, the Episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands laid upon him in the place of Basilides. Nor can it invalidate a rightful ordination, that Basilides, after the detection of his crimes and the laying bare his conscience even by his own confession, going to Rome deceived our colleague Stephen, who was far removed and ignorant of the thing as it was really done, that he might make interest for an unjust restoration to that Episcopate from which he had been rightfully deposed. It comes to this, that the crimes of Basilides have been rather doubled than wiped away, since to his former sins, the crime of deceit and circumvention has been added. _Nor should he be so much blamed, who through negligence was overreached_, as the other execrated, who fraudulently deceived. But if Basilides could overreach men, God he cannot," &c. If the appeal of Basilides to Stephen proves the Roman Primacy, what does the subsequent appeal of the people of Leon, Asturia, and Merida, to Carthage, prove? And if the restoration of Basilides by Stephen, proves that he possessed that power, what does the subsequent pronouncing of that restoration void by Cyprian and his brother Bishops, without even first acquainting Stephen, prove? In truth, all the acts of St. Cyprian's Episcopate, of which we have given several in illustration, are an indisputable assurance to the candid mind that he treated the Roman Pontiff simply as his brother,--his elder brother, indeed,--holding the first see in Christendom, but, individually, as liable to err as himself. And it is equally clear that St. Augustin, a hundred and forty years later, did not censure him for this. What we have seen, is this. In the matter of Fortunatus and Felicissimus, Cyprian rejects with vehement indignation their appeal to Rome: in the case of Marcian of Arles, he writes as an equal to Pope Stephen, almost enjoining him what to do: in the question of rebaptizing heretics, he disregards St. Stephen's judgment, and the anathema which accompanies it; and how strong St. Firmilian's language is we need not repeat, who declares that St. Stephen's excommunication only cut off himself: in the case of Basilides, he deposes afresh one whom Stephen had restored.