"By this is understood the letter of the Emperor Valentinian to the Emperor Theodosius: 'We ought to defend with all devotion, and preserve in our times uninjured, the dignity of the veneration due to the blessed Apostle Peter: so that the most blessed Bishop of the Roman city may have power to judge concerning the faith and Bishops.' Not, however, alone, but with the condition added by the Emperor, 'That the aforesaid Bishop,' at least, in those causes which touch the faith and the universal state of the Church, 'may give sentence after assembling the Priests from the whole world.' That is, by a common decree, as both Leo himself had demanded, and as we have seen done in the Council itself. "With the same view, the Empress Pulcheria writes to Leo concerning assembling the Bishops, 'who,' she says, 'when the Council is made, shall decree, at your instance, concerning the Catholic confession, and concerning Bishops.' "The Emperors Valentinian and Marcian write the same to Leo: that, 'by the Council to be held,' every thing should be done at his instance: first laying this down, that he 'possessed the first rank in the Episcopate, as to faith.' "Hence it is very plainly evident, that, in the usual order, both the Pope should have the initiative, and the Bishops sitting with him should be judges; and that the force of an irreversible decree lies in agreement: the very thing to which the Empress Pulcheria bears witness, in her letter to Strategus the Consular, who was ordered to protect the Council from all violence: 'that the holy Council, holding its sittings with all discipline, what has been revealed by the Lord Christ should be confirmed in common by all, without any disturbance, and with agreement.' "Meanwhile, it is evident that proceedings are at the instance of the Pontiff, yet so that the force of the decree lies, not in the sole authority of the Pontiff, which no one then imagined, but in the consent itself and approval of the Council: and that the Fathers and the Council decree together, judge together, and the sentence of the Council is the sentence of the Pope; which, when the consent of the Churches is added, is then held to be irreversible and final, which is all I demand.