The debate then drifted off into a discussion of “the cycle of Anatolius,”[73] and an appeal by Colman to the virtues of Columba and his successors who had kept the Celtic Easter. “Surely,” he pleaded, “the miracles which they had wrought showed that their teaching was acceptable in the sight of God.” “I do not deny,” answered Wilfrid, “that these men of whom you thus speak were God’s servants. I think that if any Catholic calculator had come to them and taught them the better way, they would have obeyed his monitions. And however holy your, or I would rather say our, Columba may have been, however mighty in signs and wonders, can you prefer his authority to that of the blessed Prince of the Apostles, to whom the Lord said, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, and I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven’?” As Wilfrid made this closing quotation the king turned to Colman and said: “Is it true that these words were spoken by the Lord to Peter?” “It is true, O king!” was the answer. “Can you produce any instance of a similar power conferred on your Columba?” “We have none,” answered Colman. Said the king: “Do both parties agree without controversy on this point, that these words were spoken pre-eminently to Peter and that to him the keys of heaven were granted by the Lord?” Both answered: “We do”. Thereupon the king thus announced his conclusion: “Then I say to you that this is the door-keeper whom I am loth to contradict, and whose ordinances I desire to obey to the utmost of my power, lest haply when I arrive at the doors of the kingdom there shall be none to open them unto me if I have lost the favour of him who keeps the keys thereof”.