Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/183

Rh Andrew, and John, other than the heads of separate communities? And all, nevertheless, exist only as members under the one head.’ ”

Thus wrote a great Roman Bishop, five centuries after the Apostle Peter, of the dignity which appertained to him and his successors in the chair of the Roman Bishops.

But even the rank of supreme pastor of the Christian community permitted by Gregory to Peter, and to his successors in the Roman chair, appears unfounded, when we read the history of the earliest church, in the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of Peter. From these sources, it appears evident, that the Apostles did not ascribe to Peter any other dignity than was possessed by the rest; and, that Peter did not claim any such for himself. This is clearly shown the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of Peter. And if this Peter could now make his appearance on the earth, it would be most assuredly as a Protestant against his Roman representative. It is then clear that the first disciples and friends of Christ did not understand Christ's words to Peter as the Roman church explains them; and, that this explanation is founded in the circumstances which must not be looked for in the Word of God, and those writings which preserve it. By the light which history and its honest inquirers have thrown upon past ages, it is not difficult to discover these circumstances, and to understand how fruitless would be the noble combat of Gregory the Great, against the unrighteous