Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/395

Rh St. Leo the Great, 460, in a discourse on the anniversary of his election to the Pontificate, says, 'If anything in our time and by us is well administered and rightly ordained, it is to be ascribed to his operation and to his government, to whom it was said, "Thou being converted, confirm thy brethren," and to whom after His resurrection, in answer to his threefold declaration of everlasting love, the Lord with mystical meaning thrice said, "Feed my sheep.

St. Gelasius, 496, writes to Honorius, Bishop of Dalmatia, 'Though we are hardly able to draw breath in the manifold difficulties of the times; yet in the government of the Apostolic See we unceasingly have in hand the care of the whole fold of the Lord, which was committed to blessed Peter by the voice of our Saviour Himself, "And thou being converted, confirm thy brethren," and again, " Peter, lovest thou Me? Feed My sheep.

Pelagius II., 590, in like manner writes to the Bishops of Istria, 4 For you know how the Lord in the gospel declares: Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired you that he might sift you as wheat, but I