Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/384



378 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

" It is evident Jo all who know the Gospel that the charge of the whole Church was committed to St. Peter, the apostle and prince of all the apostles, by the word of the Lord. . . . Behold! he hath received the keys of the heavenly kingdom â€” the power of binding and loosing is conferred upon him: the care of the whole government of the Church is confided to him." *

It was necessary that a government of this kind, since it belongs to the constitution and formation of the Church, as its principal element â€” that is as the principle of unity and the foundation of lasting stability â€” should in no wise come to an end with St. Peter, but should pass to his successors from one to another. "There remains, there- fore, the ordinance of truth, and St. Peter, persevering in the strength of the rock which he had received, hath not abandoned the government of the Church which had been confided to him." ^ For this reason th e Pontiffs who .succeed Peter in the Roman Episcopate recgLyejbhe.su- preme power in the Church, jure divino. "We define" (declare the Fathers of the Council of Florence) "that the Holy and Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff holds thÂ« primacy of the Church throughout the whole world: and that the same Roman Pontiff is the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and the true Vicar of Christ, the head of the whole Church, and the father and teacher of all Christians; and that full power was given to him, in blessed Peter, by Our Lord Jesus Christ to feed, to rule, and to govern the universal Church, as is also contained in the acts of oecumencial councils and in the sacred canons," ^ Similarly the Fourth Council of Lateran declares: "The Roman Church, as the mother and mistress of all the faithful, by the will of Christ ob- tains primacy of jurisdiction over all other Churches." These declarations were preceded by the consent of an- tiquity which ever acknowledged, without the slightest


 * Epist. lib. V. Epist. xx ^ S. Leo M. sermo iii., cap. 3.

^ Cone. Florentinum.