Page:The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII.djvu/393



THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 387

exercised during His mortal life. Can the Apostolic Col- lege be said to have been above its master in authority? This power over the Episcopal College to which we re- fer^ and which is cleariy set forth in holy writ, has ever been acknowledged and attested by the Church, as is clear from the teaching of General Councils. "We read that the Roman Pontiff has pronounced judgments on the prelates of all the churches; we do not read that anybody has pronounced sentence on him." * The reason for which is stated thus: "there is no authority greater than that of the Apostolic See," ^ Wherefore Gelasius on the decrees of Councils says: "That which the First See has not ap- proved of cannot stand; but what it has thought well to decree has been received by the whole Church." ' It has ever been unquestionably the office of the Roman Pontiffs to ratify or to reject the decrees of Councils. Leo the Great rescinded the acts of the Conciliabulum of Ephesus. Damasus rejected those of Rimini, and Hadrian I. those of Constantinople. The twenty-eighth canon of the Council of Chalcedon, by the very fact that it lacks the assent and approval of the Apostolic See, is admitted by all to be worthless. Rightly, therefore, has Leo X. laid dovm in the fifth Council of Lateran "that the Roman Pontiff alone, as having authority over all Councils, has full jurisdiction and power to summon, to transfer, to dissolve Councils, as is clear, not only from the testimony of holy writ, from the teaching of the Fathers and of the Roman Pontiffs, and from the decrees of the sacred canons, but from the teaching of the very Councils them- selves." Indeed, hoty writ attests that the keys of the kingdom of heaven' were given to Peter alone, and that

' Hadrianus ii., in Allocutione iii., ad Synodum Romanum an. 869. Cf. Actionem Adi., Cone. Constantinopolitani iv.

^ Nicolaus in Epist. Ixxxvi. ad Michael. Imperat. " It is evident that the judgment of the Apostolic See, than which there is no anthority greater, may be rejected by no one, nor is it lawful for any one to pass judgment on its judgment."

^ Epist. xx\a., ad Episcopos Dardaniae, n. &