Note 13 — CHAP. I.

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, says of St. Stephen, Bishop of Rome:—"Magis ac magis ejus errorem denotabis, qui hæreticorum causam contra Christianos et contra Ecclesiam Dei asserere conatur ... qui unitatem et veritatem de divina lege venientem non tenens.... Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas erroris est." (Epist. 74.) "You will more and more observe the error of him who is trying to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians and against the Church of God ... who not holding the unity and truth which come by the Divine law.... Custom without truth is the antiquity of error."... Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, also says after the middle of the third century: "Eos autem qui Romæ sunt, non ea in omnibus observare quæ sunt ab origine tradita, et frustra auctoritatem apostolorum prætendere.... Cæterum nos veritati et consuetudinem jungimus, et consuetudini Romanorum, consuetudinem sed veritatis opponimus; ab initio hoc tenentes quod a Christo et ab apostolo traditum est." (Cypr. Ep. 75.) "But they do not in all things observe what was originally delivered, and in vain pretend the authority of the apostles.... But we (the Bishops of the Churches of Asia, more ancient than those of Rome) to truth join custom also, and to the custom of the Romans oppose custom, but the custom of truth, holding from the beginning what was delivered by Christ and an apostle." These testimonies are of great weight.