Note (return) — Chapter IV · —COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, EPHESUS, AND THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON

The circumstances of the Church Catholic, as represented in Leo's letter in the fifth century, and the circumstances of the Church of Rome, as lamented by the present Pope in 1832124, are in many respects very similar. The end desired by Leo and Flavianus, his brother pastor and contemporary, Bishop of Constantinople, and by Gregory, now Bishop of Rome, is one and the same, namely, the suppression of heresy, the prevalence of the truth, and the unity of the Christian Church. But how widely and how strikingly different are the foundations on which they respectively build their hopes for the attainment of that end!