Note 834 — Chapter VIII · THE BISHOP.

This was strongly asserted by Romanus against Cyprian, and never lost sight of by the Roman controversialists, whatever opposition it encountered in other churches. But while Rome really was the first city of the world, it was consonant to the analogy of the other episcopal relations that her prelate should claim the primacy. The founding it either on St. Peter’s peculiar principality, or on pretended decrees of the Roman emperors, was quite a different thing, and an afterthought.