"Would to God, beloved brother, you had condescended to be present at this spectacle! We think that the sentence given against them would have been still more overwhelming, and, if you had given judgment with us, we would have experienced a still greater joy; but you could not leave those places where the apostles still preside, and where their blood renders a continual witness to the glory of God.
"Well-beloved brother, we have not thought it necessary to confine ourselves solely to the business for which we assembled, but have also considered the necessities of our respective provinces; and we send you our ordinances, that through you, who have the greatest authority, they may become universally known."
It is generally claimed in the West, that by these last words, the Council of Arles recognized the universal authority of the Bishop of Rome. But it is not sufficiently remembered that this council was held without any coöperation on the part of that bishop; that he did not preside; that in the letter of the Fathers, no mention is made of his authority, among the motives that caused them to condemn the Donatists; that they do not wait for his approbation or confirmation in order to proclaim their disciplinarian ordinances; that they merely apprize him of them, in order that, since in his position of bishop of an apostolic see he had the greatest authority, he might make them known to all.
This only proves that the Bishop of Rome was recognized as the first in the West, because of the apostolic authority and of dignity of his see; that he was thus the natural medium between the West and the apostolic sees of the East. To find more than this in the words of the Council of Arles would be to distort them. It suffices to notice, that this council, convoked without the Bishop of Rome, acted independently, and that it confirmed a sentence of a council of Rome at which the Pope presided, to
