adore Jesus Christ, and observe one and the same rule of truth. If one is looking for authority, the world is greater than one city. Wherever there is a Bishop, be he at Rome or at Eugubium, at Constantinople or at Rhegium, at Alexandria or at Tanis, he has the same authority, the same merit, because he has the same priesthood. The power that riches give, and the low estate to which poverty reduces, render a Bishop neither greater nor less."
It cannot be more distinctly stated that the rule of truth dwells only in the entire episcopal body, and not at Rome; that the Bishop of Rome is no more, as bishop, than the humblest bishop of the Church; that the power he possessed because of his riches, did not make him superiour to the rest. One might almost think that St. Jerome exerted himself, in all his works, to refute his own letters to Damasus.
But, say the Roman theologians, the papal prerogatives were so well recognized, that even the heretic Jovinian mentions them. And, in fact, in order to prove to St. Jerome that the estate of marriage was superior to that of virginity, he says: "St. John was a virgin, and St. Peter was married; why, then, did Christ prefer St. Peter to St. John to build his Church on him?" The Romanists stop here, but do not give us St. Jerome's answer to Jovinian — a proceeding not creditable to their good faith, as we shall see. Here is St. Jerome's answer:[1] "If he chose Peter rather than John for this honourable distinction, it was that it was more expedient not to confer it upon a young man, nay a child, as John was, in order to excite no jealousy. But if Peter be an Apostle, so is John also. The one is married, the other is virgin; but Peter is only an Apostle, and John is an Apostle, an Evangelist, and a Prophet."
St. Jerome could not have reasoned thus, if he had had
- ↑ S. Hieron. Lib. I. adv. Jovin.
