ried these bodies as far as the second mile stone, and deposited them in the place called the Catacombs. But when they would have taken them up, to continue their journey, the thunder and lightning threw those who attempted it into such a panic that no one has ever again dared to attempt their removal."[1]
It is not our business to discuss the truth of this story; but one truth may be clearly inferred from this recital, namely, that the Eastern people could claim the body of St. Peter because he was of their country, and that the Romans never dreamed of answering that his body belonged by a better title to them, because he had been, their bishop.
Thus the doctrine of Gregory the Great upon the Church destroys, piece by piece, the whole Papal system. We defy the Romanists to find in the writings of this great Pope a single word which gives any idea of that universal monarchy whose centre is in the Church of Rome, and whose sovereign the bishop of that city. This doctrine runs utterly counter to that of St. Gregory. According to him, the unity of the Church results from the reciprocal relations of its chiefs. "May your piety," he wrote to Anastasius, Archbishop of Corinth, "reply to our letters in which we have notified him of our ordination, and by replying (litteris reciprocis) give us the pleasure of knowing that the Church is united."
He defines the "unity of the Catholic Church" as "the totality (compago) of the body of Christ."[2] He does not swerve from this: the individual churches are the members of the church; each church is governed by its pastors; the authority is the same, of divine right, in all the pastors of the Church; the whole edifice is supported upon the see of St. Peter; that is, upon the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, which
