Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe it, because he had always observed it" [a certain custom] "with John the disciple of our Lord, and the rest of the Apostles with whom he associated; and neither did Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe, who said that he was bound to maintain the practice of the presbyters before him. Which thing being so, they communed with each other; and in the church Anicetus yielded to Polycarp the office of consecrating." And thus, though following different usages, all remained in the communion of the Church. "And not only to Victor, but likewise to the most of the other rulers of the churches, he sent letters of exhortation on the agitated question."[1]
Thus Victor could not, of his own authority, cut off from the Church, in fact, those whom he had declared excommunicate; the other Bishops resisted him vigorously, and St. Irenæus, the great divine of the age, made war in his letters upon those which Victor had written to provoke the schism.
This discussion, invoked by the partisans of Papal pretensions in their favor, falls back upon them with all its weight, and with a force that can not in good faith be contested.
Anicetus did not invoke his authority against Polycarp, nor did Victor against Irenæus and the other Bishops. Polycarp and Irenæus reasoned and wrote as equals of the Bishop of Rome in Episcopal authority, and recognized but one rule — ancient tradition.
How were the Churches reünited in a common practice? Eusebius thus relates that happy result, which certainly was not due to the Bishop of Rome:[2]
"The Bishops, indeed, of Palestine, Narcissus and Theophilus, and Cassius with them, the Bishop of the Church at Tyre, and Clarus of Ptolemais, and those that
