as above: by which reckoning this dominion of the Church
of _Rome_ was now of 66 years standing: and if in all this time it had not
been sufficiently established, this new Edict was enough to settle it
beyond all question thro'out the _Western Empire_.
Hence all the Bishops of the Province of _Arles_ in their Letter to Pope
_Leo_, A.C. 450, petitioning for a restitution of the privileges of their
Metropolitan, say: _Per beatum Petrum Apostolorum principem, sacrosancta
Ecclesia Romana tenebat supra omnes totius mundi Ecclesias principatum_.
And _Ceratius_, _Salonius_ and _Veranus_, three Bishops of _Gallia_, say,
in their Epistle to the same Pope: _Magna praeterea & ineffabili quadam nos
peculiares tui gratulatione succrescimus, quod illa specialis doctrinae
vestrae pagina ita per omnium Ecclesiarum conventicula celebratur, ut vere
consona omnium sententia declaretur; merito illic principatum Sedis
Apostolicae constitutum, unde adhuc Apostolici spiritus oracula reserentur_.
And _Leo_ himself, in [16] his Epistle to the metropolitan Bishops thro'out
_Illyricum_: _Quia per omnes Ecclesias cura nostra distenditur, exigente
hoc a nobis Domino, qui Apostolicae dignitatis beatissimo Apostolo Petro
primatum, fidei sui remuneratione commisit, universalem Ecclesiam in
fundamenti ipsius soliditate constituens_.
While this Ecclesiastical Dominion was rising up, the northern barbarous
nations invaded the _Western Empire_, and founded several kingdoms therein,
of different religions from the Church of _Rome_.
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