and a passage in Leo's Ep. 31, c. 4, where he assigns among the reasons for not attending the council at Enhesus in 449, that he could not " deserere patriam et sedem apos- tolicam." Pairia, however, may as well mean Italy, or at least the diocese of Rome, including the ten suburbican provinces. In the Liber pontificalis he is called "natioue Tusciis," but in two manuscript copies, "natioue Homanus.''^ Canisius, in the Acta Sanctorum, adopts the former view. Butler reconciles the difficulty by supposing that he was descended of a noble Tuscan family, but born at Eome. § 63. LEO THE GREAT. 317 to the interests of Christianity. But with him the interests of Christianity were identical with the universal dominion of the Rpman church. He was animated with the unwavering conviction tliat the Lord himself had committed to him, as the successor of Peter, the care of the whole church.' He anticipated all tlie dog- matical arguments by which the power of the papacy was subsequently established. He refers the jpetra^ on whicli the church is built, to Peter and his confession. Though Christ himself — to sum up his views on the subject — is in the highest sense the rock and foundation, besides which no other can be laid, yet, by transfer of his authority, the Lord made Peter the rock in virtue of his great confession, and built on him the indestructible temple of his church. In Peter the fundamental relation of Christ to his church comes, as it w^ere, to concrete form and reality m history. To him specially and individually the Lord intrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven ; to the other apostles only in their general and corporate capacity. For the faith of Peter the Lord specially prayed in the hour of his passion, as if the standing of the other apostles would be the firmer, if the mind of their leader remained unconquered. On Peter rests the steadfastness of the whole apostolic college in the faith. To him the Lord, after his resurrection, commit- ted the care of his sheep and lambs. Peter is therefore the pastor and prince of the whole church, through wdiom Christ exercises his universal dominion on earth. This primacy, how- ever, is not limited to the apostolic age, but, like the faith of Peter, and like the church herself, it pei-petuates itself; and it perpetuates itself through the bishops of Rome, who are re- lated to Peter as Peter was related to Christ. As Christ in Peter, so Peter in his successors lives and speaks and perpetu- ally executes the commission : " Feed my sheep." It was by ' Ep. V. ad Episcopos Metrop. per Dlyricum constitutos, c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. 617, in Migne's Patristic Libr. vol. liv. p. 515): "Quia per omnes ecclesias cura nostra dis- tenditur, exigente hoc a nobis Domino, qui apostolicas dignitatis beatissimo apostolo Petro primatum fidei suae remuneratione commisit, universalem ecclesiam in funda- menti ipsiu3 [Quesnel proposes