istius for ipsius^ soliditate constituens, necessitatem soUicitudinis quam habemus, cura his qui nobis coUegii caritate juncti sunt, soci- am us." 318 THIKD PEKIOD, A.D. 311-590. special direction of divine providence, that Peter labored and died in Rome, and sleej)s with thousands of blessed martyrs in holy ground. The centre of worldly empire alone can be the centre of the kingdom of God. Yet the political position of Rome would be of no importance without the religious con- siderations. By Peter was Rome, which had been the centre of all error and superstition, transformed into the metropolis of the Christian world, and invested with a spiritual dominion far wider than her former earthly empire. Hence the bishop- ric of Constantinople, not being a sedes apostolica, but resting its dignity on a political basis alone, can never rival the Roman, whose primacy is rooted both in divine and human right. Antioch also, where Peter only transiently resided, and Alexandria, where he planted the church through his dis- ciple Mark, stand only in a secondary relation to Rome, where his bones repose, and where that was completed, which in the East was only laid out. The Roman bishop is, therefore, the jprimus omnium ejpiscojporumj^ and on him devolves the J?Ze?i^- tudo 2)otestaiis^ the solicitudo omnium pastorum.^ and communis cura universalis eccleske.^ Leo thus made out of a primacy of grace and of personal fitness a primacy of right and of succession. Of his person, indeed, he speaks in his sermons with great humility, but only thereby the more to exalt his official character. He tells the Romans, that the true celebration of the anniversary of his accession is, to recognize, honor, and obey, in his lowly person, Peter himself, who still cares for shepherd and flock, and whose dignity is not lacking even to his unworthy heir." ' These views Leo repeatedly expresses in his sermons on the festival of St. Peter and on the anniversary of his own elevation, as well as in his official letters to the African, Illyrian, and South Gallic bishops, to Dioscurus of Alexandria, to the patri- arch Anatolius of Constantinople, to the emperor Marcian and the empress Pulcheria. Particular proof passages are unnecessary. Comp. especially Ep. x., xi., xii., xiv., civ.-cvi. (cd. Bailer.), and Perthel, 1. c. p. 226-241, where the chief passages an- given in full. - "Cujus dignitas etiam in indigno haerede non deficit," Sermo iii. in Nardil, ordiu. c. 4 (vol. i. p. 13, ed. Ball.). "Etsi neeessarium est trepidare de meritc, religio^um est tamen gaudere de done : quoniara qui mihi oiifris est auctor, ipse est admiuistiationis adjutor." Serm, ii. c. 1. § G3. LEO THE GREAT. 319 Here, tlierefore, we already liave that characteristic coTnbiiia- tion of humility and arrogance, which has stereotyped itself in the expressions : " Servant of the servants of God," " vicar of Christ," and even "God npon earth." In this double con- sciousness of his personal unworthiness and his official exalta- tion, Leo annually celebrated the