day of his elevation to the chair of Peter. While Peter himself passes over his preroga- tive in silence, and exj^ressly vp'arns against hierarchical as- sumption,' Leo cannot speak frequently and emphatically enough of his authority. While Peter in Antioch meekly submits to the rebuke of the junior apostle Paul,^ Leo pro- nounces resistance to his authority to be impious pride and the sure way to hell.^ Obedience to the pope is thus necessary to salvation. Whosoever, says he, is not with the apostolic see, that is, with the head of the body, whence all gifts of grace descend throughout the body, is not in the body of the church, and has no part in her grace. This is the fearful but legiti- mate logic of the papal principle, which confines the kingdom of God to the narrow lines of a particular organization, and makes the universal spiritual reign of Christ dependent on a temporal form and a human organ. But in its very first application this papal ban proved itself a hrutiwi Kidmen, when in spite of it the Galilean archbishop Hilary, against whom it was directed, died universally esteemed and loved, and then was canonized. This very impracticability of that principle, which would exclude all Greek and Protestant Christians from the kingdom of heaven, is a refutation of the principle itself. In carrying his idea of the papacy into effect, Leo displayed the cunning tact, the diplomatic address, and the iron consist- ency which characterize the greatest popes of the middle age. The circumstances in general were in his favor : the East rent by dogmatic controversies ; Africa devastated by the barbari- ' 1 ret. V. 3. = Gal. ii. 11. ^ Ep. X. c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. p. 634 ; ed. Migne, vol. 54, p. 630), to the Gallican bishops in the matter of Hilary: "Cui (sc. Petro) quisquis priucipatum festiniat denegandum, illius quidem nullo modo potest minuere dignitatem ; sed injfatus K2nritu supcrhia suce semetipmm in inferna demergit." Comp. Ep. clxiv. 3 ; elvii. 3. 320 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590, axis ; tlie West weak in a weak emperor ; uowliere a powerful and pure bishop or divine, like Athanasius, Angiistine, or Jerome, in tlie former generation ; the overthrow of the West- ern empire at hand ; a new age breaking, with new peoples, for whose childhood the papacy was just the needful school ; the most numerous and last important general council con- vened ; and the system of ecumenical orthodoxy ready to be closed with the decision concerning the relation of the two natures in Christ. Leo first took "advantage of the distractions of the ITorth African church under the Arian Vandals, and wrote to its bishops in the tone of an acknowledged over-shepherd. Under the stress of the times, and in the absence of a towering char- acter like Cyprian and Augustine, the Africans submitted to his authority (443). He banished the remnants of the Mani- chseans and Pelagians from