C. i. No layman, whether emperor or noble, shall interfere with the election or promotion of a patriarch, metropolitan, or bishop, lest there should arise some unseemly disturbance or contention; especially since it is not fitting that any layman or person in secular authority should have any authority in such matters.... If any emperor or nobleman, or layman of any other rank, opposes the canonical election of any member of the clergy, let him be anathema until he yields and accepts the clear will of the church in the election and ordination of the bishop.

(From the twenty-second canon of the eighth synod of Constantinople, 869; Mansi, XVI, 174 f.)

34. The Pope must be Chosen from the Cardinal Clergy of Rome, 769.

Enactment of a Latin council held by Stephen III, 769, Cor. Jur. Can., Dist. LXXIX. (See also Mansi, XII, 719.)

C. iii. It is necessary that our mistress the holy Roman Catholic church be governed properly, and in accordance with the precedents established by St. Peter and his successors, and that the pope be chosen from the cardinal priests or cardinal deacons. C. iv. No one, whether layman or clergyman, shall presume to be made pope unless he has risen through the regular grades[{57}] at least to the rank of cardinal deacon or has been made a cardinal priest.

{57} The grades are given as follows in the Cor. Jur. Can., Dist. LXXVII, c. i. The candidate for the office of bishop must first have been doorkeeper (ostiarius), then reader (lector), then exorcist (exorcista), then consecrated as an acolyte (acolythus), then subdeacon (subdiaconus), then deacon (diaconus), then priest (presbyter), and then if he is elected he may be ordained bishop. The law expressed in chap. iii, so thoroughly in the interests of the ambitious clergy of Rome, was not long observed, for it frequently happened that the bishop of some other city was chosen pope. But it was in accord with previous legislation. The church had early declared against the removal of a clergyman from one congregation to another. Thus the council of Nicæa, 325, in its fifteenth canon (cf. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, I, pp. 418 f), "forbids bishops, priests, and deacons to move from one town (congregation) to another, because such a practice is against the rule of the church and has often caused disturbances and divisions between congregations. If any bishop, priest, or deacon disobeys this command and removes to another congregation, his action shall be illegal, and he shall be sent back to the congregation which he was serving."

35. The Petrine Theory as Stated by Leo I, 440–61.

Migne, 64.

Leo I (440–61) made frequent use of the Petrine theory. In brief this theory is that to Peter as the prince of the apostles was committed the supreme power over the church. To him the keys were intrusted in a special manner. In this consisted his primacy, his superiority over the other apostles. This primacy or first rank he communicated to his successors, the bishops of Rome, who, by virtue of being his successors, held the same primacy over the church and over all other bishops as Peter held over the other apostles. The passage on which this theory is based is found in Matt. 16:18 f: "And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

We offer the following detached passages from the works of Leo I to illustrate his conception of the theory.