claims are overwhelmed with compliments. A decretal of Innocent I
(402-417) begins as follows:--

"Very dear brother, the Church's rules of life and conduct are well
known to a priest of your merit and dignity. But since you have urgently
inquired of us concerning the rule which the Roman Church prescribes, we
bow to your desire and herewith send you our rules of discipline,
arranged in order."

On the other hand, no opportunity is lost of calling attention to the
Roman primacy. Pope Siricius (384-398) writes in one of his letters: "We
bear the burdens of all who are oppressed; it is the Apostle Peter who
speaks in our person." Through the more confidential and domestic
utterances of these Popes there runs a vein of haughty self-assertion.
In the homilies of Leo I (440-461) the text _Tu es Petrus_ rings
like a trumpet note; here we have the Roman ruler communing with his
Roman people, the pride of empire taking a new shape amidst the ruins of
that secular empire which the pagan Romans of the past had built up.

In the general chaos produced by the barbarian migrations the
consequence of the Papacy, as compared with that of other Western sees,
was considerably enhanced by various causes: by the ruin of Carthage,
the most unsparing of her critics; by the progressive deterioration of
the other churches, which was most marked in those provinces where the
barbarians were most readily converted; by the rising tide of ignorance,
which overwhelmed all rival conceptions of Christendom and blotted out
the past history of the Church. So great was this ignorance that
Innocent I could claim, without much fear of contradiction, that "no man
has founded any church in Italy, Sicily, Gaul, Spain, or Africa,
excepting those whom Peter and his successors have ordained as priests."