(Updated November 13, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Pope Zosimus.
Next to each quote are the Topic Quote Archives in which they are included.
This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.
Letters
St. Pope Zosimus, Letter to Aurelius, Primate of Africa, and the Council of Carthage (418)1 ***
Although the tradition of the Fathers has assigned so great an authority to he Apostolic See, that no one may venture to call in question its judgment, and has maintained this always by its canons and rules, and though ecclesiastical discipline, as shown in the current of its laws, pays the reverence which it owes to the name of Peter, from whom likewise itself descends: for canonical antiquity, by the judgment of all, hath willed the power of this Apostle to be so great, from the very promise of Christ our God, that he can loose what is bound, and bind what is loosed; and an equal power is given to those who enjoy, with his consent, the inheritance of his See; for he has a care as well for all churches, as especially for this, where he sat. Nor does he permit any blast to shake a privilege or a sentence to which he has given the form and immovable foundation of his own name, which which, without danger to themselves, none may rashly attack. Peter then, being a head of such authority, and the zeal of all our ancestors having further confirmed this, so that the Roman Church is established by all human as well as divine laws and discipline–whose place you are not ignorant that we rule, and hold the power of his name–rather, most dear brethren, you know it, and as Bishops are bound to know it. Such, then, I say, being our authority, that no one can question our sentence, we have done nothing which we have not of our own accord referred in our letters to your knowledge.
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