A Revision of Two Letters from George Morley, Bishop of Winchester, to Jan van Vliet

It is evident, therefore, that the custom of the Britons was not derived from the East, but from Rome, for they celebrated the Sunday Resurrection with the fast broken only on the Lord's Day, which was observed at Rome. Moreover, the error of those Britons was born from the mere ignorance of the Paschal Cycle, that they did not know the following Sunday was to be expected when the fourteenth day of the moon concurred with a Sunday, in which alone they differed from the Romans.

Hence, if any argument can be deduced from the observance of the Paschal festivity to show where the first Briton Apostles came from, it will show they came from Rome rather than from anywhere else.

It is also false, which you assume elsewhere, that the Right of the Pontiff to govern a nation is founded solely on the conversion of that nation. For that right, that power, and that jurisdiction was given by Christ the Lord to Blessed Peter along with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, when He created Peter the guardian of His sheepfold, the Pastor of which he is, and His Vicar on earth. Whence, by whatever means anyone is illuminated by the light of the Faith and is admitted into the bosom of the Church, he is subjected to the spiritual power of Christ's Vicar, and, like a sheep, is bound to hear the voice of its Pastor and to obey him in spiritual matters.

Finally, if conversion founds a right, this also counts for the Supreme Pontiff in England under that title. For the Gospel was not announced to the English by the Britons who were Christians before, but by Augustine and others sent from Rome by Blessed Gregory I; who have always been held as the true Apostles of our nation. Many and great were the services of the Roman Church to the Britannic Church itself, since the English newcomers submitted their necks to the sweet yoke of Christ through the work of the Roman Missionaries, from which the Britannic Church has its Hierarchy. Whence the entire Britannic Church, as great as it is, is the daughter of the Roman, and whatever observance, obedience, and love a daughter owes to a pious and indulgent mother, all of that the Britannic owes to the Roman.

You see, I suppose, most learned Morley, how much this Apodictic argument of yours labors, if it pleases God. The authority of the holy Apostolic See over Britain will remain firm and stable as long as it is not shaken by other battering rams.