Romans 1:8 - A continuing witness to the Church of Rome

[PluniaZ]

“First I give thanks to my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, because your faith is spoken of in the whole world.” Romans 1:8

biblehub.com/interlinear/romans/1-8.htm

This seemingly innocuous Bible verse, rarely discussed today, was highly regarded in the first millennium as a continuing witness to the primacy and infallibility of the Church of Rome.

Saint Cyprian of Carthage, c. AD 250 - “After such things as these, moreover, they still dare— a false bishop having been appointed for them by, heretics— to set sail and to bear letters from schismatic and profane persons to the throne of Peter, and to the chief church whence priestly unity takes its source; and not to consider that these were the Romans whose faith was praised in the preaching of the apostle, to whom faithlessness could have no access.”

newadvent.org/fathers/050654.htm

At the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Tarasius the Patriarch of Constantinople said: The divine Apostle Paul, who was filled with the light of Christ, and who has begotten us through the gospel, in writing to the Romans, commending their zeal for the true faith which they had in Christ our true God, thus said: Your faith has gone forth into all the world. It is necessary to follow out this witness, and he that would contradict it is without good sense."

newadvent.org/fathers/3819.htm

 

[PluniaZ]

I also found this from a letter of Theodoret, bishop of Cyrus, to Pope Leo I:

If Paul, the herald of the Truth, the trumpet of the Holy Ghost, had recourse to the great Peter, in order to obtain a decision from him for those at Antioch who were disputing about living by the Law, much more do we small and humble folk run to the Apostolic See to get healing from you for the sores of the churches. For it is fitting that you should in all things have the pre-eminence, seeing that your See possesses many peculiar privileges. For other cities get a name for size or beauty or population, and some that are devoid of these advantages are compensated by certain spiritual gifts: but your city has the fullest abundance of good things from the Giver of all good. For she is of all cities the greatest and most famous, the mistress of the world and teeming with population. And besides this she has created an empire which is still predominant and has imposed her own name upon her subjects. But her chief decoration is her Faith, to which the Divine Apostle is a sure witness when he exclaims your faith is proclaimed in all the world; and if immediately after receiving the seeds of the saving Gospel she bore such a weight of wondrous fruit, what words are sufficient to express the piety which is now found in her? She has, too, the tombs of our common fathers and teachers of the Truth, Peter and Paul , to illumine the souls of the faithful. And this blessed and divine pair arose indeed in the East, and shed its rays in all directions, but voluntarily underwent the sunset of life in the West, from whence now it illumines the whole world. These have rendered your See so glorious: this is the chief of all your goods. And their See is still blest by the light of their God’s presence, seeing that therein He has placed your Holiness to shed abroad the rays of the one true Faith.

clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/index.htm