Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/510

Rh 490 P P E D M Creation of the alike razed to the ground by Titus (70 A.D.), much of the reverence which had belonged to Jerusalem was transferred to Rome. In relation to the episcopal office itself, again, it is to be noted that the general conception of its func tions underwent, at this period, considerable change. On this point a passage in Jerome (Ad Tit., i. 7) is of special significance. He here expressly attributes the institution of the episcopal order to the necessity which had arisen of repressing the numerous schisms in the church ; and he goes on to observe that bishops would consequently do well to bear in mind that their office, with its involved authority over presbyters, was to be regarded rather as the result of custom and tradition than of divine appointment. As regards any special supremacy attaching to the Roman episcopate, the evidence afforded by another passage in Jerome is not less notable. In one of his most important letters (Ad Rusticum ; Migne, Patrol., xxii. 932) he fully recognizes the expediency and value of a central supreme authority, vested in a single individual. In support of his position he adduces examples from the animal kingdom, from the imperial power, from the judicial power, from the military power, and then goes on to say, &quot;so again each church has its one bishop, its one arch-presbyter, its one archdeacon, every ecclesiastical grade relying on its leader,&quot; but to the clenching example, derivable from the supreme pontiff himself, no reference is made. It seems, accordingly, an inevitable inference that by one of the greatest of the Latin fathers, writing at the close of the 4th century, the Koman theory of the popedom was unrecognized. But the circumstance which perhaps most conduced to the acceptance of the papal pretensions was the creation of a new office in the ecclesiastical organiza tion, that of the metropolitan. So long as Christianity of was the religion only of an obscure sect, or of a persecuted politan. minority in the Roman state, lying also under the suspi cion of political disaffection, it probably sought to avoid attracting further attention to itself by any elaborate attempt at organization. At the same time the political organization of the empire, from its Jong established and universally recognized territorial divisions, its system of intercommunication, and its arrangement of the executive power, must have obviously seemed to furnish the most practicable outlines for the administration of a great and growing ecclesiastical community. The chief cities or metropoleis of the several Roman provinces were accord ingly from the first selected as the seats of the principal Christian churches Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, and Thessalonica respectively representing the chief ecclesias tical centres of Syria, Achaia, Asia, and Macedonia. And when, again, under Constantine and his successors, the distribution of civil authority was further modified by the creation of four patriarchates, subdivided into twelve &quot;dioceses &quot;or major provinces, these changes were soon followed by corresponding modifications on the part of the church organization. In this manner we are able to understand how it is that we find the bishop of Rome successively assuming, as in the pontificates of Fabianus and Cornelius, the more extended authority of a metro politan, 1 and, as in the days of Julius 1. and Siricius, the authority of a patriarch. But no external event exercised a more potent influence on the early history of the Roman Church than the Removal removal of the seat of imperial power to Constantinople tb rial ( 330 ) For more tlian a century from that event it was courtTo not a littl e doubtful whether the patriarch of &quot;Nova Constan- Roma &quot; might not succeed in asserting an authority to tinople. which even the Western pontiff might be compelled to In the canons of the council of Nicaea (325) the authority of a metropolitan is distinctly recognized, and in those of the council of Antioch (341) it is denned with greater precision. defer. It became accordingly an object of primary importance with the latter to dissociate as far as possible in the mind of Christendom the notion of an ecclesiastical supremacy derived, like that at Constantinople, mainly from the political importance of the capital from the con ception of that supremacy which he himself claimed as the representative of the inalienable authority and privileges conferred on St Peter and his successors. For such a policy an additional motive was created by the predilection shown by Constantine for his new capital, and the convic tion which he is said to have entertained that the days of ancient Rome were numbered. 2 From henceforth it was the key-note to the utterances of the Roman primate that his supremacy, as a tradition from apostolic times, could never depart from him and his successors, and that, as representing the authority of the two chief apostles, it had claims upon the obedience and reverence of the whole Christian church such as no other apostolica sedes could produce. To the ultimate assertion of these pre- Rome tensions the long and fierce struggle carried on between C0111 s the followers of Arius and the supporters of orthodoxy ^ materially contributed. The appeal to the arbitration of a ox y t Rome, preferred both by Athanasius and by the Arian party, placed JULIUS I. (337-352) in the proud position of the recognized protector of the orthodox faith. In the year 339 Athanasius himself visited the Western capital and resided there for three years. His presence and exhortation confirmed the Roman pontiff still further in his policy ; and from this time we perceive the see of Rome assuming, more distinctly than before, the right to define doctrine and the function of maintaining the true standard of faith amid the numerous heresies that were then troubling the whole church. While Constantinople was conspicuous by its attachment to Arianism, Rome appeared as the champion of the orthodox belief. In another direction the Western see would appear to have been also advancing important and exclusive claims. If we accept as genuine the letter of Julius to the Eusebians, written after the acquittal of Athanasius, the pontiff already maintained that, in all proceedings whereby the conduct or orthodoxy of any of the higher ecclesiastical authorities was called in question, the canonical method of procedure required that the Roman see should be con sulted before any initiative was taken. In other words, the council which had been convened at Tyre to try Athanasius had usurped the functions which belonged to the pontiff of Rome alone. During the bishopric of LIBEEIUS (352-366) we meet First with the first instance of a schism in the Roman Church, scl &quot; si and, in the person of Felix, with the first representative of that maintenance of a rival claim to the see which in later history assumed such importance in connexion with the antipopes. The contested succession of DAMASUS (366^684), although attended by scenes of brutal violence and outrage, affords further illustration of the main ques tion then at issue. Damasus, who had been the personal friend of Liberius, represented the cause of orthodoxy, and his triumph over his rival, Ursinus, was hailed Avith exultation by the chief contemporary teachers of the church. During his tenure of the see Arianism in the West almost ceased to exist. At the council of Nicaea (325), one of the canons enacted (the sixth) had already assigned to the three sees, or patriarchates, of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, their honorary rank in the order of their enumeration. In the 2 The story of the Donation of Constantine &quot; and the long enumeration of the possessions which he bestowed on the church, preserved in the Liber Pontificalis, must be looked upon as accretions of a later period. It is supposed, however, that Constantine built the original Vatican basilica, the church of St Agnes, and the Lateran.