Rome was the place in which the grand idea of Catholicity was conceived.
Rome became each day more and more the capital of Christianity, and
replaced Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its church had a
generally recognized precedence over others. All doubtful questions
which disturbed the Christian conscience demanded an arbitration, if not
a solution, at Rome. This very defective reasoning was used,--that,
since Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of his church, this
privilege ought to extend to his successors. By an unequalled stroke,
the Church of Rome had succeeded in making itself at the same time the
Church of Peter and the Church of Paul, a new mythical duality,
replacing that of Romulus and Remus. The Bishop of Rome became the
bishop of bishops, the one who admonished others. Rome proclaims its
right (a dangerous right) to excommunicate those who do not entirely
agree with her. The poor Artemonites (a sort of anticipated Arians) had
much to complain of in the injustice of the fate which made them
heretics; while, even until Victor, all the Church of Rome thought with
them; but they were not heard. From this point, the Church of Rome
placed itself above history. The spirit which in 1870 could proclaim the
infallibility of the Pope might see itself reflected at the end of the
second century by certain clear indications. The writing made at Rome
about 180, of which the Roman fragment known as the "_Canon de
Muratori_" makes a part, shows us Rome already regulating the canon of
the churches, making the passion of Peter the basis of Catholicity, and
repulsing equally Montanism and Gnosticism. Irenæus refutes all
heresies by the faith of this church, "the grandest, the most ancient,
the most illustrious, which possesses by continuous succession the true
tradition of the apostles Peter and Paul; to which, on account of its
primacy, all the rest of the Church should have recourse."
One material cause contributed much to that pre-eminence which most of
the churches recognized in the Church of Rome. This Church was extremely
rich: its goods, skilfully administered, served to succor and propagate
other churches. The heretics condemned to the mines received a subsidy
from it: the common treasury was in a certain sense at Rome. The Sunday
collection, practised continually in the Roman Church, was probably
already established. A marvellous spirit of tradition animated this
little community, in which Judæa, Greece, and Latium seemed to have
confounded their very different gifts, in view of a prodigious future.
While the Jewish Monotheism furnished the immovable base of the new
formation, while Greece continued through Gnosticism its work of free
speculation, Rome attached itself with an astonishing readiness to the
work of the government. All its authorities and artifices served well
for that. Politics recoils not before fraud. Now, politics had already
taken up its home in the most secret councils of the Church of Rome.
Some veins of apocryphal literature, constantly refilled, sometimes
under the name of the apostles, sometimes under that of apostolic
personages, such as Clement and Hermas, were received with confidence to
the limits of the Christian world on account of the guaranty of Rome.
This precedence of the Church of Rome continued to increase up to the
third century. The bishops of Rome showed a rare competency, evading
theological questions, but always in the first rank in matters of
organization and administration. The tradition of the Roman Church
passes for the most ancient of all. Pope Cornelius took the lead in the
matter of substitution. This was particularly seen in the dismissal of
the bishops of Italy, and the appointment of their successors. Rome was
also the central authority of the churches of Africa.
This authority was already excessive, and showed itself above all in the
affair of the Passover. This question was much more important than it
appears to us. In the early times all Christians continued to make the
Jewish Passover their principal feast. They celebrated this feast on the
same day as the Jews,--on the 14th of Nisan, upon whatever day of the
week it happened to fall. Persuaded, according to the account of all the
old gospels, that Jesus, the evening before his death, had eaten the
Passover with his disciples, they regarded such a solemnity as a
commemoration of the last supper, rather than as a memorial of the
resurrection. As Christianity became more and more separated from
Judaism, such a manner of regarding it was very much questioned. At
first a new tradition was promulgated,--that Jesus, being about to die,
had not eaten the Passover, but had died the very day of the Jewish
feast, thus constituting himself the Pascal Lamb. Moreover, this purely
Jewish feast wounded the Christian conscience, especially in the
churches of Paul. The great feast of the Christians, the resurrection of
Jesus, occurred in any case the Sunday after the Jewish Passover.
According to this idea, the feast was celebrated the Sunday which
followed the Friday after the 14th of Nisan.
In Rome this custom prevailed, at least since the pontificates of Xystus
and Telesphorus (about 120). In Asia there were great divisions. The
conservatives, like Polycarp, Meliton, and all the ancient school,
believed that the old Jewish custom conformed to the first Gospels and
to the usage of the apostles John and Philip. This was the object of the
voyage to Rome which Polycarp undertook about the year 154, under the
Pope Anicetus. The interview between Polycarp and Anicetus was very
cordial. The discussion of certain points appears to have been sharp,
but they understood each other. Polycarp was not able to persuade
Anicetus to renounce a practice which had been that of the bishops of
Rome before his time. Anicetus, on the other hand, hesitated when
Polycarp told him that he governed himself according to the rule of John
and the other apostles, with whom he had lived on a familiar footing.
The two religious leaders remained in full communion with each other;
and Anicetus showed Polycarp an almost unprecedented honor. In fact he
desired that Polycarp, in the Assembly of the Faithful at Rome, should
pronounce, in his stead and in his presence, the words of the
eucharistic consecration. These ardent men were full of too lofty a
sentiment to rest the unity of their souls upon the uniformity of rites
and exterior observances.
Later, unhappily, Rome took the stand of insisting upon its right. About
the year 196 the question was more exciting than ever. The churches of
Asia persisted in their old usage. Rome, always enthusiastic for unity,
wished to coerce them. Upon the invitation of Pope Victor, convocations
of bishops were held: a vast correspondence was exchanged. But the
bishops of Asia, strong in the tradition of two apostles and of so many
illustrious men, would not submit. The old Polycrates, Bishop of
Ephesus, wrote in their name a very sharp letter to Victor and to the
Church of Rome. The incredible design which Victor conceived on account
of the acrimony of this letter proves that the Papacy was already born,
and well born. He pretended to excommunicate, to separate from the
Universal Church, the most illustrious province, because it had not bent
its traditions before the Roman discipline. He published a decree by
virtue of which Asia was placed under the ban of the Christian
community. But the other bishops opposed this violent measure, and
recalled Victor to charity. St. Irenæus, in particular, who, through the
necessity of the country in which he lived, had accepted for himself and
his churches in Gaul the Occidental custom, could not support the
thought that the mother-churches of Asia, to which he felt himself bound
in the depths of his soul, should be separated from the body of the
Universal Church. He energetically persuaded Victor from the
excommunication of the churches which held to the traditions of their
fathers, and recalled to him the examples of his more tolerant
predecessors. This act of rare good sense prevented the schism of the
Orient and the Occident from occurring in the second century. Irenæus
wrote to the bishops on all sides, and the question remained open to the
churches of Asia.
In one sense, the process which brought about the debate was of more
importance than the debate itself. By reason of this difference, the
Church was brought to a clearer idea of its organization. And first it
was evident that the laity were no longer any thing. The bishops alone
handled questions, and promulgated their opinions. The bishops collected
together in provincial synods, over which the bishop of the capital of
the province presided (the archbishop of the future), or, at times, the
oldest bishop. The synodal assembly came out with a letter, which was
sent to other churches. This was then like an attempt at federative
organization,--an attempt to resolve questions by means of provincial
assemblies, presided over by bishops agreeing among themselves. Later,
questions concerning the presiding over synods and the hierarchy of the
Church sought solution in the documents of this great debate. Among all
the churches, that of Rome appeared to have a particular initiative
right. But that initiative was far from being synonymous with
infallibility; for Eusebius declares that he read the letters in which
the bishops severely blamed the conduct of Victor.