THE POPE
As Christianity spread through the world in the second and third
centuries, churches, that is to say places in which the Christians
assembled for worship, were established in many cities. In different
parts of the Empire, as these parts were converted from paganism,
overseers of the local churches were appointed and were called
"episcopi," from a Greek word which is very literally translated by
our word overseer. And our word "bishop" is formed from that word
"episcopus." There was, of course, a bishop, an episcopus, at Rome.
If Jerusalem had not been, as we have seen that it was, so battered
by war and so deserted by the inhabitants who were driven out of it,
it is likely that Jerusalem would have been regarded as the chief
Christian city, because Christ had taught and had suffered there. It
was the centre and chief city of the religion on which Christianity
was based and of that law which Christ Himself said that He came not
to destroy but to fulfil. But Jerusalem itself was almost destroyed.
Rome was the chief city, the centre, of the Empire. At Rome,
moreover, the apostle who did more than any other to spread
Christianity among the Gentiles--that is to say, all over the
world--St. Paul, had lived for some years, and had died.
Whether St. Peter ever came to Rome is still rather uncertain. The
evidence is not clear. But the latest researches seem to make it
probable that {55} he did go to Rome, and perhaps died there, as
martyr. For we must remember that all through the first centuries
Christianity had to fight its way against great opposition from those
of the pagan religion. Besides the hatred of Christianity which some
felt because it was a new religion, it incurred the hatred of the
rulers because the Christians seemed to be setting up for themselves
another ruler than the Roman Emperor. Even during Christ's life we
know that the Christians in Judæa were suspected of enmity to the
Emperor. The Pharisees laid a trap for Jesus by asking Him whether
it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar. So the Christians often had
to meet for worship in secret, and thousands of them were cruelly put
to death.
Rome, then, because it was the centre of the Empire--which, for all
Rome's subjects, meant the centre of the Universe--and also because
it was the place where certainly St. Paul, and very probably St.
Peter also, lived and died, became naturally the place to which the
Christians throughout the Empire looked as the chief place in which
their God was worshipped, and the place to which they would bring for
decision any difficult questions and differences of opinion which the
bishop of the district in which such debate arose could not settle
for them. These districts were named "dioceses" from a very early
date.
[Sidenote: The bishop of Rome]
Thus the bishop of Rome came to have an authority above the others.
And then the legend grew that to him St. Peter, who was supposed to
be the keeper of the keys of the gate of Heaven, had bequeathed some,
at least, of that authority which St. Peter himself had directly from
Christ.
Thus it was, even before the Emperor Constantine confessed himself a
Christian. You should observe that the Emperors themselves had been
deemed to be in some degree divine, and to have the power and {56}
glory of gods, up to this time. Constantine, proclaiming
Christianity as the State religion, gave up this claim to divinity
for the Emperor. The time had not yet come when the Head of the
Church--its {57} Father, Papa, or Pope--should actually confer the
Imperial authority on the Emperor by consecration in the great
cathedral built in Rome to St. Peter's glory. That time was not yet;
but it was not so very far distant. It came, about the year 800,
with the consecration of Charlemagne after he had destroyed the
kingdom of the Lombards and taken their territories for his own.
[Illustration: ROME. View of St. Peter's.]
After Constantine, the Emperor Julian tried to reverse this
declaration of Constantine's and to bring back paganism. He was
called Julian the Apostate, for so doing; and the chief interest of
his attempt is that it shows how firm a hold Christianity already had
taken, for the attempt failed utterly.
Certain circumstances seem to have combined to make the position of
the Pope of Rome central and capital for all Christendom. For the
good government of the Church there had been appointed by the early
Christians five principal bishops, to each of whom was given the
title of Patriarch. Patriarch means "arch," or chief (as in
"archbishop" and "arch-angel") of a "patria," which is a family, or
clan, from pater=father; and so Abraham and others were called
patriarchs. This name, or title, was transferred to those who were
chief among the bishops. The Patriarchates, or cities in which the
Patriarchs had their headquarters, were these: Rome, Constantinople,
Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria.
The third city, in size and importance, in the Roman Empire was
Carthage; but Carthage, as you know, was taken by the Vandals, who
were pagans; so the Bishop of Carthage could not be any rival of the
Bishop of Rome. And just as the Vandals, who were heathens, removed
one possible rival to the power of Rome in the Church, so did
another, and very much more important, anti-Christian power remove
some of the other rivals, the Patriarchs. This anti-Christian force
was that wonderful Moslem or Mahommedan {58} power which rose up with
marvellous swiftness in Arabia in the middle of the seventh century.
The Saracens came surging up out of Arabia, into Palestine, where was
the Jerusalem patriarchate, on to Asia Minor and the patriarchate of
Antioch, westward into Egypt and the Alexandrian patriarchate. There
remained then the Patriarch at Constantinople and the Patriarch, or
Pope, at Rome.
Thus these two anti-Christian powers unconsciously fought the battle
for the supremacy of the Pope.
Now you have seen how Odoacer, the barbarian, became King of Italy in
475, but did not claim to be Emperor: that made the way of the Pope's
power more easy. And all through the fourth century--that is from
300 to 400, to speak in "round figures," as we say--the Emperor of
the West had his court, not at Rome, but at Milan, in the North of
Italy. Just after 400 the Western Emperor moved his court to
Ravenna, though it was actually within the bounds of the Eastern
Empire. The power, however, that went with the high-sounding title
of Western Emperor was not great, at this time, until the days of
Charlemagne, when it became attached to the Franks' kingdom, and by
that time the position of the Pope of Rome was so high and so firmly
set that we find Charlemagne himself being consecrated and anointed
as Emperor by the Pope.
But before this date another very extraordinary thing in the story of
the Church had occurred. Christianity had been introduced into some
of the northern parts of what is now Germany; and the way by which it
had come was not, as you would expect, straight up from Rome, but it
had come in from the west, from England, and into England it had been
brought from the west again--from Ireland. How that came to pass I
will try to tell you in the next chapter.
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