urrency; and if a centre of unity for
the whole Church was also indispensable, who had a better claim to the
pre-eminence than the successor of Peter? When Victor fulminated his
sentence of excommunication against the Asiatic Christians he probably
acted under the partial inspiration of this novel theory. He made an
abortive attempt to speak in the name of the whole Church--to assert a
position as the representative or president of all the bishops of the
Catholic world [342:1]--and to carry out a new system of ecclesiastical
unity. The experiment was a failure, simply because the idea looming in
the imagination of the Roman bishop had not yet obtained full possession
of the mind of Christendom.

Prelacy had been employed as the cure for Church divisions, but the
remedy had proved worse than the disease. Sects meanwhile continued to
multiply; and they were, perhaps, nowhere so abundant as in the very
city where the new machinery had been first set up for their
suppression. Towards the close of the second century their multitude was
one of the standing reproaches of Christianity. What was called the
Catholic Church was now on the brink of a great schism; and the very
man, who aspired to be the centre of Catholic unity, threatened to be
the cause of the disruption. It was becoming more and more apparent
that, when the presbyters consented to surrender any portion of their
privileges to the bishop, they betrayed the cause of ecclesiastical
freedom; and even now indications were not wanting that the Catholic
system was likely to degenerate into a spiritual despotism.

CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCH OF ROME IN THE THIRD CENTURY.

Though very few of the genuine productions of the ministers of the
ancient Church of Rome are still extant, [343:1] multitudes of spurious
epistles attributed to its early bishops have been carefully preserved.
It is easy to account for this apparent anomaly. The documents now known
as the false Decretals, [343:2] and ascribed to the Popes of the first
and immediately succeeding centuries, were suited to the taste of times
of ignorance, and were then peculiarly grateful to the occupants of the
Roman see. As evidences of its original superiority they were
accordingly transmitted to posterity, and ostentatiously exhibited among
the papal title-deeds. But the real compositions of the primitive
pastors of the great city supplied little food for superstition; and
must have contained startling and hu