s required to be consulted, some time would thus be
occupied; so that delay in the appointment was unavoidable.

During this interval the spirit of faction was busily at work. The
heretic Marcion sought admission into the Roman presbytery; [546:1] and
Valentine, who appears to have been now recognized as an elder, [546:2]
no doubt supported the application. The presbytery itself was probably
divided, and there is good reason to believe that even Valentine had
hopes of obtaining the presidential chair! His pretensions, at this
period of his career, were sufficiently imposing. Though he may have
been suspected of unsoundness in the faith, he had not yet committed
himself by any public avowal of his errors; and as a man of literary
accomplishment, address, energy, and eloquence, he had few compeers. No
wonder, with so many disturbing elements in operation, that the see
remained so long vacant.

Some would willingly deny that Valentine was a candidate for the
episcopal chair of Rome, but the fact can be established by evidence the
most direct and conclusive. Tertullian, who had lived in the imperial
city, and who was well acquainted with its Church history, expressly
states that "Valentine hoped for the bishopric, because he excelled in
genius and eloquence, but indignant that another, who had the superior
claim of a confessor, obtained the place, he deserted the Catholic
Church" [546:3] The Carthaginian father does not, indeed, here name the
see to which the heresiarch unsuccessfully aspired, but his words shut
us up to the conclusion that he alluded to Rome. [546:4] And we can thus
discover at least one reason why the history of this vacancy has been
involved in so much mystery. In a few more generations the whole Church
would have felt compromised by any reflection cast upon the orthodoxy of
the great Western bishopric. [547:1] How sadly would many have been
scandalized had it been proclaimed abroad that the arch-heretic
Valentine had once hoped to occupy the chair of St Peter!

VIII. Two letters which are still extant, and which are supposed to have
been addressed by Pius, the immediate successor of Hyginus, to Justus,
bishop of Vienne in Gaul, supply corroborative evidence that the
presiding pastor had recently obtained additional authority. Though the
genuineness of these documents has been questioned, the objections urged
against them have not been sufficient to prevent critics and
antiquarians of all parties from