extent, of new members, was now in process of formation in the new city
of Aelia. Meanwhile the Church of Rome had been rapidly acquiring
strength, and its connexion with the seat of government pointed it out
as the appropriate head of the Catholic confederation. If the greatest
convenience of the greatest number of Churches were to be taken into
account, it had claims of peculiar potency, for it was easily accessible
by sea or land from all parts of the Empire, and it had facilities for
keeping up communication with the provinces to which no other society
could pretend. Nor were these its only recommendations. It had, as was
alleged, been watered by the ministry of two or three [556:1] of the
apostles, so that, even as an apostolic Church, it had high pretensions.
In addition to all this, it had, more than once, sustained with
extraordinary constancy the first and fiercest brunt of persecution; and
if its members had so signalized themselves in the army of martyrs, why
should not its bishop lead the van of the Catholic Church? Such
considerations urged in favour of a community already distinguished by
its wealth, as well as by its charity, were amply sufficient to
establish its claim as the centre of Catholic unity. If, as is probable,
the arrangement was concocted in Rome itself, they must have been felt
to be irresistible. Hence Irenaeus, writing about A.D. 180, speaks of it
even then as the recognized head of the Churches of the Empire. "To this
Church," says he, "because it is more potentially principal, it is
necessary that every Catholic Church should go, as in it the apostolic
tradition has by the Catholics been always preserved." [567:1]

Many Protestant writers have attempted to explain away the meaning of
this remarkable passage, but the candid student of history is bound to
listen respectfully to its testimony. When we assign to the words of
Irenaeus all the significance of which they are susceptible, they only
attest the fact that, in the latter half of the second century, the
Church of Rome was acknowledged as the most potent of all the apostolic
Churches. And in the same place the grounds of its pre-eminence are
enumerated pretty fully by the pastor of Lyons. It was the most ancient
Church in the West of Europe; it was also the most populous; like a city
set upon a hill, it was known to all; and it was reputed to have had for
its founders the most illustrious of the inspired heralds of the cross,
the apos