e other communities it can
only be proved to exist at a later period. In the great Antiochian
diocese there was, for instance, a Church some of whose members wished
the Gospel of Peter read; in the Pentapolis group of congregations the
Gospel of the Egyptians was still used in the 3rd century; Syrian
Churches of the same epoch used Tatian's Diatessaron; and the original
of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions still makes no
mention of a New Testament canon. Though Clement of Alexandria no doubt
testifies that, in consequence of the common history of Christianity,
the group of Scriptures read in the Roman congregations was also the
same as that employed in public worship at Alexandria, he had as yet no
New Testament canon before him in the sense of Irenaeus and Tertullian.
It was not till Origen's time that Alexandria reached the stage already
attained in Rome about forty years earlier. It must, however, be pointed
out that a series of New Testament books, in the form now found in the
canon and universally recognised, show marks of revision that can be
traced back to the Roman Church.[305] Finally, the later investigations,
which show that after the third century the Western readings, that is,
the Roman text, of the New Testament were adopted in the Oriental MSS.
of the Bible,[306] are of the utmost value here; for the most natural
explanation of these facts is that the Eastern Churches then received
their New Testament from Rome and used it to correct their copies of
books read in public worship.[307] (3) Rome is the first place which we
can prove to have constructed a list of bishops reaching back to the
Apostles (see Irenaeus).[308] We know that in the time of Heliogabalus
such lists also existed in other communities; but it cannot be proved
that these had already been drawn up by the time of Marcus Aurelius or
Commodus, as was certainly the case at Rome. (4) The notion of the
apostolic succession of the episcopate[309] was first turned to account
by the Roman bishops, and they were the first who definitely formulated
the political idea of the Church in connection with this. The utterances
and corresponding practical measures of Victor,[310] Calixtus
(Hippolytus), and Stephen are the earliest of their kind; whilst the
precision and assurance with which they substituted the political and
clerical for the ideal conception of the Church, or amalgamated the two
notions, as well as the decided way in which they