he follower of Jesus and as an eminent
recipient of the gifts of the Spirit. It appears exceedingly improbable
that Peter ever was Bishop of Rome, though he suffered imprisonment and
perhaps martyrdom there. The authority of the Apostles was general, and
seems to have been exercised generally, instead of being fixed in any
one congregation. At all events it is clear that the Bishops of Rome did
not lay claim to any preeminence over the patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, (further than as they all claimed
precedence of one another on account of the dignity of their several
cities, and the superior wealth of their sees,) till the Arian
controversy afforded them various opportunities of extending their
power. When remonstrances were offered by the sixth Council of Carthage,
in A. D. 426, and by many other assemblies, against the encroachments of
the Bishops of Rome, the pleas which are now brought forward in support
of their claim to supremacy had never been heard of; and they were in
fact never adduced till many centuries after the death of Peter. It was
not till the beginning of the seventh century that the title of Pope was
appropriated by the Bishops of Rome; it being applied to all bishops at
first, and afterwards to those who held the larger sees, as when
Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, called Cyprian the Pope of Carthage. The
assumption of the title of Universal Bishop by John of Constantinople,
towards the end of the sixth century, was condemned by Gregory the
Great, then Bishop of Rome, as presumption and even blasphemy; and he
further showed his sense of the presumption by investing himself with
the humbler title of Servus Servorum Dei. Yet so soon after as A. D.
606, Boniface III. obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the Bishops of
Rome alone should henceforth call themselves Universal Bishops: the
claim being founded on the dignity of the city and the wealth of the
see, and not on the transmission of the apostolic office from Peter, of
which not the slightest hint appears to have been given till Leo
complained that the Council of Chalcedon had granted his claim to
preeminence on no better ground than the importance of the city where
he presided. Even he, however, had no thought of advancing pretensions
to infallibility, as the successor of an infallible Apostle; this
additional claim being reserved for Agatho, who, in 680, brought forward
the novel doctrine 'that the chair of Rome--never er