honors and advantages of the city over which
he presided; the numbers and opulence of the Christians who were subject
to their pastoral care; the saints and martyrs who had arisen among
them; and the purity with which they preserved the tradition of the
faith, as it had been transmitted through a series of orthodox bishops
from the apostle or the apostolic disciple, to whom the foundation of
their church was ascribed. [121] From every cause, either of a civil or
of an ecclesiastical nature, it was easy to foresee that Rome must enjoy
the respect, and would soon claim the obedience of the provinces. The
society of the faithful bore a just proportion to the capital of the
empire; and the Roman church was the greatest, the most numerous,
and, in regard to the West, the most ancient of all the Christian
establishments, many of which had received their religion from the pious
labors of her missionaries. Instead of one apostolic founder, the utmost
boast of Antioch, of Ephesus, or of Corinth, the banks of the Tyber were
supposed to have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of the
two most eminent among the apostles; [122] and the bishops of Rome
very prudently claimed the inheritance of whatsoever prerogatives were
attributed either to the person or to the office of St. Peter. [123]
The bishops of Italy and of the provinces were disposed to allow them
a primacy of order and association (such was their very accurate
expression) in the Christian aristocracy. [124] But the power of a
monarch was rejected with abhorrence, and the aspiring genius of
Rome experienced from the nations of Asia and Africa a more vigorous
resistance to her spiritual, than she had formerly done to her temporal,
dominion. The patriotic Cyprian, who ruled with the most absolute
sway the church of Carthage and the provincial synods, opposed with
resolution and success the ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully
connected his own cause with that of the eastern bishops, and, like
Hannibal, sought out new allies in the heart of Asia. [125] If this Punic
war was carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much
less to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending prelates.
Invectives and excommunications were their only weapons; and these,
during the progress of the whole controversy, they hurled against each
other with equal fury and devotion. The hard necessity of censuring
either a pope, or a saint and martyr, distresses the modern