The influence of the Roman Church throughout the West soon became conspicuous.  Here, as in many other instances, commerce was the pioneer of religion; and as the merchants of the capital traded with all the ports of their great inland sea, it is not improbable that their sailors had a share in achieving some of the early triumphs of the gospel.  Carthage, now one of the most populous cities in the Empire, is said to have been indebted for Christianity to Rome; [336:2] and by means of the constant intercourse kept up between these two commercial marts, the mother Church contrived to maintain an ascendancy over her African daughter.  Thus it was that certain Romish practices and pretensions so soon found advocates among the Carthaginian clergy. [336:3] In other quarters we discover early indications of the extraordinary deference paid to the Church of the city “sitting upon many waters.”  Towards the close of the second century, Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, was pastor of Lyons; and from this some have rather abruptly drawn the inference that the Christian congregations then existing in the south of France were established by missionaries from the East; but it is at least equally probable that the young minister from Asia Minor was in Rome before he passed to the more distant Gaul; and it is certain that he is the first father who speaks of the superior importance of the Church of the Italian metropolis.  His testimony to the position which it occupied about eighty years after the death of the Apostle John shews clearly that it stood already at the head of the Western Churches.  The Church of Rome, says he, is “very great and very ancient, and known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul.” [337:1] “To this Church in which Catholics [337:2] have always preserved apostolic tradition, every Catholic Church should, because it is more potentially apostolical, [337:3] repair.” [337:4]

The term Catholic, which occurs for the first time in a document written about this period, [337:5] was probably coined at Rome, and implied, as already intimated, that the individual so designated was in communion with the bishop.  The presiding pastors in the great city began now, in token of fraternity and recognition, to send the Eucharist to their brethren elsewhere by trusty messengers, [337:6] and thus the name was soon extended to all who maintained ecclesiastical relations with these leading ministers.  Sectaries were almost always the minority; and in many places, where Christianity was planted, they were utterly unknown.  The orthodox might, therefore, not inappropriately be styled members of the Catholic or general Church, inasmuch as they formed the bulk of the Christian population, and were to be found wherever the new religion had made converts.  And though the heretics pleaded tradition in support of their peculiar dogmas, it was clear that their statements could not stand the test of examination.  Irenaeus, in the work