This system could have been only gradually developed, and nearly half a century appears to have elapsed before it acquired such maturity that it attained a distinctive designation. [570:1] But, as it was currently believed to be admirably adapted to the exigencies of the Church, it spread with much rapidity; and, in less than a hundred years after its rise, its influence may be traced in almost all parts of the Empire.  We may thus explain a historical phenomenon which might otherwise be unaccountable.  Towards the close of the second and throughout the whole of the third century, ecclesiastical writers connected with various and distant provinces refer with peculiar respect to the Apostle Peter, and even appeal to Scripture [570:2] with a view to his exaltation.  Their misinterpretations of the Word reveal an extreme anxiety to obtain something like an inspired warrant for their catholicism.  The visible unity of the Church was deemed by them essential to its very existence, and the Roman see was the actual key-stone of the Catholic structure.  Hence every friend of orthodoxy imagined it to be, as well his duty as his interest, to uphold the claims of the supposed representative of Peter, and thus to maintain the cause of ecclesiastical unity.  It might have been anticipated under such circumstances that Scripture would be miserably perverted, and that the see, which was believed to possess as its heritage the prerogatives of the apostle of the circumcision, would be the subject of extravagant laudation.

Ambition has been often represented as the great principle which guided the policy of the early Roman bishops, but there is no evidence that, as a class, they were inferior in piety to other churchmen, and the readiness with which some of them suffered for the faith attests their Christian sincerity and resolution.  Ambition, doubtless, soon began to operate; but their elevation was not so much the result of any deep-laid scheme for their aggrandizement, as of a series of circumstances pushing them into prominence, and placing them in a most influential position.  The efforts of heretics to create division led to a reaction, and tempted the Church to adopt arrangements for preserving union by which its liberties were eventually compromised.  The bishop of Rome found himself almost immediately at the head of the Catholic league, and there is no doubt that, before the close of the second century, he was acknowledged as the chief pastor of Christendom.  About that time we see him writing letters to some of the most distinguished bishops of the East [571:1] directing them to call councils; and it does not appear that his epistles were deemed unwarranted or officious.  Unity of doctrine was speedily connected with unity of discipline, and an opinion gradually prevailed that the Church Catholic should exhibit universal uniformity.  When Victor differed from the Asiatic bishops relative to the mode of observing the Paschal festival, he was only seeking to realize the idea