pointed it out as the appropriate head of the Catholic confederation.  If the greatest convenience of the greatest number of Churches were to be taken into account, it had claims of peculiar potency, for it was easily accessible by sea or land from all parts of the Empire, and it had facilities for keeping up communication with the provinces to which no other society could pretend.  Nor were these its only recommendations.  It had, as was alleged, been watered by the ministry of two or three [556:1] of the apostles, so that, even as an apostolic Church, it had high pretensions.  In addition to all this, it had, more than once, sustained with extraordinary constancy the first and fiercest brunt of persecution; and if its members had so signalized themselves in the army of martyrs, why should not its bishop lead the van of the Catholic Church?  Such considerations urged in favour of a community already distinguished by its wealth, as well as by its charity, were amply sufficient to establish its claim as the centre of Catholic unity.  If, as is probable, the arrangement was concocted in Rome itself, they must have been felt to be irresistible.  Hence Irenaeus, writing about A.D. 180, speaks of it even then as the recognized head of the Churches of the Empire.  “To this Church,” says he, “because it is more potentially principal, it is necessary that every Catholic Church should go, as in it the apostolic tradition has by the Catholics been always preserved.” [567:1]

Many Protestant writers have attempted to explain away the meaning of this remarkable passage, but the candid student of history is bound to listen respectfully to its testimony.  When we assign to the words of Irenaeus all the significance of which they are susceptible, they only attest the fact that, in the latter half of the second century, the Church of Rome was acknowledged as the most potent of all the apostolic Churches.  And in the same place the grounds of its pre-eminence are enumerated pretty fully by the pastor of Lyons.  It was the most ancient Church in the West of Europe; it was also the most populous; like a city set upon a hill, it was known to all; and it was reputed to have had for its founders the most illustrious of the inspired heralds of the cross, the apostle of the Gentiles, and the apostle of the circumcision. [567:2] It was more “potentially principal,” because it was itself the principal of the apostolic or principal Churches.

It has been already stated that every principal bishop, [567:3] or presiding minister of an apostolic Church, sent the Eucharist to the pastors around him as a pledge of their ecclesiastical fellowship; and it would appear that the bishop of Rome kept up intercourse with the other bishops of the apostolic Churches by transmitting to them the same symbol of catholicity. [567:4] The sacred elements were doubtless conveyed by confidential churchmen, who served, at the same time, as channels of communication between the great prelate and the more influential of his brethren.  By this means the communion of the whole Catholic Church was constantly maintained.