§ 46B. HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CHAIR AND ITS CLAIMS TO THE PRIMACY.[127]
The history of the Roman bishopric during the first three centuries is almost wholly enveloped in a cloud of legend which is only occasionally broken by a gleam of historical light (see § 33, 3, 4, 5, 7; § 35, 5; § 37, 2; § 40, 2; § 41, 1, 3). Only after the martyr church became in the 4th century the powerful state church does it really enter into the field of regular and continuous history. And now also first begins that striving after primacy, present from the earliest times among its bishops and inherited from the political supremacy of “eternal Rome,” to be prosecuted with success in political and ecclesiastical quarters. Its history, for which biographies of the popes down to the end of the 9th century in the so-called _Liber pontificalis_ (§ 90, 6) are most instructive sources, certainly always in need of critical sifting in a high degree, permits therefore and demands for our purposes at this point earnest and close consideration.
§ 46.3. =From Melchiades to Julius I., A.D. 310 to A.D. 352.=--At the time when Constantine’s conversion so completely changed the aspect of things =Melchiades= occupied the bishopric of Rome, A.D. 310 to A.D. 314. Even in A.D. 313 Constantine conferred on him as the chief bishop of the West the presidency of a clerical commission for inquiry into the Donatist schism (§ 63, 1). Under =Sylvester I.=, A.D. 314 to A.D. 335, the Arian controversy broke out (§ 50), in which, however, he laid no claim to be an authority on either side. That by his legates, Vitus and Vincentius [Vincent], he presided at the first œcumenical Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325 is a purely Romish fabrication; no contemporary and none of the older historians know anything of it. On account of the rise in Egypt of the Meletian schism (§ 41, 4) the 6th canon of the Council prescribes that the bishop of Alexandria “in accordance with the old customs shall have jurisdiction over Egypt, in Libya and in Pentapolis, since it is also according to old custom for the bishop of Rome to have such jurisdiction, as also the churches in Antioch and in the other provinces.” The Council, therefore, as Rufinus also and the oldest Latin collection of canons, the so-called _Prisca_, understand this canon, maintains that the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Roman chair extended not over all the West but only over the ten _suburbicarian_ provinces belonging to the diocese of Rome according to Constantine’s division, _i.e._ over Middle and Southern Italy, with the islands of Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily. The bishop of Rome, however, was and continued by the wider development of the patriarchal constitution the sole patriarch in all the West. What more natural than that he should regard himself as the one patriarch _over_ all the West? But, even as the only _sedes apostolica_ of the West, Rome had already for a long time obtained a rank far beyond the limits of the Nicene canon. In doubtful cases application was made from all quarters of the West to Rome for instruction as to the genuine apostolic tradition, and the epistolary replies to such questions assumed even in the 4th century the tone of authoritative statements of the truth, _epistolæ decretales_. But down to A.D. 344 it was never attempted to claim the authority of Rome over the East in giving validity to any matter. In this year, however, the pressure of circumstances obliged the Council of Sardica (§ 50, 2), after most of the Eastern bishops had already withdrawn, to agree to hand over to the bishop of Rome, =Julius I.=, A.D. 337-352, as a steadfast and consistent confessor of the orthodox faith in this age of ecclesiastical wavering, the right of receiving appeals from condemned bishops throughout the empire, and if he found them well supported, of appointing a new investigation by the bishops of the neighbouring province. But this decree affected only the person of Julius and was only the momentary makeshift of a hard-pressed minority. It therefore attracted no attention and was soon forgotten,--only Rome forgot it not.