In May A.D. 330 Constantinople was solemnly consecrated, and the Empire kept high festival in honour of an event that few of the revellers recognized would alter the whole course of her destiny. The new capital, through her splendid strategic position, was to preserve the imperial throne with one short lapse for more than a thousand years, but this advantage was obtained at the expense of Rome, and the complete severance of the interests of the Empire in the East and West.
The Romans had never loved the Greeks, even when they most admired their art and subtle intellect, and now in the fourth century this persistent distrust was intensified when Greece usurped the glory that had been her conqueror’s. In the absence of an Emperor and of the many high officials who had gone to swell the triumph of his new court, Rome set up another idol. The symbols of material glory might vanish, but the Christian faith had supplied men with fresh ideals through the teaching of the Apostles and their representatives, the Bishops.
Roman bishops claimed that the gift of grace they received at their consecration had been passed down to them by the successive laying-on of hands from St. Peter himself. ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church ... and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ These words of Christ seemed to grant to his apostle complete authority over the souls of men; and Christians at Rome began to ask if the power of St. Peter to ‘bind and loose’ had not been handed down to his successors? If so _Il Papa_, that is, ‘their father’, the Pope, was undoubtedly the first bishop in Christendom, for on no other apostle had Christ bestowed a like authority.
It must not be imagined that this reasoning came like a flash of inspiration or was willingly received by all Christians. Many generations of Popes, from the days of St. Peter onwards, were regarded merely as Bishops of Rome, that is, as ‘overseers’ of the Church in the chief city of the Empire. They were loved and esteemed by their flock not on account of special divine authority but because they stood neither for self-interest nor for faction, but for principles of justice, mercy, and brotherhood.