The court of Constantinople, although it may have encouraged the hopes and ambition of the bishops, affected to govern the church with despotic power, and to decide on religious controversies of the gravest kind. But in the West it was not so. The Roman pontiffs from this period showed the independent and aggressive spirit of popery which rose to such heights in after ages. The bishops of the East were thus placed at a disadvantage in consequence of their dependence on the court and of their quarrels with the emperors. Besides, the presence and grandeur of the Eastern sovereign kept the dignity of the bishop in a very secondary place. In Rome there were none left to dispute the rank or style of the pontiff.
The withdrawal of the emperors from Rome, as the royal residence, was thus favorable to the development of the ecclesiastical power there; for, though deserted by her rulers, she was still venerated as the real capital of the world. Hence Rome possessed many advantages as the seat of the supreme bishop. But that which chiefly pushed on and consolidated the power of the Roman See was the growing belief, all over Christendom, that St. Peter was its founder. The Roman bishops denied that their precedence originated in the imperial greatness of the city, but in their lineal descent from St. Peter. This dogma was generally received about the commencement of the fifth century.
By such arguments the church of Rome established her right to govern the universal church. She maintained that Peter was primate amongst the apostles, and that his primacy is inherited by the bishops of Rome. But it may be well to notice here, the twofold aspect of Romanism -ecclesiastical and political. In both characters she claimed supremacy. Ecclesiastically she maintained, 1, that the bishop of Rome is the infallible judge in all questions of doctrine; 2, that he has the inherent right to supreme government in assembling general councils, and presiding over them: 3, that the right of making ecclesiastical appointments belongs to him; 4, that separation from the communion of the church of Rome involves the guilt of schism. Politically she claimed, she aspired to, and gained preeminence and power over all European society as well as all European governments. We shall see abundant proof of these particulars in the course of her well-defined history, which we will now go on with.
It was not till after the first council of Nice that the supremacy of the Romish bishops was generally allowed. The early bishops of Rome are scarcely known in ecclesiastical history. The accession of Innocent I., in the year 402, gave force and definition to this new tenet of the Latin church. Till this time there had been no legal recognition of the supremacy of Rome, though she was considered the principal church in the West, and had been frequently appealed to by the other great bishops for a spiritual judgment in matters of dispute. When the Greek church fell into Arianism, the Latin adhered firmly to the Nicene creed, which raised her much in the opinion of all the West. "Upon the mind of Innocent," says Milman, "appears first to have dawned the vast conception of Rome's universal ecclesiastical supremacy; dim as yet and shadowy, but full and comprehensive in its outline."