the head of the ministers of Christendom.

The preceding statements enable us to understand why the interests of
Rome and of the Catholic Church have always been identified. The
metropolis of Italy has, in fact, from the beginning been the heart of
the Catholic system. In ancient times Roman statesmen were noted for
their skill in fitting up the machinery of political government: Roman
churchmen have laboured no less successfully in the department of
ecclesiastical organization. The Catholic system is a wonderful specimen
of constructive ability; and there is every reason to believe that the
same city which produced Prelacy, also gave birth, about the same time,
to this masterpiece of human contrivance. The fact may be established,
as well by other evidences, as by the positive testimony of Cyprian. The
bishop of Carthage, who flourished only about a century after it
appeared, was connected with that quarter of the Church in which it
originated. We cannot, therefore, reasonably reject the depositions of
so competent a witness, more especially when he speaks so frequently and
so confidently of its source. When he describes the Roman bishopric as
"_the root_ and _womb_ of _the Catholic Church_," [569:1] his language
admits of no second interpretation. He was well aware that the Church of
Jerusalem was the root and womb of all the apostolic Churches; and when
he employs such phraseology, he must refer to some new phase of
Christianity which had originated in the capital of the Empire. In
another place he speaks of "the see of Peter, and the principal Church,
_whence the unity of the priesthood took its rise_." [569:2] Such
statements shut us up to the conclusion that Rome was the source and
centre from which Catholicism radiated.

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, a