f
Cyprian that Rome found herself face to face with a completely organised
Church system. His behaviour in the controversy about heretical baptism
proves that in cases of dispute he was resolved to elevate his theory of
the sovereign authority of each bishop above his theory of the necessary
connection with the _cathedra Petri_. But, when that levelling of the
episcopate came about, Rome had already acquired rights that could no
longer be cancelled.[337] Besides, there was one thing that could not be
taken from the Roman Church, nor therefore from her bishop, even if she
were denied the special right to Matt. XVI., viz., the possession of
Rome. The site of the world's metropolis might be shifted, but Rome
could not be removed. In the long run, however, the shifting of the
capital proved advantageous to ecclesiastical Rome. At the beginning of
the great epoch when the alienation of East from West became pronounced
and permanent, an emperor, from political grounds, decided in favour of
that party in Antioch "with whom the bishops in Italy and the city of
the Romans held intercourse" ([Greek: hois an hoi kata ten Italian kai
ten Rhomaion polin episkopoi tou dogmatos epistelloien][338]). In this
instance the interest of the Roman Church and the interest of the
emperor coincided. But the Churches in the various provinces, being now
completely organised and therefore seldom in need of any more help from
outside, were henceforth in a position to pursue their own interest. So
the bishop of Rome had step by step to fight for the new authority,
which, being now based on a purely dogmatic theory and being forced to
repudiate any empirical foundation, was inconsistent with the Church
system that the Roman community more than any other had helped to build
up. The proposition "the Roman Church always had the primacy" ("ecclesia
Romana semper habuit primatum") and the statement that "Catholic"
virtually means "Roman Catholic" are gross fictions, when devised in
honour of the temporary occupant of the Roman see and detached from the
significance of the Eternal City in profane history; but, applied to the
_Church_ of the imperial capital, they contain a truth the denial of
which is equivalent to renouncing the attempt to explain the process by
which the Church was unified and catholicised.[339]

Footnotes:

[Footnote 193: See Ritschl, l.c.; Schwegler. Der Montanismus, 1841;
Gottwald, De Montanismo Tertulliani, 1862; Reville, Tertull.