title of every bishop, as a spiritual father ; but, after the fifth century, it became the special distinction of the patriarchs, and still later was assigned exclusively to the Roman bishop, and to him in an eminent sense, as father of the whole church. Comp. Du Cange, Glossar. s. verb. Papa and Pater Patrum ; and Hoffmann, Lesie. univers. iv. p. 561. In the same exclusive sense the Italian and Spanish papa, the French pape, the English pope, and the German Papst or Pabst, are used. In the Greek and Russian churches, on the contrary, all priests are called Popes (from iriirai, papa). The titles apostolicus, vicarius Christi, summns ponfifez, sedes apostolica, were for a considerable time given to various bish- ops and their sees, but subsequently claimed exclusively by the bishops of Rome. § 60. THE PAPACY. 301 assigned to Peter in the well-known words : " Tliou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my cliurch." ' This passage was at all times taken as an immovable exegetical rock for the l^apaej. The popes themselves appealed to it, times without number, as the great proof of the divine institution of a visible and infallible central authority in the church. Accoi'ding to this view, the primacy is before the apostolate, the head before the body, instead of the reverse. But, in the first place, this preeminence of Peter did not in the least affect the independence of the other apostles. Paul especially, according to the clear testimony of his epistles and the book of Acts, stood entirely upon his own authority, and even on one occasion, at Antioch, took strong ground against Peter. Then again, the personal position of Peter by no means yields the primacy to the Poman bishop, without the twofold evidence, first that Peter was actually in Pome, and then that he transferred his prerogatives to the bishop of that city. The former fact rests upon a universal tradition of the early church, which at that time no one doubted, but is in part weakened and neutralized by the absence of any clear Scripture evidence, and by the much more* certain fact, given in the New Testa- ment itself, that Paul labored in Pome, and that in no position of inferiority or subordination to any higher authority than that of Christ himself. The second assumption, of the transfer of the primacy to the Roman bishops, is susceptible of neither historical nor exegetical demonstration, and is merely an in- ference from the principle that the successor in ofiice inherits all the oflficial prerogatives of his predecessor. But even grant- ing both these intermediate links in the chain of the papal theory, the double Cjuestion yet remains open : first, whether the Roman bishop be the only successor of Peter, or share this honor with the bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch, in which ' Matt. xvi. 18: Su el n erpo s, Kat itrl ravTTi rp irerpa [mark the change of the gender from the