• The bishops of dioceses, in turn, were increasingly coordinated
in their efforts by the bishops of major metropolitan sees—
also important imperial cities—that were called patriarchates:
Alexandria, Antioch, Rome.• As the imperial city par excellence, the church in Rome asserted
and exercised the most influence on other regions.
o Rome’s authority was far from absolute. As we have already
seen, the bishops of Asia resisted the efforts of Victor I
of Rome to impose his ruling in the Easter controversy in
about 190.o Yet the symbolic and moral authority of the Roman church was
real and not only based on the fact of being the imperial capital.
Writers at the turn of the 1st century made much of the fact
that Rome was doubly blessed in its apostolic founding: Both
Peter and Paul were martyred there. Irenaeus, for example,
bishop of Lyons in far-off Gaul, made his point about apostolic
succession through the bishops of Rome.• In the next century, these centers of regional ecclesial authority
would begin to express themselves through theological and
political rivalries. With the founding of Constantinople, a real rival
to Roman primacy would assert itself.• In terms of sheer numbers, visibility, social standing, and ideological
and institutional development, the Christian religion was, by the
beginning of the 4th century, no longer an insignificant sect to be
dismissed by authorities; it had become a force to be reckoned with
by the empire.Johnson, Among the Gentiles, pp. 234–254.
MacMullen, Christianizing the Roman Empire.
Stark, The Rise of Christianity.
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