Ignatius of
Antioch’s address to Rome as prokathēmenē tēs aghathēs—“pre-eminent
in love”—coupled with his identification of Rome as hētis
. . . prokathētai en tropō chōriou Rōmaiōn indicates that Rome already enjoys a reputation for some
kind of eminence or leadership. Ignatius here goes well beyond the conventional
praise that one finds in most early Christian correspondence.
First we
may call attention to the often noted fact that in the course of the second
century confrontation between orthodoxy and heresy a remarkable number of
heresiarchs and heretics made their way to Rome. That Marcion spent a
considerable period of time in Rome is widely attested and seems beyond doubt.
Valentinus also spent much of his life there, as did Cerdo and Mercellina. None
of these was native to Rome, but each seems to have come there to learn or to
teach. Similarly, orthodox and anti-gnostic writers also came to Rome as so
some kind of center, Justin and Hegessippus from Palestine, Irenaeus and
Polycarp from Asia Minor.
But this could
not be interpreted as indicating an implicit view of the primacy of Rome and
its bishop on the part of either the heretics or the orthodox. Similar
clustering of heretics can also be noted at Alexandria. And just as the orthodox
Justin comes to Rome, so the more or less orthodox Clement finds his way to
Alexandria. Rome and Alexandria were in fact the two principal centers from
religious-intellectual teaching in the Mediterranean world; and it is not
altogether superfluous to note that the career of the greatest non-Christian philosopher
of late antiquity, Plotinus, was spent almost entirely in just these two
cities.
Throughout
the course of the third century we continue to see leaders of heretical
movements coming to Rome (cf. Hippolytus, Ref. 9.8), yet it remains a
question whether this should be interpreted as a recognition of Roman primacy.
The eminence of Rome as capital and largest city of the world, its position as
an intellectual center, the influence exerted by the church at Rome as far away
as Asia Minor, North Africa, and Gaul, the identification of Rome as the church
of Peter and Paul, the apostles par excellence, are presumably all
factors in this Rome-ward tendency. (James F. McCue, “The Beginnings Through
Nicaea,” in Papal Primacy and the Universal Church, ed. Paul C. Empie
and T. Austin Murphy [Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue V; Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing House, 1974], 65-66)
