Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

350 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMPeter at Eome had been imitated and repeated. Thesame structure which I have described in a precedingchapter had grown up, modified in some measureaccording to the differences of place and circumstance,but identical in character throughout province afterprovince. To use the metaphor of Tertullian, theApostolic See, like a fruitful vine, had sent out suckersin all directions, and the plant had everywhere preservedthe likeness of that from which it was drawn. Norcould he fail to see that the organisation was as completein the East as in the West; that there alsosuffragan sees had radiated from two Apostolic centres,on both of which rested the name and power of Peter.The second rank in the- Eoman Empire among citieswas held by that wonderful creation of Alexander'sgenius, the city of Alexandria. Thither Peter hadsent his disciple Mark, who had founded a Churchin his blood. In strictest dependence on it eachEgyptian city had received its bishop. Thus inConstantine's time the whole mass of the bishops ofEgypt moved as by one impulse under the hand ofMark's successor and Peter's representative, the Primateof Alexandria. The third city of the empire, Antiochthe Great, metropolis of the East, gloried no less inPeter as its first bishop. Antioch stood at the headof a large number of metropolitans and bishops, whosesees had been propagated from its bosom, and coveredvast provinces as far as the Tigris and the Euphrates.Here was a principle of spiritual growth which Con-stantine saw by the experience of nearly three centuriesto be as strong, as stable, and as fruitful as anytemporal power of the Roman polity which he held inhis hands. Here was an authority which he perceivedlikewise with the evidence of sight not to be of the