Excerpt from History of Latin Christianity, Vol. 1 of 8: Including That of the Popes to the Pontificate of Nicolas V Prefect or Proconsul, and in later times the distribution of the Imperial dioceses. They were held together by com mon sympathies, common creeds, common sacred books, certain, as yet simple, but common rites, common usages of life, and an hierarchy everywhere, in theory at least, of the same power and influence. They admitted the Christians of other'places by some established sign, or by recom mendatory letters. They were often bound together by mutual charitable subventions. Still each was an absolutely independent community. The Roman East, including Greece, had no capital. The old kingdoms might respect the traditionary greatness of some city, which had been the abode of their kings, or which was the seat of a central provincial government: other cities, from their wealth and population, may have assumed a superior rank, Antioch in Syria, Alexandria in Egypt, Ephesus in Asia Minor. But though churches known or reputed to have been founded by Apostles might be looked on with peculiar respect, there was as yet no subordination, no supremacy; their federal union was a voluntary association. Whether the internal constitution had become more or less rapidly or completely monarchical; whether the Bishop had risen to a greater or less height above his co-presbyters, the whole episcopal order, the representatives of each church, were on the same level. The Metropolitan and afterwards the Patriarchal dignity was of later growth. Jerusalem, which might naturally have aspired to the rank of the Christian capital, at least of the East, had been destroyed, and remained desolate for many years: it assumed only at a later period (at one time it was subject to Caesarea) even the Patriarchal rank. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.