Pontifex Maximus: Encyclopedia II - Pontifex Maximus - Legacy

Pontifex Maximus - Legacy

Pontifex Maximus - Christian usage

In Christian circles, when Tertullian furiously applied the term to Pope Callixtus I, with whom he was at odds, ca 220, over Callistus' relaxation of the Church's penitential discipline, allowing repentant adulterers and fornicators back into the Church, under his Petrine authority to "bind and loosen," it was in bitter irony:

Was Pontifex a word in common currency by early 3rd-century Christianity to denote a bishop? Tertullian's usage is unusual in that most of the technical terms of Roman paganism were avoided in the vocabulary of Christian Latin in favour of neologisms or Greek words. After Gratian put aside the pagan honour, it remained in desuetude. Pontifex summus was an expression used to distinguish Hilary of Arles (died 449) as the bishop of the notable see of Gallia Narbonensis, in relation to those of less importance, by Eucherius of Lyons (Catholic Encyclopedia, quoting Pat. Lat., L, 773), but other such early instances are difficult to find, and it may be significant that Pontifex summus was substituted for the pagan formula Pontifex maximus by Bishop Eucherius.

At the end of the 6th century Gregory I was the first Pope to employ "Pontifex maximus" in a formal sense, in a broader program of asserting Roman primacy. It has remained one of the titles of the popes to this day.

• The title Pontifex Maximus was briefly usurped,1902–1906, by the head of the Filipino sect Aglipayanism.

Pontifex Maximus - The tradition of sovereign as High Priest

The practice of religious and secular duality united in the sovereign has a long history, having passed from the Roman to the Byzantine emperors, where it perhaps reached its zenith in the West. The Romanov dynasty of Russia, the Third Rome, claiming direct descent from the Roman emperors, also claimed supreme authority over the Russian Orthodox Church. The first of the Holy Roman Emperors, Charlemagne (c. A.D. 742 or 747 - 814) is said to have regretted that he allowed himself to be crowned by the Pope rather than crowning himself; since his authority was supposed to come directly from God, he was in no need of a "bridge builder".

Though the sovereign of England is Supreme Governor of the Church of England since the English Reformation there is effective separation of church and state.

Eastern traditions, from the ancient Egyptian to the Japanese, have carried the concept even further, by according their sovereigns demigod status. The secular equivalent of the emperor as Pontifex Maximus is the philosopher-king of the Greek sages, with whom the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius is said to have identified, as a stoic, and to which the Prussian king Frederick the Great and the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte aspired, both as philosophes.

Pontifex Maximus - Popular culture

In the Christian fiction series Left Behind, Cardinal Peter Mathews is named Pontifex Maximus of Enigma Babylon One World Faith established by antagonist Nicolae Carpathia.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Legacy", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki