the second half of the second century, and no doubt in response to Marcion's Pauline heresy - the first heresy Rome itself had experienced - Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone. In fact the first Roman bishop in any meaningful sense was probably Soter, 166-74, but by that time the concept of an Episcopal tradition going back to Jesus had already been established, and Rome may also have been behind the process which made ‘her’ apostle, Peter, the founder of the Church of Antioch, and his assistant, Mark, the founder in Alexandria, thus turning into Roman ecclesiastical colonies the second and third cities in the empire. Even before this stage, however, there is evidence that Rome was using its position as the imperial capital to influence the Church in other centers, and thus to build up a case-history of successful intervention. The first such instance of which we have record is Clements’s Letter to the Corinthians, where Clement weighs in on the side of established order. There were other second century cases, usually on what seemed like marginal issues: cultic practices, the date of Easter, and so forth. Rome was appealed to as the best apostolic authority, and responded eagerly. It had an early reputation for robustness in the faith: it was the first Church to undergo a systematic state persecution and to survive it triumphantly. It was also orthodox: that is, it was felt to have preserved intact the teaching of Peter and Paul. The danger-zone of heresy, of Gnosticism, of creedal instability and osmosis was the east, especially Syria, Asia Minor and Egypt. Rome was far removed from the infection. It seems to have excluded Gnostic tendencies right from the start. It set the pace in defining the canon, eliminating the spurious and producing authorized texts. It had no experience of heresy until Marcion, and then it quickly forced him to operate in Asia; equally, it defeated the Montanist challenge - Montanism flourished in Asia long after it had been eliminated from Rome's Christian circles. The great anti heretical campaigners, Hegesippus, Justin Rhode, Miltiades, were Rome-oriented, most of them living and working there. Rome profited not only from its apostolic foundation but from its associations as the capital of the empire : it was the standard for faith, ritual, organization, textual accuracy and general Christian practice. It was the first Christian Church to eliminate minority tendencies, and present a homogenous front to the world. From there it was a natural development for Rome to probe into the affairs of other Churches, with a view to assisting the victory of the ‘orthodox’, that is Roman, element. Moreover, Rome had an excellent excuse for such interference. From the earliest times, it had assisted small and struggling Churches with money. This was charity, but charity, increasingly, with a purpose. Money certainly accompanied Clements’s letter to Corinth, where it helped to turn the minority into the majority party. Apollonius, writing against the Montanists, says that of course money played an important part in religious conflict - as in any other kind of struggle. From the, admittedly later, description by Eusebius of Constantine's use of cash to promote Christianity, we can deduce the variety of ways in which financial power influenced religious development. Money was used to get prominent Christian teachers out of state prisons; to ransom valuable men who had been sent to the Sardinian mines; to build up congregations out of freed slaves and the poor; to support welfare services and provide bail sureties, or even judicial bribes. The Rome congregation was rich, and became much richer during the second century. Thus towards the end of it we find Dionysius of Corinth writing in gratitude: 'From the start it has been your custom to treat all Christians with unfailing kindness, and to send contributions to many churches in every city . . . thus you Romans have observed the ancestral Roman custom, which your revered Bishop Soter has not only maintained but enlarged, by generously providing the abundant supplies distributed among God's people.’ A similar dispatch, from Dionysius of Alexandria, says that ‘all of Syria' was in receipt of such aid, and adds that the donations were accompanied by letters - of advice and instruction, no doubt. With Roman money there went a gentle but persistent pressure to conform to Roman standards. It is easy to project backwards into these developments - the extension of orthodoxy, the rise of the monarchical episcopate, the special role of Rome the operation of a deliberate policy, pursued relentlessly 3/