We can only conjecture the route by which Irenaeus travelled to the south of France when he first set out from Asia Minor; but we have direct evidence that he had paid a visit to the capital shortly before he wrote this memorable eulogium on the Roman Church. About the close of the dreadful persecution endured in A.D. 177 by the Christians of Lyons and Vienne, he had been commissioned to repair to Italy with a view to a settlement of the disputes created by the appearance of the Montanists. As he was furnished with very complimentary credentials, [339:1] we may presume that he was handsomely treated by his friends in the metropolis; and if he returned home laden with presents to disciples whose sufferings had recently so deeply moved the sympathy of their brethren, it is not strange that he gracefully seized an opportunity of extolling the Church to which he owed such obligations. His account of its greatness is obviously the inflated language of a panegyrist; but in due time its hyperbolic statements received a still more extravagant interpretation; and, on the authority of this ancient father, the Church of Rome was pompously announced as the mistress and the mother of all Churches. It has been mentioned in a former chapter [339:2] that the celebrated Marcia who, until shortly before his death, possessed almost absolute control over the Emperor Commodus, made a profession of the faith. Her example, no doubt, encouraged other personages of distinction to connect themselves with the Roman Church; and, through the medium of these members of his flock, the bishop Eleutherius must have had an influence such as none of his predecessors possessed. It is beyond doubt that Marcia, after consulting with Victor, the successor of Eleutherius, induced the Emperor to perform acts of kindness to some of her co-religionists. [339:3] The favour of the court seems to have puffed up the spirit of this naturally haughty churchman; and though, as we have seen, there is cause to suspect that certain ecclesiastical movements in the chief city had long before excited much ill-suppressed dissatisfaction, the Christian commonwealth was now startled for the first time by a very flagrant exhibition of the arrogance of a Roman prelate. [340:1] Because the Churches of Asia Minor celebrated the Paschal feast in a way different from that observed in the metropolis, [340:2] Victor cut them off from his communion. But this attempt of the bishop of the great city to act as lord over God's heritage was premature. Other churches condemned the rashness of his procedure; his refusal to hold fellowship with the Asiatic Christians threatened only to isolate himself; and he seems to have soon found it expedient to cultivate more pacific councils.