Whether St. Peter ever came to Rome is still rather uncertain. The evidence is not clear. But the latest researches seem to make it probable that {55} he did go to Rome, and perhaps died there, as martyr. For we must remember that all through the first centuries Christianity had to fight its way against great opposition from those of the pagan religion. Besides the hatred of Christianity which some felt because it was a new religion, it incurred the hatred of the rulers because the Christians seemed to be setting up for themselves another ruler than the Roman Emperor. Even during Christ's life we know that the Christians in Judæa were suspected of enmity to the Emperor. The Pharisees laid a trap for Jesus by asking Him whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar. So the Christians often had to meet for worship in secret, and thousands of them were cruelly put to death. Rome, then, because it was the centre of the Empire--which, for all Rome's subjects, meant the centre of the Universe--and also because it was the place where certainly St. Paul, and very probably St. Peter also, lived and died, became naturally the place to which the Christians throughout the Empire looked as the chief place in which their God was worshipped, and the place to which they would bring for decision any difficult questions and differences of opinion which the bishop of the district in which such debate arose could not settle for them. These districts were named "dioceses" from a very early date. [Sidenote: The bishop of Rome] Thus the bishop of Rome came to have an authority above the others. And then the legend grew that to him St. Peter, who was supposed to be the keeper of the keys of the gate of Heaven, had bequeathed some, at least, of that authority which St. Peter himself had directly from Christ. Thus it was, even before the Emperor Constantine confessed himself a Christian. You should observe that the Emperors themselves had been deemed to be in some degree divine, and to have the power and {56} glory of gods, up to this time. Constantine, proclaiming Christianity as the State religion, gave up this claim to divinity for the Emperor. The time had not yet come when the Head of the Church--its {57} Father, Papa, or Pope--should actually confer the Imperial authority on the Emperor by consecration in the great cathedral built in Rome to St. Peter's glory. That time was not yet; but it was not so very far distant. It came, about the year 800, with the consecration of Charlemagne after he had destroyed the kingdom of the Lombards and taken their territories for his own. [Illustration: ROME. View of St. Peter's.] After Constantine, the Emperor Julian tried to reverse this declaration of Constantine's and to bring back paganism. He was called Julian the Apostate, for so doing; and the chief interest of his attempt is that it shows how firm a hold Christianity already had taken, for the attempt failed utterly.