Nothing seems clearer, after taking into account all the factors, than that the rise of papal power was a natural, logical, historical process which began with the planting of the Church in Rome. Numerous incidents mark the different stages of development to show that every new assumption of papal prerogative was disputed and contested. Indeed nothing more distinctly marks the growth of papal authority than the fact that these protests were so numerous and so widely scattered. In the beginnings of ecclesiastical organisation bishops enjoyed and exercised an equality of power and rank. The persistence of this idea may be seen long after the period of Constantine. But hierarchical tendencies began very early and are very conspicuous in connection with Rome. In the opening decades of the history of the Church it was customary for Christians eminent in station or piety to address letters, advisory or hortatory, to other churches on general points of creed or discipline, or on special local questions. Thus wrote Clement of Rome, Polycarp, Ignatius, and others. Not infrequently churches appealed to prominent bishops for assistance and advice. Often one bishop would censure another for the manifestation of unwarranted assumptions. Thus Irenæus reprehended Victor for excommunicating the heretical bishops of Asia and did it as an equal.[177:1] Tertullian, after he joined the heretical Montanists, scornfully denies the powers claimed by the Bishop of Rome by asking, "How comes it that you take to yourself the attribute of the Catholic Church?" He answers by denying the whole Petrine theory.[177:2] Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus, in a controversy with Calixtus I., shows how the claim of the Bishop of Rome was denied in the beginning of the third century.[177:3] Origen also repudiated the Petrine claims.[177:4] While the great Cyprian did so much to create the concept of the one Catholic Church under the leadership of Rome, yet, at the same time, he strongly asserted episcopal equality and independence.[177:5]