Note 8 — Chapter I · THE CHURCHES IN THE WEST.

Protestant church historians are unreasonably jealous of admitting any connection between the early British or Irish Church and Rome; but the Rome of the fourth and fifth centuries was not the Rome of the middle ages. It was the church of St. Jerome and St. Augustine. There was no question then about supremacy, and the bishop of Rome was simply regarded with deference and respect as the acknowledged head of the Christian Church within the western provinces of the empire of which Rome was the capital. Questions of ecclesiastical supremacy did not emerge till the empire was broken up.up.