Pontifex Maximus and Roman Religion in Early Christianity
Early Christian writers mostly mention the Pontifex Maximus while criticizing Roman religion, not while teaching a clear doctrine about the office itself. Tertullian and Arnobius are the main named witnesses, and Cyprian and Lactantius add broader background on Roman superstition and pagan rites. The topic is real in the sources, but the direct evidence is narrow and mostly polemical.
125 early-church witnesses · 237 source quotations · compared with Scripture
What did early Christians believe about pontifex Maximus and Roman Religion?
Early Christian writers used Roman priestly language and often attacked Roman religion, but this does not give a clear, direct teaching about the office of Pontifex Maximus itself. Tertullian and Arnobius name the Pontifex Maximus while arguing against Roman worship, and Tertullian also uses the title as a sharp comparison for a bishop.
Cyprian and Lactantius speak more broadly about Roman superstition, pagan rites, and false religion, which helps with background but is indirect on the specific topic. Because there are fewer than two direct early Christian witnesses teaching a clear doctrine about Pontifex Maximus as such, the evidence is thin and better treated as a narrow historical context page than a firm doctrinal dossier.
Many more early Christian quotations, Bible passages, and source links are gathered below so you can study the evidence for yourself.
Key Takeaways
- Tertullian and Arnobius name the Pontifex Maximus in anti-Roman arguments.
- Most other early Christian references are about Roman superstition, not the office itself.
- The evidence is enough for historical context, but too thin for a strong doctrinal claim.
Questions Answered by the Sources
How did early Christians describe Roman religion?
Several early Christian writers describe Roman religion as superstition, false worship, or a system of images and rites rather than true knowledge of God. They argue that Rome’s religious practices do not establish truth and should not be treated as genuine piety.
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Arnobius, Against the Heathen Direct teaching
...s give any human being power of this kind? Did he grant this right to any priest of a curia, to the Pontifex Maximus, or even to the Dialis, in whose title he is presented as the god of life? I will not ask whether he gave power to raise the dead, to give sight to the blind, or to restore the normal use of their limbs to the weak and the paralyzed. But did he even enable anyone to stop a pustule, a hangnail, or a pimple, either by the word of his mouth or by the touch of his hand? Was this power, then, natural to man? Or could such a right be granted, could such permission be given, by the word of one raised on the common produce of the earth? Was it not a divine and sacred gift? Or, if the matter allows any exaggeration, was it not more than divine and sacred? For if you do what you are able to do, and what fits your strength and ability, there is no reason for astonishment. You have only done what you were able to do, and what your power was expected to accomplish, so that there is a perfect match between the deed and the doer. But to be able to pass your own power on to a man, and to share with the weakest being the ability to do what you alone are able to do, is proof of a p
Did any early Christian writer call a church leader Pontifex Maximus?
Tertullian’s On Modesty applies the title Pontifex Maximus to the “bishop of bishops” in a polemical argument about forgiveness and discipline. The source is valuable as evidence of Christian reuse and critique of priestly titles, not as a neutral endorsement of the office.
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Tertullian, Apology Direct teaching
... God whom we worship, is enough to clear us of the crime of treason, especially treason against the Roman religion. For if it is certain that the gods do not exist, then there is no religion in that case. If there is no religion because there are no gods, then we are certainly not guilty of any offense against religion. Instead, the charge falls back on your own head. By worshiping a lie, you are really guilty of the crime you charge us with. You are guilty not only because you refuse the true religion of the true God, but also because you go even further and persecute it. But now, if we grant that these things you worship really are gods, is it not generally believed that there is one higher and more powerful being, like the chief ruler of the world, possessing absolute power and majesty? For the common practice is to divide deity in this way: one receives imperial and supreme rule, while many others are given its offices, just as Plato describes great Jupiter in heaven, surrounded by a host of both deities and demons. Therefore, we ought to show equal respect to the procurators, prefects, and governors of the divine empire. And yet, how great a crime is committed by a man who,
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Tertullian, Apology Supporting witness
... had become an empire, or, if you prefer, still a kingdom, that the religion she practiced made its chief advance. Is it the case now? Has its religion been the source of the prosperity of Rome? Although Numa started an eagerness for superstitious observances, religion among the Romans was not yet a matter of images or temples. It was frugal in its ways. Its rites were simple. There were no Capitols rising to the heavens. The altars were makeshift ones of turf. The sacred vessels were still of Samian earthenware. From these the odors rose, and no likeness of God was to be seen. For at that time the skill of the Greeks and Tuscans in making images had not yet flooded the city with the products of their art. Therefore, the Romans were not distinguished for devotion to the gods before they became great. And so their greatness was not the result of their religion. Indeed, how could religion make a people great who have owed their greatness to irreligion? For, unless I am mistaken, kingdoms and empires are won by wars, and are enlarged by victories. More than that, you cannot have wars and victories without the taking, and often the destruction, of cities. In this the gods have their
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Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness
...heless, you will say that this very superstition gave, increased, and established the empire of the Romans, since they prevailed not so much by their valor as by their religion and piety. No doubt the famous and noble justice of the Romans had its beginning from the very cradle of their growing empire. Did they not, in their beginning, when they were gathered together and fortified by crime, grow by the terror of their own fierceness? For the first people were assembled as to an asylum. Abandoned people, profligate people, incestuous people, murderers, and traitors had flocked together. And so that Romulus himself, their commander and ruler, might excel his people in guilt, he committed fratricide. These are the first auspices of the religious state! Soon afterward they carried off, violated, and ruined foreign virgins, already betrothed, already destined for husbands, and even some young women from their marriage vows, a thing unexampled. Then they made war with their parents, that is, with their fathers-in-law, and shed the blood of their own relatives. What could be more irreligious? What could be more audacious? What could be safer than the very confidence of crime? To drive
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Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness
Nevertheless, you will say that that very superstition itself gave, increased, and established their empire for the Romans, since they prevailed not so much by their valour as by their religion and piety.
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Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness
The Capitol, which is the chief seat of the Roman city and religion, was struck with lightning and set on fire not once only, but frequently.
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Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness
...h sides, or envy us because we have chosen truth over falsehood? But, they say, the public rites of religion must be defended. Oh, with what honorable zeal these miserable men go astray! They know that nothing among men is more excellent than religion, and that it ought to be defended with all our power. But just as they are deceived about religion itself, so they are also deceived about the way it should be defended. Religion must be defended not by killing, but by dying; not by cruelty, but by patient endurance; not by guilt, but by good faith. The first belong to evils, but the second to goods. What is good must have a place in religion, not what is evil. For if you want to defend religion by bloodshed, tortures, and guilt, it will no longer be defended, but polluted and profaned. For nothing depends so much on free will as religion. If the mind of the worshiper is unwilling, religion is immediately taken away and ceases to exist. Therefore, the right way is to defend religion by patient endurance or by death. In this, preserving the faith is pleasing to God Himself and also gives authority to religion. For if a man in earthly warfare keeps faith with his king in some notable
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Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness
Therefore, it is agreed by the common judgment of all mankind that religion ought to be taken up. But we must explain what errors are made in this matter. God willed human nature to be such that man should desire and eagerly seek two things: religion and wisdom. But people go wrong in this: they either take up religion and pay no attention to wisdom, or they devote themselves to wisdom alone and pay no attention to religion, even though one cannot be true without the other. As a result, they fall into many religions, but false ones, because they have left behind wisdom, which could have taught them that there cannot be many gods. Or they devote themselves to wisdom, but to a false wisdom, because they have paid no attention to the religion of the Most High God, who could have instructed them in the knowledge of the truth. So those who follow either of these paths go along a crooked road, full of the greatest errors, since the duty of man and all truth are contained in these two things, which are joined together and cannot be separated. Therefore, I am amazed that none of the philosophers at all discovered the place and dwelling of the chief good. For they could have searched for it
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Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness
...he, or where is that one God, solitary and desolate, whom no free people, no kingdoms, and not even Roman superstition, have known? The lonely and miserable nation of the Jews worshiped one God, one peculiar to itself. But they worshiped him openly, with temples, altars, victims, and ceremonies. And he has so little force or power that he, with his own special nation, is enslaved to the Roman deities. But the Christians, moreover, what wonders, what monstrosities do they imagine! They say that he who is their God, whom they can neither show nor behold, diligently inquires into the character of all, the acts of all, and, finally, into their words and secret thoughts; that he runs about everywhere, and is everywhere present. They make him out to be troublesome, restless, even shamelessly inquisitive, since he is present at everything that is done and wanders in and out in all places, although, being occupied with the whole, he cannot give attention to particulars, nor can he be sufficient for the whole while he is busy with particulars. What! Because they threaten conflagration to the whole world, and to the universe itself, with all its stars, are they meditating its destruction?
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Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness
The chief of the Roman philosophy, and invested with the most honourable priesthood, refutes the false and fictitious gods, and testifies that their worship consists of almost old-womanly superstitions: he complains that men are entangled in false opinions and turbulent errors.
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Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen Supporting witness
Another new deity was added to the number with great religious pomp in Egypt, and was near being so in Greece by the king of the Romans, who deified Antinous, whom he loved as Zeus loved Ganymede, and whose beauty was of a very rare order: for lust is not easily restrained, destitute as it is of fear;
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Tatian, Address to the Greeks Supporting witness
Wherefore, having seen these things, and moreover also having been admitted to the mysteries, and having everywhere examined the religious rites performed by the effeminate and the pathic, and having found among the Romans their Latiarian Jupiter delighting in human gore and the blood of slaughtered men, and Artemis not far from the great city sanctioning acts of the same kind, and one demon here and another there instigating to the perpetration of evil — retiring by myself, I sought how I might be able to discover the truth.
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Cyprian, Treatises Supporting witness
3. From this the religion of the gods is variously changed among individual nations and provinces, inasmuch as no one god is worshipped by all, but by each one the worship of its own ancestors is kept peculiar.
More related quotations from this section 11 shown
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Minucius Felix, Octavius Supporting witness
thus has arisen Roman superstition. And if you reconsider the rites of these gods, how many things are laughable, and how many also pitiable!
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Tertullian, Against Marcion Supporting witness
but that, too, is only Roman superstition. Furthermore, uncertain gods are not well known, because no certainty about them exists;
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Athenagoras, Connection to Romans 1:25 Supporting witness
But missing to discover the greatness of God, and not being able to rise on high with their reason... they pine away among the forms of matter, and rooted to the earth, deify the changes of the elements.
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Irenaeus, Against Heresies: Book III Supporting witness
...n additional meaning that shows they are not gods at all. For example, with David: "The gods of the heathen are idols of demons;" and, "You shall not follow other gods." By saying "the gods of the heathen"—while the heathen do not know the true God—and calling them "other gods," he denies their claim to be regarded as gods entirely. But regarding their true nature, he speaks of them, "for they are," he says, "the idols of demons." And Isaiah: "Let all who blaspheme God and carve useless things be ashamed; even I am witness, says God.” He removes them from the category of gods, but uses the word alone for the purpose that we may understand whom he speaks of. Jeremiah also says the same: "The gods that have not made the heavens and earth, let them perish from the earth which is under the heaven." By noting their destruction, he shows them to be no gods at all. Elijah, too, when all Israel was gathered at Mount Carmel, wishing to turn them from idolatry, says to them, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him." And again, at the offering, he addresses the idolatrous priests: "You will call upon the name of your gods, and I will call on the name o
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Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen Supporting witness
..., but they do not counterfeit the truth. There are no tribes of flatterers among them. Fish have no superstition. Birds worship no image. They only look with wonder at heaven, because, though they have no reason, they are unable to know God. Are you not ashamed, then, to have lived through so many stages of life in impiety, making yourselves more irrational than irrational creatures? You were boys, then striplings, then youths, then men, but you have not yet been good. If you honor old age, then be wise now that you have come to life's sunset. Even at the end of life, gain the knowledge of God, so that the end of life may become for you the beginning of salvation. You have grown old in superstition. As young, enter on the practice of piety. God regards you as innocent children. So let the Athenian follow the laws of Solon, and the Argive the laws of Phoroneus, and the Spartan the laws of Lycurgus. But if you enroll yourself as one of God's people, heaven is your country, and God is your lawgiver. And what are the laws? "You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not seduce boys; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; you shall love the Lord your
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Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata (Miscellanies) Supporting witness
...nt. And so, the person who is truly kingly and gnostic in soul, and who is also pious and free from superstition, is convinced that the One who alone is God is honorable, worthy of reverence, majestic, kind, the doer of good, and the source of all good things, but not the cause of evil. And about Greek superstition, I think we have already shown enough in the book we called The Exhortation, making full use of the history related to this subject. So there is no need to tell at length again what has already been stated clearly. But as far as it is necessary to point this out when we come to the subject, let it be enough to present a few considerations out of many as proof of the impiety of those who make the Divinity like the worst men. For either their gods are harmed by men, and so are shown to be inferior to men because they are harmed by us; or, if that is not so, why are they angry with those by whom they have not been harmed, like an irritable old wife stirred up to anger?
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Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen Supporting witness
Superstition, then, as might be expected, began in this way and became the source of foolish wickedness. Since it was not later restrained, but kept growing and rushing on like a flood, it became the source of many demons. It showed itself in sacrificing hecatombs, appointing solemn assemblies, setting up images, and building temples that were really tombs. I will not pass over these in silence, but will fully expose them, though they are called by the majestic name of temples. They are tombs that came to be called temples. But now, at last, completely give up your superstition. Be ashamed to treat graves with religious honor. In the temple of Athene in Larissa, on the Acropolis, is the grave of Acrisius. And at Athens, on the Acropolis, is the grave of Cecrops, as Antiochus says in the ninth book of his Histories. What about Erichthonius? Was he not buried in the temple of Polias? And Immarus, the son of Eumolpus and Daira, were they not buried in the precincts of the Elusinium, which is under the Acropolis? And were the daughters of Celeus not buried in Eleusis? Why should I list for you the wives of the Hyperboreans? They were called Hyperoche and Laodice. They were buried in th
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Apostolic Constitutions, Apostolic Constitutions Supporting witness
For I, Matthew, one of the twelve who speak to you in this teaching, am an apostle. I myself was formerly a tax collector, but now I have obtained mercy through believing. I have repented of my former practices, and I have been granted the honor of being an apostle and preacher of the word. And Zacchaeus, whom the Lord received because of his repentance and his prayers to Him, was also at first a tax collector in the same way. Besides this, even the soldiers and the crowd of tax collectors who came to hear the Lord's word about repentance heard this from the prophet John after he had baptized them: "Do nothing more than what is appointed for you." Luke 3:13 In the same way, life is not denied to the Gentiles if they repent and cast away their unbelief. Therefore, regard everyone who is convicted of any wicked action and has not repented as a tax collector or a Gentile. But if he afterward repents and turns from his error, then, just as we receive the Gentiles, when they wish to repent, into the Church indeed to hear the word, but do not receive them to communion until they have received the seal of baptism and are made complete Christians, so we also permit such people to enter onl
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Arnobius, Against the Heathen Supporting witness
For they say that these sacred rites were instituted to do honour to the gods of heaven, and that these things which they do, they do to show them honour, and to magnify the powers of the deities by them.
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Lactantius, The Divine Institutes Supporting witness
For after many years, in the consulship of Cornelius and Bebius, in a field belonging to the scribe Petilius, under the Janiculum, two stone chests were found by men who were digging, in one of which was the body of Numa, in the other seven books in Latin respecting the law of the pontiffs, and the same number written in Greek respecting systems of philosophy, in which he not only annulled the religious rites which he himself had instituted, but all others also.
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Cyprian, Treatises Supporting witness
Romulus was made a god by the perjury of Proculus, and Picus, and Tiberinus, and Pilumnus, and Consus, whom as a god of treachery Romulus would have to be worshipped, just as if he had been a god of counsels, when his perfidy resulted in the rape of the Sabines.
How did early Christians talk about Roman priests and imperial religion?
A few sources refer to Roman priests, public priests, emperors, and imperial religion in passing, usually as part of criticism of pagan worship or discussion of public rites. These references support the broader setting of Roman priestly culture around the Pontifex Maximus, but they are not detailed teachings on the office itself.
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Tertullian, On Modesty Direct teaching
The Pontifex Maximus — that is, the bishop of bishops — issues an edict: I remit, to such as have discharged (the requirements of) repentance, the sins both of adultery and of fornication.
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Cyprian, Life and Passion of Cyprian Supporting witness
...imself wished to have done for him. In these circumstances, it would be wrong to pass over what the pontiff of Christ did, who surpassed the pontiffs of the world in kindly affection just as much as he did in the truth of religion. When the people had gathered together in one place, he first urged on them the benefits of mercy. He taught, by examples from the divine lessons, how greatly the duties of kindness avail for deserving well of God. Then he added that there was nothing remarkable in caring only for our own people with the needed attentions of love. Rather, that man becomes perfect who does something more than the tax collector or the heathen, who overcomes evil with good, and who practices a clemency like the divine clemency, loving even his enemies and praying for the salvation of those who persecute him, as the Lord instructs and exhorts. God continually makes His sun rise, and from time to time gives showers to nourish the seed, showing all these kindnesses not only to His people, but also to strangers. And if a man claims to be a son of God, why does he not imitate the example of his Father? We must, he said, be true to our birth. It is not fitting that those who ar
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Cyprian, Life and Passion of Cyprian Background
So far was God's pontiff, who had always been urgent in merciful works, from needing the assistance of all these things.
Common Questions
Did early Christians teach about the Pontifex Maximus?
Only in a limited way. Early writers like Tertullian and Arnobius mention the Pontifex Maximus while attacking Roman religion, but they do not give a full teaching about the office itself.
Did early Christians reject Roman religion?
Yes. Writers such as Tertullian, Arnobius, Cyprian, and Lactantius spoke against Roman gods, rites, and superstition.
Was the Pontifex Maximus the pope in early Christianity?
Not in the early Christian texts here. Tertullian uses the phrase as a sharp comparison for a bishop, but that is not the same as a direct claim that the pope was the pagan office.
Source Index for Pontifex Maximus and Roman Religion
The guided sections above show the strongest quotations. This compact index highlights 160 ranked source links from 237 compiled sources for deeper study.
Source index 160 ranked links shown
Early Christian Writings 80 shown of 125
Primary-source quotations from early Christian writers and church documents.
Bible Passages 80 shown of 112
Related Bible passages saved for comparison with the early Christian quotations.