gods. To worship any God other than the pantheon of Zeus and the many other gods was to go against Rome religiously, politically, and culturally. So some of the goals of the bishop of Rome were simply to survive, to lead the Christian community in the city of Rome, and to keep Christians safe during the periodic persecutions that threatened them. The first bishops of Rome, then, were local leaders who, over time, exercised a broader regional and then “universal” leadership—bearing in mind that the