Research on the Mechanism of the Excommunication of the Christian Heresies and the Process of the Establishment of the Papal Primacy in the Later Roman Empire

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In the middle of the 3^<rd> century, the Roman bishops and those of North Africa agreed to acknowledge the papal primacy out of necessity to make a joint front in order to excommunicate the Arians. In the middle of the 5^<th> century, the Papacy was more strengthened through the antagonism between the Eastern churches and the Western concerning the authority of the bishops.In addition to such external factors, the structural change inside the Western Churches also contributed to the establishment of the primacy of the Papacy as an internal factor. Compared to the Eastern region, upper-class pagans and their traditional culture were still strongly influential in the West. Therefore, it was required for the Western Churches not only to romanize, namely secularize to some extent, but also to institutionalize, that is, to build a firm organization based on the Papacy. In such a phase, Augustine's theory on original sin could offer a pertinent theological framework to promote the secularization of the Western Churches and to build up the churches required a stronger authority for forgiveness of sin. In consequences, the Papacy as the supreme authority which could excommunicate heresies and forgive was declared in the Gelasius papal documents in the 5^<th> century. In the same documents, it was stipulated that the Papacy was superior to the rights of the emperor in religious matter. This is the final evidence which proved symbolically the function of the external and internal factors for establishing the primacy of the Papacy.