Papa as ‘bishop of Rome’

Abstract

Medieval historians confronted with the Latin word papa may be tempted to translate it unthinkingly as ‘pope’. Certainly the word has been restricted to the bishop of Rome for much of the history of the Church, and its application to this bishop is of long standing. It occurs in an inscription from pre-Constantinian Rome, in a letter despatched to Rome by the fathers of the Council of Aries in 314, which is addressed ‘dilectissimo papae Silvestro’ and goes on to style Silvester ‘gloribsissime papa’, and in the acts of the first Council of Toledo which met in 400, where language is used which implies that the bishop of Rome, and he alone, was papa. But in the early Church it generally seems to have been felt that the word could be applied to other bishops as well. A striking indication of this is furnished by a letter sent to Cyprian of Carthage by the priests and deacons of the Roman Church itself, which refers to him as papa. Sidonius Apollinaris, who became bishop of Clermont in 469, felt free to address his confrères among the Gallic episcopate by the same title, apparently indiscriminately, and was himself so addressed.