The severe persecution that accompanied the preaching of the Gospel hastened the departure of the Christians from their own country into other parts of the known world at that time, thereby rapidly spreading Christianity more than ever. The number of Christians continued to multiply remarkably; and by 313 A.D., one historian estimates that about one half of the population of the Roman Empire were Christians.

At the close of the apostolic age, the churches were independent one of another, each governed by a board of pastors, precedence being given one, who later came to be called Bishop. Their aim at first was to hold Christ (not the church) before the people; but in time the church took a political form of government and gradually became an autocratic organization. 

Following the forming of the churches, the jurisdiction of the bishop gradually expanded to include neighboring towns; and about the year 500 A.D., the bishop of Rome became known as the pope, taking on the meaning, “Universal Father.” Before this time, the bishops of Rome were not popes in that sense.

According to authoritative sources, the tradition that Peter was the first pope is purely fiction; and there is no historical evidence that Peter was ever bishop of Rome. Peter’s divine foreboding was that his “successors” would become “lords” over God’s heritage, taking oversight of them for “filthy” lucre’s sake rather than being examples for the flock (I Peter 5:2,3). The Apostle Peter’s fears became facts when the supreme ambition of those church “fathers” was only that of obtaining luxurious, enviable positions, complete domination, and remuneration of monetary value, largely through indulgences. Eventually the church at Rome dominated not only the spiritual matters, but, to a great extent, the political matters of the world.