Pontifex, (Latin: “bridge builder”, ) plural Pontifices, member of a council of priests in ancient Rome. The college, or collegium, of the pontifices was the most important Roman priesthood, being especially charged with the administration of the jus divinum (i.e., that part of the civil law that regulated the relations of the community with the deities recognized by the state), together with a general superintendence of the worship of gens and family. Whether the literal meaning of the name indicates any special connection with the sacred bridge over the Tiber (Pons Sublicius) cannot now be determined.

The college existed under the monarchy, when its members were probably three in number; they may be considered as having been legal advisers of the rex in all matters of religion. Under the republic they emerge into prominence under a pontifex maximus, or supreme priest, who took over the king’s duties as chief administrator of religious law. During the republican period the number of pontifices increased until by the time of Julius Caesar there were 16. Included in the collegium were also the rex sacrorum, the flamines, three assistant pontifices (minores), and the Vestal Virgins, who were all chosen by the pontifex maximus. Vacancies in the body of pontifices were originally filled by co-optation; but from the second Punic War onward the pontifex maximus was chosen by a peculiar form of popular election, and in the last age of the republic this was true for all the members. They all held office for life.

The immense authority of the collegium centred in the pontifex maximus, the other pontifices forming his consilium, or advising body. His functions were partly sacrificial or ritualistic, but the real power lay in the administration of the jus divinum, the chief departments of which may briefly be described as follows: (1) the regulation of all expiatory ceremonials needed as the result of pestilence, lightning, etc.; (2) the consecration of all temples and other sacred places and objects dedicated to the gods by the state through its magistrates; (3) the regulation of the calendar both astronomically and in detailed application to the public life of the state; (4) the administration of the law relating to burials and burying places and the worship of the Manes, or dead ancestors; (5) the superintendence of all marriages by confarreatio (i.e., originally, of all legal patrician marriages); and (6) the administration of the law of adoption and of testamentary succession. They had also the care of the state archives and of the lists of magistrates and kept records of their own decisions (commentarii) and the chief events (annales).

It is obvious that a priesthood with such functions and holding office for life must have been a great power in the state, and for the first three centuries of the republic it is probable that the pontifex maximus was in fact its most powerful member. The office might be combined with a magistracy, and, though its powers were declaratory rather than executive, it may be described as quasi-magisterial. Under the later republic it was coveted chiefly for the great dignity of the position; Julius Caesar held it for the last 20 years of his life, and Augustus took it after the death of Lepidus in 12 bc, after which it became inseparable from the office of the reigning emperor.

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The title pontifex was used of Roman Catholic bishops and pontifex maximus of the pope by the end of the 4th century. In modern usage, both terms generally refer to the pope.