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The Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the Ancient Roman College of Pontiffs. This was the most important position in the Ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post. A distinctly religious office under the early Roman Republic, it gradually became politicized until, beginning with Augustus, it was subsumed into the Imperial office. Its last use with reference to the emperors is in inscriptions of Gratian,^[1] Emperor from 375 to 383, who, however, then decided to omit the words "pontifex maximus" from his title.^[2][3]

It is often said that Pope Damasus I, Bishop of Rome from 366 to 384 and so for the whole of the reign of Gratian, was the first pope to use the title "Pontifex Maximus", but no document is cited in support of this statement.^[4] Emperor Theodosius's edict De fide catholica of 27 February 380 refers to Damasus as a "pontifex", not as the "Pontifex Maximus". It is at a much later stage in history that the title "Pontifex Maximus" appears on buildings, monuments and coins of a specific pope of Renaissance and modern times.

According to the usual interpretation, the term pontifex literally means "bridge-builder" (pons + facere); "maximus" literally means "greatest". This was perhaps originally meant in a literal sense the position of bridge-builder was indeed an important one in Rome, where the major bridges were over the Tiber, the sacred river (and a deity) only prestigious authorities with sacral functions could be allowed to "disturb" it with mechanical additions. However, it was always understood in its symbolic sense as well the pontifices were the ones who smoothed the bridge between gods and men (Van Haeperen). The great teachers of Jainism are known as Tirthankaras, a word that literally means "ford-makers".^[5]

An alternative view is that pontifex means "preparer of the road", derived from the Etruscan word pont, meaning "road".^[3] A minority opinion is that the word is a corruption of a similar-sounding but etymologically unrelated Etruscan word for priest.

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