id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-4811		Pontiff - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	841	90	62	A pontiff (from Latin pontifex) was, in Roman antiquity, a member of the most illustrious of the colleges of priests of the Roman religion, the College of Pontiffs.[1][2] The term "pontiff" was later applied to any high or chief priest and, in Roman Catholic ecclesiastical usage, to a bishop and more particularly to the Bishop of Rome, the Pope or "Roman Pontiff".[3] There were four chief colleges of priests in ancient Rome, the most illustrious of which was that of the pontifices.[2] The others were those of the augures, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis, and the epulones.[5] The same person could be a member of more than one of these groups.[2] Including the pontifex maximus, who was president of the college, there were originally three[5] or five[2] pontifices, but the number increased over the centuries, finally becoming 16 under Julius Caesar.[2][5] By the third century B.C., the pontiffs had assumed control of the state religious system.[5] ^ The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Pontifical	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-4811.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-4811.txt