From the 350s onwards, the relationship between the Church and the secular powers was fraught with conflict, and the temporal and spiritual powers came into competition. The popes engaged in a struggle with the temporal powers in order to free themselves from their political tutelage. Above all, the Roman Church did not want a Byzantine-style Caesaropapist model in which the Church was subordinate to the secular power. It is in this context that the famous letter of Pope Gelasius I, who in 494 stated to Anastasius I that the world is mainly governed by two things: the sacred authority of the bishops and the royal power.
