This work and its author were the focus of controversy in the eighteenth century. Archibald Bower entered, left, and then re-entered the Roman Catholic Church as a Jesuit. His notoriety brought his <em>History of the Popes</em> some attention, including the accusation that it was largely a paraphrase of another work. Jefferson collected a number of church histories and shelved them under the category of “Ecclesiastical History.”