PONTIFF, or High-priest, a person who has the superintendence and direction of divine worship, as the offering of sacrifices and other religious solemnities. The Romans had a college of pontiffs; and over these a sovereign pontiff, or pontiff maximus, instituted by Numa, whose function it was to prescribe the ceremonies each god was to be worshipped withal, compose the rituals, direct the vestals, and for a good while to perform the business of augury, till, on some superstitious occasion, he was prohibited meddling therewith. The office of the college of pontiffs was to assist the high-priest in giving judgment in all causes relating to religion, inquiring into the lives and manners of the inferior priests, and punishing them if they saw occasion, &c. The Jews too had their pontiffs; and among the Romanists, the pope is still styled the sovereign pontiff.