Pontif, or High Priest, a person who has the superintendence and direction of divine worship, as the offering of sacrifices and the celebration of other religious solemnities. The Romans had a college of pontiffs, over which was a sovereign pontiff, or pontifex maximus, instituted by Numa, whose function it was to prescribe the ceremonies with which each god was to be worshipped, compose the rituals, direct the vestals, and perform the business of augury, until, 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 to do so. The Jews, too, had their pontiffs; and amongst the Catholics the pope is styled the sovereign pontiff.