*

host of new officials. Within little more than a century after the rise of Prelacy the number of grades of ecclesiastics was nearly trebled. In addition to the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons, there were also, in A.D. 251, in the Church of Rome lectors, sub-deacons, acolyths, exorcists, and janitors. The lectors, who read the Scriptures to the congregation and who had charge of the sacred manuscripts, attract our attention as distinct office-bearers about the close of the second century. The sub-deacons are said to have had the care of the sacramental cups; the acolyths attended to the lamps of the sacred edifice; the exorcists ‡ professed by their prayers to expel evil spirits out of the bodies of those about to be baptized; and the janitors performed the more humble duties of porters or door-keepers. At a subsequent period each of these functionaries was initiated into office by a special form of ordination or investiture. It was laid down as a principle that no one could regularly become a bishop who had not previously passed through all these inferior orders; § but when the multitude wished all at once to elevate a layman to the rank of a bishop or a presbyter, ecclesiastical routine was compelled to yield to the pressure of popular enthusiasm.||

The great city in which Prelacy originated appears to have been the place where these new offices made their first appearance. Rome, true to her mission as "the mother of the Catholic Church," conceived and brought forth nearly all the peculiarities of the Catholic system. The lady seated on the seven hills was already regarded with great admiration, and surrounding Churches silently copied the arrange

* Euseb. vi. 43.

+ Tertullian, “Præscrip. Hæret." c. 41. This office, even in the fourth century, was often committed to mere children—a sad proof that the importance of reading the Word effectively was not duly appreciated.

Origen makes mention of them, Opera, ii. p. 453; and Firmilian, Cyprian, Epist. lxxv. p. 306. § Cyprian, Epist. lii. p. 150.

As in the case of Fabian of Rome. Euseb. vi. 29.

ments of their Imperial parent. In the East, at least one of the orders now instituted by the great Western prelate, that is, the order of acolyths, was not adopted for centuries afterwards.*

The city bishops were well aware of the vast accession of influence they acquired in consequence of their election by the people, and did not fail to insist upon the circumstance when desirous to illustrate their ecclesiastical title. Any one who peruses the letters of Cyprian may remark the frequency, as well as the transparent satisfaction, with which he refers to the mode of his appointment. Who, he seems to say, could doubt his right to act as bishop of Carthage, seeing that he had been chosen by "the suffrage of the whole fraternity"-by "the vote of the people?"† The members of the Church enthusiastically acknowledged such appeals to their sympathy and support, and in cases of emergency promptly rallied round the individuals whom they had themselves elevated to power. But as all the other church officers were meanwhile likewise chosen by common suffrage, the bishops soon betrayed an anxiety to appropriate the distinction, and began, under various pretexts, to interfere with the free exercise of the popular franchise. In one of his epistles Cyprian excuses himself to the Christians of Carthage because he had ventured to ordain a reader without their approval. He pleads that the peculiar circumstances of the case and the extraordinary merits of the candidate must be accepted as his apology. "In clerical ordinations," says he, "my custom is to consult you beforehand, dearest brethren, and in common deliberation to weigh the character and merits of each. But testimonies of men need not be awaited when anticipated by the sentence of God." The sanction of the people should

* Bingham, i. 356, 359.

+ Cyprian, Epist. lv. pp. 177, 178; xl. pp. 119, 120.
Epist. xxxiii. p. 105.

have been obtained before the ordination; but, as persecution now raged, it is suggested that it would have been inconvenient to lay the matter before them; and Cyprian argues that the informality was pardonable, inasmuch as the Almighty himself had given His suffrage in favour of the new lector; for Aurelius, though only a youth, had nobly submitted to the torture rather than renounce the gospel.

The ordination of Aurelius under such circumstances was not, however, a solitary case; and there is certainly something suspicious in the frequency with which the bishop of Carthage apologizes to the clergy and people for neglecting to consult them on the appointment of church officers. In another of his letters he announces to the presbyters and deacons that, "on an urgent occasion," he had "made Saturus a reader, and Optatus the confessor a sub-deacon."* Again, he tells the same parties, and "the whole people," that "Celerinus, renowned alike for his courage and his character, has been joined to the clergy, not by human suffrage, but by the divine favour;" + and at another time he informs them that he had been "admonished and instructed by a divine vouchsafement to enrol Numidicus in the number of the Carthaginian presbyters." These cases were, no doubt, afterwards quoted as precedents for the non-observance of the law; and from time to time new pretences were discovered for evading its provisions. In this way the rights of the people were gradually abridged; and in the course of two or three centuries, the bishops almost entirely ignored their interference in the election of presbyters and deacons, as well as of the inferior clergy.

New canons relative to ordination were promulgated probably about the time when the city presbyters ceased to have the exclusive right of electing their own bishop. The altered circumstances of the Church led to the establish

* Epist. xxiv. pp. 79, 80. Epist. xxxv. p. 111.

+ Epist. xxxiv. pp. 107, 108.

ment of these regulations. The election of the chief pastor of a great town was often a scene of much excitement, and as several of the elders might be regarded as candidates for the office, it was obviously unseemly that any of them should preside on the occasion. It was accordingly arranged that some of the neighbouring bishops should be present to superintend the proceedings. The successful candidate now began to be formally invested with his new dignity by the imposition of hands; and at first, perhaps, one of the bishops, assisted by one of the presbyters of the place, performed this ceremony.* But the elders soon ceased to take part in the ordination. At the election, the people and the clergy sometimes took opposite sides; and, in the contest, the ecclesiastical party was not unfrequently completely overborne. It occasionally happened, as in the case of Cyprian,† that one of the elders was chosen in opposition to the wishes of the majority of the presbytery; or, as in the case of Fabian of Rome,‡ that a layman was all at once elevated to the episcopal chair; and, at such times, the disappointed presbyters did not care to join in the inauguration. The bishops availed themselves of the pretexts thus furnished to dispense with their services altogether. At length the power of admitting to the ministry by the laying on of hands began to be challenged as the peculiar prerogative of the episcopal order.

In many places, perhaps before the middle of the third century, elders were no longer permitted to take part in the consecration of bishops; but Prelacy had not yet completely

Bishops and presbyters appear to have continued to ordain bishops in the time of Origen. His "Commentaries on Matthew," written according to his Benedictine editor in A.D. 245 (see Delarue's "Origen," iii. Præf.), speak of bishops and presbyters "committing whole churches to unfit persons and constituting incompetent governors."-Opera, iii. p. 753.

+ It would appear that the five presbyters who opposed Cyprian constituted the majority of the presbytery. Cyprian, Epist. xl. pp. 119, 120. See also Sage's "Vindication of the Principles of the Cyprianic Age," p. 348.

Euseb. vi. 29.

*

established itself upon the ruins of the more ancient polity. Sometimes the presbytery itself still discharged the functions of the bishop. After the martyrdom of Fabian in A.D. 250, the Church of Rome remained upwards of a year under its care, as the see was meanwhile vacant; and about the same period we find Cyprian, when in exile, requesting his presbyters and deacons to execute both his duties and their own. It was still admitted that elders were competent to ordain elders and deacons, as well as to confirm and to baptize; and the bishop continued to recognise them as his "colleagues" and his "fellow-presbyters." It is clear, however, that the relations between them and their episcopal chief were now very vaguely defined, and that the ambiguous position of the parties led to mutual complaints of ambition and usurpation. The Epistles of Cyprian supply evidence that the bishop of Carthage, during a great part of his episcopate, was engaged with his presbyters in a struggle for power;§ and though he asserted that he was contending for nothing more than his legitimate authority, he was sometimes obliged to abate his pretensions. In one case he complains that, "without his permission or knowledge," his presbyter Novatus "of his own factiousness and ambition" had "made Felicissimus his follower a deacon;" || but still he does not venture to impeach the validity of the act, or refuse to recognise the standing of the new ecclesiastic. Felicissimus seems to have been ordained in a small meeting-house in the neighbourhood of Carthage; and as

*Cyprian, Epist. xxxi. pp. 99, 100.

+ Cyprian, Epist. iv. p. 31.

Cyprian, Epist. xxxiii. p. 106, xxxiv. p. 107, lviii. p. 207, lxxi. p. 271, lxxvii. p. 327. Euseb. vii. 5.

§ Thus we find him going so far as to complain that his presbyters "with contempt and dishonour of the bishop arrogate sole authority to themselves." -Epist. ix. p. 48.

!! Epist. xlix. p. 143. See Neander's "General History," i. 307, and Burton's "Lectures on the Ecc. Hist. of the First Three Centuries," ii. 331. Burton repudiates the attempts of Bingham and others to explain away this proceeding.