IV.  Eusebius professes to trace the episcopal succession from the days of the apostles in Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem; and it has often been shewn that the accuracy of these four lists is extremely problematical; but it is remarkable that in other Churches the episcopal registry cannot be carried up higher than the end of the second century.  The roll of the bishops of Carthage is there discontinued, [519:4] and the episcopal registry of Spain there also abruptly terminates.  But the history of the Church of Caesarea affords the most extraordinary specimen of this defalcation.  Caesarea was the civil metropolis of Palestine, and a Christian Church existed in it from the days of Paul and Peter. [520:1] Its bishop in the early part of the fourth century was the friend of the Emperor Constantine and the father of ecclesiastical history.  Eusebius enjoyed all needful facilities for investigating the annals of his own Church; and yet, strange to say, he commences its episcopal registry about the close of the second century! [520:2] What explanation can be given of this awkward circumstance?  Had Eusebius taken no notice of any of the bishops of his own see, we could appreciate his modesty; but why should he overlook those who nourished before the time of Victor of Rome, and then refer to their successors with such marked frequency? [520:3] May we not infer, either that he deemed it inexpedient to proclaim the inconvenient fact that the bishops of Caesarea were as numerous as the bishops of Jerusalem; or that he found it impossible to recover the names of a multitude of old men who had only a nominal precedence among their brethren, and who had passed off the stage, one after another, in quick succession?

V. A statement of Eutychius, who was patriarch of Alexandria in the tenth century, and who has left behind him a history of his see from the days of the apostles, supplies a remarkable confirmation of the fact that, towards the close of the second century, a new policy was inaugurated.  According to this writer there was, with the exception of the occupant of the episcopal chair of Alexandria, “no bishop in the provinces of Egypt” before Demetrius. [520:4] As Demetrius became bishop of Alexandria about A.D. 190, Christianity must have now made extensive progress in the country; [520:5] for it had been planted there perhaps one hundred and fifty years before; but it would seem that meanwhile, with the one exception, the Churches still remained under presbyterial government.  Demetrius was a prelate of great influence and energy; and, during his long episcopate of forty-three years, [521:1] he succeeded in spreading all over the land the system of which he had been at one time the only representative.