In this passage, however, the learned father bears unequivocal testimony to the fact that, from the earliest times, the presbytery had an official head or president.  Such an arrangement was known in the days of the apostles.  But the primitive moderator was very different from the bishop of the fourth century.  He was the representative of the presbytery—­not its master.  Christ had said to the disciples—­“Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” [535:1] Such a chief was at the head of the ancient presbytery.  Without a president no Church court could transact business; and it was the duty of the chairman to preserve order, to bear many official burdens, to ascertain the sentiments of his brethren, to speak in their name, and to act in accordance with the dictates of their collective wisdom. [535:2] The bishop of after-times rather resembled a despotic sovereign in the midst of his counsellors.  He might ask the advice of the presbyters, and condescend to defer to their recommendations; but he could also negative their united resolutions, and cause the refractory quickly to feel the gravity of his displeasure.

Though Jerome tells us how, for the destruction of the seeds of schisms, “it was decreed throughout the whole WORLD that one elected from the presbyters should be set over the rest,” we are not to suppose that the decree was carried out, all at once, into universal operation.  General councils were yet unknown, and the decree must have been sanctioned at different times and by distant Church judicatories.  Such a measure was first thought of shortly before the middle of the second century, but it was not very extensively adopted until about fifty years afterwards.  The history of its origin must now be more minutely investigated.

CHAPTER VII.

PRELACY BEGINS IN ROME.

Any attentive reader who has marked the chronology of the early bishops of Rome, as given by Eusebius, [537:1] may have observed that the pastorates of those who flourished during the first forty years of the second century were all of comparatively short duration.  Clement is commonly reputed to have died about A.D. 100; [537:2] he was followed by Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, and Telesphorus; and Hyginus, who was placed at the head of the Church in A.D. 139, and who died in A.D. 142, was the fifth in succession.  Thus, the five ministers next in order after Clement occupied the post of president only forty-two years, and, with the exception of Hyginus, whose official career was very brief, each appears to have held the situation for nearly an equal period. [538:1] But, on the death of Hyginus, a pastorate of unusual length commences, as Pius, by whom he was followed, continued fifteen years in office—­a term considerably more extended than that of any of his five predecessors.  Reckoning from the date of the advancement of Pius,