Though Christians formed but a fraction, and often but a small fraction of the population, their bishops were thickly planted.  Thus, Cenchrea, the port of Corinth, had an episcopal overseer, [577:2] as well as Corinth itself; the bishop of Portus and the bishop of Ostia were only two miles asunder; [577:3] and, of the eighty-seven bishops who met at Carthage, about A.D. 256, to discuss the question of the rebaptism of heretics, many, such as Mannulus, Polianus, Dativus, and Secundinus, [577:4] were located in small towns or villages.  Though, probably, some of these pastors had not the care of more than twenty or thirty Christian families, each had the same rank and authority as the bishop of Carthage.  “It remains,” said Cyprian at the opening of the council, “that we severally declare our opinion on this same subject, judging no one, nor depriving any one of the right of communion if he differ from us.  For no one of us sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or by tyrannical terror forces his colleagues to a necessity of obeying; inasmuch as every bishop in the free use of his liberty and power has the right of forming his own judgment.” [578:1] In other quarters of the Church its episcopal guardians were equally numerous.  Hence it is said of the famous Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, that, to sustain his reputation, he instigated “the bishops of the adjacent rural districts and towns” to praise him in their addresses to the people. [578:2] Even so late as the middle of the third century, the jurisdiction of the greatest bishops was extremely limited.  Cyprian of Carthage, in point of position the second prelate in the Western Church, presided over only eight or nine presbyters; [578:3] and Cornelius of Rome, confessedly the most influential ecclesiastic in Christendom, had the charge of probably not more than fourteen congregations. [578:4]

There were commonly several elders and deacons connected with every worshipping society, and though these, as well as the bishops, began, towards the close of the second century, to be called clergymen, [578:5] and were thus taught to cherish the idea that the Lord was their inheritance, it would be quite a mistake to infer that they all subsisted on their official income.  Not a few of them probably derived their maintenance from secular employments, some of them being tradesmen or artizans, and others in stations of greater prominence.  Hyacinthus, an elder of the Church of Rome in the time of bishop Victor, appears to have held a situation in the Imperial household, [579:1] and Tertullian complains that persons engaged in trades directly connected with the support of idolatry were promoted to ecclesiastical offices. [579:2] There was a time when even an apostle laboured as a tent-maker, but as the hierarchical spirit acquired strength, and as the Church increased in wealth and numbers, there was a growing impression that all its office-bearers were degraded by such services.  Cyprian speaks