of men need not be awaited when anticipated by the sentence of God.” [593:3] The sanction of the people should 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.” [594:1] 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;” [594:2] 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.” [594:3] 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 establishment 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. [595:1] 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, [595:2] that one of the elders was chosen in opposition to the wishes of the