From the manner in which Cyprian expresses himself we may infer that he would not have been dissatisfied had Novatus and the elders who acted with him obtained his permission to ordain the deacon Felicissimus.  But about this period the bishops were beginning to look with extreme jealousy on all presbyterian ordinations, and were commencing a series of encroachments on the rights of their episcopal brethren in rural districts.  These country bishops, [597:1] who wore simply ministers of single congregations, and who were generally poor and uninfluential, soon succumbed to the great city dignitaries.  By a council held at Ancyra in A.D. 314, or very shortly after the close of the Diocletian persecution, they were forbidden to perform duties which they had hitherto been accustomed to discharge, for one of its canons declares that “country bishops must not ordain presbyters or deacons; neither must city presbyters in another parish without the written permission of the bishop.” [597:2]

This canon illustrates the strangely anomalous condition of the Church at the period of its adoption.  It takes no notice of country elders, as the proceedings of such an humble class of functionaries probably awakened no jealousy; and it degrades country bishops, who unquestionably belonged to the episcopal order, by placing them in a position inferior to that of city presbyters.  About sixty years before, or in the middle of the third century, three of these country bishops were deemed competent to ordain a bishop of Rome; [598:1] but now they are deprived of the right of ordaining even elders and deacons.  It is easy to understand why city presbyters were still permitted, under certain conditions, to exercise this privilege.  As they constituted the council of the city chief pastor, their influence was considerable; and as they had, until a recent date, been accustomed even to take part in his own consecration, it was deemed inexpedient to tempt so formidable a class of churchmen to make common cause with the country bishops by stripping both at once of their ancient prerogatives.  The country bishops, as the weaker party, were first subjected to a process of spoliation.  But the recognition of Christianity by Constantine gave an immense impulse to the progress of the hierarchy, and the city presbyters were soon afterwards deprived of the privilege now wrested from the country bishops.

The current of events had placed the Church, about the middle of the third century, in a position which it could not long maintain.  As the growth of Christianity in towns was steady and rapid, the bishop there rose quickly into wealth and power; but, among the comparatively poor and thinly-scattered population of the country, his condition remained nearly stationary.  When Cyprian, in A.D. 256, addressed the eighty-seven bishops assembled in the Council of Carthage, and told them that they were all on an equality, he might have felt that the doctrine of episcopal parity, as then