understood, must be given up as indefensible if assailed by the skill of a vigorous logician.  Who could believe that the bishop of Carthage held exactly the same official rank as every one of his episcopal auditors?  He was the chief pastor of a flourishing metropolis; he had several congregations under his care, and several of his presbyters were preachers; [599:1] but many of the bishops before him were ministers of single congregations and without even one elder competent to deliver a sermon, [599:2] In point of ministerial gifts and actual influence some of the presbyters of Carthage were, no doubt, far superior to many of the bishops of the council.  And who could affirm that Paul of Samosata, the chief pastor of the capital of the Eastern Empire, was quite on a level with every one of the village bishops around him whom he bribed to celebrate his praises?  No wonder that it was soon found necessary to remodel the episcopal system.  The city bishops had a show of equity in their favour when they asserted their superiority, and their brethren in rural districts were too feeble and dependent effectively to resist their own degradation.

The ecclesiastical title metropolitan came into use about the time of the Council of Nice in A.D. 325. [599:3] and there is reason to believe that the territorial jurisdiction it implied was then first distinctly defined and generally established; but the changes of the preceding three quarters of a century, had been preparing the way for the new arrangement.  Many of the country bishops had meanwhile been reduced to a condition of subserviency, whilst a considerable number of the chief pastors in the great cities had been recognized as the constant presidents of the synods which met in their respective capitals.  It is easy to see how these prelates acquired such a position.  Talent, if exerted, must always assert its ascendency; and it is probable that the metropolitan bishops were generally more able and accomplished than the majority of their brethren.  They could fairly plead that zeal for the good of the Church prompted them to take a lead in ecclesiastical affairs, and their place of residence supplied them with facilities for communicating with other pastors of which they often deemed it prudent to avail themselves.  When the synod met in the metropolis, the bishop of the city was wont to entertain many of the members as his guests; and, as he was elevated above most, if not all, of those with whom he acted, in point of wealth, social standing, address, and knowledge of the world, he was usually called on to occupy the chair of the moderator.  In process of time that which was originally conceded as a matter of courtesy passed into an admitted right.  So long as the metropolitan bishop was inducted into office by mere presbyters, the circumstances of his investiture pointed out to him the duty of humility; but when the most distinguished chief pastors of the province deemed it an honour to take part in his consecration, he immediately increased his pretensions.  Thus it is that the change in the mode of episcopal inauguration forms a new era in the history of ecclesiastical assumption.