This canon is apparently couched in terms of studied ambiguity, for the expression “the first among the bishops of every nation” admits of various interpretations.  In many cases it probably meant the senior bishop of the district; in others, it perhaps denoted the chief pastor of the chief city of the province; and in others again, it may have indicated the prelate of a great metropolis who had contrived to establish his authority over a still more extensive territory.  The rise of the city bishops had completely destroyed that balance of power which originally existed in the Church; and much commotion preceded the settlement of a new ecclesiastical equilibrium.  During the last forty years of the third century the Christians enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace; the chief pastors were meanwhile perpetually engaged in contests for superiority; and about this time the bishops of Rome, of Alexandria, and of Antioch, rapidly extended their influence.  So rampant was the usurping spirit of churchmen that even the violence of the Diocletian persecution was not sufficient to check them in their career of ambition.  A contemporary writer, who was himself a member of the episcopal order, bears testimony to this melancholy fact.  “Some,” said he, “who were reputed our pastors, contemning the law of piety, were, under the excitement of mutual animosities, fomenting nothing else but disputes and threatenings and rivalry and reciprocal hostility and hatred, as they contentiously prosecuted their ambitious designs for sovereignty.” [601:2]

What a change had passed over the Christian commonwealth in the course of little more than two hundred years!  When the Apostle John died, the city church was governed by the common council of the elders, and their president simply announced and executed the decisions of his brethren:  now, the president was transformed into a prelate who, by gradual encroachments, had stripped the presbytery of a large share of its authority.  At the close of the first century the Church of Rome was, perhaps, less influential than the Church of Ephesus, and the very name of its moderator at that period is a matter of disputed and doubtful tradition; but the Diocletian persecution had scarcely terminated when the bishop of the great metropolis was found sitting in a council in the palace of the Lateran, and claiming jurisdiction over eight or ten provinces of Italy!  These revolutions were not effected without much opposition.  The strife between the presbyters and the bishops was succeeded by a general warfare among the possessors of episcopal power, for the constant moderator of the synod was as anxious to increase his authority as the constant moderator of the presbytery.  About the close of the third century the Church appears to have been sadly scandalised by the quarrels of the bishops, and Eusebius accordingly intimates that, in the reign of terror which so quickly followed, they suffered a righteous retribution for their misconduct.