, _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 majority of the
presbytery; or, as in the case of Fabian of Rome, [595:3] that a layman
was all at once elevated to the episcopal chair; and, at such times, the
disappointed presbyters did not care to join in the inauguration. The
bishops availed themselves of the pretexts thus furnished to dispense
with their services altogether. At length the power of admitting to the
ministry by the laying on of hands began to be challenged as the
peculiar prerogative of the episcopal order.

In many places, perhaps before the middle of the third century, elders
were no longer permitted to take part in the consecratio