ant." [535:1] Such a chief was at
the head of the ancient presbytery. Without a president no Church court
could transact business; and it was the duty of the chairman to preserve
order, to bear many official burdens, to ascertain the sentiments of his
brethren, to speak in their name, and to act in accordance with the
dictates of their collective wisdom. [535:2] The bishop of after-times
rather resembled a despotic sovereign in the midst of his counsellors.
He might ask the advice of the presbyters, and condescend to defer to
their recommendations; but he could also negative their united
resolutions, and cause the refractory quickly to feel the gravity of his
displeasure.

Though Jerome tells us how, for the destruction of the seeds of schisms,
"_it was decreed throughout the whole_ WORLD that one elected from the
presbyters should be set over the rest," we are not to suppose that the
decree was carried out, all at once, into universal operation. General
councils were yet unknown, and the decree must have been sanctioned at
different times and by distant Church judicatories. Such a measure was
first thought of shortly before the middle of the second century, but it
was not very extensively adopted until about fifty years afterwards. The
history of its origin must now be more minutely investigated.

CHAPTER VII.

PRELACY BEGINS IN ROME.

Any attentive reader who has marked the chronology of the early bishops
of Rome, as given by Eusebius, [537:1] may have observed that the
pastorates of those who flourished during the first forty years of the
second century were all of comparatively short duration. Clement is
commonly reputed to have died about A.D. 100; [537:2] he was followed by
Evaristus, Alexander, Xystus, and Telesphorus; and Hyginus, who was
placed at the head of the Church in A.D. 139, and who died in A.D. 142,
was the _fifth_ in succession. Thus, the five ministers next in order
after Clement occupied the post of president only forty-two years, and,
with the exception of Hyginus, whose official career was very brief,
each appears to have held the situation for nearly an equal period.
[538:1] But, on the death of Hyginus, a pastorate of unusual length
commences, as Pius, by whom he was followed, continued fifteen years in
office--a term considerably more extended than that of any of his five
predecessors. Reckoning from the date of the advancement of Pius, we
find also a decided increase in the avera