As early as the middle of the second century the bishop, at least in some places, was entrusted with the chief management of the funds of the Church; [590:2] and probably, about fifty years afterwards, a large share of its revenues was appropriated to his personal maintenance. [590:3] His superior wealth soon added immensely to his influence.  He was thus enabled to maintain a higher position in society than any of his brethren; and he was at length regarded as the great fountain of patronage and preferment.  Long before Christianity enjoyed the sanction of the state, the chief pastors of the great cities began to attract attention by their ostentatious display of secular magnificence.  Origen, who flourished in the former half of the third century, strongly condemns their vanity and ambition; and though perhaps his ascetic temperament prompted him to indulge somewhat in the language of exaggeration, the testimony of so respectable a witness cannot be rejected as untrue.  “We,” says he, “proceed so far in the affectation of pomp and state, as to outdo even bad rulers among the pagans; and, like the emperors, surround ourselves with a guard that we may be feared and made difficult of access, particularly to the poor.  And in many of our so-called Churches, especially in the large towns, may be found presiding officers of the Church of God who would refuse to own even the best among the disciples of Jesus while on earth as their equals.” [591:1] In these remarks the writer had doubtless a particular reference to his own Church of Alexandria; but it is well known that elsewhere some bishops in the third century assumed a very lofty bearing.  It is related of the celebrated Paul of Samosata, the bishop of Antioch, that he acted as a secular judge, that he appeared in public surrounded by a crowd of servants, and that he took special pleasure in pomp and parade; and yet, had he not lapsed into heresy, there is no evidence that his overweening pride would have brought down upon him the vengeance of ecclesiastical discipline.  In the third century the chief pastor of the Western metropolis must have been known to the great officers of government, and perhaps to the Emperor himself.  Decius must have regarded the Roman bishop as a somewhat formidable personage when he declared that he would sooner tolerate a rival candidate for the throne, and when he proclaimed his determination to annihilate the very office. [591:2]

It was not strange that dignitaries who affected so much state soon contrived to surround themselves with a whole host of new officials.  Within little more than a century after the rise of Prelacy the number of grades of ecclesiastics was nearly trebled.  In addition to the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons, there were also, in A.D. 251, in the Church of Rome lectors, sub-deacons, acolyths, exorcists, and janitors. [592:1] The lectors, who read the Scriptures to the congregation [592:2] and who had charge of the sacred manuscripts, attract our attention as distinct