[584:1] Euseb. v. 24.

[585:1] “Contra Haereses,” iv. c. 26, secs. 2, 4.  “Quapropter eis qui in ecclesia sunt, presbyteris obaudire oportet, his qui successionem habent ab apostolis, sicut ostendimus; qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum secundum placitum Patris acceperunt; reliquos vero, qui absistunt a principali successione, et quocunque loco colligunt, suspectos habere vel quasi haereticos et malae sententiae....  Ab omnibus igitur talibus absistere oportet; adhaerere vero his qui et apostolorum, sicut praediximus, doctrinam custodiunt, et cum presbyterii ordine sermonem sanum et conversationem sine offensa praestant.”

[585:2] This was long the received doctrine.  Thus, the author of the “Questions on the Old and New Testament” says—­“Quid est episcopus nisi primus presbyter?”—­Aug.  Quaest. c. 101.

[585:3] “Onmis potestas et gratia in ecclesia constituta sit, ubi praesident majores natu, qui et baptizandi et manum imponendi et ordinandi possident potestatem.”—­Firmilian, Epist.  Cyprian, Opera, p. 304.

[586:1] See Bunsen’s “Hippolytus,” ii. 351-357.  See also Fabricius, “Biblioth.  Graecae,” liber v. p. 208.  Hamburg, 1723.

[586:2] The earliest of these canons was probably framed only a few years before the middle of the third century.  They were called apostolical perhaps because concocted by some of the bishops of the so-called apostolic Churches.

[586:3] The collection to which it belongs bears the designation of the “Canons of Abulides,”—­the name of Hippolytus in Abyssinian, as their calendar shews.  Bunsen, ii. 352.  The canons edited by Hippolytus were, no doubt, at one time acknowledged by the Western Church.

[586:4] Bunsen’s “Hippolytus,” iii. 43, and “Analecta Antenicaena,” iii. 415.

[587:1] Eutychius intimates that the Alexandrian presbyters continued to ordain their own bishop until the time of the Council of Nice.  It is not improbable that, until then, some of them may have continued to take part in the ordination, and the statement of the Alexandrian patriarch may be so far correct.

[587:2] See Bunsen, iii. 45.

[587:3] Where the bishop, as in the case contemplated in a canon quoted in the text, had to depend for his official income on the contributions of twelve families, it is plain that the elders could expect no remuneration for their services.  As the hierarchy advanced these ruling elders disappeared.  Hence Hilary says—­“The synagogue, and afterwards the Church, had elders, without whose counsel nothing was done in the Church, which, by what negligence it grew into disuse I know not; unless, perhaps, by the sloth, or rather by the pride of the teachers, while they alone wished to appear something.”—­Comment on 1 Tim. v. 1.  Some late writers have contended that these elders (seniores) were not ecclesiastical officers at all, but civil magistrates of municipal corporations peculiar to Africa.  It must, however, be recollected that Hilary was a Roman deacon of the fourth century, and that he speaks of them as belonging to the Church before the civil establishment of Christianity.