The  local  meetings  were  the  precursors  of  provincial  councils,
and  these  again  of  general  councils,  to  regulate  the  affairs  of
the  Christian  communities.  It  is  surprising  how  soon  they
became  thoroughly  organized,  commanded  large  pecuniary  re-
sources, and  were  able  to  stand  up,  if  need  were,  against  the
whole  power  of  the  Emperors.  The  Bishops,  properly  so
called,  appear  to  have  succeeded  the  Apostles,  with  an  influ-
ence dependent  more  upon  their  characters  than  upon  any  well
defined  and  legalized  powers.  However  appointed  originally,
the  appointment  would  seem  to  have  been  ratified  by  a  popu-
lar vote.  "  The  presbyters,"  says  Milman,  "  would  be  the
regular  and  perpetual  expositors  of  the  Christian  law,  the  re-
citers of  the  life,  the  doctrines,  the  death,  the  resurrection  of
Christ ;  till  the  Gospels  were  written,  and  generally  received,
they  would  be  the  living  evangelists,  the  oral  scriptures,  the
spoken  gospels."  The  deacons  were  an  inferior  order,  and  ex-
ercised a  purely  administrative  office.  Christianity  had  at  firsi
no  strictly  sacerdotal  functionaries ;  but  by  degrees  the  more
eminent  teachers  were  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  commu-
nity. "It  was  the  Christian  who  then  sanctified  the  function,'
says  an  elegant  writer,  "  afterwards  the  function  sanctified  the
man";  and  by  degrees  the  deacons,  presbyters,  and  bishopa
became  a  sacred  class.  The  sacerdotal  principle  once  estab-
lished, these  ranks  of  the  hierarchy  formed  themselves  into
'rind  of  religious  aristocracy,  and,  assuming  titles  from  the  Jew


GREECE   CHRISTIANIZED.  3*VJ

ish  and  even  Pagan  systems,  became  a  priestly  caste,  with  an
asserted  right  of  nearer  approach  to  the  Deity,  "in  a  religion,"
to  borrow  the  words  of  an  Episcopal  writer,  '*  which,  in  its
primary  institution,  acknowledged  only  one  Mediator  between
earth  and  heaven."  Early  in  the  third  century,  the  official
character  of  the  bishops  was  recognized  at  the  imperial  court,
and  churches  began  to  rise  in  different  parts  of  the  Empire.
