or a long period the bishop continued
to be known by the title of "the elder who presides"-a designation which
obviously implies that he was still only one of the presbyters. When the
Paschal controversy created such excitement, and when Victor of Rome
threatened to renounce the communion of those who held views different
from his own, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote a letter of remonstrance to the
haughty churchman in which he broadly reminded him of his ecclesiastical
position. "_Those, presbyters_ before Soter _who governed_ the Church
over which you now preside, I mean," said he, "Anicetus, and Pius,
Hyginus with Telesphorus and Xystus, neither did themselves observe, nor
did they permit those after them to observe it.... But those _very
presbyters_ before you who did not observe it, sent the Eucharist to
those of Churches which did." [584:1] Irenaeus here endeavours to teach
the bishop of Rome a lesson of humility by reminding him repeatedly that
he and his predecessors were but presbyters.

The pastor of Lyons speaks even still more distinctly respecting the
status of the bishops who flourished in his generation. Thus, he
says--"We should obey those presbyters in the Church who have the
succession from the apostles, and who, _with the succession of the
episcopate_, have received the certain gift of truth according to the
good pleasure of the Father: but we should hold as suspected or as
heretics and of bad sentiments the rest who depart from the principal
succession, and meet together wherever they please.... From all such we
must keep aloof, but we must adhere to those who both preserve, as we
have already mentioned, the doctrine of the apostles, and exhibit, _with
the order of the presbytery_, sound teaching and an inoffensive
conversation." [585:1] "The order of the presbytery" obviously signifies
the official character conveyed by "the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery," and yet such was the ordination of those who, in the time
of Irenaeus, possessed "the succession from the apostles" and "the
succession of the episcopate."

Some imagine that no one can be properly qualified to administer divine
ordinances who has not received episcopal ordination, but a more
accurate acquaintance with the history of the early Church is all that
is required to dissipate the delusion. The preceding statements clearly
shew that, for upwards of one hundred and fifty years after the death of
our Lord, all the Christian ministers t