e elected by general suffrage, his authority was forthwith established
on a broader and firmer foundation. He was now emphatically the man of
the people; and from this date he possessed an influence with which the
presbytery itself was incompetent to grapple.

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 him