ine
perfection, and there were in the primitive church a great number of
persons devoted to the profession of perpetual chastity.

The government of the primitive church was based on the principles of
freedom and equality. The societies which were instituted in the cities
of the Roman Empire were united only by the ties of faith and charity.
The want of discipline and human learning was supplied by the occasional
assistance of the "prophets "--men or women who, as often as they felt
the divine impulse, poured forth the effusions of the spirit in the
assembly, of the faithful. In the course of time bishops and presbyters
exercised solely the functions of legislation and spiritual guidance. A
hundred years after the death of the apostles, the bishop, acting as the
president of the presbyterial college, administered the sacrament and
discipline of the Church, managed the public funds, and determined all
such differences as the faithful were unwilling to expose before the
tribunal of an idolatrous judge.

Every society formed within itself a separate and independent republic,
and towards the end of the second century, realizing the advantages that
might result from a closer union of their interests and designs, these
little states adopted the useful institution of a provincial synod. The
bishops of the various churches met in the capital of the province at
stated periods, and issued their decrees or canons. The institution of
synods was so well suited to private ambition and to public interest
that it was received throughout the whole empire. A regular
correspondence was established between the provincial councils, which
mutually communicated and approved their respective proceedings, and the
Catholic Church soon assumed the form and acquired the strength of a
great federative republic.

The community of goods which for a short time had been adopted in the
primitive church was gradually abolished, and a system of voluntary
gifts was substituted. In the time of the Emperor Decius it was the
opinion of the magistrates that the Christians of Rome were possessed of
very considerable wealth, and several laws, enacted with the same design
as our statutes of mortmain, forbade real estate being given or
bequeathed to any corporate body, without special sanctions. The bishops
distributed these revenues, exercised the right of exclusion or
excommunication of recalcitrant members of the Church, and maintained
the dignity of their o