But this doctrine, which was to become classical, in the form of a theory of the transmission of authority by the laying on of the bishop's hands, could not be older than the systematic de velopment of Christian thought on the subject of sacraments. St. Ignatius had not asserted more than that the Eucharist of the bishop is more securely authentic than that celebrated by any other; he had not claimed that it, received at his hands or at those of his delegate, is alone valid. And the argument of St. Irenaeus that the test of orthodoxy is the doctrine handed down from the Apostles through the bishops is an appeal to succession in office, not to transmission of office. The successors of St. John, who had learned each from his predecessor, what St. John had taught, were witnesses who could be trusted, especially as the line was still brief and therefore the opportunities of error few.
In any case, the position of the bishop became secure, and he was universally established in the Christian churches. This pre eminence of the one member of the ministry had the inevitable effect of depressing the others. The presbyters, or priests, re mained as the council of the local church under the bishop's presidence. They still sat while others stood at worship, they were consulted by the bishop in all matters of importance, and they had the dignity of a corporate body. To this day, at the ordination of a priest. all members of that order who are present join in laying their hands upon the candidate for admission to their order. This has never been done at the ordination of dea cons, upon whom the bishop alone lays hands. The reason is that originally deacons were the personal officers of the bishop, chosen by him to be his assistants, and were not a corporate body. He was only concerned in their admission to orders. Presbyterate and diaconate were two separate branches of the clerical office, as in England now the professions of solicitor and barrister are distinct within the legal calling, nor was it usual to pass from the one to the other. But election to the episcopate was equally within the reach of both. In fact, a deacon had in early times the better chance, especially if at the time of vacancy he held the office of the bishop's chief deacon, or in later terms of archdeacon. At Rome the deacon usually succeeded.
This deacon was the administrative officer of the diocese. He managed its finance, he supervised the conduct of the minor clergy and the laity. He was better known to the congregation than anyone except the bishop, for he, like the other deacons, gave his whole time to his work, while the presbyters, apart from their duty as the bishop's counsellors, were only occasionally employed when the bishop had need of their services. This is strikingly shown in the consistent use of the title sacerdos, till well into the fourth century, for the bishop and for the bishop alone. St. Cyprian never uses it otherwise, and though other
writers are not equally uniform in their usage, the word "priest" as we understand it and as it is employed in the Old Testament, normally means both in Greek and Latin none other than the bishop. He was still the regular celebrant, though he would from time to time charge one of the presbyters to execute this office for him ; and indeed, as the churches grew larger and places of worship more numerous, these presbyters came regularly to pre side at the Eucharist in places to which they were appointed, though that where the bishop himself for the occasion presided was for that day the centre of the local church. With the usual ministration of the Eucharist the deacons were thus more habitually connected than the priest. A deacon must be present to assist ; it could even be said that he consecrated the chalice, for it was his duty to pour some of the consecrated wine into each of the flagons from which it was drawn for the communion of the laity. In this way as in many others the deacons were always before the public eye. No instance is known of a bishop, how ever small his see, who had no deacon. Many bishops had no more than one. The traditional number at Rome was seven, which may be due to the fact that Rome was divided for ecclesiastical as well as civil purposes into fourteen regions, over two of which each deacon may have presided. No doubt the record of the Acts, according to which seven was the number of deacons insti tuted at Jerusalem had its weight ; but it is very doubtful whether deacons, as we know them, owe their origin to the Apostolic de cision. Rome is the first church which is known to have had deacons with local authority; Alexandria the first with priests who had "parishes," to use the later term of their own. Perhaps we may trace the definite subordination of deacon to priest, which ended in the former office becoming a mere apprenticeship for the latter, to the idea, which sprang up in the fifth century, of a correspondence between the three orders of the Christian with the three orders of the Jewish. The name "levite" came to be not infrequently used for "deacon." It is more important that the second order of . the ministry, in accordance with the same analogy, gained the title of sacerdos, the bishop being identified with the Jewish high priest. This must have led to the impression that the chief and characteristic function of the priest (a name which survived in general use) was that of celebrating the Euchar ist. In fact, as Christianity spread so widely that it was beyond the power of the bishop to satisfy the need, the ordinary minister of both sacraments came to be not the bishop but the priest.