758 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



extended the limits of their authority, turned their influence into 

 dominion, and their counsels into laws. . . . Another effect of these 

 councils was, the gradual abolition of that perfect equality, which 

 reigned among all bishops in the primitive times. For the order and 

 decency of these assemblies required, that some one of the provincial 

 bishops met in council, should be invested with a superior degree of 

 power and authority ; and hence the rights of Metropolitans derive 

 their origin. . . . The universal church had now the appearance of one 

 vast republic formed by a combination of a great number of little 

 states. This occasioned the creation of a new order of ecclesiastics, 

 who were appointed, in different parts of the world, as heads of the 

 church. . . . Such was the nature and office of the patriarchs, among 

 whom, at length, ambition, being arrived at its most insolent period, 

 formed a new dignity, investing the bishop of Rome, and his successors, 

 with the title and authority of prince of Patriarchs.&quot; 



To complete the conception it needs only to add that, 

 while there was going on this centralization of the higher 

 offices, there was going on a minuter differentiation of the 

 lower. Says Lingard, speaking of the Anglo-Saxon clergy 



&quot; These ministers were at first confined to the three orders of bishops, 

 priests, and deacons : but in proportion as the number of proselytes 

 increased, the services of additional but subordinate officers were 

 required : and we soon meet, in the more celebrated churches, with 

 subdeacons, lectors or cantors, exorcists, acolythists, and ostiarii 01 

 door-keepers. . . . All these were ordained, with appropriate forms, by 

 the bishop.&quot; 



620. Among leading traits in the development of eccle 

 siastical institutions, have to be added the rise and establish 

 ment of monasticism. 



For the origin of ascetic practices, we must once more go 

 back to the ghost-theory, and to certain resulting ideas and 

 acts common among the uncivilized ( 103 and 140). There 

 are the mutilations and blood-lettings at funerals ; there are 

 the fastings consequent on sacrifices of animals and food at 

 the grave; and in some cases there are the deficiencies of 

 clothing which follow the leaving of dresses (always of the 

 best) for the departed. Pleasing the dead is therefore 

 inevitably associated in thought with pain borne by the 

 living. This connexion of ideas grows most marked where 



