A sharp distinction was already made between the officers of the Church, who were called the _clergy_, and the people, or _laity_. To the clergy was committed the government of the Church as well as the instruction of its members. In each of the Roman cities was a bishop, and at the head of the country communities, a priest (Latin, _presbyter_), who had succeeded to the original elders (presbyters) mentioned in the New Testament. Below the bishop and the priest were the lower orders of the clergy,--the deacon and sub-deacon,--and below these the so called minor orders--the acolyte, exorcist, reader, and doorkeeper. The bishop exercised a certain control over the priests within his territory. It was not unnatural that the bishops in the chief towns of the Roman provinces should be especially influential in church affairs. They came to be called _archbishops_, and might summon the bishops of the province to a council to decide important matters. [Sidenote: The first general council, 325. Position of the Bishop of Rome during this period.] In 311 the emperor Galerius issued a decree placing the Christian religion upon the same legal footing as paganism. Constantine, the first Christian emperor, carefully enforced this edict. In 325 the first general council of Christendom was called together under his auspices at Nicæa. It is clear from the decrees of this famous assembly that the Catholic Church had already assumed the form that it was to retain down to the present moment, except that there is no explicit recognition of the Bishop of Rome as the head of the whole church. Nevertheless, there were a number of reasons--to be discussed later--why the Bishop of Rome should sometime become the acknowledged ruler of western Christendom. The first of the Roman bishops to play a really important part in authentic history was Leo the Great, who did not take office until 440.[6] [Sidenote: The Church in the Theodosian Code.]