We have now to consider the gradual development of the episcopal seminaries, which in their early stage formed but a part of the bishop’s household. I have already spoken of the sort of community life established among the bishops and their clergy in apostolic times. During the first four centuries of the Church this manner of life was the more easily carried out, as the clergy were to be found only in towns. The establishment of rural parishes and the appointment of parochial priests to country villages, is first spoken of in the Council of Vaison, held in 528. The community life of the city clergy had many obvious advantages, and afforded singular facilities for training younger aspirants to the ecclesiastical state under the eye of the chief pastor. Accordingly, we very early find notices of the schools for younger clerics, which sprang up in the episcopal households. Thus, the martyr St. Vincent is stated to have been educated in sacred letters, even from his childhood, by Valerius, Bishop of Saragossa. St. John Chrysostom studied for three years as lector in the household of Meletius, Bishop of Antioch, St. Cyril in that of his uncle Theophilus, and St. Athanasius with Alexander of Alexandria. Towards the close of the second century we read how Pope St. Eleutherius placed the future martyr St. Felicianus in the school which was then presided over by his archdeacon, St. Victor,[10] his successor in the Apostolic Chair; and all the early annals of the Roman Church represent her clergy as for the most part educated in this manner, under the eye of her Pontiffs. The author of the _Philosophumena_ acquaints us with the fact that Pope Calixtus I. established a school of theology at Rome, which appears from his account to have been crowded with disciples. When, after the conversion of Constantine, the imperial palace of the Lateran became the residence of the popes, their ecclesiastical school was maintained within the _Patriarchium_, as the papal palace was called, and in it not a few of the greatest popes of the first nine centuries received their education. It possessed a noble library, and the names of its librarians are preserved in unbroken order from the fifth century. Here, ecclesiastical students were received at an early age, and admitted to the successive degrees of holy orders only at long intervals and after careful preparation. The very first Decretal that exists of known authenticity, that of Pope St. Siricius, addressed, in 385, to Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, lays down the rules to be observed in promoting clerics to holy orders, and indicates the existence of such episcopal seminaries as we have described. _Those who have been devoted to the service of the Church from childhood_ are to be first placed in the rank of lectors. Then, if they have persevered to the age of thirty, they may be advanced through the inferior orders to the subdiaconate, and thence to the diaconate,