without the agreement of all."[120] Here is seen the discipline of the ancient church, beyond a doubt derived from the Apostles, as to the Metropolitan's superintendence over the bishops of every province. Thus the distribution[121] of episcopal jurisdiction began with the beginning, and was the outflow of one principle as stable as it was simple. The structure of the diocese, that of the province, that of the patriarchate, that of the whole Church, was identical throughout. It was a series of concentric circles, at the centre of which was our Lord Himself. In the simple diocese He was seen as walking and teaching with His Apostles on earth; in the province the metropolitan, with his suffragans, repeated the same image; in the patriarchate, the Primate and his metropolitans; while in the See of Peter, our Lord stood by the lake of Galilee delivering with the thrice enjoined question, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" the divine pastoral power over His whole flock. This was the example of the Master Himself, which the Apostles faithfully followed. From the beginning as to this exterior polity of His Church nothing was undefined, nothing was casual; it was the Body of Christ in its natural action gradually filling the world, by which the Head was gradually drawing man to Himself. It was the perfection of order, and yet the perfection of a divine liberty, which took hold of earthly things, such as the civil disposition of a temporal empire, to exalt it into the structure of a supernatural kingdom. The great builders of the Middle Ages, in these stupendous cathedrals which the piety of generations raised in honour of the Mother of God, represented the Body of our Lord in that form of the cross on which He purchased our redemption. Every wall, every buttress, every chapel therein converged towards the centre, and lent its several portion of support to the whole. Therein the Church in her unity and solidarity was visibly portrayed, the Head with His members, the Mother of fair love, bearing the Divine Child, with His saints and confessors around Him. Therein the mystery of our salvation, the mystical altar of sacrifice, was ever set forth, in which the Divine Presence, the greater Schechinah of the new law, abode without ceasing. Such an intellectual and moral structure is presented to us in the hierarchy of the Church, graduated according to the system just described, from the first Apostolic Council at Jerusalem to the first General Council at Nicæa. No bishop stood apart from his fellows; no important matter of doctrine or discipline, of government or worship, was terminated by him without common council of his brethren. Every province was ranged round the central shrine, and made part of the one edifice. It was the Body of Christ sculptured, not on stone, but on human hearts, joined together by the wisdom of His saints, and cemented with the blood of His martyrs.