To effect this the charismatic offices of teaching had to be ignored and their divinely ordained functions had to be set aside. It was even supposed that the relative ranks in the offices of the Christian church must be determined by the corresponding orders in the Old Testament. Then in the gospels, it seemed as if the relations of Christ to His disciples corresponded to that of the bishop to the presbyters; and from the Acts of the Apostles the preponderating authority of James at the head of the Jerusalem presbytery or eldership (§ 17, 2) might be used as a witness for the supremacy of the bishop. The oldest and most important contender for the monarchical rank of the bishop is the author of the _Ignatian Epistles_ (§ 30, 5). In every bishop he sees the representative of Christ, and in the college of presbyters the representatives of the Apostles. In the _Clementines_ too the bishop appears as ἐπὶ τῆς Χριστοῦ καθέδρας καθεσθείς. This view also finds expression in the _Apostolic Constitutions_ (2, 26), and even in the writings of _Dionysius the Areopagite_ (§ 47, 11). Another theory, according to which the bishops are successors of the Apostles and as such heirs of the absolute dominion conferred in Matt. xiv. 18, 19 upon Peter and through him on all the Apostles, sprang up in the West and gained currency by means of Cyprian’s eloquent enunciation of it (§ 34, 7). § 34.3. =The Regular Ecclesiastical Offices of the Old Catholic Age.= The =Ordines Majores= embraced the Bishops, Presbyters and Deacons. Upon the =Bishop=, elected by the people and the clergy in common, there devolved in his monarchical position the supreme conduct of all the affairs of the church. The exclusively episcopal privileges were these: the ordination of presbyters and deacons, the absolving of the penitent, according to strict rule also the consecration of the eucharistic elements, in later times also the right of speaking at Synods, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptised. In large cities where a single church was no longer sufficient daughter churches were instituted. Country churches founded outside of the cities were supplied with presbyters and deacons from the city. If they increased in importance, they chose for themselves their own bishop, who remained, however, as Χωρεπίσκοπος dependent upon the city bishop. Thus distinctly official episcopal dioceses came to be formed. And just as the city bishops had a pre-eminence over the country bishops, so also the bishops of the chief cities of provinces soon came as metropolitans to have a pre-eminence over those of other cities. To them was granted the right of calling and presiding at the Synods, and of appointing and ordaining the bishops of their province. The name Metropolitan, however, was first used in the Acts of the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325.--The