A hierarchical order with defined powers and privileges existed from the date of the first establishment of Christianity. In his sixth epistle to the Magnesians, St. Ignatius, who had been a disciple of St. Peter, says, “I exhort you to behave, in all things, with that spirit of concord which comes from God; and to look upon the bishop as the representative of God himself in your midst, upon the priests as forming the august senate of the apostles, and upon the deacons as those to whom is intrusted the ministry of Jesus Christ.” The faithful bowed the head to none but the bishop, to ask his blessing; and in the church the bishop occupied a seat raised above that of the priests. The bishops wore a tunic and _pallium_, or long mantle, a chasuble or dalmatic, and a circlet of gold or polished metal upon the head. The latter was subsequently replaced by the mitre, which for some time was made of cloth, and was a circular pointed cap split at the top (Fig. 186). The primitive insignia of office worn by the bishops were the episcopal ring and the pastoral staff, made of wood, ivory, or metal. They are mentioned as wearing sandals for the first time in the ninth century, and gloves in the twelfth. The bishop of Rome, the first among his brethren (_primus inter pares_), wielded over the whole Church a supremacy formally enunciated by St. Irenæus, a disciple of St. Polycarp, a contemporary of the apostles. Originally, however, he wore no distinguishing mark of his pre-eminent rank; but towards the fifth century, the term “pope” began to be exclusively applied to him. After the reformation of his clerks (_clerici_) by the famous Bishop of Hippona, the former were called _canonici_, whence the term chanoines, because they led a life in conformity with the canons of the Church. In Africa, in Spain, and in Gaul these canonical clerks lived together and boarded with the bishop, and devoted themselves to science, literature, art, music, and especially to calligraphy. They thus formed a sort of religious school, whence their title of scholastics (_scholastici_)--a title which they well deserved during the reign of Charlemagne, but which they had ceased to merit at the time of Charles the Bold. The priests attached to each church constituted what was termed the assembly of the presbytery (_presbyterium_), or the ecclesiastical senate of the bishop of the diocese (_senatus ecclesiæ episcopi_). It was permissible for the clerks at an early age to enter the minor degrees of their calling, such as those of porter, exorcist, reader, and acolyte; but they were not allowed to assume the higher grades until they had reached a ripe age. The minimum age for the diaconate was thirty years; for the priesthood, thirty-five; ordination, from the fourth century upwards, took place four times a year. We learn from St. Cyprian, who lived in the third century, that from that date it was decreed that this ceremony should only take place in the churches, publicly, at mass.