Excerpt from A History of Anti-Pedobaptism: From the Rise of Pedobaptism to A. D. 1609

The departure of the church of the second and third centuries from the apostolic standard was by no means confined to the matter of baptism. The same influences soon caused the Lord's Supper to be looked upon no longer as a memorial feast in which believers partook in a purely symbolical way of the broken body and the poured-out blood of their crucified, risen, and glorified Lord, but rather as a mystic ceremony to be celebrated with elaborate ritual. This change was likewise due to pagan influences brought to bear chiefly through the Gnostic sects.

Other perversions of Christianity during the early centuries are so universally recognized by historians and so familiar to all readers of church history, that they need only be barely mentioned here. Sacerdotalism, a constant factor in pagan religious systems, soon ln truded itself into the Christian church. The ordinances having become mysteries must be administered by a ceremonially qualified priesthood; and as the services became elaborate and each function must be performed by a properly qualified functionary, clerical gradations came to be multiplied and accurately differentiated. Out of the simple polity of the apostolic time, in accordance with which each congregation chose its own bishops or presbyters and deacons for the direction of the spiritual work of the body, the administration of discipline and the collection and distribution of charities, there was de veloped, under the influences of the time, a system ofpresidential administration in which the chief elder (or bishop) directed the affairs of the local church with the assistance and advice of a Board of presbyters. As the responsible head of the church he soon came to have chief control of the finances and such control tended to increase his relative Importance. As Christian work spread from older centers the newly established congrega tions were kept in relations of dependence on the mother church, or rather, as integral parts thereof. Thus the pastor of the central church would have the supervision of a greater or smaller number of outside congregations over each of which a presbyter of the central church came to preside. Thus arose diocesan episcopacy. At first this ar rangement was adopted without any ambitious intentions on the part of the pastors as seemingly the most effective way of conducting Christian work. But as the dependent congregations became conscious of strength and their presbyter-pastors became restless under episcopal control, which in some cases was no doubt arbitrarily exercised, friction arose between bishops and presbyters. By this time (about the middle of the third century - the case of Cyprian and the Carthaginian presbyters is in point) the sacerdotal idea was pretty fully developed. Cyprian and those who were like-minded believed that ecclesiastical unity was absolutely essential and that schism was one of the greatest of evils. They went so far as to maintain that outside of the one ecclesiastical organization, whose center of unity was found in the episcopate, there is no salvation. By the strong opposition that the presbyters made to the assumption of authority on the part of the bishops the latter were led to assert the divine right and the irresponsibility of bishops. The same sense of the necessity of organic union and unity of administration afterward led to the centralization of authority in metro politans and finally in the papacy.

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