[513:2] Such as, after the death of the aged Simeon, when Justus, at the age of fivescore and ten, was advanced to the presidential chair.
[514:1] Irenaeus, iii. 2. Tertullian, "De Praescrip. Haeret." § 25.
[514:2] "Ad eam iterum traditionem, quae est ab apostolis, quae per successiones presbyterorum in ecclesiis custoditur, provocamus eos."—Irenaeus, iii. 2.
[514:3] Irenaeus here speaks in the language of his own times, and refers to the presidents, or senior ministers, of the presbyteries. In like manner Hilary says that the change in the mode of appointing the president of the presbytery was made by the decision of many priests (multorum sacerdotum judicio), though the title priest was not given to a Christian minister when the alteration was originally proposed.
[514:4] Irenaeus, iii. 3.
[515:1] Period II. sec. i. chap. iv.; and Period II. sect. iii. chap. vii.
[515:2] According to a very ancient canon, no one under fifty years of age could be made a bishop. See Bunsen's "Hippolytus," iii. 56. Even in the time of Cyprian much stress was still laid upon age. See Cyprian, Epist. lii. p. 156.
[515:3] Sec Period II. sect. iii. chap. xi. See also Bingham, i. 198.
[515:4] Münter's "Primordia Ecclesiae Africanae," p. 49. See also Bingham, vi. 377-379.
[516:1] Bingham, i. 201.