From the letters of St Jerome, a bit of reflection on the rise and role of the bishop :
Hence a presbyter is the same as a bishop, and before ambition came into religion, by the prompting of the devil, and people began to say "I belong to Paul, I to Apollos, I to Cephas", the churches were governed by the direction of presbyters, acting as a body. But when each presbyter began to suppose that those whom he had baptized belonged to him, rather than to Christ, it was decreed in the whole Church that one of the presbyters should be chosen to preside over the others, and that the whole responsibility for the Church should devolve on him, so that the seeds of schism should be removed.
Jerome
in ep. ad Tit. I, I, 5 (Jerome's commentary on Titus, and you can also see more of his ideas in Letter 146, To Evangelus)
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