The Office of the Elder

Bishop and presbyter were distinguished as two different ranks of clergy, at least by the early second century. With ignatius, it appears, witnessing the establishment of the supremacy of the bishop. By cyprian's time, in the mid third century, presbyter had come to mean entirely the parish priest over against the diocis and bishop. The church mimicked the political structure of the empire in a measure, to be sure. But the notion of apostolic succession, though unbiblical was was something that was very much going on here.