, that is, “when they had ordained them elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation.” Now it is well enough known, that in all those cities the manner of choosing magistrates and officers was by plurality of suffrages; and, because the ordinary way of distinguishing the affirmative votes from the negatives was by holding up of hands, to ordain an officer in any of the cities, was no more but to bring the people together, to elect them by plurality of votes, whether it were by plurality of elevated hands, or by plurality of voices, or plurality of balls, or beans, or small stones, of which every man cast in one, into a vessel marked for the affirmative or negative; for divers cities had divers customs in that point. It was therefore the assembly that elected their own elders: the apostles were only presidents of the assembly, to call them together for such election, and to pronounce them elected, and to give them the benediction which now is called consecration. And for this cause, they that were presidents of the assemblies, as in the absence of the apostles the elders were, were called προεστῶτες , and in Latin antistites