The earliest mention which occurs of an "archipresbyter" seems to be in the fourth epistle of St Jerome to Rusticus, in which he says that a cathedral church should possess one bishop, one archipresbyter and one archdeacon. Liberatus also (_Breviar._ c. xiv.) speaks of the office of archipresbyter in a manner which, as J. Bingham says, enables one to understand what the nature of his duties and position was. And he thinks that those are right who hold that the archipresbyters were the same as the deans of English cathedral churches. E. Stillingfleet (_Irenic._ part ii. c. 7) says of the archipresbyters that "the memory of them is preserved still in cathedral churches, in the chapters there, where the dean was nothing else but the archipresbyter; and both dean and prebendaries were to be assistant to the bishop in the regulating the church affairs belonging to the city, while the churches were contained therein." Bingham, however, following Liberatus, describes the office of the archipresbyter to have been next to that of the bishop, the head of the presbyteral college, and the functions to have consisted in administering all matters pertaining to the church in the absence of the bishop. But this does not describe accurately the office of dean in an English cathedral church. The dean is indeed second to the bishop in rank and dignity, and he is the head of the presbyteral college or chapter; but his functions in no wise consist in administering any affairs in the absence of the bishop. There may be some matters connected with the ordering of the internal arrangements of cathedral churches, respecting which it may be considered a doubtful point whether the authority of the bishop or that of the dean is supreme. But the consideration of any such question leads at once to the due theoretical distinction between the two. With regard to matters spiritual, properly and strictly so called, the bishop is supreme in the cathedral as far as--and no further than--he is supreme in his diocese generally. With regard to matters material and temporal, as concerning the fabric of the cathedral, the arrangement and conduct of the services, and the management of the property of the chapter, &c., the dean (not excluding the due authority of the other members of the chapter, but speaking with reference to the bishop) is supreme. And the cases in which a doubt might arise are those in which the material arrangements of the fabric or of the services may be thought to involve doctrinal considerations.