In the late third and early fourth centuries, the Christian Church adopted election as the normative form of selection for bishops. Paradoxically, this happens at the moment when elections largely disappear in the cities of the Roman Empire, a fact that is often seen as the final stage of the decline of popular politics in the Roman Empire. Yet, the church would continue to insist on hearing the popular voice and getting popular approval.

This lecture asks why the church adopted election at this moment, and what ideas about community and hierarchy are entailed by the practice of election. Methodologically, Van Nuffelen argues that practices such as elections are carriers of (maybe unarticulated) ideas about a community and it seeks to determine if ecclesiastical ideas shaped the occasional adoption of election as a mode of selection by the Later Roman Empire.