Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comHistory of the Christian Church: Vol. 3, Ch. 05, § 054-059
Subjects in this Topic:
54. Organization of the Hierarchy: Country Bishops, City Bishops, and Metropolitans
The episcopate, notwithstanding the unity of the office and its rights, admitted the different grades of country bishop, ordinary city bishop, metropolitan, and patriarch. Such a distinction had already established itself on the basis of free religious sentiment in the church; so that the incumbents of the apostolic sees, like Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, stood at the head of the hierarchy. But this gradation now assumed a political character, and became both modified and confirmed by attachment to the municipal division of the Roman empire.
Constantine the Great divided the whole empire into four praefectures (the Oriental, the Illyrian, the Italian, and the Gallic); the praefectures into vicariates, dioceses, or proconsulates, fourteen or fifteen in all; and each diocese again into several provinces. The praefectures were governed by Praefecti Praetorio, the dioceses by Vicarii, the provinces by Rectores, with various titles - commonly Praesides.
It was natural, that after the union of church and state the ecclesiastical organization and the political should, so far as seemed proper, and hence of course with manifold exceptions, accommodate themselves to one another. In the East this principle of conformity was more palpably and rigidly carried out than in the West. The council of Nice in the fourth century proceeds upon it, and the second and fourth ecumenical councils confirm it. The political influence made itself most distinctly felt in the elevation of Constantinople to a patriarchal see. The Roman bishop Leo, however, protested against the reference of his own power to political considerations, and planted it exclusively upon the primacy of Peter; though evidently the Roman see owed its importance to the favorable cooperation of both these influences. The power of the patriarchs extended over one or more municipal dioceses; while the metropolitans presided over single provinces. The word diocese ('e4'e9'ef'e9́'ea'e7'f3'e9'f2) passed from the political into the ecclesiastical terminology, and denoted at first a patriarchal district, comprising several provinces (thus the expression occurs continually in the Greek acts of councils), but afterward came to be applied in the West to each episcopal district. The circuit of a metropolitan was called in the East an eparchy ('e5̓'f0'e1'f1'ee'e9́'e1), in the West provincia. An ordinary bishopric was called in the East a parish ('f0'e1'f1'ef'e9'ea'e9́'e1), while in the Latin church the term (parochia) was usually applied to a mere pastoral charge.
The lowest rank in the episcopal hierarchy was occupied by the country bishops, the presiding officers of those rural congregations, which were not supplied with presbyters from neighboring cities. In North Africa, with its multitude of small dioceses, these country bishops were very numerous, and stood on an equal footing with the others. But in the East they became more and more subordinate to the neighboring city bishops; until at last, partly on account of their own incompetence, chiefly for the sake of the rising hierarchy, they were wholly extinguished. Often they were utterly unfit for their office; at least Basil of Caesarea, who had fifty country bishops in his metropolitan district, reproached them with frequently receiving men totally unworthy into the clerical ranks. And moreover, they stood in the way of the aspirations of the city bishops; for the greater the number of bishops, the smaller the diocese and the power of each, though probably the better the collective influence of all upon the church. The council of Sardica, in 343, doubtless had both considerations in view, when, on motion of Hosius, the president, it decreed: “It is not permitted, that, in a village or small town, for which a single priest is sufficient, a bishop should be stationed, lest the episcopal dignity and authority suffer scandal; but the bishops of the eparchy (province) shall appoint bishops only for those places where bishops have already been, or where the town is so populous that it is considered worthy to be a bishopric.” The place of these chorepiscopi was thenceforth supplied either by visitators ('f0'e5'f1'e9'ef'e4'e5'f5͂'f4'e1'e9), who in the name of the bishop visited the country congregations from time to time, and performed the necessary functions, or by resident presbyters (parochi), under the immediate supervision of the city bishop.
Among the city bishops towered the bishops of the capital cities of the various provinces. They were styled in the East metropolitans, in the West usually archbishops. They had the oversight of the other bishops of the province; ordained them, in connection with two or three assistants; summoned provincial synods, which, according to the fifth canon of the council of Nice and the direction of other councils, were to be held twice a year; and presided in such synods. They promoted union among the different churches by the reciprocal communication of synodal acts, and confirmed the organism of the hierarchy.
This metropolitan constitution, which had gradually arisen out of the necessities of the church, became legally established in the East in the fourth century, and passed thence to the Graeco-Russian church. The council of Nice, at that early day, ordered in the fourth canon, that every new bishop should be ordained by all, or at least by three, of the bishops of the eparchy (the municipal province), under the direction and with the sanction of the metropolitan. Still clearer is the ninth canon of the council of Antioch, in 341: “The bishops of each eparchy (province) should know, that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who have business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good, that he should also have a precedence in honor, and that the other bishops should do nothing without him - according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers - except that which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i.e. dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. Otherwise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops.” This council, in the nineteenth canon, forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropolitan and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province.
In Africa a similar system had existed from the time of Cyprian, before the church and the state were united. Every province had a Primas; the oldest bishop being usually chosen to this office. The bishop of Carthage, however, was not only primate of Africa proconsularis, but at the same time, corresponding to the proconsul of Carthage, the ecclesiastical head of Numidia and Mauretania, and had power to summon a general council of Africa.
55. The Patriarchs
Mich. Le Quien (French Dominican, '86 1788): Oriens Christianus, in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, quo exhibentur ecclesiae, patriarchae caeterique preasules totius Orientis. Opus posthumum, Par. 1740, 3 vols. fol. (a thorough description of the oriental dioceses from the beginning to 1732). P. Jos. Cautelius (Jesuit): Metropolitanarum urbium historia civilis et ecclesiastic in qua Romanae Sedis dignitas et imperatorum et regum in eam merits explicantur, Par. 1685 (important for ecclesiastical statistics of the West, and the extension of the Roman patriarchate). Bingham (Anglican): Antiquities, l. ii. c. 17. Joh. El. Theod. Wiltsch (Evangel.): Handbuch der Kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik, Berl. 1846, vol. i. p. 56 sqq. Friedr. Maassen (R.C.): Der Primat des Bischofs von Rom. u. die alten Patriarchalkirchen, Bonn, 1853. Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri, a Political History of the Latin Patriarchate, Lond. 1859 sqq. (vol. i. p. 158-489). Comp. my review of this work in the Am. Theol. Rev., New York, 1864, p. 9 sqq.
Still above the metropolitans stood the five Patriarchs, the oligarchical summit, so to speak, the five towers in the edifice of the Catholic hierarchy of the Graeco-Roman empire.
These patriarchs, in the official sense of the word as already fixed at the time of the fourth ecumenical council, were the bishops of the four great capitals of the empire, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople; to whom was added, by way of honorary distinction, the bishop of Jerusalem, as president of the oldest Christian congregation, though the proper continuity of that office had been broken by the destruction of the holy city. They had oversight of one or more dioceses; at least of two or more provinces or eparchies. They ordained the metropolitans; rendered the final decision in church controversies; conducted the ecumenical councils; published the decrees of the councils and the church laws of the emperors; and united in themselves the supreme legislative and executive power of the hierarchy. They bore the same relation to the metropolitans of single provinces, as the ecumenical councils to the provincial. They did not, however, form a college; each acted for himself. Yet in important matters they consulted with one another, and had the right also to keep resident legates (apocrisiarii) at the imperial court at Constantinople.
In prerogative they were equal, but in the extent of their dioceses and in influence they differed, and had a system of rank among themselves. Before the founding of Constantinople, and down to the Nicene council, Rome maintained the first rank, Alexandria the second, and Antioch the third, in both ecclesiastical and political importance. After the end of the fourth century this order was modified by the insertion of Constantinople as the second capital, between Rome and Alexandria, and the addition of Jerusalem as the fifth and smallest patriarchate.
The patriarch of Jerusalem presided only over the three meagre provinces of Palestine; the patriarch of Antioch, over the greater part of the political diocese of the Orient, which comprised fifteen provinces, Syria, Phenicia, Cilicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, etc.; the patriarch of Alexandria, over the whole diocese of Egypt with its nine rich provinces, Aegyptus prima and secunda, the lower and upper Thebaid, lower and upper Libya, etc.; the patriarch of Constantinople, over three dioceses, Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, with eight and twenty provinces, and at the same time over the bishoprics among the barbarians; the patriarch of Rome gradually extended his influence over the entire West, two prefectures, the Italian and the Gallic, with all their dioceses and provinces.
The patriarchal system had reference primarily only to the imperial church, but indirectly affected also the barbarians, who received Christianity from the empire. Yet even within the empire, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of Cyprus in the Eastern church, and the bishops of Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna in the Western, during this period maintained their autocracy with reference to the patriarchs to whose dioceses they geographically belonged. In the fifth century, the patriarchs of Antioch attempted to subject the island of Cyprus, where Paul first had preached the gospel, to their jurisdiction; but the ecumenical council of Ephesus, in 431, confirmed to the church of Cyprus its ancient right to ordain its own bishops. The North African bishops also, with all respect for the Roman see, long maintained Cyprian’s spirit of independence, and in a council at Hippo Regius, in 393, protested against such titles as princeps sacerdotum, summus sacerdos, assumed by the patriarchs, and were willing only to allow the title of primae sedis episcopus.
When, in consequence of the Christological controversies, the Nestorians and Monophysites split off from the orthodox church, they established independent schismatic patriarchates, which continue to this day, showing that the patriarchal constitution answers most nearly to the oriental type of Christianity. The orthodox Greek church, as well as the schismatic sects of the East, has substantially remained true to the patriarchal system down to the present time; while the Latin church endeavored to establish the principle of monarchical centralization so early as Leo the Great, and in the course of the middle age produced the absolute papacy.
56. Synodical Legislation on the Patriarchal Power and Jurisdiction
To follow now the ecclesiastical legislation respecting this patriarchal oligarchy in chronological order:
The germs of it already lay in the ante-Nicene period, when the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, partly in virtue of the age and apostolic origin of their churches, partly, on account of the political prominence of those three cities as the three capitals of the Roman empire, steadily asserted a position of pre'ebminence. The apostolic origin of the churches of Rome and Antioch is evident from the New Testament: Alexandria traced its Christianity, at least indirectly through the evangelist Mark, to Peter, and was politically more important than Antioch; while Rome from the first had precedence of both in church and in state. This pre'ebminence of the oldest and most powerful metropolitans acquired formal legislative validity and firm establishment through the ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries.
The first ecumenical council of Nice, in 325, as yet knew nothing of five patriarchs, but only the three metropolitans above named, confirming them in their traditional rights. In the much-canvassed sixth canon, probably on occasion of the Meletian schism in Egypt, and the attacks connected with it on the rights of the bishop of Alexandria, that council declared as follows:
“The ancient custom, which has obtained in Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, shall continue in force, viz.: that the bishop of Alexandria have rule over all these [provinces], since this also is customary with the bishop of Rome [that is, not in Egypt, but with reference to his own diocese]. Likewise also at Antioch and in the other eparchies, the churches shall retain their prerogatives. Now, it is perfectly clear, that, if any one has been made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, the great council does not allow him to be bishop.”
The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition; and that, with special reference to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration; and Antioch and all the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights. The bishoprics of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were placed substantially on equal footing, yet in such tone, that Antioch, as the third capital of the Roman empire, already stands as a stepping stone to the ordinary metropolitans. By the “other eparchies” of the canon are to be understood either all provinces, and therefore all metropolitan districts, or more probably, as in the second canon of the first council of Constantinople, only the three eparchates of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Ephesus, and Asia Minor, and Heraclea in Thrace, which, after Constantine’s division of the East, possessed similar prerogatives, but were subsequently overshadowed and absorbed by Constantinople. In any case, however, this addition proves that at that time the rights and dignity of the patriarchs were not yet strictly distinguished from those of the other metropolitans. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch here appear in relation to the other bishops simply as primi inter pares, or as metropolitans of the first rank, in whom the highest political eminence was joined with the highest ecclesiastical. Next to them, in the second rank, come the bishops of Ephesus in the Asiatic diocese of the empire, of Neo-Caesarea in the Pontic, and of Heraclea in the Thracian; while Constantinople, which was not founded till five years later, is wholly unnoticed in the Nicene council, and Jerusalem is mentioned only under the name of Aelia.
Between the first and second ecumenical councils arose the new patriarchate of Constantinople, or New Rome, built by Constantine in 330, and elevated to the rank of the imperial residence. The bishop of this city was not only the successor of the bishop of the ancient Byzantium, hitherto under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Heraclea, but, through the favor of the imperial court and the bishops who were always numerously assembled there, it placed itself in a few decennia among the first metropolitans of the East, and in the fifth century became the most powerful rival of the bishop of old Rome.
This new patriarchate was first officially recognized at the first ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, and was conceded “the precedence in honor, next to the bishop of Rome,” the second place among all bishops; and that, on the purely political consideration, that New Rome was the residence of the emperor. At the same time the imperial city and the diocese of Thrace (whose ecclesiastical metropolis hitherto had been Heraclea) were assigned as its district.
Many Greeks took this as a formal assertion of the equality of the bishop of Constantinople with the bishop of Rome, understanding “next” or “after” ('ec'e5'f4'e1́) as referring only to time, not to rank. But it is more natural to regard this as conceding a primacy of honor, which the Roman see could claim on different grounds. The popes, as the subsequent protest of Leo shows, were not satisfied with this, because they were unwilling to be placed in the same category with the Constantinopolitan fledgling, and at the same time assumed a supremacy of jurisdiction over the whole church. On the other hand, this decree was unwelcome also to the patriarch of Alexandria, because this see had hitherto held the second rank, and was now required to take the third. Hence the canon was not subscribed by Timotheus of Alexandria, and was regarded in Egypt as void. Afterward, however, the emperors prevailed with the Alexandrian patriarchs to yield this point.
After the council of 381, the bishop of Constantinople indulged in manifold encroachments on the rights of the metropolitans of Ephesus and Caesarea in Cappadocia, and even on the rights of the other patriarchs. In this extension of his authority he was favored by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of the council of Sardica, the bishops of all the districts of the East continually resided in Constantinople, in order to present all kinds of interests to the emperor. These concerns of distant bishops were generally referred by the emperor to the bishop of Constantinople and his council, the 'f3'f5́'ed'ef'e4'ef'f2 'e5̓'ed'e4'e7'ec'ef'f5͂'f3'e1, as it was called, that is, a council of the bishops resident ('e5̓'ed'e4'e7'ec'ef'f5́'ed'f4'f9'ed) in Constantinople, under his presidency. In this way his trespasses even upon the bounds of other patriarchs obtained the right of custom by consent of parties, if not the sanction of church legislation. Nectarius, who was not elected till after that council, claimed the presidency at a council in 394, over the two patriarchs who were present, Theophilus of Alexandria and Flavian of Antioch; decided the matter almost alone; and thus was the first to exercise the primacy over the entire East. Under his successor, Chrysostom, the compass of the see extended itself still farther, and, according to Theodoret, stretched over the capital, over all Thrace with its six provinces, over all Asia (Asia proconsularis) with eleven provinces, and over Pontus, which likewise embraced eleven provinces; thus covering twenty-eight provinces in all. In the year 400, Chrysostom went “by request to Ephesus,” to ordain there Heraclides of Ephesus, and at the same time to institute six bishops in the places of others deposed for simony. His second successor, Atticus, about the year 421, procured from the younger Theodosius a law, that no bishop should be ordained in the neighboring dioceses without the consent of the bishop of Constantinople. This power still needed the solemn sanction of a general council, before it could have a firm legal foundation. It received this sanction at Chalcedon.
The fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon in 451) confirmed and extended the power of the bishop of Constantinople, by ordaining in the celebrated twenty-eighth canon:
“Following throughout the decrees of the holy fathers, and being acquainted with the recently read canon of the hundred and fifty bishops [i.e. the third canon of the second ecumenical council of 381], we also have determined and decreed the same in reference to the prerogatives of the most holy church of Constantinople or New Rome. For with reason did the fathers confer prerogatives ('f4'e1̀ 'f0'f1'e5'f3'e2'e5'e9͂'e1) on the throne [the episcopal chair] of ancient Rome, on account of her character as the imperial city ('e4'e9'e1̀ 'f4'ef̀ 'e2'e1'f3'e9'eb'e5'f5́'e5'e9'ed); and, moved by the same consideration, the hundred and fifty bishops recognized the same prerogatives ('f4'e1̀ 'e9̓́'f3'e1 'f0'f1'e5'f3'e2'e5'e9͂'e1) also in the most holy throne of New Rome; with good reason judging, that the city, which is honored with the imperial dignity and the senate [i.e. where the emperor and senate reside], and enjoys the same [municipal] privileges as the ancient imperial Rome, should also be equally elevated in ecclesiastical respects, and be the second after he ('e4'e5'f5'f4'e5́'f1'e1'ed 'ec'e5'f4 ̓ 'e5̓'ea'e5'e9́'ed'e7'ed).”
And [we decree] that of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia [Asia proconsularis], and Thrace, only the metropolitans, but in such districts of those dioceses as are occupied by barbarians, also the [ordinary] bishops, be ordained by the most holy throne of the most holy church at Constantinople; while of course every metropolitan in those dioceses ordains the new bishops of a province in concurrence with the existing bishops of that province, as is directed in the divine ('e8'e5'e9́'ef'e9'f2) canons. But the metropolitans of those dioceses, as already said, shall be ordained by the archbishop ('e1̓'f1'f7'e9'e5'f0'e9'f3'ea'ef́'f0'ef'f5) of Constantinople, after they shall have been unanimously elected in the usual way, and he [the archbishop of Constantinople] shall have been informed of it.”
We have divided this celebrated Chalcedonian canon into two parts, though in the Greek text the parts are (by 'ea'e1'e9̀ 'f9̔́'f3'f4'e5) closely connected. The first part assigns to the bishop of Constantinople the second rank among the patriarchs, and is simply a repetition and confirmation of the third canon of the council of Constantinople; the second part goes farther, and sanctions the supremacy, already actually exercised by Chrysostom and his successors, of the patriarch of Constantinople, not only over the diocese of Thrace, but also over the dioceses of Asia Minor and Pontus, and gives him the exclusive right to ordain both the metropolitans of these three dioceses, and all the bishops of the barbarians within those bounds. This gave him a larger district than any other patriarch of the East. Subsequently an edict of the emperor Justinian, in 530, added to him the special prerogative of receiving appeals from the other patriarchs, and thus of governing the whole Orient.
The council of Chalcedon in this decree only followed consistently the oriental principle of politico-ecclesiastical division. Its intention was to make the new political capital also the ecclesiastical capital of the East, to advance its bishop over the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and to make him as nearly as possible equal to the bishop of Rome. Thus was imposed a wholesome check on the ambition of the Alexandrian patriarch, who in various ways, as the affair of Theophilus and Dioscurus shows, had abused his power to the prejudice of the church.
But thus, at the same time, was roused the jealousy of the bishop of Rome, to whom a rival in Constantinople, with equal prerogatives, was far more dangerous than a rival in Alexandria or Antioch. Especially offensive must it have been to him, that the council of Chalcedon said not a word of the primacy of Peter, and based the power of the Roman bishop, like that of the Constantinopolitan, on political grounds; which was indeed not erroneous, yet only half of the truth, and in that respect unfair.
Just here, therefore, is the point, where the Eastern church entered into a conflict with the Western, which continues to this day. The papal delegates protested against the twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council, on the spot, in the sixteenth and last session of the council; but in vain, though their protest was admitted to record. They appealed to the sixth canon of the Nicene council, according to the enlarged Latin version, which, in the later addition, “Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum,” seems to assign the Roman bishop a position above all the patriarchs, and drops Constantinople from notice; whereupon the canon was read to them in its original form from the Greek Acts, without that addition, together with the first three canons of the second ecumenical council with their express acknowledgment of the patriarch of Constantinople in the second rank. After the debate on this point, the imperial commissioners thus summed up the result: “From the whole discussion, and from what has been brought forward on either side, we acknowledge that the primacy over all ('f0'f1'ef̀ 'f0'e1́'ed'f4'f9'ed 'f4'e1̀ 'f0'f1'f9'f4'e5'e9͂'e1) and the most eminent rank ('ea'e1'e9̀ 'f4'e7̀'ed 'e5̓'ee'e5'e9́'f1'e5'f4'ef'ed 'f4'e9'ec'e7́'ed) are to continue with the archbishop of old Rome; but that also the archbishop of New Rome should enjoy the same precedence of honor ('f4'e1̀ 'f0'f1'e5'f3'e2'e5'e9͂'e1 'f4'e7͂'f2 'f4'e9'ec'e7͂'f2), and have the right to ordain the metropolitans in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace,” etc. Now they called upon the council to declare whether this was its opinion; whereupon the bishops gave their full, emphatic consent, and begged to be dismissed. The commissioners then closed the transactions with the words: “What we a little while ago proposed, the whole council hath ratified;” that is, the prerogative granted to the church of Constantinople is confirmed by the council in spite of the protest of the legates of Rome.
After the council, the Roman bishop, Leo, himself protested in three letters of the 22d May, 452; the first of which was addressed to the emperor Marcian, the second to the empress Pulcheria, the third to Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople. He expressed his satisfaction with the doctrinal results of the council, but declared the elevation of the bishop of Constantinople to the patriarchal dignity to be a work of pride and ambition - the humble, modest pope! - to be an attack upon the rights of other Eastern metropolitans - the invader of the same rights in Gaul! - especially upon the rights of the Roman see guaranteed by the council of Nice - on the authority of a Roman interpolation - and to be destructive of the peace of the church - which the popes have always sacredly kept! He would hear nothing of political considerations as the source of the authority of his chair, but pointed rather to Divine institution and the primacy of Peter. Leo speaks here with great reverence of the first ecumenical council, under the false impression that that council in its sixth canon acknowledged the primacy of Rome; but with singular indifference of the second ecumenical council, on account of its third canon, which was confirmed at Chalcedon. He charges Anatolius with using for his own ambition a council, which had been called simply for the extermination of heresy and the establishment of the faith. But the canons of the Nicene council, inspired by the Holy Ghost, could be superseded by no synod, however great; and all that came in conflict with them was void. He exhorted Anatolius to give up his ambition, and reminded him of the words: Tene quod habes, ne alius accipiat coronam tuam. (Rev_3:11)
But this protest could not change the decree of the council nor the position of the Greek church in the matter, although, under the influence of the emperor, Anatolius wrote an humble letter to Leo. The bishops of Constantinople asserted their rank, and were sustained by the Byzantine emperors. The twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council was expressly confirmed by Justinian I., in the 131st Novelle (c. 1), and solemnly renewed by the Trullan council (can. 36), but was omitted in the Latin collections of canons by Prisca, Dionysius, Exiguus, and Isidore. The loud contradiction of Rome gradually died away; yet she has never formally acknowledged this canon, except during the Latin empire and the Latin patriarchate at Constantinople, when the fourth Lateran council, under Innocent III., in 1215, conceded that the patriarch of Constantinople should hold the next rank after the patriarch of Rome, before those of Alexandria and Antioch.
Finally, the bishop of Jerusalem, after long contests with the metropolitan of Caesarea and the patriarch of Antioch, succeeded in advancing himself to the patriarchal dignity; but his distinction remained chiefly a matter of honor, far below the other patriarchates in extent of real power. Had not the ancient Jerusalem, in the year 70, been left with only a part of the city wall and three gates to mark it, it would doubtless, being the seat of the oldest Christian congregation, have held, as in the time of James, a central position in the hierarchy. Yet as it was, a reflection of the original dignity of the mother city fell upon the new settlement of Aelia Capitolina, which, after Adrian, rose upon the venerable ruins. The pilgrimage of the empress Helena, and the magnificent church edifices of her son on the holy places, gave Jerusalem a new importance as the center of devout pilgrimage from all quarters of Christendom. Its bishop was subordinate, indeed, to the metropolitan of Caesarea, but presided with him (probably secundo loco) at the Palestinian councils. The council of Nice gave him an honorary precedence among the bishops, though without affecting his dependence on the metropolitan of Caesarea. At least this seems to be the meaning of the short and some. what obscure seventh canon: “Since it is custom and old tradition, that the bishop of Aelia (Jerusalem) should be honored, he shall also enjoy the succession of honor, while the metropolis (Caesarea) preserves the dignity allotted to her.” The legal relation of the two remained for a long time uncertain, till the fourth ecumenical council, at its seventh session, confirmed the bishop of Jerusalem in his patriarchal rank, and assigned to him the three provinces of Palestine as a diocese, without opposition.
57. The Rival Patriarchs of Old and New Rome
Thus at the close of the fourth century we see the Catholic church of the Graeco-Roman empire under the oligarchy of five coordinate and independent patriarchs, four in the East and one in the West. But the analogy of the political constitution, and the tendency toward a visible, tangible representation of the unity of the church, which had lain at the bottom of the development of the hierarchy from the very beginnings of the episcopate, pressed beyond oligarchy to monarchy; especially in the West. Now that the empire was geographically and politically severed into East and West, which, after the death of Theodosius, in 395, had their several emperors, and were never permanently reunited, we can but expect in like manner a double head in the hierarchy. This we find in the two patriarchs of old Rome and New Rome; the one representing the Western or Latin church, the other the Eastern or Greek. Their power and their relation to each other we must now more carefully observe.
The organization of the church in the East being so largely influenced by the political constitution, the bishop of the imperial capital could not fail to become the most powerful of the four oriental patriarchs. By the second and fourth ecumenical councils, as we have already seen, his actual pre'ebminence was ratified by ecclesiastical sanction, and he was designated to the foremost dignity. From Justinian I. he further received supreme appellate jurisdiction, and the honorary title of ecumenical patriarch, which he still continues to bear. He ordained the other patriarchs, not seldom decided their deposition or institution by his influence, and used every occasion to interfere in their affairs, and assert his supreme authority, though the popes and their delegates at the imperial court incessantly protested. The patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria were distracted and weakened in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries by the tedious monophysite controversies, and subsequently, after the year 622, were reduced to but a shadow by the Mohammedan conquests. The patriarchate of Constantinople, on the contrary, made important advances southwest and north; till, in its flourishing period, between the eighth and tenth centuries, it embraced, besides its original diocese, Calabria, Sicily, and all the provinces of Illyricum, the Bulgarians, and Russia. Though often visited with destructive earthquakes and conflagrations, and besieged by Persians, Arabians, Hungarians, Russians, Latins, and Turks, Constantinople maintained itself to the middle of the fifteenth century as the seat of the Byzantine empire and center of the Greek church. The patriarch of Constantinople, however, remained virtually only primus inter pares, and has never exercised a papal supremacy over his colleagues in the East, like that of the pope over the metropolitans of the West; still less has he arrogated, like his rival in ancient Rome, the sole dominion of the entire church. Toward the bishop of Rome he claimed only equality of rights and coordinate dignity.
In this long contest between the two leading patriarchs of Christendom, the patriarch of Rome at last carried the day. The monarchical tendency of the hierarchy was much stronger in the West than in the East, and was urging a universal monarchy in the church.
The patriarch of Constantinople enjoyed indeed the favor of the emperor, and all the benefit of the imperial residence. New Rome was most beautifully and most advantageously situated for a metropolis of government, of commerce, and of culture, on the bridge between two continents; and it formed a powerful bulwark against the barbarian conquests. It was never desecrated by an idol temple, but was founded a Christian city. It fostered the sciences and arts, at a time when the West was whelmed by the wild waves of barbarism; it preserved the knowledge of the Greek language and literature through the middle ages; and after the invasion of the Turks it kindled by its fugitive scholars the enthusiasm of classic studies in the Latin church, till Greece rose from the dead with the New Testament in her hand, and held the torch for the Reformation.
But the Roman patriarch had yet greater advantages. In him were united, as even the Greek historian Theodoret concedes, all the outward and the inward, the political and the spiritual conditions of the highest eminence.
In the first place, his authority rested on an ecclesiastical and spiritual basis, reaching back, as public opinion granted, through an unbroken succession, to Peter the apostle; while Constantinople was in no sense an apostolica sedes, but had a purely political origin, though, by transfer, and in a measure by usurpation, it had possessed itself of the metropolitan rights of Ephesus Hence the popes after Leo appealed almost exclusively to the divine origin of their dignity, and to the primacy of the prince of the apostles over the whole church.
Then, too, considered even in a political point of view, old Rome had a far longer and grander imperial tradition to show, and was identified in memory with the bloom of the empire; while New Rome marked the beginning of its decline. When the Western empire fell into the hands of the barbarians, the Roman bishop was the only surviving heir of this imperial past, or, in the well-known dictum of Hobbes, “the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof.”
Again, the very remoteness of Rome from the imperial court was favorable to the development of a hierarchy independent of all political influence and intrigue; while the bishop of Constantinople had to purchase the political advantages of the residence at the cost of ecclesiastical freedom. The tradition of the donatio Constantini, though a fabrication of the eighth century, has thus much truth: that the transfer of the imperial residence to the East broke the way for the temporal power and the political independence of the papacy.
Further, amidst the great trinitarian and christological controversies of the Nicene and post-Nicene age, the popes maintained the powerful prestige of almost undeviating ecumenical orthodoxy and doctrinal stability; while the see of Constantinople, with its Grecian spirit of theological restlessness and disputation, was sullied with the Arian, the Nestorian, the Monophysite, and other heresies, and was in general, even in matters of faith, dependent on the changing humors of the court. Hence even contending parties in the East were accustomed to seek counsel and protection from the Roman chair, and oftentimes gave that see the coveted opportunity to put the weight of its decision into the scale. This occasional practice then formed a welcome basis for a theory of jurisdiction. The Roma locuta est assumed the character of a supreme and final judgment. Rome learned much and forgot nothing. She knew how to turn every circumstances with consummate administrative tact, to her own advantage.
Finally, though the Greek church, down to the fourth ecumenical council, was unquestionably the main theatre of church history and the chief seat of theological learning, yet, according to the universal law of history, “Westward the star of empire takes its way,” the Latin church, and consequently the Roman patriarchate, already had the future to itself. While the Eastern patriarchates were facilitating by internal quarrels and disorder the conquests of the false prophet, Rome was boldly and victoriously striking westward, and winning the barbarian tribes of Europe to the religion of the cross.
58. The Latin Patriarch
These advantages of the patriarch of Rome over the patriarch of Constantinople are at the same time the leading causes of the rise of the papacy, which we must now more closely pursue.
The papacy is undeniably the result of a long process of history. Centuries were employed in building it, and centuries have already been engaged upon its partial destruction. Lust of honor and of power, and even open fraud, have contributed to its development; for human nature lies hidden under episcopal robes, with its steadfast inclination to abuse the power intrusted to it; and the greater the power, the stronger is the temptation, and the worse the abuse. But behind and above these human impulses lay the needs of the church and the plans of Providence, and these are the proper basis for explaining the rise, as well as the subsequent decay, of the papal dominion over the countries and nations of Europe.
That Providence which moves the helm of the history of world and church according to an eternal plan, not only prepares in silence and in a secrecy unknown even to themselves the suitable persons for a given work, but also lays in the depths of the past the foundations of mighty institutions, that they may appear thoroughly furnished as soon as the time may demand them. Thus the origin and gradual growth of the Latin patriarchate at Rome looked forward to the middle age, and formed part of the necessary, external outfit of the church for her disciplinary mission among the heathen barbarians. The vigorous hordes who destroyed the West-Roman empire were to be themselves built upon the ruins of the old civilization, and trained by an awe-inspiring ecclesiastical authority and a firm hierarchical organization, to Christianity and freedom, till, having come of age, they should need the legal schoolmaster no longer, and should cast away his cords from them. The Catholic hierarchy, with its pyramid-like culmination in the papacy, served among the Romanic and Germanic peoples. until the time of the Reformation, a purpose similar to that of the Jewish theocracy and the old Roman empire respectively in the inward and outward preparation for Christianity. The full exhibition of this pedagogic purpose belongs to the history of the middle age; but the foundation for it we find already being laid in the period before us.
The Roman bishop claims, that the four dignities of bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, and pope or primate of the whole church, are united in himself. The first three offices must be granted him in all historical justice; the last is denied him by the Greek church, and by the Evangelical, and by all non-Catholic sects.
His bishopric is the city of Rome, with its cathedral church of St. John Lateran, which bears over its main entrance the inscription: Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput; thus remarkably outranking even the church of St. Peter - as if Peter after all were not the first and highest apostle, and had to yield at last to the superiority of John, the representative of the ideal church of the future. Tradition says that the emperor Constantine erected this basilica by the side of the old Lateran palace, which had come down from heathen times, and gave the palace to Pope Sylvester; and it remained the residence of the popes and the place of assembly for their councils (the Lateran councils) till after the exile of Avignon, when they took up their abode in the Vatican beside the ancient church of St. Peter.
As metropolitan or archbishop, the bishop of Rome had immediate jurisdiction over the seven suffragan bishops, afterward called cardinal bishops, of the vicinity: Ostia, Portus, Silva candida, Sabina, Praeneste, Tusculum, and Albanum.
As patriarch, he rightfully stood on equal footing with the four patriarchs of the East, but had a much larger district and the primacy of honor. The name is here of no account, since the fact stands fast. The Roman bishops called themselves not patriarchs, but popes, that they might rise the sooner above their colleagues; for the one name denotes oligarchical power, the other, monarchical. But in the Eastern church and among modern Catholic historians the designation is also quite currently applied to Rome.
The Roman patriarchal circuit primarily embraced the ten suburban provinces, as they were called, which were under the political jurisdiction of the Roman deputy, the Vicarius Urbis; including the greater part of Central Italy, all Upper Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. In its wider sense, however, it extended gradually over the entire west of the Roman empire, thus covering Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyria, southeastern Britannia, and northwestern Africa.
The bishop of Rome was from the beginning the only Latin patriarch, in the official sense of the word. He stood thus alone, in the first place, for the ecclesiastical reason, that Rome was the only sedes apostolica in the West, while in the Greek church three patriarchates and several other episcopal sees, such as Ephesus, Thessalonica, and Corinth, shared the honor of apostolic foundation. Then again, he stood politically alone, since Rome was the sole metropolis of the West, while in the East there were three capitals of the empire, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Hence Augustine, writing from the religious point of view, once calls Pope Innocent I. the “ruler of the Western church;” and the emperor Justinian, on the ground of political distribution, in his 109th Novelle, where he speaks of the ecclesiastical division of the whole world, mentions only five known patriarchates, and therefore only one patriarchate of the West. The decrees of the ecumenical councils, also, know no other Western patriarchate than the Roman, and this was the sole medium through which the Eastern church corresponded with the Western. In the great theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman bishop appears uniformly as the representative and the organ of all Latin Christendom.
It was, moreover, the highest interest of all orthodox churches in the West, amidst the political confusion and in conflict with the Arian Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, to bind themselves closely to a common center, and to secure the powerful protection of a central authority. This center they could not but find in the primitive apostolic church of the metropolis of the world. The Roman bishops were consulted in almost all important questions of doctrine or of discipline. After the end of the fourth century they issued to the Western bishops in reply, pastoral epistles and decretal letters, in which they decided the question at first in the tone of paternal counsel, then in the tone of apostolic authority, making that which had hitherto been left to free opinion, a fixed statute. The first extant decretal is the Epistola of Pope Siricius to the Spanish bishop Himerius, a.d. 385, which contains, characteristically, a legal enforcement of priestly celibacy, thus of an evidently unapostolic institution; but in this Siricius appeals to “generalia decreta,” which his predecessor Liberius had already issued. In like manner the Roman bishops repeatedly caused the assembling of general or patriarchal councils of the West (synodos occidentales), like the synod of Axles in 314. After the sixth and seventh centuries they also conferred the pallium on the archbishops of Salona, Ravenna, Messina, Syracuse, Palermo, Arles, Autun, Sevilla, Nicopolis (in Epirus), Canterbury, and other metropolitans, in token of their superior jurisdiction.
59. Conflicts and Conquests of the Latin Patriarchate
But this patriarchal power was not from the beginning and to a uniform extent acknowledged in the entire West. Not until the latter part of the sixth century did it reach the height we have above described. It was not a divine institution, unchangeably fixed from the beginning for all times, like a Biblical article of faith; but the result of a long process of history, a human ecclesiastical institution under providential direction. In proof of which we have the following incontestable facts:
In the first place, even in Italy, several metropolitans maintained, down to the close of our period, their own supreme headship, independent of Roman and all other jurisdiction. The archbishops of Milan, who traced their church to the apostle Barnabas, came into no contact with the pope till the latter part of the sixth century, and were ordained without him or his pallium. Gregory I., in 593, during the ravages of the Longobards, was the first who endeavored to exercise patriarchal rights there: he reinstated an excommunicated presbyter, who had appealed to him. The metropolitans of Aquileia, who derived their church from the evangelist Mark, and whose city was elevated by Constantine the Great to be the capital of Venetia and Istria, vied with Milan, and even with Rome, calling themselves “patriarchs,” and refusing submission to the papal jurisdiction even under Gregory the Great. The bishop of Ravenna likewise, after 408, when the emperor Honorius selected that city for his residence, became a powerful metropolitan, with jurisdiction over fourteen bishoprics. Nevertheless he received the pallium from Gregory the Great, and examples occur of ordination by the Roman bishop.
The North African bishops and councils in the beginning of the fifth century, with all traditional reverence for the apostolic see, repeatedly protested, in the spirit of Cyprian, against encroachments of Rome, and even prohibited all appeal in church controversies from their own to a transmarine or foreign tribunal, upon pain of excommunication. The occasion of this was an appeal to Rome by the presbyter Apiarius, who had been deposed for sundry offences by Bishop Urbanus, of Sicca, a disciple and friend of Augustine, and whose restoration was twice attempted, by Pope Zosimus in 418, and by Pope Coelestine in 424. From this we see that the popes gladly undertook to interfere for a palpably unworthy priest, and thus sacrificed the interests of local discipline, only to make their own superior authority felt. The Africans referred to the genuine Nicene canon (for which Zosimus had substituted the Sardican appendix respecting the appellate jurisdiction of Rome, of which the Nicene council knew nothing), and reminded the pope, that the gift of the Holy Ghost, needful for passing a just judgment, was not lacking to any province, and that he could as well inspire a whole province as a single bishop. The last document in the case of this appeal of Apiarius is a letter of the (twentieth) council of Carthage, in 424, to Pope Coelestine I., to the following purport: “Apiarius asked a new trial, and gross misdeeds of his were thereby brought to light. The papal legate, Faustinus, has, in the face of this, in a very harsh manner demanded the reception of this man into the fellowship of the Africans, because he has appealed to the pope and been received into fellowship by him. But this very thing ought not to have been done. At last has Apiarius himself acknowledged all his crimes. The pope may hereafter no longer so readily give audience to those who come from Africa to Rome, like Apiarius, nor receive the excommunicated into church communion, be they bishops or priests, as the council of Nice (can. 5) has ordained, in whose direction bishops are included. The assumption of appeal to Rome is a trespass on the rights of the African church, and what has been [by Zosimus and his legates] brought forward as a Nicene ordinance for it, is not Nicene, and is not to be found in the genuine copies of the Nicene Acts, which have been received from Constantinople and Alexandria. Let the pope, therefore, in future send no more judges to Africa, and since Apiarius has now been excluded for his offences, the pope will surely not expect the African church to submit longer to the annoyances of the legate Faustinus. May God the Lord long preserve the pope, and may the pope pray for the Africans.” In the Pelagian controversy the weak Zosimus, who, in opposition to the judgment of his predecessor Innocent, had at first expressed himself favorably to the heretics, was even compelled by the Africans to yield. The North African church maintained this position under the lead of the greatest of the Latin fathers, St. Augustine, who in other respects contributed more than any other theologian or bishop to the erection of the Catholic system. She first made submission to the Roman jurisdiction, in the sense of her weakness, under the shocks of the Vandals. Leo (440-461) was the first pope who could boast of having extended the diocese of Rome beyond Europe into another quarter of the globe. He and Gregory the Great wrote to the African bishops entirely in the tone of paternal authority without provoking reply.
In Spain the popes found from the first a more favorable field. The orthodox bishops there were so pressed in the fifth century by the Arian Vandals, Suevi, Alani, and soon after by the Goths, that they sought counsel and protection with the bishop of Rome, which, for his own sake, he was always glad to give. So early as 385, Siricius, as we have before observed, issued a decretal letter to a Spanish bishop. The epistles of Leo to Bishop Turibius of Asturica, and the bishops of Gaul and Spain, are instances of the same authoritative style. Simplicius (467-483) appointed the bishop Zeno of Sevilla papal vicar, and Gregory the Great, with a paternal letter, conferred the pallium on Leander, bishop of Sevilla.
In Gaul, Leo succeeded in asserting the Roman jurisdiction, though not without opposition, in the affair of the archbishop Hilary of Arles, or Arelate. The affair has been differently represented from the Gallican and the ultramontane points of view. Hilary (born 403, died 449), first a rigid monk, then, against his will, elevated to the bishopric, an eloquent preacher, an energetic prelate, and the first champion of the freedom of the Gallican church against the pretensions of Rome, but himself not free from hierarchical ambition, deposed Celidonius, the bishop of Besan'e7on, at a council in that city (synodus Vesontionensis), because he had married a widow before his ordination, and had presided as judge at a criminal trial and pronounced sentence of death; which things, according to the ecclesiastical law, incapacitated him for the episcopal office. This was unquestionably an encroachment on the province of Vienne, to which Besa'e7on belonged. Pope Zosimus had, indeed, in 417, twenty-eight years before, appointed the bishop of Arles, which was a capital of seven provinces, to be papal vicar in Gaul, and had granted him metropolitan rights in the provinces Viennensis, and Narbonensis prima and secunda, though with the reservation of causae majores. The metropolitans of Vienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles, however, did not accept this arrangement, and the succeeding popes found it best to recognize again the old metropolitans. Celidonius appealed to Leo against that act of Hilary. Leo, in 445, assembled a Roman council (concilium sacerdotum), and reinstated him, as the accusation of Hilary, who himself journeyed on foot in the winter to Rome, and protested most vehemently against the appeal, could not be proven to the satisfaction of the pope. In fact, he directly or indirectly caused Hilary to be imprisoned, and, when he escaped and fled back to Gaul, cut him off from the communion of the Roman church, and deprived him of all prerogatives in the diocese of Vienne, which had been only temporarily conferred on the bishop of Arles, and were by a better judgment (sententia meliore) taken away. He accused him of assaults on the rights of other Gallican metropolitans, and above all of insubordination toward the principality of the most blessed Peter; and he goes so far as to say: “Whoso disputes the primacy of the apostle Peter, can in no way lessen the apostle’s dignity, but, puffed up by the spirit of his own pride, he destroys himself in hell.” Only out of special grace did he leave Hilary in his bishopric. Not satisfied with this, he applied to the secular arm for help, and procured from the weak Western emperor, Valentinian III., an edict to Aetius, the magister militum of Gaul, in which it is asserted, almost in the words of Leo, that the whole world (universitas; in Greek, 'ef'e9̓'ea'ef'f5'ec'e5́'ed'e7) acknowledges the Roman see as director and governor; that neither Hilary nor any bishop might oppose its commands; that neither Gallican nor other bishops should, contrary to the ancient custom, do anything without the authority of the venerable pope of the eternal city; and that all decrees of the pope have the force of law.
The letter of Leo to the Gallican churches, and the edict of the emperor, give us the first example of a defensive and offensive alliance of the central spiritual and temporal powers in the pursuit of an unlimited sovereignty. The edict, however, could of course have power, at most, only in the West, to which the authority of Valentinian was limited. In fact, even Hilary and his successors maintained, in spite of Leo, the prerogatives they had formerly received from Pope Zosimus, and were confirmed in them by later popes. Beyond this the issue of the contest is unknown. Hilary of Arles died in 449, universally esteemed and loved, without, so far as we know, having become formally reconciled with Rome; though, notwithstanding this, he figures in a remarkable manner in the Roman calendar, by the side of his papal antagonist Leo, as a canonical saint. Undoubtedly Leo proceeded in this controversy far too rigorously and intemperately against Hilary; yet it was important that he should hold fast the right of appeal as a guarantee of the freedom of bishops against the encroachments of metropolitans. The papal despotism often proved itself a wholesome check upon the despotism of subordinate prelates.
With Northern Gaul the Roman bishops came into less frequent contact; yet in this region also there occur, in the fourth and fifth centuries, examples of the successful assertion of their jurisdiction.
The early British church held from the first a very isolated position, and was driven back, by the invasion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, about the middle of the fifth century, into the mountains of Wales, Cornwallis, Cumberland, and the still more secluded islands. Not till the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons under Gregory the Great did a regular connection begin between England and Rome.
Finally, the Roman bishops succeeded also in extending their patriarchal power eastward, over the praefecture of East Illyria. Illyria belonged originally to the Western empire, remained true to the Nicene faith through the Arian controversies, and for the vindication of that faith attached itself closely to Rome. When Gratian, in 379, incorporated Illyricum Orientale with the Eastern empire, its bishops nevertheless refused to give up their former ecclesiastical connection. Damasus conferred on the metropolitan Acholius, of Thessalonica, as papal vicar, patriarchal rights in the new praefecture. The patriarch of Constantinople endeavored, indeed, repeatedly, to bring this ground into his diocese, but in vain. Justinian, in 535, formed of it a new diocese, with an independent patriarch at Prima Justiniana (or Achrida, his native city); but this arbitrary innovation had no vitality, and Gregory I. recovered active intercourse with the Illyrian bishops. Not until the eighth century, under the emperor Leo the Isaurian, was East Illyria finally severed from the Roman diocese and incorporated with the patriarchate of Constantinople.