XX. CHAP. Wealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted the honours of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his sacrilegious hopes. The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn and important transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, by requiring several episcopal qualifications of age, station, &c. restrained in some measure the indiscriminate caprice of the electors. The authority of the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the vacant church to consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their passions, and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission, or the resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded different precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws, and provincial customs : but it was everywhere admitted, as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be imposed on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members. The emperors, as the The epistles of Sidonus Apollinaris (iv, 25; vii, 5-9) exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and Gaul was less polished and less corrupt than the East. A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by consent; either the bishops or the people chose one of the three candidates who had been named by the other party. XX. guardians of the public peace, and as the first CHAP. citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while they distributed and resumed the honours of the state and army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important offices from the free suffrages of the people.* It was agreeable to the dictates of justice, that these magistrates should not desert an honourable station from which they could not be removed; but the wisdom of councils endeavoured, without much success, to enforce the residence, and to prevent the translation of bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed than that of the East; but the same passions which made those regulations necessary rendered them ineffectual, The reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged against each other, serve only to expose their common guilt, and their mutual indiscretion. ation of II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of Ordin spiritual generation; and this extraordinary pri- the clergy vilege might compensate, in some degree, for the painful celibacy which was imposed as a virtue, All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii, 1. ii, c. 6, p. 704–714) appear to be extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The confirmation of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a more regular proceeding (Hist. Eccles. 1. ii, 11). a The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six centuries, is a subject of discipline, and indeed of controversy, which has been rery diligently examined. See in particular Thomassin, Discipline de XX. CHAP. as a duty, and at length as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to the perpetual service of the gods. Such institutions were founded for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired to its heavenly promises, or temporal possessions. The office of priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities had prompted them to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a discerning bishop, as the best qualified to promote the glory and interest of the church, The bishops (till the abuse was restrained by de l'Eglise, tom. i, 1. ii, c. lx, Ixi, p. 886-902, and Bingham's Antiquities, 1. iv, c. 5. Ey each of these learned but partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the other is concealed. Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary succession e described by Ammianus as a very numerous family: "Per sæcula "multa ad præsens unâ eâdemque prosapiâ multitudo creata, Deo"rum cultibus dedicata (xxiii, 6)." Ausomas celebrates the Stirpe ruidarum (De Professorib. Burdigal. iv); but we may infer from the remark of Caesar (vi. 13), that, in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was left or choice and emulation. • The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c. of the elergy, is laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. ii, p. 1-83) and Bingham (in the 4th book of his Antiqui. ties, more especially the fourth, sixth, and seventh chapters). When the brother XX. the prudence of the laws) might constrain the CHAP. reluctant, and protect the distressed; and the imposition of hands for ever bestowed some of the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted by the emperors from all service, private or public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with intolerable weight; and the duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the republic. Each bishop acquired an absolute and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of Constantinople and Carthage maintained their pe e f brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons forcibly stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which might invalidate the holy rites. a The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from the christian emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian code; and is illustrated with tolerable candour by the learned Godefroy, whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a protestant. e Justinian, Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests, one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred and ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by the emperor, to relieve the distress of the church, which had been involved in debt and usury by the expence of a much higher establishment. f Universus clerus ecclesiæ Carthaginiensis fere quingenti vel amplius; inter quos quamplurimi erant lectores infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78, edit. Ruinart. This VOL. III. U remnant ΧΧ. ་་་་་་、 g CHAP. culiar establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a Jewish or pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons, sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and doorkeepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privilege were extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical throne." Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers, visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred copiata, or gravediggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the christian world. III. Pro perty. III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as A. D. 313. well as the peace of the church. The christians not only recovered the lands and houses of which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of remnant of a more prosperous state subsisted under the oppression of the Vandals. The number of seven orders has been fixed in the Latin church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles. See Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi, tit. 2, leg. 42, 43. Godefroy's Com. mentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria, shew the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the peace of that turbulent capital. The edict of Milan (de M. r. c. 48) acknowledges, by reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad jus corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum pertinentia. Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate must have been received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law. |