Avarice and Ambition among the Bishops. 691

As the bishop united in himself all the rights and privileges of the clerical office, so he was expected to shew himself a model in the discharge of its duties, and a follower of the great Archbishop and Archshepherd of the sheep. He was expected to exhibit in a high degree the ascetic virtues, especially that of virginity, which, according to Catholic ethics, belongs to the idea of moral perfection. Many a bishop, like Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Martin of Tours, lived in rigid abstinence and poverty, and devoted his income to religious and charitable objects.

But this very power and this temporal advantage of the episcopate became also a lure for avarice and ambition, and a temptation to the lordly and secular spirit. For even under the episcopal mantle the human heart still beat, with all those weaknesses and passions which can only be overcome by the continual influence of divine grace. There were metropolitans and patriarchs, especially in Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome, who, while yet hardly past the age of persecution, forgot the servant form of the Son of God, and the poverty of his apostles and martyrs, and rivalled the most exalted civil officials, nay, the emperor himself, in worldly pomp and luxury. Not seldom were the most disgraceful intrigues employed to gain the holy office. No wonder, says Ammianus, that for so splendid a prize as the bishopric of Rome men strive with the utmost passion and persistence, when rich presents from ladies, and a more than imperial sumptuousness, invite them. The Roman prefect, Praetextatus, declared jestingly to the bishop Damasus, who had obtained the office through a bloody battle of parties, that for such a price he would at once turn Christian himself.+ Such an example could not but shed its evil influence on the lower clergy of the great cities. Jerome sketches a sarcastic description of the Roman priests, who squandered all their care on dress and perfumery, curled their hair with crisping pins, wore sparkling rings, paid far too great attention to

* Amm. Marsell. xxvii. c. 3, sub anno 367. . . . “ut dotentur oblationibuss matronarum procedantque vehiculis insidentes, circumspecte vestiti, epula curantes profusas, adeo ut eorum convivia regales superent mensas." But then with this pomp of the Roman prelates he contrasts the poverty of the worthy country bishops.

† Besides Ammianus, Jerome also states this in one of his epistles, ad Pammach. "Miserabilis ille Praetextatus, qui designatus consul est mortuus, homo sacrilegus et idolorum cultor, solebat ludens beato papae Damaso dicere, 'Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum, et ero protinus Christianus.'" (In my MS. this passage was credited to Epist. ad Pammach. 38, (al. 61), but in looking carefully over Vallarsi's edition, which I use in the final revision, and which follows a different order, I cannot find it, though it is no doubt genuine.)

women, and looked more like bridegrooms than like clergymen.* And in the Greek church it was little better. Gregory Nazianzen, himself a bishop and for a long time patriarch of Constantinople, frequently mourns the ambition, the official jealousies, and the luxury of the hierarchy, and utters the wish that the bishops might be distinguished only by a higher grade of virtue.

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 præfectures (the Oriental, the Illyrian, the Italian, and the Gallic); the præfectures into vicariates, dioceses, or proconsulates, fourteen or fifteen in all, and each diocese again. into several provinces. The præfectures were governed by Præfecti Prætorio, the dioceses by Vicarii, the provinces by Rectores, with various titles, commonly Presides.

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.

* Epist. ad Eustochium de virginitate servanda. †The dioceses or vicariates were as follows:

In

I. The Præfectura Orientalis consisted of the five dioceses of Oriens, with Antioch as its political and ecclesiastical capital; Ægyptus, with Alexandria ; Asia proconsularis, with Ephesus; Pontus, with Cæsarea in Cappadocia; Thracia, with Heraklea, afterwards Constantinople.

II. The Præfectura Illyrica, with Thessalonica as its capital, had only the two dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia.

III. The Præfectura Italica embraced Roma, (i. e. South Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean, or the so-called Suburban provinces); Italia, or the Vicariate of Italy, with its centre at Mediolenum (Milan); Illyricum occidentale, with its capital at Sirmium; and Africa occidentalis, with Carthage.

IV. The Præfectura Gallica embraced the dioceses of Gallia, with Triveri, (Trier) and Lugdunum (Lyons); Hispania, with Hispalis (Seville); and Brittania, with Eboracum (York).

Thus the diocese of the Orient, for example, had five provinces, Egypt nine, Pontus thirteen, Gaul seventeen, Spain seven. Comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik, i. p. 57, sqq., where the provinces are all quoted, as is not necessary for our purpose here.

The Country Bishops.

693

the east, this principle of conformity was more palpably and rigidly carried out, than in the west. The council of Nice in the fourth canon 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 favourable co-operation 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 (dinois) 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 afterwards came to be applied in the west to each episcopal district. The circuit of a metropolitan was called in the east an eparchy (iñazxía), in the west provincia. An ordinary bishopric was called in the east a parish (agoxía), 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 neighbouring 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 neighbouring 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 Cæsarea, 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

*

*Xuperioxoro. The principal statements respecting them are: Epist. Synodi Antioch. A.D. 270, in Euseb. H. E. vii., 36 (where they are called ixirxo T iμógv ¿yga); Concil. Ancyr. A.D. 315, can. 13 (where they are forbidden to ordain presbyters and deacons); Concil. Antioch. A.D. 341, can. 10 (same prohibition); Conc. Lardic., between 320 and 372, can. 57 (where the erection of new country bishoprics is forbidden); and Conc. Sardic. A.D. 343, can. 6 (where they are wholly abolished).

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 a 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 (godα), who in the name of the bishops 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 Græco-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

* Can. 6 : . . . ἵνα μὴ κατευτελίζηται τὸ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου ὄνομα καὶ ἡ αὐθεντία; ΟΙ, in the Latin version: "Ne vilescat nomen episcopi et auctoritas." Comp. Hefele, i. p 556. The differences between the Greek and Latin text in the first part of this canon have no influence on the prohibition of the appointment of country bishops.

Margorodins, metropolitanus, and the kindred title exos (applied to the most powerful metropolitans); gxíonoros, archiepiscopus, and primas.

This canon has been recently discovered also in a Coptic translation, and published by Pitra, in the Spicilegium Solesmense, i 526, sq.

Augustine.

*

695

quarters. Hence it has been found good, that he should also have a precedence in honour, 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 own 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.†

(To be continued.)

ART. II.-Augustine.

Histoire de St Augustine.

Par M. PoNJOULAT.

Die Kirche Christi, I. 3. Augustinus v. FR. BÖHRinger.

Der heilige Augustinus. V. Č. BINDEMANN, I, II.

Mozley's Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination.

Der heilige Augustinus, v. P. SCHAFF.

Tableau de l'Eloquence Chretienne au IV. Siecle. Par M. VILLEMAIN.

ALGERIA is only three days' sail from Marseilles. It is

no difficult matter, therefore, for French litterateurs to take a holiday in the nearest of French colonies, and give forth their Algerian impressions or reminiscences in the journals. Some excellent tourist notes have thus been furnished to the Revue des Deux Mondes, and other high class French magazines. But M. Ponjoulat has had higher objects in view than contributing to the amusement or passing interest of the readers of magazines. He has

Και τη τιμή προηγεῖσθαι αυτόν.

Cyprian, Epist. 45, says of his province of Carthage, Latius fusa est nostra provincia; habet enim Numidiam et Mauretaniam sibi cohaerentes.'