ing they must have, it is plain this cannot be their meaning: and then all the argument, which our author has built upon this supposition, in order to subject the Britons to the Pope, at once falls to the ground.

I will not now stand disputing with him, whether the word, diocese, was never about this time taken in any author for one of the great dioceses of the Roman empire. He says Constantine so uses it in one place,' speaking of the Asiatic and Pontic dioceses; and if that will do him any service, I can help him to another; for Constantine also speaks of a civil officer, called, Kadodikos Aioińσews, or Rationalis of the diocese, where I agree with Valesius, we are to understand one of the great dioceses of the Roman empire. Nay I have said before that I think there were patriarchs too in the Church at that time, and that they had the great dioceses of the Roman empire divided among them. But does it hence follow, that because the word, diocese, is sometimes so used, that therefore it must needs signify so in this place, when there is plain demonstration to the contrary? All the world knows that about the same time the name, diocese, was given to single episcopal churches also, and they too were called greater dioceses in opposition to the Tituli, or parishes, which were quasi Dioceses, the lesser dioceses, under them, as the Pontifical words it in the Life of Pope Marcellus, who was one of Sylvester's predecessors. So that Sylvester's holding greater dioceses, may mean no more than his being a metropolitan, or having several episcopal dioceses under his jurisdiction, to whom he was to signify according to custom the time of keeping Easter, and other things decreed in the council. Or if we suppose him to have been a patriarch at that time, then his greater dioceses may signify those ten suburbicary provinces, which were the ancient bounds of his patriarchal jurisdiction, But whatever meaning they have, it is certain they cannot be understood in our author's sense, of the great dioceses of the Roman empire: because it were absurd

1 Constant. Ep. ad Omnes Ecclesias, ap. Euseb. de Vit. Const. lib. iii. c. 19. 2 Ibid. lib. iv. c. 36. Pontifical. Vit. Marcelli, Viginti quinque titulos in Urbe Româ constituit, quasi diœceses, &c.

to think, that Africa should acknowledge itself to be one of the Pope's dioceses, which never was reckoned among the suburbicary provinces, and what is more, always resolutely opposed the Pope's pretences to the least shadow of power ́over it, claiming an absolute and independent power within itself in all matters of ecclesiastical cognizance and jurisdiction. And the case of the Britannic Church being the same with that of Afric, it follows, that it was as independent of Rome as the other was, notwithsthanding any pretended confession of subjection made by its bishops in the council of Arles; upon which our author lays the main strength of his cause, though there is nothing in it when fairly canvassed and examined, as I doubt not I have made it appear to every unprejudiced reader.

I was the more willing to consider here some of the chief exceptions of this celebrated writer againt the liberties of the Britannic Church, because I know not whether any one else has made a reply to them; and these strictures will serve to suggest at once to the reader the true grounds upon which our ancient liberties were founded, and the contrary pretences, which would subject us to the power of the bishop of Rome, as patriarch of the western empire, though the Britannic diocese had as just title to be independent at that time as Rome itself, or Afric, or any other diocese in the Empire. I make no further inquiry here into the bounds of other patriarchs or metropolitans, or their dioceses, because no such momentous disputes have been raised about them, and they may be easily learned from the Notitia of the Church here subjoined in the latter part of this Book. Therefore I proceed in the next place to examine the ordinary extent of the ancient episcopal dioceses, or as we now call them, diocesan churches,

!

CHAP. II.

A more particular Account of the Number, Nature, and Extent of Dioceses, or Episcopal Churches, in Africa, Egypt, and other Eastern Provinces.

SECT. 1.-Dioceses anciently called Пapoikiai, Parochiæ.

It is evident from what has been discoursed in the last Chapter that the most ancient and apostolical division of the Church was into dioceses, or episcopal churches; that is such precincts or districts, as single bishops governed with the assistance of their presbyters. But yet we are to make a little further inquiry into the nature and extent of these, because great errors have been committed by some late writers about them. There are who pretend, that a diocese, for the three first ages, was never more than such a number of people as could meet, and ordinarily did meet in a single congregation. Others extend the limits of ancient dioceses further than this at first, to include a city and the whole region about it: but then they reckon that upon the general conversion of Heathens to Christianity, such dioceses ought to have been divided into single congregations, and a new bishop and clergy set over every one. There is no difference betwixt these two opinions, save only this, that the one wholly mistakes the Church's first and primitive model, and the other quarrels with her practice. But the truth of the matter was, that the Church in settling the bounds of dioceses went by another rule, not that of single assemblies or congregations, but the rule of government in every city, including not only the city itself, but the suburbs, or region lying round about it within the verge of its jurisdiction. Which seems to be the plain reason of that great and visible difference which we find in the extent of dioceses; some being very large, others very small, according as the civil government of each city happened to have a larger or lesser jurisdiction.

There are two things indeed that commonly impose upon unwary readers in this matter. One is, that the ancient name of an episcopal diocese for three hundred years is

commonly Пapoula, which they mistake for a parish-church, or single congregation: whereas, as learned men' have rightly observed, it signified then not the places or habitations near a church, but the towns or villages near a city, which together with the city was the bishop's Пapoikia, or as we now call it, his diocese, the bounds of his ordinary care and jurisdiction. That thus it was, appears evidently from this, that the largest dioceses, such as those of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, which had many particular churches in them, were called by the same name, as the reader may find an hundred passages in Eusebius,' where be uses the word, Пapoula, when he speaks of those large and populous cities, which had many particular churches in them. The city of Alexandria, in the time of Alexander and Athanasius, was divided into several districts called Laura, in every one of which there was a church, with a presbyter fixed upon it; and yet all these were but one Пlapouxía, as Alexander calls it in his Circular Epistles against Arius. The reader may see the word so used by Epiphanius, St. Jerom, the councils of Antioch Ancyra,' and many others in after-ages, when it is certain episcopal dioceses were something larger than parish-churches, as those are taken to signify single congregrations. So that nothing can be plainer than the use of the word, Ilapouía, for a diocese to the fourth century,

SECT. 2.-When the Name, Diocese, began first to be used.

8

And now about this time the name, diocese, began to be used likewise. For the council of Arles, which was held in the beginning of the fourth century, writing to the bishop of Rome, says, "that he did-majores dioceses tenere, possess greater dioceses;" which though Schelstrate and other Romish writers interpret patriarchal dioceses, to aggrandize the Pope's jurisdiction; yet it is more probable, as Dr. Cave

1 Brerewood of Patriarch. Gov. Q. i. p. 102. lib. ii. c. 24.

Euseb. lib. i. c. 1,

8 Alex. Ep. Encycl. ap. Socrat. lib. i. c. 6. Epiph. Ep. ad Joh. Hierosol. Ad. meæ parochia videbantur ecclesiam pertinere, &c. Hieron. Ep. 53. ad Ripar. Miror sanctum

episcopum, in cujus furori ejus, &c. August. Epist. 261.

parochiâ esse presbyter dicitur Vigilantius, acquiescere

6 Con. Antioch. C. 9.

Con. Ancyr. e. 18.

Basil Ep. 264.

Con. tom. i. p. 1429.

observes,' that it means only single bishopries; though I grant Constantine might have made the division of the Empire into civil dioceses, from whence patriarchal dioceses took their name in the following ages. The word is used frequently for a single diocese in the African councils, as where it is said, "A bishop shall not leave his principal seat, and betake himself to any other church in the diocese:" so likewise often in the African Code, and the Collation of Carthage. From which it appears, that the words, Parochia and Diocesis, were of the same import in those times and the calling of a diocese by the name of Parochia, does not make it a single congregation.

SECT. 3. What meant by the Пpoástia, or Suburbs of a City.

Another thing that imposes upon men in this matter, is the ambiguity of the name, Пpoáza, and Suburbia, the suburbs of a city; which, in the modern acceptation, signifies no more than the houses or habitations next adjoining without the walls of a city; but, anciently, it denoted all the towns or villages, which lay round the city in a certain district, which were therefore reckoned as belonging to that city, though many times at several miles distance from it. Thus Canopus was twelve miles distant from Alexandria, and yet in the Acts of the council of Chalcedon we find it called by one Anthanasius, the Пpoásov, or suburbs of that city. So Sozomen* calls Daphne, the suburbs of Antioch, though it was forty furlongs, or five miles, distant from it. And Pancirol' notes of the famous suburbs of Constantinople, called "Eẞdouov, or Septimum," that it was so denominated from its being seven miles off from the city at first, though afterward by the strange growth and increase of that city it came to be reckoned a more immediate part of it." So there was in the suburbs of Carthage, a place called Decimum, because it was ten miles distant from

1 Cave, Anc. Ch.-Gov. c. iii. p. 130. 2 Con. Carth. v. c. 5. Nemini sit facultas, relictâ principali cathedrâ, ad aliquam ecclesiam in diœcesi constitutam se conferre. Vid. Cod. Can. Afric. c. 117, 118, 119, 123. Con. Chalced. act. 3. tom. iv. p. 408.

⚫ Pancirol. Com. in Notit. Imper. lib. i. c. 72.

Sozom. lib. v. c. 19,