than they are now, and that it has ever been the wisdom of the Church to multiply and contract them. Though many of them still remain so large, that if they be compared with some of the ancient Italian dioceses, one of them will be found to be equal to ten or twenty of those which lay round about Rome.

SECT. 21.-The whole Account confirmed from some ancient Canons of the Church.

I shall conclude this Chapter with a few ancient canons, which confirm the account that has been given of episcopal dioceses throughout the world, as supposing them generally to have country-regions and country-parishes belonging to them. The council of Neocæsarea, which was held some years before the council of Nice, makes express mention1 οἱ “ Πρεσβύτεροι Επιχώριοι, country presbyters,” who are forbidden to officiate in the city-church, save only in the absence of the bishop or city-presbyters. The council of Antioch has two canons of the same import: the one describes a bishop's diocese to be "a city and all the region that was subject to it, wherein he might ordain presbyters and deacons, and order all things according to his own judgment without consulting his metropolitan:" the other is a provision concerning the chorepiscopi, who were seated in the villages and regions about the city," that they should govern the churches committed to them, and content themselves with that care, ordaining readers, subdeacons and exorcists; but not presbyters or deacons, unless commissioned to it by the city-bishop, to whom both they and their region were subject." A like provision is made by the council of Nice, in case a Novatian bishop should return to the unity of the. Catholic Church, that then the Catholic bishop might provide him the place of a chorepiscopus in some part of his diocese, that there might not be two bishops in one city. And indeed all the canons that mention the chorepiscopi, are full proof that a diocese was not only a city, but a country-region, over which those

1 Con. Neocæsar. c. 18.

2 Con. Antioch, c. 9. Con. Nic. c. 8.

3 Ibid. c. 10.

chorepiscopi presided, under the inspection of the citybishop, to whom they were accountable. The canons of Sardica,1 and Laodicea, do plainly suppose the same thing when they prohibit bishops to be ordained in small cities or villages, because a presbyter or itinerant visitor might be sufficient to take care of them. So in the African canons, one orders the same as the council of Toledo, " that every presbyter throughout the diocese, who has the care of a church, shall have recourse to his own bishop for chrism to be used at Easter:" and another says, "No bishop shall leave his principal church, to go to reside upon any other church in the diocese." Which canons speak plain nonsense, unless it be supposed that there were then other churches in the diocese beside the mother-church.

SECT. 22.-And from the Bishop's Obligation to visit his Diocese once a Year, and Confirm.

The bishop's obligation to visit his diocese, is a further proof of the same thing; for this was a necessary consequent of having several churches at a distance under his jurisdiction: such as he could not personally attend himself, he was obliged to visit, and see that they were provided of a proper incumbent, and that every thing was performed in due order. St. Austin and St. Basil," who had pretty large dioceses, speak often upon this account of their being employed in their visitations. And the rule in some places was to visit ordinarily once a year, as appears from the council of Tarraco in Spain, which lays this injunction on bishops, because it was found by experience, that many churches in their dioceses were left destitute and neglected, therefore they were obliged to visit them once a year." And if a diocese was so large, that a bishop could not perform this duty annually, that was thought a reasonable cause to divide the diocese, and lay some part of the burden. upon a new bishop; which was the reason assigned in the

1 Con. Sardic. c. 6. 2 Con. Laodic. c. 56. 8 Con. Carth, iv. c. 36. Con. Carth. v. c. 5. 5 Basil. Ep. 204. 6 Con. Tarracon. c. 8. Reperimus nonnullas diocesanas ecclesias esse destitutas. Ob quam rem hâc constitutione decrevimus, ut annuis vicibus episcopo diœceses visitentur, &c.

council of Lugo for dividing the large diocese of Gallæcia, as has been observed before' in speaking of the Spanish Churches. St. Jerom has a remark upon the exercise of confirmation, which also mightily confirms this notion of ancient episcopal dioceses. He says, "It was the custom of the Churches, when any persons were baptized by presbyters or deacons in villages, castles, or other remote places, for the bishop to go to them and give them imposition of hands, in order to receive the Holy Ghost; and that many places lay at so great a distance, that the parties baptized died before the bishop could come to visit them;" which is a plain description of such dioceses as we have generally found in every part of the Catholic Church, some few provinces excepted, where the number of cities and populousness of the country made dioceses more numerous and of less extent than in other places.

CHAP. VII.

The Notitia, or Geographical Description of the Bishoprics of the Ancient Church, as first made by the Order of Leo Sapiens, compared with some others.

FOR the fuller proof of what has been asserted in the last Chapters, and to give the reader a clear view of the state of the ancient Church, I shall here subjoin one of the Notitiæ, or Catalogues of bishoprics contained in the five greater patriarchates, Constantinople, Rome, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, according to the account that was taken first by the order of the Emperor Leo Sapiens, about the year 891; for though this does not come up to the antiquity of these other records, which I have generally made use of in this work, yet being the most ancient and

See Sect. 14 of this Chap. 2 Hieron. Dial. cont. Lucifer. c. 4. Non abnuo hanc esse Ecclesiarum consuetudinem, ut ad eos qui longè in minoribus urbibus per presbyteros et diaconos baptizati sunt, episcopus ad invocationem Sancti Spiritûs manum impositurus excurrat. And a little after, -Alioquin si episcopi tantùm imprecatione Spiritus Sanctus defluit, lugendi sunt qui in villulis, aut in castellis, aut in remotioribus locis per presbyteros aut diaconos baptizati, ante dormierunt, quàm ab episcopis inviserentur.

VOL. II.

D d

perfect account we have in the kind, and agreeing with the scattered remains of antiquity of this nature, it will be useful, as a collateral evidence, to corroborate the account that has been given of the division and extent of dioceses in the primitive Church. And I the rather choose to insert it here, to satisfy the curiosity of many of my readers, to whose view, perhaps, this Notitia may not otherwise come, being scarce to be met with but in books of great rarity or great price, which fall not into the hands of every ordinary reader. The first of this kind was published by Leunclavius in his Jus Græco-Romanum, Anno 1596, in Greek and Latin, under the name of Leo Sapiens, the reputed author of it; after which some others, but imperfect, were set forth by Carolus à Sancto Paulo, in his Geography of the Ancient Church; the defects of which were supplied by Jacobus Goar, from a MS. in the French Kings' library, which he published at the end of Codinus among the Byzantin historians, Anno 1648; and by Bp. Beverege, from a MS. in the Bodleian Library, published in his Notes* upon the Pandects, Anno 1672. The last of which being acknowledged to be the most perfect in the kind, has been since reprinted by the learned Schelstrate, with some notes and observations upon the defects and variations of all the former; which, having revised and compared them together, I shall here present to the curious reader, that he may have them all together in one view.

The order of presidency of the most holy patriarchs.— 1. Of Rome. 2. Constantinople. 3. Alexandria. 4. Antioch. 5. Elia, or Jerusalem.

The order of presidency of the metropolitans, and autocephali, and bishops, subject to the apostolical throne of this divinely preserved and imperial city, viz. Constantinople.

1 Leunclav. Jus. Gr. Rom. tom. i. pend. ad Geograph. Sacr.

P.

88.

2 Carol. à S. Paulo, Ap3 Codin. de Offic. Constant. in Append. p. 337. Bevereg. Not. in Can. 36. Concil. Trull. 5 Schelstrat. de Con. Antioch, Dissert. iv. c. 13. p. 425.

Here ends the account of provinces and metropolitans in the Notitia of Bp. Beverege and Goar, but in Leunclavius these other metropolitans are added, without any mention of provinces at all. 34. Thessalonica. 35. Corinthus. 36.