poral

duced and confirmed by the legal establishment of powers. Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the time of Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised by one of the most eminent of the senators, was at length united to the imperial dignity. The first magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the sacerdotal functions;" nor was there any order of priests, either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more sacred character among men, or a more intimate communication with the gods. But in the Christian church, which intrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less honourable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude. The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people, but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the church; and the same marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to the persons of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of the episcopal order. A secret conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, embarrassed the operations of the Roman government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was,

n M. de la Bastie (Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions, tom. 15. p. 38 -61.) has evidently proved, that Augustus and his successors exercised in person all the sacred functions of pontifex maximus, or high-priest of the Roman empire.

Something of a contrary practice had insensibly prevailed in the church of Constantinople; but the rigid Ambrose commanded Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him to know the difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret, lib. 5. c. 18.

P At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the presbyter, his companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink; the empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Su Martin, c. 23. and Dialogue 2. 7. Yet it may be doubted, whether these extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop or the saint. The honours usually granted to the former character may be seen in Bingham's Antiquities, lib. 2. c. 9. and Vales. ad Theodoret, lib. 4. c. 6. See the haughty ceremonial which Leontius, bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the empress. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. 4. p. 754. Patres Apostol. tom. 2. p. 179.

indeed, familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Æthiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and possessions which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had gradually assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their respective countries; but the opposition or contempt of the civil power served to cement the discipline of the primitive church. The Christians had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy of their republic, by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent of the people, and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual alliance with a distinct and independent society; and the privileges granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were accepted not as the precarious favours of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.

State of

the bi

Christian

The Catholic church was administered by the shops un- spiritual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen hunder the dred bishops; of whom one thousand were emperors. seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the empire. The extent and boundaries of their respective diocesses had been variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of the Nile, on the seacoast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through the

a Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us, that the kings of Egypt, who were not already priests, were initiated, after their election, into the sacerdotal order.

r The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer, or original catalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern churches are comparatively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto Paolo, of Luke Holstenius, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all the episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which was almost commensurate with the Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian Antiquities is a very accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.

southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the pastoral office. A Christian diocess might be spread over a province, or reduced to a village; but all the bishops possessed an equal and indelible character: they all derived the same powers and privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While the civil and military professions were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new and perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers, always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church and state. The important review of their station and attributes may be distributed under the following heads: I. Popular election; II. Ordination of the clergy; III. Property; IV. Civil jurisdiction; V. Spiritual censures; VI. Exercise of public oratory; VII. Privilege of legislative assemblies.

I. Elec

bishops.

I. The freedom of elections subsisted long after tion of the legal establishment of Christianity; and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church the privilege which they had lost in the republic of choosing the magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his suffragans to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates; in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were distinguished by their rank or property:

On the subject of the rural bishops, or Chorepiscopi, who voted in synods, and conferred the minor orders, see Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 1. p. 447, &c. and Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. 5. p. 595, &c. They do not appear till the fourth century; and this equivocal character, which had excited the jealousy of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the east and the west.

Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 2. lib. 2. c. 1-8. p. 673-721.) has copiously treated of the election of bishops during the five first centuries, both in the east and in the west; but he shews a very partial bias in favour of the episcopal aristocracy. Bingham (lib. 4. c. 2.) is moderate; and Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens, tom. 5. p. 108-128.) is very clear and concise.

and finally, in the whole body of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from the most remote part of the diocess," and sometimes silenced, by their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of the most deserving competitor, of some ancient presbyter, some holy monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the great and opulent cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity. The interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and even bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election in the commonwealths 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 media

"Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido (Tours), sedetiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The council of Laodicea (canon 13.) prohibits mobs and tumults; and Justinian confines the right of election to the nobility. Novell. 123. 1.

* The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (4. 25.7.5-9.) exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and Gaul was less polished and less corrupt than

the east.

tion. 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 every where 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 guardians of the public peace, and as the first 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.

Ordination

of the

II. The bishops alone possess the faculty of spiritual generation; and this extraordinary priclergy. vilege might compensate, in some degree, for the painful celibacy which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty,

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.

All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 2. lib. 2. 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. lib. 2. 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 very diligently examined. See in particular Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. 1. lib. 2. c. 60, 61. p. 886-902. and Bingham's Antiquities, lib. 4. c. 5. By each of these learned but partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the other is concealed.