§ 6. It is, however, abundantly attested, that the bishops of Rome did not in this age possess supreme power and jurisdiction in the church. They were citizens in the commonwealth; and though higher in honour, they obeyed the laws and mandates of the emperors, just like other citizens. The more weighty religious causes were determined either by judges appointed by the emperor, or in councils; minor causes were decided by individual bishops. The laws relating to religion were enacted either by the emperors or by councils. No one of the bishops acknowledged that his authority was derived from the plenary power of the Roman bishop, or that he was constituted a bishop by the favour of the apostolic see. On the contrary, they all maintained that they were the ambassadors and ministers of Jesus Christ, and that their authority was derived from above. Yet it is undeniable, that even in this age, several of those steps were laid, by which the Roman pontiffs afterwards mounted to the summit of ecclesiastical dominion; and this, partly by the imprudence of the emperors, partly by the sagacity of the pontiffs themselves, and partly by the hasty decision of certain bishops. Among these steps, however, I would assign either no place, or only the very last, to the fourth canon of the council of Sardica, in the year 347, to which the friends of the Roman pontiff assign the first and the most important place. For, not to mention that the authority and regularity of this council are very dubious, and that, not without reason, the enactments of this council are regarded by some as coming to us corrupted, and by others as forged; it cannot be made to appear from that canon, that the

and

All these points are discussed at large by many writers, among whom I will name Peter de Marca, de Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii; L. E. DuPin, de Antiqua Ecclesia Disciplina ; especially, Dav. Blondel, de la Primauté dans l'Eglise, -a very learned work: [also Fred. Spanheim, Diss. de Primata Papa, et Canone vi. Nicæno. Schl.The sixth canon of the council of Nice, A. D. 325, gave to the bishops of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch, severally, the same pre-eminence over their respective surrounding bishops. Meletius had encroached upon the prerogatives of his metropolitan of Alexandria; and therefore the council ordain, (according to the translation of Dionysius Exiguus,) ANTI

QUA CONSUETUDO SERVETUR per Ægyptum, Libyam, et Pentapolim, ita ut Alexandrinus Episcopus horum omnium habeat potestatem; quia et Romæ Episcopo parilis mos est. Similiter autem et apud Antiochiam, cæterasque provincias, suis privilegia serventur ecclesiis. To reconcile this canon with the papal claims of universal empire, the Romanists tell us, it relates merely to the patriarchal or metropolitical power of the bishop of Rome, and not to his power as pope :- a distinction which does not appear to have occurred to the Nicene fathers. See Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccles. cent. iv. diss. xx. Tr. See also Cave, Disc. of the Anc. Ch. Gov. p. 50. Ed.]

See Mich. Geddes, Diss. de Canoni

bishops assembled at Sardica decided, that in all cases an appeal might be made to the Roman pontiff as the supreme and final judge. But suppose they had so decided, which yet can never be proved, how weak must that right be which is founded only on the decision of a single obscure council.9

§ 7. Constantine the Great, by transferring the imperial residence to Byzantium, and there founding the new city of Constantinople, undesignedly raised up against the rising power of the Roman pontiff a powerful competitor in the bishop of the new metropolis. For as the emperor wished his Constantinople to be another or a new Rome, and had endowed it with all the privileges, decorations, and honours of old Rome, the bishop of so great a city, the imperial residence besides, also wished to be thought every way equal to the bishop of old Rome in rank, and to have precedence of all other bishops. Nor did the emperors disapprove of this ambition, because they considered their own dignity as involved in that of the bishop of their metropolis. Therefore in the council of Constantinople, assembled in the year 381, by authority of the emperor Theodosius the Great, the bishop of Alexandria not being present, and the bishop of Rome being opposed to it, the bishop of Constantinople was, by the third canon, placed in the first rank after the bishop of Rome; the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, of course, to take rank after him. The bishop who had this honour conferred on him was Nectarius.

bus Sardicensibus; among his Miscellaneous Tracts, vol. ii. p. 415; [and Arch. Bower, Lives of the Popes,-Pope Julian, vol. i. p. 420, &c. ed. 2, Lond. 1749, 4to. Tr.]

[This council was got up by Julius, bishop of Rome; and was designed to be a general council, and was therefore held at Sardica in Illyricum, as accommodating both the East and the West; but as most of the eastern bishops withdrew from it, it was rather a council of the West. Its decrees were not confirmed by several subsequent councils, nor received by the whole church. de Marca, de Concordia Sacerdotii, &c. lib. vii. ch. 4, 5, 11, 12, 15. By the third canon in the Greek, or the fourth in the Latin translation by Isidorus, it was ordered, that if any bishop shall think himself unjustly condemned, and wish for a new trial, his judges shall

See

acquaint the bishop of Rome therewith, who may either confirm the first judgment, or order a new trial before such of the neighbouring bishops as he may choose to name. The fourth canon, according to the Greek, adds, that the see of the deposed bishop shall remain vacant, till the determination of the bishop of Rome is known. By the fifth canon, according to the Greek, and the seventh of Isidorus, it is ordered, that if a condemned bishop apply to Rome for relief, the bishop of Rome may, if he see fit, not only order a new trial, but if the aggrieved bishop desire it, he may send one of his presbyters to sit and have a voice in the second trial. See de Marca, loc. cit. cap. 3. Thus these canons do not give the bishop of Rome even an appellate jurisdiction, but only the power to decide whether an injured bishop shall have a new trial. Tr.]

His successor, John Chrysostom, went further, and subjected all Thrace, Asia, and Pontus, to his jurisdiction.2 The subsequent bishops of Constantinople gradually advanced their claims still further. But this revolution in the ecclesiastical government, and the sudden elevation of the Byzantine bishop to high rank, to the injury of others, in the first place fired the Alexandrine prelates with resentment against those of Constantinople; and in the next place, gave rise to those unhappy contests between the pontiffs of old and new Rome, which were protracted through several centuries, with various success, and finally produced a separation between the Latin and the Greek churches.

§ 8. The vices of the clergy, especially of those who officiated in large and opulent cities, were augmented in proportion to the increase of their wealth, honours, and advantages, derived from the emperors and from numberless other sources: and that this increase was very great, after the times of Constantine, is acknowledged by all. The bishops had shameful quarrels among themselves, respecting the extent of their jurisdiction and boundaries; aud while they trampled on the rights of the people and of the inferior clergy, they vied with the civil governors of provinces in luxury, arrogance, and voluptuousness.3 The presbyters, in many places, boldly challenged an equality with bishops, in rank and authority. Of the pride and effeminacy of the deacons, we often meet with various complaints. Those especially who ranked first among the presbyters and deacons, were unwilling to be considered as belonging to the same order with the others; and, therefore, they not only assumed the titles of archpresbyters and archdeacons, but also they thought themselves authorized to take far greater liberties than were allowed to others.

[The diocese of the western part of Asia Minor. Tr.]

See Peter de Marca, Diss. de Constantinop. Patriarchatus Institutione; annexed to his work, de Concordia Sacerdoti et Imperii, vol. iv. p. 163, &c. ed. Bamb. 1789. Mich le Quien, Oriens Christianus, tom. i. p. 15, &c. Sam. Parker, An Account of the Government of the Christian Church for the first six hundred years, p. 245, Lond. 1683, 8vo. [The canon of the council was thus expressed : Constantinopolitanæ civitatis

Episcopum habere oportet primatûs honorem post Romanum Episcopum, propterea quòd sit nova Roma." Tr.]

See Sulpitius Severus, Historia Sacra, lib. i. c. 23, lib. ii. c. 32, 51. Dialog. i. c. 21. Add to this, the account given by Dav. Clarkson, in his Discourse on Liturgies, p. 228, (of the French edition,) of the extremely corrupt state of morals among the clergy; and, in particular, of the eagerness of the bishops to extend the boundaries of their authority, p. 150, &c.

§ 9. Among the more celebrated writers of this age, who shed lustre on the eastern provinces and Greece, the most eminent were those whose names here follow. Eusebius Pamphili1, bishop of Cæsarea in Palestine, a man of great reading and erudition, who has acquired immortal fame by his labours in ecclesiastical history, and in other branches of theological learning. Yet he was not free from errors and defects; leaning towards the side of those who hold an inequality between the three persons in the Godhead. Some rank him among the Arians; but they certainly err in so doing, if they intend by an Arian, one who embraces the opinions taught by Arius, the presbyter of Alexandria. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, who is