Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/140

 122 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, tude, anil particularly for the inexcusable relapses of — those ])enitents who had already experienced and abused the clemency of their ecclesiastical superiors. According to the circumstances or the number of the guilty, the exercise of the christian discipline was varied by the discretion of the bishops. The councils of An- cyra and lUiberis were held about the same time, the one in Galatia, the other in Spain ; but their respective canons, which are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The Galatian, who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to idols, might obtain his pardon by a penance of seven years ; and if he had se- duced others to imitate his example, only three years more were added to the term of his exile. But the unhappy Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was deprived of the hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death ; and his idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pro- nounced. Among these we may distinguish the inex- piable guilt of calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon •". The well tempered mixture of liberality and rigour, the judicious dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims of policy as well as justice, constituted the human, strength of the church. The bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to the government of both worlds, were sensible of the im- portance of these prerogatives; and covering their am- bition with the fair pretence of the love of order, they were jealous of any rival in the exercise of a discipline so necessary to prevent the desertion of those troops which had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day became more con- The dig- nity of episcopal govern- ment. ^ See in Dupin, (Bibliotheque Eccl6siastique, torn. ii. p. 304 — 313.) a short but rational exposition of the canons of those councils which were assembled in the first moments of tranquillity, after the persecution of Dio- cletian. This persecution had been much less severely felt in Spain than in Galatia ; a difference which may, in some measure, account for the contrast of their regulations. '