Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/453

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 435 When Constantine embraced tlie faith of the cliris- CliAP. tians, he seemed to contract a perpetual aUiance with •^^ ' a distinct and independent society ; and the privileges granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his succes- sors, were accepted, not as the precarious favours of the court, but as the just and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order. The catholic church was administered by the spiri- State of the tual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops'^; ^d^l'^ul """ of whom one thousand wei'e seated in the Greek, and christian eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the empire. ^"'P^'^"^'" The extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first missionaries, by the wishes of the peo])le, and by the propagation of the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of the Nile, on the sea coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and dele- gated their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the pastoral office ^ A christian diocese might be spread over a province, or reduced to a vil- lage, but all the bishops possessed an equal and indeli- ble character : they all derived the same powers and privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While the ciiil and miUtari/ professions were separated by the policy of Constantine, a new and perpetual order of ecclesiastical ministers, always re- spectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the ■■ 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 Sancto Paolo, of Luke Hol- sterrius, and of 13ingham, has laboriously investigated all tiie 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. ' On the subject of the rural bishops, or Chorephcopi, who voted in synods, and conferred the minor orders, see Thomassin, Discipline de I'Eglise, torn. i. p. 447, etc. and Chardon, Hist, des .Sacremens, torn. v. p. 595, etc. They do not appear till the fourth century ; and this equi- vocal character, which had excited the jealousy of the prelates, was abo- lished before the end of the tenth, both in the east and the west. Ff2