Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/455

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 4^7 the open and even bloody violence which had formerly CHAP, 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 candi- dates boasted the honours of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful tabic, 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 dis- cipline, by requiring several episcopal qualifications of age, station, etc. restrained in some measure the indis- criminate 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 in- terposed to moderate their passions, and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending fac- tions sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission or the resistance of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded different prece- dents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws, and provincial customs^: but it was everywhere 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 em- perors, as the guardians of the public ^oeace, and as the first citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in the choice of a pri- mate : but those absolute mouarchs respected the free- dom of ecclesiastical elections ; and while they distri- buted and resumed the honours of the state and army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates ^ The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25. vii. 5. 9.) exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church ; and Gaul was less polished and less corrupt than the east. y A compi'otnise 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.