Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/26

16 styled Jus Canonicum, a name which, ultimately came to be confined to the collection KO.T e^o^v, the Corpus Juris Canonici. Canon law must not be confounded with ecclesi astical law (Jus Jlcclesiasticum). The former has the church for its source ; the latter has the church for its subject. During the growth of the canon law the church extended her influence into all departments of life. Churchmen filled high offices of state and performed the duties of practical lawyers, while prelates often exercised civil jurisdiction over a considerable tract of country. Hence the legislation of the church embraced many subjects which properly belonged to the domain of muni cipal law. Ecclesiastical law on the other hand derives its binding authority solely from the state, and treats of the church as a religious institution. But its principles cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of the canon law, on which it is largely based.

I. .—The earliest body known to us of purely church law is the spurious work called the Apostolic Constitutions (StSao-KuAto. rwv aTrocrroAwi, Constitutiones Aposlolorum), which originated in Syria. Its eight books, of which the first six date from the end of the 3d century, and the two remaining ones from the first quarter of the 4th century, contain a variety of moral and liturgical pre cepts, and regulations on ecclesiastical discipline, bearing to proceed from the apostles themselves. As a supplement to the eighth book there appeared also in Syria, about the beginning of the Gth century, a collection of eighty-five disciplinary regulations under the name of the Apostolic Canons (icai di/es TWV uTroo-ToAcov, Canones A postolorum). The Council in Trullo (692) sanctioned the Constitutions as law for the Greek Church, but rejected the Canons. The Latin Church adopted neither, but subsequently fifty of the Canons found their way into the Western collec tions. Though not what they profess to be, these writ ings are instructive on early ecclesiastical usages and dis cipline.

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In the 4th and 5th centuries collections which have not come down to u.s were made of the canons of the Eastern councils of Antioch, Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Nicsea, Sardica, Gangra, Laodicsea, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Chalce- don. (See the Codex Canonum Ecclesice Universal of Justellus, Paris, 1G10.) Joannes Scholasticus, patriarch of Constantinople in the reign of Justinian (564), reduced these and other canons into a systematic work divided into fifty books. A little later this was digested with corre sponding fragments of the civil law relating to ecclesiastical affairs into a code called, from its combination of civil and ecclesiastical enactments, a Nomocanon. Of later compila tions of the same description the most widely-known was the Nomocanon of the patriarch Photius (883). A most important consolidation of Greek canon law was effected in the year 692 by the labours of the Council in Trullo (Concilium Trullanum, from Trullus, the hall in the imperial palace at Constantinople in which they sat, also called Concilium Quinisextum, from its being considered supplementary to the 5th and 6th general councils). They drew up an authoritative list of the subsisting laws of the church, comprising the Apostolic Canons, the canons of the ten councils mentioned above, those of several synods held at Carthage, and one at Constantinople (394), and the decisions of twelve Eastern patriarchs and prelates from the 3d to the 5th century. They added 102 canons of their own, and this code, with the addition of 22 canons of the Seventh (Ecumenical Council held at Kicaa in 787, was the leading authority in the Greek Church till the middle of the 9th century. (For the later ecclesiastical literature of the East see Zacharioe, llistorce Juris Grceco- Komani Delineatio, Heidelberg, 1839: and Mortreuil, Histoire du Droit Byeantin, Paris, 1843-46).

Translations from the Greek collections gradually came into circulation among the Western clergy. The best known are two that date from the 5th century, the Versio Isidoriana, originating in Spain, and the so-called Prisca (sc. Canonum Translatio), which came from Italy. The Latin Church was thus enabled to add to the canons of African, Italian, French, and Spanish provincial councils those of the ecumenical councils of Nice, Constantinople, and Chalcedon, and of numerous Oriental synods. About the same time a new source of church law rose into import ance in the letters addressed by the popes to the bishops of the various dioceses in answer to requests for advice on points of ecclesiastical management. Such letters were called epistolce decretales, or shortly decretales, sometimes constitutor decretalia or dccretalia. Being communicated by the bishops to whom they were addressed to the neighbour ing dioceses they ruled similar cases occurring there. They were regarded as of equal authority with the canons of councils, and soon proved the most prolific source of canon law.

Both classes of material contributed to the collection formed (in two separate parts afterwards conjoined) about the beginning of the 6th century by a learned Scythian monk Dionysius, surnamed Ejciyuus from the epithet he modestly applies to himself in the preface. The first part contains a translation of the Apostolic Canons, and of the canons of the councils of Nice, Ancyra, Neocjxsarea, Gangra, Antioch, Laodicaea, and Constantinople, those of Chalcedon and Sariica in the original Latin, and the acts of the synod of Carthage (419) and other African synods. The second part is made up of papal decretals from Pope Siricius (385) to Anastasius II. (498), arranged in chronological order. Though never formally authorized, this collection, from its clear arrangement, the fidelity of its translations from the Greek, and the general authenticity of its contents, obtained speedy acceptance, and long maintained its ground against later compilations.

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{{ti|1em|In Spain a large body of law had accumulated in the canons of the numerous councils which followed that of Elvira (305), the earliest known to us. A collection of native and foreign canons was in circulation there in the Gth century, and after being added to at various times was generally received towards the close of the next century. It was called the Hispana (sc. Collectio} from the country of its origin, and being erroneously attributed to Bishop Isidore of Seville, who died in 636, also acquired the name of Collectio Isidoriana. Like the Dionyso-lladriana it is divided into two parts, the first containing a classified series of Greek, African, French, and Spanish canons, and the second the decretals from Pope Damasus (366) to Gregory the Great (604).}}

The Frankish clergy used, besides the Dionyso-Hadri- ana, the original work of Dionysius Exiguus, as well as a collection of Greek and African canons, Papal 