Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/508

Rh 488 EPISCOPACY to the origin and authority of Episcopacy, and of its general necessity, an unprejudiced survey of the early history of the church will show how important a part it played in the maintenance of its life and health, both in the promotion of organic unity and the preservation of purity of doctrine. &quot; The constitution of the church is ordained of God; but it is ordained because it is adapted for man.&quot; Once established in the chief centres of national life, the growth of Episcopacy was steady, and gradually covered the whole surface of Christendom with its ramifica tions. By degrees a systematic organization sprang up, by which neighbouring churches were grouped together for the purposes of consultation and self-government. The chief city of each district had the civil rank of the &quot; metro polis,&quot; or mother city. There the local synods naturally met, and the bishop styled &quot;metropolitan,&quot; from his position took the lead in the deliberations, as &quot; primus inter pares,&quot; and acted as the representative of his brother bishops in their intercourse with other churches. Thus, though all bishops were nominally equal, a superior dignity and authority came by general consent to be vested in the metropolitans, which, when the churches became established, received the stamp of ecclesiastical authority. A still higher dignity was assigned to the bishops of the chief seats of government, such as Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and subsequently Constantinople ; and among these the bishop of Home naturally had the precedence. In primitive times each city bad its own bishop, with a number of &quot; chorepi- scopi,&quot; or country bishops subordinate to him, to take the oversight of the smaller towns or villages of the district, as their deputies. Whether these &quot; chorepiscopi &quot; were uni versally of episcopal rank is an unsettled question. It is probable that no strict rule was observed on this point, and that, in accordance with the duties they were called to discharge, while some were bishops in the strict sense of the word, others had only received the orders of a presbyter. Convenience dictated that the ecclesiastical divisions should generally follow the civil divisions of the empire. When Christianity became established under Constantine, and the church and state represented different functions of the body corporate, this rule was strictly followed out, in accordance with the new divisions of prefectures and dioceses introduced by him. The term &quot;diocese&quot;, was used in a much more extensive sense than that to which it was after wards restricted. The empire was divided into four pre fectures: 1, the East; 2, Illyria; 3, Italy; 4, Gaul, each comprising a varying number of dioceses, each diocese containing within itself several provinces. Thus Asia, one of the five dioceses of the prefecture of the East, in cluded ten provinces, and Pontus seven. The provinces were in their turn subdivided into districts bearing the designation of parcechiae (Trapot/aai), which answered to dioceses in the modern sense of the term. Each of these &quot; parcechise &quot; had its own bishop, who was subordinate to the metropolitan, who had his see in the capital of the province. These metropolitans were subject to the authority of the bishop of the chief city of the political diocese, who in the East was styled &quot; exarch,&quot; in the West &quot;primate.&quot; A higher dignity still was assigned to the chief bishops of the great cities of the empire, such as Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria. To these, with the addition of Jerusalem, the title of &quot;patriarch,&quot; which had originally been common to all bishops, was more immediately but not exclusively restricted after the Council of Chalcedon, 451 A.D. In the West the title &quot; patriarch &quot; was employed with greater latitude for metropolitan bishops generally. Even so late as the llth century we find the metropolitans of Aquileia and Grado so termed. (Mansi, xvii. 341 ; xviii. 4G5, 499.) The occupants of these primatial sees were also designated &quot;archbishops.&quot; The term &quot; oecumenical bishop &quot; is sometimes found applied to the bishops of Rome, while that of &quot; oecumenical patriarch &quot; was assumed by the bishops of Constantinople, though more as a title of dignity than as implying any claims to univer sal authority. Theoretically all these primatial sees were co-ordinate in authority, and were mutually independent of one another. By degrees the bishops of the more im portant cities overshadowed their brethren, and exercised a supremacy which, though rather due to custom than to re cognized claims, was increasingly acquiesced in from the manifest advantage of having a strong central power which could interfere in theological controversies or ecclesiastical disputes, with an authority to which all would bow. The gradual growth of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome as the chief pastor in the Western Church, and the eccle siastical head of the imperial city, will be the subject of a separate article. The primitive rule was that, except in the case of coadjutor bishops, each diocese, in the modern sense, should have but one bishop, and that no bishop should have more than one diocese. Both rules were, however, in subsequent times violated. When the Arian controversy was dividing the Christian world, it was no uncommon occurrence for one see to have two or three rival bishops, all denouncing and excommunicating one another. At Antioch in the latter half of the 4th century there were two orthodox bishops, Paulinus and Meletius, recognized respectively by the Western and the Eastern church, an Arian bishop Euzoius, and a fourth of the Apollinarian sect. After the rise of the Novatian schism many cities had both an ortho dox and a Novatian bishop. The vicious practice for one bishop to hold a second see &quot;in commendam&quot; was of gradual growth. Its origin was innocent. W T hen a see was vacant and there was a difficulty about appointing a successor, its oversight was commended temporarily to a neighbouring bishop. The same was the case when a bishop was suspended for crime, or when a diocese had been so devastated by the inroads of heathen that its Christian population was too small to demand the services of a separate overseer. But that which began in necessity was continued by covetousness, until it culminated in the flagrant abuse which reached its height just before the Reformation, when the revenues of several sees were accumulated on a single individual, who probably was equally careless of the spiritual interests of all. Thus Cardinal Wolsey was at the same time archbishop of York and bishop of Durham and Winchester, and enjoyed the wealthy see of Tournay in France. The translation of a bishop from one see to another was forbidden by the canons of the primitive church. The only exception was where it was evident that the motive could not be increase of wealth or temporal aggrandizement, as when a bishop removed from a richer to a poorer see, or from an easier to a more laborious one ; or when there was the prospect of spiritual advantage to the church. Though many instances of translation are found in early times, they are usually exceptional cases, and it may be safely asserted that until the growth of secularity and covetousness in the hierarchy had made rich sees an object of eager competition among prelates, the practice was uni versally condemned as an act parallel to divorce, only to be justified by the plea of necessity or benefit to the church. It is unnecessary to trace the episcopate in the various churches in communion with the see of Rome. With hardly any, if any exceptions, the succession of bishops reaches in an unbroken line to the earliest ages of Christi anity. This is also true of the churches of the orthodox communion in the East. Their episcopal pedigree exhibits few if any gaps, and the integrity of the record is usually beyond question.