Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/727

 CANON LAW 717 is called the code of particular or national churches. These, however, are subject to the supreme authority, which can at any time annul them, should such a course be judged expedient or necessary. Thus, besides the general law of the church, Roman Catholics in the United States are regulated by the decrees of the councils of Baltimore and of the pro- vincial councils held in the different provinces which have been approved of by the com- petent authority. There is also another source of difference in ecclesiastical polity. From the very beginning the eastern and western church- es, although agreeing in the same faith and in the observance of the same moral law, and looking upon each other as integral portions of the same church, have yet observed on many points a totally different ecclesiastical discipline. Tliis state of things continues to the present day, and the oriental churches in communion with Rome retain their own liturgy and their peculiar observances. Hence, the canon law of the Latin or western church is different in many points from that of the Greek or eastern. The divisions of ecclesiastical law can be marked as follows: 1. The general law of the church, binding all her subjects of all nations and countries. 2. Laws peculiar either to the oriental or Latin church. 3. Laws that are observed by only one par- tirular or national church, belonging to either of these two divisions. 4. Diocesan regula- tions, which have no force out of the bishop- ric for which they are made. Canon law com- prises the general laws for either of the two churches, eastern or western. Thus there is the canon law of the oriental and of the Latin church. To the knowledge of this the canon- ist must unite an acquaintance with the par- ticular laws and customs of his own nation or province, as well as with the statutes of the di- ocese to which he belongs, in order to be able to apply his general rules and principles to the practical cases which may fall under his cog- nizance. The authority whence ecclesiastical laws derive their force is held by Catholics to be vested primarily and principally in the pope as the vicar of Christ. General councils also possess the some authority. These are com- posed of all or of the greater number of the bishops of the church. The decrees of a legiti- mate general council, that is, one presided over by the pope either personally or through his representative, when ratified by the same au- thority, are binding over the whole church. Patriarchs and provincial councils legislate merely for the portion of the church under their jurisdiction, their legislation being sub- ject to the approbation or rejection of the pope. Bishops have the right to make laws or statutes for their own dioceses ; these are sometimes promulgated in diocesan synods, which are com- posed of the principal priests of the diocese. As the discipline of the church has not always been the same, but has been and is different in different times and places, so, too, canon law has not always been uniform. Many regulations which once were of force have been subse- quently modified or totally abrogated. Hence the chief difficulty in the study of canon law is to discern between that which is in force and that which has gone into disuse. The laws of the church have been for the most part em- bodied in collections. These have naturally been modified as the laws themselves have suffered changes. The history of canon law is a narrative of these different modifications. For some time after the death of the apostles, there was in all probability no written collec- tion of laws. The faithful who lived during this period had vividly impressed on their minds the decrees and teachings of those who had conversed with the Lord. But in the course of time unruly and rebellious spirits began to manifest themselves, and discipline suffered many serious violations. As crimes occurred, decrees were enacted either to pun- ish the transgression or prevent its recurrence in the future. These decrees generally origina- ted in the locality in which the crime had been committed, and by degrees, through the force of similar circumstances, were adopted through- out the whole church. Thus, in the course of two centuries, many new regulations had been gradually introduced, and the primitive disci- pline had been more or less modified. This in- troduced the necessity of making a collection of these new laws, so that all might know their exact import, and thus uniformity, at least on the leading points of discipline, might be se- cured. Hence the first collection we meet with is commonly supposed to have been pro- mulgated either toward the end of the 2d or the beginning of the 3d century. It is call- ed that of the Canones Apogtolici, or "Apos- tolical Canons." This name was given because these laws were represented as having been promulgated by the apostles. This, however, is not true of them, at least as they appear in this collection; for they bear the evi- dences of a development of organization not yet existing in the apostolic times. Most prob- ably the rules given by the apostles for the guidance of the faithful began to be com- mitted to writing during the 2d century. By degrees new regulations were added to them, and the collection thus gradually assumed its present form, retaining the name to which, in a certain sense, it was originally entitled. Whatever may have been its origin, it repre- sents faithfully the discipline of the eastern church toward the latter part of the 2d and commencement of the 3d century. All, how- ever, did not agree as to the number of tho canons; the Eoman church recognized only the 50 which had been translated into Latin by Dionysius Exiguus ; the eastern church, after the council in Trullo, in the 6th century, re- ceived 85. The work called Constitutiones Apostolicce, or "Apostolical Constitutions," is intimately connected with the collection of canons. It is proved by Beveridge that it ap-