Chalcedon: the canons (2 of 3)

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XXI., Q. I., canon ij., and again Causa XXI., Q. II., canon iij.

Canon XI

We have decreed that the poor and those needing assistance shall travel, after examination, with letters merely pacifical from the church, and not with letters commendatory, inasmuch as letters commendatory ought to be given only to persons who are open to suspicion.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XL.

Let the poor who stand in need of help make their journey with letters pacificatory and not commendatory:  For letters commendatory should only be given to those who are open to suspicion.

Aristenus.

…The poor who need help should journey with letters pacificatory from the bishop, so that those who have the ability to help them may be moved with pity.  These need no letters commendatory, such letters should be shown, however, by presbyters and deacons, and by the rest of the clergy.

See notes on canons vij., viij., and xj. of Antioch; and on canon xlij. of Laodicea.

Hefele.

The mediaeval commentators, Balsamon, Zonaras, and Aristenus, understand this canon to mean that letters of commendation, συστατικαὶ , commendatitiæ litteræ were given to those laymen and clerics who were previously subject to ecclesiastical censure, and therefore were suspected by other bishops, and for this reason needed a special recommendation, in order to be received in another church into the number of the faithful.  The letters of peace (εἰρηνικαί) on the contrary, were given to those who were in undisturbed communion with their bishop, and had not the least evil reputation abroad.

Our canon was understood quite differently by the old Latin writers, Dionysius Exiguus and Isidore, who translate the words ἐν ὑπολήψει by personæ honoratiores and clariores, and the learned Bishop Gabriel Aubespine of Orleans has endeavored to prove, in his notes to our canon, that the litteræ pacificæ were given to ordinary believers, and the commendatitiæ (συστατικαί) on the contrary, only to clerics and to distinguished laymen; and in favour of this view is the xiii. canon of Chalcedon.

With regard to this much-vexed point, authorities are so divided that no absolute judgment can be arrived at.  The interpretation I have followed is that of the Greeks and of Hervetus, which seems to be supported by Apostolic Canon XIII., and was that adopted by Johnson and Hammond.  On the other hand are the Prisca, Dionysius, Isidore, Tillemont, Routh, and to these Bright seems to unite himself by saying that this “sense is the more natural.”

Canon XII

It has come to our knowledge that certain persons, contrary to the laws of the Church, having had recourse to secular powers, have by means of imperial rescripts divided one Province into two, so that there are consequently two metropolitans in one province; therefore the holy Synod has decreed that for the future no such thing shall be attempted by a bishop, since he who shall undertake it shall be degraded from his rank.  But the cities which have already been honoured by means of imperial letters with the name of metropolis, and the bishops in charge of them, shall take the bare title, all metropolitan rights being preserved to the true Metropolis.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XII.

One province shall not be cut into two.  Whoever shall do this shall be cast out of the episcopate.  Such cities as are cut off by imperial rescript shall enjoy only the honour of having a bishop settled in them:  but all the rights pertaining to the true metropolis shall be preserved.

Bright.

We learn from this canon, there were cases in which an ambitious prelate, “by making application to the government” (“secular powers”) had obtained what are called “pragmatic letters,” and employed them for the purpose of “dividing one province into two,” and exalting himself as a metropolitan.  The name of a “pragmatic sanction” is more familiar in regard to medieval and modern history; it recalls the name of St. Louis, and, still more, that of the Emperor Charles VI. the father of Maria Theresa.  Properly a “pragmatic” was a deliberate order promulgated by the Emperor after full hearing of advice, on some public affair.  We find “pragmatici nostri statuta” in a law of a.d. 431.  (Cod. Theod., xi. 1, 36); and “pragmatici prioris,” “sub hac pragmatica jussione,” in ordinances in Append. to Cod. Theod., pp. 95, 162; and the empress Pulcheria, about a year before the Council, had informed Leo that her husband Marcian had recalled some exiled orthodox bishops “robore pragmatici sui” (Leon., Epist. lxxvij.).  Justinian speaks of “pragmaticas nostras formas” and “pragmaticum typum” (Novel., 7, 9, etc.).  The phrase was adopted from his legislation by Louis the Pious and his colleague-son Lothar (compare Novel. 7, 2 with Pertz, Mon. Germ, Hist. Leg., i., 254), and hence it came to be used both by later German emperors (see, e.g., Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire, p. 212), and by the French kings (Kitchin, Hist. France, i. 343, 544).  Augustine explains it by “præceptum imperatoris” (Brev. Collat. cum Donatist. iii., 2), and Balsamon in his comment uses an equivalent phrase; and so in the record of the fourth session of Chalcedon we have θεῖα γράμματα (“divine” being practically equivalent to “imperial”) explained by πραγματικοὺς τύπους (Mansi, vii., 89).  We must observe that the imperial order, in the cases contemplated by the canon, had only conferred the title of “metropolis” on the city, and had not professed to divide the province for civil, much less for ecclesiastical, purposes. Valens, indeed, had divided the province of Cappadocia, when in 371 he made Tyana a metropolis:  and therefore Anthimus, bishop of Tyana, when he claimed the position of a metropolitan, with authority over suffragans, was making a not unnatural inference in regard to ecclesiastical limits from political rearrangements of territory, as Gregory of Nazianzus says (Orat. xliii., 58), whereas Basil “held to the old custom,” i.e., to the traditional unity of his provincial church, although after a while he submitted to what he could not hinder (see Tillemont, ix., 175, 182, 670).  But in the case of Eustathius of Berytus, which was clearly in the Council’s mind, the Phœnician province had not been divided; it was in reliance on a mere title bestowed upon his city, and also on an alleged synodical ordinance which issued in fact from the so-called “Home Synod” that he declared himself independent of his metropolitan, Photius of Tyre, and brought six bishoprics under his assumed jurisdiction.  Thus while the province remained politically one, he had de facto divided it ecclesiastically into two.  Photius petitioned Marcian, who referred the case to the Council of Chalcedon, and it was taken up in the fourth session.  The imperial commissioners announced that it was to be settled not according to “pragmatic forms,” but according to those which had been enacted by the Fathers (Mansi, vii., 89).  This encouraged the Council to say, “A pragmatic can have no force against the canons.”  The commissioners asked whether it was lawful for bishops, on the ground of a pragmatic, to steal away the rights of other churches?  The answer was explicit:  “No, it is against the canon.”  The Council proceeded to cancel the resolution of the Home Synod in favour of the elevation of Berytus, ordered the 4th Nicene canon to be read, and upheld the metropolitical rights of Tyre.  The commissioners also pronounced against Eustathius.  Cecropius, bishop of Sebastopolis, requested them to put an end to the issue of pragmatics made to the detriment of the canons; the Council echoed this request; and the commissioners granted it by declaring that the canons should everywhere stand good (Mansi, vii., 89–97).  We may connect with this incident a law of Marcian dated in 454, by which “all pragmatic sanctions, obtained by means of favour or ambition in opposition to the canon of the Church, are declared to be deprived of effect” (Cod. Justin, i., 2, 12).

To this decision the present canon looks back, when it forbids any bishop, on pain of deposition, to presume to do as Eustathius had done, since it decrees that “he who attempts to do so shall fall from his own rank (βαθμοῦ) in the Church.  And cities which have already obtained the honorary title of a metropolis from the emperor are to enjoy the honour only, and their bishops to be but honorary metropolitans, so that all the rights of the real metropolis are to be reserved to it.”  So, at the end of the 6th session the emperor had announced that Chalcedon was to be a titular metropolis, saving all the rights of Nicomedia; and the Council had expressed its assent (Mansi, xii., 177; cf. Le Quien, i., 602).  Another case was discussed in the 13th session of the Council.  Anastasius of Nicæa had claimed to be independent of his metropolitan Eunomius of Nicomedia, on the ground of an ordinance of Valens, recognising the city of Nicæa as by old custom a “metropolis.”  Eunomius, who complained of Anastasius’s encroachments, appealed to a later ordinance, guaranteeing to the capital of Bithynia its rights as unaffected by the honour conferred on Nicæa:  the Council expressed its mind in favour of Eunomius, and the dispute was settled by a decision “that the bishop of Nicomedia should have metropolitical authority over the Bithynian churches, while the bishop of Nicæa should have merely the honour of a metropolitan, being subjected, like the other comprovincials, to the bishop of Nicomedia (Mansi, vii., 313).  Zonaras says that this canon was in his time no longer observed; and Balsamon says that when the primates of Heraclea and Ancyra cited it as upholding their claim to perform the consecration of two “honorary metropolitans,” they were overruled by a decree of Alexius Comnenus, “in presence and with consent” of a synod (on Trullan, canon xxxviij.).

The first part of this canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. ci., canon j.

Canon XIII

Strange and unknown clergymen without letters commendatory from their own Bishop, are absolutely prohibited from officiating in another city.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XIII.

No cleric shall be received to communion in another city without a letter commendatory.

“Unknown clergymen.”  I have here followed the reading of the Greek commentators.  But the translators of the Prisca, and Dionysius, and Isidore must have all read ἀναγνώστας (i.e., Readers) instead of ἀγνώστους.  Justellus, Hervetus, and Beveridge, as also Johnson and Hammond, follow the reading of the text.  Hefele suggests that if “Readers” is the correct reading perhaps it means, “all clergymen even readers.”

Canon XIV

Since in certain provinces it is permitted to the readers and singers to marry, the holy Synod has decreed that it shall not be lawful for any of them to take a wife that is heterodox.  But those who have already begotten children of such a marriage, if they have already had their children baptized among the heretics, must bring them into the communion of the Catholic Church; but if they have not had them baptized, they may not hereafter baptize them among heretics, nor give them in marriage to a heretic, or a Jew, or a heathen, unless the person marrying the orthodox child shall promise to come over to the orthodox faith.  And if any one shall transgress this decree of the holy synod, let him be subjected to canonical censure.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XIV.

A Cantor or Lector alien to the sound faith, if being then married, he shall have begotten children let him bring them to communion, if they had there been baptized.  But if they had not yet been baptized they shall not be baptized afterwards by the heretics.

Aristenus.

The tenth and thirty-first canons of the Synod of Laodicea and the second of the Sixth Synod in Trullo, and this present canon forbid one of the orthodox to be joined in marriage with a woman who is a heretic, or vice versa.  But if any of the Cantors or Lectors had taken a wife of another sect before these canons were set forth, and had had children by her, and had had them baptized while yet he remained among the heretics, these he should bring to the communion of the Catholic Church.  But if they had not yet been baptized, he must not turn back and have them baptized among heretics.  But departing thence let him lead them to the Catholic Church and enrich them with divine baptism.

Hefele.

According to the Latin translation of Dionysius Exiguus, who speaks only of the daughters of the lectors, etc., the meaning may be understood, with Christian Lupus, as being that only their daughters must not be married to heretics or Jews or heathen, but that the sons of readers may take wives who are heretics, etc., because that men are less easily led to fall away from the faith than women.  But the Greek text makes here no distinction between sons and daughters.

Bright.

It is to Victor that we owe the most striking of all anecdotes about readers.  During the former persecution under Genseric (or Gaiseric), the Arians attacked a Catholic congregation on Easter Sunday; and while a reader was standing alone in the pulpit, and chanting the “Alleluia melody” (cf. Hammond, Liturgies, p. 95), an arrow pierced his throat, the “codex” dropped from his hands, and he fell down dead (De Persec. Vand., i., 13).  Five years before the Council, a boy of eight named Epiphanius was made a reader in the church of Pavia, and in process of time became famous as its bishop.  Justinian forbade readers to be appointed under eighteen (Novel., 134, 13).  The office is described in the Greek Euchologion as “the first step to the priesthood,” and is conferred with delivery of the book containing the Epistles.  Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, tells us that the bishop ordained a reader by delivering to him “coram plebe,” the “codex” of Scripture:  and after giving precise directions as to pronunciation and accentuation, says that the readers were of old called “heralds” (De Eccl. Offic., ii., 11).  (b) The Singers are placed by the xliij. Apostolic canon between subdeacons and readers, but they rank below readers in Laodic., c. 23, in the Liturgy of St. Mark (Hammond, p. 173), and in the canons wrongly ascribed to a IV Council of Carthage, which permit a presbyter to appoint a “psalmist” without the bishop’s knowledge, and rank him even below the doorkeepers (Mansi, iii., 952).  The chief passage respecting the ancient “singers” is Laodic., xv.

The first part of this canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I, Dist. xxxii. c. xv.

Canon XV

A woman shall not receive the laying on of hands as a deaconess under forty years of age, and then only after searching examination.  And if, after she has had hands laid on her and has continued for a time to minister, she shall despise the grace of God and give herself in marriage, she shall be anathematized and the man united to her.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XV.

No person shall be ordained deaconess except she be forty years of age.  If she shall dishonour her ministry by contracting a marriage, let her be anathema.

This canon should be read carefully in connexion with what is said in the Excursus on deaconesses to canon xix. of Nice.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XXVII, Quæst. I., Canon xxiij.

Canon XVI

It is not lawful for a virgin who has dedicated herself to the Lord God, nor for monks, to marry; and if they are found to have done this, let them be excommunicated.  But we decree that in every place the bishop shall have the power of indulgence towards them.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XVI.

Monks or nuns shall not contract marriage, and if they do so let them be excommunicated.

Van Espen.

Since this canon says nothing at all of separation in connexion with a marriage made contrary to a vow, but only orders separation from communion, it seems very likely that vows of this kind at the time of the synod were not considered diriment but only impedient impediments from which the bishop of the diocese could dispense at least as far as the canonical punishment was concerned.

Hefele.

The last part of the canon gives the bishop authority in certain circumstances not to inflict the excommunication which is threatened in the first part, or again to remove it.  Thus all the old Latin translators understood our text; but Dionysius Exiguus and the Prisca added confitentibus, meaning, “if such a virgin or monk confess and repent their fault, then the bishop may be kind to them.”  That the marriage of a monk is invalid, as was ruled by later ecclesiastical law, our canon does not say; on the contrary, it assumes its validity, as also the marriages contracted by priests until the beginning of the twelfth century were regarded as valid.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa xxvii., Quæst. I., canon xxii., from Isidore’s version; it is also found in Dionysius’s version as canon xij. of the same Quæstio, Causa, and Part, where it is said to be taken “ex Concilio Triburiensi.”

Canon XVII

Outlying or rural parishes shall in every province remain subject to the bishops who now have jurisdiction over them, particularly if the bishops have peaceably and continuously governed them for the space of thirty years.  But if within thirty years there has been, or is, any dispute concerning them, it is lawful for those who hold themselves aggrieved to bring their cause before the synod of the province.  And if any one be wronged by his metropolitan, let the matter be decided by the exarch of the diocese or by the throne of Constantinople, as aforesaid.  And if any city has been, or shall hereafter be newly erected by imperial authority, let the order of the ecclesiastical parishes follow the political and municipal example.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XVII.

Village and rural parishes if they have been possessed for thirty years, they shall so continue.  But if within that time, the matter shall be subject to adjudication.  But if by the command of the Emperor a city be renewed, the order of ecclesiastical parishes shall follow the civil and public forms.

Bright.

The adjective ἐγχωρίους is probably synonymous with ἀγροικικάς (“rusticas,” Prisca), although Dionysius and Isidorian take in as “situated on estates,” cf. Routh, Scr. Opusc., ii., 109.  It was conceivable that some such outlying districts might form, ecclesiastically, a border-land, it might not be easy to assign them definitively to this or that bishopric.  In such a case, says the Council, if the bishop who is now in possession of these rural churches can show a prescription of thirty years in favour of his see, let them remain undisturbed in his obedience.  (Here ἀβιάστως may be illustrated from βιασάμενος in Eph. viij. and for the use of οἰκονομεῖν see I. Const., ij.)  But the border-land might be the “debate-able” land:  the two neighbour bishops might dispute as to the right to tend these “sheep in the wilderness;” as we read in Cod. Afric., 117, “multæ controversiæ postea inter episcopos de diœcesibus ortæ sunt, et oriuntur” (see on I. Const., ij.); as archbishop Thomas of York, and Remigius of Dorchester, were at issue for years “with reference to Lindsey” (Raine, Fasti Eborac., i. 150).  Accordingly, the canon provides that if such a contest had arisen within the thirty years, or should thereafter arise, the prelate who considered himself wronged might appeal to the provincial synod.  If he should be aggrieved at the decision of his metropolitan in synod, he might apply for redress to the eparch (or prefect, a substitute for exarch) of the “diocese,” or to the see of Constantinople (in the manner provided by canon ix.).  It is curious “that in Russia all the sees are divided into eparchies of the first, second, and third class” (Neale, Essays on Liturgiology, p. 302).

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XVI., Quæst. iii., can. j., in Isidore Mercator’s version.

Canon XVIII

The crime of conspiracy or banding together is utterly prohibited even by the secular law, and much more ought it to be forbidden in the Church of God.  Therefore, if any, whether clergymen or monks, should be detected in conspiring or banding together, or hatching plots against their bishops or fellow-clergy, they shall by all means be deposed from their own rank.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XVIII.

Clerics and Monks, if they shall have dared to hold conventicles and to conspire against the bishop, shall be cast out of their rank.

Bright.

In order to appreciate this canon, we must consider the case of Ibas bishop of Edessa.  He had been attached to the Nestorians, but after the reunion between Cyril and John of Antioch had re-entered into communion with Cyril on the ground that Cyril had explained his anathemas (Mansi, vii., 240), or, as he wrote to Maris (in a letter famous as one of the “Three Chapters”) that God had “softened the Egyptian’s heart” (ib., 248).  Four of his priests (Samuel, Cyrus, Maras, and Eulegius), stimulated, says Fleury (xxvij. 19) by Uranius bishop of Himeria, accused Ibas of Nestorianism before his patriarch Domnus of Antioch, who held a synod, but, as Samuel and Cyrus failed to appear, pronounced them defaulters and set aside the case (Mansi, vii. 217).  They went up to Constantinople, and persuaded Theodosius and archbishop Flavian to appoint a commission for inquiring into the matter.  Two sessions, so to speak, were held by the three prelates thus appointed, one at Berytus the other at Tyre.  At Berytus, according to the extant minutes (Mansi, vii., 212 ff.), five new accusers joined the original four, and charges were brought which affected the moral character of Ibas as well as his orthodoxy.  The charge of having used a “blasphemous” speech implying that Christ was but a man deified, was rebutted by a statement signed by some sixty clerics of Edessa, who according to the accusers, had been present when Ibas uttered it.  At Tyre the episcopal judges succeeded in making peace, and accusers and accused partook of the communion together (ib., vii., 209).  The sequence of these proceedings cannot be thoroughly ascertained, but Hefele (sect. 169) agrees with Tillemont (xv., 474 et seqq.) in dating the trial at Berytus slightly earlier than that at Tyre, and assigning both to the February of 448 or 449.  Fleury inverts this order, and thinks that, “notwithstanding the reconciliation” at Tyre, the four accusers renewed their prosecution of Ibas (xxvij. 20); but he has to suppose two applications on their part to Theodosius and Flavian, which seems improbable.  “The Council is believed,” says Tillemont (xv., 698), “to have had this case in mind when drawing up the present canon:”  and one can hardly help thinking that, on a spot within sight of Constantinople, they must have recalled the protracted sufferings which malignant plotters had inflicted on St. Chrysostom.

This canon is found in part in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XI., Quæst. I., canons xxj. and xxiij.

Canon XIX

Whereas it has come to our ears that in the provinces the Canonical Synods of Bishops are not held, and that on this account many ecclesiastical matters which need reformation are neglected; therefore, according to the canons of the holy Fathers, the holy Synod decrees that the bishops of every province shall twice in the year assemble together where the bishop of the Metropolis shall approve, and shall then settle whatever matters may have arisen.  And bishops, who do not attend, but remain in their own cities, though they are in good health and free from any unavoidable and necessary business, shall receive a brotherly admonition.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XIX.

Twice each year the Synod shall be held whereever the bishop of the Metropolis shall designate, and all matters of pressing interest shall be determined.

See notes on Canon V. of Nice, and on Canon XX. of Antioch, and compare canon VIII. of the council in Trullo.

Bright.

Hilary of Arles and his suffragans, assembled at Riez, had already, in 439 qualified the provision for two by adding significantly “if the times are quiet” (Mansi, v., 1194).  The words were written at the close of ten years’ war, during which the Visigoths of Septimania “were endeavouring to take Arles and Narbonne” (Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, ii., 121).

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. XVIII., canon vj.

Canon XX

It shall not be lawful, as we have already decreed, for clergymen officiating in one church to be appointed to the church of another city, but they shall cleave to that in which they were first thought worthy to minister; those, however, being excepted, who have been driven by necessity from their own country, and have therefore removed to another church.  And if, after this decree, any bishop shall receive a clergyman belonging to another bishop, it is decreed that both the received and the receiver shall be excommunicated until such time as the clergyman who has removed shall have returned to his own church.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XX.

A clergyman of one city shall not be given a cure in another.  But if he has been driven from his native place and shall go into another he shall be without blame.  If any bishop receives clergymen from without his diocese he shall be excommunicated as well as the cleric he receives.

It is quite doubtful as to what “excommunication” means in this canon, probably not anathematism (so think the commentators) but separation from the communion of the other bishops, and suspension from the performance of clerical functions.

Bright.

This canon is the third of those which were originally proposed by Marcian in the end of the sixth session, as certain articles for which synodical sanction was desirable (see above Canons iij. and iv.).  It was after they had been delivered by the Emperor’s own hand to Anatolius of Constantinople that the Council broke out into plaudits, one of which is sufficiently startling, τῷ ἱερεῖ, τῷ βασιλεῖ (Mansi, vii., 177).  The imperial draft is in this case very slightly altered.  A reference is made to a previous determination (i.e., canon x.) against clerical pluralities, and it is ordered that “clerics registered as belonging to one church shall not be ranked as belonging to the church of another city, but must be content with the one in which they were originally admitted to minister, excepting those who, having lost their own country, have been compelled to migrate to another church,”—an exception intelligible enough at such a period.  Eleven years before, the Vandal Gaiseric had expelled the Catholic bishops and priests of Western Africa from their churches:  Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage with many of his clergy, had been “placed on board some unseaworthy vessels,” and yet, “by the Divine mercy, had been carried safe to Naples” (Vict. Vitens., De Persec. Vandal., i., 5:  he mentions other bishops as driven into exile).  Somewhat later, the surge of the Hunnish invasion had frightened the bishop of Sirmium into sending his church vessels to Attila’s Gaulish secretary and had swept onward in 447 to within a short distance of the “New Rome” (Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, ii., 54–56).  And the very year of the Council was the most momentous in the whole history of the “Barbaric” movement.  The bishops who assembled in October at Chalcedon must have heard by that time of the massacre of the Metz clergy on Easter Eve, of a bishop of Rheims slain at his own altar, of the deliverance of Orleans at the prayer of St. Anianus, of “the supreme battle” in the plain of Chalons, which turned back Attila and rescued Christian Gaul (Hodgkin, ii., 129–152; Kitchin, Hist. France, i. 61).

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars I., Dist. lxxi, c. iv.

Canon XXI

Clergymen and laymen bringing charges against bishops or clergymen are not to be received loosely and without examination, as accusers, but their own character shall first be investigated.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XXI.

A cleric or layman making charges rashly against his bishop shall not be received.

Compare with this canon the VI Canon of those credited to the First Synod at Constantinople, the second ecumenical.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa II., Quæst. VII., canon xlix., in Isidore’s first version.

Canon XXII

It is not lawful for clergymen, after the death of their bishop, to seize what belongs to him, as has been forbidden also by the ancient canons; and those who do so shall be in danger of degradation from their own rank.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XXII.

Whoever seizes the goods of his deceased bishop shall be cast forth from his rank.

It is curious that the Greek text which Zonaras and Balsamon produce, and which Hervetus translated, had instead of τοῖς πάλαι κανόσι, τοις παραλαμβάνουσιν .  Van Espen thinks that the Greek commentators have tried without success to attach any meaning to these words, accepting the arguments of Bp. Beveridge (which see).  The reading adopted in the text does not lack ms. authority, and is the one printed by Justellus in his “Codex of the Canons of the Universal Church.”

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XII., Quæst. II., canon xliii., in Isidore’s version.

Canon XXIII

It has come to the hearing of the holy Synod that certain clergymen and monks, having no authority from their own bishop, and sometimes, indeed, while under sentence of excommunication by him, betake themselves to the imperial Constantinople, and remain there for a long time, raising disturbances and troubling the ecclesiastical state, and turning men’s houses upside down.  Therefore the holy Synod has determined that such persons be first notified by the Advocate of the most holy Church of Constantinople to depart from the imperial city; and if they shall shamelessly continue in the same practices, that they shall be expelled by the same Advocate even against their will, and return to their own places.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIII.

Clerics or monks who spend much time at Constantinople contrary to the will of their bishop, and stir up seditions, shall be cast out of the city.

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XVI, Quæst. I., canon xvij. but with the last part epitomized, as the Roman correctors point out.

Canon XXIV

Monasteries, which have once been consecrated with the consent of the bishop, shall remain monasteries for ever, and the property belonging to them shall be preserved, and they shall never again become secular dwellings.  And they who shall permit this to be done shall be liable to ecclesiastical penalties.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIV.

A monastery erected with the consent of the bishop shall be immovable.  And whatever pertains to it shall not be alienated.  Whoever shall take upon him to do otherwise, shall not be held guiltless.

Joseph Ægyptius, in turning this into Arabic, reads:  “And whoever shall turn any monastery into a dwelling house for himself…let him be cursed and anathema.”  The curious reader is referred on this whole subject to Sir Henry Spelman’s History and Fate of Sacrilege, or to the more handy book on the subject by James Wayland Joyce, The Doom of Sacrilege.

Bright.

The secularization of monasteries was an evil which grew with their wealth and influence.  At a Council held by the patriarch Photius in the Apostles’ church at Constantinople, it is complained that some persons attach the name of “monastery” to property of their own, and while professing to dedicate it to God, write themselves down as lords of what has been thus consecrated, and are not ashamed to claim after such consecration the same power over it which they had before.  In the West, we find this abuse attracting the attention of Gregory the Great, who writes to a bishop that “rationalis ordo” would not allow a layman to pervert a monastic foundation at will to his own uses (Epist. viii., 31).  In ancient Scotland, the occasional dispersion of religious communities, and, still more, the clan-principle which assigned chieftain-rights over monasteries to the descendants of the founder, left at Dunkeld, Brechin, Abernethy, and elsewhere, “nothing but the mere name of abbacy applied to the lands, and of abbot borne by the secular lord for the time” (Skene’s Celtic Scotland, ii., 365; cf. Anderson’s Scotland in Early Christian Times, p. 235).  So, after the great Irish monastery of Bangor in Down was destroyed by the Northmen, “non defuit,” says St. Bernard, “qui illud teneret cure possessionibus suis; nam et constituebantur per electionem etiam, et abbates appellabantur, servantes nomine, etsi non re, quod olim exstiterat” (De Vita S. Malachiæ, vj.).  So in 1188 Giraldus Cambrensis found a lay abbot in possession of the venerable church of Llanbadarn Vawr; a “bad custom,” he says, “had grown up, whereby powerful laymen, at first chosen by the clergy to be “œconomi” or “patroni et defensores,” had usurped “totum jus,” appropriated the lands, and left to the clergy nothing but the altars, with tithes and offerings (Itin. Camb. ii., 4).  This abuse must be distinguished from the corrupt device whereby, in Bede’s later years, Northumbrian nobles contrived to gain for their estates the immunities of abbey-lands by professing to found monasteries, which they filled with disorderly monks, who lived there in contempt of all rule (Bede, Ep. to Egbert, vij.).  In the year of his birth, the first English synod had forbidden bishops to despoil consecrated monasteries (Bede, iv., 5).

This canon is found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, Gratian’s Decretum, Pars II., Causa XIX., Quæst. III., canon iv.

Canon XXV

Forasmuch as certain of the metropolitans, as we have heard, neglect the flocks committed to them, and delay the ordinations of bishops the holy Synod has decided that the ordinations of bishops shall take place within three months, unless an inevitable necessity should some time require the term of delay to be prolonged.  And if he shall not do this, he shall be liable to ecclesiastical penalties, and the income of the widowed church shall be kept safe by the steward of the same Church.

Notes.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XXV.

Let the ordination of bishops be within three months:  necessity however may make the time longer.  But if anyone shall ordain counter to this decree, he shall be liable to punishment.  The revenue shall remain with the œconomus.

Bright.

The “Steward of the Church” was to “take care of the revenues of the church widowed” by the death of its bishop, who was regarded as representing Him to whom the whole Church was espoused (see Eph. v. 23 ff.).  So in the “order of the holy and great church” of St. Sophia, the “Great Steward” is described as “taking the oversight of the widowed church” (Goar, Eucholog., p. 269); so Hincmar says:  “Si fuerit defunctus episcopus, ego…visitatorem ipsi viduatæ designabo ecclesiæ; “and the phrase, “viduata per mortem N. nuper episcopi” became common in the West (F. G. Lee, Validity of English Orders, p. 373).  The episcopal ring was a symbol of the same idea.  So at St. Chrysostom’s restoration Eudoxia claimed to have “given back the bridegroom” (Serm. post redit., iv.).  So Bishop Wilson told Queen Caroline that he “would not leave his wife in his old age because she was poor” (Keble’s Life of Wilson, ii., 767); and Peter Mongus, having invaded the Alexandrian see while its legitimate occupant, Timothy Salophaciolus, was alive, was expelled as an “adulterer” (Liberatus, Breviar., xviij.).