Sect. 4. Some laws and rules concerning their behaviour, I shall only observe further of them, that being commonly, according to their name, men of a bold and daring spirit, they were ready upon all occasions to engage in any quarrel that should happen in church or state. As they seem to have done in the dispute between Cyril the bishop, and Orestes the governor of Alexandria: which was the reason why Theodosius by his first law sunk their number to five hundred, and put them under the inspection of the præfectus augustalis, and strictly prohibited them from appearing at any public shows, or in the common council of the city, or in the judges' court, unless any of them had a cause of his own, or of the whole body, as their syndic, to prosecute there; and then he must appear single, without any of his order or associates to abet him. And though he not long after revoked this law as to the former part, allowing them to be six hundred, and the bishop to have the choice and cognizance of them; yet in all other respects he ordered it to stand in its full force, still prohibiting them to appear in a body upon any of the foresaid occasions: 12 and Justinian made this law perpetual by inserting it into his own Code. Which shows that the civil government always looked upon these parabolani as a formidable body of men, and accordingly kept a watchful eye and strict hand over them; that whilst they were serving the church, they might not do any disservice to the state, but keep within the bounds of that office whereto they were appointed. Sect. 1. Catechists no distinct order of the clergy, but chosen out of any other order. CHAPTER X. OF THE CATECHISTS. I HAVE hitherto discoursed of such particular orders of the ecclesiastics in the primitive church, as were destinated precisely to some particular office and function: but there were some offices which did not require a man to be of any one distinct order, but might be performed by persons of any order; and it will be necessary I should give some account of these also, whilst I am treating of the clergy of the church. The first of these I shall 12 Cod. Just. lib. i. Tit. 3. de Episc. Leg. 18. Hi sexcenti viri reverendissimi sacerdotis præceptis ac dispositionibus obsecundent reliquis, quæ dudum latæ legis forma complectitur super his parabolanis, vel de spectaculis, vel de judiciis, cæterisque (sicut jam statutum est) custodiendis. Ambros. Ep. 33. Post lectiones atque tractatum, dimissis catechumenis, symbolum aliquibus competentibus in baptisteriis tradebam basilicæ. 2 Theodor. Lector. Collectan. lib. 2. p. 563. Tò aúμßolov ἅπαξ τοῦ ἔτους λεγόμενον πρότερον ἐν τῇ ἁγίᾳ παρασχευῇ τοῦ θείου πάθους, τῷ καιρῷ τῶν γινομένων ὑπὸ speak of is the catechist, whose office was to instruct the catechumens in the first principles of religion, and thereby prepare them for the reception of baptism. This office was sometimes done by the bishop himself, as is evident from that passage in St. Ambrose, where he says,' upon a certain Lord's day, after the reading the Scriptures and the sermon, when the catechumens were dismissed, he took the competentes, or candidates for baptism, into the baptistery of the church, and there rehearsed the creed to them. This was on Palm-Sunday, when it was customary for the bishop himself to catechise such of the catechumens as were to be baptized on Easter-eve. Theodorus Lector takes notice of the same custom in the Eastern churches, when he tells us, that before the time of Timothy, bishop of Constantinople, the Nicene creed was never used to be repeated publicly in that church, except only once a year, on the great day of preparation, the day of our Lord's passion, when the bishop was wont to catechise. At other times presbyters and deacons were the catechists. St. Chrysostom performed this office when he was presbyter of Antioch, as appears from one of his Homilies,' which is inscribed, Κατήχησις πρὸς τοὺς μέλλοντας φωτίζεσθαι, Α catechism or instruction for the candidates of baptism. Deogratias was catechist when he was deacon of Carthage, as we learn from St. Austin's book' de Catechizandis Rudibus, which he wrote at his request, to give him some assistance in performing his duty. Sect. 2. Readers some chists. Nor was it only the superior orders that performed this office, but some- times made catetimes persons were chosen out of the inferior orders to do it. Optatus was but a reader in the church of Carthage, and yet Cyprian made him catechist, or, as it is in his phrase, the doctor audientium, the master of the hearers, or lowest rank of catechumens. Origen seems to have had no higher degree in the church when he was first made catechist at Alexandria. For both Eusebius and St. Jerom' say, he was but eighteen years old when he was deputed to that office; which was at least seven years before he could be ordained deacon by the canons of the church. church to a ship, and the clergy to the officers in it, he plainly distinguishes the catechists from the bishop, presbyters, and deacons, saying, The bishop is to resemble the рwрeç, or pilot; the presbyters the vaūraɩ, or mariners; the deacons, the roixapxoi, or chief rowers; the catechists, the vavroλóyou, or those whose office it was to admit passengers into the ship, and contract with them for the fare of their passage. This was properly the catechist's duty, to show the catechumens the contract they were to make, and the conditions they were to perform, viz. repentance, faith, and new obedience, in order to their admittance into the Christian ship, the church, in which they were to pass through this world to the kingdom of heaven. Upon this account the catechists were termed vavroλóyo, and as such distinguished from bishops, presbyters, and deacons. Cotelerius' says he found a Greek manuscript in one of the French king's libraries, where the same comparison is made, and cited out of the Constitutions, in these words: The church is like a ship: Christ is the governor; the bishop, the pilot; the presbyters, the mariners; the deacons, the chief rowers; the catechists, or nautologi, the orders of subdeacons and readers. So that it is evident the catechists were sometimes chosen out of the inferior orders, when any of them were found duly qualified to discharge the duties of that function. And this will be the less wondered at by any one that considers, that the deaconesses, whilst their order was in being, were required to be a sort of private catechists to the more ignorant and rustic womencatechumens: which I need not stand to evidence here, because I have done it heretofore in speaking of the offices which belonged to that order. See Book II. chap. 22. sect. 9. Coteler. Not. in Constit. Apost. lib. 2. c. 57. p. 263. ἔοικεν ἡ ἐκκλησία νηΐ· ὁ μὲν γυβερνήτης ἐτὶν ὁ Χριτός· ὁ δὲ πρωρεύς, ὁ ἐπισκοπος· οἱ ναῦται, οἱ πρεσβύτεροι, οἱ τειχαρχοι, οἱ διάκονοι, οἱ ναυτολόγοι, τὸ τῶν ἀναγνωτῶν καὶ υπηρετών τάγμα. Vales. Not. in Euseb. lib. 6. c. 19. It. Hallier. de Hierarch. Eccles. lib. 1. c. 7. p. 66. "Ruffin. lib. 6. c. 3. Demetrius-catechizandi ei, id est, docendi magisterium in ecclesia tribuit. Η Euseb. lib. 6. c. 3. αὑτῷ μονῳ τῆς τα κατηχεῖν διατρι τῆς ὑπὸ Δημητρίω τῇ τῆς ἐκκλησίας προετῶτος ἐπιτετραμμένης. "Leo, Novel. 73. In ecclesiarum cœnaculis, quæ pro preach publicly in the church, when as yet he was no presbyter. This accusation had been ridiculous, had he himself given Origen the same power before, when he was catechist at eighteen years of age at Alexandria. Ruffin indeed, in his translation of Eusebius, says positively that Demetrius gave him authority to catechise and teach publicly in the church." But that is an interpolation and false paraphrase of Eusebius his words, who says no such thing, but only," that Demetrius, bishop of the church, had committed to his care the office of catechising, or, as we may render it, the catechetic school, where probably for some time he also taught grammar and other human learning. That there were such sort of catechetic schools adjoining to the church in many places, is evident from a Novel 13 of the emperor Leo, who calls them κατηχούμενα, and says they were a sort of buildings belonging to the church. It might be the baptistery, as St. Ambrose calls it, or any other places set apart for that purpose. Sect. 5. Of the succession in the catechetic dria. 13 Such a school as this we may suppose that to have been, wherein Origen and so many other famous men school at Alexanread catechetic lectures at Alexandria. Eusebius says Pantænus taught in this school," anno 181, and that it was a school of sacred learning from ancient custom long before, and that it continued so to be to his own time. St. Jerom deduces its original from St. Mark, the first founder of the church of Alexandria, telling us, that Pantænus' taught Christian philosophy at Alexandria, where it had been the custom of old always to have ecclesiastical doctors from the time of St. Mark. Where by ecclesiastical doctors he does not mean the bishop and presbyters of the church, (which were originally in all churches as well as Alexandria,) but the doctors of Christian philosophy in the catechetic school, whereof there had been a succession from the first foundation of the church. And the succession was continued for some ages after for Clemens Alexandrinus 16 succeeded Pantænus; and Origen," Clemens; Heraclas," Origen; and Dionysius," Heraclas. After whom some 20 add Athenodorus, Malchion, Athanasius, and Didymus. And the author of the Greek Synodicon published miscuum vulgus кαтηxоúμɛva vocare solet. Vid. Concil. Trull. c. 97. et Balsamon. et Zonar. in loc. Η Euseb. lib. 5. c. 10. ἡγεῖτο τηνικαῦτα τῆς τῶν πιτῶν αὐτοθι διατριβῆς Πάνταινος· ἐξαρχαίου ἔθους διδασκαλείου τῶν ἱερῶν λόγων παρ αὐτοῖς συνετῶτος· ὁ καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς παρατείνεται. 15 Hieron. de Scriptor. c. 36. Pantanus Stoicæ sectæ philosophus, juxta quandam veterum in Alexandria consuetudinem, ubi a Marco evangelista semper ecclesiastici fuere doctores--docuit sub severo principe, &c. 17 Id. lib. 6. c. 19. 16 Euseb. lib. 6. c. 6. 19 Hieron. de Scriptor. in Origene. Euseb. lib. 6. c. 26. 19 Euseb. lib. 6. c. 29. Hospin. de Templis, lib. 3. c. 5. | pressed by the rich, it was the business of these defensors, as their proctors or advocates, to see them righted, and to solicit the magistrate that they might have justice done them. This is evident from the decree made in the fifth council of Carthage, anno 401, which is also inserted into the African Code, and is to this purpose: That' forasmuch as the church was incessantly wearied with the complaints and afflictions of the poor, it was unanimous by Pappus, says," Arius taught in the same school before he broached his heresy. It were easy to recount many other such schools at Rome, Cæsarea, Antioch, &c.; but I shall have another occasion to speak of these, when I come to consider the encouragement that Christian emperors gave to schools of learning and the professors of liberal arts and sciences: what has here been suggested upon this head, may suffice at present to show what was the office of the catechist, and what the use of cateche-ly agreed upon by them in council, that the empetical schools in the church. sors. For Gothofred thinks there were in all four sorts of them, viz. the defensores senatus, defensores urbium, defensores ecclesiarum, and defensores pauperum. But he might have added one more, which Ulpian' calls, defensores rerum publicarum, whose office was, to be a sort of proctors or syndics in managing of the public causes of that corporation or company of tradesmen to which they belonged: which sort of defensors were first instituted by Alexander Severus, as Lampridius tells us in his Life. The defensores civitatum, or, as they are other wise called, defensores plebis, were a sort of tribunes of the people; one of their chief offices being to defend the poor plebeians against the insults and oppressions of the great and wealthy citizens. Now, in imitation of these, I presume, the ecclesiastical defensors were instituted, as both their name and office seems plainly to imply. rors should be petitioned to allow defensors to be chosen for them by the procurement and approbation of the bishops, that they might defend them from the power and tyranny of the rich. Sect. 3 Of the defensores ecclesiæ, their office As to the other sort of defensors, called defensores ecclesiæ, (whom I speak of separately, because Gothofred and function. makes a distinction between them, though others take them to be the same,) their office did as plainly resemble that of the other sort of civil defensors, called defensores rerum publicarum. For as those were the proctors and syndics of their respective companies, to manage the public concerns of their societies at law upon all emergent occasions; so these did the same for the church, whose syndics they were, being employed to solicit the cause of the church, or any single ecclesiastic, when they were injured or oppressed, and had occasion for redress in a civil court; or if they were not remedied there, they were to address the emperors themselves in the name of the church, to procure a particular precept in her favour. Thus Possidius' tells us in the Life of St. Austin, that when the Circumcellions, in their mad zeal, had plundered and slain some of the catholic clergy, the defensor of the church prosecuted them at law for the fact, that the peace of the church might no more be disturbed or impeded. In like manner, we read in the first council of Carthage, that it being a thing against the imperial laws for any layman to impose a secular office upon a clergyman; if any such injury was offered to the church, it is said, the affront might be redressed, if the defensors of the church did not fail in their duty. Which plainly implies, that it was the business of the defensors to see the rights of the church, that were settled upon her by law, truly maintained; and if any encroachments were made upon them, they were to prosecute the aggressors and invaders before the magistrates, and execute the sentence which they gave in favour of delegentur. Vid. Cod. Eccles. Afr. can. 75. Possid. Vit. Aug. c. 12. De qua re, ne pacis ecclesiæ amplius impediretur profectus, defensor ecclesiæ inter leges non siluit, &c. 5 Conc. Carthag. 1. c. 9. Ipsis non liceat clericos nostros eligere apothecarios vel ratiocinatores.—Quod si injuria constitutionis imperatoriæ clericos inquietandos putaverint, si defensio ecclesiastica nos non deridet, pudor publicus vindicabitur. the church. It is further observable from a law of Arcadius and Honorius, recited in the next paragraph, that in case of necessity they were likewise to make application to the emperors, and bring their mandate to the inferior judges, when they could not otherwise have justice done them. By a canon of the council of Chalcedon, defensors are also empowered to admonish such idle monks and clerks as resorted to the royal city Constantinople, without any licence or commission from their bishop; and if after admonition they continued still to loiter there, the same defensors were to expel them thence by force, and cause them to return to their own habitation. It appears also, from Justinian's laws,' that the defensors, together with the economi, were made a sort of superintendents over the copiata, or great body of deans, whose business was to attend at funerals, as has been showed before: the defensors were charged with the care of these, both in reference to their revenues and persons. They were likewise to make inquiry, whether every clerk belonging to the church carefully attended the celebration of morning and evening service in the church, and to inform the bishop of such as neglected, that they might be proceeded against with ecclesiastical censures. These were the chief, if not the only offices of the defensors in the primitive church: for as to any spiritual power or jurisdiction over the clergy, they had none; nor were they as yet admitted to hear criminal causes, great or little, in the bishop's name; but these things were devolved upon them in latter ages, as Morinus shows at large in a long dissertation upon this subject, to which I refer the inquisitive reader, contenting myself to give such an account of the defensor's office and power, as I find it to have been in the ages next after their institution. Sect. 4. whether they were Clergymen or lay The next inquiry must be into their Of their quality, quality, whether they were of the clergy or laity? For learned men are not agreed about this. Petavius" says they were always laymen. But Morinus" and Gothofred," with much better reason, assert the contrary, that at first they were generally chosen out of the clergy, till, for some particular reasons, it was thought most proper to have advocates at law Conc. Chalced. c. 23. "AKOVтAS AUTès dià Te avтē ἐκδίκα ἐκβάλλεσθαι, καὶ τὰς ἰδίως καταλαμβάνειν τόπες. Justin. Novel. 59. * Cod. Justin. lib. 1. Tit. 3. de Episc. Leg. 42. n. 10. Morin, de Ordinat. Eccles. par. 3. Exercit. 16. c. 7. Petav. Not. in Epiphan. Hær. 72. n. 10. "Morin, ibid. Exerc. 16. c. 6. n. 16. "Gothofred. Not. in Cod. Theod. lib. 16. Tit. 2. de Episc. Leg. 38. Concil. African. vulgo dictum. can. 64. Placuit ut petant legati a gloriosissimis imperatoribus, ut dent facultatem defensores constituendi scholasticos, qui in actu sunt, vel in munere defensionis causarum, ut more sacerdotum provinciæ, iidem ipsi qui defensionem ecclesiarum suscepeat, habeant facultatem pro negotiis ecclesiarum, quoties to discharge this office in the African churches. This change was made about the year 407, when the African fathers, in the council of Carthage,13 petitioned the emperor Honorius, that he would give them leave to choose their defensors out of the scholastici, or advocates at law, who were actually concerned in pleading of causes; that so they who took upon them the defence of the churches, might have the same liberty as the provincial priests were used to have, to go, upon necessary occasion, into the judges' consistory, or council-chamber behind the veil, and there suggest what they thought necessary to promote their own cause, or obviate the plots of their adversaries. In answer to this petition, Honorius shortly after published a law, wherein he granted them liberty to make use of such advocates for their defensors as they desired: for he decreed," that whatever privileges were specially obtained of the emperor, relating to the church, should be intimated to the judges, and executed, non per coronatos, not by clergymen, as Gothofred rightly explains it, but by advocates at law. So that now it was no longer necessary that the defensors should be of the clergy, but the office was frequently intrusted in the hands of laymen. Which is further evident from an epistle of Pope Zosimus, who lived about the same time: for he says," the defensors of the church were chosen out of the laity, and might afterward, if they were deserving, be ordained among the clergy. Yet after this we find the defensors in some places continued still to be of the clergy. For Morinus shows, that in the first session of the council of Chalcedon there is frequent mention made of one John, a presbyter and defensor; as also in many epistles of Gregory the Great, the defensors of the Roman church are said to be of the clergy: to which I shall add a fragment of Theodorus Lector taken out of Damascen," which speaks of one John, as both deacon and defensor of the church of St. Stephen at Constantinople in the time of Anastasius the emperor, which was in the beginning of the sixth century. From all which it is very evident against Petavius, that the defensors were sometimes chosen out of the clergy, and not always made of advocates or laymen. necessitas flagitaverit, vel ad obsistendum obrepentibus, vel ad necessaria suggerenda, ingredi judicum secretaria. Vid. Cod. can. Afr. Gr. Lat. c. 97. et Concil. Milevitan. c. 16, to the same purpose. 14 Cod.Th. lib. 16.Tit. 2. de Episc. Leg. 38. Ut quæcunque de nobis ad ecclesiam tantum pertinentia, specialiter fuerint impetrata, non per coronatos, sed ab advocatis, eorum arbitratu, et judicibus innotescant, et sortiantur effectum, &c. 15 Zosim. Ep. 1. c. 3. Defensores ecclesiæ, qui ex laicis fiunt, supradicta observatione teneantur, si meruerint esse in ordine clericatus. 16 Concil. Chalced. Act. 1. 17 Vid. Damascen. Orat. 3. de Imagin. p. 799. et Fragment. Theodor. Lector. edit. a Vales. p. 583. Iwávvns diάκονος καὶ ἔκδικος τῇ εὐαγές οἴκε Στεφάνε, &c. Sect. 6. The Koko and Εκκλησι έκδικος among the Greeks the same with the defensors of the La tin church. I must not omit to acquaint the reader, that what the Latins call defensores, the Greek church commonly calls ἔκδικοι and ἐκκλησιέςδικοι, which signify the same as defensors; though Gothofred, without any just reason, makes a difference between them: for not only their offices and powers are described to be the same, but also whenever the Greeks have any occasion to speak of the Latin defensors, they give them the name of indiko, as may be seen either in the Code of the African church" published by Justellus, or that which the Greeks commonly call the council of Carthage, published by Ehinger," and Dr. Beverege" in the Pandects. But whether posárng be another Greek name for a defensor, is not so certain. The word is only found once used by Epiphanius,” who speaking of one Cyriacus, styles him Kupiakòç πрosáτns, which Petavius renders, Cyriacus defensor. He seems indeed to have had some office in the church, because he is joined in the subscription of a letter with the clergy, presbyters, deacons, subdeacons, and readers: but whether that be a sufficient reason to make him a defensor, I must leave the judicious reader to determine. Sect. 6. Chancellors and defeusors nor the tive church. 23 There is one thing more must be resolved before I dismiss this subject; same in the primi- that is, whether chancellors and defensors were the same in the primitive church? In answer to which I say, it is very plain they were not because the first time we find any mention of the office of chancellors in the church, they are expressly distinguished from the indiko or defensors; and that is in the Novel of Heraclius, made in the beginning of the seventh century, where, determining the number of ecclesiastical officers that were to be allowed in the great church of Constantinople, he says, there should be two syncelli, twelve chancellors, ten defensors, twelve referendaries, forty notaries, and twelve sceuophylaces, whereof four to be presbyters, six deacons, and two readers. It is not very easy to determine what the office of these chancellors was at that time; but it is very evident, however, from this, that they were not the same with the defensors. They who are acquainted with the civil law, know that the cancellarii in the civil courts were not judges, but officers attending the judge in an inferior station: which appears evidently from a title in both the Theodosian and Justinian Code," De adsessoribus et domesticis et cancellariis judicum. Hottoman and Accursius take them for actuaries or notaries; but Gothofred, in his learned Notes 25 upon the Theodosian 18 Gothofred. Not. in Cod. Th. lib. 16. Tit. 2. Leg. 38. 19 Cod. Can. Eccles. Afr. c. 75 et 97. 20 Concil. Carthag. Gr. ap. Ehinger. c. 76 et 99. 21 Conc. Carth. ap. Bevereg. c. 78 et 100. 22 Epiph. Hær. 72. Marcel. n. 10. Heracl. Novel. 2. ap. Leunclav. Jus. Gr. Rom. t. 1 Code, proves at large out of Cassiodore and Agathias, that they were the custodes secretarii, the guards of the judges' consistory, and called cancellarii because they stood ad cancellos, at the rails or barriers which separated the secretum from the rest of the court. So that their office then was not to sit as judges or assessors, but only to attend the judge, and keep peace and good order under him. And if this was the condition of the cancellarii in the state, it is probable they had some such office in the church in the time of Heraclius, who first mentions them; but what that office was I am not able to determine any further, save only that it was not the same with that of the defensors of the church. 26 Sect. 7. Whether the de fensors' office was the same with that of our modern chancellors' It may be asked then, whether the office of our modern chancellors has any relation or resemblance to that of defensors in the ancient church? There are some learned men who make them altogether the same. Bishop Beverege derives the authority of them both from the same fountain. For he says the defensors heard and determined causes in the bishop's name; and those not only that related to the poor, who sought the patronage of the church; but also when presbyters and deacons had any controversy with any other, whether of the clergy or laity, they might bring their action before the ρwrixdikos or defensor. Whence he concludes, that chancellors of later ages are the very same ecclesiastical officials, as the defensors of the primitive church. It were to be wished that that learned person had given us ancient records for that power which he ascribes to the old defensors; for then they would have looked more like chancellors under another name: but indeed the authorities he alleges are all modern, such as Papias's Glossary, and Balsamon's Meditata, and the catalogues of officials in the church of Constantinople, which were written several ages after the first institution of defensors, and in times when the protecdicus among the Greeks was become an officer of great authority and powerSo that though the power of chancellors might be much the same as that of the Erdiko among the modern Greeks, yet that it was altogether the same with the ancient defensors, seems not hitherto to be solidly proved; since the business of the ancient defensors, was not to do the office of judges, but of advocates at law, to defend the rights of the poor, and the liberties of the church, against all aggressors and invaders. But if any can show from ancient records, that the defensors had a larger power, he will very much oblige the world with such a discovery in the mean time the reader will pardon p. 79. Καγκελαρίους δὲ εἰς ιβ· ἐκδίκους εἰς 1. 24 Cod. Th. lib. 1. Tit. 12. Cod. Justin. lib. 1. Tit. 51. 25 Gothofred, Com. in Cod. Th. lib. 1. Tit. 12. de Adsessorib. Leg. 3. 26 Bevereg. Not. in can. 23. Concil. Chalced, |