:

29

council of Bracara and some others. And that it was the ancient practice of the church, appears from what Cyprian says" of Cornelius, that he was not made bishop of Rome all of a sudden, but went gradually through all the offices of the church, till his merits advanced him to the episcopal throne. Theodoret commends Athanasius upon the same account and Gregory Nazianzen speaks it to the honour of St. Basil, with some reflection on several bishops of his age, that he did not as soon as he was baptized leap into a bishopric, as some other ambitious persons did, but rise to his honour by degrees. He adds, that in military affairs this rule was generally observed; every great general is first a common soldier, then a captain, then a commander: and it would be happy for the church, says he, if matters were always so ordered in it. By this time it seems this rule was frequently transgressed, without any reason or necessity; but only by the ambition of some who affected the office of bishop, yet were not willing to undergo the inferior offices that were preparative to it.

Sect. 5.

erdained bishops, though never or dained presbyters.

30

33

29

But I must observe, that it was not Deacons might be always necessarily required that a man should be ordained presbyter first in order to be made a bishop: for deacons were as commonly made bishops as any other. Cæcilian was no more than archdeacon of Carthage, when he was ordained bishop, as we learn from Optatus. And both Theodoret and Epiphanius" say, that Athanasius was but a deacon, when he was made bishop of Alexandria. Liberatus observes the same of Peter Moggus and Esaias, two other bishops of Alexandria: as also of Agapetus and Vigilius, bishops of Rome. Socrates" and Theodoret 35 relate the same of Felix, bishop of Rome, who was ordained in the place of Liberius. Eusebius takes notice of one of his own name, a deacon of Alexandria, who was made bishop of Laodicea. And Socrates says, Chrysostom made Heraclides, one of his own deacons, bishop of Ephesus, and Serapion bishop of Heraclea. And that this was a general practice, and agreeable to canon, appears also from a letter of Pope Leo, where, speaking of the election of a metropolitan, he says he ought to be chosen

36

either out of the presbyters, or out of the deacons of the church.

Sect. 6. Bishops in cases of necessity chosen out of the inferior

orders.

Sometimes in cases of necessity bishops were chosen out of the inferior orders, subdeacons, readers, &c. Liberatus says, Silverius, who was competitor with Vigilius for the bishopric of Rome, was but a subdeacon.39 And St. Austin himself, when he erected his new bishopric at Fussala, being disappointed of the person whom he intended to have had consecrated bishop, offered one Antonius a reader to the primate to be ordained bishop in his room; and the primate without any scruple immediately ordained him; though, as St. Austin" testifies, he was but a young man, who had never showed himself in any other office of the church beside that of reader.

Sect. 7. And in some extraordinary cases orfrom laymen.

There want not also several instances of persons, who were ordained bishops immediately of laymen, when dained immediately God by his particular providence seemed to point them out as the fittest men, in some certain junctures, to be employed in his service. Thus it was in the known case of St. Ambrose, who was but newly baptized when he was ordained bishop, as both Paulinus" and all the historians testify. When the people of Milan were so divided in the election of a bishop, that the whole city was in an uproar, he, being prætor of the place, came in upon them to appease the tumult, as by virtue of his office he thought himself obliged to do; and making an eloquent speech to them, it had a sort of miraculous effect upon them; for they all immediately left off their dispute, and unanimously cried out, they would have Ambrose to be their bishop. Which the emperor understanding, and looking upon it as a providential call, he ordered him to be baptized, (for he was yet but a catechumen,) and in a few days after to be ordained their bishop. St. Cyprian was another instance of the like providential dispensation. For Pontius" says in his Life, that he was chosen bishop by the judgment of God and the favour of the people, though he was but a neophite, or newly baptized. Socrates" and and Sozomen" say the same of Nectarius, Gregory

41 Paulin. Vit. Ambros. p. 3. Ruffin. lib. 2. c. 11. Theod. lib. 4. c. 6 et 7. Socrat. lib. 4. c. 30. Sozom. lib. 6. c. 24. 42 Pont. Vit. Cypr. p. 2. Judicio Dei et plebis favore ad officium sacerdotii et episcopatus gradum adhuc neophytus, et ut putabatur novellus electus est.

43 Socrat. lib. 5. c. 8.

4 Sozom. lib. 7. c. 8. τὴν μυσικὴν ἐσθῆτα ἔτι ήμφιεσα μένος, &c.

48

Nazianzen's successor at Constantinople, that he was chosen bishop by the second general council, whilst he had his mystical garments on him, meaning those white garments, which the newly baptized were used to wear. Eusebius, bishop of Cæsarea in Pontus, St. Basil's predecessor, was not baptized, but only a catechumen, when he was chosen bishop, as Nazianzen himself" informs us. And Eucherius was but a monk, that is, a layman, when he was chosen and ordained bishop of Lyons, as Baronius" says, from Hilarius Arelatensis in the Life of Honoratus. Chrysostom" seems to say the same of Philogonius, bishop of Antioch, when he reports of him, that he was taken from the court of judicature, and carried from the judge's bench to the bishop's throne, ἀπὸ βήματος δικαστικοῦ ἐπὶ βῆμα ispòv. In all these instances there seems to have been the hand of God and the direction of Providence, which supersedes all ordinary rules and canons: and therefore these ordinations were never censured as uncanonical or irregular, though contrary to the letter of a common rule; because the rule itself was to be understood with this limitation and exception, as one of the ancient canons explains itself, and all others that relate to this matter; saying, One that is newly converted from Gentilism, or a vicious life, ought not presently to be advanced to a bishopric: for it is not fit, that he who has yet given no proof of himself, should be made a teacher of others; unless it be so ordered by the grace and appointment of God himself, εἰ μὴ που κατὰ θείαν χάριν τοῦτο γένοιτο. For in this case there could be no dispute; the will of God being superior to all human canons whatsoever. And therefore, though the same limitation be not expressed in other canons, yet it is evident that they are always to be understood with this exception. Upon which account, it was not reckoned any breach of canon to make a layman bishop, when Providence seemed first to grant a dispensation, by directing the church to be unanimous in the choice of such a person. They did not in such cases make a layman receive one order one day, and another the next, and so go through the several orders in the compass of a week, but made him bishop at once, when need required, without any other ordination. The contrary custom is a modern practice, scarce ever heard of till the time of Photius, anno 858, who, to avoid the imputation of not coming gradually to his bishopric, was on the first day made a monk, on the second a reader, on the third a subdeacon, on the fourth a deacon, on the fifth a presbyter, and on

the sixth a patriarch, as Nicetas David," a writer of that age, informs us in the Life of Ignatius. Spalatensis observes the same practice to be continued in the Romish church, under pretence of complying with the ancient canons; though nothing can be more contrary to the true intent and meaning of them; which was, that men should continue some years in every order, to give some proof of their behaviour to the church, and not pass cursorily through all orders in five or six days' time; which practice, as it does not answer the end of the canons, so it is altogether without precedent in the primitive church.

CHAPTER XI.

OF SOME PARTICULAR LAWS AND CUSTOMS OBSERVED ABOUT THE ORDINATION OF BISHOPS.

Bishoprics not to

WHEN any bishopric became void Sect. 1. by the death or cession of its bishop, be void above thre then, forasmuch as bishops were look- months. ed upon as a necessary constituent part of the church, all imaginable care was taken to fill up the vacancy with all convenient speed. In the African churches a year was the utmost limits that was allowed for a vacancy; for if within that time a new election was not made, he that was appointed administrator of the church during the vacancy, whose business it was to procure and hasten the election, was to be turned out of his office, and a new one put in his room, by a canon of the fifth council' of Carthage, which is also confirmed in the African Code. But in other places this was limited to a much shorter time. For by a canon of the general council of Chalcedon, every metropolitan is obliged to ordain a new bishop in the vacant see within the space of three months, under pain of ecclesiastical censure, unless some unavoidable necessity forced him to defer it longer. At Alexandria the custom was to proceed immediately to election as soon as the bishop was dead, and be- chosen before the fore he was interred. Epiphanius' hints at this custom, when he says, they were used to make no delay after the decease of a bishop, but chose one presently, to preserve peace among the people, that they might not run into factions about the choice of a successor. But Liberatus is a little more particular in describing the circumstances of it. He says, it was customary for the successor to

1 Con. Carth. 5. can. 8.

2 Cod. Can. Eccl. Afric. can. 75.

3 Con. Chalced. can. 25.

Sect. 2. In some places & new bishop was old one was buried,

Epiphan. Hær. 69. Arian. n. 11. μn xpovíčew μetà τελευτὴν τῷ ἐπισκόπε, &c.

5 Liberat. Breviar. c. 20. Consuetudo quidem est Alex

watch over the body of the deceased bishop, and to lay his right hand upon his head, and to bury him with his own hands, and then take the pall of St. Mark, and put it upon himself, and so sit in his throne. To these authorities we may add that of Socrates, who says, that Cyril of Alexandria was enthroned the third day after the death of Theophilus and he intimates, that the same thing was practised in other places; for Proclus, bishop of Constantinople,' was enthroned before Maximian his predecessor was interred, and after his enthronement he performed the funeral office for him. And this was done at the instance and command of the emperor Theodosius, that there might be no dispute or tumult raised in the church about the election of a bishop.

Sect. 3.

longer vacancies in times of difficulty and persecution.

Yet, notwithstanding this care and Some instances of diligence of the church in filling up vacant sees, it sometimes happened, that the election of bishops was deferred to a much longer season. For in Africa, at the time of the collation of Carthage, there were no less than threescore bishoprics void at once, which was above an eighth part of the whole. For the whole number of bishops was but four hundred and sixty-six, whereof two hundred and eighty-six were then present at the conference, and one hundred and twenty were absent by reason of sickness or old age; besides which, there were sixty vacant sees, which were unprovided of bishops at that time, as the catholics told the Donatists," who pretended to vie numbers with them, though they were but two hundred and seventy-nine. What was the particular reason of so many vacancies at that juncture, is not said; but probably it might be the difficulty of the times, that catholic bishops could not there be placed, where the Donatists had gotten full possession. Or, perhaps it might be the negligence of the people, who contented themselves with administrators during the vacancy, and would not admit of a new bishop. The council of Macriana, mentioned by Fulgentius Ferrandus, takes notice of this dilatory practice in some churches, and censures it by a canon, which orders the administrators, who were always some neighbouring bishops, to be removed; and condemns such churches to continue without administrators, till they sought for a bishop of their own. Another reason of long

andriæ, illum, qui defuncto succedit, excubias super defuncti corpus agere, manumque dexteram ejus capiti suo imponere, et sepulto manibus suis, accipere collo suo beati Marci pallium, et tunc legitime sedere.

Socrat. lib. 7. c. 7.

* Id. lib. 7. c. 40.

Aug. Brevic. Collat. primæ Diei. c. 14. Sane proptei cathedras, quas episcopis vacuas apud se esse dixerunt, responsum est a catholicis, sexaginta esse quibus successores episcopi nondum fuerant ordinati.

Ferrand. Brev. Can. c. 23. ap. Justel. t. 1. p. 449. Ut

vacancies in some times and places, was the difficult circumstances the churches lay under in time of persecution. For the bishops were the men chiefly aimed at by the persecutors. And therefore, when one bishop was martyred, the church sometimes was forced to defer the ordination of another, either because it was scarce possible to go about it in such times of exigency, or because she was unwilling to expose another bishop immediately to the implacable fury of a raging adversary, and bring upon herself a more violent storm of persecution. The Roman clergy" give this for their reason to Cyprian, why, after the martyrdom of Fabian, they did not immediately proceed to a new election. The state of affairs, and the difficulty of the times, was such as would not permit it. Baronius" reckons the time of this vacancy a year and three months, but others," who are more exact in the calculation, make it a year and five months; by either of which accounts, it was above a year beyond the time limited by the canons. But this was nothing in comparison of that long vacancy of the bishopric of Carthage, in the time of the Arian persecution under Gensericus and Hunericus, two heretical kings of the Vandals, which Victor Uticensis 13 says was no less than twenty-four years, during all which time the church of Carthage had no bishop. But these were difficulties upon the church, and matters of force, not her choice: for in times of peace she always acted otherwise, and did not think such extraordinary instances fit precedents to be drawn into example; much less to be drawn into consequence and argued upon, as some" have done, that therefore the church may be without bishops, because she subsisted in some extraordinary vacancies without them, when she could not have them: which argument would hold as well against any other order as that of bishops, did but they who urge this argument rightly consider it.

interventores episcopi conveniant plebis quæ episcopum non habent, ut episcopum accipiant; quod si accipere neglexerint, remoto interventore sic remaneant, quam diu sibi episcopum quærant.

10 Ep. 31. al. 30. ap. Cyprian. p. 58. Post excessum no. bilissimæ memoriæ viri Fabiani, nondum est episcopus propter rerum et temporum difficultates constitutus.

11 Baron. an. 253. n. 6. an. 254. n. 46.

12 Pearson, Annal. Cypr. an. 250. n. 3. et an. 251. n. 6. 13 Victor. de Persecut. Vandal. lib. 2.

14 Blondel. Apol.

lagius, bishop of Rome, was reckoned a true bishop, though, as we have just now heard, he had but two bishops and a presbyter to ordain him. Dioscorus of Alexandria was consecrated likewise by two bishops only, and those under ecclesiastical censure; as we learn from an epistle of the bishops of Pontus" at the end of the council of Chalcedon; yet neither that council, nor any others, ever questioned the validity of his ordination, unless perhaps those Pontic bishops did, who call it nefandam atque imaginariam ordinationem. Siderius, bishop of Palæbisca, was ordained by one bishop; yet Athanasius not only allowed his ordination and confirmed it, but finding him to be a useful man, he afterward advanced him, as Synesius says," to the metropolitical see of Ptolemais. Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, ordained Evagrius his successor, without any other bishop to assist him: which, though it was done against canon, yet Theodoret assures us," that both the bishops of Rome and Alexandria owned Evagrius for a true bishop, and never in the least questioned the validity of his ordination. though they afterwards consented to acknowledge Flavian, at the instance of Theodosius, to put an end to the schism; yet they did it upon this condition, that the ordinations of such as had been ordained by Evagrius, should be reputed valid also: as we learn from the letters of Pope Innocent, who lived not long after this matter was transacted. Hence it appears, that the ordination of a bishop made by any single

Sect. 6. The bishop of Rome not privileged to ordain alone, any

35

And

more than any other bishop was valid, if the church thought single bishop. fit to allow it. Nor had the bishop of Rome any peculiar privilege in this matter above other men, though some pretend to make a distinction. There is indeed an ancient canon alleged in the collection of Fulgentius Ferrandus, out of the council of Zella and the letters of Siricius, which seems to make a reserve in behalf of the bishop of Rome: for it says," One bishop shall not ordain a bishop, the Roman church excepted. But Cotelerius ingenuously owns this to be a corruption in the text of Ferrandus, foisted in by the ignorance or fraud of some modern transcriber, who confounded two decrees of Siricius into one, and changed

Concil. tom. 4. p. 960. Ordinationem suam a damnatis episcopis, et hoc duobus, accepit, cum regulæ patrum --vel tres episcopos corporaliter adesse in hujusmodi dispensationibus omnino prospiciant.

33

Synes. Ep. 67.

34 Theod. lib. 5. c. 23. Innoc. Ep. 14. ad Bonifac. Ecclesia Antiochena ita pacem postulavit et meruit, ut et Evagrianos suis ordinibus ac locis, intemerata ordinatione, quam acceperant a memorato, susciperet.

Ferrand. Brev. Canon. c. 6. Ut unus episcopus episcopum non ordinet, excepta ecclesia Romana. Concilio Zellensi. Ex Epistola Papæ Siricii.

"Coteler. Not. in Coustit. Apost. lib. 3. c. 20.

Siric. Ep. 4. c. 1. Ut extra conscientiam sedis apos

E

the words sedes apostolica primatis into sedes apos

tolica Romana. For in the words of Siricius there is no mention made at all of the Roman church, but it is said, that no cane shall ordain without the consent of the apostolical see; that is, the primate or metropolitan of the province; and that one bishop alone shall not ordain a bishop, because that is arrogant and assuming, and looks like giving an ordination by stealth, and is expressly forbidden by the Nicene council. So that in these times the bishops of Rome were under the direction of the canons, and did not presume to think they had any privilege of ordaining singly, above what was common to the rest of their order.

40

Sect. 7. Every bishop to

own church.

The next thing to be taken notice of in this affair is, that every bishop, be ordained in his by the laws and custom of the church, was to be ordained in his own church, in the presence of his own people. Which is plainly intimated by Cyprian," when he says, that to celebrate ordinations aright, the neighbouring bishops of the province were used to meet at the church where the new bishop was to be ordained, and there proceed to his election and ordination. And this was so generally the practice of the whole church, that Pope Julius made it an objection against Gregory of Alexandria, who was obtruded on the church by the Eusebian party in the room of Athanasius, that he was ordained at Antioch, and not in his own church, but sent thither with a band of soldiers; whereas, by the ecclesiastical canon, he ought to have been ordained, iπ' avrñs τñs ikkλŋoías, in the church of Alexandria itself, and that by the bishops of his own province. This rule was very nicely observed in the African churches, where it was the constant custom for the primate (whose office it was to ordain bishops) to go to the church where the new bishop was to be settled, and ordain him there. Of this we have several instances in St. Austin, who himself was ordained in his own church at Hippo" by the primate of Numidia: and having divided his diocese, and erected a new bishopric at Fussala, and elected a bishop, he sent for the primate, though living at a great distance, to come to the place and ordain him there.

tolicæ, hoc est, primatis, nemo audeat ordinare. It. c. 2. Ne unus episcopus episcopum ordinare præsumat propter arrogantiam, ne furtivum præstitum beneficium videatur. Hoc enim et a synodo Nicæna constitutum est atque definitum.

Cypr. Ep. 68. al. 67. ad Fratr. Hispan. p. 172. Ad ordinationes rite celebrandas, ad eam plebem, cui præposi tus ordinatur, episcopi ejusdem provinciæ proximi quique conveniant, &c.

40 Jul. Ep. ad Oriental. ap. Athanas. Apol. 2. t. 1. p. 749. 41 Possid. Vit. Aug. c. 8.

42 Aug. Ep. 261. Propter quem ordinandum, sanctum senem, qui tunc primatum Numidia gerebat, de longinquo ut veniret rogans, literis impetravi.