Translated from Philip Schaff's History of The Christian Church

第五章教会的教阶制度与治理体制

部分参阅第1卷§105和§110所列文献（现应增补：P. A. 德·拉加德 (P. A. de Lagarde)：《使徒宪章》 (Constitutiones Apostolorum)，莱比锡 (Lips.)、伦敦 (Lond.)，1862年）；另参吉本 (Gibbon)，第xx章；米尔曼 (Milman)：《古代基督教史》 (Hist. of Ancient Christianity)，第iv卷第1章（美国版，第438页及后）；以及宾厄姆 (Bingham)、施勒克 (Schroeckh)、普朗克 (Plank)、尼安德 (Neander)、吉泽勒 (Gieseler)、鲍尔 (Baur) 等著作中的相应各节（详见下列专门文献）。

§ 48. 教牧学校

我们在前面一节已经考察了教会如何被提升为罗马帝国的国教，以及这一重大变革对教牧的处境和公共道德所产生的影响；现在转而考察教会内部的组织，以及教阶制度在新环境下的发展。第三时期的组织有别于第二时期的主教制度和第一时期的使徒监督，其进展就在于宗主教体制的兴起，以及与之密切相连的大公会议制度的形成。但我们必须先概览教导职分的总体性质与影响。

一方面，教会与国家的联合，使教会得以拥有古典异教世界的财富、学校、学术和文献，并将新一代的教育交在她手中，因而大大便利了教牧职分的预备工作。众多教义争论使探究的精神保持活跃；在第四、第五世纪的教父和主教中，我们遇见了古代教会最伟大的神学家。他们以其有分量的言论，肯定全面教育对于教牧职分的重大价值，并就适合这一目的的学业给予许多有益的教导。¹非洲教会依据397年迦太基会议 (council of Carthage) 的一项法令，要求对候选人的知识与信仰纯正程度加以考核。查士丁尼 (Justinian) 于541年颁布的一项法律，也在东方确立了类似的考核。

但另一方面，正规而普遍的教牧教育制度仍然完全阙如。古典文学的不断衰落，哲学与艺术创作的逐渐停息，修道主义对世俗学术与文化的偏见日益增长，教会领域骤然扩展所造成的教牧人员严重短缺，帝国局势的动荡，以及蛮族的入侵，都妨碍了充分的神学预备。许多候选人倚赖按立所具有的神奇效力。另一些人并无内在呼召，只因教会的财富与权势而受到吸引，投身圣职。还有一些人没有时间或机会作准备，在民众的呼声或时势的推动下，直接从国家的职务转入教会的职务，甚至担任主教；尽管若干会议曾规定，应先在读经员、执事和长老这些较低等级的职分上考验他们的才干。然而，这种不合常规的做法往往反而使教会受益，为她带来才赋卓越的人物，例如安布罗斯 (Ambrose)：他尚未受洗，便因民众一致拥戴而被召任米兰主教。纳齐安祖的贵格利 (Gregory Nazianzen) 哀叹，许多司祭和主教刚从账房出来，或带着扶犁耕作晒黑的面容，从船桨旁、军队中，甚至从剧场里走来，以致这一最神圣的职分有沦为最可笑职分的危险。他说：“只有懂得疾病性质的人，才能作医生；只有在调色和绘形上经过许多练习的人，才能作画家；可是教牧人员却极容易找到，当然不是经过充分锻炼的，而是刚刚造出来的，顷刻间播种，顷刻间便完全长成，正如传说中的巨人一样。²我们在一天之内造就圣徒，命令他们有智慧，虽然他们毫无智慧，带到属灵职分中的，充其量不过是一片善意。”³早在尼西亚时期末叶、希腊教会的神学活动尚处于全盛之际，便已有这样的抱怨；那么，在第五世纪中叶以后及第六世纪，这种抱怨就更有理由，尤其是在拉丁教会，那里即使在最杰出的教牧人员中，通晓圣经原文语言的也只是罕见的例外。

这一时期为教牧职分所提供的学术与神学预备机会，有以下几种：

东方有四五所神学校，但远不足以满足其需要。

最古老、最著名的是亚历山大里亚 (Alexandria) 的教理学校。这座埃及大都会拥有丰富的文献宝藏、广泛的商业联系和重要的教会地位，加上历代杰出教师相继执教，使这所学校从第二世纪中叶一直兴盛到第四世纪末；此后，它在奥利金主义 (Origenistic)、聂斯托利派 (Nestorian) 和基督一性派 (Monophysite) 的纷争中衰萎而消亡。它最后的光彩，是双目失明却博学而敬虔的狄迪穆 (Didymus，340—395年)。

从亚历山大里亚学派衍生出巴勒斯坦凯撒利亚 (Caesarea) 那所规模较小的学校，是奥利金 (Origen) 被逐出亚历山大里亚后所创办的。第四世纪初，他的敬慕者、长老潘菲鲁 (Pamphilus)，以及他的朋友优西比乌 (Eusebius)，为这所学校带来了新的、却是短暂的推动。学校拥有一座神学图书馆，优西比乌撰写其博学著作时，便利用了其中的藏书。

更为重要的是安提阿 (Antioch) 的神学校，约于290年由长老多罗提乌 (Dorotheus) 和路迦诺 (Lucian) 创办。在第四世纪中，它发展出严谨的文法—历史释经法，与亚历山大里亚学派承袭奥利金的寓意解经法相抗衡；这种释经法有时与教会教义相结合，如金口约翰 (Chrysostom)；有时则带有理性化的精神，如摩普绥提亚的狄奥多若 (Theodore of Mopsuestia) 和聂斯托利 (Nestorius)。

埃德萨 (Edessa) 的神学院是安提阿学派的分支，由博学的执事叙利亚人以法莲 (Ephraim Syrus，†378年) 创办，为美索不达米亚 (Mesopotamia) 和波斯 (Persia) 培养教牧人员，延续了约一百年。

第五世纪末，聂斯托利派在美索不达米亚的尼西比斯 (Nisibis) 创办了一所神学院，分为若干班级，并依照明确的教学计划施教。

西方没有这类神学教育机构，主要从修道院和主教的私立学校中获得所需人才。卡西奥多鲁 (Cassiodorus) 曾力图促使教皇阿加佩图 (Agapetus) 在罗马创办一所学术机构，却因意大利的战乱而受挫。哲罗姆 (Jerome) 曾在亚历山大里亚的学校里，在狄迪穆指导下学习过一段时间。

正如我们已经指出的，许多司祭和主教出身于修道院；他们在那里享有远离尘世、不受干扰地默想、与志趣相投的诚挚心灵交往，以及丰富属灵经历的益处；但另一方面，他们也容易陷入修士式的狭隘，很少能获得广泛工作所必需的社交修养，以及对世事人情的全面认识，尤其在大城市中，这些更是不可缺少。
西方有一些规模较小的教区神学院，由主教主持。教牧人员依次经过读经员、助理执事和执事这些较低级职分时，主教便在理论与实践两方面亲自训练他们。

奥古斯丁 (Augustine) 在这方面树立了良好的榜样。他在希坡 (Hippo) 设有一所“monasterium clericorum”（教牧修道院），为北非各教区培养了许多优秀的长老和主教。类似的教牧修道院或主教神学院逐渐在欧洲南部各国兴起，直到今日，在罗马天主教会中仍十分普遍。

第四世纪几位最博学、最有才干的教父，在古典文化的夕照之下，于异教学校中接受了普通学术教育，随后或退隐修道，或师从某位杰出的教会教师，或私下研读圣经和早期教会文献，以研习神学。

例如，大巴西流 (Basil the Great) 和纳齐安祖的贵格利，曾与日后背道的皇族尤利安 (Julian the Apostate) 同时就读于雅典高等学校；金口约翰曾在安提阿聆听著名修辞学家利巴尼乌 (Libanius) 的讲授；奥古斯丁先后在迦太基、罗马和米兰求学；哲罗姆则由罗马的文法学家多纳图 (Donatus) 引入古典学问之门。这些教父在教会教义的发展与捍卫、讲坛雄辩，尤其在圣经的翻译与阐释方面，作出了伟大而无可估量的贡献，最能证明古典教育的高度价值。教会也始终承认这一点，而且理由充分。

§ 49. 教牧与平信徒；选举

依照旧约的先例，教牧逐渐成为一个特殊阶层，与平信徒群体的区分也日益严格。按立以按手和祷告庄严举行，后来又加上以油和香膏涂抹，标志着正式进入特殊的祭司职分，正如洗礼使人进入普遍的祭司职分一样；按立也如洗礼一样，带有不可磨灭的印记（character indelebilis）。祭司职分逐渐又增添了独身以及外在标记的区别，例如剃发礼，以及起初只在执行职务时穿着、后来在日常生活中也穿着的祭司服饰。信徒皆祭司的观念也相应退居幕后，虽然它从未完全消失，甚至在这一时期，也不时得到申明。例如，奥古斯丁说，正如众人因受洗而被称为基督徒，所有信徒也都是祭司，因为他们是那一位大祭司的肢体。⁴

圣品等级原则的发展，也逐渐侵蚀了信众选举牧者的权利。⁵ 但在这一时期，这些权利尚未完全被剥夺。低级教牧由主教选任，主教则由本省的其他主教及教牧选举。尼西亚会议 (Nice) 第四条教规，可能是因米利提乌分裂 (Meletian schism) 而制定，规定主教应由本省全体主教，或至少三位主教任命并祝圣。不过，这一规定所针对的并不是信众的权利，而是仅由一位主教作出选任的做法——也就是米利提乌 (Meletius) 的行为。因为，为纪念使徒及初期教会的惯例，选任长老，尤其是选任主教时征求信众同意的做法，至少在外在形式上，仍保留了很长时间。有时举行正式投票，⁶ 尤其是在有三位或更多候选人交由信众选择的时候；有时则三次要求信众以“配得”或“不配”的用语，表示认可或拒绝。⁷ 这一时期，信众的影响在主教选举中表现得最为突出。罗马主教利奥 (Leo) 尽管奉行教皇专制主义，却仍主张一项早已被其继任者抛弃的、彻底民主的原则：“那将要主持众人的，应当由众人选举。”⁸ 往往在本省主教和教牧尚未聚集、正式选举尚未举行之前，民意便已作出决定。米兰的安布罗斯 (Ambrose) 和君士坦丁堡的涅克塔里乌斯 (Nectarius)，甚至在尚未受洗时就被任命为主教；前者由信众选立，后者由皇帝狄奥多西 (Theodosius) 任命；虽然这显然违反了《使徒教规》第八十条和尼西亚会议第二条教规。⁹ 图尔的马丁 (Martin of Tours) 同样因民众的呼声而升任主教，尽管有些主教因他身材矮小、形容憔悴而表示反对。¹⁰ 金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 则因教牧与信众的一致推举，由皇帝阿卡狄乌斯 (Arcadius) 从安提阿召往君士坦丁堡。¹¹ 有时，信众受外在因素左右，又被煽动民众者操纵，要求让不配或无知的人担任最高职分。因此，骚乱和冲突屡有发生，甚至出现流血争斗，如罗马选举达马苏斯 (Damasus) 时的情形。总之，那些曾败坏希腊和罗马共和国中民众政治选举之自由，并且也出现在近代共和国中的一切自私情欲和腐化势力，都侵入了教会的选举。教牧也往往任凭不纯正的动机引导自己。金口约翰哀叹，长老们在选举主教时，并不单看属灵方面是否合宜，反而顾念高贵的出身、巨额的财富，或血缘与友谊。¹² 主教们自己有时也好不到哪里去。涅克塔里乌斯在381年尚未受洗时，就被皇帝狄奥多西突然从裁判官调任为君士坦丁堡主教。¹³ 他想按立自己的医生马尔提里乌斯 (Martyrius) 为执事，后者以自己不称职为由推辞，他便回答说：“我如今虽是祭司，从前的生活岂不是比你更不道德吗？这一点你自己明明知道，因为我许多罪恶的事，你也常参与其中。”然而，马尔提里乌斯仍坚持推辞，因为他受洗以后，仍长久生活在罪中，而涅克塔里乌斯自受洗以来，却已经成了一个新人。¹⁴

第四世纪中叶以后，皇帝在都主教和牧首的选举中，也发挥着决定性的影响，并且常以专横任意的方式滥用这种影响力。

由此可见，每一种任命方式都容易遭到滥用；选举者无论是谁，若缺乏道德上的认真态度和属灵辨识的恩赐，便无法保证将不配的候选人拒之门外。

在我们所论这一时期的末尾，主教选举中的共和因素完全消失了。希腊教会在第八世纪以后，将选举权完全交给主教。¹⁵ 拉丁教会在第十一世纪以后，则将这项权利交给主教座堂的教牧，不容信众参与。但在西方，尤其在西班牙和法国，取代信众而发挥重大影响的，是世俗君主，尽管教会屡次提出抗议。

甚至教皇的选举，在西罗马帝国覆亡以后，也大体落在罗马的世俗当局掌握之中；起初是东哥特诸王 (Ostrogothic kings)，继而是奉拜占庭皇帝之名行事的拉文纳总督 (exarchs of Ravenna)，查理大帝 (Charlemagne) 以后则是德意志皇帝；直到1059年，在希尔德布兰德 (Hildebrand，后来的贵格利七世，Gregory VII.) 的影响下，选举权才完全交给枢机团，而枢机团成员又由教皇本人任命。然而，中世纪的教皇专制主义，如同近代国家中拿破仑式的军事专制一样，也认为在形势有利时，借助民主原则来增进自身利益，不失为明智之举。

§ 50. 教牧的婚姻与独身

修道主义的发展与影响，普遍将禁欲生活置于社会生活之上、将独身置于婚姻之上的风气，加上教牧与平信徒之间日益分明的界限，都强有力地推动了教牧独身制。使徒保罗曾明确区分神的命令与人的劝告，将此事留给各人自行选择；鉴于使徒时期基督徒所处的受压迫境况，他仅向那些因特别的恩典恩赐而自觉蒙召过独身生活的人，劝告这是一种较为稳妥、少有挂虑的境况。如今，虽然环境的压力已经过去，独身却成了一条不可通融的律法，至少在拉丁教会是如此。原本出于自愿、因而值得尊重的例外，如今成了常规，而从前的常规则成了例外。夫妻之间的交合，被视为与祭司职分和祭司职务的尊严及纯洁不相容，尤其与祭坛的事奉不相容。教牧既是模范阶层，就不能低于众教父所推崇的修道主义之道德理想；修道主义在社会之外所表现的那种无条件、毫无保留地献身于教会的精神，教牧也必须在社会之中表现出来。虽然他们因职分所系，不免与世界接触，但至少在贞洁的美德上，必须与修士争胜，藉此增强自己对信众的影响。此外，独身生活使教牧面对国家和世俗社会时具有更大的独立性，因而有利于圣品等级制度的利益。但另一方面，独身也使他们越来越疏离信众的情感与家庭关系，并引诱他们以不正当的方式放纵情欲；这对基督教道德事业和教牧真正影响力所造成的损害，也许远非强制独身所带来的益处所能弥补。

然而，在教牧独身的实践上，希腊教会与拉丁教会在第四世纪便分道扬镳，至今仍然如此。希腊教会止于半途，将独身的要求限于高级教牧，因此这些人通常选自修道院，或选自丧偶的长老；拉丁教会则将这一律法扩及低级教牧，同时将圣品等级原则推进到绝对的教皇制。希腊教会与拉丁教会的差异，并不在于它对婚姻持有更高的评价，而只在于它更紧守早期惯例，贯彻禁欲原则时也不那么一贯。在理论上，它与福音派新教教会的距离，和拉丁教会一样遥远，只在实践上较为接近。它将童贞远置于婚姻之上，只从婚姻的消极功用来看待婚姻。它把祭司的一次婚姻，在一定程度上视为一种必要之恶，至多也不过是有条件的善，是为防止淫乱而向肉体作出的有益让步；¹⁶ 对于担任最高职分者，它则要求完全禁绝一切夫妻交合。因此，它在部分准许和部分谴责祭司婚姻之间摇摆不定。

在东方，教牧始终获准结婚一次，最初连主教也不例外，独身则由各人自愿选择。然而，某些限制很早便已引入，例如禁止在按立以后结婚（执事和副执事除外），也禁止在受洗以后结第二次婚；使徒关于主教应当只作一个妇人的丈夫这一指示，¹⁷ 被理解为禁止先后多妻，同时也准许结婚一次。除了再婚以外，教牧也不得娶妾、寡妇、妓女、女奴和女演员。在这些限制之下，《使徒宪章》(Apostolic Constitutions) 和《使徒教规》(Canons) 明文准许祭司在按立以前缔结婚姻，并在按立以后维持婚姻。¹⁸ 314年的安居拉会议 (Ancyra) 甚至准许执事在按立后结婚，条件是他们事先已提出这一要求；否则，他们就应保持独身，或失去职分。¹⁹ 新凯撒利亚会议 (New Caesarea) 约在同一时期召开，肯定早于325年，其规定并未超出这一限度：“若长老（不是执事）结婚（即在按立以后），就应将他逐出教牧之列；若他行淫或犯奸淫，就应将他完全逐出，并令其悔罪。”²⁰ 在325年的尼西亚大公会议上，确曾有人提议完全禁止祭司结婚，提议者可能是西方主教何西乌 (Hosius)；²¹ 但这一动议遭到强烈反对，最终被否决。一位德高望重的埃及主教帕弗努提乌斯 (Paphnutius)，虽然自幼严守禁欲生活，又是一位在上一次逼迫中失去一眼、膝部致残的认信者，却以感人而有成效的陈述主张，过分严苛将损害教会，助长淫乱，而婚姻及夫妻交合乃是可尊重、无玷污的事。²² 帕夫拉戈尼亚 (Paphlagonia) 的冈格拉会议 (Gangra，据有些人认为，迟至380年才召开)，在谴责塞巴斯特的尤斯塔提乌斯主教 (Eustathius of Sebaste) 及其追随者若干过激禁欲行为时，也谴责了轻视已婚祭司、拒绝参与他们所主持之事奉的做法。²³ 所谓的《使徒教规》(Apostolic Canons)，如同《使徒宪章》(Constitutions) 一样，是在东方逐渐形成的；它甚至禁止教牧以宗教为借口休妻，违者将被革职并逐出教会。²⁴ 这条教规也可能是因尤斯塔提乌斯的过度禁欲主义而制定的。

因此，迟至第四、第五世纪，我们在东方教会仍不难见到不仅祭司、甚至主教也过着婚姻生活。一个例子就是著名的拿先斯的贵格利 (Gregory Nazianzen) 的父亲，他在任主教期间生了两个儿子，即贵格利和年幼的凯撒里乌斯 (Caesarius)，还有一个女儿。其他例子还有尼撒的贵格利 (Gregory of Nyssa)，不过他曾热情洋溢地撰文颂扬独身生活，并为自己失去童贞的冠冕而哀叹；还有叙内修斯 (Synesius，约430年卒)，他当选为五城地区 (Pentapolis) 的托勒密城 (Ptolemais) 主教时，曾明确以继续维持婚姻关系为条件。²⁵ 苏格拉底 (Socrates) 的《教会史》记述至439年；他论及当时的惯例说，在帖撒利亚 (Thessalia)，自特里卡的赫利奥多鲁斯 (Heliodorus of Trica) 以来，便禁止按立后的夫妻交合，违者革职；赫利奥多鲁斯年轻时曾是爱情作品的作者。但在东方，教牧和主教是自愿禁绝与妻子交合，并没有任何律法要求他们如此行；因为，他又说，许多人在任主教期间，仍由合法的妻子生儿育女。²⁶ 然而，也有像伊皮法尼乌斯 (Epiphanius) 这样的希腊神学家，赞同罗马的理论。查士丁尼一世 (Justinian I) 断然反对祭司结婚，宣布这种结合所生的子女为非婚生子女，并禁止选举已婚者担任主教（公元528年）。尽管如此，直到第七世纪末，非洲、利比亚 (Libya) 及其他地方的许多主教仍继续过着婚姻生活，特鲁洛会议 (Trullan council) 第十二条教规对此有明确记载；但此事引起反感，因而遭到禁止。从那时起，主教的婚姻逐渐消失，而低级教牧结婚则仍是常规。

这次特鲁洛会议，即第六次大公会议²⁷（公元692年），完成了东方教会关于教牧婚姻的立法。这里不妨稍稍先述后事：会议禁止主教继续维持按立以前缔结的第一次婚姻，违者革职；但依照《使徒宪章》及《使徒教规》，却准许长老和执事维持这种婚姻关系（这与罗马的惯例相反），只是附加了旧约的限制，即在履行圣职的时期禁绝性交，因为办理圣事的人必须洁净。²⁸ 这样，同一种关系，在一种情形下被斥为不道德，在另一种情形下却被认可并鼓励，视为合乎道德；主教若保留合法的妻子，不在按立后立即把她送往远方的修道院，就要被革职；长老或执事若反其道而行，休弃自己的妻子，反倒要受到革职、甚至逐出教会的警告。

西方教会从一种歪曲的、近乎摩尼教式 (Manichaean) 的禁欲原则出发，认为婚姻状态与教牧的尊严和圣洁不能相容，于是在第四世纪末大力推行，力图将此前留给个人选择的独身生活，变成祭司阶层普遍遵行的律法；如此一来，它便与利未律法直接冲突，而在其他方面，它却极其重视遵行这律法。然而，这项律法虽然屡次颁布，却长期不能贯彻执行。前面提过的305年西班牙埃尔维拉会议 (Elvira) 的那条教规，只适用于当地。第一项声称具有普遍教会权威、至少对西方具有这种权威的教牧婚姻禁令，是385年由罗马教会颁布的，形式是罗马主教西里修斯 (Siricius) 致西班牙塔拉戈纳 (Tarragona) 主教希梅里乌斯 (Himerius) 的教令书信；后者曾将若干纪律问题提交罗马主教裁决。第一道真正意义上的教皇谕令，以最高权威的口吻颁布，所施加的竟是这样一种不合圣经、违背自然、在道德上充满危险的限制；这足以表明教牧独身与圣品等级制度利益之间的关联。持异议者援引摩西律法，西里修斯则加以反驳，理由是基督教祭司必须在圣所中服事，不是仅仅一时，而是终身如此，并且这一职分不像犹太人的祭司职分那样是世袭的；他又规定，再婚或娶寡妇的人不得受按立，而按立后继续维持婚姻生活的人，应受革职处分。²⁹ 他不仅以此刑罚警告主教，也警告长老和执事。大利奥 (Leo the Great) 随后甚至将独身的要求扩及副执事。最杰出的拉丁教父安布罗斯 (Ambrose)、哲罗姆 (Jerome)，甚至奥古斯丁 (Augustine)，都提倡祭司独身，不过最后一位较为温和。奥古斯丁如同在他以前的韦尔切利的优西比乌斯 (Eusebius of Vercella，370年) 一样，将所属教牧组织起来过修道院生活，赋予他们修道的色彩；图尔的马丁 (Martin of Tours) 起初就是修士，后来也把修道生活带进了主教职分。意大利、非洲、西班牙和高卢 (Gaul) 的各次会议都追随罗马的领导。例如，克莱蒙会议 (Clermont，公元535年) 在第十二条教规中宣告：“凡受按立为执事或祭司的，都不可继续夫妻交合。他已成为原先妻子的弟兄。但有些人欲火中烧，抛弃了〔基督〕军旅的腰带，重新恢复夫妻交合，因此规定，这等人必须永远失去职分。”其他会议，如461年的图尔会议 (Tours)，则只禁止按立后生育子女的教牧主持弥撒献祭，并将独身律法的适用范围限于较高级圣职（ad altiorem gradum）。³⁰

然而，这些法规屡次重申，以及不得不减轻违犯者所受刑罚的事实，恰恰表明，要普遍实行这种违背自然的限制，是何等困难。在与罗马隔绝的不列颠和爱尔兰教会，祭司结婚仍然盛行，直到盎格鲁—撒克逊时期 (Anglo-Saxon period)。

然而，随着祭司阶层中合法婚姻的消失，原已盛行的弊习，即未婚教牧与“暗中带进来”的虔诚寡妇和童贞女子同居，³¹ 变得越来越普遍。这种属灵婚姻，起初是禁欲主义的一种大胆尝试，结果却往往落入肉体的情欲，使教会的荣誉蒙羞。

325年的尼西亚会议以第三条教规应对此弊，谕令如下：“大会议断然禁止，任何主教、祭司、执事或其他教牧，都不得容留一名 συνθείσακτος^* 与自己同住，除非她是自己的母亲、姊妹、姑姨，或诸如此类不致引起任何嫌疑的人。”³² 这条教规构成了后来教会关于教牧与妇女同居（de cohabitatione clericorum et mulierum）全部立法的基础。它不得不一再重申并加强；这清楚表明，人们常常不遵守它。公元527年或531年，西班牙托莱多会议 (Toledo) 在第三条教规中规定：“自副执事以上，任何教牧都不得与女子同住，无论她是自由妇女、获释女奴，还是女奴。只有母亲、姊妹或其他近亲可以为他料理家务。如果他没有近亲，他的女管家必须住在另一所房屋中，不得以任何借口进入他的住所。凡违犯此规的人，不仅要被剥夺圣职，关闭其教会之门，还要被排除在所有大公教会信徒的团契之外。”公元506年，有三十五位主教参加的南高卢阿格德会议 (Concilium Agathense)，在第十和第十一条教规中规定：“教牧既不可探访非亲属的女子，也不可接待她们进入自己的家；他只能与母亲、姊妹、女儿或侄甥女同住。女奴和获释女奴也必须远离教牧的住所。”类似的律法，附以轻重不一的刑罚，也先后由393年的希波会议 (Hippo)、453年的昂热会议 (Angers)、461年的图尔会议、524年西班牙的莱里达会议 (Lerida)、535年的克莱蒙会议、563年的布拉加会议 (Braga)、538年的奥尔良会议 (Orleans) 以及567年的图尔会议颁布。³³ 查士丁尼皇帝在第二十三号《新律》(Novelle) 中，禁止主教家中容留任何妇女，但692年的特鲁洛会议则仅仅恢复尼西亚的规定。³⁴ 西方的各次会议也曾试图废除尼西亚教规所容许的例外，禁止教牧在没有同伴在场时与妇女有任何交往。

然而，这种严苛主义，虽将使它成为必要的实际情形暴露在令人不快的光照之下，却并未改善局面，反而导致了道德上如此麻木的状态，以致中世纪的拉丁教会处处都必须与教牧公开纳妾的现象争战；即使格列高利七世 (Gregory VII) 竭尽全力，也只能在一定程度上恢复旧有的独身律法，却不足以防止暗中的违犯，而这种违犯对道德的危害远为严重。³⁵ 后来教会关于“暗中带进来的妇女”（mulieres subintroductae）的立法较为宽松，不再将教牧的交往对象限于近亲，一般只排除姘妇和那些“可能引起嫌疑”的妇女（“de quibus possit haberi suspicio.”）。³⁶

§ 51. 教牧的一般道德品格

奥古斯丁论到圣职时说过一段话，为我们正确看待罗马帝国教牧的光明面与阴暗面提供了钥匙：“在今生，尤其在现今，倘若只是敷衍塞责、讨人喜欢地履行职责，就没有什么比主教、长老或执事的职分更轻松、更愉快、更讨人喜悦；但在上帝眼中，也没有什么比这更可悲、更可哀、更当受咒诅。同样，在今生，尤其在现今，没有什么比主教、长老或执事的职分更艰难、更劳苦、更危险；但若照我们元帅所吩咐的方式争战，在上帝眼中也没有什么比这更蒙福。”³⁷ 因此，一方面，教会处境改善，工作范围扩大，许多轻浮而不配的人便涌入圣职；另一方面，当时最认真、最配担任职分的主教，如安布罗斯、奥古斯丁、拿先斯的贵格利和金口约翰 (Chrysostom)，却在圣职的责任面前战兢，必须藉着教会的呼召，在一定程度上违背他们本人的意愿，勉强他们就职；对此，我们都不必感到惊讶。

拿先斯的贵格利 (Gregory Nazianzen) 的父亲在他事先毫不知情的情况下，突然当着会众的面按立他为祭司（361年），他便逃入旷野。后来，他在一篇优美的辩护文中为这次出走申辩，并在其中描绘了基督教祭司和神学家的理想。他说，祭司首先必须是基督徒的楷模，将自己作为圣洁的祭献给上帝，成为永生上帝的活殿。其次，他必须深谙人的灵魂，像属灵的医师一样，医治各等人所患的种种罪病，恢复、保存并保护他们里面上帝的形像，藉着圣灵将基督带入他们心中，使他们得与上帝的性情和永远的救恩有分。此外，他还必须通晓那神圣的哲学，或称神圣的学问，涉及这世界与诸世界、物质与精神、善天使与恶天使、统管万有的上帝的护理、我们的受造与重生、上帝所立的诸约、基督第一次与第二次显现、他的道成肉身、受难与复活、万物的终结与普世的审判，尤其是有福三位一体的奥秘；他还必须能以通俗的讲论教导并阐明这些信仰教义。贵格利以耶稣为祭司的完美典范，其次又以雄辩的笔触描绘使徒保罗：他单为基督而活，在一切境遇中，在海上陆上的一切试炼中，在犹太人与异教徒中，在饥渴、寒冷、赤身露体之中，在自由或被囚的时候，都为福音拯救世人的神圣能力作见证。然而，贵格利发现，这个理想很少得到实现。总的说来，他对当时的主教，甚至对最著名的教会会议，都作了极不利的描述，指责他们无知、以卑劣手段谋求晋升、野心勃勃、谄媚、骄傲、奢侈、贪恋世俗。他甚至说：“我们如今的危险，是一切职分中最神圣的职分将变得最为可笑；因为教牧中的最高职位，与其说是靠美德，不如说是靠不义取得的；坐上主教座位的，不再是最配得的人，而是最有权势的人。”³⁸ 他的描述，尤其是在大概于他辞去君士坦丁堡职务之后（公元381年）写成的讽刺诗《致自己并论主教》中，虽在许多地方可能有所夸张，但大体上仍取材于现实生活和亲身经验。³⁹

哲罗姆 (Jerome) 也在书信中毫不留情地抨击当时的教牧，尤其是罗马的教牧，指责他们贪财、钻营遗产，并以讽刺笔调描绘了一位衣着华美、香气袭人的教牧纨绔，说他不像教牧，倒更像新郎。⁴⁰ 然而，异教徒阿米阿努斯·马尔切利努斯 (Ammianus Marcellinus) 却为乡村教牧的朴素、知足和美德作了见证，这见证无疑是可靠的。⁴¹

金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 在其著名的《论祭司职分》中，⁴² 以青春的热忱，秉持他那个时代最优良的精神，描绘了这一职分在学识与实践方面所需的资格，以及其崇高的职责、责任和尊荣。此书大概写于他受按立以前（375至381年之间），或任执事期间（381至386年之间）。他要求祭司在各方面都比修士更为优秀，尽管祭司身处世界，必须应付更大的危险与困难。⁴³ 他以保罗所申明的伟大原则作为传道人的最高目标：在一切讲论中，所求的应当只是讨上帝喜悦，而不是讨人喜悦。“他固然不可轻视人们赞许的表示，却也同样不可刻意求取；听众若不予赞许，他也不可为此烦扰。他在劳苦中所能得到的真实而不可动摇的安慰，只在于自知所构思、写成的讲论蒙上帝悦纳。”⁴⁴ 然而，从整体而言，这部书仍不能令人满意。若将它与巴克斯特 (Baxter) 的《归正牧师》(Reformed Pastor) 相比较——后者在一切涉及个人内在的基督教信仰体验与恰当牧养灵魂的事上，都远为深刻、丰富——比较的结果，必定明显有利于十七世纪的英国新教教会。⁴⁵

这里我们必须特别注意一点，它使许多教父的道德意识大为失色，也表明他们尚未完全摆脱异教伦理的桎梏。金口约翰写作此书，起因于他曾施展计谋，逃避被选为主教，却将这职分推给了他的朋友巴西尔 (Basil)。⁴⁶ 为了替这种行为辩护，他在第一卷第五章中用了很大篇幅，竭力证明诡计可以是合法而有益的；也就是说，当它被用作达到良善目的的手段时，便是如此。“欺骗的效能是多方面的，只是不可怀着奸恶的意图使用它。而且，这几乎不应称为欺骗，倒应称为一种变通（οἰκονομία^*）、智慧、技巧或机敏；人藉此可以在危急时找到许多脱身之道，并纠正灵魂的过失。”他援引圣经中的例子，如约拿单和扫罗的女儿，他们欺骗父亲，分别救了自己的朋友和丈夫；他甚至毫无根据地援引保罗，说他向犹太人就作犹太人，向外邦人就作外邦人，并且虽然在《加拉太书》中宣告割礼无用，却仍给提摩太行了割礼。然而，金口约翰关于诚实义务的这一松弛而有害的原则，显然不是从圣经，而是从希腊诡辩家那里学来的。⁴⁷ 此外，他在教会中持这种看法也绝非孤立无援：在他之前有亚历山大的教父们，⁴⁸ 在他之后则有卡西安 (Cassian)、哲罗姆和其他杰出的大公教会神学家。

哲罗姆在 γυμναστικῶς^* scribere（以辩论方式写作）与 δογματικῶς^* scribere（以教义方式写作）之间作了一种可疑的区分；例如，他与俄利根 (Origen) 一样，将保罗在安提阿严厉责备彼得一事，解释为单纯的牧养策略，或以牺牲真理为代价，迁就犹太基督徒的软弱。⁴⁹ 但奥古斯丁 (Augustine) 对真理敏锐的基督徒意识却不能容忍这种解释，他反驳说：这样的诠释损害了圣经的全部权威；使徒绝不能说谎，即使出于良善的目的也不例外；万不得已时，宁可假定存在错误的异读或错误的翻译，或怀疑自己的领会；但在安提阿，保罗所说的是真话，他公开责备彼得言行不一，或说他在实践上（而非理论上）犯错，乃是正当的，因此配得公义勇敢的称赞；另一方面，彼得温柔地接受责备，也配得圣洁谦卑的称赞。⁵⁰

这样，哲罗姆和奥古斯丁便分别代表了两种相反的伦理观点：一种过于主观，只凭动机和目的判断一切道德行为，因而认可诸如诛杀暴君、为逃避羞辱而自杀，或对异端背信等行为（后来的耶稣会决疑论便以极尽繁复的诡辩巧思如此行）；另一种则是客观的，以永恒不变的原则和善恶之间不可调和的对立为出发点，尽可以让审慎服从真理，却决不让真理服从审慎。

与此同时，早在第四世纪，希腊教会中也已有一些地方接受了奥古斯丁的这一观点；大巴西尔 (Basil the Great) 在其《修道短规》中，⁵¹ 甚至拒绝为良善目的而作的变通（οἰκονομία^*），因为基督不区分谎言的种类，而将谎言完全归于撒但。⁵² 因此，在这一方面，金口约翰并未站在他那个时代的最前列，但无疑代表了东方教会的流行观点。

各次会议有关教牧的立法，总体上表明，教会以何等认真而严格的态度，维护其仆人的道德纯洁与尊严。依照旧约的先例，教规所定的任职年龄通常是：执事二十五岁，祭司与主教三十岁。慕道者、初信者、临终受洗者、悔罪者、被鬼附者、演员、舞者、军人、市政议员（宫廷、国家及市政官员），⁵³ 奴隶、宦官、再婚者，以及一切受洗后仍过着败坏名声生活的人，均不得受按立。教牧不得出入酒馆和剧场，不得跳舞、赌博、放高利贷，也不得从事世俗营生。然而另一方面，针对淫乱、醉酒、斗殴、插科打诨之类最卑下、最常见的罪，警告仍屡次重申，某些不当行为甚至受到体罚的威吓；这些都使人不得不对圣职人员的道德状况作出不利的判断。⁵⁴ 即使在教会会议上，粗暴激情的爆发也屡屡亵渎教牧的尊严，以至于449年的以弗所会议竟以“强盗会议”之名恶名昭彰。

然而，审视这幅图景时，我们不可忘记，在罗马帝国日趋衰落的这一时期，教牧的任务极其艰难；当帝国全体居民名义上归信之际，他们的人数与所受的教育，都赶不上工作领域突然而异常的扩张。归根到底，教牧职分仍是世上智识与道德力量的伟大府库。它遏止了腐败的洪流，斥责时代的恶习，无畏地反抗暴虐的残酷，创办慈善与公益机构，延续罗马帝国的存在，抢救古代的文学瑰宝，将福音传给蛮族，并承担起教育和开化这些粗野而强健族群的任务。在众多平庸之辈中，第四、第五世纪伟大的教会教师巍然卓立，集当时一切学识、才干与敬虔于一身，并藉着他们不朽的著作，有力地塑造了世界后来的各个时代。

§ 52. 下级教牧

君士坦丁 (Constantine) 即位以后，主教的权威与影响日益增长，下级教牧对他们的依赖也越来越深。如今，主教职与长老职已被严格区分开来。然而，人们仍记得二者起初原为同一职分。第四世纪末，哲罗姆提醒主教们：他们之所以被抬高到长老之上，与其说是出于上帝的设立，不如说是出于教会的惯例；因为在教会发生纷争以前，二者并无区别，只是长老一词指年龄，而主教一词指职分的尊严；但当人们受撒但煽动，建立党派和宗派，不再单单跟从基督，反而自称属保罗、属亚波罗或属矶法时，众人便一致同意，立一位长老居其余长老之首，使他藉着对众教会的全面监督，消灭分裂的种子。⁵⁵ 希腊教会伟大的释经家们与哲罗姆意见一致，认为新约中的主教与长老起初原是同一职分。⁵⁶

在主教驻地的教会或主教座堂中，长老们仍组成主教的议事会。在没有主教主持的城镇和乡村会众中，他们则较为独立。他们的职分是讲道、施行圣礼和牧养灵魂。在北非，很长一段时期内，他们不得在主教面前讲道；直到奥古斯丁的主教为他解除了这一限制。第四、第五世纪非洲教会中的 seniores plebis（会众长老），并非教牧，而是民政界人士及会众中其他显要成员。⁵⁷

第四世纪出现了总长老 (archpresbyter) 的职分，其职责是主持崇拜，有时也在主教缺席或不能履职时代理其职务。

执事也称为利未人 (Levites)，仍保有上一时期的职能。在西方，公共崇拜中选自福音书的经课，只准由他们宣读，而不准由读经员宣读；因为福音书载有主的话，所以被置于书信，即使徒的话之上。他们也获准施洗和讲道。仿照耶路撒冷教会的榜样，即使在大型会众中，执事人数也限于七人；不过，这一限制并不严格，因为在查士丁尼一世 (Justinian I.) 时，君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople) 的主教座堂除有六十名长老外，还有一百名执事、四十名女执事、九十名副执事、一百一十名读经员、二十五名领唱员，以及一百名守门人——总计五百二十五名职员。执事虽隶属于长老，却往往与主教关系密切，发挥的影响也更大。因此，他们常常把受按立为长老看作降职。第四世纪初以后，执事团由一位总执事主持；他是主教最亲信的顾问、代理人和使节，也不时成为主教的继任者。例如，亚他那修 (Athanasius) 初次出现于尼西亚会议 (Council of Nice) 时，便是亚历山大里亚 (Alexandria) 的总执事，具有重要影响；该地主教去世后，他便继任亚历山大里亚的牧首之位。

女执事的职分起源于使徒时期；⁵⁸ 在古代男女严格分隔的情形下，尤其在希腊，这一职分是执事制度臻于完备所必需的，并在东方教会延续至第十二世纪。担任此职的往往是教牧的遗孀，或主教的妻子；主教们在就任圣职以前，必须终止婚姻生活。女执事的职责，是照顾贫穷、患病和被囚的妇女，协助成年妇女受洗，并且在东方、或许也在西方的乡村教会中，以个别教导预备妇女受洗。⁵⁹ 从前，出于对《提摩太前书》五章9节使徒训令的尊重，女执事必须年满六十岁。⁶⁰ 然而，451年的迦克墩大公会议 (Council of Chalcedon) 将教规规定的年龄降至四十岁，并在第十五条教规中规定：“妇女未满四十岁，不得被祝圣为女执事；即使年满四十，也须经过审慎的考察。然而，她若在受祝圣并服事一段时期以后结婚，藐视上帝的恩典，就当将她与她的丈夫一同咒诅。”依照《使徒宪章》(Apostolic Constitutions)，祝圣女执事时通常所用的按立祷文如下：“永恒的上帝，我们主耶稣基督的父，创造男女的主，你曾以圣灵充满米利暗、底波拉、哈拿和户勒大，也不以容许你的独生子由女子所生为卑；你又曾在会幕和圣殿中，设立妇女看守你的圣门：如今求你垂顾你这被选任执事职分的使女，将圣灵赐给她，洁净她肉体与灵魂一切的污秽，使她配得承担所托付她的工作，归荣耀于你，并使你的受膏者得着赞美；愿荣耀与敬拜归于他，也归于你和圣灵，直到永远。阿们。”⁶¹

这一时期流传至今、最为高尚的使徒式女执事典范，是奥林匹亚斯 (Olympias)。她是金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 的朋友，他曾写给她十七封优美的书信。⁶² 她出身于一个体面的异教家庭，却受了基督教教育；她容貌美丽，家资丰厚；十七岁时（公元384年）嫁给君士坦丁堡长官内布里迪乌斯 (Nebridius)，但二十个月后便成了寡妇。尽管皇帝狄奥多西 (Theodosius) 力图使她嫁给自己的一位亲属，她仍守寡不嫁。她成了一名女执事，过着严格的禁欲生活，将财产奉献给穷人，并以行善为最大的乐事。金口约翰来到君士坦丁堡后，成为她的牧者，以明智的劝告引导她慷慨施予。在他遭遇不幸时，她始终忠于他；她比他多活了几年，于420年去世，城中及周围乡间一切贫穷困苦的人都为她哀悼。

相反，在西方，第五、第六世纪高卢 (Gaul) 各教会会议所通过的禁止按立的规定，首先剥夺了女执事职分的教牧性质；⁶³ 最终，这一职分被完全废除。533年的第二次奥尔良会议 (Synod of Orleans) 在第十八条教规中规定：“鉴于女性的软弱，今后任何妇女均不得领受 benedictio diaconalis〔执事祝福礼，已用以取代 ordinatio，即按立礼〕。”这一理由暴露了当时缺少优秀女执事的情形，也表明，废除这一使徒所设立的制度，与推行祭司独身制有关；因为任何形式的女性交往，似乎都会危及这种独身制。国家接管对贫病者的照料，以及成人受洗和浸礼习惯的终止，也使妇女的协助不再那么必要。诚然，近代罗马天主教会有专门的妇女团体或修会，如仁慈修女会 (Sisters of Mercy)，从事照顾贫病者、教育儿童以及其他实际的慈善事业；新教内部也兴起了类似的慈善团体，称为女执事院 (Deaconess Institutes) 或姊妹之家 (Sisters’ Houses)，不过它们具有更为自由的福音精神，不受誓愿约束。⁶⁴ 然而，这些团体虽然宗旨十分相近，却不可与使徒时期及古代教会的女执事职分等同。后者是每个基督徒会众中正规的常设职分，与执事职分相对应；自第十二世纪以来，这一职分从未恢复，尽管地方上的慈善工作从未停止。

在这一时期，除通常的教牧职分以外，又增设了若干特殊的教会职分；大城市和教区的宗教事务日益繁多，使这些职分成为必要：

管事。⁶⁵ 这些职员在主教监督下管理教会财产，一部分选自教牧，一部分选自精通法律的平信徒。在君士坦丁堡，“大管事”虽不是教牧，却是地位相当显赫的人物。迦克墩会议命令每个主教辖区都要任命这类职员，并从教牧中选任，“免得教会的财务管理无人负责，以致教产遭到浪费，教牧的尊严也蒙受恶名”。⁶⁶ 为办理教会的诉讼，有时另行任命一名专门的辩护人，称为 ἔκδικος^*，或 defensor（辩护人）。
秘书，⁶⁷ 负责起草教会公共事务的议事记录 (gesta ecclesiastica)。他们通常是教牧，或是已为服事教会作好准备的人。
护病员，或称帕拉波拉尼 (Parabolani)，⁶⁸ 尤其附设于较大的教会医院。他们的职分与执事相近，但较多关乎病人身体上的照护，而不是属灵的关怀。到第五世纪，亚历山大里亚的这类职员已组成一个拥有六百名成员的大团体，并且不时被滥用为主教专权统治的常备军。⁶⁹ 因此，亚历山大里亚市民向皇帝狄奥多西二世 (Theodosius II.) 控诉他们以后，其人数便被削减至五百人。西方从未引入这种职分。
埋葬死者的人47⁷⁰，同样属于教会的这些 ordines minores（低级圣职）。在狄奥多西二世时，君士坦丁堡有一千多名这类人员。

§ 53. 主教

如今，主教以至高的权力居于教牧及其教区之首。他们已被普遍视为圣灵恩赐的承载者和传递者，是教会在一切信仰与纪律事务上的教师和立法者。他们与长老之间职分上的区别，被贯彻到一切事务之中；然而，值得注意的是，哲罗姆 (Jerome)、金口约翰和狄奥多雷 (Theodoret)，恰恰是古代教会最杰出的释经家，都明确承认新约中这两种职分起初原为一体，因此认为，严格意义上的主教职并非出于上帝的设立，而仅仅出于教会的惯例。⁷¹

会众参与选举的传统，见证了主教职分起源于民众；这一传统虽仍继续存在，却逐渐沦为纯粹的形式，最后完全消失。主教们自行补足本阶层的空缺，并选举和按立教牧。按立是传授圣职恩赐的媒介；除此以外，第五世纪以后，西方的主教又从长老手中取得为受洗者施行坚振礼，以及祝圣洗礼所用膏油或圣油的专属权利。⁷² 相反，在东方，长老也施行坚振礼（傅油礼），并按古老的惯例，在洗礼之后立即举行。

自君士坦丁 (Constantine) 时代起，主教在属灵方面的这种尊崇地位，又增添了世俗方面的重要性。藉着教会与国家的联合，主教同时成为举足轻重的国家官员，并享有教会因这种联合而获得的各种特权。⁷³ 从此，他们拥有独立而具有法律效力的司法权；他们监督教会的产业，这些产业有时十分庞大，甚至还部分掌管城市的财产；他们监督人民、甚至皇帝的道德，并对公共立法发挥影响。他们不受民事司法管辖，既不能被传到法庭作证，也不能被迫宣誓。他们的教区日益扩大，权力和收入不断增加。Dominus beatissimus（至福之主，μακαριώτατος^*）、sanctissimus（至圣者，ἁγιώτατος^*），或 reverendissimus（至可敬者）、Beatitudo 或 Sanctitas tua（至福或至圣的阁下），以及诸如此类的显赫称号，都得到普遍使用。从各阶层的人直到皇帝本人，都开始向他们跪拜、吻手，或以类似方式表示敬意。金口约翰在第四世纪末说：“帝国的首长 (hyparchs) 和各省的长官 (toparchs)，都享受不到教会领袖所受的这种尊荣。无论在宫廷中、贵妇的交际场合，还是显贵的府邸里，他们都居首位。没有人能列在他们之先。”

与这种地位相应的，是自第四世纪起普遍使用的主教标志：戒指，象征主教与教会的婚约；牧杖（也称曲杖，因为其顶端通常弯曲）；以及披带 (pallium)，48⁷⁴即仿照犹太大祭司的以弗得，也可能仿照罗马皇帝身为最高祭司（pontifices maximi）时所穿祭司披风而制作的肩衣。披带是一幅垂在肩上的无缝织物，起初用白色亚麻布制成，后来在西方改用白色羔羊毛，上面以丝线绣出四个红色或黑色的十字架。按照罗马教会现行的惯例，羊毛取自圣阿格尼斯 (St. Agnes) 的羔羊；教皇每年都要隆重地祝福并献上这些羔羊，以纪念这位贞洁的童女。由此产生了披带后来的象征意义，表示主教效法基督这位好牧人，将失而复得的羊扛在肩上。亚历山大的传统将这件礼服追溯到传福音者马可；但拿先斯的贵格利 (Gregory Nazianzen) 明确说，最初是君士坦丁大帝将它赐给耶路撒冷主教马卡里乌斯 (Macarius) 的。⁷⁵在东方，所有主教都佩戴披带；在西方，则只有大主教佩戴，而且从贵格利一世 (Gregory I.) 时代起，由教皇在他们就职时授予。起初，这种授予是免费的，后来却须按大主教区的收入缴纳一笔可观的费用。

主教既将教牧职分的一切权利和特权集于一身，人们也就期望他在履行这一职分的义务上作出表率，效法那位群羊的大监督、大牧人。人们期望他高度体现禁欲的美德，尤其是童贞；按照大公教会的伦理观，童贞属于道德完全这一观念的内涵。许多主教，如亚他那修 (Athanasius)、巴西尔 (Basil)、安布罗斯 (Ambrose)、奥古斯丁 (Augustine)、金口约翰 (Chrysostom)、图尔的马丁 (Martin of Tours)，都过着严格节制、清贫的生活，将自己的收入用于宗教和慈善事业。

然而，主教职的这种权力和属世利益，也成为贪婪与野心的诱饵，成为滋生专横和世俗精神的试探。因为即使在主教的披风之下，跳动着的仍是人心，仍有种种软弱和情欲，惟有靠神恩典持续不断的感化才能克服。有些都主教和牧首，尤其是在亚历山大、君士坦丁堡和罗马，几乎刚刚走出逼迫的时代，就已忘记上帝之子的仆人形象，以及他的使徒和殉道者的贫穷，在世俗的排场和奢华上，与最高级的文官、甚至皇帝本人竞相争胜。为了取得神圣的职分，人们屡屡使用最可耻的阴谋。阿米阿努斯 (Ammianus) 说，罗马主教之位是如此辉煌的奖赏，既有贵妇们的厚礼，又有超过帝王的奢华来招引，无怪乎人们以最大的热情和毅力争夺它。⁷⁶罗马城长官普雷特克斯塔图斯 (Praetextatus) 曾戏言对主教达马苏斯 (Damasus) 说，若能得到这样的报偿，他也会立刻成为基督徒；而达马苏斯正是通过一次流血的党派争斗取得此职的。⁷⁷这样的榜样，不可能不对大城市中的下级教牧产生恶劣影响。哲罗姆以讽刺的笔调描绘罗马的司祭，说他们将全部心思浪费在衣饰和香料上，用卷发钳卷曲头发，戴着闪亮的戒指，对妇女殷勤得过了头，看起来不像教牧，倒更像新郎。⁷⁸希腊教会的情形也好不了多少。拿先斯的贵格利本人就是主教，并且长期担任君士坦丁堡牧首；他常常哀叹教阶中的野心、职分上的嫉妒和奢侈，并表示希望主教只因更高的德行而有别于众人。

§ 54. 教阶的组织：乡村主教、城市主教与都主教

主教职及其权利虽为一体，却容许乡村主教、普通城市主教、都主教和牧首等不同等级的存在。这种区别早已在教会中基于自由的宗教情感而形成；因此，耶路撒冷、安提阿、以弗所、哥林多和罗马等使徒教座的任职者，便居于教阶之首。但如今，这种等级划分带上了政治性质，并因依附于罗马帝国的行政区划而有所调整，同时得到巩固。

君士坦丁大帝将整个帝国划分为四个大行政区（东方、伊利里亚、意大利和高卢）；大行政区下分副总督区、管区或行省总督区，共十四或十五个；⁷⁹每个管区又分为若干行省。⁸⁰大行政区由禁卫军长官（Praefecti Praetorio）治理，管区由副总督（Vicarii）治理，行省则由具有不同头衔的长官（Rectores）治理，通常称为 Praesides（省长）。

教会与国家联合之后，教会组织和政治组织在看来适宜的范围内彼此适应，是很自然的事，当然也就有种种例外。在东方，这种相适应的原则比在西方贯彻得更明显、更严格。第四世纪的尼西亚会议 (council of Nice) 以此为依据，第二次和第四次大公会议又予以确认。政治影响最显著地表现在君士坦丁堡被提升为牧首教座一事上。然而，罗马主教利奥 (Leo) 却反对以政治上的考量来解释他自己的权力，而将其完全建立在彼得的首位权之上；尽管罗马教座的重要性显然有赖于这两种影响的有利配合。牧首的权力范围及于一个或多个行政管区，都主教则各自主持一个行省。管区（diocese，διοίκησις^*）一词从政治术语转入教会术语，起初指包括几个行省的牧首辖区（希腊文会议记录中不断出现的就是这种用法），但后来在西方却用来指每一个主教的辖区。都主教的辖区，在东方称为 eparchy（ἐπαρχία^*），在西方称为 provincia（教省）。普通主教区在东方称为 parish（παροικία^*），而在拉丁教会，相应的词（parochia）通常仅用于指一个牧者所负责的堂区。

主教教阶中等级最低的是乡村主教，⁸¹他们主持那些没有由邻近城市派遣长老供职的乡村会众。北非小教区众多，这些乡村主教人数很多，与其他主教地位平等。但在东方，他们越来越从属于邻近的城市主教；最后，部分由于他们自己不称职，主要则是为了正在兴起的教阶制度，他们被完全废除了。他们往往全然不适合担任其职；至少，凯撒利亚的巴西尔——他的都主教辖区内有五十位乡村主教——曾责备他们经常将完全不配的人接纳到教牧行列中。再者，他们也妨碍了城市主教的抱负；因为主教越多，每个人的教区和权力就越小，尽管全体主教对教会的共同影响可能反而更好。343年的撒狄迦会议 (council of Sardica)，无疑兼顾了这两方面的考虑；会议根据主席何西乌斯 (Hosius) 的提议，颁布规定：“在一位司祭便已足够的村庄或小镇，不许设置主教，免得主教的尊严和权威受损；⁸²但教省（行省）的主教们，只应在那些已经设有主教的地方，或人口众多、被认为配设主教区的城镇，委任主教。”此后，这些乡村主教（chorepiscopi）的职务，或由巡察员（περιοδευταῖ^*）接替，他们奉主教之名，不时巡视乡村会众，履行必要的职务；或由常驻的长老（parochi）接替，直接受城市主教监督。

在城市主教中，各行省首府的主教地位显赫。他们在东方称为都主教，在西方通常称为大主教。⁸³他们监督本省的其他主教，在两三位助手协同下为他们按立；召集并主持省级会议，按照尼西亚会议第五条教规和其他会议的指示，这类会议每年应举行两次。他们通过彼此传递会议决议，促进各教会之间的联合，并巩固教阶的组织体系。

这种都主教体制，是由教会的需要逐渐发展而来的，于第四世纪在东方得到法定确立，并由此传入希腊—俄罗斯教会。早在尼西亚会议时，其第四条教规就已规定，每位新任主教都须在都主教的指导和批准下，由教省（行政上的行省）的全体主教，或至少三位主教按立。⁸⁴341年安提阿会议的第九条教规说得更为明确：“各教省（行省）的主教应当知道，都城（行政首府）的主教也负有照管整个教省的责任，因为所有办事的人都从四面八方聚集到都城。因此，大家认为他也应在尊荣上居首位，⁸⁵而其他主教，按照我们先辈所立、至今仍有约束力的古老教规，除涉及他们各自教区（即现代术语中的主教区）及其所属区域的监督和管辖事务外，不应越过他自行行事；事实上，他们确实为长老和执事施行按立，并裁决一切司法事务。除此以外，他们不应未经都城主教同意而有所行动；而都城主教也不应未经其他主教同意而有所行动。”这次会议的第十九条教规禁止在都主教未出席、且本省大多数主教未出席或未表示赞同的情况下，按立主教。

在非洲，早在居普良 (Cyprian) 时代、教会与国家尚未联合之前，就已有类似的制度。每个行省都有一位首席主教（Primas），通常选任职最久的主教担任此职。然而，迦太基 (Carthage) 主教不仅是阿非利加元老院行省（Africa proconsularis）的首席主教，而且与迦太基的行省总督地位相应，同时也是努米底亚 (Numidia) 和毛里塔尼亚 (Mauretania) 的教会领袖，并有权召集全非洲的教会会议。⁸⁶

§ 55. 牧首

米歇尔·勒基安 (Mich. Le Quien，法国多明我会士，†1788)：《基督教东方，按四大牧首区编排，列述全东方的教会、牧首及其他主教》(Oriens Christianus, in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, quo exhibentur ecclesiae, patriarchae caeterique preasules totius Orientis)。遗著，巴黎 (Par.)，1740年，3卷，对开本（详述东方各教区自创始至1732年的历史）。P. 约斯·考特利乌斯 (P. Jos. Cautelius，耶稣会士)：《都城的世俗史与教会史，阐明罗马教座的尊荣及皇帝与国王对它的功绩》(Metropolitanarum urbium historia civilis et ecclesiastic in qua Romanae Sedis dignitas et imperatorum et regum in eam merits explicantur)，巴黎，1685年（对于西方教会统计及罗马牧首区扩展的研究颇为重要）。宾厄姆 (Bingham，圣公会)：《古制》(Antiquities)，第ii卷，第17章。约翰·埃尔·特奥德·维尔奇 (Joh. El. Theod. Wiltsch，福音派)：《教会地理与统计手册》(Handbuch der Kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik)，柏林 (Berl.)，1846年，第i卷，第56页及后。弗里德尔·马森 (Friedr. Maassen，罗马天主教)：《罗马主教的首席权与古代牧首教会》(Der Primat des Bischofs von Rom. u. die alten Patriarchalkirchen)，波恩 (Bonn)，1853年。托马斯·格林伍德 (Thomas Greenwood)：《彼得的座位：拉丁牧首区政治史》(Cathedra Petri, a Political History of the Latin Patriarchate)，伦敦 (Lond.)，1859年及后（第i卷，第158–489页）。参见我在《美国神学评论》(Am. Theol. Rev.)，纽约，1864年，第9页及后对这部著作所作的评论。

在都主教之上，还有五位牧首 (Patriarchs)，⁸⁷他们可说是寡头统治的顶层，是希腊—罗马帝国大公教会教阶大厦上的五座高塔。

按照第四次大公会议时已经确定的正式词义，这些牧首就是帝国四大都城——罗马 (Rome)、亚历山大 (Alexandria)、安提阿 (Antioch) 和君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople)——的主教；此外，耶路撒冷 (Jerusalem) 主教作为最古老的基督徒会众的领袖，也因荣誉上的特殊地位而被列入，尽管圣城的毁灭已经中断了这一职分原有的延续。他们监督一个或数个管区 (dioceses)，至少监督两个或更多的行省，即教省 (eparchies)。⁸⁸他们为都主教按立，对教会争端作最后裁决，主持大公会议，公布会议决议和皇帝颁布的教会法律，并集教阶体系的最高立法权与行政权于一身。他们与各省都主教的关系，犹如大公会议与省级会议的关系。不过，他们并未组成一个共同议事的团体，而是各自行事。然而，在重大事务上，他们彼此商议，也有权在君士坦丁堡的宫廷派驻使节 (apocrisiarii)。

他们在特权上是平等的，但所辖管区的范围与影响力各不相同，彼此之间也有等级次序。在君士坦丁堡建立以前，直到尼西亚会议 (Nicene council) 时，无论在教会还是政治的重要性上，罗马始终居首，亚历山大居次，安提阿居第三。第四世纪末以后，这一次序发生了变化：君士坦丁堡作为第二都城，被列在罗马与亚历山大之间，耶路撒冷则被增列为第五个、也是最小的牧首区。

耶路撒冷牧首只管辖巴勒斯坦 (Palestine) 的三个贫瘠行省；⁸⁹安提阿牧首管辖东方行政管区的大部分地区，其中包括叙利亚 (Syria)、腓尼基 (Phenicia)、基利家 (Cilicia)、阿拉伯 (Arabia)、美索不达米亚 (Mesopotamia) 等十五个行省；⁹⁰亚历山大牧首管辖整个埃及管区，包括第一与第二埃及省 (Aegyptus prima and secunda)、下与上底比斯省 (Thebaid)、下与上利比亚省 (Libya) 等九个富庶行省；⁹¹君士坦丁堡牧首管辖本都 (Pontus)、小亚细亚 (Asia Minor) 和色雷斯 (Thrace) 三个管区，共二十八个行省，同时也管辖蛮族中的各主教区；⁹²罗马牧首则逐渐将其影响力扩展到整个西方，即意大利与高卢两大行政区 (prefectures)，以及其中所有的管区和行省。⁹³

牧首制度原先主要只关乎帝国教会，但也间接影响了那些从帝国接受基督教的蛮族。然而，即使在帝国境内，也有若干都主教，尤其是东方教会的塞浦路斯 (Cyprus) 主教，以及西方的米兰 (Milan)、阿奎莱亚 (Aquileia) 和拉文纳 (Ravenna) 主教，在这一时期仍对那些在地理上管辖其所在地的牧首保持自治。第五世纪，安提阿的牧首们企图将保罗最初传讲福音之地塞浦路斯岛置于自己的管辖之下；但431年的以弗所大公会议确认了塞浦路斯教会自行按立主教的古老权利。⁹⁴北非的主教们虽然十分尊重罗马教座，却也长期保持居普良 (Cyprian) 的独立精神；他们在393年希波雷吉乌斯 (Hippo Regius) 的一次会议上，反对牧首们采用诸如祭司之首 (princeps sacerdotum)、最高祭司 (summus sacerdos)等称号，只愿认可首席教座主教 (primae sedis episcopus)这一称号。⁹⁵

当聂斯托利派 (Nestorians) 和基督一性派 (Monophysites) 因基督论争议而脱离正统教会时，他们建立了独立的分裂派牧首区，一直延续至今。这表明，牧首体制最切合东方类型的基督教。正统的希腊教会，以及东方各分裂教派，直到今日基本上仍忠于牧首制度；拉丁教会却早在大利奥 (Leo the Great) 时就力求确立君主式中央集权的原则，并在中世纪发展出绝对的教皇权。

§ 56. 关于牧首权力与管辖权的会议立法

现在，我们按年代次序考察有关这一牧首寡头体制的教会立法：

这一制度的萌芽在尼西亚会议以前的时期就已存在。当时，安提阿、亚历山大和罗马的主教，一方面凭借其教会的古老历史和使徒渊源，另一方面由于这三座城市作为罗马帝国三大都城的显赫政治地位，不断确立其卓越地位。罗马和安提阿教会的使徒渊源，在《新约》中显而易见；亚历山大的基督教，至少通过传福音的马可间接追溯到彼得，而且在政治上比安提阿更为重要；罗马则从一开始就在教会和国家两方面都居于二者之上。这些最古老、最有权势的都主教的卓越地位，通过第四和第五世纪的大公会议，获得了正式的法律效力和稳固的确立。

325年的第一次尼西亚大公会议，尚不知道五位牧首的制度，只承认上述三位都主教，并确认了他们的传统权利。⁹⁶在那条备受讨论的第六条教规中——这条教规很可能是因埃及的米利提乌派分裂 (Meletian schism)，以及与此相关的对亚历山大主教权利的攻击而制定的——会议作出如下宣告：

“埃及、利比亚和五城区 (Pentapolis) 通行的古老惯例，应当继续有效，即亚历山大主教应管辖所有这些〔行省〕，因为罗马主教也有同样的惯例〔即不是在埃及，而是在他自己的管区内〕。同样，安提阿和其他教省的教会，也应保有各自的特权。如今，十分明确的是，若有人未经都主教同意而被立为主教，本次大公会议不承认他为主教。”⁹⁷

尼西亚会议的教父们通过这条教规，并非要创立任何新事物，而只是依据教会传统，确认一种既有的关系；由于亚历山大当时发生的纷扰，条文特别着眼于该地。提到罗马只是为了举例说明；安提阿和其他所有教省或行省公认的权利，也都得到了保障。⁹⁸亚历山大、罗马和安提阿的主教职位，在实质上被置于平等地位；不过，条文的措辞已经使作为罗马帝国第三都城的安提阿，成为通向普通都主教等级的过渡。教规中的“其他教省”，可以理解为所有行省，因而也就是所有都主教辖区；但更可能如第一次君士坦丁堡会议第二条教规一样，仅指卡帕多西亚 (Cappadocia) 的凯撒利亚 (Caesarea)、小亚细亚的以弗所 (Ephesus)，以及色雷斯的赫拉克利亚 (Heraclea) 这三个教省区。在君士坦丁 (Constantine) 划分东方之后，它们拥有类似的特权，但后来却被君士坦丁堡遮蔽并吞并。然而，无论如何，这一附加条文证明，当时牧首的权利与尊荣，尚未与其他都主教的权利与尊荣严格区分。罗马、亚历山大和安提阿的主教，在这里相对于其他主教，仅仅是同等者中的首位 (primi inter pares)，或第一等级的都主教；他们兼有最高的政治地位与最高的教会地位。其次，居第二等级的，是帝国亚细亚管区的以弗所主教、本都管区的新凯撒利亚 (Neo-Caesarea) 主教，以及色雷斯管区的赫拉克利亚主教；而直到五年后才建立的君士坦丁堡，在尼西亚会议上完全未被提及，耶路撒冷也仅以埃利亚 (Aelia) 之名出现。

在第一次与第二次大公会议之间，出现了君士坦丁堡这一新的牧首区。这座城市又称新罗马 (New Rome)，由君士坦丁于330年建立，并被提升为皇帝驻跸之都。该城主教不仅是古拜占庭 (Byzantium) 主教的继承人——后者此前一直隶属赫拉克利亚都主教的管辖——而且由于宫廷以及经常大批聚集于此的主教们的支持，在几十年内便跻身东方首要都主教之列，并在第五世纪成为旧罗马主教最强大的对手。

这个新牧首区在381年于君士坦丁堡召开的第一次大公会议上，首次获得正式承认，并获准享有“仅次于罗马主教的荣誉优先权”，即在所有主教中居第二位；其依据纯粹是政治上的考虑，即新罗马乃皇帝驻跸之地。⁹⁹同时，帝都及色雷斯管区（其教会首府此前一直是赫拉克利亚）被划归其管辖。¹⁰⁰

许多希腊人将此视为正式宣告君士坦丁堡主教与罗马主教平等，认为“次于”或“在……之后”(μετά^*) 仅指时间，而非等级。但更自然的理解是，这里承认了罗马教座凭其他理由所能主张的荣誉首席权。正如后来利奥的抗议所表明的，教皇们对此并不满意，因为他们不愿与君士坦丁堡这个羽翼未丰的新教座被归于同一类别，同时又自认为拥有对全教会的最高管辖权。另一方面，亚历山大牧首也不欢迎这一决议，因为这个教座此前一直居第二位，如今却被要求退居第三。因此，亚历山大的提摩太 (Timotheus) 没有签署这条教规，埃及也将它视为无效。不过，后来皇帝们终于说服亚历山大的牧首们在这一点上让步。

381年会议之后，君士坦丁堡主教屡次侵越以弗所和卡帕多西亚的凯撒利亚两地都主教的权利，甚至侵越其他牧首的权利。他扩张权柄时，有一项有利条件：尽管撒狄迦会议 (council of Sardica) 明令禁止，东方各区的主教仍不断驻留君士坦丁堡，以便向皇帝陈述各种利害关系。皇帝通常将这些远方主教的事务交给君士坦丁堡主教及其议会处理；这个议会称为 σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα^*，即由驻留 (ἐνδημούντων^*) 君士坦丁堡的主教组成、由该城主教主持的会议。如此，他甚至侵入其他牧首辖界的行为，即使未获教会立法认可，也因有关各方的默许而取得了习惯上的权利。奈克塔里乌斯 (Nectarius) 是那次会议之后才当选的；在394年的一次会议上，他要求居于出席的两位牧首——亚历山大的提阿非罗 (Theophilus) 和安提阿的弗拉维安 (Flavian)——之上，担任主席；几乎独自裁定了所议之事，因而成为第一个对整个东方行使首席权的人。在他的继任者金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 任内，该教座的辖境进一步扩展；据狄奥多勒 (Theodoret) 记载，¹⁰¹其范围包括首都、拥有六个行省的整个色雷斯、拥有十一个行省的整个亚细亚（亚细亚元老院行省，Asia proconsularis），以及同样包括十一个行省的本都，共计二十八个行省。400年，金口约翰“应邀前往以弗所”，在那里按立以弗所的赫拉克利德 (Heraclides)，同时设立六名主教，接替因买卖圣职而被罢黜的人。¹⁰²他的第二任继任者阿提库斯 (Atticus)，约于421年促使小狄奥多西 (Theodosius) 颁布法律，规定邻近各管区若未经君士坦丁堡主教同意，不得按立主教。¹⁰³这种权力仍须获得大公会议的郑重认可，才能有稳固的法律基础。它在迦克墩 (Chalcedon) 获得了这种认可。

451年在迦克墩召开的第四次大公会议，以著名的第二十八条教规，确认并扩展了君士坦丁堡主教的权力，其规定如下：

“我们处处遵循圣教父们的法令，又已知悉刚才宣读的一百五十位主教所订的教规［即381年第二次大公会议的第三条教规］，因此，对于君士坦丁堡，即新罗马至圣教会的特权，我们也作出了同样的决定和规定。教父们因古罗马是帝都 (διὰ τὸ βασιλεύειν^*)，而赋予其宝座［主教座］特权 (τὰ πρεσβεῖα^*)，本是合理的；一百五十位主教出于同样的考虑，也承认新罗马至圣宝座享有同等的特权 (τὰ ἴσα πρεσβεῖα^*)；他们有充分理由认定，这座享有皇帝尊荣和元老院［即皇帝与元老院驻在之处］、并享有与古帝都罗马相同的［市政］特权的城市，在教会事务上也应同样被抬高，居于古罗马之后的第二位 (δευτέραν μετ’ ἐκείνην.^*)。”

“又［我们规定］，本都、亚细亚［亚细亚元老院行省，Asia proconsularis］和色雷斯各管区，只有都主教应由君士坦丁堡至圣教会的至圣宝座按立；但这些管区中蛮族所占据地区的［普通］主教，也应由该宝座按立。当然，这些管区的每一位都主教，仍须按照神圣 (θείοις^*) 教规的规定，会同本省现任主教，按立该省的新主教。但上述各管区的都主教，正如前面所说，在循惯例一致选出，并将此事通知君士坦丁堡大主教之后，应由这位大主教 (ἀρχιεπισκόπου^*) 按立。”

我们将这条著名的迦克墩教规分为两部分，尽管在希腊原文中，两部分是紧密相连的（以 Καὶ ὥστε^* 连接）。第一部分将君士坦丁堡主教列于众牧首中的第二位，只是重申并确认君士坦丁堡会议的第三条教规；第二部分则更进一步，认可君士坦丁堡牧首对色雷斯管区，以及小亚细亚和本都各管区的最高管辖权；这种权力，金口约翰及其继任者实际上早已行使。它又赋予他专有权，按立这三个管区的都主教，以及这些辖界内蛮族的所有主教。¹⁰⁴这使他的辖区大于东方任何其他牧首的辖区。后来，查士丁尼 (Justinian) 皇帝于530年颁布敕令，又赋予他受理对其他牧首之上诉的特殊权利，从而得以统辖整个东方。

迦克墩会议的这项法令，不过是一贯遵循东方按政治区划划分教会辖区的原则。其意图是使新的政治首都也成为东方的教会首都，使该城主教居于亚历山大和安提阿主教之上，并使他尽可能接近与罗马主教平等的地位。这就对亚历山大牧首的野心施加了有益的约束；正如提阿非罗和狄奥斯库鲁 (Dioscurus) 的事件所表明的，他曾以种种方式滥用权力，损害教会。

但与此同时，这也激起了罗马主教的嫉妒；对他而言，君士坦丁堡一个享有同等特权的对手，远比亚历山大或安提阿的对手危险。尤其令他感到冒犯的，必定是迦克墩会议对彼得的首席权只字未提，却将罗马主教的权力同君士坦丁堡主教的权力一样，建立在政治理由之上；这固然并非错误，却只是事实的一半，就此而言并不公允。

因此，东方教会正是在这一点上与西方教会发生了冲突，而这场冲突一直延续至今。教皇代表在迦克墩会议第十六次、也是最后一次会议上，当场抗议第二十八条教规；但除了将抗议载入记录，并无结果。他们援引尼西亚会议第六条教规的增补拉丁文本；其中后来增入的“Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum”（罗马教会始终拥有首席权），似乎将罗马主教置于所有牧首之上，而对君士坦丁堡则不予提及。于是，会议从希腊文议事录中向他们宣读了不含该增文的原版教规，并宣读第二次大公会议的前三条教规，其中明确承认君士坦丁堡牧首居于第二位。¹⁰⁵经过这一问题的辩论，皇帝的委员们将结果归纳如下：“根据全部讨论及双方所提出的论据，我们承认，旧罗马大主教应继续享有在众人之上的首席权 (πρὸ πάντων τὰ πρωτεῖα^*) 和最显赫的地位 (καὶ τὴν ἐξαίρετον τιμήν^*)；但新罗马大主教也应享有同等的荣誉优先权 (τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς^*)，并有权按立亚细亚、本都及色雷斯各管区的都主教”，等等。随后，他们请会议表明，这是否就是会议的意见；主教们便完全而坚决地表示赞同，并请求散会。委员们于是以下列话语结束了议事：“我们方才所提议的，全体会议已经批准。”这就是说，尽管罗马使节提出抗议，授予君士坦丁堡教会的特权仍获得了会议的确认。¹⁰⁶

会议之后，罗马主教利奥 (Leo) 本人于452年5月22日发出三封信提出抗议；第一封致马尔基安 (Marcian) 皇帝，第二封致普尔喀丽亚 (Pulcheria) 皇后，第三封致君士坦丁堡牧首阿纳托利乌斯 (Anatolius)。¹⁰⁷他表示满意于会议在教义上的成果，却宣称，将君士坦丁堡主教提升至牧首尊位，是骄傲和野心的产物——多么谦卑、谦逊的教皇啊！——是侵犯东方其他都主教的权利——他自己却在高卢侵犯同样的权利！——尤其是侵犯尼西亚会议所保障的罗马教座的权利——其依据竟是罗马的一段插文——并且破坏教会的和平——仿佛教皇们一向都神圣地维护了这种和平！他决不愿听人以政治上的考虑解释其教座权柄的来源，而是指向神的设立和彼得的首席权。利奥在这里极为尊崇第一次大公会议，误以为该会议的第六条教规承认了罗马的首席权；但他对第二次大公会议却格外冷淡，原因就在于它的第三条教规，而这条教规已在迦克墩得到确认。他指责阿纳托利乌斯利用一次原本只为铲除异端、确立信仰而召开的会议，来满足自己的野心。他又说，尼西亚会议的教规出于圣灵的默示，无论多么盛大的会议，都不能废除它们；凡与之抵触的，概属无效。他劝勉阿纳托利乌斯放弃野心，并提醒他记住这句话：Tene quod habes, ne alius accipiat coronam tuam（你要持守你所有的，免得人夺去你的冠冕）。¹⁰⁸

然而，这一抗议既不能改变会议的法令，也不能改变希腊教会在此事上的立场，尽管阿纳托利乌斯在皇帝的影响下，曾写了一封谦卑的信给利奥。君士坦丁堡的主教们坚持自己的地位，并得到拜占庭皇帝的支持。迦克墩会议第二十八条教规，获查士丁尼一世在第131号《新律》(Novelle) 第1章中明确确认，又由特鲁洛会议 (Trullan council) 郑重重申（第36条教规），但在《普里斯卡》(Prisca)、狄奥尼修斯 (Dionysius)、埃克西古乌斯 (Exiguus) 和伊西多尔 (Isidore) 的拉丁文教规汇编中却被略去。罗马高声反对的声音渐渐消歇；然而，除了君士坦丁堡的拉丁帝国和拉丁牧首区时期，罗马始终未曾正式承认这条教规。在那一时期，即1215年英诺森三世 (Innocent III) 主持的第四次拉特兰会议 (Lateran council) 上，会议承认君士坦丁堡牧首应紧随罗马牧首居于第二位，在亚历山大和安提阿两位牧首之前。¹⁰⁹

最后，耶路撒冷主教经过与凯撒利亚 (Caesarea) 都主教及安提阿 (Antioch) 牧首的长期争执，终于晋升至牧首尊位；然而，他的尊荣主要仍属名誉性质，在实际权力的范围上远逊于其他牧首。古耶路撒冷若不是在70年被毁得仅余一段城墙和三座城门作为遗迹，那么，作为最古老的基督徒会众所在地，它无疑会像雅各时代一样，在教阶体系中占据中心地位。尽管如此，母城原有尊荣的余辉，仍照在哈德良 (Adrian) 以后于古老废墟上兴起的新城埃利亚·卡皮托利纳 (Aelia Capitolina) 之上。海伦娜 (Helena) 皇太后的朝圣，以及她的儿子在各圣地兴建的宏伟教堂，使耶路撒冷重新获得重要地位，成为基督教世界各地虔诚朝圣者的中心。诚然，其主教隶属于凯撒利亚都主教，却与他共同主持巴勒斯坦的会议（大概居于 secundo loco，即第二位）。¹¹⁰尼西亚会议赋予他在众主教中名誉上的优先地位，却不改变他对凯撒利亚都主教的隶属关系。至少，那条简短而略显含糊的第七条教规似乎就是这个意思：“既然尊崇埃利亚（耶路撒冷）主教乃是惯例和古老传统，他也应享有相承的尊荣，¹¹¹而都主教座（凯撒利亚）则保有其所获授的尊位。”两者的法定关系长期未能确定，直到第四次大公会议在第七次会议上，确认耶路撒冷主教的牧首地位，并将巴勒斯坦的三个行省划为他的管区，未遭反对。

§ 57. 旧罗马与新罗马的牧首之争

这样，在第四世纪末，我们看到，希腊罗马帝国的大公教会处于五位地位平等、彼此独立的牧首的寡头统治之下，其中四位在东方，一位在西方。然而，政治体制所提供的类比，以及使教会的合一获得可见、可感之体现的倾向——自主教制肇始以来，这种倾向便一直是教阶体系发展的根本动力——推动教会越过寡头制而趋向君主制；西方尤其如此。如今，帝国在地理和政治上已经分裂为东西两部；395年狄奥多西 (Theodosius) 死后，两部各有自己的皇帝，此后再未永久统一，因此，我们自然也会预期教阶体系中同样出现两个首脑。这正体现于旧罗马与新罗马的两位牧首身上：一位代表西方或拉丁教会，另一位代表东方或希腊教会。现在，我们必须更仔细地考察他们的权力及彼此关系。

东方教会的组织既然如此深受政治体制的影响，帝都的主教便势必成为东方四位牧首中最有权势的一位。正如我们已经看到的，第二次和第四次大公会议以教会的认可，确认了他实际享有的优越地位，并赋予他居首的尊位。¹¹²他又从查士丁尼一世 (Justinian I) 获得最高上诉裁判权，以及他至今仍沿用的“大公”(ecumenical) 牧首荣衔。¹¹³他为其他牧首施行按立，往往凭借自己的影响决定他们的废立，并利用一切机会干预他们的事务、维护自己的最高权威，尽管教皇及其驻宫廷代表不断提出抗议。在第五和第六世纪，耶路撒冷、安提阿和亚历山大 (Alexandria) 的牧首区因旷日持久的基督一性论争而分裂衰弱；其后，622年以后，又因伊斯兰教徒的征服而沦为徒具虚名的影子。君士坦丁堡牧首区则相反，向西南和北方大为扩展；到第八至第十世纪的兴盛时期，除原有管区外，已将卡拉布里亚 (Calabria)、西西里 (Sicily)、伊利里库姆 (Illyricum) 各行省、保加利亚人和俄罗斯都纳入其范围。君士坦丁堡虽屡遭毁灭性的地震与火灾，又受到波斯人、阿拉伯人、匈牙利人、俄罗斯人、拉丁人和土耳其人的围攻，却直到十五世纪中叶，仍维持着拜占庭帝国都城与希腊教会中心的地位。然而，君士坦丁堡牧首实际上始终只是 primus inter pares（同等者中的首位），从未像教皇对西方都主教那样，对东方同僚行使教皇式的最高权柄；更不用说像他在古罗马的对手那样，僭称对整个教会拥有独一的统治权。他向罗马主教所要求的，只是权利平等、尊位相当。

在基督教世界这两位首要牧首的长期争斗中，罗马牧首终于取得了胜利。教阶体系的君主制倾向在西方远比东方强烈，并推动教会走向普世的君主统治。

君士坦丁堡牧首固然享有皇帝的恩宠，以及帝都所在地的一切便利。新罗马位于连接两大洲的桥梁之上，作为政治、商业与文化的都会，其地理位置极为优美而有利；它又是抵御蛮族征服的坚固堡垒。这座城市从未被偶像神庙玷污，而是一开始就建为基督教城市。当西方被野蛮势力的狂涛淹没时，它仍培育着科学与艺术；它使希腊语言和文学的知识得以保存，贯穿整个中世纪；土耳其人入侵以后，它流亡的学者又在拉丁教会中点燃了古典研究的热忱，直到希腊手持《新约》从死里复起，为宗教改革高举火炬。

然而，罗马牧首所享有的优势更大。正如连希腊历史学家狄奥多雷 (Theodoret) 也承认的，¹¹⁴取得最高地位所需的一切外在与内在、政治与属灵的条件，都汇集在他一人身上。

首先，他的权威建立在教会和属灵的基础之上；按照舆论所公认的，这一基础可循着从未中断的传承，上溯至使徒彼得；君士坦丁堡却无论如何都不是 apostolica sedes（使徒教座），其起源纯属政治性质，尽管它借着权利的转移，并在某种程度上借着僭夺，取得了以弗所 (Ephesus) 的都主教权利。¹¹⁵因此，利奥以后的教皇，几乎完全诉诸其尊位的神圣起源，以及使徒之首对整个教会的首席权。

其次，即便从政治角度来看，旧罗马也拥有远为悠久而辉煌的帝国传统，在人们的记忆中与帝国的鼎盛时代紧密相连；新罗马所标志的，却是帝国衰落的开始。当西罗马帝国落入蛮族手中时，罗马主教便成为这一帝国往昔唯一尚存的继承者；或者，用霍布斯 (Hobbes) 那句名言来说，就是“已故罗马帝国的幽灵，头戴王冠，坐在它的坟墓之上”。

再者，罗马远离帝国宫廷，这一点本身便有利于发展一种不受任何政治影响与阴谋左右的教阶体系；君士坦丁堡主教则必须牺牲教会的自由，才能换取身居帝都的政治利益。donatio Constantini（君士坦丁赠与）的传说虽是第八世纪的伪造，却包含着这样一个真实之处：帝国迁都东方，为教皇的世俗权力和政治独立开辟了道路。

此外，在尼西亚及后尼西亚时期有关三位一体和基督论的重大争论中，教皇们几乎始终不偏离大公正统，且保持教义稳定，由此维持了强大的威望；¹¹⁶君士坦丁堡教座却因其在神学上躁动好辩的希腊精神，沾染了阿里乌派 (Arian)、聂斯托利派 (Nestorian)、基督一性派 (Monophysite) 及其他异端，而且一般说来，即使在信仰事务上，也受制于宫廷变幻不定的好恶。因此，甚至东方彼此争斗的各派，也惯于向罗马教座寻求指教和保护，往往给予该教座梦寐以求的机会，使它能以自己的裁决左右局势。于是，这种偶发的惯例，便成为建立管辖权理论的可喜基础。Roma locuta est（罗马已经发言）遂具有最高且最终裁决的性质。罗马学到了许多，却从未忘记任何事情。她懂得以娴熟至极的治理手腕，把每一种境况都转化为自身的利益。

最后，直到第四次大公会议为止，希腊教会无疑仍是教会历史的主要舞台和神学学问的主要中心；然而，依照“帝国之星向西运行”这一普遍的历史规律，拉丁教会，因而也就是罗马牧首区，已经独占了未来。东方各牧首区因内部争吵和混乱，为假先知的征服大开方便之门；与此同时，罗马却勇敢而胜利地向西推进，使欧洲的蛮族部落归信十字架的宗教。

§ 58. 拉丁牧首

罗马牧首胜过君士坦丁堡牧首的这些优势，同时也是教皇制兴起的主要原因；现在，我们必须更深入地考察这一兴起过程。

不可否认，教皇制是漫长历史过程的产物。它的建成历经数世纪，而对它的部分摧毁，也已经持续了数世纪。对尊荣和权力的贪欲，甚至公然的欺诈，¹¹⁷都曾助长它的发展；因为主教袍服之下隐藏着人性，而人性总是倾向于滥用所受托付的权力；权力越大，诱惑就越强，滥用也越严重。然而，在这些人为冲动的背后和之上，还有教会的需要和上帝护理的计划；这些才是解释教皇对欧洲各国各族统治权的兴起，以及后来衰落的适当基础。

上帝的护理按着永恒的计划，掌握世界与教会历史的舵；它不仅默默地、隐秘地为特定工作预备合适的人，甚至连这些人自己也不知情，而且还在深远的过去为强大的制度奠定基础，使它们一到时代需要之时，便能以装备齐全的姿态出现。因此，罗马的拉丁牧首制的起源与逐渐成长，乃是为中世纪作预备，也是教会在信奉异教的蛮族中履行训育使命所必需的外在装备的一部分。那些摧毁西罗马帝国的强悍部族，自身也要在古代文明的废墟上被建造起来，借着令人敬畏的教会权威与稳固的教阶组织，受教而进入基督教与自由，直到成年，不再需要律法的训蒙师傅，并挣开他的绳索。大公教会的教阶体系以教皇制为金字塔式的顶峰，在罗曼语系和日耳曼各民族中，直到宗教改革时期，所发挥的作用，类似于犹太神权政体与古罗马帝国分别在内在与外在方面为基督教所作的预备。这一训育目的的完整展现，属于中世纪历史的内容；然而，在我们眼前这一时期，我们已经看到它的基础正在奠定。

罗马主教声称，主教、都主教、牧首，以及教皇或全教会首席主教这四重尊位，都集于他一身。按照历史公允的判断，必须承认他拥有前三种职分；至于最后一种，希腊教会、福音派教会以及所有非天主教宗派都不予承认。

他的主教辖区是罗马城，其主教座堂为拉特兰圣约翰教堂 (St. John Lateran)，正门上方刻有铭文：Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput（全城及普世众教会之母与首）；因此，它的地位竟然高于圣彼得教堂——仿佛彼得终究不是居首位、最崇高的使徒，最终还得让位于约翰这位未来理想教会的代表。相传，君士坦丁皇帝在异教时代遗留下来的拉特兰旧宫旁建造了这座巴西利卡式教堂，并将宫殿赠给教皇西尔维斯特 (Sylvester)；此后，这里一直是教皇的住所及其会议（拉特兰会议）的会址，直到阿维尼翁 (Avignon) 流亡时期结束以后，他们才迁居古老的圣彼得教堂旁的梵蒂冈 (Vatican)。

作为都主教或大主教，罗马主教直接管辖附近七个附属教区的主教，后来称为枢机主教：奥斯提亚 (Ostia)、波尔图斯 (Portus)、西尔瓦坎迪达 (Silva candida)、萨比纳 (Sabina)、普雷内斯特 (Praeneste)、图斯库卢姆 (Tusculum) 和阿尔巴努姆 (Albanum)。

作为牧首，他理当地与东方四位牧首处于平等地位，但辖区大得多，并享有荣誉上的首席地位。这里，名称无关紧要，因为事实是确定的。罗马主教不称自己为牧首，而称教皇，为的是更快地凌驾于同僚之上；因为前一种名称表示寡头权力，后一种则表示君主权力。不过，在东方教会和现代天主教史家中，牧首这一称号也相当普遍地用于罗马。

罗马牧首的辖区起初包括所谓十个近郊行省，它们在行政上受罗马代理官，即 Vicarius Urbis 管辖；其中包括意大利中部的大部分地区、整个上意大利，以及西西里 (Sicily)、撒丁 (Sardinia) 和科西嘉 (Corsica) 三岛。¹¹⁸然而，从较广的意义说，其辖区逐渐扩展到罗马帝国的整个西部，因而涵盖了意大利、高卢 (Gaul)、西班牙、伊利里亚 (Illyria)、不列颠 (Britannia) 东南部和非洲西北部。¹¹⁹

从这一称谓的正式意义来说，罗马主教从起初就是唯一的拉丁牧首。他之所以独居这一地位，首先有教会方面的原因：罗马是西方唯一的使徒教座（sedes apostolica）；而在希腊教会，三个牧首区以及以弗所 (Ephesus)、帖撒罗尼迦 (Thessalonica)、哥林多 (Corinth) 等其他几个主教区，都分享由使徒创立的荣誉。其次，他在政治上也独居这一地位，因为罗马是西方唯一的都会，而东方则有君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople)、亚历山大 (Alexandria) 和安提阿 (Antioch) 三座帝国都城。因此，奥古斯丁 (Augustine) 从宗教立场出发，曾称教皇英诺森一世 (Innocent I.) 为“西方教会的统治者”；¹²⁰而查士丁尼 (Justinian) 皇帝则依据政治区划，在他的第109号《新律》中论及全世界的教会区划时，只提到五个公认的牧首区，因而西方只有一个牧首区。大公会议的法令同样不承认罗马以外还有任何西方牧首区；罗马也是东方教会与西方教会通信的唯一中介。在第四、第五世纪的重大神学争论中，罗马主教始终以整个拉丁基督教世界的代表和代言者身份出现。

此外，置身政治混乱之中，又与信奉阿里乌派 (Arian) 的哥特人 (Goths)、汪达尔人 (Vandals) 和苏维汇人 (Suevi) 争战，西方所有正统教会的最高利益，就在于使自己紧密地团结于一个共同的中心，并获得中央权威的有力保护。这个中心，他们不能不在世界都会那古老的使徒教会中找到。几乎所有重要的教义或教会纪律问题，人们都向罗马主教咨询。第四世纪末以后，他们以牧函和教令书回复西方诸主教，¹²¹裁决问题时，起初用的是父亲劝勉的语气，后来则用使徒权威的语气，将原先容许自由发表意见的事情变为固定的法规。现存最早的教令，是教皇西里修斯 (Siricius) 于公元385年致西班牙主教希梅里乌斯 (Himerius) 的书信（Epistola）；颇具特色的是，其中以法律强制实行教士独身制，显然是一种非使徒所立的制度；但西里修斯在此援引了他的前任利贝里乌斯 (Liberius) 已经颁布的“generalia decreta”（一般法令）。同样，罗马主教也屡次促成西方全体会议或牧首区会议（synodos occidentales）的召开，如314年的阿克斯勒斯 (Axles) 会议。第六、第七世纪以后，他们还向萨洛纳 (Salona)、拉文纳 (Ravenna)、墨西拿 (Messina)、叙拉古 (Syracuse)、巴勒莫 (Palermo)、阿尔勒 (Arles)、欧坦 (Autun)、塞维利亚 (Sevilla)、尼科波利斯（Nicopolis，位于伊庇鲁斯〔Epirus〕）、坎特伯雷 (Canterbury) 的大主教，以及其他都主教授予肩带 (pallium)，以表明自己高于他们的管辖权。¹²²

§ 59. 拉丁牧首区的冲突与征服

然而，这种牧首权力并非从起初就在整个西方得到同等程度的承认。直到第六世纪后期，它才达到我们上文所述的高度。¹²³它并不是一种神所设立的制度，不像圣经中的信条那样，从起初就为万世确定不变；它乃是漫长历史过程的结果，是在上帝护理引导之下形成的人为教会制度。以下无可争辩的事实可以证明这一点：

首先，即使在意大利，直到本时期结束，仍有几位都主教保持着自身至高的领袖地位，不受罗马或其他任何管辖权的约束。¹²⁴米兰 (Milan) 的大主教将其教会的起源追溯到使徒巴拿巴；直到第六世纪后期，他们都不与教皇发生联系，受按立也无需教皇参与或领受他的肩带。593年，在伦巴第人 (Longobards) 肆虐期间，格列高利一世 (Gregory I.) 首次试图在那里行使牧首权利：他恢复了一位向他申诉的、被逐出教会的长老的职分。¹²⁵阿奎莱亚 (Aquileia) 的都主教将其教会的起源追溯到传福音的马可；他们的城市又曾被君士坦丁大帝提升为威尼提亚 (Venetia) 和伊斯特里亚 (Istria) 的首府。他们与米兰、甚至与罗马争雄，自称“牧首”，即使在大格列高利任内，也拒绝服从教皇的管辖权。¹²⁶同样，408年以后，霍诺里乌斯 (Honorius) 皇帝选定拉文纳为驻地，该城主教遂成为势力强大的都主教，管辖十四个主教区。不过，他仍从大格列高利手中领受肩带，也有由罗马主教施行按立的事例。¹²⁷

第五世纪初，北非的主教和会议虽然依照传统敬重使徒教座，却本着居普良 (Cyprian) 的精神，屡次抗议罗马的侵权行为，甚至禁止在教会争端中越过本地法庭，向海外或外地法庭提出任何申诉，违者处以逐出教会之罚。¹²⁸其起因是长老阿皮亚里乌斯 (Apiarius) 向罗马申诉；他因种种过犯，被奥古斯丁的门徒兼友人、锡卡 (Sicca) 主教乌尔巴努斯 (Urbanus) 罢免，而教皇佐西穆斯 (Zosimus) 于418年、教皇策勒斯丁 (Coelestine) 于424年，先后两次试图恢复他的职分。由此可见，教皇乐于为一位显然不配任职的教士出面干预，牺牲地方教会纪律的利益，只为使人感受到自己更高的权威。非洲人援引真正的尼西亚教规（佐西穆斯却以撒狄迦〔Sardica〕会议关于罗马上诉管辖权的附则取而代之，而尼西亚会议对此毫无所知），并提醒教皇：作出公正判决所必需的圣灵恩赐，任何行省都不缺乏；圣灵既能感动一位主教，也同样能感动整个行省。阿皮亚里乌斯上诉案的最后一份文献，是424年迦太基 (Carthage) 第（二十）次会议致教皇策勒斯丁一世的信，其大意如下：¹²⁹“阿皮亚里乌斯要求重审，结果他严重的恶行反而由此暴露出来。面对这种情形，教皇使节福斯提努斯 (Faustinus) 仍以极其严厉的态度，要求非洲人接纳此人进入团契，因为他已向教皇申诉，并被教皇接纳进入团契。然而，这件事本来就不该做。最后，阿皮亚里乌斯亲自承认了自己的一切罪行。今后，教皇不应再如此轻易地听取那些像阿皮亚里乌斯一样从非洲来到罗马之人的申诉，也不应将被逐出教会的人接纳进入教会团契，无论他们是主教还是教士，正如尼西亚会议（第5条教规）所规定的，其规定也包括主教在内。擅自接受向罗马提出的上诉，侵犯了非洲教会的权利；而〔佐西穆斯及其使节〕为此提出的所谓尼西亚条例，并非出自尼西亚，也不见于从君士坦丁堡和亚历山大收到的尼西亚会议记录的真本。因此，教皇今后不要再派遣审判官到非洲来；既然阿皮亚里乌斯现已因自己的过犯被逐出教会，教皇想必不会指望非洲教会继续忍受使节福斯提努斯的骚扰。愿主上帝长久保守教皇，也愿教皇为非洲人祷告。”在伯拉纠派 (Pelagian) 争论中，软弱的佐西穆斯起初违背前任英诺森的判断，发表了有利于异端者的意见，后来甚至被非洲人迫使让步。北非教会在拉丁教父中最伟大的圣奥古斯丁领导之下，坚持了这一立场；而在其他方面，奥古斯丁对大公教会体制的建立，比任何其他神学家或主教所作的贡献都更大。直到遭受汪达尔人的冲击、意识到自身软弱之时，北非教会才开始服从罗马的管辖权。利奥 (Leo，440—461年) 是第一位能够夸称自己已将罗马辖区从欧洲扩展到世界另一洲的教皇。¹³⁰他和大格列高利写信给非洲主教时，完全采用父亲般的权威语气，却没有引起反驳。

在西班牙，教皇从一开始便找到了更有利的活动领域。第五世纪，当地的正统主教受到信奉阿里乌派的汪达尔人、苏维汇人、阿兰人 (Alani)，以及不久之后的哥特人的严重压迫，因而向罗马主教寻求劝导和保护；后者为了自身利益，也总是乐于提供帮助。正如前文所述，早在385年，西里修斯便向一位西班牙主教颁发了教令书。利奥致阿斯图里卡 (Asturica) 主教图里比乌斯 (Turibius)，以及致高卢和西班牙诸主教的书信，¹³¹都是同样权威语气的实例。辛普利修斯 (Simplicius，467—483年) 任命塞维利亚主教芝诺 (Zeno) 为教皇代理，¹³²大格列高利则附上一封父亲般的书信，将肩带授予塞维利亚主教利安德 (Leander)。¹³³

在高卢 (Gaul)，利奥在阿尔勒 (Arles，或称 Arelate) 大主教希拉里 (Hilary) 一案中，虽遭反对，仍成功地确立了罗马的管辖权。高卢派与越山派对这件事的叙述各不相同。¹³⁴希拉里（生于403年，卒于449年）起初是一位严守苦修的修士，后来违背自己的意愿被擢升为主教；他是一位雄辩的传道人、精力充沛的高级教士，也是抵抗罗马权力要求、捍卫高卢教会自由的第一位斗士，但他自己也不免怀有圣统制的野心。他在贝桑松 (Besançon) 召开的一次会议（synodus Vesontionensis）上，罢免了该城主教策利多尼乌斯 (Celidonius)，理由是后者在受按立之前曾娶一位寡妇，并曾在一宗刑事审判中担任法官，宣判过死刑；按照教会法，这些事使他失去了担任主教的资格。这无疑侵犯了维埃纳 (Vienne) 教省的权利，因为贝桑松隶属该省。诚然，早在二十八年前的417年，教皇佐西穆斯曾任命阿尔勒主教为驻高卢的教皇代理，并授予他在维埃纳教省 (Viennensis) 及第一、第二纳尔榜教省 (Narbonensis prima、secunda) 的都主教权利，但保留了重大案件（causae majores）的裁决权；阿尔勒当时是七个行省的首府。¹³⁵然而，维埃纳、纳尔榜 (Narbonne) 和马赛 (Marseilles) 的都主教并不接受这一安排，继任的教皇也认为，重新承认原有的都主教才是上策。¹³⁶策利多尼乌斯就希拉里的这一举动向利奥提出上诉。445年，利奥召集了一次罗马会议（concilium sacerdotum），恢复了他的职分，因为希拉里的指控未能得到足以令教皇满意的证实；希拉里本人曾在冬季徒步前往罗马，极其激烈地抗议这次上诉。事实上，利奥直接或间接地使希拉里遭到监禁；当他逃脱并返回高卢之后，利奥便断绝了他与罗马教会的团契，并剥夺了他在维埃纳教区的一切特权。这些特权原先只是暂时授予阿尔勒主教的，如今则依据一项更妥当的裁决（sententia meliore）予以撤销。利奥指责他侵犯其他高卢都主教的权利，尤其指责他不服从至福的彼得的首领权；他甚至说：“凡争辩使徒彼得首席地位的人，丝毫不能减损这位使徒的尊严，反倒因自己的骄傲之灵而自高自大，使自己毁灭于地狱。”¹³⁷他只是出于特别的恩惠，才让希拉里保留主教职位。他还不以此为满足，转而向世俗权力求助，从软弱的西罗马皇帝瓦伦提尼安三世 (Valentinian III.) 那里取得一道颁给高卢军事统帅（magister militum）埃提乌斯 (Aetius) 的敕令。其中几乎照用利奥的话，宣称全世界（universitas；希腊文为 οἰκουμένη^*）都承认罗马教座为指导者和统治者；无论希拉里还是任何主教，都不得违抗其命令；无论高卢还是其他地方的主教，都不得违背古老惯例，未经永恒之城那位可敬教皇的授权便擅自行动；教皇的一切谕令都具有法律效力。

利奥致高卢众教会的书信与皇帝的敕令，为我们提供了中央属灵权力与世俗权力为追求无限主权而结成攻守同盟的第一个实例。不过，这道敕令的效力至多只能及于西方，因为瓦伦提尼安的权威仅限于此。事实上，即使希拉里和他的继任者，也不顾利奥的反对，继续保有从前教皇佐西穆斯授予他们的特权，后来的教皇又确认了这些特权。¹³⁸除此之外，这场争端的结局便无从得知。阿尔勒的希拉里于449年去世，普遍受到尊敬和爱戴；据我们所知，他生前并未与罗马正式和解。¹³⁹尽管如此，他竟以列品圣徒的身份，与他的教皇对手利奥并列出现在罗马圣历中，这颇为引人注目。无疑，利奥在这场争论中对待希拉里过于严酷而失之无度；然而，他坚持上诉权，以保障主教的自由不受都主教侵犯，这一点确实重要。教皇的专制常常对下级高级教士的专制起了有益的制衡作用。

罗马主教与高卢北部的接触较少；然而，在第四和第五世纪，这一地区也出现过他们成功确立自身管辖权的事例。

早期不列颠 (British) 教会从起初便处于十分孤立的地位；第五世纪中叶前后，信奉异教的盎格鲁-撒克逊人 (Anglo-Saxons) 入侵，迫使它退入威尔士 (Wales)、康沃尔 (Cornwallis)、坎伯兰 (Cumberland) 的山区，以及更加偏僻的岛屿。直到大格列高利任内盎格鲁-撒克逊人归信之后，英格兰与罗马之间才开始有了经常性的联系。

最后，罗马主教也成功地将他们的牧首权力向东扩展到东伊利里亚 (East Illyria) 行政辖区。伊利里亚原属西罗马帝国，在阿里乌派争论期间始终忠于尼西亚信仰，并为捍卫这一信仰而与罗马紧密相联。379年，格拉提安 (Gratian) 将东伊利里亚（Illyricum Orientale）并入东罗马帝国，然而那里的主教仍拒绝放弃原有的教会联系。达马苏 (Damasus) 任命帖撒罗尼迦 (Thessalonica) 都主教阿科利乌斯 (Acholius) 为教皇代理，授予他在这一新行政辖区内的牧首权利。君士坦丁堡牧首固然屡次试图将这一地区纳入自己的教区，却都未能成功。535年，查士丁尼 (Justinian) 将其组成一个新的教区，在第一查士丁尼城 (Prima Justiniana，或称阿克里达〔Achrida〕，即他的故乡) 设置一位独立的牧首；但这一任意推行的创新毫无生命力，格列高利一世又恢复了与伊利里亚诸主教的积极往来。直到第八世纪伊苏里亚人利奥 (Leo the Isaurian) 皇帝在位时，东伊利里亚才最终脱离罗马教区，并入君士坦丁堡牧首区。¹⁴⁰

§ 60. 教皇制

参考文献同§ 55及第一卷§ 110。

最后，罗马主教以其职位出于神的设立，并以使徒之首彼得的继承者身份，提出自己应当成为整个教会的首席，以及基督在世上可见的代表；基督乃是基督教世界不可见的至高元首。这就是“教皇”这一称号严格而专有的意义。¹⁴¹

严格说来，这一权利要求从未完全实现，直到今日仍是教会历史中纷争的祸根。希腊基督教世界从未承认它；拉丁基督教世界也只是在种种抗议之下才承认它，而这些抗议最终在宗教改革中获得胜利，使教皇制永远丧失了其领地中最好的部分。罗马体制的根本谬误，在于将教皇制与教会等同起来；因此，为求前后一致，它就必须不仅否认新教是教会，而且否认整个东方教会从起初以来是教会。《尼西亚—君士坦丁堡信经》中的“una sancta catholica apostolica ecclesia”（独一、圣洁、大公、使徒的教会），应当理解为大公基督徒的全体；罗马教会（ecclesia Romana）与亚历山大、安提阿、耶路撒冷和君士坦丁堡的教会一样，不过是其中最显著的支派之一。诚然，早在我们眼下论述的时期，教皇制的观念及其统辖普世教会的要求便已明确提出，但它们始终未能在西方以外得到落实。因此，作为历史事实的教皇制，或者说就其实际获得承认的范围而言，严格说来无非是发展为绝对君主制的拉丁牧首制。

教皇制的拥护者并不像为都主教权和牧首权所作的辩护那样，仅以教会惯例为根据，而是以神授的权利为根据；其依据便是基督在那句众所周知的话中赋予彼得的特殊地位：“你是彼得，我要把我的教会建造在这磐石上。”¹⁴²这段经文历来被视为教皇制在释经上不可动摇的磐石。教皇们自己也曾无数次援引它，作为教会中那可见而无谬误的中央权威出于神之设立的重大证据。依照这种观点，首席权先于使徒职分，头先于身体，而非相反。

然而，首先，彼得的这种优越地位丝毫没有影响其他使徒的独立性。尤其是保罗，按照他的书信和《使徒行传》的明确见证，完全凭着自身的权柄行事，甚至有一次在安提阿坚决反对彼得。再者，彼得个人的地位绝不能赋予罗马主教首席权，除非有双重证据：第一，彼得确曾到过罗马；第二，他将自己的特权转交给了该城的主教。前一事实的依据，是早期教会一个普遍流传、当时无人怀疑的传统；然而，由于缺乏任何明确的圣经证据，加上《新约》本身记载了一个更加确凿的事实，即保罗曾在罗马作工，而且除了基督自己的权柄之外，他并不处于任何更高权柄之下的卑下或从属地位，这一传统的证明力便受到部分削弱和抵消。第二项假定，即首席权被转交给罗马主教，则既无法从历史上证明，也无法从释经上证明；它仅仅是从“继任者承袭前任一切职务特权”这一原则推论而来。不过，即使承认教皇理论这一链条上的两个中间环节，仍有两个问题悬而未决：第一，罗马主教是否是彼得唯一的继承者，还是与耶路撒冷和安提阿的主教共享这一尊荣，因为公认彼得也曾居住在这些地方；第二，首席权是否同时包含对全教会至高无上的管辖权，还是仅仅意味着在权柄与等级相同的牧首之间享有荣誉上的首席地位。前者是罗马的观点，后者是希腊的观点。

非洲主教居普良 (Cyprian，† 258) 是第一位对《马太福音》第16章这段经文作出教皇制式解释，并明确提出永久性的彼得教座（cathedra Petri）观念的人；他这样做，可说是出于单纯，全然未曾料到自己的观点日后会被怎样使用和滥用。然而，这同一位居普良，无论前后一致与否，同时也同样强烈地意识到主教之间的平等与独立；后来，在有关异端洗礼是否有效的教义争论中，他实际上曾大胆反对教皇司提反 (Stephen)，并将这一抗议坚持至死。¹⁴³

§ 61. 教父的意见

关于彼得及其继承者的首席权，教父言论的完整汇编，虽出于罗马的观点，可见于约瑟夫·贝林顿牧师 (Rev. Jos. Berington) 与约翰·柯克牧师 (Rev. John Kirk) 的著作：《由圣经证实并由教会最初五世纪的教父见证的天主教信仰》(The Faith of Catholics confirmed by Scripture and attested by the Fathers of the first five centuries of the Church)，第3版，伦敦，1846年，第ii卷，第1–112页。比较§ 55所引诸著，以及费迪南德·皮珀教授 (Prof. Ferd. Piper) 论永恒之城罗马的一篇颇有趣味的文章，载于1864年的《福音派年鉴》(Evang. Jahrbuch)，第17–120页；该文阐述了教父们对于“永恒之城”（urbs aeterna）的权利要求及其种种命运变迁的看法。

现在我们来考察这一观念在第四、第五世纪教父中的发展。总的说来，他们一致赋予彼得某种高于其他使徒的首席地位，并认为他因承认基督的神性而成为教会的根基；同时，他们又认为，在最高意义上，基督才是教会神圣的根基与磐石。他们对《马太福音》十六章18节的 petra，时而解释为彼得本人，时而解释为他的认信，时而解释为基督；这种表面上的自相矛盾，正可由此得到解答。其次，既然主教一般被视为使徒的继承者，教父们便根据彼得在罗马殉道的古老传统，将罗马主教视为彼得的继承者和首席权的承受者。然而，关于这一首席权的性质与特权，他们的看法很不明确，也各不相同。值得注意的是，奥古斯丁尤其竭力维护的、将磐石解释为基督的观点，甚至也得到中世纪最伟大的教皇格列高利七世 (Gregory VII.) 的承认；他随一顶冠冕送给皇帝鲁道夫 (Rudolph) 的著名铭文写道：“Petra〔即基督〕dedit Petro〔即赐给使徒彼得〕，Petrus〔教皇〕diadema Rudolpho〔将冠冕赐给鲁道夫〕。”¹⁴⁴ 同样值得注意的是，尼西亚会议后的教父与会议前的教父一样，虽然十分尊崇罗马教座，却根据《启示录》十七章3节所说那坐在朱红色兽上、兽身满有亵渎名号的妇人，认为罗马的异教称号“永恒之城”（urbs aeterna）是亵渎的。¹⁴⁵ 当时占主导地位的意见似乎是：罗马城和罗马帝国必在敌基督出现及主再来之前倾覆。¹⁴⁶

拉丁教父的看法。

居普良的观念主要在北非得到发展，那里也是这一观念最初得到明确表述的地方。

米莱维 (Milevi) 主教奥普塔图斯 (Optatus) 约于公元384年撰写了一部反多纳徒派 (Donatists) 的著作；除此之外，我们对他一无所知。他与居普良一样，深受教会有形合一这一观念的支配；他毫无保留地宣称，这种合一乃是至高的善，并认为它的具体表现和最可靠的保障，就在于那不可动摇的彼得教座（cathedra Petri）。彼得是使徒之首，是天国钥匙的掌管者；他虽然曾不认基督，却仍保持着相对于其他使徒的这一地位，使教会的合一在外在事实上显为不变之物，不受人的过犯损害。这一切特权都已传给罗马主教，因为他们是这位使徒的继承者。¹⁴⁷

米兰的安布罗斯 (Ambrose，† 397) 的确极力推崇罗马教会，并承认其主教拥有一种宗教上的治理权，犹如异教罗马皇帝的政治权力；¹⁴⁸ 然而，他将彼得的首席地位仅仅称为“认信的首席，而非尊荣的首席；信仰的首席，而非等级的首席”，¹⁴⁹ 并将使徒保罗置于与彼得平等的地位。¹⁵⁰ 至于安布罗斯本人，或最初六个世纪的米兰主教一般而言，曾服从罗马的管辖权，则找不到任何痕迹。

哲罗姆 (Jerome，† 419) 是拉丁教父中最博学的释经家，他对 petra 的解释摇摆不定：有时像奥古斯丁一样，将它解释为基督，¹⁵¹ 有时则解释为彼得及其认信。¹⁵² 在《马太福音》第十六章的注释中，他将这两种解释结合起来说：“正如基督将光赐给使徒，使他们随他而被称为世上的光，又如他们从主领受了其他称号，西门也因信靠那磐石基督，便领受了彼得这名字；因此，按照磐石这一比喻，对他说：‘我要把我的教会建造在你身上（super te）’，是恰当的。”他承认罗马主教是彼得的继承者，但在别处又主张主教享有平等的权利，¹⁵³ 甚至认为主教职分并非直接出于神的设立，而是源于教会的惯例，以及长老团中的主持职务。¹⁵⁴ 因此，他至多只能被援引为荣誉上的首席权、而非管辖上的至上权的见证。即便他著作中措辞最强烈的一段——公元376年写给友人教皇达马苏 (Damasus) 的信——也没有超出这个范围：“且将罗马元首的雄心置之度外；我是在与那渔夫的继承者、十字架的门徒说话。我不追随基督以外的任何元首，而是在信仰的相通中与你圣座联合，也就是与彼得的教座联合。我知道，教会就建造在这磐石上。”¹⁵⁵ 后来，这位自己也曾觊觎教皇宝座的教父，与罗马教士发生龃龉，退居伯利恒，在独处中从事苦修和著述；他在那里以笔墨服侍教会，远胜于他若作了达马苏的继承者所能成就的。

奥古斯丁 (Augustine，† 430) 是拉丁教会在神学上最有权威的人物。他起初将“我要把我的教会建造在这磐石上”解释为指彼得本人，后来却明确撤回这一解释，并根据 petra（ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ^*）与 Petrus（σὺ εἶ Πέτρος^*）之间的区别，认为 petra 指的是基督；哲罗姆也作出这一区分，不过他同时暗示，这一区别并不真正适用于希伯来语和叙利亚语的 Cephas。¹⁵⁶ 奥古斯丁在晚年所著的《订正录》(Retractations) 中这样纠正自己：¹⁵⁷ “我曾在某处论圣彼得说，教会建造在他这磐石上；许多人也在吟唱圣安布罗斯的诗句时唱到这个思想：

’Hoc ipsa petra ecclesiae（这教会的磐石本身）

Canente, culpam diluit.’〔教会的磐石自己，在鸡啼声中洗去了罪愆。〕¹⁵⁸

（教会的磐石自己，

在鸡啼声中赎去了自己的罪愆。）

但我知道，此后我曾屡次说，主所说的‘你是 Petrus，我要把我的教会建造在这 petra 上’，必须理解为指彼得所承认的那位永生上帝之子；彼得既由这磐石而得名，便代表教会，教会建造在这磐石上，并领受了天国的钥匙。因为主对他说的不是‘你是磐石’（petra），而是‘你是彼得’（Petrus）；那磐石就是基督，西门因承认他而得了彼得这个名字。不过，读者可以自行判断这两种解释哪一种更为可信。”他在另一处以同样的口吻说：“彼得因其使徒职分的首席地位，以一种象征性的概括方式代表教会……主对他说‘我要把天国的钥匙给你’等等时，他所代表的是整个教会；这教会在世上受各种试探侵袭，如遭洪水风暴，却不倾倒，因为它建造在磐石上，彼得的名字就是由此而来。因为不是磐石因彼得而得名，而是彼得因磐石而得名（non enim a Petro petra, sed Petrus a petra）；正如基督并非因基督徒而得名，反倒是基督徒因基督而得名。主之所以说‘我要把我的教会建造在这磐石上’，是因为彼得曾说：‘你是基督，是永生上帝的儿子。’他说，我要把我的教会建造在你所承认的这磐石上。因为基督就是那磐石（petra enim erat Christus），彼得自己也建造在其上；因为那已经立好的根基就是耶稣基督，此外没有人能立别的根基。因此，建造在基督身上的教会，在彼得这个代表身上，从基督领受了天国的钥匙，就是捆绑和释放罪的权柄。”¹⁵⁹ 奥古斯丁对 petra 的这一解释，后来又被一些新教神学家用来反对罗马教会。¹⁶⁰ 诚然，奥古斯丁所说的教会，无疑是有形的大公教会，借着主教的相承，由使徒、尤其是彼得传承下来；按照他那个时代的惯例，他也特别尊称罗马教会为“使徒教座”（sedes apostolica）。¹⁶¹ 但另一方面，他像居普良和哲罗姆一样，强调主教职分在本质上的合一，并坚持认为，天国的钥匙不是交给某一个人，而是交给整个教会；彼得不过是被设立来代表教会而已。¹⁶² 奥古斯丁时代北非教会对罗马所持的独立地位，与这一观点相符；我们先前已在阿皮亚里乌斯 (Apiarius) 的上诉事件中看到这一点，在奥古斯丁领导的伯拉纠派 (Pelagian) 争论中，也可见到这一点。因此，无论如何，这位教父只能被援引为罗马教座有限权威的见证。为求公允，还应指出，在他众多著作中，他极少谈及这一权威，即使谈到，也大多只是附带提及；这表明，他对此事的重视远不及罗马教会的神学家。¹⁶³

第四、第五世纪较晚的拉丁教父，倾向于将 petra 解释为彼得及其认信，并把他的特权转归作为其继承者的罗马主教，却没有提出新的论据。其中我们要提到都灵的马克西穆斯 (Maximus of Turin，约450年)，不过他与安布罗斯一样，将保罗置于与彼得平等的地位；¹⁶⁴ 此外还有奥罗修斯 (Orosius) 和几位教皇；尤其是利奥 (Leo)，我们将在下一节较详细地论述他。

至于希腊教父：优西比乌 (Eusebius)、耶路撒冷的区利罗 (Cyril of Jerusalem)、巴西尔 (Basil)、两位格列高利 (Gregories)、以法莲 (Ephraim)、叙鲁斯 (Syrus)、阿斯特里乌斯 (Asterius)、亚历山大的区利罗 (Cyril of Alexandria)、金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 和狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)，对 petra 有时解释为彼得的认信，有时解释为彼得本人，有时则兼指两者。他们无不以极崇高的措辞谈论这位使徒，有时甚至夸张铺陈，称他为“使徒合唱队的领唱者”、“使徒之首”、“使徒的舌头”、“执掌钥匙者”、“天国的守护者”、“柱石”、“磐石”、“教会坚固的根基”。然而，第一，他们所说的这一切，仅仅是指彼得在荣誉上的首席地位；那权柄不过是先交给他，主后来又同样赐给了所有使徒。第二，他们绝不赞成将这一特权独占性地转交给罗马主教，而是主张安提阿的主教也拥有这一特权；因为按照《加拉太书》第二章，彼得曾在安提阿长期居留，且据传统，他曾在那里担任主教，并委任了一位继承者。

例如，金口约翰称安提阿的伊格纳修 (Ignatius) 为“彼得的继承者，在彼得之后，教会的治理便落在他身上”；¹⁶⁵ 他在另一处说得更加明确：“既然提到了彼得，我便想起另一位彼得〔安提阿主教弗拉维安 (Flavian)〕，就是我们共同的父亲和教师；他既承受了彼得的美德，也承受了彼得的教座。是的，因为我们这座城〔安提阿〕的特权，就是起初（ἐν ἀρχῇ^*）曾有使徒的领袖作教师。基督徒这一名称起源的城市，理当领受使徒中的第一位作牧者。不过，我们虽曾有他作教师，却没有将他留下，而是将他转给了帝都罗马。”¹⁶⁶

同样出自安提阿学派 (Antiochian school) 的狄奥多勒，也像金口约翰一样，论到“安提阿大城”时说，它拥有“彼得的宝座”。¹⁶⁷ 诚然，他在致教皇利奥的一封信中，以极其夸张的措辞谈论彼得及其在罗马的继承者，说他们兼具在教会中享有最高尊位与统治权的一切内在和外在条件。¹⁶⁸ 然而，他在同一封信中又说，“彼得与保罗这对三重蒙福、神圣的双星，升起于东方，向四面八方放射光芒”；对此必须记得，他当时正向利奥寻求保护，以抵挡公元449年在以弗所举行、支持欧提克斯派 (Eutychians) 的强盗会议；那次会议曾不公正地罢免他本人及君士坦丁堡的弗拉维安。

他的死敌，那傲慢专横的亚历山大的区利罗 (Cyril of Alexandria)，几年前在反对聂斯托利 (Nestorius) 的斗争中，也曾自降身份，作出不体面的谄媚，称教皇凯莱斯廷 (Coelestine) 为“整个〔罗马〕世界的大主教”。¹⁶⁹ 然而，这些同样的主教，在别的情势下，却又怀着高傲的愤慨，抵制罗马对他们管辖权的侵夺。

§ 62. 会议关于教皇权威的法令

比个别教父的意见重要得多的，是各次会议的正式法令。

这里首先应当提到的是阿里乌派争论期间，于343年在伊利里亚 (Illyria) 的撒狄迦 (Sardica，今保加利亚的索非亚) 举行的会议。¹⁷⁰ 在所有会议中，这次会议最有利于罗马的权利主张。为了被罢免的亚他那修 (Athanasius) 和尼西亚正统信仰的利益，会议规定：

被罢免的主教，若自认为理由充分，可以出于对使徒彼得的追念和尊崇，向罗马主教尤利乌斯 (Julius) 申诉，由他决定是批准罢免，还是召集新的会议。
在接到罗马的裁决以前，不得填补空缺的主教职位。
罗马主教遇有这类上诉案件，可以按他认为最妥当的方式，或交由邻省的主教重新审理，或派遣代表前往当地，授予全权，与当地诸主教共同裁决此事。¹⁷¹

这样，对于受判罪或被罢免的主教，甚至东方的主教，罗马主教显然被赋予了受理上诉及复审的管辖权。然而，首先，这里并未承认这一权柄是实践中已经存在的权利。它是作为一种新的权力授予的，而且仅仅是一种荣誉上的权利，只属于尤利乌斯主教个人。¹⁷² 否则，便不会特别指名这位主教，或者也会同时提及他的继承者。其次，这些教规把上诉限于主教被本省同僚罢免的情形，对其他案件则只字未提。最后，撒狄迦会议并非大公会议，只是西方的一次地方会议，因此不能为整个教会立法。因为东方主教在会议一开始便已退出，在邻近的腓利波波利斯 (Philippopolis) 城另行召开对立的会议；而撒狄迦城连同伊利里库姆 (Illyricum) 行政区，当时也属于西罗马帝国和罗马牧首区，直到379年才与二者分离。诚然，这次会议原拟成为大公会议，但最初只有一百七十位主教参加；七十六位东方主教退出之后，便只剩下九十四位；即使加上二百位未出席主教的签名——会议记录曾送交他们认可，他们大多是埃及主教——东方，甚至拥有三百个主教区的拉丁非洲，仍然只有极微弱的代表。它未获皇帝君士坦提乌斯 (Constantius) 批准，后来也没有任何权威宣布它为大公会议。¹⁷³ 因此，它的法令很快便被遗忘；在阿里乌派争论的后续过程中，甚至在整个聂斯托利派争论期间，当亚历山大的主教而非罗马主教显然居于正统信仰阵营之首时，这些法令完全无人理会。¹⁷⁴ 381年、451年和680年的大公会议，都不知道有这样一个最高上诉法庭，反而一致规定：一切教会事务，无一例外，都应先由省会议裁决；如有上诉，不是向罗马主教，而是向所属教区的牧首提出。唯独罗马没有忘记撒狄迦的法令，反而在这唯一的先例上建立起一项普遍的权利。教皇佐西穆斯 (Zosimus) 在处理西卡 (Sicca) 被罢免的长老阿皮阿里乌斯 (Apiarius) 一案时（公元417–418年），犯了一个意味深长的错误：把撒狄迦的法令当成尼西亚的法令，从而赋予它们超过其实际分量的权威；非洲主教却请他查阅尼西亚教规的真正文本。然而，后来的教皇又超越了撒狄迦的法令，依据《伪伊西多教令集》(pseudo-Isidorian Decretals)，剥夺了撒狄迦原先准许省会议行使的罢免主教之权，将此事视为一项重大案件 (causa major)，完全收归自己专有。

最后，关于四次伟大的大公会议，即第一次尼西亚会议、第一次君士坦丁堡会议、以弗所会议和迦克墩会议：我们在论述它们关于牧首制度的立法时，已经陈明了它们在这一问题上的立场。¹⁷⁵ 我们已经看到，它们准许罗马主教在五位职权平等的牧首中享有荣誉上的优先地位，因而承认他是同侪之首 (primus inter pares)；但正是这一让步，否定了他关于最高管辖权以及统治整个教会的君主权的主张。事实上，整个牧首制度不是君主制，而是寡头制。因此，罗马代表和教皇利奥 (Leo) 便抗议451年迦克墩会议的法令，因为它与381年君士坦丁堡会议的法令相符。这一抗议不足以废除该法令，在东方也没有留下持久的影响；因为后来希腊牧首和皇帝偶尔向罗马教座作出的让步，例如篡位者福卡斯 (Phocas) 在606年所作的让步，甚至680年君士坦丁堡第六次大公会议所作的让步，都没有普遍的意义，而显然可以追溯到特殊的情势和偏见。

因此，一个不可否认的历史事实是：古代教会在教义和立法方面最伟大的权威，既坚决支持罗马主教区的牧首权利，以及它在牧首寡头制度中荣誉上的首席地位，也同样坚决反对它所特有的教皇权利主张。希腊教会后来与拉丁教会分离，直到今日仍证明，她从未愿意为罗马牺牲自己的独立，或背离自己那些最伟大会议的法令。

然而，希腊教会与新教对于教皇普世君主权的反对，其差别正在这里。希腊教会是立足于第五世纪寡头式的牧首教阶制度来抗议它的；因此，她所依据的时代和教会组织原则，都先于教皇制度在世界历史上发挥伟大作用的时期。福音派教会则立足于一种更为自由的基督教观来抗议它；在她看来，教皇制度确实是牧首制度合乎理路的发展，对于训练中世纪的罗曼诸民族和日耳曼诸民族也曾是必要的，但它实际上已经完成使命，存在得超过了自己的时限。希腊教会从来没有过教皇制度；福音派教会在历史上却以教皇制度为前提。教皇制度处于牧首教阶制度的时代与宗教改革的时代之间，正如摩西的神权政体处于列祖时期与基督教降临之间一样。新教既拒绝教皇君主制，也拒绝牧首寡头制，因此能够承认二者在基督教世界发展的某个时期、某个阶段各有其正当性。

§ 63. 大利奥：公元440–461年

I. 圣大利奥 (St. Leo Magnus)：《全集（讲道与书信）》(Opera omnia [sermones et epistolae])，Paschas. 凯内尔 (Paschas. Quesnel.) 编，巴黎 (Par.)，1675年，2卷，四开本。（持高卢主义立场，为希拉里辩护以反对利奥，因此被罗马《禁书目录》查禁。）另有 Petr. 与 Hieron. 巴莱里尼 (Petr. et Hieron. Ballerini) 编本（二人为学识极其渊博的兄弟，均为长老，应教皇本笃十四世之请撰写），威尼斯 (Venet.)，1753–1757年，3卷，对开本。（第i卷收录96篇讲道与173封书信，另两卷收录真伪存疑的著作及学术论文。）此版重印于米涅 (Migne) 的《教父学全集》(Patrologiae Cursus completus)，第54–57卷，巴黎 (Par.)，1846年。

II.《圣徒行传》(Acta Sanctorum)：4月11日条（4月第ii卷，第14–30页，简短而不能令人满意）。蒂耶蒙 (Tillemont)：《回忆录》(Mem.)，第xv卷，第414–832页（极为详尽）。巴特勒 (Butler)：《圣徒传》(Lives of the Saints)，4月11日条。W. A. 阿伦特 (W. A. Arendt，罗马天主教徒)：《大利奥及其时代》(Leo der Grosse u. seine Zeit)，美因茨 (Mainz)，1835年（为之辩护并颂扬）。Edw. 佩特尔 (Edw. Perthel)：《教皇利奥一世的生平与教导》(P. Leo’s I. Leben u. Lehren)，耶拿 (Jena)，1843年（新教立场）。Fr. 伯林格 (Fr. Boehringer)：《基督的教会及其见证人》(Die Kirche Christi u. ihre Zeugen)，苏黎世 (Zürich)，1846年，第i卷，第4分册，第170–309页。Ph. 雅菲 (Ph. Jaffé)：《罗马教皇纪事》(Regesta Pontif. Rom.)，柏林 (Berol.)，1851年，第34页及后。另参格林伍德 (Greenwood)：《彼得的教座》(Cathedra Petri)，伦敦 (Lond.)，1859年，第i卷，第ii编，第iv–vi章（利奥时期）；以及 H. H. 米尔曼 (H. H. Milman)：《拉丁基督教史》(Hist. of Latin Christianity)，伦敦与纽约，1860年，第i卷，第ii编，第iv章。

在早期大多数罗马主教身上，个人都被其职位的光芒所掩盖。支配主教的是时代精神和公众舆论，而不是主教支配它们。在前一个时期，维克托 (Victor) 在复活节争论中，加利斯都 (Callistus) 在重新接纳背道者的争论中，司提反 (Stephen) 在异端洗礼的争论中，最先显露出教阶主义的傲慢；但他们多少有些操之过早，分别遭到爱任纽 (Irenaeus)、希波吕托 (Hippolytus) 和居普良 (Cyprian) 的有力抵抗，尽管罗马的观点在这三个问题上最终都取得了胜利。

在我们所论的这一时期，使伊利里亚归于罗马管辖、并确立《武加大译本》权威的达马苏 (Damasus)，以及颁布第一封真正教令书信的西里修 (Siricius)，都沿着这些前任的足迹前进。英诺森一世 (Innocent I.，402–417年) 又向前迈进了一步，在伯拉纠派争论中，竟大胆宣称：在整个基督教世界，任何事情未经罗马教座知悉，都不应作出决定；尤其在信仰事务上，所有主教都必须转向圣彼得。¹⁷⁶

然而，严格意义上的第一位教皇是利奥一世 (Leo I.)；在拉丁教阶制度的历史上，他理当享有“大帝”的称号。教皇制度的观念在他身上仿佛成为了血肉。他以极大的力量和清晰的认识把握了这一观念，并以罗马式的统治精神，在当时环境所能容许的范围内将其付诸实行。他在教皇制度发展史上所标志的阶段，与居普良在主教制度史上所标志的阶段相当。他对罗马教座特权的观念，甚至高于大格列高利 (Gregory the Great)；后者虽在一百五十年之后执掌教权，所代表的却与其说是教皇观念，不如说是牧首观念。利奥同时也是罗马教座上第一位重要的神学家，在思想的敏锐与深刻方面，超过了所有前任，以及直到格列高利一世为止的所有继任者。本笃十四世 (Benedict XIV.) 于公元1744年将他列入人数寥寥的教会博士 (doctores ecclesiae)，即大公信仰的权威教师之列。他与摩尼派 (Manichaean)、普里西利安派 (Priscillianist)、伯拉纠派 (Pelagian) 及其他异端争战，并因完成了关于基督位格的正统教义，而赢得不朽的声名。

利奥出生的时间、地点及早年生活，均不为人知。他的书信是了解他的主要资料来源，但现存书信最早也不早于442年。他可能是罗马人¹⁷⁷——即使不是生于罗马，就他精神与举止中的高傲尊严、卓越的立法和行政才能，以及意志的坚强与活力而言，他也无疑是个罗马人——他最初在凯莱斯廷 (Coelestine，423–432年) 和西克斯图斯三世 (Sixtus III.，432–440年) 手下，担任罗马教会的首席执事和使节，崭露头角。后者去世时，他本人正在高卢 (Gaul)，却由教士、元老院和民众一致选为教皇，在位共二十一年（440–461年）。他在一篇讲道中，亲自这样描述就任这一崇高职位时的感受：“主啊，我听见你呼召我的声音，便惧怕；我思量你吩咐我作的工作，便战兢。因为交给我的重担与我的软弱，这一高位与我的微不足道，怎能相称呢？还有什么比无功而受尊荣、把最神圣的职分托付给一个深陷罪中的人，更可畏惧的呢？啊，你把这沉重的担子放在我身上，求你与我一同担当；恳求你作我的引导和扶持。”

在他担任教皇期间，他几乎是罗马帝国中唯一的伟人；他表现出非凡的活力，在教会的一切事务中都起着领导作用。他的私人生活完全不为人知，我们也没有理由怀疑他的动机或品行的纯洁。他任职的热忱，以及全部时间和精力，都献给了基督教的利益。但在他看来，基督教的利益与罗马教会的普世统治乃是一回事。

他始终怀着坚定不移的信念：主自己已将照管全教会的责任，托付给他这位彼得的继承人。¹⁷⁸后来用以确立教皇权力的一切教义论据，在他那里都已先行提出。他将教会建于其上的磐石（petra），解释为彼得及其信仰告白。概括他在这问题上的观点，基督自己虽在最高意义上是那磐石和根基，在此以外无人能立别的根基，然而主将自己的权柄转授给彼得，因彼得那伟大的信仰告白而使他成为磐石，并在他身上建造那不能毁坏的教会圣殿。在彼得身上，基督与其教会的根本关系，仿佛在历史中取得了具体的形态，成为现实。主将天国的钥匙特别托付给彼得个人；至于其他使徒，则只是在他们作为一个整体、一个团体的意义上将钥匙托付给他们。主在受难之时，特别为彼得的信心祈祷，仿佛只要他们领袖的心志不被征服，其他使徒就能站立得更加稳固。全体使徒信仰的坚定，有赖于彼得。主复活以后，将牧养小羊和群羊的责任托付给他。因此，彼得是全教会的牧人和首领，基督藉着他在地上施行普世的统治。然而，这一首位权并不限于使徒时期，而是像彼得的信仰和教会本身一样，延续不息；它藉着罗马主教延续下去，他们与彼得的关系，正如彼得与基督的关系。基督如何在彼得里面活着、说话，彼得也照样在他的继承人里面活着、说话，并不断执行这一使命：“你喂养我的羊。”彼得在罗马劳苦、死去，与成千上万蒙福的殉道者一同安睡在圣地，乃是出于上帝护理的特别引导。唯有世界帝国的中心，才能成为上帝国度的中心。然而，若没有宗教方面的考量，罗马的政治地位也就毫无重要性。罗马本是一切谬误和迷信的中心，藉着彼得却成为基督教世界的都会，并获赋予一种属灵的统治权，其范围远远超过了从前的地上帝国。因此，君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople) 主教座并非使徒教座（sedes apostolica），其尊荣仅以政治地位为基础，绝不能与罗马主教座抗衡，后者的首位权既根植于神圣权利，也根植于属人权利。安提阿 (Antioch) 是彼得仅曾短暂居留之地，亚历山大 (Alexandria) 则是他藉门徒马可建立教会之地；它们与罗马相比，也只居于次位，因为彼得的遗骨安息在罗马，而且在东方仅仅奠定的事业，也是在这里完成的。因此，罗马主教是众主教之首（primus omnium episcoporum），权力的全备（plenitudo potestatis）、对所有牧人的照管（solicitudo omnium pastorum），以及对普世教会的共同关怀（communis cura universalis ecclesiae），都归于他。¹⁷⁹

利奥由此将恩典和个人才干的首位，变成了权利和继承的首位。诚然，他在讲道中谈到自己个人时极为谦卑，但这不过是为了更加高举其职分。他告诉罗马人，真正庆祝他就任周年的方式，就是在他这卑微的人身上，承认、尊崇并顺服彼得本人；彼得仍旧看顾牧人和羊群，甚至他那不配的继承人，也不缺少他的尊荣。¹⁸⁰因此，在这里我们已经看到谦卑与傲慢这种独特的结合，后来定型于“上帝众仆之仆”“基督的代理者”，甚至“地上的上帝”等称谓之中。利奥每年都在这种既自觉个人不配、又自觉职分崇高的双重意识中，庆祝自己登上彼得座位的日子。彼得本人对自己的特权缄口不言，并且明确告诫人不可妄自作教阶式的尊大；¹⁸¹利奥却似乎无论怎样频繁、怎样着重地谈论自己的权柄，都还嫌不够。彼得在安提阿温顺地接受较晚成为使徒的保罗的责备；¹⁸²利奥却宣称，抗拒他的权柄，乃是不敬虔的骄傲，是通往地狱的必由之路。¹⁸³这样，顺服教皇就成为得救的必要条件。他说，凡不与使徒教座相合的，就是不与身体之首相合的；一切恩典的恩赐，都是从这头降至全身的；这样的人便不在教会的身体之内，也无分于教会的恩典。这是教皇制原则可怕却合乎其逻辑的推论：它将上帝的国度局限于某一特定组织的狭窄界线之内，使基督普世的属灵统治依附于一种属世形式和一个人的机构。然而，这一教皇禁令第一次施行，就显明自己不过是无效的雷霆（brutum fulmen）：它所针对的高卢大主教希拉里 (Hilary)，尽管遭受禁令，去世时仍普遍受人敬重爱戴，随后又被封为圣徒。这一原则若成立，就会把所有希腊教会和新教的基督徒排斥于天国之外；而它这种无法实行的性质，本身就是对这一原则的驳斥。

利奥在实行其教皇制观念时，表现出中世纪最伟大教皇所特有的精明手腕、外交才干和铁一般的坚毅。总的说来，时势对他有利：东方因教义争论而分裂；非洲遭蛮族蹂躏；西方因皇帝软弱而衰弱；各处都没有像上一代的亚他那修 (Athanasius)、奥古斯丁或哲罗姆那样强有力而品格纯正的主教或神学家；西罗马帝国的覆亡已迫在眉睫；一个新时代正随着新的民族破晓而出，而教皇制度恰是这些民族幼年时期所需要的学校；人数最多、也是最后一次重要的大公会议已经召开；普世正统信仰的体系，也即将以关于基督二性关系的裁决而告完成。

利奥首先利用了北非教会在阿里乌派 (Arian) 汪达尔人 (Vandals) 统治下的纷乱，以一位公认的最高牧者的口吻致信当地诸主教。在时局的压力之下，又缺乏居普良和奥古斯丁那样卓越的人物，非洲人便于443年顺服了他的权柄。他将残余的摩尼派和伯拉纠派逐出意大利，并以自己的震怒威胁诸主教，若他们不清除各自教会中的异端，就必遭惩处。东伊利里亚 (East Illyria) 是罗马朝向君士坦丁堡的教会前哨，对罗马至关重要；在那里，他成功地恢复并确立了达马苏曾取得、后来却已丧失的最高管辖权。帖撒罗尼迦 (Thessalonica) 的阿纳斯塔修 (Anastasius) 请求他确认自己的职分。利奥于444年批准了这一请求，将阿纳斯塔修的管辖权扩及伊利里亚所有主教，但保留了他们在重大案件中的上诉权，这些案件应由教皇按神圣启示作出裁决。不久便发生了一件正合他心意的案件，利奥藉此使自己的代理人明白：他蒙召固然是要分担利奥的照管责任，却不是要分享权力的全备（plenitudo potestatis）。在西班牙教会的事务上，利奥也有机会发挥自己的影响，因为阿斯托加 (Astorga) 主教图里比乌斯 (Turibius) 恳请他出面干预，抵制普里西利安派。他逐条驳斥了这些异端，西班牙人便以他的阐释为基础，拟订了一份正统的信仰准则（regula fidei），附有针对普里西利安派谬误的十八条咒诅。

然而在高卢，如我们已经看到的，他遭遇了阿尔勒的希拉里 (Hilary of Arles) 这位强劲对手；他虽然求助于世俗权力，并从皇帝瓦伦提尼安 (Valentinian) 那里取得一道完全支持其主张的敕令，却只获得了部分胜利。¹⁸⁴他试图在东方确立自己的首位权，并阻止君士坦丁堡的对手藉着迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon) 著名的第二十八条教规，取得与自己同等的职分地位；这番努力更不成功。¹⁸⁵他对那项决议的郑重抗议，并未产生持久的效果。但在其他方面，他在基督论争论的第二阶段发挥了最强有力的影响。他挫败了亚历山大的狄奥斯库鲁斯 (Dioscurus) 的专横，抵消了可耻的以弗所强盗会议 (Ephesus，449年) 的后果，促成了第四次大公会议的召开，并由他的使节代表他主持会议（此前三次会议，罗马主教均未如此行过）；他又藉着致君士坦丁堡的弗拉维安 (Flavian) 的那封著名书信，左右了会议教义问题的最终解决，其主要论点被纳入新的信经。然而，他的这种影响绝不只是得自他的职分，更主要的是得自他对这一问题的深刻洞察，以及他以高超手腕，在亚历山大派与安提阿派、欧迪奇派 (Eutychian) 与聂斯托利派 (Nestorian) 两种极端之间，持守大公正统信仰的中道。不过，他与这一重要教义的关系，其详情属于教义史的范围。

利奥除了如此塑造教会的体制与教义之外，还两度拯救罗马城免遭毁灭，为它立下不朽的功勋。¹⁸⁶匈奴王阿提拉 (Attila)，这位“上帝之鞭”，在摧毁阿奎莱亚 (Aquileia) 之后，严重威胁着这座世界之都（公元452年）；利奥仅带着两名随从，手持牧杖，倚靠上帝的帮助，冒险进入敌营，凭着他可敬的仪容、劝谏和馈赠，改变了这位野蛮异教徒的意图。后来拉斐尔 (Raphael) 曾以画笔表现的那则传说，又为这一事实增添了修饰：彼得和保罗显现出来，陪伴着主教，拔剑威吓阿提拉，若不罢兵，就要将他毁灭。¹⁸⁷数年之后（455年），又发生了一件类似的事：汪达尔王盖塞里克 (Genseric) 应皇后欧多克西亚 (Eudoxia) 为报复而发出的邀请，将劫掠推进到罗马。利奥得到他的应许，至少不使城中遭受杀戮和纵火；但蛮族仍在城内大肆劫掠了十四天，将夺得的大量财物运往迦太基 (Carthage)。此后，教皇竭尽所能，减轻由此造成的贫困与苦难，并修复各教堂。¹⁸⁸

利奥于461年去世，葬于圣彼得教堂。他去世的日期和情形均不为人知。¹⁸⁹

利奥的著作包括九十六篇讲道和一百七十三封书信，其中也收录了别人写给他的信。这些作品诚挚有力，富于思想，充满教会精神，多用大胆的对照和奇特的寓意解经，文风有时却显得沉重、浮夸而晦涩。他的讲道集是我们现存最早出自罗马主教之手的讲道集。他在就职讲道中宣告，传道是自己的神圣职责。这些讲道短小朴实，大多是在重大节期和他本人就任的周年纪念日宣讲的。¹⁹⁰其他归于他名下的著作，真伪颇有疑问，例如《论万民蒙召》，¹⁹¹该书在预定论上采取中间立场，意在调和半伯拉纠派 (Semipelagians) 与奥古斯丁派 (Augustinians)。

§ 64. 从利奥一世到格列高利一世的教皇制度，公元461–590年

利奥一世 (Leo I.) 与格列高利一世 (Gregory I.) 是最初六个世纪中最伟大的两位罗马主教。在他们之间，彼得的座位上没有出现过重要人物；在这相隔的一个世纪中，教皇制度的观念与权力也没有实质性的进展。事实上，这一观念与权力在利奥心目中所达到的程度，比在格列高利心目中还要高。利奥像绝对君主一样思想和行事；格列高利则以众牧首之首的身份思想和行事；但两人都深信自己是彼得的继承人。

利奥死后，曾代表他参加以弗所会议 (council of Ephesus) 的会吏长希拉里 (Hilary) 被选为继任者，在任期间（461–468年）遵循他的原则，在东方坚持严格的正统信仰，在高卢 (Gaul) 维护首席权的权威。

他的继任者辛普利基乌斯 (Simplicius，468–483年) 目睹了帝国在罗慕路斯·奥古斯图鲁斯 (Romulus Augustulus) 治下的最终瓦解（476年）；但他在书信中对此只字未提，似乎认为此事无足轻重。末代诸帝的昏弱，对于教皇权力的增长，与其说是阻碍，不如说是助力。如今，教皇权力在一定程度上填补了帝权留下的空缺；在西方各民族心目中，彼得的继承人成了古罗马帝国统绪的唯一承继者。

帝国覆亡后，教皇在政治上成了蛮族异端君王的臣民（因为这些君王都是阿里乌派）；然而，这些君王如同大多数异教皇帝一样，或出于策略，或出于无知或漠不关心，容许他在教会事务上享有完全的自由。在意大利，大公教会信徒无论人数还是文化程度，都占有远远超过他人的优势。而且，新统治者的阿里乌主义 (Arianism)，与其说是内心的信念，不如说是外表的信仰宣认。最先取得意大利王权的奥多亚塞 (Odoacer，476–493年) 宽容正统信仰，却在483年为了国家利益试图控制教皇选举，并以绝罚为惩处，禁止任何主教转让教会财产。二十年后，罗马的一次会议抗议这一平信徒的干预，宣布上述禁令无效；然而，会议本身也通过了一项类似的法令，禁止转让教会地产。¹⁹²

教皇费利克斯二世 (Felix II.)，或按另一种计算为三世（483–492年），继续其前任反对东方基督一性论 (Monophysitism) 的斗争，拒绝接受皇帝芝诺 (Zeno) 的《合一诏书》 (Henoticon)，认为这是平信徒对信仰事务无理的干涉，甚至大胆地将君士坦丁堡主教阿卡基乌斯 (Acacius) 革除教籍。阿卡基乌斯在其他东方牧首的支持下，以反向绝罚作答；两教会之间的分裂延续了三十余年，直到何尔米斯达 (Hormisdas) 任教皇时才告结束。

格拉修一世 (Gelasius I.，492–496年) 明确宣告了一项原则：祭司的权力高于王权和皇权，而彼得座位所作的裁决，不容上诉。然而，另一方面，这位教皇也给我们留下了一项值得注意的见证，反对不让平信徒领受圣餐之杯的做法，即 communio sub una specie（单形领圣餐）；他称这种做法为“亵渎”。

阿纳斯塔修二世 (Anastasius II.，496–498年) 对君士坦丁堡采取较为温和的语气，因而招致赞同其异端的嫌疑。¹⁹³

他突然去世之后，教皇选举发生争议，引起了流血冲突。意大利的征服者和统治者（493–526年）、东哥特王狄奥多里克 (Theodoric，即《尼伯龙根之歌》〔Niebelungenlied〕中伯尔尼的狄特里希〔Dietrich of Bern〕)，与奥多亚塞一样，也是一名阿里乌派信徒；在这场争端中，各方请他出面裁断。他支持西马库斯 (Symmachus)，而不支持劳伦提乌斯 (Laurentius)，因为西马库斯获得了多数选票，并且先受了祝圣。但劳伦提乌斯一派并不满意，指控西马库斯犯下种种严重罪行，甚至包括奸淫和挥霍教会地产。流血场面再次出现，祭司遭杀害，修道院被焚烧，修女受凌辱。元老院再度请求狄奥多里克裁断，他便在罗马召集了一次会议，西马库斯也表示同意；于是，一个由异端君王召集的会议，竟要裁决教皇的案件！争论期间，接连召开了几次会议，其确切年代仍有争议。¹⁹⁴最重要的是 synodus palmaris（帕尔马里斯会议），¹⁹⁵即西马库斯任内的第四次会议，于501年10月举行。会议未经调查便宣布这位教皇无罪，其前提是，会议不宜审判圣彼得的继承人。由于反对派不满这一裁决，会吏恩诺狄乌斯 (Ennodius)，即后来的帕维亚 (Pavia) 主教（卒于521年），为此次会议作了辩护，首次明确表述了利奥早已付诸实行的绝对权力原则：罗马主教高于一切人间法庭，只向上帝自己负责。¹⁹⁶然而，即使在中世纪，皇帝和大公会议仍曾废立教皇。这是罗马教会中绝对教皇制与立宪主教制之间的争议点之一，甚至特伦托会议 (council of Trent) 也未能解决。

何尔米斯达在任期间（514–523年），正统皇帝查士丁 (Justin) 以强有力的热忱，摧毁了希腊教会中的基督一性论派；519年，在分裂三十五年之后，该教会恢复了与罗马的联合。

狄奥多里克并未阻挠这些交涉和使节往来，并容许他最显赫的臣民对君士坦丁堡宣示自己在教会中的最高权威。这位半开化而信奉异端的君王，大体上是宽容的，对大公教会十分宽厚；他甚至达到了这样一项原则的高度：君主的权力应限于民政治理，不得侵犯臣民的良心。这项原则直到近代才得到承认。他说：“不得强迫任何人违背自己的意愿而信仰。”然而，在统治末期，他仅仅出于政治上的猜疑，就下令处死了著名哲学家波爱修斯 (Boethius)。古罗马文学以波爱修斯终结，远比罗马帝国以奥古斯图鲁斯终结更为体面；他又以同样的理由，处死了元老西马库斯，并监禁了教皇约翰一世 (John I.，523–526年)。

在各派长期争斗之后，他提名品德可敬的费利克斯三世（四世）继任教皇，这几乎是他在位时最后的举措。他在任命时下令：今后仍须如以往一样，由教士和人民选举教皇，但教皇就职以前，必须获得世俗君主的确认；在这一谅解下，教士和罗马城同意了这项提名。

然而，尽管有这样的安排，在选举博尼法斯二世 (Boniface II.)（530–532年）和约翰二世 (John II.)（532–535年）时，同样可耻的争吵和贿赂仍然发生；这可说是教皇制度史上的一种痼疾。

狄奥多里克去世（526年）后不久，哥特帝国便因内部纷乱和帝权衰弱而分崩离析。贝利撒留 (Belisarius) 征服了意大利（535年），使它与非洲一同重新并入东罗马帝国；这一帝国在查士丁尼 (Justinian) 治下重现了昔日的辉煌，享有一段短暂的晚夏余晖。然而，这位强大而正统的皇帝，却受制于善弄阴谋、信奉异端的狄奥多拉 (Theodora)；正是他将她从戏台抬上了宝座。他那屡战屡胜的将军贝利撒留，也同样完全受妻子安东尼娜 (Antonina) 的支配。

随着意大利被征服，教皇们陷入了对君士坦丁堡皇帝既危险又失却尊严的依附地位。这位皇帝固然尊崇罗马的主教座，但也同样尊崇君士坦丁堡的主教座；实际上，他企图将两者都用作自己国家教会专制统治的工具。阿加佩图斯 (Agapetus，535–536年) 无畏地抵抗查士丁尼的专断行径，并成功地抗议了将欧迪奇派 (Eutychian) 的安提穆斯 (Anthimus) 擢升为君士坦丁堡牧首之事。然而，由于这位信奉基督一性论的皇后的阴谋，他的继任者教皇西尔韦里乌斯 (Silverius，何尔米斯达之子，536–538年)，被控与哥特人暗通叛国书信而遭废黜，放逐到潘达塔里亚岛 (Pandataria)。从前那些最恶劣的异教皇帝，惯常将暴政的受害者送到那里；540年，他也死在那里——究竟是自然死亡，还是遭暴力而死，我们并不知道。

维吉利乌斯 (Vigilius) 是狄奥多拉手中唯命是从的工具，在贝利撒留的武力保护下登上教皇宝座（538–554年）。皇后曾应许给他这一职位和一笔金钱，条件是他必须废除迦克墩会议 (council of Chalcedon) 的决议，并宣告安提穆斯及其友人为正统。这位野心勃勃、口是心非的高级教士接受了条件，促成了西尔韦里乌斯的废黜，甚至可能也促成了他的死亡。在他任教皇期间，发生了激烈的三章之争 (controversy of the three chapters)，并召开了第二次君士坦丁堡大公会议（553年）。他在治理中毫无原则地摇摆于维护其职分的尊严与责任，以及屈从外来的神学和政治势力之间；一再为了趋向欧迪奇主义的精神而谴责三章，又一再撤回这种谴责。他应皇帝要求在君士坦丁堡居住数年，亲身遭受了许多逼迫，却既无殉道的精神，也无殉道的荣耀。例如，至少据西方的记载，他因不肯顺从查士丁尼及其会议的意旨，被人从祭坛前强行拖走；当时他双手紧抓祭坛，以致上方华盖的支柱都倒塌在他身上。他又被绳索套住脖子，拖行街头，投入普通监狱。然而，他最终还是因害怕被废黜而屈服了。他获准返回罗马，却在途中于西西里 (Sicily) 因结石病去世（554年）。

佩拉纠一世 (Pelagius I.，554–560年) 从前担任驻君士坦丁堡的教皇使节时，曾获得查士丁尼的宠信，如今奉其命令成为维吉利乌斯的继任者，却只找到两位愿意为他祝圣的主教。他与东方关系密切，并且认可第五次大公会议；该会议被认为是对欧迪奇派基督论的部分让步，因而也就是对迦克墩会议权威的质疑。这使许多西方主教，甚至意大利境内的主教，都与他疏远，暂时中断了与罗马的联系。他向整个基督教世界发出一封书信，宣告自己完全赞同前四次大公会议，继而为第五次大公会议辩护，声称它丝毫没有偏离迦克墩的教义。但他唯有借助纳尔塞斯 (Narses) 的武力才能使人服从；对于最不肯屈服的阿奎莱亚和米兰 (Milan) 主教，他则将他们作为囚犯送往君士坦丁堡。

从这两位由查士丁尼扶立的教皇身上，我们可以看出，罗马教阶制度的权力在多大程度上得益于远离拜占庭的专制统治，又在多大程度上因与之接触而受到损害。

668年之后，随着信奉阿里乌主义的伦巴第人 (Longobards) 南下侵入意大利，教皇们再度较为独立于拜占庭宫廷。他们固然仍须向驻拉文纳 (Ravenna) 的总督纳贡；这些总督是希腊皇帝的代表（自554年起），教皇的选举必须得到他们确认，就职也须由他们监督。然而，这些官员在意大利的控制力薄弱，又受到阿里乌派蛮族的压迫，这些都大大有利于教皇。教皇身为最富有的地产所有者，在意大利也享有很高的政治声望，并运用自己的影响力，在普遍的混乱中维持法律和秩序。

在其他方面，约翰三世 (John III.，560–573年)、本笃一世 (Benedict I.，574–578年) 和佩拉纠二世 (Pelagius II.，578–590年) 的治理时期，都属于教皇编年史上最晦暗、最乏善可陈的时期。

但到了格列高利一世 (Gregory I.，590–604年)，一个新的时期开始了。在古代罗马主教中，他的伟大仅次于利奥一世 (Leo I.)；他标志着宗主教制度向中世纪严格意义上的教皇制度的过渡。出于若干理由，我们宁愿把他置于下一时期的开端。诚然，他所提出的权利要求比利奥更为谦抑；利奥在胆识、精力和一贯性上都超过了他。他甚至像前任佩拉纠二世一样，郑重抗议君士坦丁堡宗主教禁食者约翰 (John Jejunator) 在587年的一次会议上采用的“普世主教”称号；¹⁹⁷他宣称这是一种敌基督的僭越，其措辞使我们鲜明地想起宗主教彼此平等的原则，似乎表明他从利奥的立场后退了一步。然而，若我们通观他的作为，并记得教皇制度那从不遗忘、始终严守的一贯性，我们便几乎有理由认为，这一抗议与其说是针对称号本身，不如说是针对使用这一称号的人；与其说出于真诚的谦卑，不如说出于对君士坦丁堡一位竞争者的嫉妒。¹⁹⁸出于同样的动机，罗马主教避免使用宗主教的称号，因为这会使他们与东方宗主教处于同等地位；他们意识到彼得座位所特有的尊严，因而更喜欢教皇的称号。据说，格列高利是第一个使用“上帝众仆之仆”这一既谦卑又骄傲的称号的人。他的继任者不顾他的抗议，自称为基督教世界的“普世主教”。他所谴责的东方同僚那种敌基督的傲慢，在后来的教皇看来，却不过是他们在普世教会中职分地位的恰当表达。

§ 65. 会议制度与大公会议

I. 主要史料是各次会议的议事录，其中最好、最完备的汇编有：耶稣会士西尔蒙 (Sirmond) 的汇编（罗马，1608–1612年，4卷，对开本）；所谓《王家汇编》(Collectio regia)（巴黎，1644年，37卷，对开本；纽约阿斯特图书馆藏有一部）；尤其是耶稣会士阿尔杜安 (Hardouin，†1729年) 的《大公及地方会议大全》(Collectio maxima Conciliorum generalium et provincialium)（巴黎，1715年及后，12卷，对开本），记事下迄1714年，附有五种详尽的索引，极便查考（第i、ii卷涵盖最初六个世纪；纽约协和神学院图书馆藏有一部，原属范埃斯〔Van Ess〕藏书）；以及意大利人乔安内斯·多米尼库斯·曼西 (Joannes Dominicus Mansi，卢卡大主教，卒于1769年) 的《神圣会议新编大全》(Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collection)，佛罗伦萨，1759–1798年，共31（30）卷，对开本。这是记载十五世纪以前各次会议最完备、最好的汇编，但未完成，因而没有总索引；第i卷收录自基督教起源至公元304年的会议；第ii–ix卷涵盖本书所论时期，下迄公元590年（我所引用的是纽约协和神学院图书馆所藏这一珍稀汇编的精良本，共30卷。詹姆斯·达林〔James Darling〕在其《书目百科》〔Cyclop. Bibliographica〕第740–756页，列出了尼科拉·科莱蒂〔Nic. Coleti〕较早编印的会议集的内容目录；该书1728年刊于威尼斯，共23卷，另有曼西于1748–1752年编刊的补编6卷，记事下迄1727年，而曼西的新编只到1509年。布吕内〔Brunet〕在《书商手册》〔Manuel Du Libraire〕中引述了曼西的佛罗伦萨版，1759–1798年，并评道：“Cette collection, dont le dernier volume s’arrête à l’année 1509, est peu commune à Paris ou elle revenait à 600 fr.”——“这部汇编的最后一卷止于1509年，在巴黎颇为罕见，售价达600法郎。”严格说来，除少数文献延伸至更晚年代外，它止于十五世纪中叶）。有用的节本有巴托洛梅·卡兰萨 (Barth. Caranza) 的《会议概要》(Summa Conciliorum)，有多种版本；以及富克斯 (Fuchs) 用德文编写的《教会会议文库》(Bibliothek der Kirchenversammlungen)（第四、第五世纪），莱比锡，1780–1784年，4卷。

克里斯蒂安·威廉·弗朗茨·瓦尔希 (Chr. Wilh. Franz Walch，路德宗)：《教会会议完整史纲》(Entwurf einer vollstaendigen Historie der Kirchenversammlungen)，莱比锡，1759年。爱德华·H. 兰登 (Edw. H. Landon，圣公会)：《神圣大公教会会议手册，按字母顺序编排，收录最重要、最著名教规的要旨》(A manual of Councils of the Holy Catholick Church, comprising the substance of the most remarkable and important canons, alphabetically arranged)，十二开本，伦敦，1846年。C. J. 黑费勒 (C. J. Hefele，罗马天主教)：《会议史》(Conciliengeshichte)，弗赖堡，1855–1863年，5卷（极有价值的著作，尚未完成；第v卷下迄公元1250年）。另参我论《大公会议》(Oekumenische Concilien) 的文章，载多尔纳 (Dorner)《德国神学年鉴》(Annals of Ger. Theol.)，第viii卷，第326–346页。

大公会议，或称普世会议，¹⁹⁹居于众宗主教之上，甚至高于罗马宗主教，是古代大公教会合一与权威的最高代表。它们起初以罗马帝国为范围，后来也包括邻近的蛮族国家，只要这些国家有主教出席，作为其代表。它们如高耸的山峰或雄伟的金字塔，耸立于古代教会史的平原之上，标志着那些震动希腊—罗马帝国境内基督教世界的普遍性教义与教规问题，获得了最终的权威裁决。

会议制度总体上发端于耶路撒冷的使徒会议，²⁰⁰并在最初五个世纪中，以其大公教会的形式完成了发展。它像主教制度一样，呈现出教阶式的等级层次。首先是教区或地区会议，由一教区（按该词后来的意义而言）的主教主持，其属下教士参加；其次是教省会议，由都主教或大主教及其教省的各主教组成；再其次是宗主教区会议，包括一宗主教区（或按该词古义所称的一个教区）的全体主教；然后是全国会议，也被不准确地称为普世会议，代表整个希腊教会或整个拉丁教会（如后来的拉特兰会议和特伦托会议）；最后，居于顶端的是代表整个基督教世界的大公会议。此外，还有一种特殊而不合常规的会议，称为σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα^*，由君士坦丁堡主教与当时驻留当地（ἐνδημοῦντες^*）的各省主教经常举行。²⁰¹

在较早的几个世纪，会议的召开没有固定规律，而是应当时的需要而举行，例如第二世纪后半叶的孟他努派 (Montanist) 争论和复活节争论。卡帕多西亚的菲尔米利安 (Firmilian of Cappadocia) 在致居普良 (Cyprian) 的信中，首次提到，在他所处的第三世纪中叶，小亚细亚各教会定期举行由主教与长老组成的年度会议。从那时起，我们发现埃及、叙利亚、希腊、北非、意大利、西班牙和高卢的此类集会日益增多。公元325年的尼西亚会议 (Nicaea) 在第五条教规中规定，教省会议每年应举行两次：一次在复活节前的禁食期，一次在秋季。²⁰²至于其他会议，则没有作出规定。

大公会议不是定期集会，而是因古代教会重大的神学争论而召开的特别集会。只有在罗马皇帝归信、基督教取得国教的优势地位之后，它们才可能出现。希腊教会在基督教的早期总体上居于领导地位，是一切神学活动的主要中心；大公会议则是其力量最高、也是最后的表现。因此，在这个教会中，正如在其他教会中一样，这些会议至今仍受到最高的崇敬，教堂中的图画使民众对它们的记忆长存。自842年以来，希腊和俄罗斯的基督徒每年都在大斋期的第一个主日纪念七次大公会议，以此作为正统信仰得胜的节日；²⁰³他们仍怀着希望，盼望第八次大公会议终能医治基督教世界的分裂与软弱。这些会议，特别是尼西亚会议和迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon)，藉着它们的信条，至今仍活在西方教会之中，无论是罗马天主教，还是福音派新教。

严格说来，这些会议没有一次真正代表了整个基督教世界。且不说平信徒，甚至低级教士，都被排除在外，就是与会的主教本身，也只占大公教会全体主教的一小部分。单是北非一省的主教人数，就远远多于第二次、第三次或第五次普世会议任何一次的与会人数。²⁰⁴这些会议主要带有东方性质，所处理的是希腊教会的争论，使用希腊语，在君士坦丁堡或其附近召开，成员几乎全是希腊人。拉丁教会通常只有罗马主教的两三位使节作为代表；不过，诚然，这些使节多少是以整个西方的名义行事。即使迦克墩会议的五百二十名或六百三十名成员，除利奥一世的两位代表和偶然在场的两位非洲逃难者外，也全都来自东方。381年的君士坦丁堡会议没有一位拉丁主教，只有一百五十位希腊主教；直到下一世纪中叶前后，才因拉丁教会的认可而升格为大公会议。另一方面，449年的以弗所会议 (Ephesus)，原是皇帝和教皇有意召开的一个大公会议；但它非但未能如此，反因以暴力认可欧迪奇 (Eutyches) 的异端，而在历史上被烙上了“强盗会议”的恶名。343年的撒狄迦会议 (Sardica) 同样原拟为普世会议，却在开会后不久，由于东方主教退出并另立组织，而变成了一派的会议。

因此，决定一次会议是否具有大公性质的，不是出席主教的人数，甚至也不单是召集程序是否合乎规定，而是会议的结果、决议的重要性与正确性，尤其是正统基督教世界的认可。²⁰⁵

由希腊和拉丁教会的公论如此推尊为大公会议的，数目共有七次。这一系列始于325年的第一次尼西亚会议；它确定了基督神性的教义，并谴责了阿里乌 (Arian) 异端。最后一次是787年的第二次尼西亚会议，批准在教会中使用圣像。这些会议中的前四次，在正统的福音派教会中享有很高的神学地位，后三次则较不重要，也远较少被提及。

大公会议不仅具有教会意义，也带有政治或国家教会的性质。这个名称本身就指向οἰκουμένη^*，即orbis Romanus（罗马世界），也就是帝国。唯有以君士坦丁 (Constantine) 即位为标志的那场重大转变，才使这种会议成为可能。正是这位皇帝促成了第一次大公会议的召开，不过这一构想很可能是他在主教中的朋友向他提出的；至少鲁菲努斯 (Rufinus) 说，他是“ex sacerdotum sententia”（依照主教们的意见）召集这次会议的。无论如何，按古代意义而言，信奉基督教的希腊—罗马皇帝是大公会议不可或缺的条件；他是会议的世俗首脑，也是其立法力量的来源。

按照中世纪贯彻实行、至今仍为罗马天主教神学家所主张的严格的圣统制或教皇制理论，唯有教皇作为全教会的元首，才能召集、主持并确认普世会议。但从325年至867年的前七次，或按罗马的算法为八次大公会议的历史，却把这三重权力归于拜占庭 (Byzantine) 皇帝。至今尚存的皇帝敕令、会议记录、所有希腊史家的记述以及同时代的拉丁文史料，都使这一点无可辩驳。俄国沙皇以及德国、斯堪的纳维亚 (Scandinavia) 和英国的新教君主，正是依据拜占庭的这一先例，以及以色列诸王的榜样，主张自己对领土内的教会拥有类似而且范围更广的监督权——无论这种主张是否正当。

首先，大公会议的召集令出自皇帝。²⁰⁶他们确定会议的地点和时间，颁布敕令，召集帝国的都主教和较著名的主教，提供交通工具，并由国库支付旅费及其他开支。尼西亚会议 (Nicaea) 和第一次君士坦丁堡会议的召集令，都是在未事先征询罗马主教意见或取得其同意的情况下发出的。²⁰⁷在451年的迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon) 上，教皇的影响才首次显著突出；然而，即使在那里，这种影响实际上仍从属于会议的更高权威。利奥 (Leo) 对该会议涉及君士坦丁堡牧首地位的第二十八条教规提出抗议，会议却不为所动。不仅大公会议，地方会议也常由西方君主召集；例如314年的阿尔勒会议 (Arles) 由君士坦丁召集，549年的奥尔良会议 (Orleans) 由希尔德贝尔特 (Childebert) 召集；再提前举一个后世的例子，794年的法兰克福会议 (Frankfort) 则由查理曼 (Charlemagne) 召集。另一个值得注意的事实前面已经提过：六世纪初，为裁定叙马库斯 (Symmachus) 当选所引起的争议，在罗马召开的几次正统派会议，乃由一位世俗君主召集，而且此人正是信奉异端的狄奥多里克 (Theodoric)；但这些会议仍被视为有效。

其次，在皇帝所召集的大公会议中，除两次以外，他们都直接或间接地积极参与，并担任主席。君士坦丁大帝、马尔基安 (Marcian) 及其妻普尔喀丽亚 (Pulcheria)、君士坦丁·普罗戈纳图斯 (Constantine Progonatus)、伊琳娜 (Irene) 和马其顿人巴西尔 (Basil the Macedonian) 都曾亲自出席；但通常皇帝与罗马主教一样（后者从未亲自出席），由为此次会议授予全权的使节或专员代表。这些代表宣读皇帝敕令（用拉丁语和希腊语）及其他文件，宣布开会。他们与牧首共同主持会议，掌管全部议事进程，维持秩序与安全，宣布闭会，并在会议文件上签名，或列于主教签名之前，或列于其后。他们处于如此显要的地位，若自己对神学有所关切或持有见解，有时便会对讨论和决议施加不小的影响，尽管他们没有表决权（votum）；这正如议事和立法机构的主席通常没有投票权，只有某一问题的裁决取决于他们的一票时才属例外。

会议记录和希腊史家经常提到皇帝或其专员的这种主席地位。甚至教皇司提反五世 (Stephen V.，公元817年) 也写道，君士坦丁大帝曾主持尼西亚会议。据优西比乌 (Eusebius) 记述，君士坦丁以庄严的演说引入主要议题，经常出席会议，并在会中居于尊位。会议结束时，他设宴款待主教；在那位颂扬他的史家看来，他置身众主教之间的情景，竟仿佛基督在众圣徒中间的预表！²⁰⁸君士坦丁在一切会议中最著名、最重要的这次会议上如此显要，尤其令人瞩目，因为当时他甚至还没有受洗。当马尔基安和普尔喀丽亚率宫廷人员来到迦克墩会议，确认会议决议时，与会主教以东方夸张的辞藻迎接他们，称他们为信仰的捍卫者、正统信仰的柱石、异端者的仇敌和逼迫者；称皇帝为第二位君士坦丁、新保罗、新大卫，称皇后为第二位海伦娜 (Helena)，此外还有其他冠冕堂皇的称号。²⁰⁹只有第二次和第五次大公会议没有皇帝的代表出席；这两次会议的主席职权掌握在君士坦丁堡牧首手中。

不过，各地牧首或其代表，尤其是牧首中最有权势的罗马主教的使节，也与皇帝专员共同主持会议，或在他们缺席时担任主席。第三、第四，以及第六、第七、第八次普世会议，情形都是如此。

因为皇帝与会议的关系，主要涉及议事的进行和会议的外部事务，而不是神学与宗教的讨论。这一区别表现在君士坦丁关于双重主教职分的那句名言中，我们前面已经提过。在尼西亚会议上，皇帝也照此行事。他对主教的尊崇，超过了他那些异教前任对罗马元老的敬意。他愿作使徒继承人的仆人，而非他们的审判官，因为他们被立为地上的祭司和神。他致开幕词之后，便将“发言权交给”会议的（教士）主持人；²¹⁰这里所指的，大概是亚历山大主教亚历山大 (Alexander)、安提阿的欧斯塔修 (Eustathius of Antioch) 和科尔多瓦的何西乌 (Hosius of Cordova)——最后这位是皇帝的密友，也是西方诸教会、或许还是罗马主教的代表。在狄奥多西二世 (Theodosius II.) 身上，我们也看到世俗主席与属灵主席的同一区别。他派伯爵（comes）坎迪狄安 (Candidian) 作为代表出席第三次大公会议，授予他管理全部议事程序的全权，却不许他干预神学问题本身；他在给会议的信中写道：“因为不在至圣主教名册之列的人，不宜介入教会的讨论。”然而，实际主持这次会议并掌管议事的，是亚历山大的区利罗 (Cyril of Alexandria)，起初由他独自主持，后来则与教皇使节共同主持；坎迪狄安却支持聂斯托利派 (Nestorian) 的反对者，他们在安提阿牧首约翰 (John of Antioch) 的领导下另行召开了会议。

最后，会议的批准也出自皇帝。他们或借签署，或借特别敕令，赋予会议决议以法律效力；将其提升为帝国的法律；竭力使之得到遵守，并以罢黜和放逐惩处不服从者。君士坦丁大帝之于尼西亚会议的决议，狄奥多西大帝 (Theodosius the Great) 之于君士坦丁堡会议的决议，马尔基安之于迦克墩会议的决议，都是如此。第二次大公会议曾明确请求皇帝给予这种认可，因为他既未亲自出席，也未派专员参加。相反，直到451年第四次大公会议之后，教皇的确认才被视为必要。²¹¹尽管如此，查士丁尼 (Justinian) 仍在未得教皇维吉利乌 (Vigilius) 同意、实际上甚至已获知他拒绝的情况下，强行通过了553年第五次会议的决议。然而，到中世纪，情形便倒转过来。教皇对会议的影响增加，皇帝的影响则衰退；更确切地说，德意志皇帝从未像拜占庭皇帝那样，要求在教会中享有如此卓越的地位。不过，教皇与大公会议的关系，也就是两者究竟谁高于谁的问题，至今仍是教廷派或教皇至上派 (ultramontane) 与主教派或高卢派 (Gallican) 争论的焦点。

除了皇帝及其专员所占的这种优势地位之外，大公会议的性质完全是圣统制的。在耶路撒冷的使徒会议上，长老和弟兄们与使徒一同参与，决议也以全会众的名义发出。²¹²但这种姑且可称为共和或民主的成分，早已在贵族精神面前退让。唯有主教作为使徒的继承人和承受者，作为施教的教会（ecclesia docens），才是会议的成员。因此，尼西亚第五条教规甚至将地方会议称为“该省主教的全体大会”。诚然，长老和执事也参与讨论；亚他那修 (Athanasius) 当时虽只是一位执事，但他凭着热忱和才干，对尼西亚会议所发挥的影响，可能比大多数主教还大。然而，除非他们像罗马使节那样代表自己的主教，否则便没有决定性表决权（votum decisivum）。平信徒则完全被排除在外。

不过，必须记得，当时的主教是由民众投票选出的。就此而言，他们确实代表基督徒民众，而且常因自己的行为受到民众的质问，尽管他们是以使徒继承人的身份，凭自己的名义投票。优西比乌觉得自己有义务向凯撒利亚教区说明他在尼西亚会议上投票的理由；而在迦克墩会议上的埃及主教，则害怕自己的会众发生骚动。

此外，在一个绝对专制的时代，这些会议认可了共同公开议事的原则，视之为达致真理、解决争议的最佳途径。它们以教会的形式重现了罗马元老院的景象，成为代议政体和议会立法的先驱。

在纪律问题上，由多数决定；但在信仰问题上，则要求全体一致，尽管必要时会借着排除持异议的少数，强求这种一致。在会场中央的一张讲台或桌上，放着一部翻开的福音书，象征基督的临在；他那无谬的话语是一切教义的准则。后来，教会法规和圣徒遗物也以同样庄严的方式陈列。主教们——至少按后来的惯例——依照受按立日期的先后或主教座的等级，围成一圈就座；他们身后是祭司，前面或旁边是执事。会议以礼仪形式的庄严宗教仪式开始和结束。古代会议的各项议题都在公开的全体会议上讨论，会议记录载有长篇演说和辩论。但在特伦托会议 (Trent) 上，待议事项先由各个委员会拟定，然后才提交全体会议批准。表决始终按人头计票，直到康斯坦茨会议 (Constance) 时，为避免意大利高级教士占据优势，才改为按国别投票。

大公会议的管辖权涵盖教会的全部立法、基督徒信仰与生活的一切事项（fidei et morum），以及组织与崇拜的一切事项。教义方面的决议称为dogmata（教义）或symbola（信条）；纪律方面的决议则称为canones（教规）。同时，会议在必要时也行使最高司法权，将主教和牧首逐出教会。

这些会议在裁决一切争议问题上的权威，是至高无上且终局性的。

这些会议的教义决议，很早就被赋予了无谬性；主关于他的教会不可毁灭、他自己永远与教职人员同在，以及真理的圣灵必施引导的应许，都被毫无保留地应用于这些代表全教会的会议。仿照使徒会议的先例，颁布决议时惯用的措辞是：Visum est Sprirtui Sancto et nobis（圣灵和我们认为合宜）。²¹³ 君士坦丁大帝 (Constantine the Great) 在致各教会的通函中，称尼西亚会议 (Nice) 的决议为神圣的命令；²¹⁴ 不过，论及这种措辞，不可忘记拜占庭专制君主的语言中对“神圣的”一词的滥用。亚他那修 (Athanasius) 论到基督神性的教义时说：“上帝借尼西亚会议所说的话，永远长存。”²¹⁵ 迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon) 宣告，尼西亚教父们的决议是不可更改的法令，因为上帝亲自借着他们说了话。²¹⁶ 以弗所会议 (Ephesus) 在废黜聂斯托利 (Nestorius) 的判词中，使用了这样的措辞：“他所亵渎的主耶稣基督，借这至圣的会议作出裁决。”²¹⁷ 教皇利奥 (Leo) 称迦克墩会议就基督位格教义所达成的共识为“irretractabilis consensus”（不可撤销的共识）。教皇大格列高利 (Gregory the Great) 甚至把前四次会议与四部正典福音书置于同等地位；这些会议分别驳斥并摧毁了阿里乌 (Arius)、马其顿尼乌 (Macedonius)、聂斯托利和欧提克斯 (Eutyches) 的异端与不敬虔之说。²¹⁸ 同样，查士丁尼 (Justinian) 将前四次会议的教义与圣经等量齐观，又将其教规与帝国法律并列。²¹⁹ 其余三次大公会议，无论在神学上的重要性，还是由此而来的权威，都不及奠定大公正统信仰根基的前四次会议。否则，格列高利在我们刚才提及的那段话中，也会提到553年的第五次会议。即使在前四次会议之间，地位也有高下之分；就其成果的性质而言，尼西亚会议和迦克墩会议居于首位。

但canones（教规）中规定的纪律条例，情形却并非如此。它们从未被视为像信仰信条那样具有普遍约束力；因为组织和惯例的问题，较多属于教会的外在形式，多少都受时代变迁的影响。尼西亚会议第十五条教规禁止教职人员从一地调往另一地，并宣布这类调任无效；²²⁰ 五十七年后（382年），纳齐安祖的格列高利 (Gregory Nazianzen) 已将它列入早已失效的法规之中。²²¹ 格列高利自己就曾屡次更换任职地点，屈梭多模 (Chrysostom) 也曾从安提阿 (Antioch) 被召往君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople)。利奥一世 (Leo I.) 对第二次大公会议的第三条教规言辞极为不敬，因为它把君士坦丁堡主教列于罗马主教之后，居第二位；出于同一原因，他也抗议第四次大公会议的第二十八条教规。²²² 事实上，罗马教会并不坚持采纳这些会议制定的一切纪律法规。

教父中才干最卓越、也最虔诚的奥古斯丁 (Augustine)，本着他那个时代最优秀的精神，对会议的这种权威提出了一种富于哲理的见解，在过度尊崇与过度贬抑这两个极端之间，取得了明智而健全的中道，也接近福音派新教的自由精神。他理当地把这些会议置于圣经之下，因为圣经是最高而完备的信仰准则；他认为，会议的决议虽不可被废置或撤销，却可以借后世更深入的研究得到扩充和补足。这些决议为满足普遍的需要，将先前神学争论已经充分酝酿的成果体现出来，并使教会对于所议问题的认识，获得当时所能达到的最清晰、最准确的表达。但这种认识本身也有待发展。圣经明确无误地陈明真理，不容置疑；主教的判断却可以由其他主教更明智的判断来纠正，并从上帝的话语中获得新的真理，使之更加丰富；省区会议的判断可以由大公会议来纠正、充实，一次大公会议的见解，也可以由后来的大公会议来纠正、充实。²²³ 奥古斯丁在这里假定，会议的一切事务都是本着基督徒的谦卑、和睦与仁爱精神来进行的；但他若出席了431年的以弗所会议——就在他去世前后，他曾获邀赴会——就会悲痛地发现，支配那里的恰是完全相反的精神。因此，奥古斯丁显然承认，教会教义是逐渐进步的，并不时借大公会议获得相应的表达；但这是真理范围内的进步，并不包含实质性的错误。因为在某种意义上，当他反对异端时，他使圣经的权威依赖于大公教会的权威；在反对摩尼教 (Manichaean) 异端的那句名言中，他说：“若不是大公教会的权威促使我相信，我就不会相信福音。”²²⁴ 同样，勒兰的文森特 (Vincentius Lerinensis) 教导说，教会教义在认识上确实经历不同的成长阶段，并在反对不断兴起的谬误时，得到越来越明确的界定，但它绝不能被改变或割裂。²²⁵

新教教会认为，大公会议以及一切教会传统的权威，取决于它们与圣经相符的程度；希腊教会和罗马教会却把圣经与传统置于同等地位。新教教会理当地高度尊崇前四次大公会议，却并非盲目顺从，并将其教义陈述纳入自己的信条，因为她看出，这些陈述虽然不免人的缺陷，却对圣经关于三位一体和基督神人位格的教导，作出了最清晰、最恰当的表达。直到今日，教会的判断——必须将它与神学思辨谨慎地区分开来——尚未实质性地超越这些陈述；这正是对那些会议的智慧与重要性的最高赞誉。但这并不是说，尼西亚信经和后来的亚他那修信经，已是教会对其中所界定的各项信条之认识的non plus ultra（不可逾越的顶点）。相反，神学与教会的责任，是在珍视并持守这些早期成果的同时，不断重新研究同样的问题，越来越深入地探究基督教这些神圣的根本奥秘，并在同一位圣灵的引导下，从上帝圣言取之不尽的矿藏中发掘新的珍宝；这位圣灵今日仍在教会中生活、运行，其大能丝毫不亚于第四、第五世纪。例如，路德宗教会发展了基督两种状态的教义，改革宗教会发展了基督三重职分的教义，从而大大丰富了基督论；而古代大公教会在迦克墩会议上以准确无误的判断所确定的教义，只是直接针对聂斯托利的二元论和欧提克斯的一性论 (monophysitism)，论及基督的两种本性。

在为进一步、更深入地探究圣经真理保留余地的同时，新教感到自己在大公正统信仰的纽带中，与古代希腊教会和拉丁教会合而为一。但对于大公会议的纪律教规，新教的立场比罗马教会更为自由、独立。这些教规所依据的，是一种本质上不属于新教的教会秩序与崇拜观，即以教阶制度和献祭为本的观念；路德宗与英国圣公会的宗教改革部分地摒弃了它，茨温利派 (Zwinglian) 与加尔文派 (Calvinistic) 的宗教改革则几乎完全摒弃了它。然而，这并不是说，在纪律领域中，我们不能仍从那些会议学到许多东西，也不是说，许多古代习俗或制度，或许不值得本着福音的自由精神加以恢复。

这些会议的道德品格，与更早和更晚的教会会议大体相仿，因此不能据此衡量它们在历史上的重要性和教义上的权威。它们忠实地反映了古代教会的光明与阴暗。它们把属天的宝贝放在瓦器里。即使在耶路撒冷会议上，受默示的使徒之间尚且有许多辩论，²²⁶ 此后不久，彼得、保罗和巴拿巴之间又发生过激烈冲突，虽只是暂时的；那么，对于尼西亚时代及其后继时代的主教，对于一个已经与道德败坏的国家交织在一起的教会，我们自然必须预料到更坏得多的情形。会议汇聚了丰富的才干、学识和美德，也汇聚了无知、阴谋和党派激情；在此前漫长的争论中，这些激情早已在各方被激起，如今便如敌对的军队，相遇列阵，公开交战。那些伟大的会议，全都由神学上最重要、最困难的问题所引起的争论而召开；事实上，它们之于教义史，正如决定性战役之于战争史。正因为宗教是人最深切、最神圣的关切，宗教激情往往也最为猛烈、最为苦毒；尤其在一个从宫廷到市集摊贩、各个阶层都对神学思辨怀着极大兴趣，并被卷入共同激动的漩涡之中的时代，更是如此。因此，臭名昭著的rabies theologorum（神学家之狂怒），在第四、第五世纪比历史上任何其他时期都更为活跃；或许只有十六世纪的大变革和十七世纪的教派论争可作例外。

关于这一点，我们既有同时代人的见证，也有会议记录本身的见证。圣纳齐安的贵格利 (Gregory Nazianzen)，在苏格拉底 (Socrates) 看来，是他那个时代最虔诚、最雄辩的人；²²⁷ 他本人身为君士坦丁堡主教，也曾一度主持第二次大公会议。他的观察与亲身经历如此苦涩，以致他竟对会议失去了一切信心——虽然理由并不充分——并在诗中称之为“鹤与鹅的集会”。382年，也就是第二次大公会议之后一年，他这样答复奉皇帝之名召他参加一次会议、却未能如愿的普罗科皮乌斯 (Procopius)；他这番话所指的，无疑也包括刚刚举行的那次大公会议：“说实话，我倾向于避开主教的一切聚会，因为我从未见过一次会议有好的结局，或能减轻弊害而不是使之加剧。在这些集会中（我想，我在这里的措辞并不过分），占上风的是难以形容的好争与野心；一个人想要除去罪恶，尚未有所成就，却更容易先招来责难，被指企图自居为他人罪恶的审判者。因此，我已退隐，惟独在独处中才为自己的灵魂寻得安息。”²²⁸ 诚然，喜爱默想的贵格利厌恶一切公共生活，在这些看法上，他过分顺从了个人的性情。而且，无论如何，他也是前后不一的；因为他在别处十分尊崇尼西亚会议，并且是继亚他那修 (Athanasius) 之后，尼西亚信经最重要的捍卫者。然而，他对当时主教与会议所作的种种不利描写，仍足以打消人们以为它们纯洁无瑕的一切幻想。博索布尔 (Beausobre) 说得不错：大贵格利若不是诽谤者，他那个时代的主教便是严重失职的。第五世纪的情形并无好转，反而更坏。关于431年在以弗所 (Ephesus) 举行的第三次大公会议，各种记载一致认为，可耻的阴谋、毫无仁爱而急欲定人罪的心，以及粗暴的行径，其盛行程度几乎不亚于449年那次臭名昭著的以弗所强盗会议；但两者有一个重要区别，就是前者为真理争战，后者却为谬误争战。甚至在迦克墩 (Chalcedon)，著名释经家兼历史学家狄奥多勒 (Theodoret) 入场时，也引起了一幕骚乱，使我们几乎不由自主地想到近代希腊教会和罗马教会的修士，在土耳其警察的约束监视下，仍在圣墓前争吵的情景。他那些埃及的对手竭力喊道：“信仰完了！把他赶出去，这个聂斯托利的老师！”他的朋友也同样激烈地回答：“他们〔在强盗会议上〕用殴打强迫我们签字；把这些摩尼教徒、弗拉维安 (Flavian) 的仇敌、信仰的仇敌赶出去！把杀人凶手狄奥斯库鲁斯 (Dioscurus) 赶出去！谁不知道他的恶行？”埃及主教又喊道：“把这个犹太人、上帝的敌人赶出去，不要称他为主教！”东方主教则回答：“把滋事者赶出去，把杀人凶手赶出去！这个正统信仰的人有权参加会议！”最后，皇帝的专使出面干预，终止了这场骚乱；他们称之为有失体统、毫无益处的喧闹，实在恰如其分。²²⁹

然而，在这一切人性激情的爆发中，我们不可忘记，主始终坐在教会的船上，引导她平安驶过波涛与风暴。那永不离开她的真理之灵，最终总是胜过谬误，甚至借着他所使用之人的软弱，彰显自己的荣耀。我们对会议的尊崇，必须建立在这明确无误的上天引导之上；人的种种缺陷与之相对，反而使这引导愈发鲜明。Soli Deo gloria（荣耀惟独归于上帝）；或用金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 的话说：Δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν^*（为一切事荣耀归于上帝）！

§ 66. 古代教会大公会议一览

我们在此仅附上希腊—罗马教会历次大公会议的名单，略述其性质与工作，以供综览。

第一次尼西亚会议 (Concilium Nicaenum I.)，公元325年；在比提尼亚 (Bithynia) 的尼西亚 (Nicaea) 举行。这是一座商业繁盛的城镇，靠近皇帝驻跸的尼哥米底亚 (Nicomedia)，水陆交通便利。会议由三百一十八位主教组成，²³⁰ 此外还有大批司祭、执事和辅祭，大多来自东方；由君士坦丁大帝 (Constantine the Great) 召集，为要解决阿里乌派 (Arian) 的争论。他在323年取得决定性胜利，成为整个罗马帝国的主人之后，便希望借助教会显要，完成恢复统一与和平的事业。这次会议的成果，是预先确立了基督真实神性的教义，即子与父本质相同。这一教义的根本重要性，主教人数之众多，以及他们的学识、虔诚与智慧——其中许多人身上仍带着戴克里先 (Diocletian) 逼迫所留下的伤痕——第一位基督徒皇帝的亲自出席，“教会史之父”优西比乌 (Eusebius) 和“正统信仰之父”亚他那修（当时尚只是总执事）的到场，加上这一时代本身的非凡性质，共同赋予这第一次大公会议以特殊的分量和权威。它被特称为“伟大而神圣的会议”，在所有会议中居于最高地位，尤其受到希腊教会的尊崇；²³¹ 它至今仍活在《尼西亚信经》之中，这一信经的权威，仅次于历来备受敬重的《使徒信经》。不过，这一信经直到第二次大公会议，才最后确定并补充为现今的形式（更晚才由拉丁教会加入的 filioque〔和子〕除外）。此外，聚集在尼西亚的教父们还就各种纪律问题颁布了若干教规，通常计为二十条；其中最重要的，是关于都主教的权利、复活节的日期，以及异端所施洗礼的效力。
第一次君士坦丁堡会议 (Concilium Constantinopolitanum I.)，公元381年，由狄奥多西大帝 (Theodosius the Great) 召集，在帝都举行；这座城市直到上一次会议五年之后，才在历史上有了名声。然而，这次会议完全属于东方，只有一百五十位主教参加，因为皇帝只召集了尼西亚派的支持者，而该派在前一朝统治下人数已大为减少。皇帝本人并未出席。起初由安提阿的梅勒提乌斯 (Meletius) 主持，直到他去世；继而由纳齐安的贵格利主持；他辞职后，则由新当选的君士坦丁堡牧首涅克塔里乌斯 (Nectarius) 主持。会议为反对马其顿派 (Macedonians)，亦即敌圣灵派 (Pneumatomachists)，在尼西亚信仰告白中增添了论圣灵神性与位格的一条（因此称为 Symbolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum，即《尼西亚—君士坦丁堡信经》），又颁布了七条教规；不过，拉丁译本仅载前四条，因此许多人认为，另外三条的真实性仍有疑问。
以弗所会议 (Concilium Ephesinum)，公元431年；由狄奥多西二世 (Theodosius II.) 联同西部共治皇帝瓦伦提尼安三世 (Valentinian III.) 召集，在野心勃勃、性情暴烈的亚历山大的区利罗 (Cyril of Alexandria) 主导下举行。会议起初有一百六十位主教，后来增至一百九十八位，²³² 其中首次有来自罗马的教皇代表参加；他们所受的指示是，不参与辩论，而要以审判者的身份，裁断其余与会者的意见。会议谴责了聂斯托利 (Nestorius) 关于基督两性关系的谬误，却没有清楚陈明正确的教义。因此，它只取得了消极的成果，在前四次会议中最不重要，在道德品格上也居于末位。聂斯托利派或迦勒底 (Chaldaic) 基督徒完全拒绝承认这次会议。它的六条教规仅涉及聂斯托利派和伯拉纠派 (Pelagian) 的事务，狄奥尼修斯·埃克西古斯 (Dionysius Exiguus) 在其汇编中将这些教规全部略去。
迦克墩会议 (Concilium Chalcedonense)，公元451年；皇帝马尔基安 (Marcian) 应罗马主教利奥 (Leo) 的请求召集，在君士坦丁堡对岸、比提尼亚境内的迦克墩举行；由五百二十位（也有人说六百三十位）主教组成。²³³ 其中有罗马主教的三位代表、两位非洲主教，其余全是希腊人与东方人。第四次大公会议为反对欧提克斯主义 (Eutychianism) 和聂斯托利主义 (Nestorianism)，确定了关于基督位格的正统教义，并制定三十条教规（某些抄本仅载二十七或二十八条）；其中第二十八条遭到罗马使节及利奥一世的抵制。在历次大公会议中，这次会议人数最多，重要性仅次于尼西亚会议，但东方教会所有一性论 (Monophysite) 派别都拒绝承认它。
第二次君士坦丁堡会议 (Concilium Constantinopolitanum II.)，整整一个世纪以后，于公元553年由皇帝查士丁尼 (Tustinian) 未经教皇同意召集，为要解决旷日持久的一性论争议。会议由君士坦丁堡牧首欧提基乌斯 (Eutychius) 主持，仅有一百六十四位主教参加，并针对所谓的“三章”颁布了十四条咒诅；²³⁴ “三章”指三位已故主教兼神学家的基督论观点，即摩普绥提亚的狄奥多若 (Theodore of Mopsueste)、居鲁士的狄奥多勒 (Theodoret of Cyros) 和埃德萨的伊巴斯 (Ibas of Edessa) 的观点，他们被指倾向于聂斯托利异端。然而，即使在摇摆不定的教皇维吉利乌斯 (Vigilius) 表示同意之后，许多西方主教仍不承认第五次会议；会议还造成了上意大利与罗马教座之间的暂时分裂。就重要性而言，它远逊于前四次会议。它的希腊文会议记录，除十四条咒诅之外，均已散失。

此外，后来还有两次会议，在希腊教会与拉丁教会中都取得了无可争议的大公权威：一次是公元680年、君士坦丁·普罗戈纳图斯 (Constantine Progonatus) 在位时举行的第三次君士坦丁堡会议，它谴责了基督一志论 (Monothelitism)（以及638年去世的教皇霍诺里乌斯〔Honorius〕），²³⁵ 并使古代大公教会的基督论臻于完备；另一次是公元787年、女皇伊琳娜 (Irene) 在位时举行的第二次尼西亚会议，它认可了大公教会的圣像崇拜，但在教义上并无重要性。

这样，尼西亚——如今已是破败的土耳其小村伊兹尼克 (Is-nik)²³⁶——便享有这样的殊荣：公认的大公会议序列，既以它为开端，也以它为终结。

从此以后，希腊教会与拉丁教会分道扬镳，也就再没有可称为大公会议的会议了。希腊教会认为，692年的第二次特鲁洛会议 (second Trullan)²³⁷（或称第四次君士坦丁堡会议）只制定教规，并未制定信经，因此不是独立的第八次会议，而是第五、第六次大公会议的附录（所以称为 Quinisexta sc. synodus，即第五—第六次会议）；拉丁教会却始终反对这一看法。另一方面，拉丁教会将公元869年的第四次君士坦丁堡会议²³⁸ 提升为第八次大公会议；这次会议罢黜了牧首佛提乌斯 (Photius)，他是希腊教会在与拉丁教会争斗中的捍卫者。但随着佛提乌斯后来复职，这次会议在希腊教会中便被废止。罗马教会又依其独占大公性的主张，在七次或八次希腊会议之外，加上十二次或更多的拉丁大公会议，直至梵蒂冈会议 (Vatican，1870年)；但对于这一切会议，希腊教会和新教教会只能承认其局部性质。从古代教会最后一次无争议的希腊—拉丁大公会议（公元787年），到中世纪教会第一次拉丁大公会议（1123年），其间相隔三百三十六年。教皇教座的权威，必须在这中间的几个世纪中确立起来。²³⁹

§ 67. 教会法典籍

I. 《古代教会法文库》(Bibiliotheca juris canonici veteris)，沃埃卢斯 (Voellus，索邦神学院神学家) 与朱斯特卢斯 (Justellus，即 Justeau，法国国王的顾问兼秘书) 编，巴黎 (Par.)，1661年，2卷，对开本。（第i卷收录普世教会的希腊文和拉丁文教规、狄奥尼修斯·埃克西古斯或古罗马教会的教会法条、非洲教会的教规等。目录见达林 (Darling)《书目百科全书》(Cyclop. Bibliographica)，第1702页及下页。）

参见第ii卷§56（第183页）所列文献。巴莱里尼兄弟 (Ballerini)：《论格拉提安以前已刊与未刊的古代教规汇编及其编纂者》(De antiquis tum editis tum ineditis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum ad Gratianum usque)，载其所编《大利奥著作集》(Opp. Leon M.)，威尼斯 (Ven.)，1753年及后。另见凯内尔 (Quesnel)、马尔卡 (Marca)、孔斯坦 (Constant)、德赖 (Drey)、泰纳 (Theiner) 等人论教规汇编史的专著。比较费尔德·瓦尔特 (Ferd. Walther)：《教会法教科书》(Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts)，第109页及后，第8版，1839年。

大公会议所颁布的纪律条例或教规，是教会法的主要源泉。在这些教规之外，又加上第四世纪最重要的地方会议的决议，即安居拉 (Ancyra，314年)、新凯撒利亚 (Neo-Caesarea，314年)、安提阿 (Antioch，341年)、撒狄迦 (Sardica，343年)、冈格拉 (Gangra，365年) 和老底嘉 (Laodicea，343至381年之间) 各会议的决议；第三类则是著名主教、教皇和皇帝的敕令。第五世纪开始以后，或无论如何在迦克墩会议以前，东方、北非、意大利、高卢和西班牙便从这些来源编成各种教会法律汇编；不过，这些汇编只有地方性的权威，而且彼此在许多方面并不一致。当时并不存在一部《普世教会教规法典》(codex canonum ecclesiae universae)。较早的汇编后来都被两部汇编所掩盖；这两部，一部在西方，一部在东方，获得了最高的尊崇。

最重要的拉丁文汇编出自罗马的修道院院长狄奥尼修斯·埃克西古斯 (Dionysius Exiguus) 之手，虽然他按血统是斯基泰人。²⁴⁰ 他还因引入基督教纪年，即“狄奥尼修斯纪元”，而使自己的名字不朽，尽管他推算所依据的年代有误。这位“小”修士把基督看作历代的转折点，并把这一看法引入年代学，实在是一个伟大的思想。约在500年，狄奥尼修斯为萨洛纳 (Salona) 的主教司提反 (Stephen) 将一部教规汇编从希腊文译为拉丁文；这部译本连同写给司提反的序言，至今尚存。²⁴¹ 其中首先收录五十条所谓《使徒教规》；它们自称由罗马的革利免汇集，实际上却是在第三、第四世纪逐渐形成的。²⁴² 其次收录第四、第五世纪最重要的会议的教规，包括撒狄迦和非洲各会议的教规；最后收录从西里修斯 (Siricius，385年) 到阿纳斯塔修斯二世 (Anastasius II，498年) 的教皇教令书信。《狄奥尼修斯法典》(Codex Dionysii) 不断增补，真伪兼收，并因教皇们的支持，几乎在整个西方取得了法律的权威。不过，其他汇编也仍在使用，尤其是在西班牙和北非。

狄奥尼修斯之后约五十年，约翰·斯科拉斯蒂库斯 (John Scholasticus) 出版了一部希腊文教规汇编。²⁴³ 他起初是律师，后来任安提阿的长老，564年以后任君士坦丁堡牧首。这部汇编在完备程度和编排便利上都胜过前者，因此，加上作者本人的显赫地位，很快就在希腊教会取得了普遍的权威。他按主题次序分为五十题，收录八十五条《使徒教规》，以及从安居拉会议（314年）、尼西亚会议（325年）直到迦克墩会议（451年）的各会议条例。希腊人视为大公会议的第二次特鲁洛会议 (Quinisextum，692年)，采纳了这八十五条《使徒教规》，却拒绝接受《使徒宪章》(Apostolic Constitutions)，因为它们虽与这些教规一样源出使徒，却早已遭到篡杂。希腊教会与拉丁教会在所谓《使徒教规》的数目上的差异，由此产生；拉丁教会只保留狄奥尼修斯汇编中的五十条。

这位约翰在担任君士坦丁堡牧首时，又从查士丁尼 (Justinian) 的《新律》(Novelles) 中，编成一部有关教会的国家法律汇编；这些法律称为 νόμοι^*，有别于称为 κανόνες^* 的会议所定教会法律。后来，实际的需要使两者合为一编，题为《国家法与教会法汇编》(Nomocanon)。

这些教会法典籍有助于完善并巩固教阶组织，规范教牧人员的生活，促进秩序与纪律；但也使外在的律法主义牢牢附着于教会，阻碍进步的精神。

Original Text

CHAPTER V. THE HIERARCHY AND POLITY OF THE CHURCH.

Comp. in part the literature in vol. i. § 105 and 110 (to which should be added now, P. A. de Lagarde: Constitutiones Apostolorum, Lips. and Lond., 1862); also Gibbon, ch. xx.; Milman: Hist. of Ancient Christianity, book iv. c. 1 (Amer. ed. p. 438 sqq.), and the corresponding sections in Bingham, Schroeckh, Plank, Neander, Gieseler, Baur, etc. (see the particular literature below).

§ 48. Schools of the Clergy.

Having in a former section observed the elevation of the church to the position of the state religion of the Roman empire, and the influence of this great change upon the condition of the clergy and upon public morality, we turn now to the internal organization and the development of the hierarchy under its new circumstances. The step of progress which we here find distinguishing the organization of this third period from the episcopal system of the second and the apostolic supervision of the first, is the rise of the patriarchal constitution and of the system of ecumenical councils closely connected with it. But we must first glance at the character and influence of the teaching order in general.

The work of preparation for the clerical office was, on the one hand, materially facilitated by the union of the church with the state, putting her in possession of the treasures, the schools, the learning, and the literature of classic heathendom, and throwing the education of the rising generation into her hands. The numerous doctrinal controversies kept the spirit of investigation awake, and among the fathers and bishops of the fourth and fifth centuries we meet with the greatest theologians of the ancient church. These gave their weighty voices for the great value of a thorough education to the clerical office, and imparted much wholesome instruction respecting the studies proper to this purpose.(1) The African church, by a decree of the council of Carthage, in 397, required of candidates a trial of their knowledge and orthodoxy. A law of Justinian, of the year 541, established a similar test in the East.

But on the other hand, a regular and general system of clerical education was still entirely wanting. The steady decay of the classic literature, the gradual cessation of philosophical and artistic production, the growth of monastic prejudice against secular learning and culture, the great want of ministers in the suddenly expanded field of the church, the uneasy state of the empire, and the barbarian invasions, were so many hinderances to thorough theological preparation. Many candidates trusted to the magical virtue of ordination. Others, without inward call, were attracted to the holy office by the wealth and power of the church. Others had no time or opportunity for preparation, and passed, at the instance of the popular voice or of circumstances, immediately from the service of the state to that of the church, even to the episcopal office; though several councils prescribed a previous test of their capacity in the lower degrees of reader, deacon, and presbyter. Often, however, this irregularity turned to the advantage of the church, and gave her a highly gifted man, like Ambrose, whom the acclamation of the people called to the episcopal see of Milan even before he was baptized. Gregory Nazianzen laments that many priests and bishops came in fresh from the counting house, sunburnt from the plow, from the oar, from the army, or even from the theatre, so that the most holy order of all was in danger of becoming the most ridiculous. "Only he can be a physician," says he, "who knows the nature of diseases; he, a painter, who has gone through much practice in mixing colors and in drawing forms; but a clergyman may be found with perfect ease, not thoroughly wrought, of course, but fresh made, sown and full blown in a moment, as the legend says of the giants.(2) We form the saints in a day, and enjoin them to be wise, though they possess no wisdom at all, and bring nothing to their spiritual office, except at best a good will."(3) If such complaints were raised so early as the end of the Nicene age, while the theological activity of the Greek church was in its bloom, there was far more reason for them after the middle of the fifth century and in the sixth, especially in the Latin church, where, even among the most eminent clergymen, a knowledge of the original languages of the Holy Scriptures was a rare exception.

The opportunities which this period offered for literary and theological preparation for the ministry, were the following:

The East had four or five theological schools, which, however, were far from supplying its wants.

The oldest and most celebrated was the catechetical school of Alexandria. Favored by the great literary treasures, the extensive commercial relations, and the ecclesiastical importance of the Egyptian metropolis, as well as by a succession of distinguished teachers, it flourished from the middle of the second century to the end of the fourth, when, amidst the Origenistic, Nestorian, and Monophysite confusion, it withered and died. Its last ornament was the blind, but learned and pious Didymus (340–395).

From the Alexandrian school proceeded the smaller institution of Caesarea in Palestine, which was founded by Origen, after his banishment from Alexandria, and received a new but temporary impulse in the beginning of the fourth century from his admirer, the presbyter Pamphilus, and from his friend Eusebius. It possessed the theological library which Eusebius used in the preparation of his learned works.

Far more important was the theological school of Antioch, founded about 290 by the presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian. It developed in the course of the fourth century a severe grammatico-historical exegesis, counter to the Origenistic allegorical method of the Alexandrians; now in connection with the church doctrine, as in Chrysostom; now in a rationalizing spirit, as in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius.

The seminary at Edessa, a daughter of the Antiochian school, was started by the learned deacon, Ephraim Syrus († 378), furnished ministers for Mesopotamia and Persia, and stood for about a hundred years.

The Nestorians, at the close of the fifth century, founded a seminary at Nisibis in Mesopotamia, which was organized into several classes and based upon a definite plan of instruction.

The West had no such institutions for theological instruction, but supplied itself chiefly from cloisters and private schools of the bishops. Cassiodorus endeavored to engage Pope Agapetus in founding a learned institution in Rome, but was discouraged by the warlike disquietude of Italy. Jerome spent some time at the Alexandrian school under the direction of Didymus.

Many priests and bishops, as we have already observed, emanated from the monasteries, where they enjoyed the advantages of retirement from the world, undisturbed meditation, the intercourse of kindred earnest minds, and a large spiritual experience; but, on the other hand, easily sank into a monkish narrowness, and rarely attained that social culture and comprehensive knowledge of the world and of men, which is necessary, especially in large cities, for a wide field of labor.
In the West there were smaller diocesan seminaries, under the direction of the bishops, who trained their own clergy, both in theory and in practice, as they passed through the subordinate classes of reader, sub-deacon, and deacon.

Augustine set a good example of this sort, having at Hippo a "monasterium clericorum," which sent forth many good presbyters and bishops for the various dioceses of North Africa. Similar clerical monasteries or episcopal seminaries arose gradually in the southern countries of Europe, and are very common in the Roman Catholic church to this day.

Several of the most learned and able fathers of the fourth century received their general scientific education in heathen schools, under the setting sun of the classic culture, and then studied theology either in ascetic retirement or under some distinguished church teacher, or by the private reading of the Scriptures and the earlier church literature.

Thus Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen were in the high school of Athens at the same time with the prince Julian the Apostate; Chrysostom attended the lectures of the celebrated rhetorician Libanius in Antioch; Augustine studied at Carthage, Rome, and Milan; and Jerome was introduced to the study of the classics by the grammarian Donatus of Rome. The great and invaluable service of these fathers in the development and defence of the church doctrine, in pulpit eloquence, and especially in the translation and exposition of the Holy Scriptures, is the best evidence of the high value of a classical education. And the church has always, with good reason, acknowledged it.

§ 49. Clergy and Laity. Elections.

The clergy, according to the precedent of the Old Testament, came to be more and more rigidly distinguished, as a peculiar order, from the body of the laity. The ordination, which was solemnized by the laying on of hands and prayer, with the addition at a later period of an anointing with oil and balsam, marked the formal entrance into the special priesthood, as baptism initiated into the universal priesthood; and, like baptism, it bore an indefeasible character (character indelebilis). By degrees the priestly office assumed the additional distinction of celibacy and of external marks, such as tonsure, and sacerdotal vestments worn at first only during official service, then in every-day life. The idea of the universal priesthood of believers retreated in proportion, though it never passed entirely out of sight, but was from time to time asserted even in this age. Augustine, for example, says, that as all are called Christians on account of their baptism, so all believers are priests, because they are members of the one High Priest.(4)

The progress of the hierarchical principle also encroached gradually upon the rights of the people in the election of their pastors.(5) But in this period it did not as yet entirely suppress them. The lower clergy were chosen by the bishops, the bishops by their colleagues in the province and by the clergy. The fourth canon of Nice, probably at the instance of the Meletian schism, directed that a bishop should be instituted and consecrated by all, or at least by three, of the bishops of the province. This was not aimed, however, against the rights of the people, but against elec-tion by only one bishop—the act of Meletius. For the con-sent of the people in the choice of presbyters, and especially of bishops, long remained, at least in outward form, in memory of the custom of the apostles and the primitive church. There was either a formal vote,(6) particularly when there were three or more candidates before the people, or the people were thrice required to signify their confirmation or rejection by the formula: "Worthy," or "unworthy."(7) The influence of the people in this period appears most prominently in the election of bishops. The Roman bishop Leo, in spite of his papal absolutism, asserted the thoroughly democratic principle, long since abandoned by his successors: "He who is to preside over all, should be elected by all."(8) Oftentimes the popular will decided before the provincial bishops and the clergy assembled and the regular election could be held. Ambrose of Milan and Nectarius of Constantinople were appointed to the bishopric even before they were baptized; the former by the people, the latter by the emperor Theodosius; though in palpable violation of the eightieth apostolic canon and the second Nicene.(9) Martin of Tours owed his elevation likewise to the popular voice, while some bishops objected to it on account of his small and wasted form.(10) Chrysostom was called from Antioch to Constantinople by the emperor Arcadius, in consequence of a unanimous vote of the clergy and people.(11) Sometimes the people acted under outside considerations and the management of demagogues, and demanded unworthy or ignorant men for the highest offices. Thus there were frequent disturbances and collisions, and even bloody conflicts, as in the election of Damasus in Rome. In short, all the selfish passions and corrupting influences, which had spoiled the freedom of the popular political elections in the Grecian and Roman republics, and which appear also in the republics of modern times, intruded upon the elections of the church. And the clergy likewise often suffered themselves to be guided by impure motives. Chrysostom laments that presbyters, in the choice of a bishop, instead of looking only at spiritual fitness, were led by regard for noble birth, or great wealth, or consanguinity and friendship.(12) The bishops themselves sometimes did no better. Nectarius, who was suddenly transferred, in 381, by the emperor Theodosius, from the praetorship to the bishopric of Constantinople, even before he was baptized,(13) wished to ordain his physician Martyrius deacon, and when the latter refused, on the ground of incapacity, he replied: "Did not I, who am now a priest, formerly live much more immorally than thou, as thou thyself well knowest, since thou wast often an accomplice of my many iniquities?" Martyrius, however, persisted in his refusal, because he had continued to live in sin long after his baptism, while Nectarius had become a new man since his.(14)

The emperor also, after the middle of the fourth century, exercised a decisive influence in the election of metropolitans and patriarchs, and often abused it in a despotic and arbitrary way.

Thus every mode of appointment was evidently exposed to abuse, and could furnish no security against unworthy candidates, if the electors, whoever they might be, were destitute of moral earnestness and the gift of spiritual discernment.

Toward the end of the period before us the republican element in the election of bishops entirely disappeared. The Greek church after the eighth century vested the franchise exclusively in the bishops.(15) The Latin church, after the eleventh century, vested it in the clergy of the cathedral church, without allowing any participation to the people. But in the West, especially in Spain and France, instead of the people, the temporal prince exerted an important influence, in spite of the frequent protest of the church.

Even the election of pope, after the downfall of the West Roman empire, came largely under control of the secular authorities of Rome; first, of the Ostrogothic kings; then, of the exarchs of Ravenna in the name of the Byzantine emperor; and, after Charlemagne, of the emperor of Germany; till, in 1059, through the influence of Hildebrand (afterward Gregory VII.), it was lodged exclusively with the college of cardinals, which was filled by the pope himself. Yet the papal absolutism of the middle age, like the modern Napoleonic military despotism in the state, found it well, under favorable prospects, to enlist the democratic principle for the advancement of its own interests.

§ 50. Marriage and Celibacy of the Clergy.

The progress and influence of monasticism, the general exaltation of the ascetic life above the social, and of celibacy above the married state, together with the increasing sharpness of the distinction between clergy and laity, all tended powerfully toward the celibacy of the clergy. What the apostle Paul, expressly discriminating a divine command from a human counsel, left to each one’s choice, and advised, in view of the oppressed condition of the Christians in the apostolic age, as a safer and less anxious state only for those who felt called to it by a special gift of grace, now, though the stress of circumstances was past, was made, at least in the Latin church, an inexorable law. What had been a voluntary, and therefore an honorable exception, now became the rule, and the former rule became the exception. Connubial intercourse appeared incompatible with the dignity and purity of the priestly office and of priestly functions, especially with the service of the altar. The clergy, as the model order, could not remain below the moral ideal of monasticism, extolled by all the fathers of the church, and must exhibit the same unconditional and undivided devotion to the church within the bosom of society, which monasticism exhibited without it. While placed by their calling in unavoidable contact with the world, they must vie with the monks at least in the virtue of sexual purity, and thereby increase their influence over the people. Moreover, the celibate life secured to the clergy greater independence toward the state and civil society, and thus favored the interests of the hierarchy. But, on the other hand, it estranged them more and more from the sympathies and domestic relations of the people, and tempted them to the illicit indulgence of appetite, which, perhaps, did more injury to the cause of Christian morality and to the true influence of the clergy, than the advantage of forced celibacy could compensate.

In the practice of clerical celibacy, however, the Greek and the Latin churches diverged in the fourth century, and are to this day divided. The Greek church stopped halfway, and limited the injunction of celibacy to the higher clergy, who were accordingly chosen generally from the monasteries or from the ranks of widower-presbyters; while the Latin church extended the law to the lower clergy, and at the same time carried forward the hierarchical principle to absolute papacy. The Greek church differs from the Latin, not by any higher standard of marriage, but only by a closer adherence to earlier usage and by less consistent application of the ascetic principle. It is in theory as remote from the evangelical Protestant church as the Latin is, and approaches it only in practice. It sets virginity far above marriage, and regards marriage only in its aspect of negative utility. In the single marriage of a priest it sees in a measure a necessary evil, at best only a conditional good, a wholesome concession to the flesh for the prevention of immorality,(16) and requires of its highest office bearers total abstinence from all matrimonial intercourse. It wavers, therefore, between a partial permission and a partial condemnation of priestly marriage.

In the East, one marriage was always allowed to the clergy, and at first even to bishops, and celibacy was left optional. Yet certain restrictions were early introduced, such as the prohibition of marriage after ordination (except in deacons and subdeacons), as well as of second marriage after baptism; the apostolic direction, that a bishop should be the husband of one wife,(17) being taken as a prohibition of successive polygamy, and at the same time as an allowance of one marriage. Besides second marriage, the marrying of a concubine, a widow, a harlot, a slave, and an actress, was forbidden to the clergy. With these restrictions, the "Apostolic Constitutions" and "Canons" expressly permitted the marriage of priests contracted before ordination, and the continuance of it after ordination.(18) The synod of Ancyra, in 314, permitted deacons to marry even after ordination, in case they had made a condition to that effect beforehand; otherwise they were to remain single or lose their office.(19) The Synod of New Caesarea, which was held at about the same time, certainly before 325, does not go beyond this, decreeing: "If a presbyter (not a deacon) marry (that is, after ordination), he shall be expelled from the clergy; and if he practise lewdness, or become an adulterer, he shall be utterly thrust out and held to penance."(20) At the general council of Nice, 325, it was proposed indeed, probably by the Western bishop Hosius,(21) to forbid entirely the marriage of priests; but the motion met with strong opposition, and was rejected. A venerable Egyptian bishop, Paphnutius, though himself a strict ascetic from his youth up, and a confessor who in the last persecution had lost an eye and been crippled in the knee, asserted with impressiveness and success, that too great rigor would injure the church and promote licentiousness and that marriage and connubial intercourse were honorable and spotless things.(22) The council of Gangra in Paphlagonia (according to some, not till the year 380) condemned, among several ascetic extravagances of the bishop Eustathius of Sebaste and his followers, contempt for married priests and refusal to take part in their ministry.(23) The so-called Apostolic Canons, which, like the Constitutions, arose by a gradual growth in the East, even forbid the clergy, on pain of deposition and excommunication, to put away their wives under the pretext of religion.(24) Perhaps this canon likewise was occasioned by the hyper-asceticism of Eustathius.

Accordingly we not unfrequently find in the Oriental church, so late as the fourth and fifth centuries, not only priests, but even bishops living in wedlock. One example is the father of the celebrated Gregory Nazianzen, who while bishop had two sons, Gregory and the younger Caesarius, and a daughter. Others are Gregory of Nyssa, who, however, wrote an enthusiastic eulogy of the unmarried life, and lamented his loss of the crown of virginity; and Synesius († about 430), who, when elected bishop of Ptolemais in Pentapolis, expressly stipulated for the continuance of his marriage connection.(25) Socrates, whose Church History reaches down to the year 439, says of the practice of his time, that in Thessalia matrimonial intercourse after ordination had been forbidden under penalty of deposition from the time of Heliodorus of Trica, who in his youth had been an amatory writer; but that in the East the clergy and bishops voluntarily abstained from intercourse with their wives, without being required by any law to do so; for many, he adds, have had children during their episcopate by their lawful wives.(26) There were Greek divines, however, like Epiphanius, who agreed with the Roman theory. Justinian I. was utterly opposed to the marriage of priests, declared the children of such connection illegitimate, and forbade the election of a married man to the episcopal office (a.d. 528). Nevertheless, down to the end of the seventh century, many bishops in Africa, Libya, and elsewhere, continued to live in the married state, as is expressly said in the twelfth canon of the Trullan council; but this gave offence and was forbidden. From that time the marriage of bishops gradually disappears, while marriage among the lower clergy continues to be the rule.

This Trullan council, which was the sixth ecumenical(27) (a.d. 692), closes the legislation of the Eastern church on the subject of clerical marriage. Here—to anticipate somewhat—the continuance of a first marriage contracted before ordination was prohibited in the case of bishops on pain of deposition, but, in accordance with the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons, allowed in the case of presbyters and deacons (contrary to the Roman practice), with the Old Testament restriction, that they abstain from sexual intercourse during the season of official service, because he who administers holy things must be pure.(28) The same relation is thus condemned in the one case as immoral, in the other approved and encouraged as moral; the bishop is deposed if he retains his lawful wife and does not, immediately after being ordained, send her to a distant cloister; while the presbyter or deacon is threatened with deposition and even excommunication for doing the opposite and putting his wife away.

The Western church, starting from the perverted and almost Manichaean ascetic principle, that the married state is incompatible with clerical dignity and holiness, instituted a vigorous effort at the end of the fourth century, to make celibacy, which had hitherto been left to the option of individuals, the universal law of the priesthood; thus placing itself in direct contradiction to the Levitical law, to which in other respects it made so much account of conforming. The law, however, though repeatedly enacted, could not for a long time be consistently enforced. The canon, already mentioned, of the Spanish council of Elvira in 305, was only provincial. The first prohibition of clerical marriage, which laid claim to universal ecclesiastical authority, at least in the West, proceeded in 385 from the Roman church in the form of a decretal letter of the bishop Siricius to Himerius, bishop of Tarragona in Spain, who had referred several questions of discipline to the Roman bishop for decision. It is significant of the connection between the celibacy of the clergy and the interest of the hierarchy, that the first properly papal decree, which was issued in the tone of supreme authority, imposed such an unscriptural, unnatural, and morally dangerous restriction. Siricius contested the appeal of dissenting parties to the Mosaic law, on the ground that the Christian priesthood has to stand not merely for a time, but perpetually, in the service of the sanctuary, and that it is not hereditary, like the Jewish; and he ordained that second marriage and marriage with a widow should incapacitate for ordination, and that continuance in the married state after ordination should be punished with deposition.(29) And with this punishment he threatened not bishops only, but also presbyters and deacons. Leo the Great subsequently, extended the requirement of celibacy even to the subdiaconate. The most eminent Latin church fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, and even Augustine—though the last with more moderation—advocated the celibacy of priests. Augustine, with Eusebius of Vercella before him (370), united their clergy in a cloister life, and gave them a monastic stamp; and Martin of Tours, who was a monk from the first, carried his monastic life into his episcopal office. The councils of Italy, Africa, Spain, and Gaul followed the lead of Rome. The synod of Clermont, for example (a.d. 535), declared in its twelfth canon: "No one ordained deacon or priest may continue matrimonial intercourse. He is become the brother of her who was his wife. But since some, inflamed with lust, have rejected the girdle of the warfare [of Christ], and returned to marriage intercourse, it is ordered that such must lose their office forever." Other councils, like that of Tours, 461, were content with forbidding clergymen, who begat children after ordination, to administer the sacrifice of the mass, and with confining the law of celibacy ad altiorem gradum.(30)

But the very fact of the frequent repetition of these enactments, and the necessity of mitigating the penalties of transgression, show the great difficulty of carrying this unnatural restriction into general effect. In the British and Irish church, isolated as it was from the Roman, the marriage of priests continued to prevail down to the Anglo-Saxon period.

But with the disappearance of legitimate marriage in the priesthood, the already prevalent vice of the cohabitation of unmarried ecclesiastics with pious widows and virgins "secretly brought in,"(31) became more and more common. This spiritual marriage, which had begun as a bold ascetic venture, ended only too often in the flesh, and prostituted the honor of the church.

The Nicene council of 325 met the abuse in its third canon with this decree: "The great council utterly forbids, and it shall not be allowed either to a bishop, or a priest, or a deacon, or any other clergyman, to have with him a sunqeivsakto", unless she be his mother, or sister, or aunt, or some such person, who is beyond all suspicion."(32) This canon forms the basis of the whole subsequent legislation of the church de cohabitatione clericorum et mulierum. It had to be repeatedly renewed and strengthened; showing plainly that it was often disobeyed. The council of Toledo in Spain, a.d. 527 or 531, ordered in its third canon: "No clergyman, from the subdeacon upward, shall live with a female, be she free woman, freed woman, or slave. Only a mother, or a sister, or other near relative shall keep his house. If he have no near relative, his housekeeper must live in a separate house, and shall under no pretext enter his dwelling. Whosoever acts contrary to this, shall not only be deprived of his spiritual office and have the doors of his church closed, but shall also be excluded from all fellowship of Catholics." The Concilium Agathense in South Gaul, a.d. 506, at which thirty-five bishops met, decreed in the tenth and eleventh canons: "A clergyman shall neither visit nor receive into his house females not of his kin; only with his mother, or sister, or daughter, or niece may he live. Female slaves, also, and freed women, must be kept away from the house of a clergyman." Similar laws, with penalties more or less severe, were passed by the council of Hippo, 393, of Angers, 453, of Tours, 461, of Lerida in Spain, 524, of Clermont, 535, of Braga, 563, of Orleans, 538, of Tours, 567.(33) The emperor Justinian, in the twenty-third Novelle, prohibited the bishop having any woman at all in his house, but the Trullan council of 692 returned simply to the Nicene law.(34) The Western councils also made attempts to abolish the exceptions allowed in the Nicene canon, and forbade clergymen all intercourse with women, except in presence of a companion.

This rigorism, however, which sheds an unwelcome light upon the actual state of things that made it necessary, did not better the matter, but rather led to such a moral apathy, that the Latin church in the middle age had everywhere to contend with the open concubinage of the clergy, and the whole energy of Gregory VII. was needed to restore in a measure the old laws of celibacy, without being sufficient to prevent the secret and, to morality, far more dangerous violations of it.(35) The later ecclesiastical legislation respecting the mulieres subintroductae is more lenient, and, without limiting the intercourse of clergymen to near kindred, generally excludes only concubines and those women "de quibus possit haberi suspicio."(36)

§ 51. Moral Character of the Clergy in general.

Augustine gives us the key to the true view of the clergy of the Roman empire in both light and shade, when he says of the spiritual office: "There is in this life, and especially in this day, nothing easier, more delightful, more acceptable to men, than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon, if the charge be administered superficially and to the pleasure of men; but nothing in the eye of God more wretched, mournful, and damnable. So also there is in this life, and especially in this day, nothing more difficult, more laborious) more hazardous than the office of bishop, or presbyter, or deacon; but nothing in the eye of God more blessed, if the battle be fought in the manner enjoined by our Captain."(37) We cannot wonder, on the one hand that, in the better condition of the church and the enlarged field of her labor, a multitude of light-minded and unworthy men crowded into the sacred office, and on the other, that just the most earnest and worthy bishops of the day, an Ambrose, an Augustine, a Gregory Nazianzen, and a Chrysostom, trembled before the responsibility of the office, and had to be forced into it in a measure against their will, by the call of the church.

Gregory Nazianzen fled into the wilderness when his father, without his knowledge, suddenly consecrated him priest in the presence of the congregation (361). He afterward vindicated this flight in his beautiful apology, in which he depicts the ideal of a Christian priest and theologian. The priest must, above all, he says, be a model of a Christian, offer himself a holy sacrifice to God, and be a living temple of the living God. Then he must possess a deep knowledge, of souls, and, as a spiritual physician, heal all classes of men of various diseases of sin, restore, preserve, and protect the divine image in them, bring Christ into their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and make them partakers of the divine nature and of eternal salvation. He must, moreover, have at command the sacred philosophy or divine science of the world and of the worlds, of matter and spirit, of good and evil angels, of the all-ruling Providence, of our creation and regeneration, of the divine covenants, of the first and second appearing of Christ, of his incarnation, passion, and resurrection, of the end of all things and the universal judgment, and above all, of the mystery of the blessed Trinity; and he must be able to teach and elucidate these doctrines of faith in popular discourse. Gregory, sets forth Jesus as the perfect type of the priest, and next to him he presents in an eloquent picture the apostle Paul, who lived only for Christ, and under all circumstances and amid all trials by sea and land, among Jews and heathen, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in freedom and bonds, attested the divine power of the gospel for the salvation of the world. This ideal, however, Gregory found but seldom realized. He gives on the whole a very unfavorable account of the bishops, and even of the most celebrated councils of his day, charging them with ignorance unworthy means of promotion, ambition, flattery, pride, luxury, and worldly mindedness. He says even: "Our danger now is, that the holiest of all offices will become the most ridiculous; for the highest clerical places are gained not so much by virtue, as by iniquity; no longer the most worthy, but the most powerful, take the episcopal chair."(38) Though his descriptions, especially in the satirical poem "to himself and on the bishops," composed probably after his resignation in Constantinople (a.d. 381), may be in many points exaggerated, yet they were in general drawn from life and from experience.(39)

Jerome also, in his epistles, unsparingly attacks the clergy of his time, especially the Roman, accusing them of avarice and legacy hunting, and drawing a sarcastic picture of a clerical fop, who, with his fine scented clothes, was more like a bridegroom than a clergyman.(40) Of the rural clergy’, however, the heathen Ammianus Marcellinus bears a testimony, which is certainly reliable, to their simplicity, contentment, and virtue.(41)

Chrysostom, in his celebrated treatise on the priesthood,(42) written probably, before his ordination (somewhere between the years 375 and 381), or while he was deacon (between 381 and 386), portrayed the theoretical and practical qualifications, the exalted duties, responsibilities, and honors of this office, with youthful enthusiasm, in the best spirit of his age. He requires of the priest, that he be in every respect better than the monk, though, standing in the world, he have greater dangers and difficulties to contend with.(43) He sets up as the highest object of the preacher, the great principle stated by, Paul, that in all his discourses he should seek to please God alone, not men. "He must not indeed despise the approving demonstrations of men; but as little must he court them, nor trouble himself when his hearers withhold them. True and imperturbable comfort in his labors he finds only in the consciousness of having his discourse framed and wrought out to the approval of God."(44) Nevertheless the book as a whole is unsatisfactory. A comparison of it with the "Reformed Pastor" of Baxter, which is far deeper and richer in all that pertains to subjective experimental Christianity and the proper care of souls, would result emphatically in favor of the English Protestant church of the seventeenth century.(45)

We must here particularly notice a point which reflects great discredit on the moral sense of many of the fathers, and shows that they had not wholly freed themselves from the chains of heathen ethics. The occasion of this work of Chrysostom was a ruse, by which he had evaded election to the bishopric, and thrust it upon his friend Basil.(46) To justify this conduct, he endeavors at large, in the fifth chapter of the first book, to prove that artifice might be lawful and useful; that is, when used as a means to a good end. "Manifold is the potency of deception, only it must not be employed with knavish intent. And this should be hardly called deception, but rather a sort of accommodation (oijkonomiva), wisdom, art, or sagacity, by which one can find many ways of escape in an exigency, and amend the errors of the soul." He appeals to biblical examples, like Jonathan and the daughter of Saul, who by deceiving their father rescued their friend and husband; and, unwarrantably, even to Paul, who became to the Jews a Jew, to the Gentiles a Gentile, and circumcised Timothy, though in the Epistle to the Galatians he pronounced circumcision useless. Chrysostom, however, had evidently learned this, loose and pernicious principle respecting the obligation of truthfulness, not from the Holy Scriptures, but from the Grecian sophists.(47) Besides, he by no means stood alone in the church in this matter, but had his predecessors in the Alexandrian fathers,(48) and his followers in Cassian, Jerome, and other eminent Catholic divines.

Jerome made a doubtful distinction between gumnastikw'" scribere and dogmatikw'" scribere, and, with Origen, explained the severe censure of Paul on Peter in Antioch, for example, as a mere stroke of pastoral policy, or an accommodation to the weakness of the Jewish Christians at the expense of truth.(49) But Augustine’s delicate Christian sense of truth revolted at this construction, and replied that such an interpretation undermined the whole authority of Holy Scripture; that an apostle could never lie, even for a good object; that, in extremity, one should rather suppose a false reading, or wrong translation, or suspect his own apprehension; but that in Antioch Paul spoke the truth and justly censured Peter openly for his inconsistency, or for a practical (not a theoretical) error, and thus deserves the praise of righteous boldness, as Peter on the other hand, by his meek submission to the censure, merits the praise of holy humility.(50)

Thus in Jerome and Augustine we have the representatives of two opposite ethical views: one, unduly subjective, judging all moral acts merely by their motive and object, and sanctioning, for example, tyrannicide, or suicide to escape disgrace, or breach of faith with heretics (as the later Jesuitical casuistry does with the utmost profusion of sophistical subtlety); the other, objective, proceeding on eternal, immutable principles and the irreconcilable opposition of good and evil, and freely enough making prudence subservient to truth, but never truth subservient to prudence.

Meantime, in the Greek church also, as early as the fourth century, the Augustinian view here and there made its way; and Basil the Great, in his shorter monastic Rule,(51) rejected even accommodation (oijkonomiva) for a good end, because Christ ascribes the lie, without distinction of kinds, exclusively to Satan.(52) In this respect, therefore, Chrysostom did not stand at the head of his age, but represented without doubt the prevailing view of the Eastern church.

The legislation of the councils with reference to the clergy, shows in general the earnestness and rigor with which the church guarded the moral purity and dignity of her servants. The canonical age was, on the average, after the analogy of the Old Testament, the five-and-twentieth year for the diaconate, the thirtieth for the priesthood and episcopate. Catechumens, neophytes, persons baptized at the point of death, penitents, energumens (such as were possessed of a devil), actors, dancers, soldiers, curials (court, state, and municipal officials),(53) slaves, eunuchs, bigamists, and all who led a scandalous life after baptism, were debarred from ordination. The frequenting of taverns and theatres, dancing and gambling, usury and the pursuit of secular business were forbidden to clergymen. But on the other hand, the frequent repetition of warnings against even the lowest and most common sins, such as licentiousness, drunkenness, fighting, and buffoonery, and the threatening of corporal punishment for certain misdemeanors, yield an unfavorable conclusion in regard to the moral standing of the sacred order.(54) Even at the councils the clerical dignity was not seldom desecrated by outbreaks of coarse passion; insomuch that the council of Ephesus, in 449, is notorious as the "council of robbers."

In looking at this picture, however, we must not forget that in this, period of the sinking empire of Rome the task of the clergy was exceedingly difficult, and amidst the nominal conversion of the whole population of the empire, their number and education could not keep pace with the sudden and extraordinary expansion of their field of labor. After all, the clerical office was the great repository of intellectual and moral force for the world. It stayed the flood of corruption; rebuked the vices of the times; fearlessly opposed tyrannical cruelty; founded institutions of charity and public benefit; prolonged the existence of the Roman empire; rescued the literary treasures of antiquity; carried the gospel to the barbarians, and undertook to educate and civilize their rude and vigorous hordes. Out of the mass of mediocrities tower the great church teachers of the fourth and fifth centuries, combining all the learning, the talent, and the piety of the time, and through their immortal writings mightily moulding the succeeding ages of the world.

§ 52. The Lower Clergy.

As the authority and influence of the bishops, after the accession of Constantine, increased, the lower clergy became more and more dependent upon them. The episcopate and the presbyterate were now rigidly distinguished. And yet the memory of their primitive identity lingered. Jerome, at the end of the fourth century, reminds the bishops that they owe their elevation above the presbyters, not so much to Divine institution as to ecclesiastical usage; for before the outbreak of controversies in the church there was no distinction between the two, except that presbyter is a term of age, and bishop a term of official dignity; but when men, at the instigation of Satan, erected parties and sects, and, instead of simply following Christ, named themselves of Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, all agreed to put one of the presbyters at the head of the rest, that by his universal supervision of the churches, he might kill the seeds of division.(55) The great commentators of the Greek church agree with Jerome in maintaining the original identity of bishops and presbyters in the New Testament.(56)

In the episcopal or cathedral churches the Presbyters still formed the council of the bishop. In town and country congregations, where no bishop officiated, they were more independent. Preaching, administration of the sacraments, and care of souls were their functions. In. North Africa they were for a long time not allowed to preach in the presence of the bishop; until Augustine was relieved by his bishop of this restriction. The seniores plebis in the African church of the fourth and fifth centuries were not clergymen, but civil personages and other prominent members of the congregation.(57)

In the fourth century arose the office of archpresbyter, whose duty it was to preside over the worship, and sometimes to take the place of the bishop in his absence or incapacity.

The Deacons, also called Levites, retained the same functions which they had held in the preceding period. In the West, they alone, not the lectors, were allowed to read in public worship the lessons from the Gospels; which, containing the words of the Lord, were placed above the Epistles, or the words of the apostles. They were also permitted to baptize and to preach. After the pattern of the church in Jerusalem, the number of deacons, even in large congregations, was limited to seven; though not rigidly, for the cathedral of Constantinople had, under Justinian I., besides sixty presbyters, a hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety subdeacons, a hundred and ten lectors, twenty-five precentors, and a hundred janitors—a total of five hundred and twenty-five officers. Though subordinate to the presbyters, the deacons frequently stood in close relations with the bishop, and exerted a greater influence. Hence they not rarely looked upon ordination to the presbyterate as a degradation. After the beginning of the fourth century an archdeacon stood at the head of the college, the most confidential adviser of the bishop, his representative and legate, and not seldom his successor in office. Thus Athanasius first appears as archdeacon of Alexandria at the council of Nice, clothed with important influence; and upon the death of the latter he succeeds to the patriarchal chair of Alexandria.

The office of Deaconess, which, under the strict separation of the sexes in ancient times, and especially in Greece, was necessary to the completion of the diaconate, and which originated in the apostolic age,(58) continued in the Eastern church down to the twelfth century. It was frequently occupied by the widows of clergymen or the wives of bishops, who were obliged to demit the married state before entering upon their sacred office. Its functions were the care of the female poor, sick, and imprisoned, assisting in the baptism of adult women, and, in the country churches of the East, perhaps also of the West, the preparation of women for baptism by private instruction.(59) Formerly, from regard to the apostolic precept in 1 Tim. v. 9, the deaconesses were required to be sixty years of age.(60) The general council of Chalcedon, however, in 451, reduced the canonical age to forty years, and in the fifteenth canon ordered: "No female shall be consecrated deaconess before she is forty years old, and not then without careful probation. If, however, after having received consecration, and having been some time in the service, she marry, despising the grace of God, she with her husband shall be anathematized." The usual ordination prayer in the consecration of deaconesses, according to the Apostolic Constitutions, runs thus: "Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of man and woman, who didst fill Miriam and Deborah and Hannah and Huldah with the Spirit, and didst not disdain to suffer thine only-begotten Son to be born of a woman; who also in the tabernacle and the temple didst appoint women keepers of thine holy gates: look down now upon this thine handmaid, who is designated to the office of deacon, and grant her the Holy Ghost, and cleanse her from all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, that she may worthily execute the work intrusted to her, to thine honor and to the praise of thine Anointed; to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be honor and adoration forever. Amen."(61)

The noblest type of an apostolic deaconess, which has come down to us from this period, is Olympias, the friend of Chrysostom, and the recipient of seventeen beautiful epistles from him.(62) She sprang from a respectable heathen family, but received a Christian education; was beautiful and wealthy; married in her seventeenth year (a.d. 384) the prefect of Constantinople, Nebridius; but in twenty months after was left a widow, and remained so in spite of the efforts of the emperor Theodosius to unite her with one of his own kindred. She became a deaconess; lived in rigid asceticism; devoted her goods to the poor; and found her greatest pleasure in doing good. When Chrysostom came to Constantinople, he became her pastor, and guided her lavish benefaction by wise counsel. She continued faithful to him in his misfortune; survived him by several years, and died in 420, lamented by all the poor and needy in the city and in the country around.

In the West, on the contrary, the office of deaconess was first shorn of its clerical character by a prohibition of ordination passed by the Gallic councils in the fifth and sixth centuries;(63) and at last it was wholly abolished. The second synod of Orleans, in 533, ordained in its eighteenth canon: "No woman shall henceforth receive the benedictio diaconalis [which had been substituted for ordinatio], on account of the weakness of this sex." The reason betrays the want of good deaconesses, and suggests the connection of this abolition of an apostolic institution with the introduction of the celibacy of the priesthood, which seemed to be endangered by every sort of female society. The adoption of the care of the poor and sick by the state, and the cessation of adult baptisms and of the custom of immersion, also made female assistance less needful. In modern times, the Catholic church, it is true, has special societies or orders of women, like the Sisters of Mercy, for the care of the sick and poor, the training of children, and other objects of practical charity; and in the bosom of Protestantism also similar benevolent associations have arisen, under the name of Deaconess Institutes, or Sisters’ Houses, though in the more free evangelical spirit, and without the bond of a vow.(64) But, though quite kindred in their object, these associations are not to be identified with the office of deaconess in the apostolic age and in the ancient church. That was a regular, standing office in every Christian congregation, corresponding to the office of deacon; and has never since the twelfth century been revived, though the local work of charity has never ceased.

To the ordinary clergy there were added in this period sundry extraordinary church offices, rendered necessary by the multiplication of religious functions in large cities and dioceses:

Stewards.(65) These officers administered the church property under the supervision of the bishop, and were chosen in part from the clergy, in part from such of the laity as were versed in law. In Constantinople the "great steward" was a person of considerable rank, though not a clergyman. The council of Chalcedon enjoined upon every episcopal diocese the appointment of such officers, and the selection of them from the clergy, "that the economy of the church might not be irresponsible, and thereby the church property be exposed to waste and the clerical dignity be brought into ill repute."(66) For conducting the litigation of the church, sometimes a special advocate, called the e[kdiko", or defensor, was appointed.
Secretaries,(67) for drawing the protocols in public ecclesiastical transactions (gesta ecclesiastica). They were usually clergymen, or such as had prepared themselves for the service of the church.
Nurses or Parabolani,(68) especially in connection with the larger church hospitals. Their office was akin to that of the deacons, but had more reference to the bodily assistance than to the spiritual care of the sick. In Alexandria, by the fifth century, these officers formed a great guild of six hundred members, and were not rarely misemployed as a standing army of episcopal domination.(69) Hence, upon a complaint of the citizens of Alexandria against them, to the emperor Theodosius II., their number were reduced to five hundred. In the West they were never introduced.
Buriers of the Dead47(70) likewise belonged among these ordines minores of the church. Under Theodosius II. there were more than a thousand of them in Constantinople.

§ 53. The Bishops.

The bishops now stood with sovereign power at the head of the clergy and of their dioceses. They had come to be universally regarded as the vehicles and propagators of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the teachers and lawgivers of the church in all matters of faith and discipline. The specific distinction between them and the presbyters was carried into everything; while yet it is worthy of remark, that Jerome, Chrysostom, and Theodoret, just the most eminent exegetes of the ancient church, expressly acknowledged the original identity of the two offices in the New Testament, and consequently derive the proper episcopate, not from divine institution, but only from church usage.(71)

The traditional participation of the people in the election, which attested the popular origin of the episcopal office, still continued, but gradually sank to a mere formality, and at last became entirely extinct. The bishops filled their own vacancies, and elected and ordained the clergy. Besides ordination, as the medium for communicating the official gifts, they also claimed from the presbyters in the West, after the fifth century, the exclusive prerogatives of confirming the baptized and consecrating the chrism or holy ointment used in baptism.(72) In the East, on the contrary, confirmation (the chrism) is performed also by the presbyters, and, according to the ancient custom, immediately follows baptism.

To this spiritual preëminence of the bishops was now added, from the time of Constantine, a civil importance. Through the union of the church with the state, the bishops became at the same time state officials of weight, and enjoyed the various privileges which accrued to the church from this connection.(73) They had thenceforth an independent and legally valid jurisdiction; they held supervision of the church estates, which were sometimes very considerable, and they had partial charge even of the city, property; they superintended the morals of the people, and even of the emperor; and they exerted influence upon the public legislation. They were exempt from civil jurisdiction, and could neither be brought as witnesses before a court nor be compelled to take an oath. Their dioceses grew larger, and their power and revenues increased. Dominus beatissimus (makariwvtato"), sanctissimus (aJgiwvtato"), or reverendissimus, Beatitudo or Sanctitas tua, and similar high-sounding titles, passed into universal use. Kneeling, kissing of the hand, and like tokens of reverence, came to be shown them by all classes, up to the emperor himself. Chrysostom, at the end of the fourth century, says: "The heads of the empire (hyparchs) and the governors of provinces (toparchs) enjoy no such honor as the rulers of the church. They are first at court, in the society of ladies, in the houses of the great. No one has precedence of them."

To this position corresponded the episcopal insignia, which from the fourth century became common: the ring, as the symbol of the espousal of the bishop to the church; the crosier or shepherd’s staff (also called crook, because it was generally curved at the top); and the pallium,48(74), a shoulder cloth, after the example of the ephod of the Jewish high-priest, and perhaps of the sacerdotal mantle worn by the Roman emperors as pontifices maximi. The pallium is a seamless cloth hanging over the shoulders, formerly of white linen, in the West subsequently of white lamb’s wool, with four red or black crosses wrought in it with silk. According to the present usage of the Roman church the wool is taken from the lambs of St. Agnes, which are every year solemnly blessed and sacrificed by the pope in memory of this pure virgin. Hence the later symbolical meaning of the pallium, as denoting the bishop’s following of Christ, the good Shepherd, with the lost and reclaimed sheep upon his shoulders. Alexandrian tradition traced this vestment to the evangelist Mark; but Gregory Nazianzen expressly says that it was first given by Constantine the Great to the bishop Macarius of Jerusalem.(75) In the East it was worn by all bishops, in the West by archbishops only, on whom, from the time of Gregory I., it was conferred by the pope on their accession to office. At first the investiture was gratuitous, but afterward came to involve a considerable fee, according to the revenues of the archbishopric.

As the bishop united in himself all the rights and privileges of the clerical office, so he was expected to show himself a model in the discharge of its duties and a follower of the great Archbishop and Archshepherd of the sheep. He was expected to exhibit in a high degree the ascetic virtues, especially that of virginity, which, according to Catholic ethics, belongs to the idea of moral perfection. Many a bishop, like Athanasius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Chrysostom, Martin of Tours, lived in rigid abstinence and poverty, and devoted his income to religious and charitable objects.

But this very power and this temporal advantage of the episcopate became also a lure for avarice and ambition, and a temptation to the lordly and secular spirit. For even under the episcopal mantle the human heart still beat, with all those weaknesses and passions, which can only be overcome by the continual influence of Divine grace. There were metropolitans and patriarchs, especially in Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome, who, while yet hardly past the age of persecution, forgot the servant form of the Son of God and the poverty of his apostles and martyrs, and rivalled the most exalted civil officials, nay, the emperor himself, in worldly pomp and luxury. Not seldom were the most disgraceful intrigues employed to gain the holy office. No wonder, says Ammianus, that for so splendid a prize as the bishopric of Rome, men strive with the utmost passion and persistence, when rich presents from ladies and a more than imperial sumptuousness invite them.(76) The Roman prefect, Praetextatus, declared jestingly to the bishop Damasus, who had obtained the office through a bloody battle of parties, that for such a price he would at once turn Christian himself.(77) Such an example could not but shed its evil influence on the lower clergy of the great cities. Jerome sketches a sarcastic description of the Roman priests, who squandered all their care on dress and perfumery, curled their hair with crisping pins, wore sparkling rings, paid far too great attention to women, and looked more like bridegrooms than like clergymen.(78) And in the Greek church it was little better. Gregory Nazianzen, himself a bishop, and for a long time patriarch of Constantinople, frequently mourns the ambition, the official jealousies, and the luxury of the hierarchy, and utters the wish that the bishops might be distinguished only by a higher grade of virtue.

§ 54. Organization of the Hierarchy: Country Bishop, City Bishops, and Metropolitans.

The episcopate, notwithstanding the unity of the office and its rights, admitted the different grades of country bishop, ordinary city bishop, metropolitan, and patriarch. Such a distinction had already established itself on the basis of free religious sentiment in the church; so that the incumbents of the apostolic sees, like Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, stood at the head of the hierarchy. But this gradation now assumed a political character, and became both modified and confirmed by attachment to the municipal division of the Roman empire.

Constantine the Great divided the whole empire into four praefectures (the Oriental, the Illyrian, the Italian, and the Gallic); the praefectures into vicariates, dioceses, or proconsulates, fourteen or fifteen in all;(79) and each diocese again into several provinces.(80) The praefectures were governed by Praefecti Praetorio, the dioceses by Vicarii, the provinces by Rectores, with various titles—commonly Praesides.

It was natural, that after the union of church and state the ecclesiastical organization and the political should, so far as seemed proper, and hence of course with manifold exceptions, accommodate themselves to one another. In the East this principle of conformity was more palpably and rigidly carried out than in the West. The council of Nice in the fourth century proceeds upon it, and the second and fourth ecumenical councils confirm it. The political influence made itself most distinctly felt in the elevation of Constantinople to a patriarchal see. The Roman bishop Leo, however, protested against the reference of his own power to political considerations, and planted it exclusively upon the primacy of Peter; though evidently the Roman see owed its importance to the favorable cooperation of both these influences. The power of the patriarchs extended over one or more municipal dioceses; while the metropolitans presided over single provinces. The word diocese (dioivkhsi") passed from the political into the ecclesiastical terminology, and denoted at first a patriarchal district, comprising several provinces (thus the expression occurs continually in the Greek acts of councils), but afterward came to be applied in the West to each episcopal district. The circuit of a metropolitan was called in the East an eparchy (ejparciva), in the West provincia. An ordinary bishopric was called in the East a parish (paroikiva), while in the Latin church the term (parochia) was usually applied to a mere pastoral charge.

The lowest rank in the episcopal hierarchy was occupied by the country bishops,(81) the presiding officers of those rural congregations, which were not supplied with presbyters from neighboring cities. In North Africa, with its multitude of small dioceses, these country bishops were very numerous, and stood on an equal footing with the others. But in the East they became more and more subordinate to the neighboring city bishops; until at last, partly on account of their own incompetence, chiefly for the sake of the rising hierarchy, they were wholly extinguished. Often they were utterly unfit for their office; at least Basil of Caesarea, who had fifty country bishops in his metropolitan district, reproached them with frequently receiving men totally unworthy into the clerical ranks. And moreover, they stood in the way of the aspirations of the city bishops; for the greater the number of bishops, the smaller the diocese and the power of each, though probably the better the collective influence of all upon the church. The council of Sardica, in 343, doubtless had both considerations in view, when, on motion of Hosius, the president, it decreed: "It is not permitted, that, in a village or small town, for which a single priest is sufficient, a bishop should be stationed, lest the episcopal dignity and authority suffer scandal;(82) but the bishops of the eparchy (province) shall appoint bishops only for those places where bishops have already been, or where the town is so populous that it is considered worthy to be a bishopric." The place of these chorepiscopi was thenceforth supplied either by visitators (periodeu'tai), who in the name of the bishop visited the country congregations from time to time, and performed the necessary functions, or by resident presbyters (parochi), under the immediate supervision of the city bishop.

Among the city bishops towered the bishops of the capital cities of the various provinces. They were styled in the East metropolitans, in the West usually archbishops.(83) They had the oversight of the other bishops of the province; ordained them, in connection with two or three assistants; summoned provincial synods, which, according to the fifth canon of the council of Nice and the direction of other councils, were to be held twice a year; and presided in such synods. They promoted union among the different churches by the reciprocal communication of synodal acts, and confirmed the organism of the hierarchy.

This metropolitan constitution, which had gradually arisen out of the necessities of the church, became legally established in the East in the fourth century, and passed thence to the Graeco-Russian church. The council of Nice, at that early day, ordered in the fourth canon, that every new bishop should be ordained by all, or at least by three, of the bishops of the eparchy (the municipal province), under the direction and with the sanction of the metropolitan.(84) Still clearer is the ninth canon of the council of Antioch, in 341: "The bishops of each eparchy (province) should know, that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who have business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good, that he should also have a precedence in honor,(85) and that the other bishops should do nothing without him—according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers—except that which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i.e. dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. Otherwise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops." This council, in the nineteenth canon, forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropolitan and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province.

In Africa a similar system had existed from the time of Cyprian, before the church and the state were united. Every province had a Primas; the oldest bishop being usually chosen to this office. The bishop of Carthage, however, was not only primate of Africa proconsularis, but at the same time, corresponding to the proconsul of Carthage, the ecclesiastical head of Numidia and Mauretania, and had power to summon a general council of Africa.(86)

§ 55. The Patriarchs.

Mich. Le Quien (French Dominican, † 1788): Oriens Christianus, in quatuor patriarchatus digestus, quo exhibentur ecclesiae, patriarchae caeterique preasules totius Orientis. Opus posthumum, Par. 1740, 3 vols. fol. (a thorough description of the oriental dioceses from the beginning to 1732). P. Jos. Cautelius (Jesuit): Metropolitanarum urbium historia civilis et ecclesiastic in qua Romanae Sedis dignitas et imperatorum et regum in eam merits explicantur, Par. 1685 (important for ecclesiastical statistics of the West, and the extension of the Roman patriarchate). Bingham (Anglican): Antiquities, l. ii. c. 17. Joh. El. Theod. Wiltsch (Evangel.): Handbuch der Kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik, Berl. 1846, vol. i. p. 56 sqq. Friedr. Maassen (R.C.): Der Primat des Bischofs von Rom. u. die alten Patriarchalkirchen, Bonn, 1853. Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri, a Political History of the Latin Patriarchate, Lond. 1859 sqq. (vol. i. p. 158–489). Comp. my review of this work in the Am. Theol. Rev., New York, 1864, p. 9 sqq.

Still above the metropolitans stood the five Patriarchs,(87) the oligarchical summit, so to speak, the five towers in the edifice of the Catholic hierarchy of the Graeco-Roman empire.

These patriarchs, in the official sense of the word as already fixed at the time of the fourth ecumenical council, were the bishops of the four great capitals of the empire, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople; to whom was added, by way of honorary distinction, the bishop of Jerusalem, as president of the oldest Christian congregation, though the proper continuity of that office had been broken by the destruction of the holy city. They had oversight of one or more dioceses; at least of two or more provinces or eparchies.(88) They ordained the metropolitans; rendered the final decision in church controversies; conducted the ecumenical councils; published the decrees of the councils and the church laws of the emperors; and united in themselves the supreme legislative and executive power of the hierarchy. They bore the same relation to the metropolitans of single provinces, as the ecumenical councils to the provincial. They did not, however, form a college; each acted for himself. Yet in important matters they consulted with one another, and had the right also to keep resident legates (apocrisiarii) at the imperial court at Constantinople.

In prerogative they were equal, but in the extent of their dioceses and in influence they differed, and had a system of rank among themselves. Before the founding of Constantinople, and down to the Nicene council, Rome maintained the first rank, Alexandria the second, and Antioch the third, in both ecclesiastical and political importance. After the end of the fourth century this order was modified by the insertion of Constantinople as the second capital, between Rome and Alexandria, and the addition of Jerusalem as the fifth and smallest patriarchate.

The patriarch of Jerusalem presided only over the three meagre provinces of Palestine;(89) the patriarch of Antioch, over the greater part of the political diocese of the Orient, which comprised fifteen provinces, Syria, Phenicia, Cilicia, Arabia, Mesopotamia, &c.;(90) the patriarch of Alexandria, over the whole diocese of Egypt with its nine rich provinces, Aegyptus prima and secunda, the lower and upper Thebaid, lower and upper Libya, &c.;(91) the patriarch of Constantinople, over three dioceses, Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, with eight and twenty provinces, and at the same time over the bishoprics among the barbarians;(92) the patriarch of Rome gradually extended his influence over the entire West, two prefectures, the Italian and the Gallic, with all their dioceses and provinces.(93)

The patriarchal system had reference primarily only to the imperial church, but indirectly affected also the barbarians, who received Christianity from the empire. Yet even within the empire, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of Cyprus in the Eastern church, and the bishops of Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna in the Western, during this period maintained their autocracy with reference to the patriarchs to whose dioceses they geographically belonged. In the fifth century, the patriarchs of Antioch attempted to subject the island of Cyprus, where Paul first had preached the gospel, to their jurisdiction; but the ecumenical council of Ephesus, in 431, confirmed to the church of Cyprus its ancient right to ordain its own bishops.(94) The North African bishops also, with all respect for the Roman see, long maintained Cyprian’s spirit of independence, and in a council at Hippo Regius, in 393, protested against such titles as princeps sacerdotum, summus sacerdos, assumed by the patriarchs, and were willing only to allow the title of primae sedis episcopus.(95)

When, in consequence of the Christological controversies, the Nestorians and Monophysites split off from the orthodox church, they established independent schismatic patriarchates, which continue to this day, showing that the patriarchal constitution answers most nearly to the oriental type of Christianity. The orthodox Greek church, as well as the schismatic sects of the East, has substantially remained true to the patriarchal system down to the present time; while the Latin church endeavored to establish the principle of monarchical centralization so early as Leo the Great, and in the course of the middle age produced the absolute papacy.

§ 56. Synodical Legislation on the Patriarchal Power and Jurisdiction.

To follow now the ecclesiastical legislation respecting this patriarchal oligarchy in chronological order:

The germs of it already lay in the ante-Nicene period, when the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, partly in virtue of the age and apostolic origin of their churches, partly, on account of the political prominence of those three cities as the three capitals of the Roman empire, steadily asserted a position of preëminence. The apostolic origin of the churches of Rome and Antioch is evident from the New Testament: Alexandria traced its Christianity, at least indirectly through the evangelist Mark, to Peter, and was politically more important than Antioch; while Rome from the first had precedence of both in church and in state. This preëminence of the oldest and most powerful metropolitans acquired formal legislative validity and firm establishment through the ecumenical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries.

The first ecumenical council of Nice, in 325, as yet knew nothing of five patriarchs, but only the three metropolitans above named, confirming them in their traditional rights.(96) In the much-canvassed sixth canon, probably on occasion of the Meletian schism in Egypt, and the attacks connected with it on the rights of the bishop of Alexandria, that council declared as follows:

"The ancient custom, which has obtained in Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, shall continue in force, viz.: that the bishop of Alexandria have rule over all these [provinces], since this also is customary with the bishop of Rome [that is, not in Egypt, but with reference to his own diocese]. Likewise also at Antioch and in the other eparchies, the churches shall retain their prerogatives. Now, it is perfectly clear, that, if any one has been made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, the great council does not allow him to be bishop."(97)

The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition; and that, with special reference to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration; and Antioch and all the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights.(98) The bishoprics of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were placed substantially on equal footing, yet in such tone, that Antioch, as the third capital of the Roman empire, already stands as a stepping stone to the ordinary metropolitans. By the "other eparchies" of the canon are to be understood either all provinces, and therefore all metropolitan districts, or more probably, as in the second canon of the first council of Constantinople, only the three eparchates of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Ephesus, and Asia Minor, and Heraclea in Thrace, which, after Constantine’s division of the East, possessed similar prerogatives, but were subsequently overshadowed and absorbed by Constantinople. In any case, however, this addition proves that at that time the rights and dignity of the patriarchs were not yet strictly distinguished from those of the other metropolitans. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch here appear in relation to the other bishops simply as primi inter pares, or as metropolitans of the first rank, in whom the highest political eminence was joined with the highest ecclesiastical. Next to them, in the second rank, come the bishops of Ephesus in the Asiatic diocese of the empire, of Neo-Caesarea in the Pontic, and of Heraclea in the Thracian; while Constantinople, which was not founded till five years later, is wholly unnoticed in the Nicene council, and Jerusalem is mentioned only under the name of Aelia.

Between the first and second ecumenical councils arose the new patriarchate of Constantinople, or New Rome, built by Constantine in 330, and elevated to the rank of the imperial residence. The bishop of this city was not only the successor of the bishop of the ancient Byzantium, hitherto under the jurisdiction of the metropolitan of Heraclea, but, through the favor of the imperial court and the bishops who were always numerously assembled there, it placed itself in a few decennia among the first metropolitans of the East, and in the fifth century became the most powerful rival of the bishop of old Rome.

This new patriarchate was first officially recognized at the first ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, and was conceded "the precedence in honor, next to the bishop of Rome," the second place among all bishops; and that, on the purely political consideration, that New Rome was the residence of the emperor.(99) At the same time the imperial city and the diocese of Thrace (whose ecclesiastical metropolis hitherto had been Heraclea) were assigned as its district.(100)

Many Greeks took this as a formal assertion of the equality of the bishop of Constantinople with the bishop of Rome, understanding "next" or "after" (metav) as referring only to time, not to rank. But it is more natural to regard this as conceding a primacy of honor, which the Roman see could claim on different grounds. The popes, as the subsequent protest of Leo shows, were not satisfied with this, because they were unwilling to be placed in the same category with the Constantinopolitan fledgling, and at the same time assumed a supremacy of jurisdiction over the whole church. On the other hand, this decree was unwelcome also to the patriarch of Alexandria, because this see had hitherto held the second rank, and was now required to take the third. Hence the canon was not subscribed by Timotheus of Alexandria, and was regarded in Egypt as void. Afterward, however, the emperors prevailed with the Alexandrian patriarchs to yield this point.

After the council of 381, the bishop of Constantinople indulged in manifold encroachments on the rights of the metropolitans of Ephesus and Caesarea in Cappadocia, and even on the rights of the other patriarchs. In this extension of his authority he was favored by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of the council of Sardica, the bishops of all the districts of the East continually resided in Constantinople, in order to present all kinds of interests to the emperor. These concerns of distant bishops were generally referred by the emperor to the bishop of Constantinople and his council, the suvnodo" ejndhmou'sa, as it was called, that is, a council of the bishops resident (ejndhmouvntwn) in Constantinople, under his presidency. In this way his trespasses even upon the bounds of other patriarchs obtained the right of custom by consent of parties, if not the sanction of church legislation. Nectarius, who was not elected till after that council, claimed the presidency at a council in 394, over the two patriarchs who were present, Theophilus of Alexandria and Flavian of Antioch; decided the matter almost alone; and thus was the first to exercise the primacy over the entire East. Under his successor, Chrysostom, the compass of the see extended itself still farther, and, according to Theodoret,(101) stretched over the capital, over all Thrace with its six provinces, over all Asia (Asia proconsularis) with eleven provinces, and over Pontus, which likewise embraced eleven provinces; thus covering twenty-eight provinces in all. In the year 400, Chrysostom went "by request to Ephesus," to ordain there Heraclides of Ephesus, and at the same time to institute six bishops in the places of others deposed for simony.(102) His second successor, Atticus, about the year 421, procured from the younger Theodosius a law, that no bishop should be ordained in the neighboring dioceses without the consent of the bishop of Constantinople.(103) This power still needed the solemn sanction of a general council, before it could have a firm legal foundation. It received this sanction at Chalcedon.

The fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon in 451 confirmed and extended the power of the bishop of Constantinople, by ordaining in the celebrated twenty-eighth canon:

"Following throughout the decrees of the holy fathers, and being "acquainted with the recently read canon of the hundred and fifty bishops [i.e. the third canon of the second ecumenical council of 381], we also have determined and decreed the same in reference to the prerogatives of the most holy church of Constantinople or New Rome. For with reason did the fathers confer prerogatives (ta; presbei'a) on the throne [the episcopal chair] of ancient Rome, on account of her character as the imperial city (dia; to; basileuvein); and, moved by the same consideration, the hundred and fifty bishops recognized the same prerogatives (ta; i[sa "presbei'a) also in the most holy throne of New Rome; with good reason judging, that the city, which is honored with the imperial dignity and the senate [i.e. where the emperor and senate reside], and enjoys the same [municipal] privileges as the ancient imperial Rome, should also be equally elevated in ecclesiastical respects, and be the second after he(deutevran met j ejkeivnhn.¼."

"And [we decree] that of the dioceses of Pontus, Asia [Asia proconsularis], and Thrace, only the metropolitans, but in such districts of those dioceses as are occupied by barbarians, also the [ordinary] bishops, be ordained by the most holy throne of the most holy church at Constantinople; while of course every metropolitan in those dioceses ordains the new bishops of a province in concurrence with the existing bishops of that province, as is directed in the divine (qeivoi") canons. But the metropolitans of those dioceses, as already said, shall be ordained by the archbishop (ajrciepiskovpou) of Constantinople, after they shall have been unanimously elected in the usual way, and he [the archbishop of Constantinople] shall have been informed of it."

We have divided this celebrated Chalcedonian canon into two parts, though in the Greek text the parts are (by Kai; w{ste) closely connected. The first part assigns to the bishop of Constantinople the second rank among the patriarchs, and is simply a repetition and confirmation of the third canon of the council of Constantinople; the second part goes farther, and sanctions the supremacy, already actually exercised by Chrysostom and his successors, of the patriarch of Constantinople, not only over the diocese of Thrace, but also over the dioceses of Asia Minor and Pontus, and gives him the exclusive right to ordain both the metropolitans of these three dioceses, and all the bishops of the barbarians(104) within those bounds. This gave him a larger district than any other patriarch of the East. Subsequently an edict of the emperor Justinian, in 530, added to him the special prerogative of receiving appeals from the other patriarchs, and thus of governing the whole Orient.

The council of Chalcedon in this decree only followed consistently the oriental principle of politico-ecclesiastical division. Its intention was to make the new political capital also the ecclesiastical capital of the East, to advance its bishop over the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, and to make him as nearly as possible equal to the bishop of Rome. Thus was imposed a wholesome check on the ambition of the Alexandrian patriarch, who in various ways, as the affair of Theophilus and Dioscurus shows, had abused his power to the prejudice of the church.

But thus, at the same time, was roused the jealousy of the bishop of Rome, to whom a rival in Constantinople, with equal prerogatives, was far more dangerous than a rival in Alexandria or Antioch. Especially offensive must it have been to him, that the council of Chalcedon said not a word of the primacy of Peter, and based the power of the Roman bishop, like that of the Constantinopolitan, on political grounds; which was indeed not erroneous, yet only half of the truth, and in that respect unfair.

Just here, therefore, is the point, where the Eastern church entered into a conflict with the Western, which continues to this day. The papal delegates protested against the twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council, on the spot, in the sixteenth and last session of the council; but in vain, though their protest was admitted to record. They appealed to the sixth canon of the Nicene council, according to the enlarged Latin version, which, in the later addition, "Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum," seems to assign the Roman bishop a position above all the patriarchs, and drops Constantinople from notice; whereupon the canon was read to them in its original form from the Greek Acts, without that addition, together with the first three canons of the second ecumenical council with their express acknowledgment of the patriarch of Constantinople in the second rank.(105) After the debate on this point, the imperial commissioners thus summed up the result: "From the whole discussion, and from what has been brought forward on either side, we acknowledge that the primacy over all (pro; pavntwn ta; prwtei'a) and the most eminent rank (kai; th;n ejxeivreton timhvn) are to continue with the archbishop of old Rome; but that also the archbishop of New Rome should enjoy the same precedence of honor (ta; presbei'a th'" timh'"), and have the right to ordain the metropolitans in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace," &c. Now they called upon the council to declare whether this was its opinion; whereupon the bishops gave their full, emphatic consent, and begged to be dismissed. The commissioners then closed the transactions with the words: "What we a little while ago proposed, the whole council hath ratified;" that is, the prerogative granted to the church of Constantinople is confirmed by the council in spite of the protest of the legates of Rome.(106)

After the council, the Roman bishop, Leo, himself protested in three letters of the 22d May, 452; the first of which was addressed to the emperor Marcian, the second to the empress Pulcheria, the third to Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople.(107) He expressed his satisfaction with the doctrinal results of the council, but declared the elevation of the bishop of Constantinople to the patriarchal dignity to be a work of pride and ambition—the humble, modest pope!—to be an attack upon the rights of other Eastern metropolitans—the invader of the same rights in Gaul!—especially upon the rights of the Roman see guaranteed by the council of Nice—on the authority of a Roman interpolation—and to be destructive of the peace of the church—which the popes have always sacredly kept! He would hear nothing of political considerations as the source of the authority of his chair, but pointed rather to Divine institution and the primacy of Peter. Leo speaks here with great reverence of the first ecumenical council, under the false impression that that council in its sixth canon acknowledged the primacy of Rome; but with singular indifference of the second ecumenical council, on account of its third canon, which was confirmed at Chalcedon. He charges Anatolius with using for his own ambition a council, which had been called simply for the extermination of heresy and the establishment of the faith. But the canons of the Nicene council, inspired by the Holy Ghost, could be superseded by no synod, however great; and all that came in conflict with them was void. He exhorted Anatolius to give up his ambition, and reminded him of the words: Tene quod habes, ne alius accipiat coronam tuam.(108)

But this protest could not change the decree of the council nor the position of the Greek church in the matter, although, under the influence of the emperor, Anatolius wrote an humble letter to Leo. The bishops of Constantinople asserted their rank, and were sustained by the Byzantine emperors. The twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council was expressly confirmed by Justinian I., in the 131st Novelle (c. 1), and solemnly renewed by the Trullan council (can. 36), but was omitted in the Latin collections of canons by Prisca, Dionysius, Exiguus, and Isidore. The loud contradiction of Rome gradually died away; yet she has never formally acknowledged this canon, except during the Latin empire and the Latin patriarchate at Constantinople, when the fourth Lateran council, under Innocent III., in 1215, conceded that the patriarch of Constantinople should hold the next rank after the patriarch of Rome, before those of Alexandria and Antioch.(109)

Finally, the bishop of Jerusalem, after long contests with the metropolitan of Caesarea and the patriarch of Antioch, succeeded in advancing himself to the patriarchal dignity; but his distinction remained chiefly a matter of honor, far below the other patriarchates in extent of real power. Had not the ancient Jerusalem, in the year 70, been left with only a part of the city wall and three gates to mark it, it would doubtless, being the seat of the oldest Christian congregation, have held, as in the time of James, a central position in the hierarchy. Yet as it was, a reflection of the original dignity of the mother city fell upon the new settlement of Aelia Capitolina, which, after Adrian, rose upon the venerable ruins. The pilgrimage of the empress Helena, and the magnificent church edifices of her son on the holy places, gave Jerusalem a new importance as the centre of devout pilgrimage from all quarters of Christendom. Its bishop was subordinate, indeed, to the metropolitan of Caesarea, but presided with him (probably secundo loco) at the Palestinian councils.(110) The council of Nice gave him an honorary precedence among the bishops, though without affecting his dependence on the metropolitan of Caesarea. At least this seems to be the meaning of the short and some. what obscure seventh canon: "Since it is custom and old tradition, that the bishop of Aelia (Jerusalem) should be honored, he shall also enjoy the succession of honor,(111) while the metropolis (Caesarea) preserves the dignity allotted to her." The legal relation of the two remained for a long time uncertain, till the fourth ecumenical council, at its seventh session, confirmed the bishop of Jerusalem in his patriarchal rank, and assigned to him the three provinces of Palestine as a diocese, without opposition.

§ 57. The Rival Patriarchs of Old and New Rome.

Thus at the close of the fourth century we see the Catholic church of the Graeco-Roman empire under the oligarchy of five coordinate and independent patriarchs, four in the East and one in the West. But the analogy of the political constitution, and the tendency toward a visible, tangible representation of the unity of the church, which had lain at the bottom of the development of the hierarchy from the very beginnings of the episcopate, pressed beyond oligarchy to monarchy; especially in the West. Now that the empire was geographically and politically severed into East and West, which, after the death of Theodosius, in 395, had their several emperors, and were never permanently reunited, we can but expect in like manner a double head in the hierarchy. This we find in the two patriarchs of old Rome and New Rome; the one representing the Western or Latin church, the other the Eastern or Greek. Their power and their relation to each other we must now more carefully observe.

The organization of the church in the East being so largely influenced by the political constitution, the bishop of the imperial capital could not fail to become the most powerful of the four oriental patriarchs. By the second and fourth ecumenical councils, as we have already seen, his actual preëminence was ratified by ecclesiastical sanction, and he was designated to the foremost dignity.(112) From Justinian I. he further received supreme appellate jurisdiction, and the honorary title of ecumenical patriarch, which he still continues to bear.(113) He ordained the other patriarchs, not seldom decided their deposition or institution by his influence, and used every occasion to interfere in their affairs, and assert his supreme authority, though the popes and their delegates at the imperial court incessantly protested. The patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria were distracted and weakened in the course of the fifth and sixth centuries by the tedious monophysite controversies, and subsequently, after the year 622, were reduced to but a shadow by the Mohammedan conquests. The patriarchate of Constantinople, on the contrary, made important advances southwest and north; till, in its flourishing period, between the eighth and tenth centuries, it embraced, besides its original diocese, Calabria, Sicily, and all the provinces of Illyricum, the Bulgarians, and Russia. Though often visited with destructive earthquakes and conflagrations, and besieged by Persians, Arabians, Hungarians, Russians, Latins, and Turks, Constantinople maintained itself to the middle of the fifteenth century as the seat of the Byzantine empire and centre of the Greek church. The patriarch of Constantinople, however, remained virtually only primus inter pares, and has never exercised a papal supremacy over his colleagues in the East, like that of the pope over the metropolitans of the West; still less has he arrogated, like his rival in ancient Rome, the sole dominion of the entire church. Toward the bishop of Rome he claimed only equality of rights and coordinate dignity.

In this long contest between the two leading patriarchs of Christendom, the patriarch of Rome at last carried the day. The monarchical tendency of the hierarchy was much stronger in the West than in the East, and was urging a universal monarchy in the church.

The patriarch of Constantinople enjoyed indeed the favor of the emperor, and all the benefit of the imperial residence. New Rome was most beautifully and most advantageously situated for a metropolis of government, of commerce, and of culture, on the bridge between two continents; and it formed a powerful bulwark against the barbarian conquests. It was never desecrated by an idol temple, but was founded a Christian city. It fostered the sciences and arts, at a time when the West was whelmed by the wild waves of barbarism; it preserved the knowledge of the Greek language and literature through the middle ages; and after the invasion of the Turks it kindled by its fugitive scholars the enthusiasm of classic studies in the Latin church, till Greece rose from the dead with the New Testament in her hand, and held the torch for the Reformation.

But the Roman patriarch had yet greater advantages. In him were united, as even the Greek historian Theodoret concedes,(114) all the outward and the inward, the political and the spiritual conditions of the highest eminence.

In the first place, his authority rested on an ecclesiastical and spiritual basis, reaching back, as public opinion granted, through an unbroken succession, to Peter the apostle; while Constantinople was in no sense an apostolica sedes, but had a purely political origin, though, by transfer, and in a measure by usurpation, it had possessed itself of the metropolitan rights of Ephesus(115) Hence the popes after Leo appealed almost exclusively to the divine origin of their dignity, and to the primacy of the prince of the apostles over the whole church.

Then, too, considered even in a political point of view, old Rome had a far longer and grander imperial tradition to show, and was identified in memory with the bloom of the empire; while New Rome marked the beginning of its decline. When the Western empire fell into the hands of the barbarians, the Roman bishop was the only surviving heir of this imperial past, or, in the well-known dictum of Hobbes, "the ghost of the deceased Roman empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof."

Again, the very remoteness of Rome from the imperial court was favorable to the development of a hierarchy independent of all political influence and intrigue; while the bishop of Constantinople had to purchase the political advantages of the residence at the cost of ecclesiastical freedom. The tradition of the donatio Constantini, though a fabrication of the eighth century, has thus much truth: that the transfer of the imperial residence to the East broke the way for the temporal power and the political independence of the papacy.

Further, amidst the great trinitarian and christological controversies of the Nicene and post-Nicene age, the popes maintained the powerful prestige of almost undeviating ecumenical orthodoxy and doctrinal stability;(116) while the see of Constantinople, with its Grecian spirit of theological restlessness and disputation, was sullied with the Arian, the Nestorian, the Monophysite, and other heresies, and was in general, even in matters of faith, dependent on the changing humors of the court. Hence even contending parties in the East were accustomed to seek counsel and protection from the Roman chair, and oftentimes gave that see the coveted opportunity to put the weight of its decision into the scale. This occasional practice then formed a welcome basis for a theory of jurisdiction. The Roma locuta est assumed the character of a supreme and final judgment. Rome learned much and forgot nothing. She knew how to turn every circumstances with consummate administrative tact, to her own advantage.

Finally, though the Greek church, down to the fourth ecumenical council, was unquestionably the main theatre of church history and the chief seat of theological learning, yet, according to the universal law of history, "Westward the star of empire takes its way," the Latin church, and consequently the Roman patriarchate, already had the future to itself. While the Eastern patriarchates were facilitating by internal quarrels and disorder the conquests of the false prophet, Rome was boldly and victoriously striking westward, and winning the barbarian tribes of Europe to the religion of the cross.

§ 58. The Latin Patriarch.

These advantages of the patriarch of Rome over the patriarch of Constantinople are at the same time the leading causes of the rise of the papacy, which we must now more closely pursue.

The papacy is undeniably the result of a long process of history. Centuries were employed in building it, and centuries have already been engaged upon its partial destruction. Lust of honor and of power, and even open fraud,(117) have contributed to its development; for human nature lies hidden under episcopal robes, with its steadfast inclination to abuse the power intrusted to it; and the greater the power, the stronger is the temptation, and the worse the abuse. But behind and above these human impulses lay the needs of the church and the plans of Providence, and these are the proper basis for explaining the rise, as well as the subsequent decay, of the papal dominion over the countries and nations of Europe.

That Providence which moves the helm of the history of world and church according to an eternal plan, not only prepares in silence and in a secrecy unknown even to themselves the suitable persons for a given work, but also lays in the depths of the past the foundations of mighty institutions, that they may appear thoroughly furnished as soon as the time may demand them. Thus the origin and gradual growth of the Latin patriarchate at Rome looked forward to the middle age, and formed part of the necessary, external outfit of the church for her disciplinary mission among the heathen barbarians. The vigorous hordes who destroyed the West-Roman empire were to be themselves built upon the ruins of the old civilization, and trained by an awe-inspiring ecclesiastical authority and a firm hierarchical organization, to Christianity and freedom, till, having come of age, they should need the legal schoolmaster no longer, and should cast away his cords from them. The Catholic hierarchy, with its pyramid-like culmination in the papacy, served among the Romanic and Germanic peoples. until the time of the Reformation, a purpose similar to that of the Jewish theocracy and the old Roman empire respectively in the inward and outward preparation for Christianity. The full exhibition of this pedagogic purpose belongs to the history of the middle age; but the foundation for it we find already being laid in the period before us.

The Roman bishop claims, that the four dignities of bishop, metropolitan, patriarch, and pope or primate of the whole church, are united in himself. The first three offices must be granted him in all historical justice; the last is denied him by the Greek church, and by the Evangelical, and by all non-Catholic sects.

His bishopric is the city of Rome, with its cathedral church of St. John Lateran, which bears over its main entrance the inscription: Omnium urbis et orbis ecclesiarum mater et caput; thus remarkably outranking even the church of St. Peter—as if Peter after all were not the first and highest apostle, and had to yield at last to the superiority of John, the representative of the ideal church of the future. Tradition says that the emperor Constantine erected this basilica by the side of the old Lateran palace, which had come down from heathen times, and gave the palace to Pope Sylvester; and it remained the residence of the popes and the place of assembly for their councils (the Lateran councils) till after the exile of Avignon, when they took up their abode in the Vatican beside the ancient church of St. Peter.

As metropolitan or archbishop, the bishop of Rome had immediate jurisdiction over the seven suffragan bishops, afterward called cardinal bishops, of the vicinity: Ostia, Portus, Silva candida, Sabina, Praeneste, Tusculum, and Albanum.

As patriarch, he rightfully stood on equal footing with the four patriarchs of the East, but had a much larger district and the primacy of honor. The name is here of no account, since the fact stands fast. The Roman bishops called themselves not patriarchs, but popes, that they might rise the sooner above their colleagues; for the one name denotes oligarchical power, the other, monarchical. But in the Eastern church and among modern Catholic historians the designation is also quite currently applied to Rome.

The Roman patriarchal circuit primarily embraced the ten suburban provinces, as they were called, which were under the political jurisdiction of the Roman deputy, the Vicarius Urbis; including the greater part of Central Italy, all Upper Italy, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica.(118) In its wider sense, however, it extended gradually over the entire west of the Roman empire, thus covering Italy, Gaul, Spain, Illyria, southeastern Britannia, and northwestern Africa.(119)

The bishop of Rome was from the beginning the only Latin patriarch, in the official sense of the word. He stood thus alone, in the first place, for the ecclesiastical reason, that Rome was the only sedes apostolica in the West, while in the Greek church three patriarchates and several other episcopal sees, such as Ephesus, Thessalonica, and Corinth, shared the honor of apostolic foundation. Then again, he stood politically alone, since Rome was the sole metropolis of the West, while in the East there were three capitals of the empire, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Hence Augustine, writing from the religious point of view, once calls Pope Innocent I. the "ruler of the Western church;"(120) and the emperor Justinian, on the ground of political distribution, in his 109th Novelle, where he speaks of the ecclesiastical division of the whole world, mentions only five known patriarchates, and therefore only one patriarchate of the West. The decrees of the ecumenical councils, also, know no other Western patriarchate than the Roman, and this was the sole medium through which the Eastern church corresponded with the Western. In the great theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman bishop appears uniformly as the representative and the organ of all Latin Christendom.

It was, moreover, the highest interest of all orthodox churches in the West, amidst the political confusion and in conflict with the Arian Goths, Vandals, and Suevi, to bind themselves closely to a common centre, and to secure the powerful protection of a central authority. This centre they could not but find in the primitive apostolic church of the metropolis of the world. The Roman bishops were consulted in almost all important questions of doctrine or of discipline. After the end of the fourth century they issued to the Western bishops in reply, pastoral epistles and decretal letters,(121) in which they decided the question at first in the tone of paternal counsel, then in the tone of apostolic authority, making that which had hitherto been left to free opinion, a fixed statute. The first extant decretal is the Epistola of Pope Siricius to the spanish bishop Himerius, a.d. 385, which contains, characteristically, a legal enforcement of priestly celibacy, thus of an evidently unapostolic institution; but in this Siricius appeals to "generalia decreta," which his predecessor Liberius had already issued. In like manner the Roman bishops repeatedly caused the assembling of general or patriarchal councils of the West (synodos occidentales), like the synod of Axles in 314. After the sixth and seventh centuries they also conferred the pallium on the archbishops of Salona, Ravenna, Messina, Syracuse, Palermo, Arles, Autun, Sevilla, Nicopolis (in Epirus), Canterbury, and other metropolitans, in token of their superior jurisdiction.(122)

§ 59. Conflicts and Conquests of the Latin Patriarchate.

But this patriarchal power was not from the beginning and to a uniform extent acknowledged in the entire West. Not until the latter part of the sixth century did it reach the height we have above described.(123) It was not a divine institution, unchangeably fixed from the beginning for all times, like a Biblical article of faith; but the result of a long process of history, a human ecclesiastical institution under providential direction. In proof of which we have the following incontestable facts:

In the first place, even in Italy, several metropolitans maintained, down to the close of our period, their own supreme headship, independent of Roman and all other jurisdiction.(124) The archbishops of Milan, who traced their church to the apostle Barnabas, came into no contact with the pope till the latter part of the sixth century, and were ordained without him or his pallium. Gregory I., in 593, during the ravages of the Longobards, was the first who endeavored to exercise patriarchal rights there: he reinstated an excommunicated presbyter, who had appealed to him.(125) The metropolitans of Aquileia, who derived their church from the evangelist Mark, and whose city was elevated by Constantine the Great to be the capital of Venetia and Istria, vied with Milan, and even with Rome, calling themselves "patriarchs," and refusing submission to the papal jurisdiction even under Gregory the Great.(126) The bishop of Ravenna likewise, after 408, when the emperor Honorius selected that city for his residence, became a powerful metropolitan, with jurisdiction over fourteen bishoprics. Nevertheless he received the pallium from Gregory the Great, and examples occur of ordination by the Roman bishop.(127)

The North African bishops and councils in the beginning of the fifth century, with all traditional reverence for the apostolic see, repeatedly protested, in the spirit of Cyprian, against encroachments of Rome, and even prohibited all appeal in church controversies from their own to a transmarine or foreign tribunal, upon pain of excommunication.(128) The occasion of this was an appeal to Rome by the presbyter Apiarius, who had been deposed for sundry offences by Bishop Urbanus, of Sicca, a disciple and friend of Augustine, and whose restoration was twice attempted, by Pope Zosimus in 418, and by Pope Coelestine in 424. From this we see that the popes gladly undertook to interfere for a palpably unworthy priest, and thus sacrificed the interests of local discipline, only to make their own superior authority felt. The Africans referred to the genuine Nicene canon (for which Zosimus had substituted the Sardican appendix respecting the appellate jurisdiction of Rome, of which the Nicene council knew nothing), and reminded the pope, that the gift of the Holy Ghost, needful for passing a just judgment, was not lacking to any province, and that he could as well inspire a whole province as a single bishop. The last document in the case of this appeal of Apiarius is a letter of the (twentieth) council of Carthage, in 424, to Pope Coelestine I., to the following purport:(129) "Apiarius asked a new trial, and gross misdeeds of his were thereby brought to light. The papal legate, Faustinus, has, in the face of this, in a very harsh manner demanded the reception of this man into the fellowship of the Africans, because he has appealed to the pope and been received into fellowship by him. But this very thing ought not to have been done. At last has Apiarius himself acknowledged all his crimes. The pope may hereafter no longer so readily give audience to those who come from Africa to Rome, like Apiarius, nor receive the excommunicated into church communion, be they bishops or priests, as the council of Nice (can. 5) has ordained, in whose direction bishops are included. The assumption of appeal to Rome is a trespass on the rights of the African church, and what has been [by Zosimus and his legates] brought forward as a Nicene ordinance for it, is not Nicene, and is not to be found in the genuine copies of the Nicene Acts, which have been received from Constantinople and Alexandria. Let the pope, therefore, in future send no more judges to Africa, and since Apiarius has now been excluded for his offences, the pope will surely not expect the African church to submit longer to the annoyances of the legate Faustinus. May God the Lord long preserve the pope, and may the pope pray for the Africans." In the Pelagian controversy the weak Zosimus, who, in opposition to the judgment of his predecessor Innocent, had at first expressed himself favorably to the heretics, was even compelled by the Africans to yield. The North African church maintained this position under the lead of the greatest of the Latin fathers, St. Augustine, who in other respects contributed more than any other theologian or bishop to the erection of the Catholic system. She first made submission to the Roman jurisdiction, in the sense of her weakness, under the shocks of the Vandals. Leo (440–461) was the first pope who could boast of having extended the diocese of Rome beyond Europe into another quarter of the globe.(130) He and Gregory the Great wrote to the African bishops entirely in the tone of paternal authority without provoking reply.

In Spain the popes found from the first a more favorable field. The orthodox bishops there were so pressed in the fifth century by the Arian Vandals, Suevi, Alani, and soon after by the Goths, that they sought counsel and protection with the bishop of Rome, which, for his own sake, he was always glad to give. So early as 385, Siricius, as we have before observed, issued a decretal letter to a Spanish bishop. The epistles of Leo to Bishop Turibius of Asturica, and the bishops of Gaul and Spain,(131) are instances of the same authoritative style. Simplicius (467–483) appointed the bishop Zeno of Sevilla papal vicar,(132) and Gregory the Great, with a paternal letter, conferred the pallium on Leander, bishop of Sevilla.(133)

In Gaul, Leo succeeded in asserting the Roman jurisdiction, though not without opposition, in the affair of the archbishop Hilary of Arles, or Arelate. The affair has been differently represented from the Gallican and the ultramontane points of view.(134) Hilary (born 403, died 449), first a rigid monk, then, against his will, elevated to the bishopric, an eloquent preacher, an energetic prelate, and the first champion of the freedom of the Gallican church against the pretensions of Rome, but himself not free from hierarchical ambition, deposed Celidonius, the bishop of Besançon, at a council in that city (synodus Vesontionensis), because he had married a widow before his ordination, and had presided as judge at a criminal trial and pronounced sentence of death; which things, according to the ecclesiastical law, incapacitated him for the episcopal office. This was unquestionably an encroachment on the province of Vienne, to which Besaçon belonged. Pope Zosimus had, indeed, in 417, twenty-eight years before, appointed the bishop of Arles, which was a capital of seven provinces, to be papal vicar in Gaul, and had granted him metropolitan rights in the provinces Viennensis, and Narbonensis prima and secunda, though with the reservation of causae majores.(135) The metropolitans of Vienne, Narbonne, and Marseilles, however, did not accept this arrangement, and the succeeding popes found it best to recognize again the old metropolitans.(136) Celidonius appealed to Leo against that act of Hilary. Leo, in 445, assembled a Roman council (concilium sacerdotum), and reinstated him, as the accusation of Hilary, who himself journeyed on foot in the winter to Rome, and protested most vehemently against the appeal, could not be proven to the satisfaction of the pope. In fact, he directly or indirectly caused Hilary to be imprisoned, and, when he escaped and fled back to Gaul, cut him off from the communion of the Roman church, and deprived him of all prerogatives in the diocese of Vienne, which had been only temporarily conferred on the bishop of Arles, and were by a better judgment (sententia meliore) taken away. He accused him of assaults on the rights of other Gallican metropolitans, and above all of insubordination toward the principality of the most blessed Peter; and he goes so far as to say: "Whoso disputes the primacy of the apostle Peter, can in no way lessen the apostle’s dignity, but, puffed up by the spirit of his own pride, he destroys himself in hell."(137) Only out of special grace did he leave Hilary in his bishopric. Not satisfied with this, he applied to the secular arm for help, and procured from the weak Western emperor, Valentinian III., an edict to Aetius, the magister militum of Gaul, in which it is asserted, almost in the words of Leo, that the whole world (universitas; in Greek, oijkoumevnh) acknowledges the Roman see as director and governor; that neither Hilary nor any bishop might oppose its commands; that neither Gallican nor other bishops should, contrary to the ancient custom, do anything without the authority of the venerable pope of the eternal city; and that all decrees of the pope have the force of law.

The letter of Leo to the Gallican churches, and the edict of the emperor, give us the first example of a defensive and offensive alliance of the central spiritual and temporal powers in the pursuit of an unlimited sovereignty. The edict, however, could of course have power, at most, only in the West, to which the authority of Valentinian was limited. In fact, even Hilary and his successors maintained, in spite of Leo, the prerogatives they had formerly received from Pope Zosimus, and were confirmed in them by later popes.(138) Beyond this the issue of the contest is unknown. Hilary of Arles died in 449, universally esteemed and loved, without, so far as we know, having become formally reconciled with Rome;(139) though, notwithstanding this, he figures in a remarkable manner in the Roman calendar, by the side of his papal antagonist Leo, as a canonical saint. Undoubtedly Leo proceeded in this controversy far too rigorously and intemperately against Hilary; yet it was important that he should hold fast the right of appeal as a guarantee of the freedom of bishops against the encroachments of metropolitans. The papal despotism often proved itself a wholesome check upon the despotism of subordinate prelates.

With Northern Gaul the Roman bishops came into less frequent contact; yet in this region also there occur, in the fourth and fifth centuries, examples of the successful assertion of their jurisdiction.

The early British church held from the first a very isolated position, and was driven back, by the invasion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, about the middle of the fifth century, into the mountains of Wales, Cornwallis, Cumberland, and the still more secluded islands. Not till the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons under Gregory the Great did a regular connection begin between England and Rome.

Finally, the Roman bishops succeeded also in extending their patriarchal power eastward, over the praefecture of East Illyria. Illyria belonged originally to the Western empire, remained true to the Nicene faith through the Arian controversies, and for the vindication of that faith attached itself closely to Rome. When Gratian, in 379, incorporated Illyricum Orientale with the Eastern empire, its bishops nevertheless refused to give up their former ecclesiastical connection. Damasus conferred on the metropolitan Acholius, of Thessalonica, as papal vicar, patriarchal rights in the new praefecture. The patriarch of Constantinople endeavored, indeed, repeatedly, to bring this ground into his diocese, but in vain. Justinian, in 535, formed of it a new diocese, with an independent patriarch at Prima Justiniana (or Achrida, his native city); but this arbitrary innovation had no vitality, and Gregory I. recovered active intercourse with the Illyrian bishops. Not until the eighth century, under the emperor Leo the Isaurian, was East Illyria finally severed from the Roman diocese and incorporated with the patriarchate of Constantinople.(140)

§ 60. The Papacy.

Literature, as in § 55, and vol. i. § 110.

At last the Roman bishop, on the ground of his divine institution, and as successor of Peter, the prince of the apostles, advanced his claim to be primate of the entire church, and visible representative of Christ, who is the invisible supreme head of the Christian world. This is the strict and exclusive sense of the title, Pope.(141)

Properly speaking, this claim has never been fully realized, and remains to this day an apple of discord in the history of the church. Greek Christendom has never acknowledged it, and Latin, only under manifold protests, which at last conquered in the Reformation, and deprived the papacy forever of the best part of its domain. The fundamental fallacy of the Roman system is, that it identifies papacy and church, and therefore, to be consistent, must unchurch not only Protestantism, but also the entire Oriental church from its origin down. By the "una sancta catholica apostolica ecclesia" of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed is to be understood the whole body of Catholic Christians, of which the ecclesia Romana, like the churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, is only one of the most prominent branches. The idea of the papacy, and its claims to the universal dominion of the church, were distinctly put forward, it is true, so early as the period before us, but could not make themselves good beyond the limits of the West. Consequently the papacy, as a historical fact, or so far as it has been acknowledged, is properly nothing more than the Latin patriarchate run to absolute monarchy.

By its advocates the papacy is based not merely upon church usage, like the metropolitan and patriarchal power, but upon divine right; upon the peculiar position which Christ assigned to Peter in the well-known words: "Thou art Peter, and on this rock will I build my church."(142) This passage was at all times taken as an immovable exegetical rock for the papacy. The popes themselves appealed to it, times without number, as the great proof of the divine institution of a visible and infallible central authority in the church. According to this view, the primacy is before the apostolate, the head before the body, instead of the reverse.

But, in the first place, this preëminence of Peter did not in the least affect the independence of the other apostles. Paul especially, according to the clear testimony of his epistles and the book of Acts, stood entirely upon his own authority, and even on one occasion, at Antioch, took strong ground against Peter. Then again, the personal position of Peter by no means yields the primacy to the Roman bishop, without the twofold evidence, first that Peter was actually in Rome, and then that he transferred his prerogatives to the bishop of that city. The former fact rests upon a universal tradition of the early church, which at that time no one doubted, but is in part weakened and neutralized by the absence of any clear Scripture evidence, and by the much more certain fact, given in the New Testament itself, that Paul labored in Rome, and that in no position of inferiority or subordination to any higher authority than that of Christ himself. The second assumption, of the transfer of the primacy to the Roman bishops, is susceptible of neither historical nor exegetical demonstration, and is merely an inference from the principle that the successor in office inherits all the official prerogatives of his predecessor. But even granting both these intermediate links in the chain of the papal theory, the double question yet remains open: first, whether the Roman bishop be the only successor of Peter, or share this honor with the bishops of Jerusalem and Antioch, in which places also Peter confessedly resided; and secondly, whether the primacy involve at the same time a supremacy of jurisdiction over the whole church, or be only an honorary primacy among patriarchs of equal authority and rank. The former was the Roman view; the latter was the Greek.

An African bishop, Cyprian († 258), was the first to give to that passage of the 16th of Matthew, innocently as it were, and with no suspicion of the future use and abuse of his view, a papistic interpretation, and to bring out clearly the idea of a perpetual cathedra Petri. The same Cyprian, however, whether consistently or not, was at the same time equally animated with the consciousness of episcopal equality and independence, afterward actually came out in bold opposition to Pope Stephen in a doctrinal controversy on the validity of heretical baptism, and persisted in this protest to his death.(143)

§ 61. Opinions of the Fathers.

A complete collection of the patristic utterances on the primacy of Peter and his successors, though from the Roman point of view, may be found in the work of Rev. Jos. Berington and Rev. John Kirk: "The Faith of Catholics confirmed by Scripture and attested by the Fathers of the first five centuries of the Church," 3d ed., London, 1846, vol. ii. p. 1–112. Comp. the works quoted sub § 55, and a curious article of Prof. Ferd. Piper, on Rome, the eternal city, in the Evang. Jahrbuch for 1864, p. 17–120, where the opinions of the fathers on the claims of the urbs aeterna and its many fortunes are brought out.

We now pursue the development of this idea in the church fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. In general they agree in attaching to Peter a certain primacy over the other apostles, and in considering him the foundation of the church in virtue of his confession of the divinity of Christ; while they hold Christ to be, in the highest sense, the divine ground and rock of the church. And herein lies a solution of their apparent self-contradiction in referring the petra in Matt. xvi. 18, now to the person of Peter, now to his confession, now to Christ. Then, as the bishops in general were regarded as successors of the apostles, the fathers saw in the Roman bishops, on the ground of the ancient tradition of the martyrdom of Peter in Rome, the successor of Peter and the heir of the primacy. But respecting the nature and prerogatives of this primacy their views were very indefinite and various. It is remarkable that the reference of the rock to Christ, which Augustine especially defended with great earnestness, was acknowledged even by the greatest pope of the middle ages, Gregory VII., in the famous inscription he sent with a crown to the emperor Rudolph: "Petra [i.e., Christ] dedit Petro [i.e., to the apostle], Petrus [the pope] diadema Rudolpho."(144) It is worthy of notice, that the post-Nicene, as well as the ante-Nicene fathers, with all their reverence for the Roman see, regarded the heathenish title of Rome, urbs aeterna, as blasphemous, with reference to the passage of the woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, Rev. xvii. 3.(145) The prevailing opinion seems to have been, that Rome and the Roman empire would fall before the advent of Antichrist and the second coming of the Lord.(146)

The views of the Latin fathers.

The Cyprianic idea was developed primarily in North Africa, where it was first clearly pronounced.

Optatus, bishop of Milevi, the otherwise unknown author of an anti-Donatist work about a.d. 384, is, like Cyprian, thoroughly possessed with the idea of the visible unity of the church; declares it without qualification the highest good, and sees its plastic expression and its surest safeguard in the immovable cathedra Petri, the prince of the apostles, the keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, who, in spite of his denial of Christ, continued in that relation to the other apostles, that the unity of the church might appear in outward fact as an unchangeable thing, invulnerable to human offence. All these prerogatives have passed to the bishops of Rome, as the successors of this apostle.(147)

Ambrose of Milan († 397) speaks indeed in very high terms of the Roman church, and concedes to its bishops a religious magistracy like the political power of the emperors of pagan Rome;(148) yet he calls the primacy of Peter only a "primacy of confession, not of honor; of faith, not of rank,"(149) and places the apostle Paul on an equality with Peter.(150) Of any dependence of Ambrose, or of the bishops of Milan in general during the first six centuries, on the jurisdiction of Rome, no trace is to be found.

Jerome († 419), the most learned commentator among the Latin fathers, vacillates in his explanation of the petra; now, like Augustine, referring it to Christ,(151) now to Peter and his confession.(152) In his commentary on Matt. xvi., he combines the two interpretations thus: "As Christ gave light to the apostles, so that they were called, after him, the light of the world, and as they received other designations from the Lord; so Simon, because he believed on the rock, Christ, received the name Peter, and in accordance with the figure of the rock, it is justly said to him: ’I will build my church upon thee (super te),’ " He recognizes in the Roman bishop the successor of Peter, but advocates elsewhere the equal rights of the bishops,(153) and in fact derives even the episcopal office, not from direct divine institution, but from the usage of the church and from the presidency in the presbyterium.(154) He can therefore be cited as a witness, at most, for a primacy of honor, not for a supremacy of jurisdiction. Beyond this even the strongest passage of his writings, in a letter to his friend, Pope Damasus (a.d. 376), does not go: "Away with the ambition of the Roman head; I speak with the successor of the fisherman and disciple of the cross. Following no other head than Christ, I am joined in the communion of faith with thy holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter. On that rock I know the church to be built."(155) Subsequently this father, who himself had an eye on the papal chair, fell out with the Roman clergy, and retired to the ascetic and literary solitude of Bethlehem, where he served the church by his pen far better than he would have done as the successor of Damasus.

Augustine († 430), the greatest theological authority of the Latin church, at first referred the words, "On this rock I will build my church," to the person of Peter, but afterward expressly retracted this interpretation, and considered the petra to be Christ, on the ground of a distinction between petra (ejpi; tauvth/ th'/ pevtra/) and Petrus (su; ei| Pevtro"); a distinction which Jerome also makes, though with the intimation that it is not properly applicable to the Hebrew and Syriac Cephas.(156) "I have somewhere said of St. Peter" thus Augustine corrects himself in his Retractations at the close of his life(157)—"that the church is built upon him as the rock; a thought which is sung by many in the verses of St. Ambrose:

’Hoc ipsa petra ecclesiae

Canente, culpam diluit.’(158)

(The Rock of the church himself

In the cock-crowing atones his guilt.)

But I know that I have since frequently said, that the word of the Lord, ’Thou art Petrus, and on this petra I will build my church,’ must be understood of him, whom Peter confessed as Son of the living God; and Peter, so named after this rock, represents the person of the church, which is founded on this rock and has received the keys of the kingdom of heaven. For it was not said to him: ’Thou art a rock’ (petra), but, ’Thou art Peter’ (Petrus); and the rock was Christ, through confession of whom Simon received the name of Peter. Yet the reader may decide which of the two interpretations is the more probable." In the same strain he says, in another place: "Peter, in virtue of the primacy of his apostolate, stands, by a figurative generalization, for the church .... When it was said to him, ’I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven,’ &c., he represented the whole church, which in this world is assailed by various temptations, as if by floods and storms, yet does not fall, because it is founded upon a rock, from which Peter received his name. For the rock is not so named from Peter, but Peter from the rock (non enim a Petro petra, sed Petrus a petra), even as Christ is not so called after the Christian, but the Christian after Christ. For the reason why the Lord says, ’On this rock I will build my church’ is that Peter had said: ’Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ On this rock, which then hast confessed, says he will build my church. For Christ was the rock (petra enim erat Christus), upon which also Peter himself was built; for other foundation can no man lay, than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Thus the church, which is built upon Christ, has received from him, in the person of Peter, the keys of heaven; that is, the power of binding and loosing sins."(159) This Augustinian interpretation of the petra has since been revived by some Protestant theologians in the cause of anti-Romanism.(160) Augustine, it is true, unquestionably understood by the church the visible Catholic church, descended from the apostles, especially from Peter, through the succession of bishops; and according to the usage of his time he called the Roman church by eminence the sedes apostolica.(161) But on the other hand, like Cyprian and Jerome, he lays stress upon the essential unity of the episcopate, and insists that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were committed not to a single man, but to the whole church, which Peter was only set to represent.(162) With this view agrees the independent position of the North African church in the time of Augustine toward Rome, as we have already observed it in the case of the appeal of Apiarius, and as it appears in the Pelagian controversy, of which Augustine was the leader. This father, therefore, can at all events be cited only as a witness to the limited authority of the Roman chair. And it should also, in justice, be observed, that in his numerous writings he very rarely speaks of that authority at all, and then for the most part incidentally; showing that he attached far less importance to this matter than the Roman divines.(163)

The later Latin fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries prefer the reference of the petra to Peter and his confession, and transfer his prerogatives to the Roman bishops as his successors, but produce no new arguments. Among them we mention Maximus of Turin (about 450), who, however, like Ambrose, places Paul on a level with Peter;(164) then Orosius, and several popes; above all Leo, of whom we shall speak more fully in the following section.

As to the Greek fathers: Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, the two Gregories, Ephraim, Syrus, Asterius, Cyril of Alexandria, Chrysostom, and Theodoret refer the petra now to the confession, now to the person, of Peter; sometimes to both. They speak of this apostle uniformly in very lofty terms, at times in rhetorical extravagance, calling him the "coryphaeus of the choir of apostles," the prince of the apostles," the "tongue of the apostles," the "bearer of the keys," the "keeper of the kingdom of heaven," the "pillar," the "rock," the "firm foundation of the church." But, in the first place, they understand by all this simply an honorary primacy of Peter, to whom that power was but first committed, which the Lord afterward conferred on all the apostles alike; and, in the second place, they by no means favor an exclusive transfer of this prerogative to the bishop of Rome, but claim it also for the bishops of Antioch, where Peter, according to Gal. ii., sojourned a long time, and where, according to tradition, he was bishop, and appointed a successor.

So Chrysostom, for instance, calls Ignatius of Antioch a "successor of Peter, on whom, after Peter, the government of the church devolved,"(165) and in another place says still more distinctly: "Since I have named Peter, I am reminded of another Peter [Flavian, bishop of Antioch], our common father and teacher, who has inherited as well the virtues as the chair of Peter. Yea, for this is the privilege of this city of ours [Antioch], to have first (ejn ajrch'/) had the coryphaeus of the apostles for its teacher. For it was proper that the city, where the Christian name originated, should receive the first of the apostles for its pastor. But after we had him for our teacher, we, did not retain him, but transferred him to imperial Rome."(166)

Theodoret also, who, like Chrysostom, proceeded from the Antiochian school, says of the "great city of Antioch," that it has the "throne of Peter."(167) In a letter to Pope Leo he speaks, it is true, in very extravagant terms of Peter and his successors at Rome, in whom all the conditions, external and internal, of the highest eminence and control in the church are combined.(168) But in the same epistle he remarks, that the "thrice blessed and divine double star of Peter and Paul rose in the East and shed its rays in every direction;" in connection with which it must be remembered that he was at that time seeking protection in Leo against the Eutychian robber-council of Ephesus (449), which had unjustly deposed both himself and Flavian of Constantinople.

His bitter antagonist also, the arrogant and overbearing Cyril of Alexandria, descended some years before, in his battle against Nestorius, to unworthy flattery, and called Pope Coelestine "the archbishop of the whole [Roman] world."(169) The same prelates, under other circumstances, repelled with proud indignation the encroachments of Rome on their jurisdiction.

§ 62. The Decrees of Councils on the Papal Authority.

Much more important than the opinions of individual fathers are the formal decrees of the councils.

First mention here belongs to the council of Sardica in Illyria (now Sofia in Bulgaria) in 343,(170) during the Arian controversy. This council is the most favorable of all to the Roman claims. In the interest of the deposed Athanasius and of the Nicene orthodoxy it decreed:

That a deposed bishop, who feels he has a good cause, may apply, out of reverence to the memory of the apostle Peter, to the Roman bishop Julius, and shall leave it with him either to ratify the deposition or to summon a new council.
That the vacant bishopric shall not be filled till the decision of Rome be received.
That the Roman bishop, in such a case of appeal, may, according to his best judgment, either institute a new trial by the bishops of a neighboring province, or send delegates to the spot with full power to decide the matter with the bishops.(171)

Thus was plainly committed to the Roman bishops an appellate and revisory jurisdiction in the case of a condemned or deposed bishop even of the East. But in the first place this authority is not here acknowledged as a right already existing in practice. It is conferred as a new power, and that merely as an honorary right, and as pertaining only to the bishop Julius in person.(172) Otherwise, either this bishop would not be expressly named, or his successors would be named with him. Furthermore, the canons limit the appeal to the case of a bishop deposed by his comprovincials, and say nothing of other cases. Finally, the council of Sardica was not a general council, but only a local synod of the West, and could therefore establish no law for the whole church. For the Eastern bishops withdrew at the very beginning, and held an opposition council in the neighboring town of Philippopolis; and the city of Sardica, too, with the praefecture of Illyricum, at that time belonged to the Western empire and the Roman patriarchate: it was not detached from them till 379. The council was intended, indeed, to be ecumenical; but it consisted at first of only a hundred and seventy bishops, and after the recession of the seventy-six Orientals, it had only ninety-four; and even by the two hundred signatures of absent bishops, mostly Egyptian, to whom the acts were sent for their approval, the East, and even the Latin Africa, with its three hundred bishoprics, were very feebly represented. It was not sanctioned by the emperor Constantius, and has by no subsequent authority been declared ecumenical.(173) Accordingly its decrees soon fell into oblivion, and in the further course of the Arian controversy, and even throughout the Nestorian, where the bishops of Alexandria, and not those of Rome, were evidently at the head of the orthodox sentiment, they were utterly unnoticed.(174) The general councils of 381, 451, and 680 knew nothing of such a supreme appellate tribunal, but unanimously enacted, that all ecclesiastical matters, without exception, should first be decided in the provincial councils, with the right of appeal—not to the bishop of Rome, but to the patriarch of the proper diocese. Rome alone did not forget the Sardican decrees, but built on this single precedent a universal right. Pope Zosimus, in the case of the deposed presbyter Apiarius of Sicca (a.d. 417–418), made the significant mistake of taking the Sardican decrees for Nicene, and thus giving them greater weight than they really possessed; but he was referred by the Africans to the genuine text of the Nicene canon. The later popes, however, transcended the Sardican decrees, withdrawing from the provincial council, according to the pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, the right of deposing a bishop, which had been allowed by Sardica, and vesting it, as a causa major, exclusively in themselves.

Finally, in regard to the four great ecumenical councils, the first of Nice, the first of Constantinople, that of Ephesus, and that of Chalcedon: we have already presented their position on this question in connection with their legislation on the patriarchal system.(175) We have seen that they accord to the bishop of Rome a precedence of honor among the five officially coequal patriarchs, and thus acknowledge him primus inter pares, but, by that very concession, disallow his claims to supremacy of jurisdiction, and to monarchical authority over the entire church. The whole patriarchal system, in fact, was not monarchy, but oligarchy. Hence the protest of the Roman delegates and of Pope Leo against the decrees of the council of Chalcedon in 451, which coincided with that of Constantinople in 381. This protest was insufficient to annul the decree, and in the East it made no lasting impression; for the subsequent incidental concessions of Greek patriarchs and emperors, like that of the usurper Phocas in 606, and even of the sixth ecumenical council of Constantinople in 680, to the see of Rome, have no general significance, but are distinctly traceable to special circumstances and prejudices.

It is, therefore, an undeniable historical fact, that the greatest dogmatic and legislative authorities of the ancient church bear as decidedly against the specific papal claims of the Roman bishopric, is in favor of its patriarchal rights and an honorary primacy in the patriarchal oligarchy. The subsequent separation of the Greek church from the Latin proves to this day, that she was never willing to sacrifice her independence to Rome, or to depart from the decrees of her own greatest councils.

Here lies the difference, however, between the Greek and the Protestant opposition to the universal monarchy of the papacy. The Greek church protested against it from the basis of the oligarchical patriarchal hierarchy of the fifth century; in an age, therefore, and upon a principle of church organization, which preceded the grand agency of the papacy in the history of the world. The evangelical church protests against it on the basis of a freer conception of Christianity, seeing in the papacy an institution, which indeed formed the legitimate development of the patriarchal system, and was necessary for the training of the Romanic and Germanic Nations of the middle ages, but which has virtually fulfilled its mission and outlived itself. The Greek church never had a papacy; the evangelical historically implies one. The papacy stands between the age of the patriarchal hierarchy and the age of the Reformation, like the Mosaic theocracy between the patriarchal period and the advent of Christianity. Protestantism rejects at once the papal monarchy and the patriarchal oligarchy, and thus can justify the former as well as the latter for a certain time and a certain stage in the progress of the Christian world.

§ 63. Leo the Great. a.d. 440–461.

I. St. Leo Magnus: Opera omnia (sermones et epistolae), ed. Paschas. Quesnel., Par. 1675, 2 vols. 4to. (Gallican, and defending Hilary against Leo, hence condemned by the Roman Index); and ed. Petr. et Hieron. Ballerini (two very learned brothers and presbyters, who wrote at the request of Pope Benedict XIV.), Venet. 1753–1757, 3 vols. fol. (Vol. i. contains 96 Sermons and 173 Epistles, the two other volumes doubtful writings and learned dissertations.) This edition is reprinted in Migne’s Patrologiae Cursus completus, vol. 54–57, Par. 1846.

Acta Sanctorum: sub Apr. 11 (Apr. tom. ii. p. 14–30, brief and unsatisfactory). Tillemont: Mem. t. xv. p. 414–832 (very full). Butler: Lives of the Saints, sub Apr. 11. W. A. Arendt (R.C.): Leo der Grosse u. seine Zeit, Mainz, 1835 (apologetic and panegyric). Edw. Perthel: P. Leo’s I. Leben u. Lehren, Jena, 1843 (Protestant). Fr. Boehringer: Die Kirche Christi u. ihre Zeugen, Zürich, 1846, vol. i. div. 4, p. 170–309. Ph. Jaffé: Regesta Pontif. Rom., Berol. 1851, p. 34 sqq. Comp. also Greenwood: Cathedra Petri, Lond. 1859, vol. i. bk. ii. chap. iv.-vi. (The Leonine Period); and H. H. Milman: Hist. of Latin Christianity, Lond. and New York, 1860, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. iv.

In most of the earlier bishops of Rome the person is eclipsed by the office. The spirit of the age and public opinion rule the bishops, not the bishops them. In the preceding period, Victor in the controversy on Easter, Callistus in that on the restoration of the lapsed, and Stephen in that on heretical baptism, were the first to come out with hierarchical arrogance; but they were somewhat premature, and found vigorous resistance in Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Cyprian, though on all three questions the Roman view at last carried the day.

In the period before us, Damasus, who subjected Illyria to the Roman jurisdiction, and established the authority of the Vulgate, and Siricius, who issued the first genuine decretal letter, trod in the steps of those predecessors. Innocent I. (402–417) took a step beyond, and in the Pelagian controversy ventured the bold assertion, that in the whole Christian world nothing should be decided without the cognizance of the Roman see, and that, especially in matters of faith, all bishops must turn to St. Peter.(176)

But the first pope, in the proper sense of the word, is Leo I., who justly bears the title of "the Great" in the history of the Latin hierarchy. In him the idea of the Papacy, as it were, became flesh and blood. He conceived it in great energy and clearness, and carried it out with the Roman spirit of dominion, so far as the circumstances of the time at all allowed. He marks the same relative epoch in the development of the papacy, as Cyprian in the history of the episcopate. He had even a higher idea of the prerogatives of the see of Rome than Gregory the Great, who, though he reigned a hundred and fifty years later, represents rather the patriarchal idea than the papal. Leo was at the same time the first important theologian in the chair of Rome, surpassing in acuteness and depth of thought all his predecessors, and all his successors down to Gregory I. Benedict XIV. placed him (a.d. 1744) in the small class of doctores ecclesiae, or authoritative teachers of the catholic faith. He battled with the Manichaean, the Priscillianist, the Pelagian, and other heresies, and won an immortal name as the finisher of the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ.

The time and place of the birth and earlier life of Leo are unknown. His letters, which are the chief source of information, commence not before the year 442. Probably a Roman(177)—if not one by birth, he was certainly a Roman in the proud dignity of his spirit and bearing, the high order of his legislative and administrative talent, and the strength and energy of his will—he distinguished himself first under Coelestine (423–432) and Sixtus III. (432–440) as archdeacon and legate of the Roman church. After the death of the latter, and while himself absent in Gaul, he was elected pope by the united voice of clergy, senate, and people, and continued in that office one-and-twenty years (440–461). His feelings at the assumption of this high office, he himself thus describes in one of his sermons: "Lord, I have beard your voice calling me, and I was afraid: I considered the work which was enjoined on me, and I trembled. For what proportion is there between the burden assigned to me and my weakness, this elevation and my nothingness? What is more to be feared than exaltation without merit, the exercise of the most holy functions being intrusted to one who is buried in sin? Oh, you have laid upon me this heavy burden, bear it with me, I beseech you be you my guide and my support."

During the time of his pontificate he was almost the only great man in the Roman empire, developed extraordinary activity, and took a leading part in all the affairs of the church. His private life is entirely unknown, and we have no reason to question the purity of his motives or of his morals. His official zeal, and all his time and strength, were devoted to the interests of Christianity. But with him the interests of Christianity were identical with the universal dominion of the Roman church.

He was animated with the unwavering conviction that the Lord himself had committed to him, as the successor of Peter, the care of the whole church.(178) He anticipated all the dogmatical arguments by which the power of the papacy was subsequently established. He refers the petra, on which the church is built, to Peter and his confession. Though Christ himself—to sum up his views on the subject—is in the highest sense the rock and foundation, besides which no other can be laid, yet, by transfer of his authority, the Lord made Peter the rock in virtue of his great confession, and built on him the indestructible temple of his church. In Peter the fundamental relation of Christ to his church comes, as it were, to concrete form and reality in history. To him specially and individually the Lord intrusted the keys of the kingdom of heaven; to the other apostles only in their general and corporate capacity. For the faith of Peter the Lord specially prayed in the hour of his passion, as if the standing of the other apostles would be the firmer, if the mind of their leader remained unconquered. On Peter rests the steadfastness of the whole apostolic college in the faith. To him the Lord, after his resurrection, committed the care of his sheep and lambs. Peter is therefore the pastor and prince of the whole church, through whom Christ exercises his universal dominion on earth. This primacy, however, is not limited to the apostolic age, but, like the faith of Peter, and like the church herself, it perpetuates itself; and it perpetuates itself through the bishops of Rome, who are related to Peter as Peter was related to Christ. As Christ in Peter, so Peter in his successors lives and speaks and perpetually executes the commission: "Feed my sheep." It was by special direction of divine providence, that Peter labored and died in Rome, and sleeps with thousands of blessed martyrs in holy ground. The centre of worldly empire alone can be the centre of the kingdom of God. Yet the political position of Rome would be of no importance without the religious considerations. By Peter was Rome, which had been the centre of all error and superstition, transformed into the metropolis of the Christian world, and invested with a spiritual dominion far wider than her former earthly empire. Hence the bishopric of Constantinople, not being a sedes apostolica, but resting its dignity on a political basis alone, can never rival the Roman, whose primacy is rooted both in divine and human right. Antioch also, where Peter only transiently resided, and Alexandria, where he planted the church through his disciple Mark, stand only in a secondary relation to Rome, where his bones repose, and where that was completed, which in the East was only laid out. The Roman bishop is, therefore, the primus omnium episcoporum, and on him devolves the plenitudo potestatis, the solicitudo omnium pastorum, and communis cura universalis ecclesiae.(179)

Leo thus made out of a primacy of grace and of personal fitness a primacy of right and of succession. Of his person, indeed, he speaks in his sermons with great humility, but only thereby the more to exalt his official character. He tells the Romans, that the true celebration of the anniversary of his accession is, to recognize, honor, and obey, in his lowly person, Peter himself, who still cares for shepherd and flock, and whose dignity is not lacking even to his unworthy heir.(180) Here, therefore, we already have that characteristic combination of humility and arrogance, which has stereotyped itself in the expressions: "Servant of the servants of God," "vicar of Christ," and even "God upon earth." In this double consciousness of his personal unworthiness and his official exaltation, Leo annually celebrated the day of his elevation to the chair of Peter. While Peter himself passes over his prerogative in silence, and expressly warns against hierarchical assumption,(181) Leo cannot speak frequently and emphatically enough of his authority. While Peter in Antioch meekly submits to the rebuke of the junior apostle Paul,(182) Leo pronounces resistance to his authority to be impious pride and the sure way to hell.(183) Obedience to the pope is thus necessary to salvation. Whosoever, says he, is not with the apostolic see, that is, with the head of the body, whence all gifts of grace descend throughout the body, is not in the body of the church, and has no part in her grace. This is the fearful but legitimate logic of the papal principle, which confines the kingdom of God to the narrow lines of a particular organization, and makes the universal spiritual reign of Christ dependent on a temporal form and a human organ. But in its very first application this papal ban proved itself a brutum fulmen, when in spite of it the Gallican archbishop Hilary, against whom it was directed, died universally esteemed and loved, and then was canonized. This very impracticability of that principle, which would exclude all Greek and Protestant Christians from the kingdom of heaven, is a refutation of the principle itself.

In carrying his idea of the papacy into effect, Leo displayed the cunning tact, the diplomatic address, and the iron consistency which characterize the greatest popes of the middle age. The circumstances in general were in his favor: the East rent by dogmatic controversies; Africa devastated by the barbarians; the West weak in a weak emperor; nowhere a powerful and pure bishop or divine, like Athanasius, Augustine, or Jerome, in the former generation; the overthrow of the Western empire at hand; a new age breaking, with new peoples, for whose childhood the papacy was just the needful school; the most numerous and last important general council convened; and the system of ecumenical orthodoxy ready to be closed with the decision concerning the relation of the two natures in Christ.

Leo first took advantage of the distractions of the North African church under the Arian Vandals, and wrote to its bishops in the tone of an acknowledged over-shepherd. Under the stress of the times, and in the absence of a towering, character like Cyprian and Augustine, the Africans submitted to his authority (443). He banished the remnants of the Manichaeans and Pelagians from Italy, and threatened the bishops with his anger, if they should not purge their churches of the heresy. In East Illyrian which was important to Rome as the ecclesiastical outpost toward Constantinople, he succeeded in regaining and establishing the supremacy, which had been acquired by Damasus, but had afterward slipped away. Anastasius of Thessalonica applied to him to be confirmed in his office. Leo granted the prayer in 444, extending the jurisdiction of Anastasius over all the Illyrian bishops, but reserving to them a right of appeal in important cases, which ought to be decided by the pope according to divine revelation. And a case to his purpose soon presented itself, in which Leo brought his vicar to feel that he was called indeed to a participation of his care, but not to a plentitude of power (plenitudo potestatis). In the affairs of the Spanish church also Leo had an opportunity to make his influence felt, when Turibius, bishop of Astorga, besought his intervention against the Priscillianists. He refuted these heretics point by point, and on the basis of his exposition the Spaniards drew up an orthodox regula fidei with eighteen anathemas against the Priscillianist error.

But in Gaul he met, as we have already, seen, with a strenuous antagonist in Hilary of Arles, and, though he called the secular power to his aid, and procured from the emperor Valentinian an edict entirely favorable to his claims, he attained but a partial victory.(184) Still less successful was his effort to establish his primacy in the East, and to prevent his rival at Constantinople from being elevated, by the famous twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon, to official equality with himself.(185) His earnest protest against that decree produced no lasting effect. But otherwise he had the most powerful influence in the second stage of the Christological controversy. He neutralized the tyranny of Dioscurus of Alexandria and the results of the shameful robber-council of Ephesus (449), furnished the chief occasion of the fourth ecumenical council, presided over it by his legates (which the Roman bishop had done at neither of the three councils before), and gave the turn to the final solution of its doctrinal problem by that celebrated letter to Flavian of Constantinople, the main points of which were incorporated in the new symbol. Yet he owed this influence by no means to his office alone, but most of all to his deep insight of the question, and to the masterly tact with which he held the Catholic orthodox mean between the Alexandrian and Antiochian, Eutychian and Nestorian extremes. The particulars of his connection with this important dogma belong, however, to the history of doctrine.

Besides thus shaping the polity and doctrine of the church, Leo did immortal service to the city of Rome, in twice rescuing it from destruction.(186) When Attila, king of the Huns, the "scourge of God," after destroying Aquileia, was seriously threatening the capital of the world (A. D. 452), Leo, with only two companions, crozier in hand, trusting in the help of God, ventured into the hostile camp, and by his venerable form, his remonstrances, and his gifts, changed the wild heathen’s purpose. The later legend, which Raphael’s pencil has employed, adorned the fact with a visible appearance of Peter and Paul, accompanying the bishop, and, with drawn sword, threatening Attila with destruction unless he should desist.(187) A similar case occurred several years after (455), when the Vandal king Genseric, invited out of revenge by the empress Eudoxia, pushed his ravages to Rome. Leo obtained from him the promise that at least he would spare the city the infliction of murder and fire; but the barbarians subjected it to a fourteen days’ pillage, the enormous spoils of which they transported to Carthage; and afterward the pope did everything to alleviate the consequent destitution and suffering, and to restore the churches.(188)

Leo died in 461, and was buried in the church of St. Peter. The day and circumstances of his death are unknown.(189)

The literary works of Leo consist of ninety-six sermons and one hundred and seventy-three epistles, including epistles of others to him. They are earnest, forcible, full of thought, churchly, abounding in bold antitheses and allegorical freaks of exegesis, and sometimes heavy, turgid, and obscure in style. His collection of sermons is the first we have from a Roman bishops In his inaugural discourse he declared preaching to be his sacred duty. The sermons are short and simple, and were delivered mostly on high festivals and on the anniversaries of his own elevation.(190) Other works ascribed to him, such as that on the calling of all nations,(191) which takes a middle ground on the doctrine of predestination, with the view to reconcile the Semipelagians and Augustinians, are of doubtful genuineness.

§ 64. The Papacy from Leo I to Gregory I. a.d. 461–590.

The first Leo and the first Gregory are the two greatest bishops of Rome in the first six centuries. Between them no important personage appears on the chair of Peter; and in the course of that intervening century the idea and the power of the papacy make no material advance. In truth, they went farther in Leo’s mind than they did in Gregory’s. Leo thought and acted as an absolute monarch; Gregory as first among the patriarchs; but both under the full conviction that they were the successors of Peter.

After the death of Leo, the archdeacon Hilary, who had represented him at the council of Ephesus, was elected to his place, and ruled (461–468) upon his principles, asserting the strict orthodoxy in the East and the authority of the primacy in Gaul.

His successor, Simplicius (468–483), saw the final dissolution of the empire under Romulus Augustulus (476), but, as he takes not the slightest notice of it in his epistles, he seems to have ascribed to it but little importance. The papal power had been rather favored than hindered in its growth by the imbecility of the latest emperors. Now, to a certain extent, it stepped into the imperial vacancy, and the successor of Peter became, in the mind of the Western nations, sole heir of the old Roman imperial succession.

On the fall of the empire the pope became the political subject of the barbarian and heretical (for they were Arian) kings; but these princes, as most of the heathen emperors had done, allowed him, either from policy, or from ignorance or indifference, entire freedom in ecclesiastical affairs. In Italy the Catholics had by far the ascendency in numbers and in culture. And the Arianism of the new rulers was rather an outward profession than an inward conviction. Odoacer, who first assumed the kingdom of Italy (476–493), was tolerant toward the orthodox faith, yet attempted to control the papal election in 483 in the interest of the state, and prohibited, under penalty of the anathema, the alienation of church property by any bishop. Twenty years later a Roman council protested against this intervention of a layman, and pronounced the above prohibition null and void, but itself passed a similar decree against the alienation of church estates.(192)

Pope Felix II., or, according to another reckoning,III. (483–492), continued the war of his predecessor against the Monophysitism of the East, rejected the Henoticon of the emperor Zeno, as an unwarrantable intrusion of a layman in matters of faith, and ventured even the excommunication of the bishop Acacius of Constantinople. Acacius replied with a counter anathema, with the support of the other Eastern patriarchs; and the schism between the two churches lasted over thirty years, to the pontificate of Hormisdas.

Gelasius I. (492–496) clearly announced the principle, that the priestly power is above the kingly and the imperial, and that from the decisions of the chair of Peter there is no appeal. Yet from this pope we have, on the other hand, a remarkable testimony against what he pronounces the "sacrilege" of withholding the cup from the laity, the communio sub una specie.

Anastasius II. (496–498) indulged in a milder tone toward Constantinople, and incurred the suspicion of consent to its heresy.(193)

His sudden death was followed by a contested papal election, which led to bloody encounters. The Ostrogothic king Theodoric (the Dietrich of Bern in the Niebelungenlied), the conqueror and master of Italy (493–526), and, like Odoacer, an Arian, was called into consultation in this contest, and gave his voice for Symmachus against Laurentius, because Symmachus had received the majority of votes, and had been consecrated first. But the party of Laurentius, not satisfied with this, raised against Symmachus the reproach of gross iniquities, even of adultery and of squandering the church estates. The bloody scenes were renewed, priests were murdered, cloisters were burned, and nuns were insulted. Theodoric, being again called upon by the senate for a decision, summoned a council at Rome, to which Symmachus gave his consent; and a synod, convoked by a heretical king, must decide upon the pope! In the course of the controversy several councils were held in rapid succession, the chronology of which is disputed.(194) The most important was the synodus palmaris,(195) the fourth council under Symmachus, held in October, 501. It acquitted this pope without investigation, on the presumption that it did not behove the council to pass judgment respecting the successor of St. Peter. In his vindication of this council—for the opposition was not satisfied with it—the deacon Ennodius, afterward bishop of Pavia († 521), gave the first clear expression to the absolutism upon which Leo had already acted: that the Roman bishop is above every human tribunal, and is responsible only to God himself.(196) Nevertheless, even in the middle age, popes were deposed and set up by emperors and general councils. This is one of the points of dispute between the absolute papal system and the constitutional episcopal system in the Roman church, which was left unsettled even by the council of Trent.

Under Hormisdas (514–523) the Monophysite party in the Greek church was destroyed by the energetic zeal of the orthodox emperor Justin, and in 519 the union of that church with Rome was restored, after a schism of five-and-thirty years.

Theodoric offered no hinderance to the transactions and embassies, and allowed his most distinguished subject to assert his ecclesiastical supremacy over Constantinople. This semi-barbarous and heretical prince was tolerant in general, and very liberal toward the Catholic church; even rising to the principle, which has waited till the modern age for its recognition, that the power of the prince should be restricted to civil government, and should permit no trespass on the conscience of its subjects." No one," says he, "shall be forced to believe against his will." Yet, toward the close of his reign, on mere political suspicion, he ordered the execution of the celebrated philosopher Boethius, with whom the old Roman literature far more worthily closes, than the Roman empire with Augustulus; and on the same ground he caused the death of the senator Symmachus and the incarceration of Pope John I. (523–526).

Almost the last act of his reign was the nomination of the worthy Felix III. (IV.) to the papal chair, after a protracted struggle of contending parties. With the appointment he issued the order that hereafter, as heretofore, the pope should be elected by clergy and people, but should be confirmed by the temporal prince before assuming his office; and with this understanding the clergy and the city gave their consent to the nomination.

Yet, in spite of this arrangement, in the election of Boniface II. (530–532) and John II. (532–535) the same disgraceful quarrelling and briberies occurred;—a sort of chronic disease in the history of the papacy.

Soon after the death of Theodoric (526) the Gothic empire fell to pieces through internal distraction and imperial weakness. Italy was conquered by Belisarius (535), and, with Africa, again incorporated with the East Roman empire, which renewed under Justinian its ancient splendor, and enjoyed a transient after-summer. And yet this powerful, orthodox emperor was a slave to the intriguing, heretical Theodora, whom he had raised from the theatre to the throne; and Belisarius likewise, his victorious general, was completely under the power of his wife Antonina.

With the conquest of Italy the popes fell into a perilous and unworthy dependence on the emperor at Constantinople, who reverenced, indeed, the Roman chair, but not less that of Constantinople, and in reality sought to use both as tools of his own state-church despotism. Agapetus (535–536) offered fearless resistance to the arbitrary course of Justinian, and successfully protested against the elevation of the Eutychian Anthimus to the patriarchal see of Constantinople. But, by the intrigues of the Monophysite empress, his successor, Pope Silverius (a son of Hormisdas, 536–538), was deposed on the charge of treasonable correspondence with the Goths, and banished to the island of Pandataria, whither the worst heathen emperors used to send the victims of their tyranny, and where in 540 he died—whether a natural or a violent death, we do not know.

Vigilius, a pliant creature of Theodora, ascended the papal chair under the military protection of Belisarius (538–554). The empress had promised him this office and a sum of money, on condition that he nullify the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and pronounce Anthimus and his friends orthodox. The ambitious and doubled-tongued prelate accepted the condition, and accomplished the deposition, and perhaps the death, of Silverius. In his pontificate occurred the violent controversy of the three chapters and the second general council of Constantinople (553). His administration was an unprincipled vacillation between the dignity and duties of his office and subservience to an alien theological and political influence; between repeated condemnation of the three chapters in behalf of a Eutychianizing spirit, and repeated retraction of that condemnation. In Constantinople, where he resided several years at the instance of the emperor, he suffered much personal persecution, but without the spirit of martyrdom, and without its glory. For example, at least according to Western accounts, he was violently torn from the altar, upon which he was holding with both hands so firmly that the posts of the canopy fell in above him; he was dragged through the streets with a rope around his neck, and cast into a common prison; because he would not submit to the will of Justinian and his council. Yet he yielded at last, through fear of deposition. He obtained permission to return to Rome, but died in Sicily, of the stone, on his way thither (554).

Pelagius I. (554–560), by order of Justinian, whose favor he had previously gained as papal legate at Constantinople, was made successor of Vigilius, but found only two bishops ready to consecrate him. His close connection with the East, and his approval of the fifth ecumenical council, which was regarded as a partial concession to the Eutychian Christology, and, so far, an impeachment of the authority of the council of Chalcedon, alienated many Western bishops, even in Italy, and induced a temporary suspension of their connection with Rome. He issued a letter to the whole Christian world, in which he declared his entire agreement with the first four general councils, and then vindicated the fifth as in no way departing from the Chalcedonian dogma. But only by the military aid of Narses could he secure subjection; and the most refractory bishops, those of Aquileia and Milan, he sent as prisoners to Constantinople.

In these two Justinian-made popes we see how much the power of the Roman hierarchy was indebted to its remoteness from the Byzantine despotism, and how much it was injured by contact with it.

With the descent of the Arian Longobards into Italy, after 668, the popes again became more independent of the Byzantine court. They continued under tribute indeed to the ex-archs in Ravenna, as the representatives of the Greek emperors (from 554), and were obliged to have their election confirmed and their inauguration superintended by them. But the feeble hold of these officials in Italy, and the pressure of the Arian barbarians upon them, greatly favored the popes, who, being the richest proprietors, enjoyed also great political consideration in Italy, and applied their influence to the maintenance of law and order amidst the reigning confusion.

In other respects the administrations of John III. (560–573), Benedict I. (574–578), and Pelagius II. (578–590), are among the darkest and the most sterile in the annals of the papacy.

But with Gregory I. (590–604) a new period begins. Next to Leo I. he was the greatest of the ancient bishops of Rome, and he marks the transition of the patriarchal system into the strict papacy of the middle ages. For several reasons we prefer to place him at the head of the succeeding period. He came, it is true, with more modest claims than Leo, who surpassed him in boldness, energy, and consistency. He even solemnly protested, as his predecessor Pelagius II. had done, against the title of universal bishop, which the Constantinopolitan patriarch, John Jejunator, adopted at a council in 587;(197) he declared it an antichristian assumption, in terms which quite remind us of the patriarchal equality, and seem to form a step in recession from the ground of Leo. But when we take his operations in general into view, and remember the rigid consistency of the papacy, which never forgets, we are almost justified in thinking, that this protest was directed not so much against the title itself, as against the bearer of it, and proceeded more from jealousy of a rival at Constantinople, than from sincere humility.(198) From the same motive the Roman bishops avoided the title of patriarch, as placing them on a level with the Eastern patriarchs, and preferred the title of pope, from a sense of the specific dignity of the chair of Peter. Gregory is said to have been the first to use the humble-proud title: "Servant of the servants of God." His successors, notwithstanding his protest, called themselves "the universal bishops" of Christendom. What he had condemned in his oriental colleagues as antichristian arrogance, the later popes considered but the appropriate expression of their official position in the church universal.

§ 65. The Synodical System. The Ecumenical Councils.

I. The principal sources are the Acts of the Councils, the best and most complete collections of which are those of the Jesuit Sirmond (Rom. 1608–1612, 4 vols. fol.); the so-called Collectio regia (Paris, 1644, 37 vols. fol.; a copy of it in the Astor Libr., New York); but especially those of the Jesuit Hardouin († 1729): Collectio maxima Conciliorum generalium et provincialium (Par. 1715 sqq., 12 vols. fol.), coming down to 1714, and very available through its five copious indexes (tom. i. and ii. embrace the first six centuries; a copy of it, from Van Ess’s library, in the Union Theol. Sem. Library, at New York); and the Italian Joannes Dominicus Mansi (archbishop of Lucca, died 1769): Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collection, Florence, 1759-’98, in 31 (30) vols. fol. This is the most complete and the best collection down to the fifteenth century, but unfinished, and therefore without general indexes; tom. i. contains the Councils from the beginning of Christianity to a.d. 304; tom. ii.-ix. include our period to a.d. 590 (I quote from an excellent copy of this rare collection in the Union Theol. Sem. Libr., at New York, 30 t. James Darling, in his Cyclop. Bibliographica, p. 740–756, gives the list of the contents of an earlier edition of the Councils by Nic. Coleti, Venet., 1728, in 23 vols., with a supplement of Mansi, in 6 vols. 1748-’52, which goes down to 1727, while the new edition of Mansi only reaches to 1509. Brunet, in the "Manuel Du Libraire," quotes the edition of Mansi, Florence, 1759–1798, with the remark: "Cette collection, dont le dernier volume s’arrête à l’année 1509, est peu commune à Paris ou elle revenait à 600 fr." Strictly speaking its stops in the middle of the 15th century, except in a few documents which reach further.) Useful abstracts are the Summa Conciliorum of Barth. Caranza, in many editions; and in the German language, the Bibliothek der Kirchenversammlungen (4th and 5th centuries), by Fuchs, Leipz., 1780–1784, 4 vols.

Chr. Wilh. Franz Walch (Luth.): Entwurf einer vollstaendigen Historie der Kirchenversammlungen, Leipz., 1759. Edw. H. Landon (Anglic.): A manual of Councils of the Holy Catholick Church, comprising the substance of the most remarkable and important canons, alphabetically arranged, 12mo. London, 1846. C. J. Hefele (R.C.): Conciliengeshichte, Freiburg, 1855–1863, 5 vols. (a very valuable work, not yet finished; vol. v. comes down to a.d. 1250). Comp. my Essay on Oekumenische Concilien, in Dorner’s Annals of Ger. Theol. vol. viii. 326–346.

Above the patriarchs, even above the patriarch of Rome, stood the ecumenical or general councils,(199) the highest representatives, of the unity and authority of the old Catholic church. They referred originally to the Roman empire, but afterward included the adjacent barbarian countries, so far as those countries were represented in them by bishops. They rise up like lofty peaks or majestic pyramids from the plan of ancient church history, and mark the ultimate authoritative settlement of the general questions of doctrine and discipline which agitated Christendom in the Graeco-Roman empire.

The synodical system in general had its rise in the apostolic council at Jerusalem,(200) and completed its development, under its Catholic form, in the course of the first five centuries. Like the episcopate, it presented a hierarchical gradation of orders. There was, first, the diocesan or district council, in which the bishop of a diocese (in the later sense of the word) presided over his clergy; then the provincial council, consisting of the metropolitan or archbishop and the bishops of his ecclesiastical province; next, the patriarchal council, embracing all the bishops of a patriarchal district (or a diocese in the old sense of the term); then the national council, inaccurately styled also general, representing either the entire Greek or the entire Latin church (like the later Lateran councils and the council of Trent); and finally, at the summit stood the ecumenical council, for the whole Christian world. There was besides these a peculiar and abnormal kind of synod, styled suvnodo" ejndhmou'sa, frequently held by the bishop of Constantinople with the provincial bishops resident (ejndhmou'nte") on the spot.(201)

In the earlier centuries the councils assembled without fixed regularity, at the instance of present necessities, like the Montanist and the Easter controversies in the latter part of the second century. Firmilian of Cappadocia, in his letter to Cyprian, first mentions, that at his time, in the middle of the third century, the churches of Asia Minor held regular annual synods, consisting of bishops and presbyters. From that time we find an increasing number of such assemblies in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul. The council of Nicaea, a.d. 325, ordained, in the fifth canon, that the provincial councils should meet twice a year: during the fast season before Easter, and in the fall.(202) In regard to the other synods no direction was given.

The Ecumenical councils were not stated, but extraordinary assemblies, occasioned by the great theological controversies of the ancient church. They could not arise until after the conversion of the Roman emperor and the ascendancy of Christianity as the religion of the state. They were the highest, and the last, manifestation of the power of the Greek church, which in general took the lead in the first age of Christianity, and was the chief seat of all theological activity. Hence in that church, as well as in others, they are still held in the highest veneration, and kept alive in the popular mind by pictures in the churches. The Greek and Russian Christians have annually commemorated the seven ecumenical councils, since the year 842, on the first Sunday in Lent, as the festival of the triumph of orthodoxy(203) and they live in the hope that an eighth ecumenical council shall yet heal the divisions and infirmities of the Christian world. Through their symbols of faith those councils, especially of Nice and of Chalcedon, still live in the Western church, both Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestant.

Strictly speaking, none of these councils properly represented the entire Christian world. Apart from the fact that the laity, and even the lower clergy, were excluded from them, the assembled bishops themselves formed but a small part of the Catholic episcopate. The province of North Africa alone numbered many more bishops than were present at either the second, the third, or the fifth general council.(204) The councils bore a prevailingly oriental character, were occupied with Greek controversies, used the Greek language, sat in Constantinople or in its vicinity, and consisted almost wholly of Greek members. The Latin church was usually represented only by a couple of delegates of the Roman bishop; though these delegates, it is true, acted more or less in the name of the entire West. Even the five hundred and twenty, or the six hundred and thirty members of the council of Chalcedon, excepting the two representatives of Leo I., and two African fugitives accidentally present, were all from the East. The council of Constantinople in 381 contained not a single Latin bishop, and only a hundred and fifty Greek, and was raised to the ecumenical rank by the consent of the Latin church toward the middle of the following century. On the other hand, the council of Ephesus, in 449, was designed by emperor and pope to be an ecumenical council; but instead of this it has been branded in history as the synod of robbers, for its violent sanction of the Eutychian heresy. The council of Sardica, in 343, was likewise intended to be a general council, but immediately after its assembling assumed a sectional character, through the secession and counter-organization of the Eastern bishops.

It is, therefore, not the number of bishops present, nor even the regularity of the summons alone, which determines the ecumenical character of a council, but the result, the importance and correctness of the decisions, and, above all, the consent of the orthodox Christian world.(205)

The number of the councils thus raised by the public opinion of the Greek and Latin churches to the ecumenical dignity, is seven. The succession begins with the first council of Nicaea, in the year 325, which settled the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and condemned the Arian heresy. It closes with the second council of Nice, in 787, which sanctioned the use of images in the church. The first four of these councils command high theological regard in the orthodox Evangelical churches, while the last three are less important and far more rarely mentioned.

The ecumenical councils have not only an ecclesiastical significance, but bear also a political or state-church character. The very name refers to the oijkoumevnh, the orbis Romanus, the empire. Such synods were rendered possible only by that great transformation, which is marked by the accession of Constantine. That emperor caused the assembling of the first ecumenical council, though the idea was probably suggested to him by friends among the bishops; at least Rufinus says, he summoned the council "ex sacerdotum sententia." At all events the Christian Graeco-Roman emperor is indispensable to an ecumenical council in the ancient sense of the term; its temporal head and its legislative strength.

According to the rigid hierarchical or papistic theory, as carried out in the middle ages, and still asserted by Roman divines, the pope alone, as universal head of the church, can summon, conduct, and confirm a universal council. But the history of the first seven, or, as the Roman reckoning is, eight, ecumenical councils, from 325 to 867, assigns this threefold power to the Byzantine emperors. This is placed beyond all contradiction, by the still extant edicts of the emperors, the acts of the councils, the accounts of all the Greek historians, and the contemporary Latin sources. Upon this Byzantine precedent, and upon the example of the kings of Israel, the Russian Czars and the Protestant princes of Germany, Scandinavia, and England—be it justly or unjustly—build their claim to a similar and still more extended supervision of the church in their dominions.

In the first place, the call of the ecumenical councils emanated from the emperors.(206) They fixed the place and time of the assembly, summoned the metropolitans and more distinguished bishops of the empire by an edict, provided the means of transit, and paid the cost of travel and the other expenses out of the public treasury. In the case of the council of Nicaea and the first of Constantinople the call was issued without previous advice or consent from the bishop of Rome.(207) In the council of Chalcedon, in 451, the papal influence is for the first time decidedly prominent; but even there it appears in virtual subordination to the higher authority of the council, which did not suffer itself to be disturbed by the protest of Leo against its twenty-eighth canon in reference to the rank of the patriarch of Constantinople. Not only ecumenical, but also provincial councils were not rarely called together by Western princes; as the council of Arles in 314 by Constantine, the council of Orleans in 549 by Childebert, and—to anticipate an instance—the synod of Frankfort in 794 by Charlemagne. Another remarkable fact has been already mentioned: that in the beginning of the sixth century several Orthodox synods at Rome, for the purpose of deciding the contested election of Symmachus, were called by a secular prince, and he the heretical Theodoric; yet they were regarded as valid.

In the second place, the emperors, directly or indirectly, took an active part in all but two of the ecumenical councils summoned by them, and held the presidency. Constantine the Great, Marcian, and his wife Pulcheria, Constantine Progonatus, Irene, and Basil the Macedonian, attended in person; but generally the emperors, like the Roman bishops (who were never present themselves), were represented by delegates or commissioners, clothed with full authority for the occasion. These deputies opened the sessions by reading the imperial edict (in Latin and Greek) and other documents. They presided in conjunction with the patriarchs, conducted the entire course of the transactions, preserved order and security, closed the council, and signed the acts either at the head or at the foot of the signatures of the bishops. In this prominent position they sometimes exercised, when they had a theological interest or opinion of their own, no small influence on the discussions and decisions, though they had no votum; as the presiding officers of deliberative and legislative bodies generally have no vote, except when the decision of a question depends upon their voice.

To this presidency of the emperor or of his commissioners the acts of the councils and the Greek historians often refer. Even Pope Stephen V. (a.d. 817) writes, that Constantine the Great presided in the council of Nice. According to Eusebius, he introduced the principal matters of business with a solemn discourse, constantly attended the sessions, and took the place of honor in the assembly. His presence among the bishops at the banquet, which he gave them at the close of the council, seemed to that panegyrical historian a type of Christ among his saints!(208) This prominence of Constantine in the most celebrated and the most important of all the councils is the more remarkable, since at that time he had not yet even been baptized. When Marcian and Pulcheria appeared with their court at the council of Chalcedon, to confirm its decrees, they were greeted by the assembled bishops in the bombastic style of the East, as defenders of the faith, as pillars of orthodoxy, as enemies and persecutors of heretics; the emperor as a second Constantine, a new Paul, a new David; the empress as a second Helena; with other high-sounding predicates.(209) The second and fifth general councils were the only ones at which the emperor was not represented, and in them the presidency was in the hands of the patriarchs of Constantinople.

But together with the imperial commissioners, or in their absence, the different patriarchs or their representatives, especially the legates of the Roman bishop, the most powerful of the patriarchs, took part in the presiding office. This was the case at the third and fourth, and the sixth, seventh, and eighth universal councils.

For the emperor’s connection with the council had reference rather to the conduct of business and to the external affairs of the synod, than to its theological and religious discussions. This distinction appears in the well-known dictum of Constantine respecting a double episcopate, which we have already noticed. And at the Nicene council the emperor acted accordingly. He paid the bishops greater reverence than his heathen predecessors had shown the Roman senators. He wished to be a servant, not a judge, of the successors of the apostles, who are constituted priests and gods on earth. After his opening address, he "resigned the word" to the (clerical) officers of the council,(210) by whom probably Alexander, bishop of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Hosius of Cordova—the latter as special friend of the emperor, and as representative of the Western churches and perhaps of the bishop of Rome—are to be understood. The same distinction between a secular and spiritual presidency meets us in Theodosius II., who sent the comes Candidian as his deputy to the third general council, with full power over the entire business proceedings, but none over theological matters themselves; "for"—wrote he to the council-, "it is not proper that one who does not belong to the catalogue of most holy bishops, should meddle in ecclesiastical discussions." Yet Cyril of Alexandria presided at this council, and conducted the business, at first alone, afterward in conjunction with the papal legates; while Candidian supported the Nestorian opposition, which held a council of its own under the patriarch John of Antioch.

Finally, from the emperors proceeded the ratification of the councils. Partly by their signatures, partly by special edicts, they gave the decrees of the council legal validity; they raised them to laws of the realm; they took pains to have them observed, and punished the disobedient with deposition and banishment. This was done by Constantine the Great for the decrees of Nice; by Theodosius the Great for those of Constantinople; by Marcian for those of Chalcedon. The second ecumenical council expressly prayed the emperor for such sanction, since he was present neither in person nor by commission. The papal confirmation, on the contrary, was not considered necessary, until after the fourth general council, in 451.(211) And notwithstanding this, Justinian broke through the decrees of the fifth council, of 553, without the consent, and in fact despite the intimated refusal of Pope Vigilius. In the middle ages, however, the case was reversed. The influence of the pope on the councils increased, and that of the emperor declined; or rather, the German emperor never claimed so preëminent a position in the church as the Byzantine. Yet the relation of the pope to a general council, the question which of the two is above the other, is still a point of controversy between the curialist or ultramontane and the episcopal or Gallican schools.

Apart from this predominance of the emperor and his commissioners, the character of the ecumenical councils was thoroughly hierarchical. In the apostolic council at Jerusalem, the elders and the brethren took part with the apostles, and the decision went forth in the name of the whole congregation.(212) But this republican or democratic element, so to call it, had long since given way before the spirit of aristocracy. The bishops alone, as the successors and heirs of the apostles, the ecclesia docens, were members of the councils. Hence, in the fifth canon of Nice, even a provincial synod is termed "the general assembly of the bishops of the province." The presbyters and deacons took part, indeed, in the deliberations, and Athanasius, though at the time only a deacon, exerted probably more influence on the council of Nice by his zeal and his gifts, than most of the bishops; but they had no votum decisivum, except when, like the Roman legates, they represented their bishops. The laity were entirely excluded.

Yet it must be remembered, that the bishops of that day were elected by the popular voice. So far as that went, they really represented the Christian people, and were not seldom called to account by the people for their acts, though they voted in their own name as successors of the apostles. Eusebius felt bound to justify, his vote at Nice before his diocese in Caesarea, and the Egyptian bishops at Chalcedon feared an uproar in their congregations.

Furthermore, the councils, in an age of absolute despotism, sanctioned the principle of common public deliberation, as the best means of arriving at truth and settling controversy. They revived the spectacle of the Roman senate in ecclesiastical form, and were the forerunners of representative government and parliamentary legislation.

In matters of discipline the majority decided; but in matters of faith unanimity was required, though, if necessary, it was forced by the excision of the dissentient minority. In the midst of the assembly an open copy of the Gospels lay upon a desk or table, as, a symbol of the presence of Christ, whose infallible word is the rule of all doctrine. Subsequently the ecclesiastical canons and the relics of the saints were laid in similar state. The bishops—at least according to later usage—sat in a circle, in the order of the dates of their ordination or the rank of their sees; behind them, the priests; before or beside them, the deacons. The meetings were opened and closed with religious solemnities in liturgical style. In the ancient councils the various subjects were discussed in open synod, and the Acts of the councils contain long discourses and debates. But in the council of Trent the subjects of action were wrought up in separate committees, and only laid before the whole synod for ratification. The vote was always taken by heads, till the council of Constance, when it was taken by nations, to avoid the preponderance of the Italian prelates.

The jurisdiction of the ecumenical councils covered the entire legislation of the church, all matters of Christian faith and practice (fidei et morum), and all matters of organization arid worship. The doctrinal decrees were called dogmata or symbola; the disciplinary, canones. At the same time, the councils exercised, when occasion required, the highest judicial authority, in excommunicating bishops and patriarchs.

The authority of these councils in the decision of all points of controversy was supreme and final.

Their doctrinal decisions were early invested with infallibility; the promises of the Lord respecting the indestructibleness of his church, his own perpetual presence with the ministry, and the guidance of the Spirit of truth, being applied in the full sense to those councils, as representing the whole church. After the example of the apostolic council, the usual formula for a decree was: Visum est Sprirtui Sancto et nobis.(213) Constantine the Great, in a circular letter to the churches, styles the decrees of the Nicene council a divine command;(214) a phrase, however, in reference to which the abuse of the word divine, in the language of the Byzantine despots, must not be forgotten. Athanasius says, with reference to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ: "What God has spoken by the council of Nice, abides forever."(215) The council of Chalcedon pronounced the decrees of the Nicene fathers unalterable statutes, since God himself had spoken through them.(216) The council of Ephesus, in the sentence of deposition against Nestorius, uses the formula: "The Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has blasphemed, determines through this most holy council."(217) Pope Leo speaks of an "irretractabilis consensus" of the council of Chalcedon upon the doctrine of the person of Christ. Pope Gregory the Great even placed the first four councils, which refuted and destroyed respectively the heresies and impieties of Arius, Macedonius, Nestorius, and Eutyches, on a level with the four canonical Gospels.(218) In like manner Justinian puts the dogmas of the first four councils on the same footing with the Holy Scriptures, and their canons by the side of laws of the realm.(219) The remaining three general councils have neither a theological importance, nor therefore an authority, equal to that of those first four, which laid the foundations of ecumenical orthodoxy. Otherwise Gregory would have mentioned also the fifth council, of 553, in the passage to which we have just referred. And even among the first four there is a difference of rank; the councils of Nice and Chalcedon standing highest in the character of their results.

Not so with the rules of discipline prescribed in the canones. These were never considered universally binding, like the symbols of faith; since matters of organization and usage, pertaining rather to the external form of the church, are more or less subject to the vicissitude of time. The fifteenth canon of the council of Nice, which prohibited and declared invalid the transfer of the clergy from one place to another,(220) Gregory Nazianzen, fifty-seven years later (382), reckons among statutes long dead.(221) Gregory himself repeatedly changed his location, and Chrysostom was called from Antioch to Constantinople. Leo I. spoke with strong disrespect of the third canon of the second ecumenical council, for assigning to the bishop of Constantinople the first rank after the bishop of Rome; and for the same reason be protested against the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth ecumenical council.(222) Indeed the Roman church has made no point of adopting all the disciplinary laws enacted by those synods.

Augustine, the ablest and the most devout of the fathers, conceived, in the best vein of his age, a philosophical view of this authority of the councils, which strikes a wise and wholesome mean between the extremes of veneration and disparagement, and approaches the free spirit of evangelical Protestantism. He justly subordinates these councils to the Holy Scriptures, which are the highest and the perfect rule of faith, and supposes that the decrees of a council may be, not indeed set aside and repealed, yet enlarged and completed by, the deeper research of a later day. They embody, for the general need, the results already duly prepared by preceding theological controversies, and give the consciousness of the church, on the subject in question, the clearest and most precise expression possible at the time. But this consciousness itself is subject to development. While the Holy Scriptures present the truth unequivocally and infallibly, and allow no room for doubt, the judgment of bishops may be corrected and enriched with new truths from the word of God, by the wiser judgment of other bishops; the judgment of the provincial council by that of a general; and the views of one general council by those of a later.(223) In this Augustine presumed, that all the transactions of a council were conducted in the spirit of Christian humility, harmony, and love; but had he attended the council of Ephesus, in 431, to which he was summoned about the time of his death, he would, to his grief, have found the very opposite spirit reigning there. Augustine, therefore, manifestly acknowledges a gradual advancement of the church doctrine, which reaches its corresponding expression from time to time through the general councils; but a progress within the truth, without positive error. For in a certain sense, as against heretics, he made the authority of Holy Scripture dependent on the authority of the catholic church, in his famous dictum against the Manichaean heretics: "I would not believe the gospel, did not the authority of the catholic church compel me."(224) In like manner Vincentius Lerinensis teaches, that the church doctrine passes indeed through various stages of growth in knowledge, and becomes more and more clearly defined in opposition to ever-rising errors, but can never become altered or dismembered.(225)

The Protestant church makes the authority of the general councils, and of all ecclesiastical tradition, depend on the degree of its conformity to the Holy Scriptures; while the Greek and Roman churches make Scripture and tradition coordinate. The Protestant church justly holds the first four general councils in high, though not servile, veneration, and has received their statements of doctrine into her confessions of faith, because she perceives in them, though compassed with human imperfection, the clearest and most suitable expression of the teaching of the Scriptures respecting the Trinity and the divine-human person of Christ. Beyond these statements the judgment of the church (which must be carefully distinguished from theological speculation) has not to this day materially advanced;—the highest tribute to the wisdom and importance of those councils. But this is not saying that the Nicene and the later Athanasian creeds are the non plus ultra of all the church’s knowledge of the articles therein defined. Rather is it the duty of theology and of the church, while prizing and holding fast those earlier attainments, to study the same problems ever anew, to penetrate further and further these sacred fundamental mysteries of Christianity, and to bring to light new treasures from the inexhaustible mines of the Word of God, under the guidance of the same Holy Spirit, who lives and works in the church at this day as mightily as he did in the fifth century and the fourth. Christology, for example, by the development of the doctrine of the two states of Christ in the Lutheran church, and of the three offices of Christ in the Reformed, has been substantially enriched; the old Catholic doctrine, which was fixed with unerring tact at the council of Chalcedon, being directly concerned only with the two natures of Christ, as against the dualism of Nestorius and the monophysitism of Eutyches.

With this provision for further and deeper soundings of Scripture truth, Protestantism feels itself one with the ancient Greek and Latin church in the bond of ecumenical orthodoxy. But toward the disciplinary canons of the ecumenical councils its position is still more free and independent than that of the Roman church. Those canons are based upon an essentially unprotestant, that is, hierarchical and sacrificial conception of church order and worship, which the Lutheran and Anglican reformation in part, and the Zwinglian and Calvinistic almost entirely renounced. Yet this is not to say that much may not still be learned, in the sphere of discipline, from those councils, and that perhaps many an ancient custom or institution is not worthy to be revived in the spirit of evangelical freedom.

The moral character of those councils was substantially parallel with that of earlier and later ecclesiastical assemblies, and cannot therefore be made a criterion of their historical importance and their dogmatic authority. They faithfully reflect both the light and the shade of the ancient church. They bear the heavenly treasure in earthen vessels. If even among the inspired apostles at the council of Jerusalem there was much debate,(226) and soon after, among Peter, Paul, and Barnabas, a violent, though only temporary collision, we must of course expect much worse of the bishops of the Nicene and the succeeding age, and of a church already interwoven with a morally degenerate state. Together with abundant talents, attainments, and virtues, there were gathered also at the councils ignorance, intrigues, and partisan passions, which had already been excited on all sides by long controversies preceding and now met and arrayed themselves, as hostile armies, for open combat. For those great councils, all occasioned by controversies on the most important and the most difficult problems of theology, are, in fact, to the history of doctrine, what decisive battles are to the history of war. Just because religion is the deepest and holiest interest of man, are religious passions wont to be the most violent and bitter; especially in a time when all classes, from imperial court to market stall, take the liveliest interest in theological speculation, and are drawn into the common vortex of excitement. Hence the notorious rabies theologorum was more active in the fourth and fifth centuries than it has been in any other period of history, excepting, perhaps, in the great revolution of the sixteenth century, and the confessional polemics of the seventeenth.

We have on this point the testimony of contemporaries and of the acts of the councils themselves. St. Gregory Nazianzen, who, in the judgment of Socrates, was the most devout and eloquent man of his age,(227) and who himself, as bishop of Constantinople, presided for a time over the second ecumenical council, had so bitter an observation and experience as even to lose, though without sufficient reason, all confidence in councils, and to call them in his poems "assemblies of cranes and geese." "To tell the truth" thus in 382 (a year after the second ecumenical council, and doubtless including that assembly in his allusion) he answered Procopius, who in the name of the emperor summoned him in vain to a synod—"to tell the truth, I am inclined to shun every collection of bishops, because I have never yet seen that a synod came to a good end, or abated evils instead of increasing them. For in those assemblies (and I do not think I express myself too strongly here) indescribable contentiousness and ambition prevail, and it is easier for one to incur the reproach of wishing to set himself up as judge of the wickedness of others, than to attain any success in putting the wickedness away. Therefore I have withdrawn myself, and have found rest to my soul only in solitude."(228) It is true, the contemplative Gregory had an aversion to all public life, and in such views yielded unduly to his personal inclinations. And in any case he is inconsistent; for he elsewhere speaks with great respect of the council of Nice, and was, next to Athanasius, the leading advocate of the Nicene creed. Yet there remains enough in his many unfavorable pictures of the bishops and synods of his time, to dispel all illusions of their immaculate purity. Beausobre correctly observes, that either Gregory the Great must be a slanderer, or the bishops of his day were very remiss. In the fifth century it was no better, but rather worse. At the third general council, at Ephesus, 431, all accounts agree that shameful intrigue, uncharitable lust of condemnation, and coarse violence of conduct were almost as prevalent as in the notorious robber-council of Ephesus in 449; though with the important difference, that the former synod was contending for truth, the latter for error. Even at Chalcedon, the introduction of the renowned expositor and historian Theodoret provoked a scene, which almost involuntarily reminds us of the modern brawls of Greek and Roman monks at the holy sepulchre under the restraining supervision of the Turkish police. His Egyptian opponents shouted with all their might: "The faith is gone! Away with him, this teacher of Nestorius!" His friends replied with equal violence: "They forced us [at the robber-council] by blows to subscribe; away with the Manichaeans, the enemies of Flavian, the enemies of the faith! Away with the murderer Dioscurus? Who does not know his wicked deeds? The Egyptian bishops cried again: Away with the Jew, the adversary of God, and call him not bishop!" To which the oriental bishops answered: "Away with the rioters, away with the murderers! The orthodox man belongs to the council!" At last the imperial commissioners interfered, and put an end to what they justly called an unworthy and useless uproar.(229)

In all these outbreaks of human passion, however, we must not forget that the Lord was sitting in the ship of the church, directing her safely through the billows and storms. The Spirit of truth, who was not to depart from her, always triumphed over error at last, and even glorified himself through the weaknesses of his instruments. Upon this unmistakable guidance from above, only set out by the contrast of human imperfections, our reverence for the councils must be based. Soli Deo gloria; or, in the language of Chrysostom: Dovxa tw'/ qew'/ pavntwn e{neken!

§ 66. List of the Ecumenical Councils of the Ancient Church,

We only add, by way of a general view, a list of all the ecumenical councils of the Graeco-Roman church, with a brief account of their character and work.

The Concilium Nicaenum I., a.d. 325; held at Nicaea in Bithynia, a lively commercial town near the imperial residence of Nicomedia, and easily accessible by land and sea. It consisted of three hundred and eighteen bishops,(230) besides a large number of priests, deacons, and acolytes, mostly from the East, and was called by Constantine the Great, for the settlement of the Arian controversy. Having become, by decisive victories in 323, master of the whole Roman empire, he desired to complete the restoration of unity and peace with the help of the dignitaries of the church. The result of this council was the establishment (by anticipation) of the doctrine of the true divinity of Christ, the identity of essence between the Son and the Father. The fundamental importance of this dogma, the number, learning, piety and wisdom of the bishops, many of whom still bore the marks of the Diocletian persecution, the personal presence of the first Christian emperor, of Eusebius, "the father of church history," and of Athanasius, "the father of orthodoxy" (though at that time only archdeacon), as well as the remarkable character of this epoch, combined in giving to this first general synod a peculiar weight and authority. It is styled emphatically "the great and holy council," holds the highest place among all the councils, especially with the Greeks,(231) and still lives in the Nicene Creed, which is second in authority only to the ever venerable Apostles’ Creed. This symbol was, however, not finally settled and completed in its present form (excepting the still later Latin insertion of filioque), until the second general council. Besides this the fathers assembled at Nicaea issued a number of canons, usually reckoned twenty on various questions of discipline; the most important being those on the rights of metropolitans, the time of Easter, and the validity of heretical baptism.
The Concilium Constantinopolitanum I., a.d. 381 summoned by Theodosius the Great, and held at the imperial city, which had not even name in history till five years after the former council. This council, however, was exclusively oriental, and comprised only a hundred and fifty bishops, as the emperor had summoned none but the adherents of the Nicene party, which had become very much reduced under the previous reign. The emperor did not attend it. Meletius of Antioch was president till his death; then Gregory Nazianzen; and, after his resignation, the newly elected patriarch Nectarius of Constantinople. The council enlarged the Nicene confession by an article on the divinity and personality of the Holy Ghost, in opposition to the Macedonians or Pneumatomachists (hence the title Symbolum Nicaeno-Constantinopolitanum), and issued seven more canons, of which the Latin versions, however, give only the first four, leaving the genuineness of the other three, as many think, in doubt.
The Concilium Ephesinum, a.d. 431; called by Theodosius II., in connection with the Western co-emperor Valentinian III., and held under the direction of the ambitious and violent Cyril of Alexandria. This council consisted of, at first, a hundred and sixty bishops, afterward a hundred and ninety-eight,(232) including, for the first time, papal delegates from Rome, who were instructed not to mix in the debates, but to sit as judges over the opinions of the rest. It condemned the error of Nestorius on the relation of the two natures in Christ, without, stating clearly the correct doctrine. It produced, therefore, but a negative result, and is the least important of the first four councils, as it stands lowest also in moral character. It is entirely rejected by the Nestorian or Chaldaic Christians. Its six canons relate exclusively to Nestorian and Pelagian affairs, and are wholly omitted by Dionysius Exiguus in his collection.
The Concilium Chalcedonense, a.d. 451; summoned by the emperor Marcian, at the instance of the Roman bishop Leo; held at Chalcedon in Bithynia, opposite Constantinople; and composed of five hundred and twenty (some say six hundred and thirty) bishops.(233) Among these were three delegates of the bishop of Rome, two bishops of Africa, and the rest all Greeks and Orientals. The fourth general council fixed the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ in opposition to Eutychianism and Nestorianism, and enacted thirty canons (according to some manuscripts only twenty-seven or twenty-eight), of which the twenty-eighth was resisted by the Roman legates and Leo I. This was the most numerous, and next to the Nicene, the most important of all the general councils, but is repudiated by all the Monophysite sects of the Eastern church.
The Concilium Constantinopolitanum II. was assembled a full century later, by the emperor Tustinian, a.d. 553, without consent of the pope, for the adjustment of the tedious Monophysite controversy. It was presided over by the patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople, consisted of only one hundred and sixty-four bishops, and issued fourteen anathemas against the three chapters,(234) so called, or the christological views of three departed bishops and divines, Theodore of Mopsueste, Theodoret of Cyros, and Ibas of Edessa, who were charged with leaning toward the Nestorian heresy. The fifth council was not recognized, however, by many Western bishops, even after the vacillating Pope Vigilius gave in his assent to it, and it induced a temporary schism between Upper Italy and the Roman see. As to importance, it stands far below the four previous councils. Its Acts, in Greek, with the exception of the fourteen anathemas, are lost.

Besides these, there are two later councils, which have attained among the Greeks and Latins an undisputed ecumenical authority: the Third Council of Constantinople, under Constantine Progonatus, a.d. 680, which condemned Monothelitism (and Pope Honorius, † 638),(235) and consummated the old Catholic christology; and the Second Council of Nicaea, under the empress Irene, a.d. 787, which sanctioned the image-worship of the Catholic church, but has no dogmatical importance.

Thus Nicaea—now the miserable Turkish hamlet Is-nik(236)—has the honor of both opening and closing the succession of acknowledged ecumenical councils.

From this time forth the Greeks and Latins part, and ecumenical councils are no longer to be named. The Greeks considered the second Trullan(237) (or the fourth Constantinopolitan) council of 692, which enacted no symbol of faith, but canons only, not an independent eighth council, but an appendix to the fifth and sixth ecumenical councils (hence, called the Quinisexta sc. synodus); against which view the Latin church has always protested. The Latin church, on the other hand, elevates the fourth council of Constantinople, a.d. 869,(238) which deposed the patriarch Photius, the champion of the Greek church in her contest with the Latin, to the dignity of an eighth ecumenical council; but this council was annulled for the Greek church by the subsequent restoration of Photius. The Roman church also, in pursuance of her claims to exclusive catholicity, adds to the seven or eight Greek councils twelve or more Latin general councils, down to the Vatican (1870); but to all these the Greek and Protestant churches can concede only a sectional character. Three hundred and thirty-six years elapsed between the last undisputed Graeco-Latin ecumenical council of the ancient church (a.d. 787), and the first Latin ecumenical council of the mediaeval church (1123). The authority of the papal see had to be established in the intervening centuries.(239)

§ 67. Books of Ecclesiastical Law.

I. Bibiliotheca juris canonici veteris, ed. Voellus (theologian of the Sorbonne) and Justellus (Justeau, counsellor and secretary to the French king), Par. 1661, 2 vols. fol. (Vol. i. contains the canons of the universal church, Greek and Latin, the ecclesiastical canons of Dionysius Exiguus, or of the old Roman church, the canons of the African church, etc. See a list of contents in Darling’s Cyclop. Bibliographica, p. 1702 sq.)

See the literature in vol. ii. § 56 (p. 183). The brothers Ballerini: De antiquis tum editis tum ineditis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum ad Gratianum usque in ed. Opp. Leon M. Ven., 1753 sqq. The treatises of Quesnel, Marca, Constant, Drey, Theiner, etc., on the history of the collections of canons. Comp. Ferd. Walther: Lehrbuch des Kirchenrechts, p. 109 sqq., 8th ed., 1839.

The universal councils, through their disciplinary enactments or canons, were the main fountain of ecclesiastical law. To their canons were added the decrees of the most important provincial councils of the fourth century, at Ancyra (314), Neo-Caesarea (314), Antioch (341), Sardica (343), Gangra (365), and Laodicea (between 343 and 381); and in a third series, the orders of eminent bishops, popes, and emperors. From these sources arose, after the beginning of the fifth century, or at all events before the council of Chalcedon, various collections of the church laws in the East, in North Africa, in Italy, Gaul, and Spain; which, however, had only provincial authority, and in many respects did not agree among themselves. A codex canonum ecclesiae universae did not exist. The earlier collections because eclipsed by two, which, the one in the West, the other in the East, attained the highest consideration.

The most important Latin collection comes from the Roman, though by descent Scythian, abbot Dionysius Exiguus,(240) who also, notwithstanding the chronological error at the base of his reckoning, immortalized himself by the introduction of the Christian calendar, the "Dionysian Era." It was a great thought of this "little" monk to view Christ as the turning point of ages, and to introduce this view into chronology. About the year 500 Dionysius translated for the bishop Stephen of Salona a collection of canons from Greek into Latin, which is still extant, with its prefatory address to Stephen.(241) It contains, first, the, fifty so-called Apostolic Canons, which pretend to have been collected by Clement of Rome, but in truth were a gradual production of the third and fourth centuries;(242) then the canons of the most important councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, including those of Sardica and Africa; and lastly, the papal decretal letters from Siricius (385) to Anastasius II. (498). The Codex Dionysii was gradually enlarged by additions, genuine and spurious, and through the favor of the popes, attained the authority of law almost throughout the West. Yet there were other collections also in use, particularly in Spain and North Africa.

Some fifty years after Dionysius, John Scholasticus, previously an advocate, then presbyter at Antioch, and after 564 patriarch of Constantinople, published a collection of canons in Greek,(243) which surpassed the former in completeness and convenience of arrangement, and for this reason, as well as the eminence of the author, soon rose to universal authority in the Greek church. In it he gives eighty-five Apostolic Canons, and the ordinances of the councils of Ancyra (314) and Nicaea (325), down to that of Chalcedon (451), in fifty titles, according to the order of subjects. The second Trullan council (Quinisextum, of 692), which passes with the Greeks for ecumenical, adopted the eighty-five Apostolic Canons, while it rejected the Apostolic Constitutions, because, though, like the canons, of apostolic origin, they had been early adulterated. Thus arose the difference between the Greek and Latin churches in reference to the number of the so-called Apostolic canons; the Latin church retaining only the fifty of the Dionysian collection.

The same John, while patriarch of Constantinople, compiled from the Novelles of Justinian a collection of the ecclesiastical state-laws or novmoi, as they were called in distinction from the synodal church-laws or kanovne". Practical wants then led to a union of the two, under the title of Nomocanon.

These books of ecclesiastical law served to complete and confirm the hierarchical organization, to regulate the life of the clergy, and to promote order and discipline; but they tended also to fix upon the church an outward legalism, and to embarrass the spirit of progress.

Original Footnotes

(1; original 409): E.g. Chrysostom: De sacerdotio; Augustine: De doctrina Christiana; Jerome: in several letters; Gregory the Great: Regula pastoralis.

(2; original 410): JW" oJ muvqo" poiei' tou;" gigavnta".

(3; original 411): Greg. Orat. xliii. c. 26 (Opera omnia, ed. Bened., Paris, 1842, tom. i. p. 791 sq.), and similar passages in his other orations, and his Carmen de se ipse et advers. Episc. Comp. Ullmann: Greg. v. Naz. p. 511 sqq.

(4; original 412): De Civit. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 10: "Erunt sacerdotes Dei et Christi et regnabunt cum eo mille annos (Apoc. xx. 6): non utique de solis episcopis et presbyteris dictum est, qui proprie jam vocantur in Ecclesia sacerdotes; sed sicut omnes Christianos dicimus propter mysticum chrisma, sic omnes sacerdotes, quoniam membra sunt unius sacerdotis. De quibus apostolus Petrus: Plebs, inquit, sancta regale sacerdotium (1 Pet. ii. 9)." Comp. Ambrosiaster ad Eph. iv. 11; Jerome ad Tit. i. 7 and Pope Leo I., Sermon. iv. 1.

(5; original 413): According to Clemens Romanus, ad Corinth. c. 44, the consent of the whole congregation in the choice of their officers was the apostolic and post-apostolic custom; and the Epistles of Cyprian, especially Ep. 68, show that the same rule continued in the middle of the third century. Comp. vol. i. § 105.

(6; original 414): Zhvthsi", yhvfisma, yh'go", scrutinium.

(7; original 415): [Axio", dignus, or ajnavxio", indignus. Constitut. Apost. viii. 4; Concil. Aurelat. ii. (A. D. 452) c. 54; Gregor. Naz. Orat. xxi. According to a letter of Peter of Alexandria, in Theodor. Hist. Eccl. iv. 22, the bishop in the East was electedejpiskovpwn sunovdw/, yhvfw/ klhrikw'n, aijthvsei law'n. He himself was elected archbishop of Alexandria and successor of Athanasius (a.d. 373), according to the desire of the latter, "by the unanimous consent of the clergy and of the chief men of the city" (iv. cap. 20), and, after his expulsion, he objected to his wicked successor Lucius, among other things, that "he had purchased the episcopal office with gold, as though it had been a secular dignity, ... and had not been elected by a synod of bishops, by the votes of the clergy, or by the request of the people, according to the regulations of the church" (iv. c. 22).

(8; original 416): Epist. x. c. 4 (opera, ed. Baller. i. 637): "Expectarentur certe vota civium, testimonia populorum, quaereretur honoratorum arbitrium, electio clericorum .... In the same epistle, cap. 6: Qui praefuturus est omnibus, ab omnibus eligatur."

(9; original 417): Paulinus, Vita Ambros.; Sozomen, H. E. l. iv. c. 24, and vii. 8. This historian excuses the irregularity by a special interposition of Providence.

(10; original 418): Sulpitius Severus, Vita Mart. c. 7: "Incredibilis multitudo non solum ex eo oppido [Tours], sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda convenerat," etc.

(11; original 419): Socrates, H. E. vi. 2:Yhfivsmati koinw'/ oJmou' pavntwn klhvrou te fhmi; kai; laou'..

(12; original 420): De sacerdotio, lib. iii. c. 15. Further on in the same chapter he says even, that many are elected on account of their badness, to prevent the mischief they would otherwise do: OiJ de;, dia;, ponhrivan, »eij" th;n tou' klhvrou katalevgontai tavxin¼, kai; i{na mh;, parofqevnte" , megavla ejrgavswntai kakav. Quite parallel is the testimony of Gregory Nazianzen in his Carmen,eij" eJauto;n kai; peri; ejpiskovpwn, or De se ipso et de episcopis, ver. 330 sqq. (Opera, ed. Bened. Par. tom. ii. p. 796), and elsewhere.

(13; original 421): Sozomenus, Hist. Eccl. vii. c. 8. Sozomen sees in this election a special interposition of God.

(14; original 422): Sozomenus, vii. c. 10. Otherwise he, as well as Socrates, H. E. v. c. 8, and Theodoret, H. E. v. c. 8, speaks very favorably of the character of Nectarius.

(15; original 423): The seventh ecumenical council, at Nice, 787, in its third canon, on the basis of a wrong interpretation of the fourth canon of the first council of Nice, expressly prohibited the people and the secular power from any share in the election of bishops. Also the eighth general council prescribes that the bishop should be chosen only by the college of bishops.

(16; original 424): 1 Cor. vii. 9.

(17; original 425): 1 Tim. iii. 2, 12; Lit. i. 6.

(18; original 426): Lib. vi. cap. 17 (ed. Ueltzen, p. 144):jepivskopon kai; prebuvteron kai; diavkonon [thus including the bishop] ei[pomen monogavmou" kaqivstasqai ... mh; ejxei'nai de; aujtoi'" meta; ceirotonivan ajgavmoi" ou|sin e[ti ejpi; gavmon e[rcesqai, etc. Can. Apost. can. 17 (p. 241): JO dusi; gavmoi" sumplakei;" meta; to; bavptisma ... ouj duvnatai ei'nai ejpivskopo" h] presbuvtero" h] diavkono" h] o{lw" tou' katalovgou tou' iJeratikou'. Comp. can. 18 and can. 5.

(19; original 427): Can. 10. Comp. Dr. Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, i. p. 198.

(20; original 428): Can. 1. In Harduin, tom. v. p. 1499; Hefele, Conciliengesch. i. 211 sq. This canon passed even into the Corpus juris can. c. 9, dist. 28.

(21; original 429): Hosius of Cordova, who was present at the council of Elvira in Spain, in 305, where a similar proposition was made and carried (can. 33). In the opinion above given, Theiner, Gieseler, Robertson, and Hefele agree.

(22; original 430): See the account in Socrates, H. E. i. c. 11, where that proposition to prohibit priestly marriage is called an innovation, a novmo" nearov"; in Sozomen, H. E. i. c. 23; and in Gelasius, Hist. Conc. Nic. ii. 32. The statement is thus sufficiently accredited, and agrees entirely with the ancient practice of the Oriental church and the directions of the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons. The third canon of the council of Nice goes not against it, since it forbids only the immorality of mulieres subintroductae (comp. vol. i. § 95). The doubts of several Roman divines (Baronius, Bellarmine, Valesius), who would fain trace the celibacy of the clergy to an apostolic origin, arise evidently from dogmatic bias, and are sufficiently refuted by Hefele, a Roman Catholic historian, in his Conciliengeschichte, vol. i. p. 417 sqq.

(23; original 431): Comp. Hefele, l.c. i. 753 sqq.

(24; original 432): Can. 5 (ed. Ueltzen, p. 239): jEpivskopo" h] presbuvtero" h] diavkono" th;n eJautou' j gunvai'ka mh; ejkballevtw profavsei eujlabeiva"_ eja;n de; ejkbalh', ajforixevsqw, ejpimevnwn de; kaqaireivsqw. Comp. Const. Apost. vi. 17.

(25; original 433): Declaring: "God, the law, and the consecrated hand of Theophilus (bishop of Alexandria), have given me a wife. I say now beforehand, and I protest, that I will neither ever part from her, nor live with her in secret as if in an unlawful connection; for the one is utterly contrary to religion, the other to the laws; but I desire to receive many and good children from her" (Epist. 105 ed. Basil., cited in the original Greek in Gieseler). Comp. on the instances of married bishops, Bingham, Christ. Antiq. b. iv. ch. 5; J. A. Theiner and A. Theiner, Die Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit der christl. Geistlichen u. ihre Folgen (Altenburg, 1828), vol. i. p. 263 sqq., and Gieseler, vol. i. div. 2, § 97, notes at the close. The marriage of Gregory of Nyssa with Theosebia is disputed by some Roman Catholic writers, but seems well supported by Greg. Naz. Ep. 95, and Greg Nyss. De virg. 3.

(26; original 434): Hist. Eccl. v. cap. 22: Tw'n ejn ajnatolh'/ pavntwn gnwvmh/(i.e. from principle or voluntarily—according to the reading of the Florentine codex) ajpecomevnwn, kai; tw'n ejpiskovpwn, eij kai; bouvloivnto, ouj mh;n ajnavgkh/ novmou tou'to poiouvntwn. Polloi; ga;r aujtw'n ejn tw'/ kairw'/ th'" ejpiskoph'" kai; pai'da" ejk th'" nomivmh" gameth'" pepoihvkasin

(27; original 435): More precisely, the second Trullan council, held in the Trullan hall of the imperial palace in Constantinople; also called Concilium Quinisextum, suvnodo" penqevkth, being considered a supplement to the fifth and sixth general councils. Comp. respecting it Hefele, iii. 298 sqq.

(28; original 436): 1 Can. 3, 4, and especially 12, 13, and 48. In the latter canon bishops are directed, after ordination, to commit their wives to a somewhat remote cloister, though to provide for their support.

(29; original 437): Epist. ad Himerium Episc. Tarraconensem (in Harduin, Acta Conc. i. 849-850), c 7: "Hi vero, qui illiciti privilegii excusatione nituntur, ut sibi asserant veteri hoc lege concessum: noverint se ab omni ecclesiastico honore, quo indigne usi sunt, apostolicae sedis auctoritate dejectos .... Si quilibet episcopus, presbyter atque diaconus, quod non optamus, deinceps fuerit talis inventus, jam nunc sibi omnem per nos indulgentiae aditum intelligat obseratum: quia ferro necesse est excidantur vulnera, quae fomentorum non senserint medicinam." The exegesis of Siricius is utterly arbitrary in limiting the demand of holiness (Lev. xx. 7) to the priests and to abstinence from matrimonial intercourse, and in referring the words of Paul respecting walking in the flesh, Rom. viii. 8, 9, to the married life, as if marriage were thus incompatible with the idea of holiness. Comp. also the striking remarks of Greenwood, Catheda Petri, vol. i. p. 265 sq., and Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, i. 119 (Amer. ed.), on Siricius.

(30; original 438): Comp. Hefele, ii. 568, and Gieseler, l.c. (§ 97, note 7).

(31; original 439): The so-called sorores, or mulieres subintroductae, orparqevnoi suneivsaktoi. Comp. on the origin of this practice, vol. i. § 95.

(32; original 440): By a misinterpretation of the term suneivsakto", the sense of which is fixed in the usage of the early church, Baronius and Bellarmine erroneously find in this canon a universal law of celibacy, and accordingly deny the above-mentioned statement respecting Paphnutius. Comp. Hefele, i. 364.

(33; original 441): Comp. the relevant canons of these and other councils in the second and third volumes of Hefele’s Conciliengeschichte.

(34; original 442): Can. 5: "No clergyman shall have a female in his house, but those allowed in the old canon (Nicaen. c. 3). Even eunuchs are to observe this."

(35; original 443): "Throughout the whole period," says Milman (Hist. of Latin Christianity, i. 123), "from Pope Siricius to the Reformation, as must appear in the course of our history, the law [of clerical celibacy] was defied, infringed, eluded. It never obtained anything approaching to general observance, though its violation was at times more open, at times more clandestine."

(36; original 444): So the Concilium Tridentinum, sess. xxv. de reform. cap. 14. Comp. also the article Subintroductae, in the 10th volume of Wetzer and Welte’s Cath. Church Lexicon.

(37; original 445): Epist. 21 ad Valerium Nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore facilius et laetitius et hominibus acceptabilius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, si perfunctorie atque adulatorie res agatur: sed nihil apud Deum miserius et tristius et damnabilius. Item nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore difficilius, laboriosius, periculosius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, sed apud Deum nihil beatius, si eo modo militetur, quo noster imperator jubet." This epistle was written soon after his ordination to the priesthood, a.d. 391. See Opera, ed. Bened. tom. ii p. 25.

(38; original 446): Orat. xliii. c. 46 (Opera, ed. Bened. tom. i. p. 791), in the Latin translation: "Nunc autem periculum est, ne ordo omnium sanctissimus, sit quoque omnium maxime ridiculus. Non enim virtute magis, quam maleficio et scelere, sacerdotium paratur; nec digniorum, sed potentiorum, throni sunt." In the following chapter, however, he represents his friend Basil as a model of all virtues.

(39; original 447): Comp. Ullmann: Gregor von Nazianz, Erste Beilage, p. 509-521, where the views of this church father on the clerical office and the clergy of his time are presented at large in his own words. Also Gieseler, i., ii. § 103, gives copious extracts from the writings of Gregory on the vices of the clergy.

(40; original 448): Hieron. ad Eustochium, and especially ad Nepotianum, de vita clericorum et monachorum (Opera, ed. Vall. tom. i. p. 252 sqq.). Yet neither does he spare the monks, but says, ad Nepot.: "Nonnulli sunt ditiores monachi quam fuerant seculares et clerici qui possident opes sub Christo paupere, quas sub locuplete et fallaci Diabolo non habuerant."

(41; original 449): Lib. xxvii. c. 3, sub ann. 367.

(42; original 450): Peri; iJerwsuvnh", or De Sacerdotio libri sex. The work has been often published separately, and several times translated into modern languages (into German, for example, by Hasselbach, 1820, and Ritter, 1821; into English by Hollier, 1740, Bunce, 1759; Hohler, 1837; Marsh, 1844; and best by B. Harris Cowper, London, 1866). Comp. the list of twenty-three different separate editions and translations in Lomler: Joh. Chrysost. Opera praestantissima Gr. et Lat. Rudolph. 1840, p. viii, ix.

(43; original 451): De Sacerdotio, lib. vi. cap. 2-8.

(44; original 452): Pro;" ajrevskeian tou' Qeou', lib. v. c. 7.

(45; original 453): Comp. also the remarks of B. H. Cowper in the introduction to his English translation, Lond. 1866, p. xiii.

(46; original 454): Not Basil the Great (as Socrates supposes), for he was much older, and died in 379; but probably (as Montfaucon conjectures) the bishop of Raphanea in Syria, near Antioch, whose name appears among the bishops of the council of Constantinople, in 381.

(47; original 455): Even the purest moral philosopher of antiquity, Plato, vindicates falsehood, and recommends it to physicians and rulers as a means to a good end, a help to the healing of the sick or to the advantage of the people. Comp. De republ. iii. p. 266, ed. Bipont.: Eij ga;r ojrqw'" ejlevcgomen a[rti, kai; tw'/ o[nti qeoi'" me;n a[crhston yeu'do" ajnqrwvpoi" de; crhv"imon, wJ" ejn farmavkou ei[dei, dh'lon o{ti to; ge toiou'ton iJatroi'" dotevon, ijdiwvtai" de; oujc aJptevon. Dh'lon, e[fh. Toi'" a[rcousi dh; th'" povlew" , ei[per tisi;n a[lloi", proshvkei yeuvdesqai h] polemivwn h] politw'n e{neka, ejp j wjfeleiva/th'" povlew": toi'" de; a[lloi" pa'sin oujc aJptevon tou' toiouvtou. . The Jewish philosophizing theologian, Philo, had a similar view, in his work: Quod Deus sit immutabilis, p. 302.

(48; original 456): Clemens Alex., Strom. vi. p. 802, and Origen, Strom. vi. (in Hieron. Apol. i. Adv. Ruf. c. 18), where he adduces the just cited passage of Plato in defence of a doubtful accommodation at the expense of truth. See the relevant passages in Gieseler, i. § 63, note 7.

(49; original 457): Epist. 48 (ed. Vall., or Ep. 30 ed. Bened., Ep. 50 in older editions), ad Pammachium, pro libris contra Jovinianum, and Comm. ad Gal. ii. 11 sqq. Also Johannes Cassianus, a pupil of Chrysostom, defends the lawfulness of falsehood and deception in certain cases, Coll. xvii. 8 and 17.

(50; original 458): Comp. the somewhat sharp correspondence of the two fathers in Hieron. Epist. 101-105, 110, 112, 115, 134, 141, in Vallarsi’s ed. (tom. i. 625 sqq.), or in August. Epist 67, 68, 72-75, 81, 82 (in the Bened. ed. of Aug. tom. ii. 161 sqq.); August.: De mendacio, and Contra mendacium; also the treatise of Möhler mentioned above, 41, on this controversy, so instructive in regard to the patristic ethics and exegesis.

(51; original 459): Regul. brev. interrogate 76, cited by Neander in his monograph on Chrysostom (3d ed.) i. p. 97. Neander there adduces still another similar testimony against the lawfulness of the lie, by the contemporaneous Egyptian monk, John of Lycopolis, from Pallad. Hist. Lausiaca.

(52; original 460): John, viii. 44.

(53; original 461): The ground on which even civil officers were excluded, is stated by the Roman council of 402, which ordained in the tenth canon: "One who is clothed with a civil office cannot, on account of the sins almost necessarily connected with it, become a clergyman without previous penance." Comp. Mansi, iii. 1133, and Hefele; ii. 75.

(54; original 462): Comp. the decrees of councils in Hefele, ii. 574, 638, 686, 687, 753, 760, &c. Even the Can. Apost. 27, 65, and 72, are directed against common crimes in the clergy, such as battery, murder, and theft, which therefore must have already appeared, for legislation always has regard to the actual state of things. The Pastoral Epistles of Paul contain no exhortations or prohibitions of this kind.

(55; original 463): Hieron. Comm. ad Tit. i. 7: "Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent ... communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiae gubernabantur," etc. Comp. Epist. ad Evangelum presbyterum (Ep. 146, ed. Vall. Opera, i. 1074 sqq.; Ep. 101, ed. Bened.), and Epist. ad Oceanum (Ep. 69, ed. Vall., Ep. 82, ed. Bened.). In the latter epistle he remarks: "Apud veteres iidem episcopi et presbyteri fuerunt, quia illud nomen dignitatis est, hoc aetatis."

(56; original 464): Chrysostom, Hom. i. in Ep. ad Philipp. (Phil. i. 1, on the words sun ejpiskovpoi", which imply a number of bishops, i.e. presbyters in one and the same congregation), observes: tou;" presbutevrou: ou{tw" ekavlese: tovte ga;r tevw" ejkoinwvnoun toi'" ojnovmasi.. Of the same opinion are Theodoret, ad Phil. i. 1, and ad Tim. iii. 1; Ambrosiaster, ad Eph. iv. 11; and the author of the pseudo-Augustinian Questiones V. et N.T., qu. 101. Comp. on this whole subject of the original identity of ejpivskopo" and presbuvtero", my History of the Apostolic Church, § 132 (Engl. translation, p. 522-531), and Rich. Rothe: Anfänge der christlichen Kirche, i. p. 207-217.

(57; original 465): Optatus of Mileve calls them, indeed, ecclesiasticos viros; not, however, in the sense of clerici, from whom, on the contrary, he distinguishes them, but in the broad sense of catholic Christians as distinguished from heathens and heretics. Comp. on these seniores plebis, orlay elders, as they are called, the discussion of Dr. Rothe: Die Anfänge der christl. Kirche u. ihrer Verfassung, vol. i. p. 227 sqq.

(58; original 466): Comp. Rom. xii. 1, 12, and my Hist. of the Apost. Church, § 135, p. 535 sqq.

(59; original 467): Comp. Pelagius ad Rom. xvi. 1. Neander (iii. p. 314, note; Torrey’s transl. ii. p. 158) infers from a canon of the fourth council of Carthage, that the latter custom prevailed also in the West, since it is there required of "viduae quae ad ministerium baptizandarum mulierum eliguntur," "ut possint apto et sano sermone docere imperitas et rusticas mulieres."

(60; original 468): Comp. Codex Theodos. 1. xvi., Tit. ii. lex 27: "Nulla nisi emensis 60 annis secundum praeceptum apostoli ad diaconissarum consortium transferatur."

(61; original 469): Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 20. We have given the prayer in full. Neander (iii. p. 322, note) omits some passages. The custom of ordaining deaconesses is placed by this prayer and by the canon quoted from the council of Chalcedon beyond dispute. The 19th canon of the council of Nice, however, appears to conflict with this, in reckoning deaconesses among the laity, who have no consecration (ceiroqesiva).Some therefore suppose that the ordination of deaconesses did not arise till after the Nicaenum (325), though the Apostolic Constitutions contradict this; while others (as Baronius, and recently Hefele, Concilien-Gesch. 1855, vol. i. p. 414) would resolve the contradiction by distinguishing between the properceiroqesivaand the simple benediction. But the consecration of the deaconesses was certainly accompanied with imposition of hands in presence of the whole clergy; since the Apost. Const., 1. viii. c. 19, expressly say to the bishop: jEpiqhvsei" aujth/ ta;" cei'ra", parestw'to" tou' presbuterivou kai; tw'n diakovnwn kai; tw'n diakonissw'n. The contradiction lies, however, in that Nicene canon itself; for (according to the Greek Codices) the deaconesses are immediately before counted among the clergy, if we do not, with the Latin translation, read deacons instead. Neander helps himself by a distinction between proper deaconesses and widows abusivè so called.

(62; original 470): They are found in Montfaucon’s Bened. edition of Chrysostom, tom. iii. p. 524-604, and in Lomler’s edition of Joann. Chrysost. Opera praestantissima, 1840, p. 168-252. These seventeen epistles to Olympias are, in the judgment of Photius as quoted by Montfaucon (Op. iii. 524), of the epistles of Chrysostom, "longissimae, elegantissimae, omniumque utilissimae." Compare also Montfaucon’s prefatory remarks on Olympias.

(63; original 471): A mere benediction was appointed in place of ordination. The first synod of Orange (Arausicana i.), in 441, directed in the 26th canon: "Diaconae omnimodis non ordinandae [thus they had previously been ordained in Gaul also, and reckoned with the clergy]; si quae jam sunt, benedictioni, quae populo impenditur, capita submittant." Likewise was the ordination of deaconesses forbidden by the council of Epaon in Burgundy, in 517, can. 21, and by the second council at Orleans, in 533, can. 17 and 18.

(64; original 472): The Deaconess House (Hutterhaus) at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, founded in 1836; Bethany in Berlin, 1847; and similar evangelical hospitals in Dresden, 1842, Strasburg, 1842, Paris (institution des deaconess des églises evangéliques de France), 1841, London (institution of Nursing Sisters), 1840, New York (St. Luke’s Hopital), Pittsburg, 1849, Smyrna, Jerusalem, etc.

(65; original 473): Oijkovnomoi. Besides these there were also keimhliavrcai, sacellarii, thesaurarii.

(66; original 474): Conc. Chalced. can. 26. This canon also occurs twice in the Corp. jur. can. c. 21, C. xvi. q. 7, and c. 4, Dist. lxxix.

(67; original 475): ·Tacugravfoi, notarii, excerptores.

(68; original 476): Parabolani, probably from parabavllein th;n zwhvn, to risk life; because in contagious diseases they often exposed themselves to the danger of death.

(69; original 477): A perversion of a benevolent association to turbulent purposes similar to that of the firemen’s companies in the large cities of the United States.

(70; original 4): 78 Kopiavtai, copiattae, fossores, fossarii.

(71; original 479): See the passages quoted in § 52, and the works there referred to. The modern Romish divine, Perrone, in his Praelectiones Theologicae, t. ix. § 93, denies that the doctrine of the superiority of bishops over presbyters by divine right, is an article of the Catholic faith. But the council of Trent, sess. xxiii. can. 6, condemns all who deny the divine institution of the three orders.

(72; original 480): Innocent I., Ep. ad Decent.: "Ut sine chrismate et episcopi jussione neque presbyter neque diaconus jus habeant baptizandi."

(73; original 481): Comp. above, ch. iii. § 14-16.

(74; original 48): 2 JIera; stolhv, wJmofovrion, superhumerale, pallium, also ephod (r/bae, ejpwmiv"). The ephod (Ex. xxviii. 6-11; and xxxix. 2-5), in connection with the square breastplate belonging to it (@v<j, comp. Ex. xxviii. 15-30; xxxix. 8-21), was the principal official vestment of the Jewish high-priest, and no doubt served as the precedent for the archiepiscopal pallium, but exceeded the latter in costliness. It consisted of two shoulder pieces (like the pallium and the chasubles), which hung over the upper part of the body before and behind, and were skilfully wrought of fine linen in three colors, fastened by golden rings and chains, and richly ornamented with gold thread, and twelve precious stones, on which the names of the twelve tribes were graven. Whether the sacred oracle, Urim and Thummim (LXX.: dhvlwsi" kai; ajlhvqeia, Ex. xxviii. 30), was identical with the twelve precious stones in the breastplate, the learned are not agreed. Comp. Winer, Bibl. Reallex., and W. Smith, Dictionary of the Bible, sub Urim and Thummim.

(75; original 483): Orat. xlvii. So Theodoret, Hist. eccl. ii. 27, at the beginning. Macarius is said to have worn the gilded vestment in the administration of baptism.

(76; original 484): Amm. Marcell. xxvii. c. 3, sub anno 367: "ut dotentur oblationibus matronarum procedantque vehiculis insidentes, circumspecte vestiti, epulas curantes profusas, adeo ut eorum convivia regales superent mensas." But then with this pomp of the Roman prelates he contrasts the poverty of the worthy country bishops.

(77; original 485): Besides Ammianus, Jerome also states this, in his book against John of Jerusalem (Opera, tom. ii. p. 415, ed. Vallars.): "Miserabilis ille Praetextatus, qui designatus consul est mortuus, homo sacrilegus et idolorum cultor, solebat ludens beato papae Damaso dicere: ’Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum, et ero protinus Christianus.’ "

(78; original 486): Epist. ad Eustochium de virginitate servanda.

(79; original 487): The dioceses or vicariates were as follows:

I. The Praefectura Orientalis consisted of the five dioceses of Oriens, with Antioch as its political and ecclesiastical capital; Aegyptus, with Alexandria; Asia proconsularis, with Ephesus; Pontus, with Caesarea in Cappadocia; Thracia, with Heraklea, afterward Constantinople.

The Praefectura Illyrica, with Thessalonica as its capital, had only the two dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia.
The Praefectura Italica embraced Roma (i.e. South Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean, or the so-called Suburban provinces); Italia, or the Vicariate of Italy, with its centre at Mediolanum (Milan); Illyricum occidentale, with its capital at Sirmium; and Africa occidentalis, with Carthage.
The Praefectura Gallica embraced the dioceses of Gallia, with Treveri (Trier) and Lugdunum (Lyons); Hispania, with Hispalis (Sevilla); and Britannnia, with Eboracum (York).

(80; original 488): Thus the diocese of the Orient, for example, had five provinces, Egypt nine, Pontus thirteen, Gaul seventeen, Spain seven. Comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik, i. p. 67 sqq., where the provinces are all quoted, as is not necessary for our purpose here.

(81; original 489): Cwrepivskopoi. The principal statements respecting them are: Epist. Synodi Antioch., a.d. 270, in Euseb. H. E. vii. 36 (where they are called ejpivskopoi tw'n oJmovrwn ajgrw'n); Concil. Ancyr., a.d. 315, can. 13 (where they are forbidden to ordain presbyters and deacons); Concil. Antioch., a.d. 341, can. 10 (same prohibition); Conc. Laodic., between 320 and 372, can. 57 (where the erection of new country bishoprics is forbidden); and Conc. Sardic., a.d. 343, can. 6 (where they are wholly abolished).

(82; original 490): Can. 6: ... i]na mh; kateutelivxhtai to; tou' ejpiskovpou o[noma kai; hJ aujqentiva; or, in the Latin version: "Ne vilescat nomen episcopi et auctoritas." Comp. Hefele, i. p. 556. The differences between the Greek and Latin text in the first part of this canon have no influence on the prohibition of the appointment of country bishops.

(83; original 491): Mhtropolivth", metropolitanus, and the kindred title e[xarco" (applied to the most powerful metropolitans); ajrciepivskopo", archiepiscopus, and primas.

(84; original 492): This canon has been recently discovered also in a Coptic translation, and published by Pitra, in the Spiclegium Solesmense, i. 526 sq.

(85; original 493): Kai; th'/ timh'/ prohgei'sqai autovn.

(86; original 494): Cyprian, Epist. 45, says of his province of Carthage: "Latius fusa est nostra provincia; habet enim Numidiam et Mauretaniam sibi cohaerentes."

(87; original 495): Patriavrch"; patriarcha; sometimes also, after the political terminology, e[xarco". The name patriarch, originally applied to the progenitors of Israel (Heb. vii. 4, to Abraham; Acts vii. 8 sq., to the twelve sons of Jacob; ii. 29, to David, as founder of the Davidic Messianic house), was at first in the Eastern church an honorary title for bishops in general (so in Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa), but after the council of Constantinople (381), and still more after that of Chalcedon (451), it came to be used in an official sense and restricted to the five most eminent metropolitans. In the West, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of Aquileia, bore this title honoris causa. The bishop of Rome declined that particular term, as placing him on a level with other patriarchs, and preferred the name papa. "Patriarch" bespeaks an oligarchical church government; "pope," a monarchical.

(88; original 496): According to the political division of the empire after Constantine. Comp. § 54

(89; original 497): Comp. Wiltsch, i. p. 206 sqq. The statement of Ziegler, which Wiltsch quotes and seems to approve, that the fifth ecumenical council, of 553, added to the patriarchal circuit of Jerusalem the metropolitans of Berytus in Phenicia, and Ruba in Syria, appears to be an error. Ruba nowhere appears in the acts of the council, and Berytus belonged to Phoenicia prima, consequently to the patriarchate of Antioch. Le Quien knows nothing of such an enlargement of the patriarchate of Hierosolyma.

(90; original 498): Wiltsch, i. 189 sqq.

(91; original 499): Ibid. i. 177 sqq.

(92; original 500): Ibid. p. 143 sqq.

(93; original 501): Comp. § 57, below.

(94; original 502): Comp. Wiltsch, i. p. 232 sq., and ii. 469.

(95; original 503): Cod. can. eccl. Afr. can. 39, cited by Neander, iii. p. 335 (Germ. ed.).

(96; original 504): Accordingly Pope Nicolas, in 866, in a letter to the Bulgarian prince Bogoris, would acknowledge only the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch as patriarchs in the proper sense, because they presided over apostolic churches; whereas Constantinople was not of apostolic founding, and was not even mentioned by the most venerable of all councils, the Nicene; Jerusalem was named indeed by these councils, but only under the name of Aelia.

(97; original 505): In the oldest Latin Cod. canonum (in Mansi, vi. 1186) this canon is preceded by the important words: Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum. These are, however, manifestly spurious, being originally no part of the canon itself, but a superscription, which gave an expression to the Roman inference from the Nicene canon. Comp. Gieseler, i. 2, § 93, note 1; and Hefele, Hist. of Councils, i. 384 sqq.

(98; original 506): So Greenwood also views the matter, Cathedra Petri, 1859, vol. i. p. 181: "It was manifestly not the object of this canon to confer any new jurisdiction upon the church of Alexandria, but simply to confirm its customary prerogative. By way of illustration, it places that prerogative, whatever it was, upon the same level with that of the two other eparchal churches of Rome and Antioch. Moreover, the words of the canon disclose no other ground of claim but custom; and the customs of each eparchia are restricted to the territorial limits of the diocese or eparchia itself. And though, within those limits, the several customary rights and prerogatives may have differed, yet beyond them no jurisdiction of any kind could, by virtue of this canon, have any existence at all."

(99; original 507): Conc. Constant. i. can 3: To;n mevntoi Kwvstantinoupovlew" ejpivskopon e[cein ta; presbei'a th'" timh'", meta; to;n th's JRwvmh" ejpivskopon, dia; to; eiaujth;n nevan JRwvmhn . This canon is quoted also by Socrates, v. 8, and Sozomen, vii. 9, and confirmed by the council of Chalcedon (see below); so that it must be from pure dogmatical bias, that Baronius (Annal. ad ann. 381, n. 35, 36) questions its genuineness

(100; original 508): The latter is not, indeed, expressly said in the above canon, which seems to speak only of an honorary precedence. But the canon was so understood by the bishops of Constantinople, and by the historians Socrates (v. 8) and Theodoret (Epist. 86, ad Flavianum), and so interpreted by the Chalcedonian council (can. 28). The relation of the bishop of Constantinople to the metropolitan of Heraclea, however, remained for a long time uncertain, and at the council ad Quercum, 403, in the affair of Chrysostom, Paul of Heraclea took the presidency, though the patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria was present. Comp. Le Quien, tom. i. p. 18; and Wiltsch, i. p. 139.

(101; original 509): H. E. lib. v. cap. 28.

(102; original 510): According to Sozomen it was thirteen, according to Theophilus of Alexandria at the council ad Quercum seventeen bishops, whom he instituted; and this act was charged against him as an unheard-of crime. See Wiltsch, i. 141.

(103; original 511): Socrates, H. E. l. vii. 28, where such a law is incidentally mentioned. The inhabitants of Cyzicus in the Hellespont, however, transgressed the law, on the presumption that it was merely a personal privilege of Atticus.

(104; original 512): Among the barbarian tribes, over whom the bishops of Constantinople exercised an ecclesiastical jurisdiction, were the Huns on the Bosphorus, whose king, Gorda, received baptism in the time of Justinian; the Herulians, who received the Christian faith in 527; the Abasgians and Alanians on the Euxine sea, who about the same time received priests from Constantinople. Comp. Wiltsch, i. 144 and 145.

(105; original 513): This correction of the Roman legates is so little to the taste of the Roman Catholic historians, especially the ultramontane, that the Ballerini, in their edition of the works of Leo the Great, tom. iii. p. xxxvii. sqq., and even Hefele, Conciliengesch. i. p. 385, and ii. p. 522, have without proof declared the relevant passage in the Greek Acts of the council of Chalcedon a later interpolation. Hefele, who can but concede the departure of the Latin version from the original text of the sixth canon of Nice, thinks, however, that the Greek text was not read in Chalcedon, because even this bore against the elevation of Constantinople, and therefore in favor of the Roman legates. But the Roman legates, as also Leo in his protest against the 28th decree of Chalcedon, laid chief stress upon the Roman addition, Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum, and considered the equalization of any other patriarch with the bishop of Rome incompatible with it. Since the legates, as is conceded, appealed to the Nicene canon, the Greeks had first to meet this appeal, before they passed to the canons of the council of Constantinople. Only the two together formed a sufficient answer to the Roman protest.

(106; original 514): Mansi, vii. p. 446-454; Harduin, ii, 639-643; Hefele, ii. 524, 525.

(107; original 515): Leo, Epist. 104, 105, and 106 (al, Ep. 78-80). Comp. Hefele, l.c. ii. 530 sqq.

(108; original 516): Rev. iii. 11.

(109; original 517): Harduin, tom. vii. 23; Schröckh, xvii. 43; and Hefele, ii. 544.

(110; original 518): Comp. Eusebius, himself the metropolitan of Caesarea, H. E. v. 23. He gives the succession of the bishops of Jerusalem, as well as of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, while he omits those of Caesarea.

(111; original 519): jAkolouqiva th'" timh'"; which is variously interpreted. Comp. Hefele, i. 389 sq.

(112; original 520): Ta; presbei'a th'" timh'"... dia; to; ei|nai aujth;n [i.e. Constantinople] nevan JRwvmhn. Comp. § 56.

(113; original 521): The title oijkomeniko;" patriavrch", universalis episcopus, had before been used in flattery by oriental patriarchs, and the later Roman bishops bore it, in spite of the protest of Gregory I., without scruple. The statement of popes Gregory I. and Leo IX., that the council of Chalcedon conferred on the Roman bishop Leo the title of universal episcopus, and that he rejected it, is erroneous. No trace of it can be found either in the Acts of the councils or in the epistles of Leo. In the Acts, Leo is styled oJ aJgiwvtato" kai; makariwvtato" ajrciepivskopo" th'" megavlh" kai; presbutevras JRwvmh"; which, however, in the Latin Acts sent by Leo to the Gallican bishops, was thus enlarged: "Sanctus et beatissimus Papa, caput universalis ecclesiae, Leo." The papal legates at Chalcedon subscribed themselves: Vicarii apostolici universalis ecclesiae papae, which the Greeks translated: th'" oijkoumenikh'" ejkklhsiva" ejpiskovpou. Hence probably arose the error of Gregory I. The popes wished to be papae universalis ecclesiae, not episcopi or patriarchae universales; no doubt because the latter designation put them on a level with the Eastern patriarchs. Comp. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 192, not. 20, and p. 228, not. 72; and Hefele, ii. 525 sq.

(114; original 522): Epist. 113, to Pope Leo I.

(115; original 523): That the apostle Andrew brought the gospel to the ancient Byzantium, is an entirely unreliable legend of later times.

(116; original 524): One exception is the brief pontificate of the Arian, Felix II, whom the emperor Constantius, in 355, forcibly enthroned during the exile of Liberius, and who is regarded by some as an illegitimate anti-pope. The accounts respecting him are, however, very conflicting, and so are the opinions of even Roman Catholic historians. Liberius also, in 357, lapsed for a short time into Arianism that he might be recalled from exile. Another and later exception is Pope Honorius, whom even the sixth ecumenical council of Constantinople, 681, anathematized for Monothelite heresy.

(117; original 525): Recall the interpolations of papistic passages in the works of Cyprian; the Roman enlargement of the sixth canon of Nice; the citation of the Sardican canon under the name and the authority of the Nicene council; and the later notorious pseudo-Isidorian decretals. The popes, to be sure, were not the original authors of these falsifications, but they used them freely and repeatedly for their purposes.

(118; original 526): Concil. Nicaean. of 325, can. 6, in the Latin version of Rufinus (Hist. Eccl. x. 6): "Et ut apud Alexandria et in urbe Roma vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Ægypti, vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat." The words suburb. eccl. are wanting in the Greek original, and are a Latin definition of the patriarchal diocese of Rome at the end of the fourth century. Since the seventeenth century they have given rise to a long controversy among the learned. The jurist Gothofredus and his friend Salmasius limited the regiones suburbicariae to the small province of the Praefectus Urbis, i.e. to the city of Rome with the immediate vicinity to the hundredth milestone; while the Jesuit Sirmond extended it to the much greater official district of the Vicarius Urbis, viz., the ten provinces of Campania, Tuscia with Umbria, Picenum suburbicarium, Valeria, Samnium, Apulia with Calabria, Lucania and Brutii, Sicilia, Sardinia, and Corsica. The comparison of the Roman bishop with the Alexandrian in the sixth canon of the Nicene council favors the latter view; since even the Alexandrian diocese likewise stretched over several provinces. The Prisca, however—a Latin collection of canons from the middle of the fifth century—has perhaps hit the truth of the matter, in saying, in its translation of the canon in question: "Antiqui moris est ut urbis Romae episcopus habeat principatum, ut suburbicaria loca [i.e. here, no doubt, the smaller province of the Praefectus] et omnem provinciam suam [i.e. the larger district of the Vicarius, or a still wider, indefinite extent] sollicitudine sua gubernet." Comp. Mansi, Coll. Conc. vi. 1127, and Hefele, i. 380 sqq.

(119; original 527): According to the political division of the empire, the Roman patriarchate embraced in the fifth century three praefectures, which were divided into eight political dioceses and sixty-nine provinces. These are, (1) the praefecture of Italy, with the three dioceses of Italy, Illyricum, and Africa; (2) the praefectum Galliarum, with the dioceses of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; (3) the praefecture of Illyricum (not to be confounded with the province of Illyria, which belonged to the praefecture of Italy), which, after 879, was separated indeed from the Western empire, as Illyricum orientale, but remained ecclesiastically connected with Rome, and embraced the two dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia. Comp. Wiltsch, l.c. i. 67 sqq.; Maassen, p. 125; and Hefele, i. 383.

(120; original 528): Contra Julianum, lib. i. cap. 6.

(121; original 529): Epistola decretales; an expression, which, according to Gieseler and others, occurs first about 500, in the so-called decretum Gelasii de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis.

(122; original 530): See the information concerning the conferring of the pallium in Wiltsch, i. 68 sq.

(123; original 531): This is conceded by Hefele, i. 383 sq.: "It is, however, not to be mistaken, that the bishop of Rome did not everywhere, in all the West, exercise full patriarchal rights; that, to wit, in several provinces, simple bishops were ordained without his coöperation." And not only simple bishops, but also metropolitans. See the text.

(124; original 532): Aujtokevfaloi, also ajkevfaloi, as in the East especially the archbishops of Cyprus and Bulgaria were called, and some other metropolitans, who were subject to no patriarch.

(125; original 533): Comp. Wiltsch, i. 234.

(126; original 534): Comp. Gregory I., Epist. l. iv. 49; and Wiltsch, i. 236 sq. To the metropolis of Aquileia belonged the bishopric of Verona, Tridentum (the Trent, since become so famous), Aemona, Altinum, Torcellum, Pola, Celina, Sabiona, Forum Julii, Bellunum, Concordia, Feltria, Tarvisium, and Vicentia.

(127; original 535): Baron. Ann. ad ann. 433; Wiltsch, i. 69, 87.

(128; original 536): Comp. the relevant Acts of councils in Gieseler, i. 2, p. 221 sqq., and an extended description of this case of appeal in Greenwood, Cath. Petri, i. p. 299-310, and in Hefele, Concilien-Gesch. ii. 107 sqq., 120, 123 sq.

(129; original 537): Mansi, iii. 839 sq.

(130; original 538): Epist. 87; Mansi, vi. 120.

(131; original 539): Ep. 93 and 95; Mansi, vi. 131 and 132.

(132; original 540): Mansi, vii. 972.

(133; original 541): Greg. Ep. i. 41; Mansi, ix. 1059. Comp. Wiltsch, i. 71.

(134; original 542): This difference shows itself in the two editions of the works of Leo the Great, respectively: that of the French Pasquier Quesnel, a Gallican and Jansenist (exiled 1681, died at Brussels 1719), which also contains the works, and a vindication, of Hilary of Arles (Par. 1675, in 2 vols.), and was condemned in 1676 by the Congregation of the Index, without their even reading it; and that of the two brothers Ballerini, which appeared in opposition to the former (Ven. 1755-1757, 3 vols.), and represents the Italian ultramontane side. Comp. further on this contest of Hilarius Arelatensis (not to be confounded with Hilarius Pictaviensis, Hilarius Narbonensis, and others of the same name) with Pope Leo, the Vita Hilarii of Honoratus Massiliensis, of about the year 490 (printed in Mansi, vi. 461 sqq., and in the Acta Sanct. ad d. 5 Maji); the article by Perthel, in Illgen’s Zeitschrift for Hist. Theol. 1843; Greenwood, l.c. i. p. 350-356; Milman, Lat. Christianity, i. p. 269-276 (Amer. ed.); and the article "Hilarius" in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexic vol. v. p. 181 sqq.

(135; original 543): "Nisi magnitudo causae etiam nostrum exquirat examen." Gieseler, i. 2, p. 218; Greenwood, i. p. 299.

(136; original 544): Comp. Bonifacii I Epist. 12 ad Hilarium Narbon. (not Arelatensen), a.d. 422, in Gieseler, p. 219. Boniface here speaks in favor of the Nicene principle, that each metropolitan should rule simply over one province. Greenwood overlooks this change, and hence fully justifies Hilary on the ground of the appointment of Zosimus. But even though this appointment had stood, the deposition of a bishop was still a causa major, which Hilary, as vicar of the pope, should have laid before him for ratification.

(137; original 545): Leo, Epist. 10 (al. 89) ad Episc. provinciae Viennensis. What an awful perversion this of the true Christian stand-point!

(138; original 546): The popes Vigil, 539-555, Pelagius, 555-559, and Gregory the Great conferred on the archbishop of Arles, besides the pallium, also the papal vicariate (vices). Comp. Wiltsch, i. 71 sq.

(139; original 547): At all events, no reconciliation can be certainly proved. Hilary did, indeed, according to the account of his disciple and biographer, who some forty years after his death encircled him with the halo, take some steps toward reconciliation, and sent two priests as delegates with a letter to the Roman prefect, Auxiliaris. The latter endeavored to act the mediator, but gave the delegates to understand, that Hilary, by his vehement boldness, had too deeply wounded the delicate ears of the Romans. In Leo’s letter a new trespass is charged upon Hilary, on the rights of the bishop Projectus, after the deposition of Celidonius. And Hilary died soon after this contest (449). Waterland ascribed to him the Athanasian Creed, though without good reason.

(140; original 548): Comp. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 21 5 sqq.; and Wiltsch, i. 72 sqq., 431 sqq.

(141; original 549): The name papa—according to some an abbreviation of pater patrum, but more probably, like the kindred abbas, pavppa", or pavpa", pa-pa, simply an imitation of the first prattling of children, thus equivalent to father—was, in the West, for a long time the honorary title of every bishop, as a spiritual father; but, after the fifth century, it became the special distinction of the patriarchs, and still later was assigned exclusively to the Roman bishop, and to him in an eminent sense, as father of the whole church. Comp. Du Cange, Glossar. s. verb. Papa and Pater Patrum; and Hoffmann, Lexic. univers. iv. p. 561. In the same exclusive sense the Italian and Spanish papa, the French pape, the English pope, and the German Papst or Pabst, are used. In the Greek and Russian churches, on the contrary, all priests are called Popes (from pavpa", papa). The titles apostolicus, vicarius Christi, summus pontifex, sedes apostolica, were for a considerable time given to various bishops and their sees, but subsequently claimed exclusively by the bishops of Rome.

(142; original 550): Matt. xvi. 18: Su; ei| Pevtro", kai; ejpi; tauvth/ th'/ pevtra/ [mark the change of the gender from the masculine to the feminine, from the person to the thing or the truth confessed—a change which disappears in the English and German versions] oijkodomhvsw mou th;n ejkklhsivan, kai; puvlai a{/dou ouj katiscuvsousin aujth'". Comp. the commentators, especially Meyer, Lange, Alford, Wordsworth, ad loc., and my Hist. of the Apost. Church, § 90 and 94 (N. Y. ed. p. 350 sqq., and 374 sqq.).

(143; original 551): Comp. vol. i. § 110.

(144; original 552): Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 1080, vol. xi. p. 704.

(145; original 553): Hieronymus, Adv. Jovin. lib. ii. c. 38 (Opera, t. ii. p. 382), where he addresses Rome: "Ad te loquar, quae scriptam in fronte blasphemiam Christi confessione delesti." Prosper: "Eterna cum dicitur quae temporalis est, utique nomen est blasphemiae." Comp. Piper, l.c. p. 46.

(146; original 554): So Chrysostom ad 2 Thess. ii. 7; Hieronymus, Ep. cxxi. qu. 11 (tom. i. p. 880 sq.); Augustine, De Civit. Dei, lib. xx. cap. 19.

(147; original 555): De schismate Donatistarum, lib. ii. cap. 2, 3, and l. vii. 3. The work was composed while Siricius was bishop of Rome, hence about 384.

(148; original 556): Ambr. Sermo ii. in festo Petri et Pauli: "In urbe Romae, quae principatum et caput obtinet nationum: scilicet ut ubi caput superstitionis erat, illic caput quiesceret sanctitatis, et ubi gentilium principes habitabant, illic ecclesiarum principes morerentur." In Ps. 40: "Ipse est Petrus cui dixit: Tu es Petrus ... ubi ergo Patrus, ibi ecclesia; ubi ecclesia, ibi mulla mors, sed vita eterna." Comp. the poetic passage in his Morning Hymn, in the citation from Augustine further on. But in another passage he likewise refers the rock to Christ, in Luc. ix. 20: "Petra est Christus," etc.

(149; original 557): De incarnat. Domini, c. 4: "Primatum confessionis utique, non honoris, primatum fidei, non ordinis."

(150; original 558): De Spiritu S. ii. 12: "Nec Paulus inferior Petro, quamvis ille ecclesiae fundamentum." Sermo ii. in festo P. et P., just before the above-quoted passage: "Ergo beati Petrus et Paulus eminent inter universos apostolos, et peculiari quadam praerogativa praecellunt. Verum inter ipsos, quis cui praeponatur, incertum est. Puto enim illos aequales esse meritis, qui aequales sunt passione." Augustine, too, once calls Paul, not Peter, caput et princeps apostolorum, and in another place that he tanti apostolatus meruit principatum.

(151; original 559): Hieron. in Amos, vi. 12: "Petra Christus est qui donavit apostolis suis, ut ipsi quoque petrae vocentur." And in another place: "Ecclesia Catholica super Petram Christum stabili radici fundata est."

(152; original 560): Adv. Jovin. l. i. cap. 26 (in Vallars. ed., tom. ii. 279), in reply to Jovinian’s appeal to Peter in favor of marriage: "At dicis: super Petrum fundatur ecclesia; licet id ipsum in alio loco super omnes apostolos fiat, et cuncti claves regni coelorum accipiant, et ex aequo super eos fortitudo ecclesiae solidetur, tamen propterea inter duodecim unus eligitur, ut capite constituto, schismatis tollatur occasio." So Epist. xv. ad Damasum papam (ed. Vall. i. 37).

(153; original 561): Comp. Epist. 146, ed. Vall. i. 1076 (or Ep. 101 ed. Bened., al. 85) ad Evangelum: "Ubicunque fuerit episcopus, sive Romae, sive Eugubii, sive Constantinopoli, sive Rhegii, sive Alexandriae, sive Tanis [an intentional collocation of the most powerful and most obscure bishoprics], ejusdem est meriti, ejusdem est et sacerdotii. Potentia divitiarum et paupertatis humilitas vel sublimiorem vel inferiorem episcopum non facit. Caeterum omnes apostolorum successores sunt."

(154; original 562): Comp. § 52, above. J. Craigie Robertson, Hist. of the Christian Church to 590 (Lond. 1854), p. 286, note, finds a remarkable negative evidence against the papal claims in St. Jerome’s Ep. 125, "where submission to one head is enforced on monks by the instinctive habits of beasts, bees, and cranes, the contentions of Esau and Jacob, of Romulus and Remus, the oneness of an emperor in his dominions, of a judge in his province, of a master in his house, of a pilot in a ship, of a general in an army, of a bishop, the archpresbyter, and the archdeacon in a church; but there is no mention of the one universal bishop."

(155; original 563): Ep. xv. (alias 57) ad Damasum papam (ed. Vall. l. 37 sq.): "Facessat invidia: Romani culminis recedat ambitio, cum successore piscatoris et discipulo crucis loquor. Ego nullum primum, nisi Christum sequens, Beatitudini tuae, id est cathedrae Petri, communione consocior. Super illam petram aedificatam ecclesiam scio. Quicunque extra hanc domum agnum comederit, profanus est. Si quis in Noe arca non fuerit, peribit regnante diluvio."

(156; original 564): Hier. Com. in Ep. ad Galat. ii. 11, 12 (ed. Vallars. tom. vii. col. 409): "Non quod aliud significat Petrus, aliudCephas, sed quo quam nos Latine et Graece petram vocemus, hanc Hebraei et Syri, propter linguae inter se viciniam, Cephan, nuncupent."

(157; original 565): Retract. l. i. c. 21.

(158; original 566): In the Ambrosian Morning Hymn: "Aeterne rerum conditor."

(159; original 567): Tract. in Evang. Joannis, 124, § 5. The original is quoted among others by Dr. Gieseler, i. 2, p. 210 (4th ed.), but with a few unessential omissions.

(160; original 568): Especially by Calov in the Lutheran church, and quite recently by Dr. Wordsworth in the Church of England (Commentary on Matt. xvi. 18). But Dr. Alford decidedly protests against it, with most of the modern commentators.

(161; original 569): De utilit. credendi, § 35, he traces the development of the church "ab apostolica sede per successiones apostolorum;" and Epist. 43, he incidentally speaks of the "Romana ecclesia in qua semper apostolicae cathedrae viguit principatus." Greenwood, i. 296 sq., thus resolves the apparent contradiction in Augustine: "In common with the age in which he lived, he (St. Augustine) was himself possessed with the idea of a visible representative unity, and considered that unity as equally the subject of divine precept and institution with the church-spiritual itself. The spiritual unity might therefore stand upon the faith of Peter, while the outward and visible oneness was inherent in his person; so that while the church derived her esoteric and spiritual character from the faith which Peter had confessed, she received her external or executive powers from Peter through ’the succession of bishops’ sitting in Peter’s chair. Practically, indeed, there was little to choose between the two theories." Comp. also the thorough exhibition of the Augustinian theory of the Catholic church and her attributes by Dr. Rothe, in his work Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche, i. p. 679-711.

(162; original 570): De diversis Serm. 108: Has enim claves non homo unus, sed unitas accepit ecclesiae. Hinc ergo Petri excellentia praedicatur, quia ipsius universitatis et unitatis figuram gessit quando ei dictum est: tibi trado, quod omnibus traditum est, etc.

(163; original 571): Bellarmine, in Praef. in Libr. de Pontif., calls this article even rem summam fidei Christiana!

(164; original 572): Hom. v., on the feast of Peter and Paul. To the one, says he, the keys of knowledge were committed, to the other the keys of power." Eminent inter universos apostlos et peculiari quadam praerogativa praecellunt. Verum inter ipsos quis cui praeponatur, incertum est." The same sentence in Ambrose, De Spir. S. ii. 12.

(165; original 573): In S. Ignat. Martyr., n. 4.

(166; original 574): Hom. ii. in Principium Actorum, n. 6, tom. iii. p. 70 (ed. Montfaucon). The last sentence (ajlla; prosecwrhvsamen th'/' basilivdi Rwvmh/) is by some regarded as a later interpolation in favor of the papacy. But it contains no concession of superiority. Chrysostom immediately goes on to say: "We have indeed not retained the body of Peter, but we have retained the faith of Peter; and while we retain his faith, we have himself."

(167; original 575): Epist. 86.

(168; original 576): Epist. 113. Comp. Bennington and Kirk, l.c. p. 91-93. In the Epist. 116, to Renatus, one of the three papal legates at Ephesus, where he entreats his intercession with Leo, he ascribes to the Roman see the control of the church of the world (tw'n kata; thn oijkoumevnhn ejkklhsiw'n th;n hJgemonivan), but certainly in the oriental sense of an honorary supervision.

(169; original 577): jArciepivskopon pavsh" th'" oijkoumevnh" [i. e., of the Roman empire, according to the well-known usus loquendi, even of the N. T., Comp. Luke ii. 1], patevra te kai; patriavrchn Kelesti'non to;n th'" megalopovlew" Rwvmh".Encom. in S. Mar. Deip. (tom. v. p. 384). Comp. his Ep. ix. ad Coelest.

(170; original 578): That this is the true date appears from the recently discovered Festival Epistles of Athanasius, published in Syriac by Cureton (London, 1848), in an English translation by Williams (Oxford, 1854), and in German by Larsow (Leipzig, 1852). Mansi puts the council in the year 344, but most writers, including Gieseler, Neander, Milman, and Greenwood, following the erroneous statement of Socrates (ii. 20) and Sozomen (iii. 12), place it in the year 347. Comp. on the subject Larsow, Die Festbriefe des Athanasius, p. 31; and Hefele, Conciliengesch. i. p. 513 sqq.

(171; original 579): Can. 3, 4, and 5 (in the Latin translation, can. 3, 4, and 7), in Mansi, iii. 23 sq., and in Hefele, i. 539 sqq., where the Greek and the Latin Dionysian text is given with learned explanations. The Greek and Latin texts differ in some points.

(172; original 580): So the much discussed canones are explained not only by Protestant historians, but also by Catholic of the Gallican school, like Peter de Marca, Quesnel, Du-Pin, Richer, Febronius. This interpretation agrees best with the whole connection; with the express mention of Julius (which is lacking indeed, in the Latin translation of Prisca and in Isidore, but stands distinctly in the Greek and Dionysian texts: jIoulivw/ tw'/ ejpiskovpw/ JRwvmh",Julio Romano episcopo); with the words, " Si vobis placet" (can. 3), whereby the appeal in question is made dependent first on the decree of this council; and finally, with the words, "Sancti Petri apostoli memoriam honoremus," which represent the Roman bishop’s right of review as an honorary matter. What Hefele urges against these arguments (i. 548 sq.), seems to me very insufficient.

(173; original 581): Baronius, Natalis Alexander, and Mansi have endeavored indeed to establish for the council an ecumenical character, but in opposition to the weightiest ancient and modern authorities of the Catholic church. Comp. Hefele, i. 596 sqq,

(174; original 582): It is also to be observed, that the synodal letters, as well as the orthodox ecclesiastical writers of this and the succeeding age, which take notice of this council, like Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Basil, make no mention of those decrees concerning Rome.

(175; original 583): Comp. § 56.

(176; original 584): Ep. ad Conc. Cartha. and Ep. ad Concil. Milev., both in 416. In reference to this decision, which went against Pelagius, Augustine uttered the word so often quoted by Roman divines: "Causa finita est; utinam aliquando finiatur error." But when Zosimus, the successor of Innocent, took the part of Pelagius, Augustine and the African church boldly opposed him, and made use of the Cyprianic right of protest."Circumstances alter cases."

(177; original 585): As Quesnel and most of his successors infer from Prosper’s Chronicle, and a passage in Leo’s Ep. 31, c. 4, where he assigns among the reasons for not attending the council at Ephesus in 449, that he could not "deserere patriam et sedem apostolicam." Patria, however, may as well mean Italy, or at least the diocese of Rome, including the ten suburbican provinces. In the Liber pontificalis he is called "natione Tuscus," but in two manuscript copies, "natione Romanus." Canisius, in the Acta Sanctorum, adopts the former view. Butler reconciles the difficulty by supposing that he was descended of a noble Tuscan family, but born at Rome.

(178; original 586): Ep. v. ad Episcopos Metrop. per Illyricum constitutos, c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. 617, in Migne’s Patristic Libr. vol. liv. p. 515): "Quia per omnes ecclesias cura nostra distenditur, exigente hoc a nobis Domino, qui apostolicae dignitatis beatissimo apostolo Petro primatum fidei suae remuneratione commisit, universalem ecclesiam in fundamenti ipsius [Quesnel proposes istius for ipsius] soliditate constituens, necessitatem sollicitudinis quam habemus, cum his qui nobis collegii caritate juncti sunt, sociamus."

(179; original 587): These views Leo repeatedly expresses in his sermons on the festival of St. Peter and on the anniversary of his own elevation, as well as in his official letters to the African, Illyrian, and South Gallic bishops, to Dioscurus of Alexandria, to the patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople, to the emperor Marcian and the empress Pulcheria. Particular proof passages are unnecessary. Comp. especially Ep. x., xi., xii., xiv., civ.-cvi. (ed. Baller.), and Perthel, l.c. p. 226-241, where the chief passages are given in full.

(180; original 588): "Cujus dignitas etiam in indigno haerede non deficit," Sermo iii. in Natal, ordin. c. 4 (vol. i. p. 13, ed. Ball.)."Etsi necessarium est trepidare de merito, religiosum est tamen gaudere de dono: quoniam qui mihi oneris est auctor, ipse est administrationis adjutor." Serm. ii. c. 1.

(181; original 589): Pet. v. 3.

(182; original 590): Gal. ii. 11.

(183; original 591): Ep. x. c. 2 (ed. Ball. i. p. 634; ed. Migne, vol. 54, p. 630), to the Gallican bishops in the matter of Hilary: "Cui (sc. Petro) quisquis principatum aestimat denegandum, illius quidem nullo modo potest minuere dignitatem; sed inflatus spiritu superbiae suae semetipsum in inferna demergit." Comp. Ep. clxiv. 3; clvii. 3.

(184; original 592): Comp. above, § 59.

(185; original 593): See the particulars in § 36, above, near the close

(186; original 594): Comp. Pertbel, l.c. p. 90 sqq., and p. 104 sqq.

(187; original 595): Leo himself says nothing of his mission to Attila. Prosper, in Chron. ad ann. 452, mentions it briefly, and Canisius, in the Vita Leonis (in the Acta Sanctorum, for the month of April, tom. ii. p. 18), with later exaggerations.

(188; original 596): Comp. Leo’s 84th Sermon, which was preached soon after the departure of the Vandals, and Prosper, Chron ad ann. 455

(189; original 597): The Roman calendar places his name on the 11th of April. But different writers fix his death on June 28, Oct. 30 (Quesnel), Nov. 4 (Pagi), Nov. 10 (Butler). Butler quotes the concession of Bower, the apostate Jesuit, who, in his Lives of the Popes, says of Leo, that "he was without doubt a man of extraordinary parts, far superior to all who had governed that church before him, and scarce equalled by any since."

(190; original 598): Sermones de natali. Canisius (in Acta Sanct., l.c. p. 17) calls Leo Christianum Demosthenem.

(191; original 599): De vocatione omnium gentium—a work praised highly even by Erasmus, Luther, Bullinger, and Grotius. Quesnel has only proved the possibility of Leo’s being the author. Comp. Perthel, l.c. p. 127 sqq. The Sacramentarium Leonis, or a collection of liturgical prayers for all the festival days of the year, contains some of his prayers, but also many which are of a later date.

(192; original 600): This was the fifth (al. fourth) council under, Symmachus, held in Nov. 502, therefore later than the synodus palmaris. Comp. Hefele, ii. p. 625 sq.

(193; original 601): . Dante puts him in hell, and Baronius ascribes his sudden death to an evident judgment of God.

(194; original 602): Comp. Hefele, ii. p. 615 sqq.

(195; original 603): So named from the building in Rome, in which it was held: "A porticu beati Petri Apostoli, quae appellatur ad Palmaria," as Anastasius says. In the histories of councils it is erroneously given as Synodus III. Many historians, Gieseler among them, place it in the year 503.

(196; original 604): Libellus apologeticus pro Synodo IV. Romana, in Mansi, viii. 274. This vindication was solemnly adopted by the sixth Roman council under Symmachus, in 503, and made equivalent to a decree of council.

(197; original 605): Even Justinian repeatedly applied to the patriarch of Constantinople officially the title oijkomeniko;" patriavrch", universalis patriarcha.

(198; original 606): Bellarmine disposes of this apparent testimony of one of the greatest and best popes against the system of popery, which has frequently been urged since Calvin by Protestant controversialists, by assuming that the term episcopus universalis is used in two very different senses."Respondeo," he says (in his great controversial work, De controversiis christianae fidei, etc., de Romano pontifice, lib. ii. cap. 31), "duobus modis posse intelligi nomen universalis episcopi. Uno modo, ut ille, qui dicitur universalis, intelligatur esse solus episcopus omnium urbium Christianarum, ita ut caeteri non sint episcopi, sed vicarii tantum illius, qui dicitur episcopus universalis, et hoc modo nomen hoc est vere profanum, sacrilegum et antichristianum.... Altero modo dici potest episcopus universalis, qui habet curam totius ecclesiae, sed generalem, ita ut non excludat particulares episcopos. Et hoc modo nomen hoc posse tribui Romano pontifici ex mente Gregorii probatur."

(199; original 607): The name suvnodo" oijkoumenikhv (concilium universale, s. generale) occurs first in the sixth canon of the council of Constantinople in 381. The oijkoumevnh (sc. gh') is, properly, the whole inhabited earth; then, in a narrower sense, the earth inhabited by Greeks, in distinction from the barbarian countries; finally, with the Romans, the orbis Romanus, the political limits of which coincided with those of the ancient Graeco-Latin church. But as the bishops of the barbarians outside the empire were admitted, the ecumenical councils represented the entire Catholic Christian world.

(200; original 608): Acts xv., and Gal. ii. Comp. my History of the Apostolic Church, §§ 67-69 (Engl. ed., p. 245-257). Mansi, l.c. tom. i. p. 22 (De quadruplici Synodo Apostolorum), and other Roman Catholic writers, speak of four Apostolic Synods: Acts i. 13 sqq., for the election of an apostle; ch. vi. for the election of deacons; ch. xv. for the settlement of the question of the binding authority of the law of Moses; and ch. xxi. for a similar object. But we should distinguish between a private conference and consultation, and a public synod.

(201; original 609): It is usually supposed there were only four or five different kinds of council. But Hefele reckons eight (i. p. 3 and 4) adding to those above named the irregularsuvnodoiejndhmou'sai, also the synods of the bishops of two or more provinces finally the concilia mixta, consisting of the secular and spiritual dignitaries province, as separate classes.

(202; original 610): A similar order, with different times, appears still earlier in the 37th of the apostolic canons, where it is said (in the ed. of Ueltzen, p. 244):Deuvterontou'e[tou" suvnodo" genevsqwtw'nejpiskovpwn.

(203; original 611): This Sunday, the celebration of which was ordered by the empress Theodora in 842, is called among the Greeks the kuriakhvth'" ojrqodoxiva". On that day the ancient councils are dramatically reproduced in the public worship.

(204; original 612): The schismatical Donatists alone held a council at Carthage in 308, of two hundred and seventy bishops (Comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik, i. p. 53 and 54); while the second ecumenical council numbered only a hundred and fifty, the third a hundred and sixty (a hundred and ninety-eight), and the fifth a hundred and sixty-four.

(205; original 613): Schröckh says (vol. viii. p. 201), unjustly, that this general consent belongs among the "empty conceits." Of course the unanimity must be limited to orthodox Christendom.

(206; original 614): This is conceded even by the Roman Catholic church historian Hefele (i. p. 7), in opposition to, Bellarmine and other Romish divines."The first eight general councils," says he, "were appointed and convoked by the emperors; all the subsequent councils, on the contrary [i.e. all the Roman Catholic general councils], by the popes; but even in those first councils there appears a certain participation of the popes in their convocation, more or less prominent in particular instances." The latter assertion is too sweeping, and can by no means be verified in the history of the first two of these councils, nor of the fifth.

(207; original 615): As regards the council of Nicaea: according to Eusebius and all the ancient authorities, it was called by Constantine alone; and not till three centuries later, at the council of 680, was it claimed that Pope Sylvester had any share in the convocation. As to the council of Constantinople in 381: the Roman theory, that Pope Damasus summoned it in conjunction with Theodosius, rests on a confusion of this council with another and an unimportant one of 382. Comp. the notes of Valesius to Theodoret, Hist. Ecel. v. 9; and Hefele (who here himself corrects his earlier view), vol. i. p. 8, and vol. ii. p. 36.

(208; original 616): Euseb., Vita Const. iii. 15: Cristou'basileiva" e[doxena[nti" fantasiou'sqaieijkovna, o[nartjei|naiajlljoujcu{parto;ginovmenon.

(209; original 617): Mansi, vii. 170 sqq. The emperor is called there not simply divine, which would be idolatrous enough, but most divine, oJqeiovtato": kai;eujsebevstato" hJmw'ndespovth", divinissimus et piissimus noster imperator ad sanctam synodum dixit, etc. And these adulatory epithets occur repeatedly in the acts of this council.

(210; original 618): Eusebius, Vita Const. iii. 13: JOme;ndh;tau'teijpw;n J Rwmaiva/ glwvtth/ [which was still the official language], uJfermhneuvonto" eJtevrou, paredivdouto;nlovgontoi'" th'" sunovdouproevdroi" . Yet, according to the immediately following words of Eusebius, the emperor continued to take lively interest in the proceedings, hearing, speaking, and exhorting to harmony. Eusebius’whole account of this synod is brief and unsatisfactory.

(211; original 619): To wit, in a letter of the council to Leo (Ep. 89, in the Epistles of Leo, ed. Baller., tom. i. p. 1099), and in a letter of Marcian to Leo (Ep. 110, tom. i. p. 1182 sq.).

(212; original 620): Acts xv. 22: Tovtee[doxetoi'" ajpostovloi" kai;toi'" presbutevroi" su;no}lh/ th'/ ejkklhsiva/; and v. 23: OiJajpovstoloikai;oijpresbuvteroikai;oijajdelfoi;toi'" ... ajdelfoi'" . k.t. l. Comp. my Hist. of the Apostolic Church, § 69, and § 128.

(213; original 621): ]Edoxetw'/ pneuvmatiaJgivw/ kai;hJmi'n, Acts xv. 28. The provincial councils, too, had already used this phrase; e.g. the Concil. Carthaginiense, of 252 (in the Opera Cypriani): "Placuit nobis, Sancto Spiritu suggerente, et Domino per visiones multas et manifestas admonente." So the council of Arles, in 314: "Placuit ergo, presente Spiritu Sancto et angelis ejus."

(214; original 622): Qeivanejntolhvn, andqeivanbouvlhsin, in Euseb., Vita Const. iii. 20. Comp. his Ep. ad Eccl. Alexandr., in Socrates, H. E. i. 9 where he uses similar expressions.

(215; original 623): Isidore of Pelusium also styles the Nicene council divinely inspired, qeovqenejmpneu"qei'sa (Ep. 1. iv. Ep. 99). So Basil the Great, Ep. 114 (in the Benedictine edition of his Opera omnia, tom. iii. p. 207), where he says that the 318 fathers of Nice have not spoken without the ejnevrgeiatou'aJgivoupneuvmato" (non sine Spiritus Sancti afflatu).

(216; original 624): Act. i., in Mansi, vi. p. 672. We quote from the Latin translation: "Nullo autem modo patimur a quibusdam concuti definitam fidem, sive fidei symbolum, a sanctis patribus nostris qui apud Nicaeam convenerunt illis temporibus: nec permittimus aut nobis, aut aliis, mutare aliquod verbum ex his quae ibidem continentur, aut unam syllabam praeterire, memores dicentis: Ne transferas terminos aeternos, quos posuerunt patres tui (Prov. xxii. 8; Matt. x. 20). Non enim erant ipsi loquentes, sed ipse Spiritus Dei et Patris qui procedit ex ipso."

(217; original 625): jJOblasfhmhqei;" parjaujtou'kuvrio" jIh". Cristo;" w{risedia;th'" parouvsh" aJgiwtavth" sunovdou.

(218; original 626): Lib. i. Ep. 25 (ad Joannem episcopum Constant., et caeteros patriarchas, in Migne’s edition of Gr. Opera, tom. iii. p. 478, or in the Bened. ed. iii. 515): "Praeterea, quia corde creditur ad justitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem, sicut sancti evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia suscipere et venerari me fateor. Nicaenum scilicet in quo perversum Arii dogma destruitur; Constantinopolitanum quoque, in quo Eunomii et Macedonii error convincitur; Ephesinum etiam primum, in quo Nestorii impietas judicatur; Chalcedonense vero, in quo Eutychetii [Eutychis] Dioscorique pravitas reprobatur, tota devotione complector, integerrima approbatione custodio: quia in his velut in quadrato lapide, sanctae fidei structura consurgit, et cujuslibet vitae atque actionis existat, quisquis eorum soliditatem non tenet, etiam si lapis esse cernitur, tamen extra aedificium jacet. Quintum quoque concilium pariter veneror, in quo et epistola, quae Ibae dicitur, erroris plena, reprobatur," etc.

(219; original 627): Justin. Novell. cxxxi."Quatuor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas scripturas accipimus, et regulas sicut leges observamus."

(220; original 628): Conc. Nic. can. 15: }Wsteajpo;povlew" eij" povlinmh;metabaivneinmhvteejpivskoponmhvtepresbuvteronmhvtediavkonon. This prohibition arose from the theory of the relation between a clergyman and his congregation, as a mystical marriage, and was designed to restrain clerical ambition. It appears in the Can. Apost. 13, 14, but was often violated. At the Nicene council itself there were several bishops, like Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eustathius of Antioch, who had exchanged their first bishopric for another and a better.

(221; original 629): Novmou" pavlaiteqnhkovta", Carm. de vita sua, v. 1810.

(222; original 630): Epist. 106 (al. 80) ad Anatolium, and Epist. 105 ad Pulcheriam. Comp. above, § 57. Even Gregory I., so late as 600, writes in reference to the canones of the Constantinopolitan council of 381: "Romana autem ecclesia eosdem canones vel gesta Synodi illius hactenus non habet, nec accepit; in hoc autem eam accepit, quod est per eam contra Macedonium definitum." Lib. vii. Ep. 34, ad Eulogium episcopum Alexandr. (tom. iii. p. 882, ed. Bened., and in Migne’s ed., iii. 893.)

(223; original 631): De Baptismo contra Donatistas, I. ii. 3 (in the Benedictine edition of August. Opera, tom. ix. p. 98): "Quis autem nesciat, sanctam Scripturam canonicam, tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, certis suis terminis contineri, eamque omnibus posterioribus Episcoporum literis ita praeponi, ut de illa omnino dubitari et disceptari non possit, utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit, quidquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit; Episcoporum autem literas quae post confirmatum canonem vel scripta sunt vel scribuntur, et per sermonem forte sapientiorem cujuslibet in ea re peritioris, et per aliorum Episcoporum graviorem auctoritatem doctioremque prudentiam, et per concilia licere reprehendi, si quid in eis forte a veritate deviatum est; et ipsa concilia, quae per singulas regiones vel provincias fiunt, plenariorum conciliorum auctoritate, quae fiunt ex universo orbe Christiano, sine ullis ambagibus cedere; ipsaque plenaria saepe priora posterioribus emendari, quum aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat et cognoscitur quod latebat; sine ullo typho sacrilegae superbiae, sine ulla inflata cervice arrogantiae, sine ulla contentione lividae invidiae, cum sancta humilitate, cum pace catholica, cum caritate christiana." Comp. the passage Contra Maximinum Arianum, ii. cap. 14, § 3 (in the Bened. ed., tom. viii. p. 704), where he will have even the decision of the Nicene council concerning the homousion measured by the higher standard of the Scriptures.

(224; original 632): Contra Epistolam Manichaei, lib. i. c. 5 (in the Bened. ed., tom. viii. p. 154): "Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me ecclesiae catholicae commoveret auctoritas."

(225; original 633): Commonitorium, c. 23 (in Migne’s Curs. Patrol. tom. 50, p. 667): "Sed forsitan dicit aliquis: Nullusne ergo in ecclesia Christi profectus habebitur religionis? Habeatur plane et maximus .... Sed ita tamen ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. Si quidem ad profectum pertinet ut in semetipsum unaquaeque res amplificetur; ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur. Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius ecclesiae, aetatum ac seculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo dutaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia."

(226; original 634): Acts xv. 6: Pollh'" suzhthvsew" genomevnh"; which Luther indeed renders quite too strongly: " After they had wrangled long." The English versions from Tyndale to King James translate: " much disputing."

(227; original 635): Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 7.

(228; original 636): Ep. ad Procop. 55, old order (al. 130). Similar representations occur in Ep. 76, 84; Carm. de vita sua, v. 1680-1688; Carm. x. v. 92; Carm. Adv. Episc. v. 154. Comp. Ullmann, Gregor. von Naz., p. 246 sqq., and p. 270. It is remarkable that Gibbon makes no use of these passages to support his summary judgment of the general councils at the end of his twentieth chapter, where he says: "The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic world has unanimously submitted to the infallible decrees of the general councils."

(229; original 637): jEkbohvsei" dhmotikaiv. See Harduin, tom. ii. p. 71 sqq., and Mansi, tom. vi. p. 590 sq. Comp. also Hefele, ii. p. 406 sq.

(230; original 638): This is the usual estimate, resting on the authority of Athanasius, Basil (Ep. 114; Opera, t. iii. p 207, ed. Bened.), Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret; whence the council is sometimes called the Assembly of the Three Hundred and Eighteen. Other data reduce the number to three hundred, or to two hundred and seventy, or two hundred and fifty, or two hundred and eighteen; while later tradition swells it to two thousand or more.

(231; original 639): For some time the Egyptian and Syrian churches commemorated the council of Nicaea by an annual festival.

(232; original 640): The opposition council, which John of Antioch, on his subsequent arrival, held in the same city in the cause of Nestorius and under the protection of the imperial commissioner Candidian, numbered forty-three members, and excommunicated Cyril, as Cyril had excommunicated Nestorius.

(233; original 641): The synod itself, in a letter to Leo, states the number as only five hundred and twenty; Leo, on the contrary (Ep. 102), speaks of about six hundred members; and the usual opinion (Tillemont, Memoires, t. xv. p. 641) raises the whole number of members, including deputies, to six hundred and thirty.

(234; original 642): Tria capitula, Kefavleia.

(235; original 643): The condemnation of a departed pope as a heretic by an ecumenical council is so inconsistent with the claims of papal infallibility, that Romish historians have tried their utmost to dispute the fact, or to weaken its force by sophistical pleading.

(236; original 644): Eij" Nivkaian. Nice and Nicene are properly misnomers, but sanctioned by the use of Gibbon and other great English writers.

(237; original 645): Trullum was a saloon with a cupola in the imperial palace of Constantinople.

(238; original 646): The Latins call it the fourth because they reject the fourth Constantinopolitan (the second Trullan) council of 692, because of its canons, and the fifth of 754 because it condemned the worship of images, which was subsequently sanctioned by the second council of Nicaea in 787.

(239; original 647): On the number of the ecumenical councils till that of Trent the Roman divines themselves are not agreed. The Gallicans reckon twenty-one, Bellarmine eighteen, Hefele only sixteen. The undisputed ones, besides the eight already mentioned Graeco-Latin councils, are these eight Latin: the first Lateran (Roman) council, a.d. 1123; the second Lateran, a.d. 1139; the third Lateran, a.d. 1179; the fourth Lateran, a.d. 1215); the first of Lyons, a.d. 1245; the second of Lyons, a.d. 1274; that of Florence, a.d. 1439; (the fifth Lateran, 1512-1517, is disputed;) and that of Trent, a.d. 1545-1563. The ecumenical character of the three reformatory councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and of the fifth Lateran council, a.d. 1512-1517, is questioned among the Roman divines, and is differently viewed upon ultramontane and upon Gallican principles. Hefele considers them partially ecumenical; that is, so far as they were ratified by the pope. [But in the Revised edition of his Conciliengeschichte, 1873 sqq., he reckons twenty ecumenical councils, including the Vatican, 1870. See Appendix, p. 1032.]

(240; original 648): It is uncertain whether he obtained the surname Exiguus from his small stature or his monastic humility.

(241; original 649): It may be found in the above-cited Bibliotheca, vol. i., and in all good collections of councils. He says in the preface that, confusione priscae translationis (the Prisca or Itala) offensus, he has undertaken a new translation of the Greek canons.

(242; original 650): "Canones, qui dicuntur apostolorum, ... quibus plurimi consensum non praebuere facilem;" implying that Dionysius himself, with many others, doubted their apostolic origin. In a later collection of canons by Dionysius, of which only the preface remains, he entirely omitted the apostolic canons, with the remark: "Quos non admisit universitas, ego quoque in hoc opere praetermisi." On the pseudo-apostolic Canons and Constitutions, comp. vol. i. § 113 (p. 440-442), and the well-known critical work of the Roman Catholic theologian Drey.

(243; original 651): Suvntagmakanovnwn, Concordia canonum, in the Bibliotheca of Justellus, tom. ii.

脚注

Best guess 对照表

正文及中文脚注中带上标 * 的外文为 best guess，尚未逐项核实；原始字串保留如下。

原字串	Best guess	语言	出现位置	说明
sunqeivsakto"	συνθείσακτος	Greek	正文第 36 段	按编码还原；原串含θ，暂保留此异形，不径改为συνείσακτος。
oijkonomiva	οἰκονομία	Greek	正文第 43 段	按旧字体编码还原，与变通之义相合。
gumnastikw'"	γυμναστικῶς	Greek	正文第 44 段	还原副词词尾ῶς及重音。
dogmatikw'"	δογματικῶς	Greek	正文第 44 段	还原副词词尾ῶς，与前项相对。
oijkonomiva	οἰκονομία	Greek	正文第 46 段	按旧字体编码还原。
e[kdiko"	ἔκδικος	Greek	正文第 58 段	编码对应ἔκδικος，符合辩护人职称。
makariwvtato"	μακαριώτατος	Greek	正文第 65 段	按编码还原最高级尊称。
aJgiwvtato"	ἁγιώτατος	Greek	正文第 65 段	J对应粗气符，v对应锐音。
dioivkhsi"	διοίκησις	Greek	正文第 72 段	按编码还原，符合管区术语。
ejparciva	ἐπαρχία	Greek	正文第 72 段	c对应χ，j对应柔气符。
paroikiva	παροικία	Greek	正文第 72 段	按编码还原。
periodeu'tai	περιοδευταῖ	Greek	正文第 73 段	原串曲音位置较异常，按巡察员复数词形推测为περιοδευταῖ。
metav	μετά	Greek	正文第 93 段	按编码还原，保留独立引词的锐音。
suvnodo" ejndhmou'sa	σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα	Greek	正文第 94 段	还原驻留主教会议的希腊称谓。
ejndhmouvntwn	ἐνδημούντων	Greek	正文第 94 段	按编码还原属格复数分词。
ta; presbei'a	τὰ πρεσβεῖα	Greek	正文第 96 段	还原重音及曲音，符合特权之义。
dia; to; basileuvein	διὰ τὸ βασιλεύειν	Greek	正文第 96 段	按编码还原。
ta; i[sa "presbei'a	τὰ ἴσα πρεσβεῖα	Greek	正文第 96 段	词前孤立引号疑为杂入，余按编码还原。
deutevran met j ejkeivnhn.¼	δευτέραν μετ’ ἐκείνην.	Greek	正文第 96 段	还原省音及重音，去除句末损坏的¼。
qeivoi"	θείοις	Greek	正文第 97 段	末尾引号对应终形ς。
ajrciepiskovpou	ἀρχιεπισκόπου	Greek	正文第 97 段	按编码还原属格，不改为主格。
Kai; w{ste	Καὶ ὥστε	Greek	正文第 98 段	还原大写、重音及粗气符。
pro; pavntwn ta; prwtei'a	πρὸ πάντων τὰ πρωτεῖα	Greek	正文第 101 段	按编码还原。
kai; th;n ejxeivreton timhvn	καὶ τὴν ἐξαίρετον τιμήν	Greek	正文第 101 段	按编码还原，保留原串重音。
ta; presbei'a th'" timh'"	τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς	Greek	正文第 101 段	还原荣誉优先权术语及属格词尾。
oijkoumevnh	οἰκουμένη	Greek	正文第 132 段	按编码还原。
ejpi; tauvth/ th'/ pevtra/	ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ	Greek	正文第 152 段	斜线对应下标ι，还原与格词形。
su; ei\| Pevtro"	σὺ εἶ Πέτρος	Greek	正文第 152 段	还原曲音、柔气符及终形ς。
ejn ajr*ch'/	ἐν ἀρχῇ	Greek	正文第 160 段	去除夹入的斜体星号，恢复下标ι。
suvnodo" ejndhmou'sa	σύνοδος ἐνδημοῦσα	Greek	正文第 214 段	按编码还原，与前文同一会议称谓。
ejndhmou'nte"	ἐνδημοῦντες	Greek	正文第 214 段	按编码还原主格复数分词。
oijkoumevnh	οἰκουμένη	Greek	正文第 220 段	按编码还原。
Dovxa tw'/ qew'/ pavntwn e{neken	Δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν	Greek	正文第 241 段	还原重音、气符与下标ι。
novmoi	νόμοι	Greek	正文第 258 段	按编码还原法律的复数词形。
kanovne"	κανόνες	Greek	正文第 258 段	按编码还原教规的复数词形。
JW" oJ muvqo" poiei' tou;" gigavnta"	Ὡς ὁ μῦθος ποιεῖ τοὺς γίγαντας	Greek	脚注 2	JW对应带粗气符的大写Ω，余按编码还原。
Zhvthsi", yhvfisma, yh'go"	Ζήτησις, ψήφισμα, ψῆφος	Greek	脚注 6	第三词g疑为f之讹，据投票术语推测ψῆφος。
[Axio"	Ἄξιος	Greek	脚注 7	还原大写Α上的柔气符及锐音。
ajnavxio"	ἀνάξιος	Greek	脚注 7	按编码还原。
ejpiskovpwn sunovdw/, yhvfw/ klhrikw'n, aijthvsei law'n	ἐπισκόπων συνόδῳ, ψήφῳ κληρικῶν, αἰτήσει λαῶν	Greek	脚注 7	还原气符、重音及与格下标ι。
Yhfivsmati koinw'/ oJmou' pavntwn klhvrou te fhmi; kai; laou'	Ψηφίσματι κοινῷ ὁμοῦ πάντων κλήρου τε φημὶ καὶ λαοῦ	Greek	脚注 11	按编码还原，保留原文语序。
OiJ de;, dia;, ponhrivan, »eij" th;n tou' klhvrou katalevgontai tavxin¼, kai; i{na mh;, parofqevnte" , megavla ejrgavswntai kakav	Οἱ δὲ, διὰ πονηρίαν, «εἰς τὴν τοῦ κλήρου καταλέγονται τάξιν», καὶ ἵνα μὴ, παροφθέντες, μεγάλα ἐργάσωνται κακά	Greek	脚注 12	还原希腊字形及引号；删除紧随重音编码的多余逗号。
eij" eJauto;n kai; peri; ejpiskovpwn	εἰς ἑαυτὸν καὶ περὶ ἐπισκόπων	Greek	脚注 12	按编码还原标题。
jepivskopon kai; prebuvteron kai; diavkonon	ἐπίσκοπον καὶ πρεβύτερον καὶ διάκονον	Greek	脚注 18	按编码还原；原串第二词缺σ，暂保留πρεβύτερον而不擅补。
ei[pomen monogavmou" kaqivstasqai	εἴπομεν μονογάμους καθίστασθαι	Greek	脚注 18	按编码还原。
mh; ejxei'nai de; aujtoi'" meta; ceirotonivan ajgavmoi" ou\|sin e[ti ejpi; gavmon e[rcesqai	μὴ ἐξεῖναι δὲ αὐτοῖς μετὰ χειροτονίαν ἀγάμοις οὖσιν ἔτι ἐπὶ γάμον ἔρχεσθαι	Greek	脚注 18	还原气符和曲音，保留原文词序。
JO dusi; gavmoi" sumplakei;" meta; to; bavptisma	Ὁ δυσὶ γάμοις συμπλακεὶς μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα	Greek	脚注 18	按编码还原。
ouj duvnatai ei'nai ejpivskopo" h] presbuvtero" h] diavkono" h] o{lw" tou' katalovgou tou' iJeratikou'	οὐ δύναται εἶναι ἐπίσκοπος ἢ πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος ἢ ὅλως τοῦ καταλόγου τοῦ ἱερατικοῦ	Greek	脚注 18	还原字形；ei'nai据词形补柔气符。
novmo" nearov"	νόμος νεαρός	Greek	脚注 22	按编码还原。
jEpivskopo" h] presbuvtero" h] diavkono" th;n eJautou' j gunvai'ka mh; ejkballevtw profavsei eujlabeiva"_ eja;n de; ejkbalh', ajforixevsqw, ejpimevnwn de; kaqaireivsqw	Ἐπίσκοπος ἢ πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα μὴ ἐκβαλλέτω προφάσει εὐλαβείας· ἐὰν δὲ ἐκβάλῃ, ἀφοριζέσθω, ἐπιμένων δὲ καθαιρείσθω	Greek	脚注 24	还原教规句；gunvai'ka及ajforixevsqw疑损坏，推测为γυναῖκα、ἀφοριζέσθω。
Tw'n ejn ajnatolh'/ pavntwn gnwvmh/	Τῶν ἐν ἀνατολῇ πάντων γνώμῃ	Greek	脚注 26	按编码还原，保留所提示的抄本异读。
ajpecomevnwn, kai; tw'n ejpiskovpwn, eij kai; bouvloivnto, ouj mh;n ajnavgkh/ novmou tou'to poiouvntwn. Polloi; ga;r aujtw'n ejn tw'/ kairw'/ th'" ejpiskoph'" kai; pai'da" ejk th'" nomivmh" gameth'" pepoihvkasin	ἀπεχομένων, καὶ τῶν ἐπισκόπων, εἰ καὶ βούλοιντο, οὐ μὴν ἀνάγκῃ νόμου τοῦτο ποιούντων. Πολλοὶ γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς καὶ παῖδας ἐκ τῆς νομίμης γαμετῆς πεποιήκασιν	Greek	脚注 26	按编码还原；βούλοιντο上的额外锐音疑为损坏。
suvnodo" penqevkth	σύνοδος πενθέκτη	Greek	脚注 27	按编码还原第五六次会议称谓。
parqevnoi suneivsaktoi	παρθένοι συνείσακτοι	Greek	脚注 31	按编码还原。
suneivsakto"	συνείσακτος	Greek	脚注 32	按编码还原，不与正文含θ的异形强行统一。
Peri; iJerwsuvnh"	Περὶ ἱερωσύνης	Greek	脚注 42	按编码还原标题。
Pro;" ajrevskeian tou' Qeou'	Πρὸς ἀρέσκειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ	Greek	脚注 44	按编码还原，保留Θ大写。
Eij ga;r ojrqw'" ejlevcgomen a[rti, kai; tw'/ o[nti qeoi'" me;n a[crhston yeu'do" ajnqrwvpoi" de; crhv"imon, wJ" ejn farmavkou ei[dei, dh'lon o{ti to; ge toiou'ton iJatroi'" dotevon, ijdiwvtai" de; oujc aJptevon. Dh'lon, e[fh. Toi'" a[rcousi dh; th'" povlew" , ei[per tisi;n a[lloi", proshvkei yeuvdesqai h] polemivwn h] politw'n e{neka, ejp j wjfeleiva/th'" povlew": toi'" de; a[lloi" pa'sin oujc aJptevon tou' toiouvtou.	Εἰ γὰρ ὀρθῶς ἐλέγχομεν ἄρτι, καὶ τῷ ὄντι θεοῖς μὲν ἄχρηστον ψεῦδος ἀνθρώποις δὲ χρήσιμον, ὡς ἐν φαρμάκου εἴδει, δῆλον ὅτι τὸ γε τοιοῦτον ἰατροῖς δοτέον, ἰδιώταις δὲ οὐχ ἁπτέον. Δῆλον, ἔφη. Τοῖς ἄρχουσι δὴ τῆς πόλεως, εἴπερ τισὶν ἄλλοις, προσήκει ψεύδεσθαι ἢ πολεμίων ἢ πολιτῶν ἕνεκα, ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τῆς πόλεως· τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις πᾶσιν οὐχ ἁπτέον τοῦ τοιούτου.	Greek	脚注 47	还原字形与分词空格；保留原串ἐλέγχομεν，不据常见引文改写。
sun ejpiskovpoi"	σὺν ἐπισκόποις	Greek	脚注 56	按经文词组补出σὺν的重音。
tou;" presbutevrou: ou{tw" ekavlese: tovte ga;r tevw" ejkoinwvnoun toi'" ojnovmasi.	τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους οὕτως ἐκάλεσε· τότε γὰρ τέως ἐκοινώνουν τοῖς ὀνόμασι.	Greek	脚注 56	presbutevrou后的冒号疑误代终形ς，据词形补复数宾格。
ejpivskopo"	ἐπίσκοπος	Greek	脚注 56	按编码还原。
presbuvtero"	πρεσβύτερος	Greek	脚注 56	按编码还原。
ceiroqesiva	χειροθεσία	Greek	脚注 61	按编码还原。
ceiroqesiva	χειροθεσία	Greek	脚注 61	按编码还原，与同注前项一致。
jEpiqhvsei" aujth/ ta;" cei'ra", parestw'to" tou' presbuterivou kai; tw'n diakovnwn kai; tw'n diakonissw'n	Ἐπιθήσεις αὐτῇ τὰς χεῖρας, παρεστῶτος τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου καὶ τῶν διακόνων καὶ τῶν διακονισσῶν	Greek	脚注 61	还原字形；αὐτῇ按代词词形补重音。
Oijkovnomoi	Οἰκόνομοι	Greek	脚注 65	按编码还原，保留首字母大写。
keimhliavrcai	κειμηλιάρχαι	Greek	脚注 65	按编码还原圣物保管者职称。
Tacugravfoi	Ταχυγράφοι	Greek	脚注 67	按编码还原速记员称谓。
parabavllein th;n zwhvn	παραβάλλειν τὴν ζωήν	Greek	脚注 68	按编码还原。
Kopiavtai	Κοπιάται	Greek	脚注 70	按编码还原。
JIera; stolhv	Ἱερὰ στολή	Greek	脚注 74	还原大写Ι上的粗气符。
wJmofovrion	ὡμοφόριον	Greek	脚注 74	按原串还原粗气符，暂不改常见的柔气拼法。
r/bae	אֵפוֹד	Hebrew	脚注 74	依以弗得语境推测；原串辅音损坏，具体元音仍不确定。
ejpwmiv"	ἐπωμίς	Greek	脚注 74	按编码还原。
@v<j	חֹשֶׁן	Hebrew	脚注 74	逆向旧编码与胸牌语境相合，推测为חֹשֶׁן。
dhvlwsi" kai; ajlhvqeia	δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια	Greek	脚注 74	按编码还原，保留原引文词形。
Cwrepivskopoi	Χωρεπίσκοποι	Greek	脚注 81	按编码还原乡村主教称谓。
ejpivskopoi tw'n oJmovrwn ajgrw'n	ἐπίσκοποι τῶν ὁμόρων ἀγρῶν	Greek	脚注 81	按编码还原。
i]na mh; kateutelivxhtai to; tou' ejpiskovpou o[noma kai; hJ aujqentiva	ἵνα μὴ κατευτελίζηται τὸ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου ὄνομα καὶ ἡ αὐθεντία	Greek	脚注 82	原串kateutelivxhtai疑有字母损坏，据句义推测κατευτελίζηται。
Mhtropolivth"	Μητροπολίτης	Greek	脚注 83	按编码还原。
e[xarco"	ἔξαρχος	Greek	脚注 83	按编码还原。
ajrciepivskopo"	ἀρχιεπίσκοπος	Greek	脚注 83	按编码还原。
Kai; th'/ timh'/ prohgei'sqai autovn	Καὶ τῇ τιμῇ προηγεῖσθαι αὐτόν	Greek	脚注 85	还原下标ι及气符，autovn按词形补柔气符。
Patriavrch"	Πατριάρχης	Greek	脚注 87	按编码还原。
e[xarco"	ἔξαρχος	Greek	脚注 87	按编码还原。
To;n mevntoi Kwvstantinoupovlew" ejpivskopon e[cein ta; presbei'a th'" timh'", meta; to;n th's JRwvmh" ejpivskopon, dia; to; ei\nai aujth;n nevan JRwvmhn	Τὸν μέντοι Κωνσταντινουπόλεως ἐπίσκοπον ἔχειν τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς, μετὰ τὸν τῆς Ῥώμης ἐπίσκοπον, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν νέαν Ῥώμην	Greek	脚注 99	还原教规引文；城名中缺ν及重音错位疑为编码损坏。
jAkolouqiva th'" timh'"	Ἀκολουθία τῆς τιμῆς	Greek	脚注 111	按编码还原。
Ta; presbei'a th'" timh'"	Τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς	Greek	脚注 112	按编码还原。
dia; to; ei\|nai aujth;n	διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν	Greek	脚注 112	按编码还原。
nevan JRwvmhn	νέαν Ῥώμην	Greek	脚注 112	还原大写Ρ上的粗气符。
ejkklhsiva	ἐκκλησία	Greek	脚注 113	此条原串仅含主格字形；属格ς在条目外，不擅并入。
oijkomeniko;" patriavrch"	οἰκομενικὸς πατριάρχης	Greek	脚注 113	按原串还原，保留缺υ的拼写，未径改οἰκουμενικός。
oJ aJgiwvtato" kai; makariwvtato" ajrciepivskopo" th'" megavlh" kai; presbutevras JRwvmh"	ὁ ἁγιώτατος καὶ μακαριώτατος ἀρχιεπίσκοπος τῆς μεγάλης καὶ πρεσβυτέρας Ῥώμης	Greek	脚注 113	按编码还原尊称及属格词尾。
th'" oijkoumenikh'"	τῆς οἰκουμενικῆς	Greek	脚注 113	按编码还原。
ejpiskovpou	ἐπισκόπου	Greek	脚注 113	按编码还原属格。
Aujtokevfaloi	Αὐτοκέφαλοι	Greek	脚注 124	按编码还原。
ajkevfaloi	ἀκέφαλοι	Greek	脚注 124	按编码还原，不改作者并列的称谓。
pavppa"	πάππας	Greek	脚注 141	按编码还原，保留双π及原重音。
pavpa"	πάπας	Greek	脚注 141	按编码还原，不改为其他重音形式。
pavpa"	πάπας	Greek	脚注 141	按编码还原，保留作者拼写。
Su; ei\| Pevtro", kai; ejpi; tauvth/ th'/ pevtra/	Σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ	Greek	脚注 142	还原经文气符、曲音及下标ι。
oijkodomhvsw mou th;n ejkklhsivan, kai; puvlai a{/dou ouj katiscuvsousin aujth'"	οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς	Greek	脚注 142	按编码还原，保留原文词序。
ajlla; prosecwrhvsamen th'/' basilivdi Rwvmh/	ἀλλὰ προσεχωρήσαμεν τῇ βασιλίδι Ῥώμῃ	Greek	脚注 166	还原下标ι并清除多余曲音标记；Ῥ补常规粗气符。
tw'n kata; thn oijkoumevnhn ejkklhsiw'n th;n hJgemonivan	τῶν κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐκκλησιῶν τὴν ἡγεμονίαν	Greek	脚注 168	按编码还原，首个τὴν补重音。
jArciepivskopon pavsh" th'" oijkoumevnh"	Ἀρχιεπίσκοπον πάσης τῆς οἰκουμένης	Greek	脚注 169	按编码还原。
patevra te kai; patriavrchn Kelesti'non to;n th'" megalopovlew" Rwvmh"	πατέρα τε καὶ πατριάρχην Κελεστῖνον τὸν τῆς μεγαλοπόλεως Ῥώμης	Greek	脚注 169	保留Κελεστῖνον拼写；Ῥ按专名补粗气符。
jIoulivw/ tw'/ ejpiskovpw/ JRwvmh"	Ἰουλίῳ τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ Ῥώμης	Greek	脚注 172	按编码还原与格及专名。
oijkomeniko;" patriavrch"	οἰκομενικὸς πατριάρχης	Greek	脚注 197	按原串还原，保留缺υ的拼写，与同章另一处一致。
suvnodo" oijkoumenikhv	σύνοδος οἰκουμενική	Greek	脚注 199	按编码还原。
oijkoumevnh	οἰκουμένη	Greek	脚注 199	按编码还原。
gh'	γῆ	Greek	脚注 199	曲音编码对应ῆ。
suvnodoiejndhmou'sai	σύνοδοι ἐνδημοῦσαι	Greek	脚注 201	拆分连排词并恢复复数词形。
Deuvterontou'e[tou" suvnodo" genevsqwtw'nejpiskovpwn	Δεύτερον τοῦ ἔτους σύνοδος γενέσθω τῶν ἐπισκόπων	Greek	脚注 202	按原串拆词还原；保留Δεύτερον，不据常见教规改为Δεύτερον ἔτους等。
kuriakhvth'" ojrqodoxiva"	κυριακὴ τῆς ὀρθοδοξίας	Greek	脚注 203	拆分连排词，句中κυριακή用重音。
Cristou'basileiva" e[doxena[nti" fantasiou'sqaieijkovna, o[nartjei\|naiajlljoujcu{parto;ginovmenon	Χριστοῦ βασιλείας ἔδοξεν ἄν τις φαντασιοῦσθαι εἰκόνα, ὄναρ τ’ εἶναι ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὕπαρ τὸ γινόμενον	Greek	脚注 208	恢复连排引文及省音；ἄν τις的分词属推测。
oJqeiovtato"	ὁ θειότατος	Greek	脚注 209	拆词并还原最高级称号。
kai;eujsebevstato" hJmw'ndespovth"	καὶ εὐσεβέστατος ἡμῶν δεσπότης	Greek	脚注 209	拆分连排词并恢复重音。
JOme;ndh;tau'teijpw;n J Rwmaiva/ glwvtth/	Ὁ μὲν δὴ ταῦτ’ εἰπὼν Ῥωμαίᾳ γλώττῃ	Greek	脚注 210	恢复词界、省音及大写Ρ的粗气符。
uJfermhneuvonto" eJtevrou, paredivdouto;nlovgontoi'" th'" sunovdouproevdroi"	ὑφερμηνεύοντος ἑτέρου, παρεδίδου τὸν λόγον τοῖς τῆς συνόδου προέδροις	Greek	脚注 210	拆分连排词并按编码还原。
ejkklhsiva	ἐκκλησία	Greek	脚注 212	仅还原本条所含字形；与格下标编码斜线在条目外。
Tovtee[doxetoi'" ajpostovloi" kai;toi'" presbutevroi" su;no}lh/ th'/	Τότε ἔδοξε τοῖς ἀποστόλοις καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις σὺν ὅλῃ τῇ	Greek	脚注 212	拆分连排词，还原气符及下标ι。
OiJajpovstoloikai;oijpresbuvteroikai;oijajdelfoi;toi'" ... ajdelfoi'"	Οἱ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῖς ... ἀδελφοῖς	Greek	脚注 212	拆词还原，保留原引文所用异读及省略。
]Edoxetw'/ pneuvmatiaJgivw/ kai;hJmi'n	Ἔδοξε τῷ πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν	Greek	脚注 213	恢复连排词、气符与下标ι。
Qeivanejntolhvn	Θείαν ἐντολήν	Greek	脚注 214	拆词并按编码还原。
qeivanbouvlhsin	θείαν βούλησιν	Greek	脚注 214	拆词并按编码还原。
qeovqenejmpneu"qei'sa	θεόθεν ἐμπνευσθεῖσα	Greek	脚注 215	拆词，词中引号按σ还原。
ejnevrgeiatou'aJgivoupneuvmato"	ἐνέργεια τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος	Greek	脚注 215	拆词还原，保留原串主格形式。
jJOblasfhmhqei;" parjaujtou'kuvrio" jIh". Cristo;" w{risedia;th'" parouvsh" aJgiwtavth" sunovdou	Ὁ βλασφημηθεὶς παρ’ αὐτοῦ κύριος Ἰησ. Χριστὸς ὥρισε διὰ τῆς παρούσης ἁγιωτάτης συνόδου	Greek	脚注 217	清除开头多余气符，拆词还原并保留Ἰησ.缩写。
}Wsteajpo;povlew" eij" povlinmh;metabaivneinmhvteejpivskoponmhvtepresbuvteronmhvtediavkonon	Ὥστε ἀπὸ πόλεως εἰς πόλιν μὴ μεταβαίνειν μήτε ἐπίσκοπον μήτε πρεσβύτερον μήτε διάκονον	Greek	脚注 220	拆词还原，开头据连词恢复粗气符及锐音。
Novmou" pavlaiteqnhkovta"	Νόμους πάλαι τεθνηκότας	Greek	脚注 221	拆分连排词并恢复重音。
Pollh'" suzhthvsew" genomevnh"	Πολλῆς συζητήσεως γενομένης	Greek	脚注 226	按编码还原，不更改所引词形。
jEkbohvsei" dhmotikaiv	Ἐκβοήσεις δημοτικαί	Greek	脚注 229	按编码还原。
Kefavleia	Κεφάλεια	Greek	脚注 234	按原串还原，保留其拼写，不径改常见κεφάλαια。
Eij" Nivkaian	Εἰς Νίκαιαν	Greek	脚注 236	按编码还原地名及介词。
Suvntagmakanovnwn	Σύνταγμα κανόνων	Greek	脚注 243	拆分连排词并恢复重音。

例如，金口约翰 (Chrysostom)：《论祭司职》(De sacerdotio)；奥古斯丁 (Augustine)：《论基督教教义》(De doctrina Christiana)；哲罗姆 (Jerome)：若干书信；大贵格利 (Gregory the Great)：《牧职规程》(Regula pastoralis)。↩︎
Ὡς ὁ μῦθος ποιεῖ τοὺς γίγαντας^*（正如神话塑造巨人那样）。↩︎
贵格利 (Greg.)，《演说集》(Orat.) xliii，第26章（《全集》〔Opera omnia〕，本笃会版，巴黎，1842年，第i卷，第791页及下页）；其余演说及《论自己与反对主教们之诗》(Carmen de se ipse et advers. Episc.) 中也有类似段落。比较乌尔曼 (Ullmann)：《纳齐安的贵格利》(Greg. v. Naz.)，第511页及后。↩︎
《上帝之城》(De Civit. Dei)，第xx卷，第10章：“Erunt sacerdotes Dei et Christi et regnabunt cum eo mille annos (Apoc. xx. 6): non utique de solis episcopis et presbyteris dictum est, qui proprie jam vocantur in Ecclesia sacerdotes; sed sicut omnes Christianos dicimus propter mysticum chrisma, sic omnes sacerdotes, quoniam membra sunt unius sacerdotis. De quibus apostolus Petrus: Plebs, inquit, sancta regale sacerdotium (1 Pet. ii. 9).”（“他们必作上帝和基督的祭司，并与他一同作王一千年〔《启示录》xx. 6〕”：这当然不单指如今在教会中特称为祭司的主教和长老；正如我们因那奥秘的膏抹而称众人为基督徒，也同样称众人为祭司，因为他们都是那一位祭司的肢体。使徒彼得论到他们说：“圣洁的子民，有君尊的祭司”〔《彼得前书》ii. 9〕。）比较安布罗西亚斯特 (Ambrosiaster) 对《以弗所书》iv. 11的注释；哲罗姆对《提多书》i. 7的注释；以及教皇利奥一世 (Leo I)《讲道集》(Sermon.) iv. 1。↩︎
据罗马的革利免 (Clemens Romanus)《致哥林多人书》(ad Corinth.) 第44章，选立教会职员须经全会众同意，乃是使徒时期及使徒后时期的惯例；居普良 (Cyprian) 的书信，尤其是第68封，表明同一规则在第三世纪中叶仍然沿用。比较第i卷§105。↩︎
Ζήτησις, ψήφισμα, ψῆφος^*, scrutinium（审查）。↩︎
Ἄξιος^*，dignus（配得），或 ἀνάξιος^*，indignus（不配）。《使徒宪章》(Constitut. Apost.) viii. 4；第二次阿尔勒会议 (Concil. Aurelat. ii.，公元452年)，第54条；纳齐安的贵格利 (Gregor. Naz.)《演说集》(Orat.) xxi。据亚历山大的彼得 (Peter of Alexandria) 的一封信，载狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)《教会史》(Hist. Eccl.) iv. 22，东方的主教是由 ἐπισκόπων συνόδῳ, ψήφῳ κληρικῶν, αἰτήσει λαῶν^* 选立的。他本人遵照亚他那修 (Athanasius) 的意愿，“经教牧人员和城中首要人物一致同意”，被选为亚历山大大主教，继任亚他那修（公元373年；iv，第20章）。被逐之后，他指责其邪恶的继任者路基乌斯 (Lucius)，其中一项便是：“他用黄金买得主教职位，仿佛那是世俗的官爵……并没有按照教会的规章，由主教会议选立，由教牧人员投票选立，或应人民的请求而选立”（iv，第22章）。↩︎
《书信集》(Epist.) x，第4章（《著作集》，巴莱里尼版，第i卷，第637页）：“Expectarentur certe vota civium, testimonia populorum, quaereretur honoratorum arbitrium, electio clericorum ....”（当然应当等候市民表达意愿、人民提出见证，并征求显贵的判断和教牧人员的选举意见……。）同一封信第6章：Qui praefuturus est omnibus, ab omnibus eligatur.（将要治理众人的，应由众人选立。）↩︎
保利努斯 (Paulinus)，《安布罗斯传》(Vita Ambros.)；索佐门 (Sozomen)，《教会史》(H. E.) 第iv卷，第24章，及vii. 8。这位史家以上帝护理的特殊干预来为这种不合常规的做法辩解。↩︎
苏尔皮基乌斯·塞韦鲁斯 (Sulpitius Severus)，《马丁传》(Vita Mart.)，第7章：“Incredibilis multitudo non solum ex eo oppido [Tours], sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda convenerat,” 等（人数多得令人难以置信，不仅从那座城〔图尔〕，也从邻近各城聚集而来，参加投票）。↩︎
苏格拉底 (Socrates)，《教会史》(H. E.) vi. 2：Ψηφίσματι κοινῷ ὁμοῦ πάντων κλήρου τε φημὶ καὶ λαοῦ^*..↩︎
《论祭司职》(De sacerdotio)，第iii卷，第15章。在同章稍后，他甚至说，许多人因其恶劣而获选，为的是防止他们落选后作恶：Οἱ δὲ, διὰ πονηρίαν, «εἰς τὴν τοῦ κλήρου καταλέγονται τάξιν», καὶ ἵνα μὴ, παροφθέντες, μεγάλα ἐργάσωνται κακά^*。纳齐安的贵格利在其诗作 εἰς ἑαυτὸν καὶ περὶ ἐπισκόπων^*，即《论自己与众主教》(De se ipso et de episcopis)，第330行及后（《著作集》，本笃会版，巴黎，第ii卷，第796页），以及其他地方所作的见证，与此完全相同。↩︎
索佐门 (Sozomenus)，《教会史》(Hist. Eccl.) vii，第8章。索佐门认为，这次选举中有上帝的特殊干预。↩︎
索佐门 (Sozomenus)，vii，第10章。除此之外，他和苏格拉底 (Socrates)《教会史》(H. E.) v，第8章，以及狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)《教会史》(H. E.) v，第8章，都对涅克塔里乌斯 (Nectarius) 的品格评价甚高。↩︎
787年在尼西亚举行的第七次大公会议，在其第三条教规中，基于对第一次尼西亚会议第四条教规的错误解释，明令禁止人民和世俗权力以任何方式参与主教选举。第八次大公会议也规定，主教只能由主教团选立。↩︎
《哥林多前书》vii. 9。↩︎
《提摩太前书》iii. 2、12；《提多书》i. 6。↩︎
第vi卷，第17章（于尔岑〔Ueltzen〕版，第144页）：ἐπίσκοπον καὶ πρεβύτερον καὶ διάκονον^*〔因而包括主教〕εἴπομεν μονογάμους καθίστασθαι^*……μὴ ἐξεῖναι δὲ αὐτοῖς μετὰ χειροτονίαν ἀγάμοις οὖσιν ἔτι ἐπὶ γάμον ἔρχεσθαι^*，等等。《使徒教规》(Can. Apost.) 第17条（第241页）：Ὁ δυσὶ γάμοις συμπλακεὶς μετὰ τὸ βάπτισμα^*……οὐ δύναται εἶναι ἐπίσκοπος ἢ πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος ἢ ὅλως τοῦ καταλόγου τοῦ ἱερατικοῦ^*。比较第18条及第5条。↩︎
第10条教规。比较赫费勒博士 (Dr. Hefele)，《大公会议史》(Conciliengeschichte)，第i卷，第198页。↩︎
第1条教规。见阿尔杜安 (Harduin)，第v卷，第1499页；赫费勒 (Hefele)，《大公会议史》(Conciliengesch.)，第i卷，第211页及下页。这条教规甚至收入了《教会法大全》(Corpus juris can.)，dist. 28，第9章。↩︎
科尔多瓦的何西乌斯 (Hosius of Cordova)；他曾出席305年在西班牙举行的埃尔维拉会议 (Elvira)，会上提出并通过了一项类似的议案（第33条教规）。泰纳 (Theiner)、吉泽勒 (Gieseler)、罗伯逊 (Robertson) 和赫费勒 (Hefele) 都赞同上述意见。↩︎
参见苏格拉底 (Socrates)《教会史》(H. E.) i，第11章的记载，其中将禁止祭司结婚的提议称为一种新制，即 νόμος νεαρός^*；又见索佐门 (Sozomen)《教会史》(H. E.) i，第23章；格拉修 (Gelasius)《尼西亚会议史》(Hist. Conc. Nic.) ii. 32。因此，这一记述有充分凭据，而且与东方教会的古老惯例以及《使徒宪章》和《使徒教规》的规定完全一致。尼西亚会议第三条教规并不与此抵触，因为它所禁止的只是 mulieres subintroductae（私下引入同居的女子）所涉及的不道德行为（比较第i卷§95）。几位罗马天主教神学家——巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius)、贝拉明 (Bellarmine)、瓦莱修斯 (Valesius)——极力想把教牧人员独身制追溯到使徒时代；他们的怀疑显然出于教义偏见，而罗马天主教史家赫费勒 (Hefele) 已在其《大公会议史》(Conciliengeschichte) 第i卷，第417页及后，给予充分的驳斥。↩︎
比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，前引书，第i卷，第753页及后。↩︎
第5条教规（于尔岑〔Ueltzen〕版，第239页）：Ἐπίσκοπος ἢ πρεσβύτερος ἢ διάκονος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα μὴ ἐκβαλλέτω προφάσει εὐλαβείας· ἐὰν δὲ ἐκβάλῃ, ἀφοριζέσθω, ἐπιμένων δὲ καθαιρείσθω^*。比较《使徒宪章》(Const. Apost.) vi. 17。↩︎
他宣称：“上帝、法律和狄奥菲鲁斯 (Theophilus，亚历山大的主教) 那分别为圣的手，赐给了我一个妻子。我现在预先声明，并郑重申明，我决不会离弃她，也不会暗中与她同居，仿佛那是一种非法关系；因为前者完全违背宗教，后者则违背法律；我却盼望由她为我生育众多优秀的儿女”（《书信集》〔Epist.〕105，巴塞尔版〔ed. Basil.〕；吉泽勒引有希腊文原文）。关于已婚主教的事例，比较宾厄姆 (Bingham)，《基督教古制》(Christ. Antiq.)，第iv卷，第5章；J. A. 泰纳与A. 泰纳 (J. A. Theiner and A. Theiner)，《基督教教牧人员强制独身制的引入及其后果》(Die Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit der christl. Geistlichen u. ihre Folgen)（阿尔滕堡，1828年），第i卷，第263页及后；以及吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷，第2分册，§97末尾各注。某些罗马天主教作者否认尼撒的贵格利 (Gregory of Nyssa) 与狄奥塞比娅 (Theosebia) 的婚姻，但纳齐安的贵格利《书信集》(Greg. Naz. Ep.) 95，以及尼撒的贵格利《论童贞》(Greg Nyss. De virg.) 3，似乎为此提供了充分的支持。↩︎
《教会史》(Hist. Eccl.) v，第22章：Τῶν ἐν ἀνατολῇ πάντων γνώμῃ^*（即出于原则或自愿——依佛罗伦萨抄本的读法）ἀπεχομένων, καὶ τῶν ἐπισκόπων, εἰ καὶ βούλοιντο, οὐ μὴν ἀνάγκῃ νόμου τοῦτο ποιούντων. Πολλοὶ γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς καὶ παῖδας ἐκ τῆς νομίμης γαμετῆς πεποιήκασιν^*。↩︎
更确切地说，是第二次特鲁洛会议 (Trullan council)，在君士坦丁堡皇宫的特鲁洛大厅举行；又称第五六次会议 (Concilium Quinisextum)，σύνοδος πενθέκτη^*，被视为第五次和第六次大公会议的补充。关于此次会议，比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第iii卷，第298页及后。↩︎
1 第3、4条教规，尤其第12、13、48条。最后一条教规规定，主教受按立后，应将妻子送入一所稍远的修道院，但仍须供给她们的生活所需。↩︎
《致塔拉戈纳主教希梅里乌斯书》(Epist. ad Himerium Episc. Tarraconensem)，载阿尔杜安 (Harduin)，《会议文献》(Acta Conc.)，第i卷，第849–850页，第7章：“Hi vero, qui illiciti privilegii excusatione nituntur, ut sibi asserant veteri hoc lege concessum: noverint se ab omni ecclesiastico honore, quo indigne usi sunt, apostolicae sedis auctoritate dejectos .... Si quilibet episcopus, presbyter atque diaconus, quod non optamus, deinceps fuerit talis inventus, jam nunc sibi omnem per nos indulgentiae aditum intelligat obseratum: quia ferro necesse est excidantur vulnera, quae fomentorum non senserint medicinam.”（那些以不合法的特权为借口，声称古时律法准许他们如此行的人，应当知道，凭使徒教座的权柄，他们已被革除一切曾遭他们不配享用的教会尊荣……此后若发现任何主教、长老或执事仍如此行——这是我们所不愿的——他应当从现在起就明白，我们已将一切宽赦之门向他关闭；因为药敷既不能奏效的创伤，就必须用刀割除。）西里修斯 (Siricius) 的释经完全武断：他把成圣的要求（《利未记》xx. 7）仅限于祭司，并仅解释为禁绝夫妻房事；又把保罗关于随从肉体而行的话（《罗马书》viii. 8、9）解释为婚姻生活，仿佛婚姻因此就与圣洁的观念不相容。又比较格林伍德 (Greenwood)，《彼得教座》(Catheda Petri)，第i卷，第265页及下页，以及米尔曼 (Milman)，《拉丁基督教史》(Hist. of Latin Christianity)，第i卷，第119页（美国版），关于西里修斯的精辟评论。↩︎
比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第568页；吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，前引书（§97，注7）。↩︎
即所谓的姊妹 (sorores)，或同居女子 (mulieres subintroductae)，或παρθένοι συνείσακτοι^*。关于这一习俗的起源，比较第i卷，§95。↩︎
巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius) 和贝拉明 (Bellarmine) 误解了συνείσακτος^*一词，而该词的含义在早期教会的用法中原已确定；他们因而错误地在这条教规中看出一项普遍的独身律，并据此否认上述有关帕弗努提乌斯 (Paphnutius) 的记述。比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第364页。↩︎
比较赫费勒 (Hefele)《教会会议史》(Conciliengeschichte) 第ii、iii卷中这些会议及其他会议的有关教规。↩︎
第5条教规：“任何教牧人员家中均不得留有女子，惟旧教规（尼西亚会议〔Nicaen.〕第3条）所准许的除外。即使阉人也须遵守此规。”↩︎
米尔曼 (Milman) 说（《拉丁基督教史》〔Hist. of Latin Christianity〕，第i卷，第123页）：“从教皇西里修斯 (Siricius) 到宗教改革的整个时期，正如我们的历史叙述将会表明的，这条律法〔教牧人员独身律〕不断受到蔑视、触犯和规避。它从未获得任何近乎普遍的遵守，不过违犯它的情形，有时较为公开，有时较为隐蔽罢了。”↩︎
特伦托会议 (Concilium Tridentinum) 即如此规定，见第xxv次会议，改革法令（de reform.），第14章。又比较韦策与韦尔特 (Wetzer and Welte)《天主教教会百科全书》(Cath. Church Lexicon) 第10卷“同居女子”(Subintroductae) 条。↩︎
《致瓦莱里乌斯书》第21封 (Epist. 21 ad Valerium)：“Nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore facilius et laetitius et hominibus acceptabilius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, si perfunctorie atque adulatorie res agatur: sed nihil apud Deum miserius et tristius et damnabilius. Item nihil esse in hac vita et maxime hoc tempore difficilius, laboriosius, periculosius episcopi aut presbyteri aut diaconi officio, sed apud Deum nihil beatius, si eo modo militetur, quo noster imperator jubet.”（在今生，尤其在这个时代，若以敷衍和谄媚的态度行事，就没有什么比主教、长老或执事的职分更轻松、更愉快、更讨人喜欢；但在上帝面前，也没有什么比这更悲惨、更可悲、更当受定罪。同样，在今生，尤其在这个时代，没有什么比主教、长老或执事的职分更艰难、更劳苦、更危险；但若照我们统帅所吩咐的方式服役，在上帝面前就没有什么比这更有福。）此信写于他在公元391年受按立为长老后不久。见《著作集》(Opera)，本笃会版（ed. Bened.），第ii卷，第25页。↩︎
《演说集》(Orat.) xliii，第46章（《著作集》〔Opera〕，本笃会版〔ed. Bened.〕，第i卷，第791页），其拉丁译文为：“Nunc autem periculum est, ne ordo omnium sanctissimus, sit quoque omnium maxime ridiculus. Non enim virtute magis, quam maleficio et scelere, sacerdotium paratur; nec digniorum, sed potentiorum, throni sunt.”（如今的危险是，这一切职分中最神圣的职分，恐怕也成了一切职分中最可笑的。因为人取得祭司职分，与其说凭德行，不如说凭恶行和罪孽；宝座不属于更配得的人，而属于更有权势的人。）然而，在下一章，他却把自己的朋友巴西尔 (Basil) 描绘为一切美德的典范。↩︎
比较乌尔曼 (Ullmann)，《纳齐安的贵格利》(Gregor von Nazianz)，第一附录，第509–521页，其中用这位教父自己的话，详尽呈现了他对教牧职分及其时代教牧人员的看法。吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷，第ii分册，§103，也从贵格利的著作中大量摘引了有关教牧人员恶行的文字。↩︎
哲罗姆 (Hieron.)，《致尤斯托基乌姆书》(ad Eustochium)，尤其《致尼波提安书：论教牧人员与修士的生活》(ad Nepotianum, de vita clericorum et monachorum)（《著作集》〔Opera〕，瓦拉尔西版〔ed. Vall.〕，第i卷，第252页及后）。不过，他也不放过修士，在《致尼波提安书》(ad Nepot.) 中说：“Nonnulli sunt ditiores monachi quam fuerant seculares et clerici qui possident opes sub Christo paupere, quas sub locuplete et fallaci Diabolo non habuerant.”（有些修士比他们在俗时更富有；有些教牧人员在贫穷的基督之下，竟拥有他们在富有而诡诈的魔鬼之下所不曾拥有的财富。）↩︎
第xxvii卷，第3章，公元367年条。↩︎
Περὶ ἱερωσύνης^*，或《论祭司职分六卷》(De Sacerdotio libri sex)。此书屡次单独出版，也曾数次译成现代语言（例如德译有哈塞尔巴赫〔Hasselbach〕，1820年，以及里特尔〔Ritter〕，1821年；英译有霍利尔〔Hollier〕，1740年，邦斯〔Bunce〕，1759年，霍勒〔Hohler〕，1837年，马什〔Marsh〕，1844年；最佳者为B. 哈里斯·考珀〔B. Harris Cowper〕译本，伦敦，1866年）。比较洛姆勒 (Lomler)，《金口约翰重要著作希腊文及拉丁文集》(Joh. Chrysost. Opera praestantissima Gr. et Lat.)，Rudolph.，1840年，第viii、ix页所列二十三种不同的单行本及译本。↩︎
《论祭司职分》(De Sacerdotio)，第vi卷，第2–8章。↩︎
Πρὸς ἀρέσκειαν τοῦ Θεοῦ^*，第v卷，第7章。↩︎
又比较B. H. 考珀 (B. H. Cowper) 为其英译本所写导言中的评论，伦敦（Lond.），1866年，第xiii页。↩︎
并非大巴西尔 (Basil the Great，苏格拉底〔Socrates〕曾如此认为)，因为他年长许多，且于379年去世；此人很可能是（如蒙福孔〔Montfaucon〕所推测的）叙利亚安提阿附近拉法内亚 (Raphanea) 的主教，其名见于381年君士坦丁堡会议的主教名单。↩︎
即使古代最纯正的道德哲学家柏拉图 (Plato)，也为虚假辩护，并建议医生和统治者采用它，以之为达到善良目的的手段，帮助医治病人或增进人民的利益。比较《理想国》(De republ.)，第iii卷，第266页，两桥版（ed. Bipont.）：Εἰ γὰρ ὀρθῶς ἐλέγχομεν ἄρτι, καὶ τῷ ὄντι θεοῖς μὲν ἄχρηστον ψεῦδος ἀνθρώποις δὲ χρήσιμον, ὡς ἐν φαρμάκου εἴδει, δῆλον ὅτι τὸ γε τοιοῦτον ἰατροῖς δοτέον, ἰδιώταις δὲ οὐχ ἁπτέον. Δῆλον, ἔφη. Τοῖς ἄρχουσι δὴ τῆς πόλεως, εἴπερ τισὶν ἄλλοις, προσήκει ψεύδεσθαι ἢ πολεμίων ἢ πολιτῶν ἕνεκα, ἐπ’ ὠφελείᾳ τῆς πόλεως· τοῖς δὲ ἄλλοις πᾶσιν οὐχ ἁπτέον τοῦ τοιούτου.^*。犹太哲学神学家斐洛 (Philo) 在其《论上帝不变》(Quod Deus sit immutabilis)，第302页，也持有类似看法。↩︎
亚历山大的革利免 (Clemens Alex.)，《杂学集》(Strom.) vi，第802页；俄利根 (Origen)，《杂学集》(Strom.) vi（载哲罗姆〔Hieron.〕《驳鲁菲努斯辩护书》〔Apol. i. Adv. Ruf.〕，第18章），其中他引用了刚才所引的柏拉图片段，为一种牺牲真理、颇成问题的迁就作辩护。有关段落见吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷，§63，注7。↩︎
《书信集》(Epist.) 第48封（瓦拉尔西版〔ed. Vall.〕；本笃会版〔ed. Bened.〕为第30封，较早版本为第50封），《致帕马基乌斯：为驳约维尼安诸书辩护》(ad Pammachium, pro libris contra Jovinianum)；以及《加拉太书注释》(Comm. ad Gal.) ii. 11及后。金口约翰的学生约翰·卡西安 (Johannes Cassianus)，也在《会谈录》(Coll.) xvii. 8、17中为某些情形下说谎和欺骗的正当性辩护。↩︎
比较两位教父措辞颇为尖锐的通信，见瓦拉尔西版 (Vallarsi) 哲罗姆《书信集》(Hieron. Epist.) 第101–105、110、112、115、134、141封（第i卷，第625页及后），或奥古斯丁《书信集》(August. Epist) 第67、68、72–75、81、82封（奥古斯丁著作本笃会版，第ii卷，第161页及后）；奥古斯丁 (August.)：《论说谎》(De mendacio) 和《反对说谎》(Contra mendacium)；又见上文41所提默勒 (Möhler) 论这场争论的专论。这场争论对于认识教父的伦理学和释经学极有启发。↩︎
《简则问答》(Regul. brev. interrogate) 76，尼安德 (Neander) 在其金口约翰专著（第3版），第i卷，第97页中引用。尼安德在那里还从帕拉迪乌斯 (Pallad.)《劳苏斯史》(Hist. Lausiaca) 引出同时代埃及修士吕科波利斯的约翰 (John of Lycopolis) 另一项类似见证，反对说谎的正当性。↩︎
《约翰福音》viii. 44。↩︎
连世俗官员也被排除在外，其理由见于402年罗马会议，该会议在第10条教规中规定：“身任世俗官职的人，因其职务几乎必然伴随的罪，若不先行补赎，便不能成为教牧人员。”比较曼西 (Mansi)，第iii卷，第1133页，以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第75页。↩︎
比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第574、638、686、687、753、760页等处的会议法令。甚至《使徒教规》(Can. Apost.) 第27、65、72条，也针对教牧人员中殴打、谋杀、偷盗等普通罪行；因此，这些罪行当时必已出现，因为立法总是着眼于实际情形。保罗的教牧书信中，并没有这类劝诫或禁令。↩︎
哲罗姆，《提多书注释》(Hieron. Comm. ad Tit.) i. 7：“Idem est ergo presbyter qui episcopus, et antequam diaboli instinctu studia in religione fierent ... communi presbyterorum consilio ecclesiae gubernabantur,” 等（因此，长老与主教原是同一职分；在魔鬼的煽动使宗教中产生党争以前……教会由长老共同议事治理）。比较《致长老埃万格卢斯书》(Epist. ad Evangelum presbyterum)（第146封，瓦拉尔西版〔ed. Vall.〕《著作集》〔Opera〕，第i卷，第1074页及后；本笃会版〔ed. Bened.〕第101封），以及《致奥凯阿努斯书》(Epist. ad Oceanum)（瓦拉尔西版第69封，本笃会版第82封）。他在后一封信中说：“Apud veteres iidem episcopi et presbyteri fuerunt, quia illud nomen dignitatis est, hoc aetatis.”（在古人中，主教与长老原是同一批人，因为前者是尊位的名称，后者是年龄的名称。）↩︎
金口约翰 (Chrysostom)，《腓立比书讲道》(Hom. i. in Ep. ad Philipp.) 第1篇（论《腓立比书》i. 1中的σὺν ἐπισκόποις^*，这几个字意指同一会众中有若干主教，即长老）指出：τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους οὕτως ἐκάλεσε· τότε γὰρ τέως ἐκοινώνουν τοῖς ὀνόμασι.^*。持同样见解的还有狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)，《腓立比书注释》(ad Phil.) i. 1及《提摩太书注释》(ad Tim.) iii. 1；伪安布罗斯 (Ambrosiaster)，《以弗所书注释》(ad Eph.) iv. 11；以及伪托奥古斯丁的《新旧约问题集》(Questiones V. et N.T.) 的作者，第101问。关于ἐπίσκοπος^*与πρεσβύτερος^*原初相同的整个问题，比较我的《使徒教会史》(History of the Apostolic Church)，§132（英译本，第522–531页），以及理查德·罗特 (Rich. Rothe)，《基督教会的起源》(Anfänge der christlichen Kirche)，第i卷，第207–217页。↩︎
米莱维的奥普塔图斯 (Optatus of Mileve) 的确称他们为教会中人 (ecclesiasticos viros)；但这并非指教牧人员 (clerici)，相反，他将两者加以区别，而是在广义上指与异教徒和异端有别的大公教会基督徒。关于这些所谓会众长老 (seniores plebis)，或平信徒长老，比较罗特博士 (Dr. Rothe)，《基督教会及其体制的起源》(Die Anfänge der christl. Kirche u. ihrer Verfassung)，第i卷，第227页及后的讨论。↩︎
比较《罗马书》xii. 1、12，以及我的《使徒教会史》(Hist. of the Apost. Church)，§135，第535页及后。↩︎
比较伯拉纠 (Pelagius)，《罗马书注释》(ad Rom.) xvi. 1。尼安德 (Neander)（第iii卷，第314页注；托里译本〔Torrey’s transl.〕，第ii卷，第158页）从第四次迦太基会议的一条教规推断，后一种习俗也盛行于西方，因为那里要求“viduae quae ad ministerium baptizandarum mulierum eliguntur”（被选来服侍将要受洗的妇女的寡妇），“ut possint apto et sano sermone docere imperitas et rusticas mulieres”（应当能够用适宜而纯正的话语，教导无知的乡野妇女）。↩︎
比较《狄奥多西法典》(Codex Theodos.)，第xvi卷，第ii题，第27法：“Nulla nisi emensis 60 annis secundum praeceptum apostoli ad diaconissarum consortium transferatur.”（依照使徒的命令，任何女子非满60岁，不得加入女执事的行列。）↩︎
《使徒宪章》(Const. Apost.)，第viii卷，第20章。我们已全文列出这篇祷文。尼安德 (Neander)（第iii卷，第322页注）省略了若干段落。这篇祷文以及所引迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon) 的教规，已使按立女执事的习俗成为无可争辩的事实。然而，尼西亚会议 (Nice) 第19条教规把女执事列在未受祝圣（χειροθεσία^*）的平信徒之中，似乎与此抵触。因此，有人认为，女执事的按立是在尼西亚会议（Nicaenum，325年）之后才兴起的，尽管《使徒宪章》与此说相矛盾；另有人（如巴罗尼乌斯〔Baronius〕，以及近来的赫费勒〔Hefele〕，《教会会议史》〔Concilien-Gesch.〕，1855年，第i卷，第414页）则试图区分严格意义的χειροθεσία^*与简单的祝福，以消除此矛盾。但女执事的祝圣，确实伴随着全体教牧人员在场时的按手；因为《使徒宪章》(Apost. Const.)，第viii卷，第19章，明确对主教说：Ἐπιθήσεις αὐτῇ τὰς χεῖρας, παρεστῶτος τοῦ πρεσβυτερίου καὶ τῶν διακόνων καὶ τῶν διακονισσῶν^*。然而，矛盾就在那条尼西亚教规本身之中；因为（按照希腊文抄本）在紧前面的文字中，女执事被列在教牧人员之中，除非我们依从拉丁译文，在那里读作执事。尼安德则借着区分真正的女执事与被不当地如此称呼的寡妇，来解决这个困难。↩︎
这些书信见蒙福孔 (Montfaucon) 所编金口约翰著作本笃会版，第iii卷，第524—604页，以及洛姆勒 (Lomler) 所编《金口约翰重要著作选》(Joann. Chrysost. Opera praestantissima)，1840年，第168—252页。据蒙福孔所引（《著作集》〔Op.〕，第iii卷，第524页），佛提乌 (Photius) 认为，这十七封致奥林皮娅 (Olympias) 的信，在金口约翰的书信中是“longissimae, elegantissimae, omniumque utilissimae”（篇幅最长、文辞最优美，也最为有益的）。另比较蒙福孔关于奥林皮娅的序言。↩︎
所规定的只是祝福，以代替按立。441年第一次奥朗日会议 (Orange；Arausicana i.) 第26条教规规定：“Diaconae omnimodis non ordinandae [thus they had previously been ordained in Gaul also, and reckoned with the clergy]; si quae jam sunt, benedictioni, quae populo impenditur, capita submittant.”（女执事一概不得按立〔由此可见，此前在高卢，她们也曾受按立，并被列入教牧人员之中〕；若已有女执事，她们应当低头领受给予会众的祝福。）同样，517年在勃艮第 (Burgundy) 召开的埃帕翁会议 (Epaon) 第21条教规，以及533年第二次奥尔良会议 (Orleans) 第17、18条教规，也禁止按立女执事。↩︎
1836年在莱茵河畔凯泽斯韦尔特 (Kaiserswerth) 创立的女执事之家 (Hutterhaus)；1847年在柏林创立的伯大尼 (Bethany)；以及类似的福音派医院，设于德累斯顿 (Dresden)，1842年；斯特拉斯堡 (Strasburg)，1842年；巴黎，1841年（institution des deaconess des églises evangéliques de France，法国福音派各教会女执事机构）；伦敦，1840年（institution of Nursing Sisters，护理姊妹机构）；纽约（St. Luke’s Hopital，圣路加医院）；匹兹堡 (Pittsburg)，1849年；士每拿 (Smyrna)；耶路撒冷等地。↩︎
Οἰκόνομοι^*（管家）。此外，还有κειμηλιάρχαι^*、sacellarii、thesaurarii（保管圣物及财库的人员）。↩︎
迦克墩会议 (Conc. Chalced.) 第26条教规。这条教规在《教会法大全》(Corp. jur. can.) 中也出现两次：c. 21, C. xvi. q. 7，以及c. 4, Dist. lxxix。↩︎
·Ταχυγράφοι^*、notarii、excerptores（速记员、书记员、摘录员）。↩︎
Parabolani（护理员），可能源自παραβάλλειν τὴν ζωήν^*，意为冒生命危险；因为在传染病流行时，他们往往使自己置身于死亡的危险之中。↩︎
这是将慈善团体转作滋事之用，与美国大城市中消防队的情形相似。↩︎
78 Κοπιάται^*、copiattae、fossores、fossarii（掘墓人）。↩︎
参见§52所引的段落及该处列举的著作。近代罗马天主教神学家佩罗内 (Perrone) 在其《神学讲义》(Praelectiones Theologicae)，第ix卷，§93中，否认主教凭神授之权高于长老的教义是大公信仰的一项信条。但特伦托会议 (Trent) 第xxiii会期第6条教规，定罪一切否认这三级圣职为神所设立的人。↩︎
英诺森一世 (Innocent I.)，《致德肯提乌斯书》(Ep. ad Decent.)：“Ut sine chrismate et episcopi jussione neque presbyter neque diaconus jus habeant baptizandi.”（没有圣膏和主教的命令，长老与执事均无权施洗。）↩︎
比较上文第iii章，§14—16。↩︎
2 Ἱερὰ στολή^*、ὡμοφόριον^*、superhumerale、pallium（圣服、肩带），亦称ephod（以弗得；אֵפוֹד^*、ἐπωμίς^*）。以弗得（《出埃及记》xxviii. 6—11；xxxix. 2—5），连同附属于它的方形胸牌（חֹשֶׁן^*，比较《出埃及记》xxviii. 15—30；xxxix. 8—21），是犹太大祭司的主要礼服，无疑是大主教肩带的先例，但比后者更为贵重。它由两片肩衣组成（与肩带及祭披相似），分别垂在上身的前后，以三色细麻精工织成，用金环和金链系住，又以金线和十二颗宝石华丽地装饰，宝石上刻着十二支派的名字。神圣的神谕之物乌陵和土明 (Urim and Thummim；七十士译本：δήλωσις καὶ ἀλήθεια^*，《出埃及记》xxviii. 30)，是否就是胸牌上的十二颗宝石，学者们意见不一。比较维纳 (Winer)，《圣经实用词典》(Bibl. Reallex.)，以及W. 史密斯 (W. Smith)，《圣经词典》(Dictionary of the Bible)，“Urim and Thummim”条。↩︎
《演说》(Orat.) xlvii。狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)，《教会史》(Hist. eccl.) ii. 27开头也如此记述。据说马卡里乌斯 (Macarius) 在施洗时穿着这件饰金礼服。↩︎
阿米阿努斯·马尔凯利努斯 (Amm. Marcell.)，xxvii，第3章，367年条：“ut dotentur oblationibus matronarum procedantque vehiculis insidentes, circumspecte vestiti, epulas curantes profusas, adeo ut eorum convivia regales superent mensas.”（他们因贵妇的捐献而致富，出门乘车，衣着考究，讲究丰盛的宴席，以至其筵宴胜过王室的餐桌。）但随后，他以那些可敬的乡村主教的贫穷，与罗马高级教士的这种奢华作对照。↩︎
除阿米阿努斯 (Ammianus) 之外，哲罗姆也在其反对耶路撒冷的约翰 (John of Jerusalem) 的书中记述此事（《著作集》〔Opera〕，第ii卷，第415页，瓦拉尔西版〔ed. Vallars.〕）：“Miserabilis ille Praetextatus, qui designatus consul est mortuus, homo sacrilegus et idolorum cultor, solebat ludens beato papae Damaso dicere: ’Facite me Romanae urbis episcopum, et ero protinus Christianus.’ ”（那可悲的普赖特克斯塔图斯〔Praetextatus〕，在被任命为执政官后尚未就任便死去了；这个亵渎神圣、崇拜偶像的人，常戏谑地对蒙福的教宗达马苏斯〔Damasus〕说：“让我作罗马城的主教，我立刻就作基督徒。”）↩︎
《致欧斯托基乌姆论持守童贞书》(Epist. ad Eustochium de virginitate servanda)。↩︎
各管区，或称副总督区，如下：

I. 东方大行政区 (Praefectura Orientalis) 由五个管区组成：东方管区 (Oriens)，以安提阿为政治和教会首府；埃及管区 (Aegyptus)，以亚历山大为首府；亚细亚行省管区 (Asia proconsularis)，以以弗所为首府；本都管区 (Pontus)，以卡帕多西亚的凯撒利亚为首府；色雷斯管区 (Thracia)，以赫拉克利亚 (Heraklea)、后来以君士坦丁堡为首府。
1. 伊利里亚大行政区 (Praefectura Illyrica)，以帖撒罗尼迦为首府，只有马其顿 (Macedonia) 和达契亚 (Dacia) 两个管区。
2. 意大利大行政区 (Praefectura Italica) 包括：罗马管区 (Roma)，即意大利南部和地中海诸岛，或所谓近郊诸行省；意大利管区 (Italia)，或称意大利副总督区，以梅迪奥拉努姆 (Mediolanum，即米兰〔Milan〕) 为中心；西伊利里亚管区 (Illyricum occidentale)，以西尔米乌姆 (Sirmium) 为首府；西非洲管区 (Africa occidentalis)，以迦太基为首府。
3. 高卢大行政区 (Praefectura Gallica) 包括：高卢管区 (Gallia)，以特雷维里 (Treveri，即特里尔〔Trier〕) 和卢格杜努姆 (Lugdunum，即里昂〔Lyons〕) 为首府；西班牙管区 (Hispania)，以希斯帕利斯 (Hispalis，即塞维利亚〔Sevilla〕) 为首府；不列颠管区 (Britannnia)，以埃博拉库姆 (Eboracum，即约克〔York〕) 为首府。
↩︎
例如，东方管区有五个行省，埃及有九个，本都有十三个，高卢有十七个，西班牙有七个。比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，《教会地理与统计》(Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik)，第i卷，第67页及后；该处列出了所有行省，按我们此处的目的，无须一一列举。↩︎
Χωρεπίσκοποι^*（乡村主教）。有关他们的主要记载如下：公元270年《安提阿会议书信》(Epist. Synodi Antioch.)，载于优西比乌 (Euseb.)，《教会史》(H. E.) vii. 36（其中称他们为ἐπίσκοποι τῶν ὁμόρων ἀγρῶν^*）；公元315年安居拉会议 (Concil. Ancyr.) 第13条教规（禁止他们按立长老和执事）；公元341年安提阿会议 (Concil. Antioch.) 第10条教规（同样的禁令）；320至372年之间的老底嘉会议 (Conc. Laodic.) 第57条教规（禁止新设乡村主教区）；以及公元343年撒狄迦会议 (Conc. Sardic.) 第6条教规（将他们完全废除）。↩︎
第6条教规：……ἵνα μὴ κατευτελίζηται τὸ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου ὄνομα καὶ ἡ αὐθεντία^*；或按拉丁译文：“Ne vilescat nomen episcopi et auctoritas.”（免得主教的名号和权柄受到贬损。）比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第556页。这条教规前半部分的希腊文本与拉丁文本虽有差异，却不影响其中禁止任命乡村主教的规定。↩︎
Μητροπολίτης^*、metropolitanus（都主教），以及与之相关的称号ἔξαρχος^*（用于最有权势的都主教）；ἀρχιεπίσκοπος^*、archiepiscopus（大主教），以及primas（首席主教）。↩︎
最近又发现了这条教规的科普特文译本，由皮特拉 (Pitra) 刊于《索莱姆文献汇编》(Spiclegium Solesmense)，第i卷，第526页及下页。↩︎
Καὶ τῇ τιμῇ προηγεῖσθαι αὐτόν^*.↩︎
居普良 (Cyprian) 在《书信》(Epist.) 45中论到自己所属的迦太基教省说：“Latius fusa est nostra provincia; habet enim Numidiam et Mauretaniam sibi cohaerentes.”（我们的教省幅员辽阔，因为努米底亚〔Numidia〕和毛里塔尼亚〔Mauretania〕也与之相连。）↩︎
Πατριάρχης^*；patriarcha（牧首）；有时也沿用政治术语，称为ἔξαρχος^*。“牧首”一名，原用于以色列人的先祖（《希伯来书》vii. 4指亚伯拉罕；《使徒行传》vii. 8及下节指雅各的十二个儿子；ii. 29指大卫，因为他是大卫家弥赛亚王朝的创立者），在东方教会起初是一般主教的尊称（如拿先斯的格列高利〔Gregory Nazianzen〕和尼撒的格列高利〔Gregory of Nyssa〕所用），但在君士坦丁堡会议（381年）之后，尤其在迦克墩会议（451年）之后，逐渐用作正式职衔，并限于五位最显要的都主教。在西方，若干都主教，尤其是阿奎莱亚 (Aquileia) 的主教，也以此作为荣誉称号（honoris causa）。罗马主教不愿接受这一特定称谓，因为它使自己与其他牧首处于同等地位，而更喜欢papa（教宗）一名。“牧首”一称表明的是寡头式教会治理；“教宗”则表明君主式治理。↩︎
依据君士坦丁以后帝国的行政区划。比较§54。↩︎
比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第206页及后。齐格勒 (Ziegler) 声称，553年第五次大公会议将腓尼基的贝里图斯 (Berytus) 和叙利亚的鲁巴 (Ruba) 两个都主教区划入耶路撒冷牧首的辖区；维尔奇引述此说，似乎也表示赞同，但此说看来有误。会议记录中全然不见鲁巴，而贝里图斯属于第一腓尼基行省 (Phoenicia prima)，因此隶属安提阿牧首区。勒基安 (Le Quien) 对耶路撒冷 (Hierosolyma) 牧首区曾有过这样的扩张一无所知。↩︎
维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第189页及后。↩︎
同上，第i卷，第177页及后。↩︎
同上，第143页及后。↩︎
比较下文§57。↩︎
比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第232页及下页，以及第ii卷，第469页。↩︎
《非洲教会教规汇编》(Cod. can. eccl. Afr.)，第39条教规，转引自尼安德 (Neander)，第iii卷，第335页（德文版）。↩︎
因此，教宗尼古拉 (Nicolas) 在866年致保加利亚王公博戈里斯 (Bogoris) 的信中，只愿承认罗马、亚历山大和安提阿的主教为严格意义上的牧首，因为他们主持的是使徒所建的教会；而君士坦丁堡并非使徒所创立，甚至在所有会议中最受尊崇的尼西亚会议也未提及它；耶路撒冷固然为这些会议所提及，却只是以埃利亚 (Aelia) 之名出现。↩︎
在最古老的拉丁文《教规汇编》(Cod. canonum；载于曼西〔Mansi〕，第vi卷，第1186页) 中，这条教规之前有一句重要的话：Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum（罗马教会一向拥有首位权）。然而，这句话显然是伪加的，原本并非教规本身的一部分，而是一项题记，表达了罗马方面从尼西亚教规中所作的推论。比较吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，i. 2，§93，注1；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，《教会会议史》(Hist. of Councils)，第i卷，第384页及后。↩︎
格林伍德 (Greenwood) 也如此看待此事，见《彼得的座位》(Cathedra Petri)，1859年，第i卷，第181页：“这条教规的目的，显然不是赋予亚历山大教会任何新的管辖权，而只是确认它惯有的特权。作为说明，它把这项特权，无论其具体内容为何，与罗马和安提阿另外两个管区教会的特权置于同等地位。此外，教规的措辞表明，这种权利要求的根据，除惯例之外别无其他；而各管区的惯例，都限于该管区本身的地域界限之内。即使在这些界限以内，各种惯有的权利和特权可能有所不同，但在这些界限以外，任何性质的管辖权，都绝不可能凭借这条教规而存在。”↩︎
第一次君士坦丁堡会议 (Conc. Constant. i.) 第3条教规：Τὸν μέντοι Κωνσταντινουπόλεως ἐπίσκοπον ἔχειν τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς, μετὰ τὸν τῆς Ῥώμης ἐπίσκοπον, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν νέαν Ῥώμην^*。（然而，君士坦丁堡的主教应当享有仅次于罗马主教的尊荣地位，因为该城是新罗马。）苏格拉底 (Socrates)，v. 8，以及索佐门 (Sozomen)，vii. 9，也引述了这条教规；迦克墩会议又确认了它（见下文）。所以，巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius)（《编年史》〔Annal.〕，381年条，第35、36项）质疑其真实性，必定纯粹出于教义上的偏见。↩︎
诚然，上述教规并未明说后一点，似乎只谈及荣誉上的优先地位。但君士坦丁堡的主教们，以及历史学家苏格拉底 (Socrates)（v. 8）和狄奥多勒 (Theodoret)（《书信》〔Epist.〕86，致弗拉维安〔ad Flavianum〕），都如此理解这条教规；迦克墩会议也作了这样的解释（第28条教规）。不过，君士坦丁堡主教与赫拉克利亚 (Heraclea) 都主教之间的关系，长期未定；在403年处理金口约翰事件的橡树会议 (ad Quercum) 上，虽然亚历山大牧首狄奥菲卢斯 (Theophilus) 在场，主持会议的却是赫拉克利亚的保罗 (Paul)。比较勒基安 (Le Quien)，第i卷，第18页；以及维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第139页。↩︎
《教会史》(H. E.)，第v卷，第28章。↩︎
据索佐门 (Sozomen) 说，他任立了十三位主教；据亚历山大的狄奥菲卢斯 (Theophilus) 在橡树会议 (ad Quercum) 上的说法，则是十七位；而这一行为被指控为前所未闻的罪行。参见维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第141页。↩︎
苏格拉底 (Socrates)，《教会史》(H. E.)，第vii卷，第28章，其中附带提及这样一项法律。然而，赫勒斯滂 (Hellespont) 的基齐库斯 (Cyzicus) 居民却违犯了这项法律，因为他们认为这只是阿提库斯 (Atticus) 个人的特权。↩︎
在君士坦丁堡 (Constantinople) 主教行使教会管辖权的蛮族部落中，有博斯普鲁斯 (Bosphorus) 一带的匈人 (Huns)，其王戈尔达 (Gorda) 在查士丁尼 (Justinian) 时代受洗；有于527年接受基督教信仰的赫鲁利人 (Herulians)；还有黑海 (Euxine sea) 沿岸的阿巴斯吉人 (Abasgians) 和阿兰人 (Alanians)，他们约在同一时期接受了从君士坦丁堡派来的祭司。比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第144及145页。↩︎
罗马使节受到的这一纠正，极不合罗马天主教历史学家、尤其是教皇至上派历史学家的心意，以致巴莱里尼兄弟 (Ballerini) 在其所编《大利奥著作集》第iii卷，第xxxvii页及后，甚至赫费勒 (Hefele) 在《教会议史》(Conciliengesch.) 第i卷，第385页及第ii卷，第522页，都毫无证据地断言，迦克墩会议 (Chalcedon) 希腊文议事录中的有关段落，是后人插入的。赫费勒不得不承认，拉丁译本偏离了尼西亚 (Nice) 第六条教规的原文；不过，他认为，在迦克墩并未宣读希腊文本，因为就连这一文本也反对提高君士坦丁堡的地位，因而有利于罗马使节。但罗马使节，以及在抗议迦克墩第二十八条决议时的利奥 (Leo)，都把重点放在罗马方面增添的文字——Ecclesia Romana semper habuit primatum（罗马教会向来拥有首席权）——之上，并认为，任何其他牧首与罗马主教地位平等，都与此不相容。既然公认使节曾援引尼西亚教规，希腊人就必须先回应这一援引，然后才能转而诉诸君士坦丁堡会议的教规。只有两者合在一起，才构成对罗马方面抗议的充分答复。↩︎
曼西 (Mansi)，第vii卷，第446–454页；阿尔杜安 (Harduin)，第ii卷，第639–643页；赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第524、525页。↩︎
利奥 (Leo)，《书信》(Epist.) 第104、105及106封（另一编号为 Ep. 第78–80封）。比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，前引书，第ii卷，第530页及后。↩︎
《启示录》三11。↩︎
阿尔杜安 (Harduin)，第vii卷，第23页；施勒克 (Schröckh)，第xvii卷，第43页；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第544页。↩︎
比较优西比乌 (Eusebius)，《教会史》(H. E.)，第v卷，第23章；他本人就是凯撒利亚 (Caesarea) 的都主教。他列举了耶路撒冷主教的承继次序，也列举了罗马、亚历山大和安提阿的，却略去了凯撒利亚的。↩︎
Ἀκολουθία τῆς τιμῆς^*；对此有不同的解释。比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第389页及下页。↩︎
Τὰ πρεσβεῖα τῆς τιμῆς^*……διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὴν^*〔即君士坦丁堡〕νέαν Ῥώμην^*。比较§ 56。↩︎
οἰκομενικὸς πατριάρχης^*，即 universalis episcopus（普世主教）这一称号，此前东方牧首已用作谄媚之辞；后来的罗马主教也毫无顾忌地采用它，不理会贵格利一世 (Gregory I.) 的抗议。教皇贵格利一世和利奥九世 (Leo IX.) 声称，迦克墩会议曾授予罗马主教利奥 universal episcopus（普世主教）的称号，而他拒绝接受；这一说法是错误的。无论在会议的议事录中，还是在利奥的书信中，都找不到任何这样的痕迹。在议事录中，利奥被称为ὁ ἁγιώτατος καὶ μακαριώτατος ἀρχιεπίσκοπος τῆς μεγάλης καὶ πρεσβυτέρας Ῥώμης^*（伟大而古老的罗马至圣至福的大主教）；但在利奥送交高卢主教的拉丁文议事录中，这一称号被扩充为：“Sanctus et beatissimus Papa, caput universalis ecclesiae, Leo”（至圣至福的教皇、普世教会之首利奥）。迦克墩会议的教皇使节署名自称：Vicarii apostolici universalis ecclesiae papae（普世教会教皇的使徒代理人），希腊人将其译为：τῆς οἰκουμενικῆς^* ἐκκλησία^*" ἐπισκόπου^*。贵格利一世的错误很可能由此而来。教皇们希望成为 papae universalis ecclesiae（普世教会的教皇），而不是 episcopi 或 patriarchae universales（普世主教或普世牧首）；这无疑是因为，后两种称谓使他们与东方牧首处于同等地位。比较吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷第2分册，第192页注20及第228页注72；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第525页及下页。↩︎
《书信》(Epist.) 第113封，致教皇利奥一世 (Leo I.)。↩︎
使徒安得烈将福音传到古拜占庭 (Byzantium) 的说法，是后世全不可靠的传说。↩︎
一个例外，是亚流派 (Arian) 腓力斯二世 (Felix II) 短暂的教皇任期；355年，皇帝君士坦提乌斯 (Constantius) 趁利贝里乌斯 (Liberius) 被放逐之时，强行将他扶上教皇之位，有些人认为他是非法的对立教皇。不过，关于他的记载彼此矛盾极大，甚至罗马天主教历史学家的意见也是如此。利贝里乌斯也曾在357年短暂地陷入亚流主义，以求获准从流放中归来。另一个较晚的例外是教皇霍诺里乌斯 (Honorius)，就连681年在君士坦丁堡召开的第六次大公会议，也因他持基督一志论 (Monothelite) 异端而将他咒诅。↩︎
试回想居普良 (Cyprian) 著作中插入的教皇主义段落；罗马方面对尼西亚第六条教规的扩充；借尼西亚会议之名及其权威援引撒狄迦 (Sardica) 教规；以及后来臭名昭著的伪伊西多尔教令集 (pseudo-Isidorian decretals)。诚然，教皇们不是这些伪造文本的最初作者，但他们为达到自己的目的，毫无顾忌地反复利用它们。↩︎
325年尼西亚会议 (Concil. Nicaean.) 第6条教规，鲁菲努斯 (Rufinus) 的拉丁译文（《教会史》〔Hist. Eccl.〕第x卷，第6章）：“Et ut apud Alexandria et in urbe Roma vetusta consuetudo servetur, ut vel ille Ægypti, vel hic suburbicariarum ecclesiarum sollicitudinem gerat.”（亚历山大及罗马城应遵守古老惯例，前者负责照管埃及，后者负责照管城郊各教会。）suburb. eccl. 这些字在希腊原文中并不存在，是四世纪末用拉丁文对罗马牧首辖区所作的界定。自十七世纪以来，这些字在学者之间引起了长期的争论。法学家戈托弗雷杜斯 (Gothofredus) 及其友人萨尔马修斯 (Salmasius) 将 regiones suburbicariae（城郊地区）限于 Praefectus Urbis（罗马城长官）的小辖区，即罗马城及其周围直到第一百里程碑的地区；耶稣会士西尔蒙 (Sirmond) 则将其扩展到 Vicarius Urbis（罗马城代理长官）大得多的行政辖区，即以下十个行省：坎帕尼亚 (Campania)、图斯基亚及翁布里亚 (Tuscia with Umbria)、城郊皮凯努姆 (Picenum suburbicarium)、瓦莱里亚 (Valeria)、萨姆尼乌姆 (Samnium)、阿普利亚及卡拉布里亚 (Apulia with Calabria)、卢卡尼亚及布鲁蒂 (Lucania and Brutii)、西西里 (Sicilia)、撒丁 (Sardinia) 和科西嘉 (Corsica)。尼西亚会议第六条教规将罗马主教与亚历山大主教相比，这一点有利于后一种看法；因为亚历山大教区同样也横跨数个行省。然而，Prisca（一部五世纪中叶的拉丁文教规汇编）在翻译这条教规时，或许说中了实情：“Antiqui moris est ut urbis Romae episcopus habeat principatum, ut suburbicaria loca〔此处无疑指 Praefectus 的较小辖区〕et omnem provinciam suam〔即 Vicarius 的较大辖区，或范围更广而不明确的地区〕sollicitudine sua gubernet.”（按照古老惯例，罗马城主教享有首席权，负责治理城郊地区及其全部辖区。）比较曼西 (Mansi)，《会议汇编》(Coll. Conc.)，第vi卷，第1127页；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第380页及后。↩︎
按照帝国的政治区划，五世纪的罗马牧首区包括三个大行政区，下分八个行政管区和六十九个行省。它们是：（1）意大利大行政区，包括意大利、伊利里库姆 (Illyricum) 和非洲三个管区；（2）高卢大行政区 (praefectum Galliarum)，包括高卢、西班牙和不列颠三个管区；（3）伊利里库姆大行政区（不可与隶属意大利大行政区的伊利里亚〔Illyria〕行省混淆），879年以后，它虽以东伊利里库姆 (Illyricum orientale) 之名脱离了西罗马帝国，却仍在教会事务上与罗马保持联系，包括马其顿 (Macedonia) 和达契亚 (Dacia) 两个管区。比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，前引书，第i卷，第67页及后；马森 (Maassen)，第125页；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第383页。↩︎
《驳尤利安》(Contra Julianum)，第i卷，第6章。↩︎
Epistola decretales（教令书信）；据吉泽勒 (Gieseler) 等人说，这一用语最早约在500年出现于所谓的《格拉修论应接纳与不应接纳之书的教令》(decretum Gelasii de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis) 中。↩︎
关于授予披带 (pallium) 的资料，见维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第68页及下页。↩︎
赫费勒 (Hefele) 在第i卷，第383页及下页承认这一点：“然而，不可忽视的是，罗马主教并非在整个西方的每一处都行使充分的牧首权；也就是说，在若干行省，普通主教的按立无需他的参与。”而且，不仅普通主教如此，都主教也是如此。见正文。↩︎
Αὐτοκέφαλοι^*，亦称ἀκέφαλοι^*；在东方，这些称谓尤其用于塞浦路斯 (Cyprus) 和保加利亚 (Bulgaria) 的大主教，以及某些不隶属于任何牧首的都主教。↩︎
比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第234页。↩︎
比较贵格利一世 (Gregory I.)，《书信》(Epist.)，第iv卷，第49封；以及维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第236页及下页。隶属阿奎莱亚 (Aquileia) 都主教区的主教区有：维罗纳 (Verona)、特里登图姆 (Tridentum，即后来如此著名的特伦特〔Trent〕)、埃莫纳 (Aemona)、阿尔蒂努姆 (Altinum)、托尔凯卢姆 (Torcellum)、波拉 (Pola)、凯利纳 (Celina)、萨比奥纳 (Sabiona)、尤利广场 (Forum Julii)、贝卢努姆 (Bellunum)、孔科尔迪亚 (Concordia)、费尔特里亚 (Feltria)、塔尔维西乌姆 (Tarvisium) 和维肯提亚 (Vicentia)。↩︎
巴罗尼乌斯 (Baron.)，《编年史》(Ann.)，433年条；维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第69、87页。↩︎
比较吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷第2分册，第221页及后所载的有关会议议事录；关于这一上诉案件的详述，见格林伍德 (Greenwood)，《彼得的座位》(Cath. Petri)，第i卷，第299–310页，以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，《教会议史》(Concilien-Gesch.)，第ii卷，第107页及后、第120页、第123页及下页。↩︎
曼西 (Mansi)，第iii卷，第839页及下页。↩︎
《书信》(Epist.) 第87封；曼西 (Mansi)，第vi卷，第120页。↩︎
《书信》(Ep.) 第93及95封；曼西 (Mansi)，第vi卷，第131及132页。↩︎
曼西 (Mansi)，第vii卷，第972页。↩︎
贵格利 (Greg.)，《书信》(Ep.)，第i卷，第41封；曼西 (Mansi)，第ix卷，第1059页。比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第71页。↩︎
这种分歧分别体现在《大利奥著作集》的两个版本中：一是法国人帕斯基耶·凯内尔 (Pasquier Quesnel) 的版本；他是高卢主义者和詹森派信徒（1681年被放逐，1719年卒于布鲁塞尔），其版本还收入了阿尔勒的希拉里 (Hilary of Arles) 的著作及一篇为他辩护的文章（巴黎〔Par.〕，1675年，2卷），1676年禁书目录部甚至未经阅读便予以谴责；另一版本由巴莱里尼 (Ballerini) 兄弟二人为反对前一版本而出版（威尼斯〔Ven.〕，1755–1757年，3卷），代表意大利教皇至上派的立场。关于阿尔勒的希拉里 (Hilarius Arelatensis，不可与普瓦捷的希拉里〔Hilarius Pictaviensis〕、纳博讷的希拉里〔Hilarius Narbonensis〕及其他同名者混淆) 与教皇利奥的这场争论，还可比较马赛的霍诺拉图斯 (Honoratus Massiliensis) 约于490年所写的《希拉里传》(Vita Hilarii)（刊于曼西，第vi卷，第461页及后，以及《圣徒行传》〔Acta Sanct.〕5月5日条）；佩特尔 (Perthel) 载于伊尔根 (Illgen) 所编1843年《历史神学杂志》(Zeitschrift for Hist. Theol.) 的文章；格林伍德 (Greenwood)，前引书，第i卷，第350–356页；米尔曼 (Milman)，《拉丁基督教》(Lat. Christianity)，第i卷，第269–276页（美国版）；以及韦策尔 (Wetzer) 与韦尔特 (Welte)《教会辞典》(Kirchenlexic) 第v卷，第181页及后的“希拉里”条。↩︎
“Nisi magnitudo causae etiam nostrum exquirat examen.”（除非案件的重大性要求也由我们加以审查。）吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷第2分册，第218页；格林伍德 (Greenwood)，第i卷，第299页。↩︎
比较公元422年博尼法斯一世 (Boniface I.) 致纳博讷的希拉里（并非阿尔勒的希拉里）的《书信》第12封 (Bonifacii I Epist. 12 ad Hilarium Narbon.)，载于吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第219页。博尼法斯在这里赞同尼西亚的原则，即每位都主教应只治理一个行省。格林伍德 (Greenwood) 忽略了这一变化，因而根据佐西穆斯 (Zosimus) 的任命，认为希拉里完全有理。但即使这一任命仍然有效，罢免一位主教仍属 causa major（重大案件），希拉里作为教皇的代理人，本应将此事呈交教皇批准。↩︎
利奥 (Leo)，《书信》(Epist.) 第10封（另一编号为第89封），致维埃纳行省诸主教 (ad Episc. provinciae Viennensis)。这对真正基督徒的立场是何等可怕的歪曲！↩︎
教皇维吉利乌斯 (Vigil，539–555年)、伯拉纠 (Pelagius，555–559年) 和大贵格利 (Gregory the Great)，除了授予阿尔勒 (Arles) 大主教披带之外，也授予他教皇代理职权 (vices)。比较维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第71页及下页。↩︎
无论如何，无法确证双方曾经和解。希拉里 (Hilary) 的门徒兼传记作者，在他死后约四十年为他罩上圣者的光环；据此人的记述，希拉里的确曾采取若干和解举措，派遣两位祭司为代表，携信前往罗马长官奥克西利亚里斯 (Auxiliaris) 那里。后者努力居间调停，却也让代表们明白，希拉里以其激烈无畏的言辞，太深地刺伤了罗马人娇嫩的耳朵。在利奥的信中，希拉里又受到一项新的指控，说他在凯利多尼乌斯 (Celidonius) 被罢免以后，侵犯了主教普罗耶克图斯 (Projectus) 的权利。希拉里在这场争论后不久便去世了（449年）。沃特兰 (Waterland) 曾将《亚他那修信经》归于他名下，却没有充分根据。↩︎
比较吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，第i卷第2分册，第215页及后；以及维尔奇 (Wiltsch)，第i卷，第72页及后、第431页及后。↩︎
papa 这一名称——有人认为是 pater patrum（众父之父）的缩写，但更可能像同源的 abbas、πάππας^* 或 πάπας^*、pa-pa 一样，只是模仿婴儿最初的牙牙学语，因此相当于“父亲”——在西方很长时期内，是每一位主教作为属灵之父的尊称；但在第五世纪以后，它成了牧首特有的尊号，再后来则专属于罗马主教，而且赋予他特别崇高的意义，视之为全教会之父。比较杜康热 (Du Cange)，《词汇集》(Glossar.)，Papa 和 Pater Patrum 条；以及霍夫曼 (Hoffmann)，《通用辞典》(Lexic. univers.)，第iv卷，第561页。意大利语和西班牙语的 papa、法语的 pape、英语的 pope，以及德语的 Papst 或 Pabst，也都用于这一专属的意义。相反，在希腊和俄罗斯教会中，所有祭司都称为 Popes（源于 πάπας^*、papa）。apostolicus（使徒的）、vicarius Christi（基督的代理）、summus pontifex（最高祭司）、sedes apostolica（使徒座）这些称号，在相当长时期内曾授予不同的主教及其主教座，但后来却被罗马主教宣称为自己所专有。↩︎
《马太福音》十六18：Σὺ εἶ Πέτρος, καὶ ἐπὶ ταύτῃ τῇ πέτρᾳ^*［注意这里从阳性变为阴性，从人转到事物，或转到所承认的真理；这一变化在英语和德语译本中消失了］οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ πύλαι ᾅδου οὐ κατισχύσουσιν αὐτῆς^*。比较各家注释，尤其迈耶 (Meyer)、兰格 (Lange)、奥尔福德 (Alford)、华兹华斯 (Wordsworth) 对此处的注释（ad loc.），以及我的《使徒教会史》(Hist. of the Apost. Church)，§ 90、94（纽约版，第350页及后、第374页及后）。↩︎
比较第i卷，§ 110。↩︎
巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius)，《编年史》(Annal.)，1080年条，第xi卷，第704页。↩︎
哲罗姆 (Hieronymus)，《驳约维尼安》(Adv. Jovin.)，第ii卷，第38章（《著作集》〔Opera〕，第ii卷，第382页），他在那里向罗马说：“Ad te loquar, quae scriptam in fronte blasphemiam Christi confessione delesti.”（我要对你说话，你因承认基督，抹去了写在额上的亵渎之名。）普罗斯珀 (Prosper)：“Eterna cum dicitur quae temporalis est, utique nomen est blasphemiae.”（将有暂时之限的称为永恒，无疑是亵渎的称号。）比较皮珀 (Piper)，前引书，第46页。↩︎
金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 对《帖撒罗尼迦后书》二7的解释亦如此；哲罗姆 (Hieronymus)，《书信》(Ep.) 第cxxi封，第11问（第i卷，第880页及下页）；奥古斯丁 (Augustine)，《上帝之城》(De Civit. Dei)，第xx卷，第19章。↩︎
《论多纳徒派的分裂》(De schismate Donatistarum)，第ii卷，第2、3章，以及第vii卷，第3章。此书写于西里基乌斯 (Siricius) 任罗马主教期间，因此约在384年。↩︎
安布罗斯 (Ambr.)，《彼得与保罗节讲道》第二篇（Sermo ii. in festo Petri et Pauli）：“In urbe Romae, quae principatum et caput obtinet nationum: scilicet ut ubi caput superstitionis erat, illic caput quiesceret sanctitatis, et ubi gentilium principes habitabant, illic ecclesiarum principes morerentur.”（在罗马城，就是那在万国中居首为头的城：使从前为迷信之首的地方，如今成为圣洁之首安息的地方；外邦人首领从前居住的地方，如今成为众教会首领殉世的地方。）《诗篇》第40篇注（In Ps. 40）：“Ipse est Petrus cui dixit: Tu es Petrus ... ubi ergo Patrus, ibi ecclesia; ubi ecclesia, ibi mulla mors, sed vita eterna.”（他就是那位彼得，主曾对他说：你是彼得……所以，彼得在哪里，教会就在哪里；教会在哪里，那里就没有死亡，只有永生。）比较下文引自奥古斯丁的文字中，他那首《晨祷颂》的诗句。但在另一处，他也将磐石解释为基督，见《路加福音》九20注：“Petra est Christus”（磐石就是基督），等等。↩︎
《论主的道成肉身》(De incarnat. Domini)，第4章：“Primatum confessionis utique, non honoris, primatum fidei, non ordinis.”（当然是认信上的首位，而非尊荣上的首位；是信仰上的首位，而非品级上的首位。）↩︎
《论圣灵》(De Spiritu S.)，第ii卷，第12章：“Nec Paulus inferior Petro, quamvis ille ecclesiae fundamentum.”（保罗也不低于彼得，尽管后者是教会的根基。）《彼得与保罗节讲道》第二篇（Sermo ii. in festo P. et P.），紧接上引段落之前说：“Ergo beati Petrus et Paulus eminent inter universos apostolos, et peculiari quadam praerogativa praecellunt. Verum inter ipsos, quis cui praeponatur, incertum est. Puto enim illos aequales esse meritis, qui aequales sunt passione.”（所以，有福的彼得和保罗在众使徒中卓然出众，享有某种特殊的优越地位。但他们两人究竟谁应居先，却不能确定。因为我认为，他们既同样受难，功绩也应相等。）奥古斯丁也曾称保罗，而非彼得，为 caput et princeps apostolorum（使徒之首和领袖），又在另一处说他 tanti apostolatus meruit principatum（配得如此伟大的使徒职分之首位）。↩︎
哲罗姆 (Hieron.)，《阿摩司书注》(in Amos)，六12：“Petra Christus est qui donavit apostolis suis, ut ipsi quoque petrae vocentur.”（磐石就是基督，他赐给自己的使徒，使他们也得称为磐石。）又在另一处说：“Ecclesia Catholica super Petram Christum stabili radici fundata est.”（大公教会牢牢扎根，建立在磐石基督之上。）↩︎
《驳约维尼安》(Adv. Jovin.)，第i卷，第26章（瓦拉尔西〔Vallars.〕版，第ii卷，第279页），答复约维尼安 (Jovinian) 援引彼得以支持婚姻的论证：“At dicis: super Petrum fundatur ecclesia; licet id ipsum in alio loco super omnes apostolos fiat, et cuncti claves regni coelorum accipiant, et ex aequo super eos fortitudo ecclesiae solidetur, tamen propterea inter duodecim unus eligitur, ut capite constituto, schismatis tollatur occasio.”（但你说：教会建立在彼得之上；虽然别处也同样说建立在全体使徒之上，而且他们全都领受天国的钥匙，教会的力量也同样坚立在他们之上，然而从十二人中选出一人，正是为了设立首领，消除分裂的机会。）《致教皇达马苏书》（Epist. xv. ad Damasum papam，瓦拉尔西版，第i卷，第37页）亦如此。↩︎
比较《致埃万格鲁斯书》（Epist. 146，瓦拉尔西版，第i卷，第1076页；或本笃会版〔Bened.〕第101封，另一编号为85；ad Evangelum）：“Ubicunque fuerit episcopus, sive Romae, sive Eugubii, sive Constantinopoli, sive Rhegii, sive Alexandriae, sive Tanis［有意将最强大和最不起眼的主教区并列］, ejusdem est meriti, ejusdem est et sacerdotii. Potentia divitiarum et paupertatis humilitas vel sublimiorem vel inferiorem episcopum non facit. Caeterum omnes apostolorum successores sunt.”（主教无论在哪里，无论在罗马、尤古比乌姆、君士坦丁堡、雷吉乌姆、亚历山大，还是塔尼斯，其地位相同，祭司职分也相同。财富带来的权势与贫穷造成的卑微，并不能使一位主教更高或更低。何况他们全都是使徒的继承人。）↩︎
比较上文 § 52。J. 克雷吉·罗伯逊 (J. Craigie Robertson)，《截至590年的基督教会史》(Hist. of the Christian Church to 590，伦敦，1854年)，第286页注，在圣哲罗姆《书信》第125封中，发现了一项反对教皇权主张的显著反面证据：“信中以走兽、蜜蜂和鹤的本能习性，以以扫和雅各、罗慕路斯和雷穆斯的争斗，以及一国只有一个皇帝、一省只有一个法官、一家只有一个主人、一船只有一个舵手、一军只有一个统帅、一教会只有一个主教、一个总长老和一个总执事，来要求修士服从一位首领；但却没有提到那位普世唯一的主教。”↩︎
《致教皇达马苏书》第xv封（另一编号为57；Ep. xv. ad Damasum papam；瓦拉尔西版，第i卷，第37页及下页）：“Facessat invidia: Romani culminis recedat ambitio, cum successore piscatoris et discipulo crucis loquor. Ego nullum primum, nisi Christum sequens, Beatitudini tuae, id est cathedrae Petri, communione consocior. Super illam petram aedificatam ecclesiam scio. Quicunque extra hanc domum agnum comederit, profanus est. Si quis in Noe arca non fuerit, peribit regnante diluvio.”（让嫉妒退去，让对罗马至高地位的野心离开；我是在与那渔夫的继承人、十字架的门徒说话。我不以任何人为首，只跟从基督；我与你这位至福者，也就是与彼得的座位，联结于团契之中。我知道教会建立在那磐石之上。凡在这家以外吃羔羊的，便是不圣洁的。凡不在挪亚方舟里的，当洪水横行时，必然灭亡。）↩︎
哲罗姆 (Hier.)，《加拉太书注》(Com. in Ep. ad Galat.)，二11、12（瓦拉尔西版，第vii卷，第409栏）：“Non quod aliud significat Petrus, aliud Cephas, sed quo quam nos Latine et Graece petram vocemus, hanc Hebraei et Syri, propter linguae inter se viciniam, Cephan, nuncupent.”（并不是 Petrus 和 Cephas 各有不同含义，而是我们在拉丁语和希腊语中称为 petram 的磐石，希伯来人和叙利亚人因彼此语言相近，称之为 Cephan。）↩︎
《订正录》(Retract.)，第i卷，第21章。↩︎
见安布罗斯的《晨祷颂》：“Aeterne rerum conditor.”（万有永恒的创造者。）↩︎
《约翰福音讲论》(Tract. in Evang. Joannis)，第124篇，§ 5。吉泽勒博士 (Dr. Gieseler) 等人曾引录原文，见其著作第i卷第2分册，第210页（第4版），但有几处无关紧要的省略。↩︎
尤其是路德宗教会的卡洛夫 (Calov)，以及不久前英国国教的华兹华斯博士 (Dr. Wordsworth)（《马太福音》十六18注）。但奥尔福德博士 (Dr. Alford) 与大多数现代注释家一起，坚决反对这种解释。↩︎
在《论信仰的益处》(De utilit. credendi)，§ 35中，他追述教会的发展，“ab apostolica sede per successiones apostolorum”（从使徒座，经由使徒的继承而来）；在《书信》第43封中，他又顺带说到“Romana ecclesia in qua semper apostolicae cathedrae viguit principatus”（罗马教会，使徒座的首位权始终在其中兴盛）。格林伍德 (Greenwood)，第i卷，第296页及下页，如此解释奥古斯丁这表面的矛盾：“他（圣奥古斯丁）与他所处的时代一样，也深受有形的代表性合一观念所支配，并认为这种合一与属灵教会本身一样，都是上帝所命定、所设立的。因此，属灵的合一可以建立在彼得的信仰之上，而外在有形的一体性则内在于他这个人；这样，教会虽从彼得所承认的信仰获得其内在而属灵的性质，却通过坐在彼得座位上的‘主教的继承’，从彼得领受外在的或行政的权力。诚然，在实际运作上，这两种理论几乎没有什么差别。”另比较罗特博士 (Dr. Rothe) 在《基督教会的起源》(Die Anfänge der christlichen Kirche)，第i卷，第679–711页，对奥古斯丁关于大公教会及其属性的理论所作的透彻阐述。↩︎
《杂题讲道》(De diversis Serm.)，第108篇：Has enim claves non homo unus, sed unitas accepit ecclesiae. Hinc ergo Petri excellentia praedicatur, quia ipsius universitatis et unitatis figuram gessit quando ei dictum est: tibi trado, quod omnibus traditum est, 等等。（因为领受这些钥匙的，不是一个人，而是教会的合一。因此，彼得的卓越受到宣扬，是因为当那赐给众人的被说成“我交给你”时，他代表了教会的整体与合一。）↩︎
贝拉明 (Bellarmine) 在《论教皇》序言（Praef. in Libr. de Pontif.）中，甚至称这一条为 rem summam fidei Christiana（基督教信仰中最重大的事）！↩︎
彼得与保罗节《讲道》第v篇（Hom. v.）。他说，一个受托掌管知识的钥匙，另一个受托掌管权柄的钥匙。“Eminent inter universos apostlos et peculiari quadam praerogativa praecellunt. Verum inter ipsos quis cui praeponatur, incertum est.”（他们在众使徒中卓然出众，享有某种特殊的优越地位。但他们两人究竟谁应居先，却不能确定。）同一句话见于安布罗斯 (Ambrose)，《论圣灵》(De Spir. S.)，第ii卷，第12章。↩︎
《论殉道者圣伊格纳提乌斯》(In S. Ignat. Martyr.)，第4节。↩︎
《使徒行传开篇讲道》第二篇（Hom. ii. in Principium Actorum），第6节，第iii卷，第70页（蒙福孔〔Montfaucon〕版）。最后一句（ἀλλὰ προσεχωρήσαμεν τῇ βασιλίδι Ῥώμῃ^*）被有些人视为后人为支持教皇权而插入的文字。但它并不包含对任何优越地位的承认。金口约翰 (Chrysostom) 紧接着说：“我们固然没有留下彼得的身体，却留下了彼得的信仰；只要我们保有他的信仰，就拥有他本人。”↩︎
《书信》(Epist.) 第86封。↩︎
《书信》(Epist.) 第113封。比较本宁顿 (Bennington) 与柯克 (Kirk)，前引书，第91–93页。在致以弗所三位教皇使节之一雷纳图斯 (Renatus) 的第116封信中，他恳求对方在利奥 (Leo) 面前代为说情，将治理普世众教会的权力（τῶν κατὰ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐκκλησιῶν τὴν ἡγεμονίαν^*）归于罗马主教座，但这无疑是在东方所理解的荣誉性监督的意义上说的。↩︎
Ἀρχιεπίσκοπον πάσης τῆς οἰκουμένης^*［即罗马帝国，按照众所周知的 usus loquendi（语言惯用法），甚至《新约》也如此；比较《路加福音》二1］，πατέρα τε καὶ πατριάρχην Κελεστῖνον τὸν τῆς μεγαλοπόλεως Ῥώμης^*。《颂圣马利亚上帝之母》(Encom. in S. Mar. Deip.)，第v卷，第384页。比较其《致策肋斯廷书》第ix封（Ep. ix. ad Coelest.）。↩︎
新近发现的亚他那修 (Athanasius)《节期书信》表明，这才是正确的年代。这些书信由库里顿 (Cureton) 以叙利亚文刊行（伦敦，1848年），威廉斯 (Williams) 出版了英译本（牛津，1854年），拉尔索 (Larsow) 出版了德译本（莱比锡，1852年）。曼西 (Mansi) 将此次会议定于344年，但大多数学者，包括吉泽勒 (Gieseler)、尼安德 (Neander)、米尔曼 (Milman) 和格林伍德 (Greenwood)，都沿袭苏格拉底 (Socrates，ii. 20) 和索佐门 (Sozomen，iii. 12) 的错误记述，将它定于347年。关于此事，比较拉尔索，《亚他那修的节期书信》(Die Festbriefe des Athanasius)，第31页；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，《教会会议史》(Conciliengesch.)，第i卷，第513页及后。↩︎
第3、4、5条教规（拉丁译本为第3、4、7条），见曼西 (Mansi)，第iii卷，第23页及下页；以及赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第539页及后，后者载有希腊文本和狄奥尼修斯拉丁文本，并附有博学的解释。希腊文本与拉丁文本在若干地方有所不同。↩︎
不仅新教历史家如此解释这些备受讨论的 canones（教规），高卢派 (Gallican) 的天主教学者，如彼得·德·马尔卡 (Peter de Marca)、凯内尔 (Quesnel)、杜潘 (Du-Pin)、里歇 (Richer)、费布罗尼乌斯 (Febronius)，也持同样的解释。这一解释最符合整个上下文；符合对尤利乌斯 (Julius) 的明确提及（虽然普里斯卡〔Prisca〕拉丁译本和伊西多尔〔Isidore〕的文本中没有这一名字，但希腊文本和狄奥尼修斯文本中却清楚写着：Ἰουλίῳ τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ Ῥώμης^*，Julio Romano episcopo，即罗马主教尤利乌斯）；符合“Si vobis placet”（若诸位赞同，第3条教规）这一措辞，它使所说的上诉首先以此次会议的决议为依据；最后，也符合“Sancti Petri apostoli memoriam honoremus”（让我们尊崇使徒圣彼得的纪念）这一措辞，它将罗马主教的复审权表述为荣誉上的事情。赫费勒 (Hefele) 针对这些论据提出的反驳（第i卷，第548页及下页），在我看来很不充分。↩︎
巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius)、纳塔利斯·亚历山大 (Natalis Alexander) 和曼西 (Mansi) 的确曾力图确立此次会议的大公会议性质，但这与天主教古今最有分量的权威相抵触。比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第i卷，第596页及后。↩︎
还应注意，无论是会议书信，还是本时期和随后时期提及此次会议的正统教会作家，如苏格拉底 (Socrates)、索佐门 (Sozomen)、狄奥多雷 (Theodoret) 和巴西尔 (Basil)，都没有提到那些关于罗马的法令。↩︎
比较 § 56。↩︎
《致迦太基会议书》(Ep. ad Conc. Cartha.) 和《致米莱韦会议书》(Ep. ad Concil. Milev.)，均写于416年。针对这项不利于伯拉纠 (Pelagius) 的裁决，奥古斯丁说出了罗马天主教神学家屡次引用的那句话：“Causa finita est; utinam aliquando finiatur error.”（案件已经了结；但愿谬误也终有止息之日。）然而，当英诺森 (Innocent) 的继任者佐西穆斯 (Zosimus) 支持伯拉纠时，奥古斯丁和非洲教会却勇敢地反对他，并行使居普良所主张的抗议权。“情势变了，处置也就不同。”↩︎
奎斯内尔 (Quesnel) 及其大多数后继者，都是根据普罗斯珀 (Prosper) 的《编年史》(Chronicle)，以及利奥 (Leo)《书信》(Ep.) 31，第4章的一段话作此推断的；利奥在那里解释自己不参加449年以弗所会议的原因，其中之一是他不能“deserere patriam et sedem apostolicam”（离弃祖国和使徒座）。不过，Patria 也完全可以指意大利，或至少指包括十个近郊行省在内的罗马教区。《教宗名录》(Liber pontificalis) 称他为“natione Tuscus”（籍贯为托斯卡纳人），但有两份抄本写作“natione Romanus”（籍贯为罗马人）。卡尼修斯 (Canisius) 在《圣徒行传》(Acta Sanctorum) 中采用前一种说法。巴特勒 (Butler) 则假定他出身于托斯卡纳的一个贵族家庭，但生于罗马，借此调和这一矛盾。↩︎
《致伊利里库姆各地都主教书》(Ep. v. ad Episcopos Metrop. per Illyricum constitutos)，第2章（巴莱里尼版，i. 617；载米涅《教父文库》[Patristic Libr.]，第liv卷，第515页）：“Quia per omnes ecclesias cura nostra distenditur, exigente hoc a nobis Domino, qui apostolicae dignitatis beatissimo apostolo Petro primatum fidei suae remuneratione commisit, universalem ecclesiam in fundamenti ipsius [奎斯内尔 (Quesnel) 提议以 istius 代替 ipsius] soliditate constituens, necessitatem sollicitudinis quam habemus, cum his qui nobis collegii caritate juncti sunt, sociamus.”（因为我们的关怀遍及所有教会，这是主要求我们的；他为奖赏至福使徒彼得的信心，将使徒尊位的首席地位托付给他，把普世教会建立在这根基的坚固之上。因此，我们将自己所承担的照管责任，与那些以同僚之爱同我们联结的人共同分担。）↩︎
利奥 (Leo) 在圣彼得节以及自己就任周年纪念日的讲道中，在致非洲、伊利里库姆和高卢南部诸主教、亚历山大的狄奥斯库鲁斯 (Dioscurus)、君士坦丁堡牧首安纳托利乌斯 (Anatolius)、皇帝马尔基安 (Marcian) 和皇后普尔喀丽娅 (Pulcheria) 的正式书信中，都反复表达这些看法。无须逐一列举证明的段落。尤其可比较《书信》(Ep.) x.、xi.、xii.、xiv.、civ.–cvi.（巴莱里尼版），以及佩特尔 (Perthel)，前引书，第226–241页，那里全文引录了主要段落。↩︎
“Cujus dignitas etiam in indigno haerede non deficit”（他的尊荣，即使在不配的继承人身上也不减损），《就任周年讲道》(Sermo iii. in Natal, ordin.)，第4章（巴莱里尼版，第i卷，第13页）。“Etsi necessarium est trepidare de merito, religiosum est tamen gaudere de dono: quoniam qui mihi oneris est auctor, ipse est administrationis adjutor.”（尽管因自己的功德不足而战兢是必要的，因所赐的恩惠而欢喜却也是虔敬的；因为那将重担加给我的，也亲自帮助我履行职务。）《讲道》(Serm.) ii.，第1章。↩︎
《彼得前书》5:3。↩︎
《加拉太书》2:11。↩︎
《书信》(Ep.) x.，第2章（巴莱里尼版，i.，第634页；米涅版，第54卷，第630页），就希拉里 (Hilary) 一事致高卢诸主教：“Cui (sc. Petro) quisquis principatum aestimat denegandum, illius quidem nullo modo potest minuere dignitatem; sed inflatus spiritu superbiae suae semetipsum in inferna demergit.”（无论谁认为应当否认他〔即彼得〕的首席地位，都丝毫不能减损他的尊荣；却是被自己的骄傲之气充胀，将自己沉入地狱。）比较《书信》clxiv. 3；clvii. 3。↩︎
比较上文 § 59。↩︎
详情见上文 § 36 近结尾处。↩︎
比较佩特贝尔 (Pertbel)，前引书，第90页及后、第104页及后。↩︎
利奥 (Leo) 本人对出使阿提拉 (Attila) 一事只字未提。普罗斯珀 (Prosper) 在《编年史》(Chron.) 452年条下作了简略记载；卡尼修斯 (Canisius) 则在《利奥传》(Vita Leonis，载《圣徒行传》[Acta Sanctorum]，四月部分，第ii卷，第18页）中记述此事，并附有后世的夸饰。↩︎
比较利奥 (Leo) 的第84篇《讲道》(Sermon)，这是汪达尔人 (Vandals) 离去后不久所讲的；又见普罗斯珀 (Prosper)，《编年史》(Chron.)，455年条。↩︎
罗马历将他的纪念日列在4月11日。但不同作者将他的卒日分别定为6月28日、10月30日（奎斯内尔 [Quesnel]）、11月4日（帕吉 [Pagi]）和11月10日（巴特勒 [Butler]）。巴特勒引述了脱离耶稣会的鲍尔 (Bower) 所作的让步；鲍尔在《教皇列传》(Lives of the Popes) 中论利奥说：“他无疑才具非凡，远远胜过此前治理该教会的所有人，此后的教皇也几乎无人能与他比肩。”↩︎
《周年纪念讲道》(Sermones de natali)。卡尼修斯 (Canisius)（《圣徒行传》[Acta Sanct.]，前引处，第17页）称利奥为 Christianum Demosthenem（基督教的德摩斯梯尼）。↩︎
《论万民蒙召》(De vocatione omnium gentium)——这部著作甚至得到伊拉斯谟 (Erasmus)、路德 (Luther)、布林格 (Bullinger) 和格劳秀斯 (Grotius) 的高度赞扬。奎斯内尔 (Quesnel) 所证明的，仅仅是利奥有可能为其作者。比较佩特尔 (Perthel)，前引书，第127页及后。《利奥圣礼书》(Sacramentarium Leonis)，即供全年各节日使用的礼仪祷文集，收录了他的一些祷文，但也有许多出自较晚的年代。↩︎
这是西马库斯 (Symmachus) 任内的第五次（另一说为第四次）会议，于502年11月举行，因而晚于棕榈会议 (synodus palmaris)。比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，ii.，第625页及下页。↩︎
但丁 (Dante) 将他置于地狱，巴罗尼乌斯 (Baronius) 则将他的猝死归因于上帝显明的审判。↩︎
比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，ii.，第615页及后。↩︎
此名取自会议在罗马举行的建筑物，正如阿纳斯塔修斯 (Anastasius) 所说：“A porticu beati Petri Apostoli, quae appellatur ad Palmaria”（取自至福使徒彼得的柱廊，称为 ad Palmaria）。在会议史中，此次会议被误列为 Synodus III（第三次会议）。许多历史学家，包括吉泽勒 (Gieseler)，将其定于503年。↩︎
《为第四次罗马会议辩护书》(Libellus apologeticus pro Synodo IV. Romana)，载曼西 (Mansi)，viii. 274。这篇辩护书于503年由西马库斯 (Symmachus) 任内的第六次罗马会议郑重通过，并被赋予与会议法令同等的效力。↩︎
甚至查士丁尼 (Justinian) 也曾在正式文书中反复给予君士坦丁堡牧首以 οἰκομενικὸς πατριάρχης^*、universalis patriarcha（普世牧首）的称号。↩︎
这位最伟大、最优秀的教皇之一，似乎作出了反对教皇制度的见证；自加尔文以来，新教论辩家常常援引这一见证。贝拉明 (Bellarmine) 则假定 episcopus universalis（普世主教）一词有两种截然不同的含义，借此将其化解。他在其重要论辩著作《基督教信仰争议论》等 (De controversiis christianae fidei, etc.) 的《论罗马教宗》(de Romano pontifice) 第ii卷、第31章中说：“Respondeo, duobus modis posse intelligi nomen universalis episcopi. Uno modo, ut ille, qui dicitur universalis, intelligatur esse solus episcopus omnium urbium Christianarum, ita ut caeteri non sint episcopi, sed vicarii tantum illius, qui dicitur episcopus universalis, et hoc modo nomen hoc est vere profanum, sacrilegum et antichristianum.... Altero modo dici potest episcopus universalis, qui habet curam totius ecclesiae, sed generalem, ita ut non excludat particulares episcopos. Et hoc modo nomen hoc posse tribui Romano pontifici ex mente Gregorii probatur.”（我的回答是：普世主教这个名称可以作两种理解。第一种理解是，那位被称为普世主教的，乃是所有基督教城市唯一的主教，其他人都不是主教，而只是这位所谓普世主教的代理人；如此理解，这个名称确实是亵渎的、渎圣的、敌基督的……另一种理解则是，普世主教负有照管整个教会之责，但这种照管是总体性的，并不排除各地的主教。可以证明，按照贵格利的意思，这个名称可以在后一种意义上给予罗马教宗。）↩︎
σύνοδος οἰκουμενική^*（concilium universale, s. generale，普世会议，或称全体会议）这个名称，最早出现于381年君士坦丁堡会议的第六条教规。οἰκουμένη^*（省略了 γῆ^*）本义是整个有人居住的大地；继而在较狭窄的意义上，指希腊人居住的地域，以别于蛮族诸国；最后，在罗马人那里，则指 orbis Romanus（罗马世界），其政治疆界与古代希腊—拉丁教会的范围相合。但由于帝国境外蛮族中的主教也获准参加，大公会议便代表了整个大公基督教世界。↩︎
《使徒行传》第15章及《加拉太书》第2章。比较拙著《使徒教会史》(History of the Apostolic Church)，§§ 67–69（英译本，第245–257页）。曼西 (Mansi)，前引书，第i卷，第22页（《论使徒的四次会议》[De quadruplici Synodo Apostolorum]），以及其他罗马天主教作家，都谈到四次使徒会议：《使徒行传》1:13及后，为选立一位使徒；第6章，为选立执事；第15章，为解决摩西律法是否具有约束权威的问题；第21章，目的与此相似。但我们应当区分私下的会谈商议与公开的教会会议。↩︎
通常认为教会会议只有四五种不同类型。但赫费勒 (Hefele) 列出八种（i.，第3、4页）：除上述各类之外，他又将非定期的 σύνοδοι ἐνδημοῦσαι^*、两个或更多行省的主教会议，以及最后由一个行省的世俗和教会显贵组成的 concilia mixta（混合会议），分别列为独立的类别。↩︎
类似的规定更早已见于《使徒教规》第37条，只是所定时间不同；那里说（于尔岑 [Ueltzen] 版，第244页）：Δεύτερον τοῦ ἔτους σύνοδος γενέσθω τῶν ἐπισκόπων^*。↩︎
842年，皇后狄奥多拉 (Theodora) 下令庆祝这个主日，希腊人称之为 κυριακὴ τῆς ὀρθοδοξίας^*。在这一天的公共崇拜中，古代各次会议都以戏剧形式重现。↩︎
仅分裂派多纳徒派 (Donatists)，就在308年于迦太基 (Carthage) 召开过一次有二百七十名主教参加的会议（比较维尔奇 [Wiltsch]，《教会地理与统计》[Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik]，i.，第53、54页）；而第二次大公会议只有一百五十人，第三次有一百六十人（一百九十八人），第五次有一百六十四人。↩︎
施勒克 (Schröckh) 说（第viii卷，第201页），这种普遍共识属于“空洞的幻想”；这话并不公允。当然，这里的一致同意必须限于正统的基督教世界。↩︎
连罗马天主教教会史家赫费勒 (Hefele) 也承认这一点（i.，第7页），与贝拉明 (Bellarmine) 及其他罗马天主教神学家的看法相反。他说：“最初八次全体会议，都是由皇帝决定举行并召集的；此后各次会议则相反〔即所有罗马天主教的全体会议〕，都是由教皇召集的；然而，即便在最初那些会议中，也可见教皇在召集方面的某种参与，只是在个别情形中显著程度不同。”后一断言过于笼统，在最初两次会议以及第五次会议的历史中，都绝对无法得到证实。↩︎
至于尼西亚会议 (Nicaea)：根据优西比乌 (Eusebius) 及所有古代权威的记载，它完全是由君士坦丁 (Constantine) 独自召集的；直到三个世纪以后，在680年的会议上，才有人声称教皇西尔维斯特 (Sylvester) 曾参与召集。至于381年的君士坦丁堡会议：罗马方面认为教皇达马苏斯 (Damasus) 与狄奥多西 (Theodosius) 共同召集该会议，这种理论乃是将此次会议与382年另一次不重要的会议混淆的结果。比较瓦莱修斯 (Valesius) 对狄奥多雷 (Theodoret)《教会史》(Hist. Ecel.) v. 9的注释；又见赫费勒 (Hefele)（他在这里亲自纠正了自己先前的看法），第i卷，第8页，以及第ii卷，第36页。↩︎
优西比乌 (Euseb.)，《君士坦丁传》(Vita Const.) iii. 15：Χριστοῦ βασιλείας ἔδοξεν ἄν τις φαντασιοῦσθαι εἰκόνα, ὄναρ τ’ εἶναι ἀλλ’ οὐχ ὕπαρ τὸ γινόμενον^*。↩︎
曼西 (Mansi)，vii. 170及后。那里对皇帝的称呼不只是“神圣的”——这本已够得上偶像崇拜——而是“至为神圣的”，ὁ θειότατος^*：καὶ εὐσεβέστατος ἡμῶν δεσπότης^*，divinissimus et piissimus noster imperator ad sanctam synodum dixit, etc.（我们至为神圣、至为虔敬的皇帝对神圣会议说，等等）。这些谄媚的称号，在此次会议的记录中反复出现。↩︎
优西比乌 (Eusebius)，《君士坦丁传》(Vita Const.) iii. 13：Ὁ μὲν δὴ ταῦτ’ εἰπὼν Ῥωμαίᾳ γλώττῃ^*〔当时仍是官方语言〕，ὑφερμηνεύοντος ἑτέρου, παρεδίδου τὸν λόγον τοῖς τῆς συνόδου προέδροις^*。然而，根据优西比乌紧接着的话，皇帝仍热切关注会议进程，倾听、发言，并劝勉众人和睦。优西比乌对这次会议的全部记述，都十分简略，不能令人满意。↩︎
即会议致利奥 (Leo) 的一封信（《书信》[Ep.] 89，载巴莱里尼版《利奥书信集》，第i卷，第1099页），以及马尔基安 (Marcian) 致利奥的一封信（《书信》110，第i卷，第1182页及下页）。↩︎
《使徒行传》15:22：Τότε ἔδοξε τοῖς ἀποστόλοις καὶ τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις σὺν ὅλῃ τῇ^* ἐκκλησία^*/；以及第23节：Οἱ ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ τοῖς ... ἀδελφοῖς^*，等等。比较拙著《使徒教会史》(Hist. of the Apostolic Church)，§ 69及 § 128。↩︎
Ἔδοξε τῷ πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν^*，《使徒行传》15:28。各行省会议也早已使用过这种措辞；例如252年的迦太基会议 (Concil. Carthaginiense)（载《居普良著作集》[Opera Cypriani]）：“Placuit nobis, Sancto Spiritu suggerente, et Domino per visiones multas et manifestas admonente.”（圣灵启示我们，主又藉许多清楚的异象劝诫我们，因此我们议决。）314年的阿尔勒会议也说：“Placuit ergo, presente Spiritu Sancto et angelis ejus.”（因此，在圣灵及其众天使临在之下，我们议决。）↩︎
Θείαν ἐντολήν^*，以及 θείαν βούλησιν^*，见优西比乌 (Euseb.)，《君士坦丁传》(Vita Const.) iii. 20。比较他的《致亚历山大教会书》(Ep. ad Eccl. Alexandr.)，载苏格拉底 (Socrates)《教会史》(H. E.) i. 9，其中也用了类似的说法。↩︎
佩卢西乌姆的伊西多尔 (Isidore of Pelusium) 也称尼西亚会议是受上帝默示的，θεόθεν ἐμπνευσθεῖσα^*（《书信》[Ep.]，第iv卷，第99封）。大巴西尔 (Basil the Great) 亦然，见《书信》114（本笃会版《全集》[Opera omnia]，第iii卷，第207页）；他在那里说，尼西亚的318位教父发言时，并非没有 ἐνέργεια τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος^*（non sine Spiritus Sancti afflatu，即并非没有圣灵的感动）。↩︎
《会议记录》(Act.) i.，载曼西 (Mansi)，vi.，第672页。我们引自拉丁译文：“Nullo autem modo patimur a quibusdam concuti definitam fidem, sive fidei symbolum, a sanctis patribus nostris qui apud Nicaeam convenerunt illis temporibus: nec permittimus aut nobis, aut aliis, mutare aliquod verbum ex his quae ibidem continentur, aut unam syllabam praeterire, memores dicentis: Ne transferas terminos aeternos, quos posuerunt patres tui (Prov. xxii. 8; Matt. x. 20). Non enim erant ipsi loquentes, sed ipse Spiritus Dei et Patris qui procedit ex ipso.”（我们绝不容许任何人动摇从前在尼西亚聚集的圣教父们所制定的信仰，或信经；也不容许我们自己或别人更改其中任何一个词，或略去任何一个音节，因为我们记得这句话：不可挪移你列祖所立永远的地界〔《箴言》22:8；《马太福音》10:20〕。因为说话的不是他们自己，而是从父而出的神与父的灵亲自说话。）↩︎
Ὁ βλασφημηθεὶς παρ’ αὐτοῦ κύριος Ἰησ. Χριστὸς ὥρισε διὰ τῆς παρούσης ἁγιωτάτης συνόδου^*。（被他亵渎的主耶稣基督，已借本次至圣会议作出裁决。）↩︎
第i卷，第25封书信（致君士坦丁堡主教约翰及其他牧首，ad Joannem episcopum Constant., et caeteros patriarchas；见米涅版格列高利《全集》[Gr. Opera]，第iii卷，第478页，或本笃会版第iii卷，第515页）：“Praeterea, quia corde creditur ad justitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem, sicut sancti evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia suscipere et venerari me fateor. Nicaenum scilicet in quo perversum Arii dogma destruitur; Constantinopolitanum quoque, in quo Eunomii et Macedonii error convincitur; Ephesinum etiam primum, in quo Nestorii impietas judicatur; Chalcedonense vero, in quo Eutychetii [Eutychis] Dioscorique pravitas reprobatur, tota devotione complector, integerrima approbatione custodio: quia in his velut in quadrato lapide, sanctae fidei structura consurgit, et cujuslibet vitae atque actionis existat, quisquis eorum soliditatem non tenet, etiam si lapis esse cernitur, tamen extra aedificium jacet. Quintum quoque concilium pariter veneror, in quo et epistola, quae Ibae dicitur, erroris plena, reprobatur,” 等等。（此外，因为人心里相信就可以称义，口里承认就可以得救，所以我承认，我接受并尊崇四次会议，正如接受并尊崇神圣福音的四卷书一样。尼西亚会议摧毁了阿里乌〔Arius〕的谬妄教义；君士坦丁堡会议驳斥了欧诺米乌〔Eunomius〕和马其顿纽〔Macedonius〕的错误；第一次以弗所会议审判了聂斯托利〔Nestorius〕的不敬虔；迦克墩会议则谴责了欧提奇〔Eutyches〕和狄奥斯库鲁〔Dioscorus〕的邪谬。我以全部虔诚拥护这些会议，以毫无保留的赞同持守它们；因为神圣信仰的大厦建立在这些会议之上，如同建在方石之上。无论一个人的生活与行为如何，凡不持守它们之坚实根基的，即使看来是一块石头，也仍躺在大厦之外。我也同样尊崇第五次会议；那次会议谴责了那封据称为伊巴斯〔Ibas〕所写、充满错误的书信。）↩︎
查士丁尼 (Justinian)，《新律》(Novell.) cxxxi：“Quatuor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas scripturas accipimus, et regulas sicut leges observamus.”（我们接受四次会议的教义，如同接受圣经；遵守其规条，如同遵守法律。）↩︎
尼西亚会议 (Conc. Nic.)，第15条教规：Ὥστε ἀπὸ πόλεως εἰς πόλιν μὴ μεταβαίνειν μήτε ἐπίσκοπον μήτε πρεσβύτερον μήτε διάκονον^*。（因此，主教、长老或执事都不得从一城迁往另一城。）这项禁令源于把教牧人员与其会众的关系视为奥秘婚姻的理论，旨在约束教牧人员的野心。它也见于《使徒教规》(Can. Apost.) 第13、14条，却屡遭违反。尼西亚会议本身就有几位主教，如尼科米底亚的优西比乌 (Eusebius of Nicomedia) 和安提阿的欧斯塔修 (Eustathius of Antioch)，已经离开最初的主教区，转任另一更优越的主教区。↩︎
Νόμους πάλαι τεθνηκότας^*（早已死去的律法），《自述生平诗》(Carm. de vita sua)，第1810行。↩︎
第106封（另一编号为80）《致安纳托利乌书》(ad Anatolium)，以及第105封《致普尔喀丽娅书》(ad Pulcheriam)。比较上文§ 57。甚至格列高利一世 (Gregory I.) 迟至600年，在论及381年君士坦丁堡会议的教规 (canones) 时仍写道：“Romana autem ecclesia eosdem canones vel gesta Synodi illius hactenus non habet, nec accepit; in hoc autem eam accepit, quod est per eam contra Macedonium definitum.”（罗马教会至今既未持有，也未接受该会议的这些教规或议事记录；它所接受的，只是该会议针对马其顿纽所作的裁定。）第vii卷，第34封，《致亚历山大主教欧洛吉乌书》(ad Eulogium episcopum Alexandr.)（本笃会版第iii卷，第882页；米涅版第iii卷，第893页）。↩︎
《论洗礼，驳多纳徒派》(De Baptismo contra Donatistas)，第ii卷，3（本笃会版奥古斯丁《全集》[August. Opera]，第ix卷，第98页）：“Quis autem nesciat, sanctam Scripturam canonicam, tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, certis suis terminis contineri, eamque omnibus posterioribus Episcoporum literis ita praeponi, ut de illa omnino dubitari et disceptari non possit, utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit, quidquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit; Episcoporum autem literas quae post confirmatum canonem vel scripta sunt vel scribuntur, et per sermonem forte sapientiorem cujuslibet in ea re peritioris, et per aliorum Episcoporum graviorem auctoritatem doctioremque prudentiam, et per concilia licere reprehendi, si quid in eis forte a veritate deviatum est; et ipsa concilia, quae per singulas regiones vel provincias fiunt, plenariorum conciliorum auctoritate, quae fiunt ex universo orbe Christiano, sine ullis ambagibus cedere; ipsaque plenaria saepe priora posterioribus emendari, quum aliquo experimento rerum aperitur quod clausum erat et cognoscitur quod latebat; sine ullo typho sacrilegae superbiae, sine ulla inflata cervice arrogantiae, sine ulla contentione lividae invidiae, cum sancta humilitate, cum pace catholica, cum caritate christiana.”（谁不知道，新旧约正典圣经自有其确定的界限，其地位高于此后一切主教的著述，以致凡确知记载于其中的事，是否真实、是否正确，全然不容怀疑或争辩；至于正典确立以后已经写成或正在撰写的主教著述，倘有任何偏离真理之处，则可由在该事上更为精通者或许更明智的言论，或其他主教更有分量的权威与更博学的判断，或由会议加以指正；在各地区或各行省召开的会议本身，也必须毫不含糊地服从由整个基督教世界召集的全体会议的权威；而且，随着实际经验使先前封闭的事得以开启、隐藏的事得以认识，较早的全体会议本身也常由后来的会议加以修正。这一切都不可带着亵渎的骄傲之气，不可傲然昂首，不可怀着恶毒嫉妒而争竞，却当存圣洁的谦卑、大公的和平和基督徒的爱。）比较《驳阿里乌派马克西米努》(Contra Maximinum Arianum)，ii，第14章，§ 3（本笃会版第viii卷，第704页）；在那里，他主张，甚至尼西亚会议关于同质 (homousion) 的决议，也应以圣经这一更高标准来衡量。↩︎
《驳摩尼书信》(Contra Epistolam Manichaei)，第i卷，第5章（本笃会版第viii卷，第154页）：“Ego vero evangelio non crederem, nisi me ecclesiae catholicae commoveret auctoritas.”（若不是大公教会的权威感动我，我就不会相信福音。）↩︎
《备忘录》(Commonitorium)，第23章（米涅《教父全集》[Curs. Patrol.]，第50卷，第667页）：“Sed forsitan dicit aliquis: Nullusne ergo in ecclesia Christi profectus habebitur religionis? Habeatur plane et maximus .... Sed ita tamen ut vere profectus sit ille fidei, non permutatio. Si quidem ad profectum pertinet ut in semetipsum unaquaeque res amplificetur; ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur. Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quam omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius ecclesiae, aetatum ac seculorum gradibus, intelligentia, scientia, sapientia, sed in suo dutaxat genere, in eodem scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia.”（但或许有人会说：那么，基督的教会在宗教上难道就不会有任何进步吗？当然应当有，而且应当极大……然而，这必须真正是信仰的进步，而不是改变。因为进步意味着每一事物在其自身之内增长；改变却意味着一物由此变成彼。因此，无论个人还是全体，无论一个人还是整个教会，其理解、知识、智慧，都应随着年龄与世纪的推移而增长，大大地、蓬勃地进步；但只能在其自身的类别之内，也就是持守同一教义、同一意义、同一见解。）↩︎
《使徒行传》15:6：Πολλῆς συζητήσεως γενομένης^*；路德 (Luther) 将其译为“他们争吵了许久之后”，语气实在过重。从廷代尔 (Tyndale) 到钦定本的各英文译本都译作“许多辩论”。↩︎
《教会史》(Hist. Eccl.)，第v卷，第7章。↩︎
《致普罗科皮乌书》(Ep. ad Procop.)，旧编第55封（另一编号为130）。类似的描述也见于第76、84封书信；《自述生平诗》(Carm. de vita sua)，第1680–1688行；《诗作》(Carm.) x，第92行；《驳主教诗》(Carm. Adv. Episc.)，第154行。比较乌尔曼 (Ullmann)，《拿先斯的格列高利》(Gregor. von Naz.)，第246页及后，又第270页。值得注意的是，吉本 (Gibbon) 在其第二十章末尾对大公会议作概括性评断时，竟未利用这些段落来支持自己的论断。他在那里说：“岁月的推移与迷信的发展，抹去了那些使教会会议蒙羞的软弱、激情与无知的记忆；而整个大公教会世界已一致顺服大公会议那些无误的谕令。”↩︎
Ἐκβοήσεις δημοτικαί^*（民众的呼喊）。见阿尔杜安 (Harduin)，第ii卷，第71页及后；曼西 (Mansi)，第vi卷，第590页及下页。又比较赫费勒 (Hefele)，第ii卷，第406页及下页。↩︎
这是通常采用的估计，所依据的是亚他那修 (Athanasius)、巴西尔 (Basil)（第114封书信；本笃会版《全集》[Opera]，第iii卷，第207页）、苏格拉底 (Socrates)、索佐门 (Sozomen) 和狄奥多勒 (Theodoret) 的权威；因此，该会议有时被称为“三百一十八人大会”。其他资料将人数减为三百、二百七十、二百五十或二百一十八；后来的传统却将其夸大到二千或更多。↩︎
埃及和叙利亚的教会曾有一段时期，每年以节日纪念尼西亚会议。↩︎
安提阿的约翰 (John of Antioch) 随后抵达时，在同一城中为支持聂斯托利，在皇帝专使坎迪迪安 (Candidian) 的保护下，另行召开了一次对立会议，共有四十三名成员，并将区利罗 (Cyril) 革除教籍，正如区利罗已将聂斯托利革除教籍一样。↩︎
会议本身在致利奥 (Leo) 的信中说，人数仅为五百二十；利奥却说约有六百名成员（第102封书信）；通常的看法（蒂耶蒙〔Tillemont〕，《回忆录》[Memoires]，第xv卷，第641页）则将包括代表在内的成员总数提高到六百三十。↩︎
三章，Tria capitula，Κεφάλεια^*。↩︎
一位已故教皇被大公会议定为异端，这与教皇无误的主张如此不相容，以致罗马天主教史家竭尽全力，或否认这一事实，或以诡辩削弱其效力。↩︎
Εἰς Νίκαιαν^*（往尼西亚）。严格说来，Nice 和 Nicene 都是误称，但吉本和其他伟大英国作家的使用，使它们成为公认的用法。↩︎
Trullum 是君士坦丁堡皇宫内一座带圆顶的大厅。↩︎
拉丁人称它为第四次会议，因为他们拒绝承认692年的第四次君士坦丁堡会议（第二次特鲁洛〔Trullan〕会议）及754年的第五次会议：前者因其教规而被拒绝，后者则因谴责敬拜圣像而被拒绝；敬拜圣像后来在787年的第二次尼西亚会议上获得认可。↩︎
关于截至特伦托会议 (Council of Trent) 为止的大公会议数目，罗马教会的神学家们自己也意见不一。高卢派 (Gallicans) 计算为二十一次，贝拉明 (Bellarmine) 为十八次，赫费勒则只算十六次。除前述八次希腊—拉丁会议外，没有争议的还有以下八次拉丁会议：第一次拉特兰（罗马）会议，公元1123年；第二次拉特兰会议，公元1139年；第三次拉特兰会议，公元1179年；第四次拉特兰会议，公元1215年；第一次里昂会议，公元1245年；第二次里昂会议，公元1274年；佛罗伦萨会议，公元1439年；（1512–1517年的第五次拉特兰会议尚有争议；）以及特伦托会议，公元1545–1563年。十五世纪初比萨 (Pisa)、康斯坦茨 (Constance) 和巴塞尔 (Basle) 三次改革会议，以及公元1512–1517年的第五次拉特兰会议，其大公性质在罗马教会神学家中仍有争议；按照教皇至上派 (ultramontane) 或高卢派的原则，对此有不同看法。赫费勒认为这些会议具有部分的大公性质；也就是说，仅限于其得到教皇批准的部分。［但在其《会议史》(Conciliengeschichte) 修订版（1873年及后）中，他将1870年的梵蒂冈会议包括在内，共计二十次大公会议。见附录，第1032页。］↩︎
他获得埃克西古斯 (Exiguus) 这一别称，究竟是由于身材矮小，还是由于修士式的谦卑，尚不能确定。↩︎
此书见于上述《文库》(Bibliotheca) 第i卷，以及一切优良的会议文献汇编。他在序言中说，自己因 confusione priscae translationis（旧译本，即 Prisca 或 Itala 的混乱）而 offensus（感到不满），故着手重译希腊文教规。↩︎
“Canones, qui dicuntur apostolorum, ... quibus plurimi consensum non praebuere facilem;”（所谓使徒的教规……许多人并未轻易表示赞同；）这暗示狄奥尼修 (Dionysius) 本人也同其他许多人一样，怀疑它们是否出自使徒。在狄奥尼修后来编纂、如今仅存序言的一部教规集中，他完全删去了使徒教规，并说：“Quos non admisit universitas, ego quoque in hoc opere praetermisi.”（普世教会未予接受的，我在本书中也予以略去。）关于伪托使徒的《教规》与《宪章》，比较第i卷，§ 113（第440–442页），以及罗马天主教神学家德赖 (Drey) 那部著名的考证著作。↩︎
Σύνταγμα κανόνων^*，Concordia canonum（《教规汇编》），载于朱斯泰卢斯 (Justellus) 的《文库》(Bibliotheca)，第ii卷。↩︎

第五章 教会的教阶制度与治理体制

目录