human constitution, which are called the inferior orders: for the office of an acolouthite, of an exorcist, of an ostiary, are no way dependent on the office of a deacon; and, therefore, a man may be deacon that never was in any of those; and perhaps a presbyter too that never was a deacon, as it was in the first example of the presbyterate in the seventy-two disciples. But a bishop, though he have a distinct character, yet it is not disparate from that of a presbyter, but supposes it ex vi ordinis.' For since the power of ordination (if any thing be) is the distinct capacity of a bishop, this power supposes a power of consecrating the eucharist to be in the bishop; for how else can he ordain a presbyter with a power, that himself hath not? Can he give what himself hath not received? I end this point with the saying of Epiphanius: "Vox est Aerii hæretici, Unus est ordo episcoporum et presbyterorum, una dignitas":""To say that bishops are not a distinct order from presbyters, was a heresy first broached by Aerius," and hath lately been (at least in the manner of speaking) countenanced by many of the church of Rome. SECTION XXXII. For Bishops had a Power distinct and superior to that of Presbyters. As of Ordination. FOR to clear the distinction of order, it is evident in antiquity, that bishops had a power of imposing hands, for collating of orders, which presbyters have not. What was done in this affair in the times of the apostles, I have already explicated but now the inquiry is, what the church did in pursuance of the practice and tradition apostolical. The first and second canons of apostles command, that two or three bishops should ordain a bishop, and one bishop should ordain a priest and a deacon. A presbyter is not authorized to ordain; a bishop is. St. Dionysius affirms, "Sacerdotem non posse initiari, nisi per invocationes episcopales," and Hæres. 75. acknowledges no ordainer but a bishop. No more did the church ever; insomuch that when Novatus, the father of the old Puritans, did' ambire episcopatum,' he was fain to go to the utmost parts of Italy, and seduce or entreat some bishops to impose hands on him, as Cornelius witnesses in his epistle to Fabianus, in Eusebius. To this we may add, as so many witnesses, all those ordinations made by the bishops of Rome, mentioned in the pontifical book of Damasus Platina, and others. "Habitis de more sacris ordinibus Decembris mense, presbyteros decem, diaconos duos, &c. creat S. Clemens: Anacletus presbyteros quinque, diaconos tres, episcopos diversis in locis sex numero creavit ;" and so in descent, for all the bishops of that succession, for many ages together. But let us see how this power of ordination went in the bishop's hand alone, by law and constitution; for particular examples are infinite. In the council of Ancyra it is determined, χωρεπισκόπους μὴ ἐξεῖναι πρεσβυτέρους ἢ διακόνους χειροτονεῖν· ἀλλὰ μηδὲ πρεσβυτέρους πόλεως, χωρὶς τοῦ ἐπιτραπῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐπισκόπου μετὰ γραμμάτων ἐν ἑτέρᾳ παροικία. "That rural bishops shall not ordain presbyters or deacons in another's diocese, without letters of license from the bishop. Neither shall the priests of the city attempt it." First, not rural bishops, that is, bishops that are taken ́ in adjutorium episcopi principalis,'' vicars to the bishop of the diocese,' they must not ordain priests and deacons. For it is iréga naponía, "it is another's diocese," ἑτέρα παροικία, and to be anλorgioɛníσnomos is prohibited by the canon of Scripture. But then they may with license? Yes; for they had episcopal ordination at first, but not episcopal jurisdiction, and so were not to invade the territories of their neighbour. The tenth canon of the council of Antioch clears this part. The words are these, as they are rendered by Dionysius Exiguus: "Qui in villis, et vicis constituti sunt chorepiscopi, tametsi manûs impositionem ab episcopis susceperunt, [et ut episcopi sunt consecrati] tamen oportet eos modum proprium retinere,” &c. εἰ καὶ χειροθεσίαν εἶεν ἐπισκόπων εἰληφότες, the next clause, " et ut episcopi consecrati sunt," although it be in very ancient Latin copies, yet is not found in the Greek, but is an assumentum' for exposition of the Greek, 2 Eccles. Hier. c. 5. b Lib. vi. c. 23. • Can. 13. but is most certainly implied in it; for else, what description could this be of chorepiscopi,' above presbyteri rurales,' to say that they were χειροθεσίαν ἐπισκόπων εἰληφότες, for so had country priests, they had received imposition of the bishop's hands. Either then the chorepiscopi had received ordination from three bishops, and iTionóлav is to be taken collectively, not distributively, to wit, that each country-bishop had received ordination from bishops; many bishops in conjunction, and so they were very bishops; or else they had no more than village-priests, and then this caution had been impertinent. But the city-priests were also included in this prohibition. True it is, but it is in a parenthesis, with an annà undè, in the midst of the canon; and there was some particular reason for the involving them; not that they ever did actually ordain any; but that since it was prohibited to the chorepiscopi to ordain, (to them I say, who though, for want of jurisdiction, they might not ordain without license, it being 'in alienâ parochiâ,' yet they had capacity by their order to do it,) if these should do it, the city-presbyters,-who were often despatched into the villages upon the same employment, by a temporary mission, that the chorepiscopi were, by an ordinary and fixed residence,―might, perhaps, think that their commission might extend farther than it did; or that they might go beyond it, as well as the chorepiscopi; and therefore their way was obstructed by this clause of annà unde πρεσβυτέρους πόλεως. Add to this; the presbyters of the city were of great honour and peculiar privilege, as appears in the thirteenth canon of the council of Neo-Cæsarea, and, therefore, might easily exceed, if the canon had not been their bridle. The sum of the canon is this. With the bishop's license the chorepiscopi might ordain; for themselves had episcopal ordination: but without license they might not; for they had but delegate and subordinate jurisdiction: and, therefore, in the fourteenth canon of Neo-Cæsarea, are said to be sis Túπov Twv Èßdoμńnovτa, 'like the seventy disciples,' that is, inferior to bishops, as the seventy were to the twelve apostles; viz.‘in hoc particulari,' not in order, but like them in subordination and inferiority of jurisdiction: but the city-presbyters might not ordain, neither with nor without license; for they are in the canon only by way of parenthesis and the sequence of procuring a faculty from the bishops to collate orders, is to be referred to 'chorepiscopi,'not to 'presbyteri civitatis,' unless we should strain this canon into a sense contrary to the practice of the catholic church. Res enim ordinis non possunt delegari,' is a most certain rule in divinity, and admitted by men of all sides and most different interests. However, we see here that they were prohibited; and we never find, before this time, that any of them actually did give orders, neither by ordinary power, nor extraordinary dispensation; and the constant tradition of the church, and practice apostolical, is, that they never could give orders; therefore this exposition of the canon is liable to no exception, but is clear for the illegality of a presbyter giving holy orders either to a presbyter or a deacon,-and is concluding for the necessity of concurrence, both of episcopal order and jurisdiction for ordinations; for reddendo singula singulis,' and expounding this canon according to the sense of the church and exigence of catholic custom, the chorepiscopi are excluded from giving orders, for want of jurisdiction,-and the priests of the city, for want of order; the first may be supplied by a delegate power' in literis episcopalibus;' the second cannot, but by a new ordination, that is, by making the priest a bishop. For if a priest of the city have not so much power as a chorepiscopus, as I have proved he hath not, by showing that the chorepiscopus then had episcopal ordination, and yet the chorepiscopus might not collate orders without a faculty from the bishop,-the city-priests might not do it, unless more be added to them; for their want was more. They not only want jurisdiction, but something besides, and that must needs be order.' But although these chorepiscopi, at the first, had episcopal ordination, yet it was quickly taken from them, for their encroachment upon the bishop's diocese; and as they were but' vicarii,' or 'visitatores episcoporum in villis,' so their ordination was but to a mere presbyterate. And this we find, as soon as ever we hear that they had had episcopal ordination. For those who, in the beginning of the tenth canon of Antioch, we find had been consecrated as bishops, in the end of the same canon we find it decreed' de novo :' χωρεπίσκοπον δὲ γενέσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ τῆς πόλεως, ᾗ ὑπόκειται, ἐπισκόπου. "The chorepiscopus, or country-bishop, must be ordained by the bishop of the city, in whose jurisdiction he is;" which was clearly ordination to the order of a presbyter, and no more. And ever after this, all the ordinations they made, were only to the inferior ministries, with the bishop's license too; but they never ordained any to be deacons or priests; for these were orders of the Holy Ghost's appointing, and, therefore, were 'gratia Spiritûs Sancti,' and issues of order; but the inferior ministries, as of a reader, an ostiary, &c. were human constitutions, and required not the capacity of episcopal order to collate them: for they were not graces of the Holy Ghost,' as all orders properly so called are, but might, by human dispensation, be bestowed, as well as by human ordinance they had their first constitution. The chorepiscopi lasted in this consistence, till they were quite taken away by the council of Hispalis: save only that such men also were called chorepiscopi, who had been bishops of cities, but had fallen from their honour, by communicating in Gentile sacrifices, and by being traditors; but in case they repented and were reconciled, they had not indeed restitution to their see; but because they had the indelible character of a bishop, they were allowed the name, and honour, and sometime the execution of offices chorepiscopal. Now of this sort of chorepiscopi no objection can be pretended, if they had made ordinations; and of the other, nothing pertinent, for they also had the ordination and order of bishops. The former was the case of Meletius, in the Nicene council, as is to be seen in the epistle of the fathers to the church of Alexandriad. But however, all this while, the power of ordination is so fast held in the bishop's hand, that it was communicated to none, though of the greatest privilege. I find the like care taken in the council of Sardise for when Museus and Eutychianus had ordained some clerks, themselves not being bishops,-Gaudentius (one of the moderate men, it is likely,) for quietness' sake, and to comply with the times, would fain have had those clerks received into clerical communion; but the council would by no means admit that any should be received into the clergy, ἀλλ ̓ ἐκείνους Tripart. Hist. lib. ii. c. 12. ex Theodoret. • Can. 19. |