History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325
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Montanism, on the other hand, was a democratic reaction against the episcopal hierarchy in favor of the general priesthood, and the liberty of teaching and prophesying, but it was excommunicated and died out, till it reappeared under a different form in Quakerism.
Though the bishops were equal in their dignity and powers as successors of the apostles, they gradually fell into different ranks, according to the ecclesiastical and political importance of their several districts. 1. On the lowest level stood the bishops of the country churches, the chorepiscopi who, though not mentioned before the beginning of the fourth century, probably originated at an earlier period. 215
14 They stood between the presbyters and the city bishops, and met the wants of episcopal supervision in the villages of large dioceses in Asia Minor and Syria, also in Gaul. 2. Among the city bishops the metropolitans rose above the rest, that is, the bishops of the capital cities of the provinces. 216
15 They presided in the provincial synods, and, as primi inter pares, ordained the bishops of the province. The metropolitan system appears, from the Council of Nicaea in 325, to have been already in operation at the time of Constantine and Eusebius, and was afterwards more fully carried out in the East. In North Africa the oldest bishop, hence called senex, stood as primas, at the head of his province; but the bishop of Carthage enjoyed the highest consideration, and could summon general councils. 3. Still older and more important is the distinction of apostolic mother-churches, 217 16
as those at Jerusalem, Antioch) Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. In the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian they were held in the highest regard, as the chief bearers of the pure church tradition. Among these Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome were most prominent, because they were the capitals respectively of the three divisions (eparchiae) of the Roman empire, and centres of trade and intercourse, combining with their apostolic origin the greatest political weight. To the bishop of Antioch fell all Syria as his metropolitan district; to the bishop of Alexandria, all Egypt; to the bishop of Rome, central and lower Italy, without definite boundaries. 4. Here we have the germs of the eparchal or patriarchal system, to which the Greek church to this day adheres. The name patriarch was at first, particularly in the East, an honorary title for all bishops, and was not till the fourth century exclusively appropriated to the bishops of the three ecclesiastical and political capitals of the Roman empire, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, and also to the bishop of Jerusalem honoris causa, and the bishop of Constantinople or New Rome. So in the West the term papa afterwards appropriated by the Roman bishop, as summus pontifex, vicarius Christi, was current for a long time in a more general application. 215 The country bishops ( χωρεπίσκοποι) appear first in the councils of Ancyra and Neo-Caesarea, 314, and again in the Council of Nicaea. They continued to exist in the East till the 9 th century, when they were superseded by the exarchs ( ἔξαρχοι) In the West, the chorepiscopi performed regular episcopal functions, without proper subordination to the diocesans, and hence excited jealousy and hostility till the office was abolished under Charlemagne, and continued only as a title of various cathedral dignitaries. See Haddan in Smith & Cheetham Dict. Chr. Ant. I. 354, and the authorities quoted there 216 μητροπόλεις , Hence
μητροπολιται. 217
Sedes apostolicae, matrices ecclesiae. 96 Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325. § 50. Germs of the Papacy. Comp. the Lit. in vol. I. §25 (p. 245). Blondel: Traité historique de la primauté en l’église. Genéve, 1641. Salmasius: De Primatu Papae. Lugd. Bat. 1645. Is. Barrow: The Pope’s Supremacy. Lond. 1680 (new ed. Oxf. 1836. N. York, 1845). Rothensee (R.C.): Der Primal Des Papstes in allen Christlichen Jahrhunderten, 3 vols. Mainz, 1836–38 (I. 1–98). Kenrick (R.C., archbishop of Baltimore, d. 1853): The Primacy of the Apostolic See vindicated. N. York, 4th ed. 1855. R. I. Wilberforce (formerly archdeacon in the Anglican church; died in the Roman church, 1857):
J. E. Riddle: The History of the Papacy to the Period of the Reformation. Lond. 1856. 2 vols. (Chapter 1, p. 2–113; chiefly taken from Schröckh and Planck). Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate. Lond. 1856–1872. 6 vols. Vol. I. ch. I.-VI. (A work of independent and reliable learning.) Joh. Friedrich (Old Cath.): Zur ältesten Geschichte des Primates in der Kirche. Bonn, 1879. E Renan
Paris 1880. The Hibbert Lectures delivered in Lond. 1880. English translation by Charles Beard, London (Williams & Norgate) 1880, another by Erskine Clement (Boston, 1880). Consists mostly of extracts from his books on the Origin of Christianity, skillfully put together. H. Formby (R.C.): Ancient Rome and its connection with the Christian Religion. London 1880. Jos. Langen (Old Cath.):
I. Bonn, 1881. R. F. Littledale (Anglo-Cath.): The Petrine Claims, A Critical Inquiry London 1880. Controversial. Among the great bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, the Roman bishop combined all the conditions for a primacy, which, from a purely honorary distinction, gradually became the basis of a supremacy of jurisdiction. The same propension to monarchical unity, which created out of the episcopate a centre, first for each congregation, then for each diocese, pressed on towards a visible centre for the whole church. Primacy and episcopacy grew together. In the present period we already find the faint beginnings of the papacy, in both its good and its evil features; and with them, too, the first examples of earnest protest against the abuse of its power. In the Nicene age the bishop of Jerusalem was made an honorary patriarch in view of the antiquity of that church, though his diocese was limited; and from the middle of the fourth century the new patriarch of Constantinople or New Rome, arose to the primacy among the eastern patriarchs, and became a formidable rival of the bishop of old Rome. The Roman church claims not only human but divine right for the papacy, and traces its institution directly to Christ, when he assigned to Peter an eminent position in the work of founding his church, against which even the gates of hades shall never prevail. This claim implies several assumptions, viz. (1) that Peter by our Lord’s appointment had not simply a primacy of personal excellency, or of honor and dignity (which must be conceded to him), but also a supremacy of jurisdiction over the other apostles (which is contradicted by the fact that Peter himself never claimed it, and that Paul maintained a position of perfect independence, and even openly rebuked him at Antioch, Gal. 2:11); (2) that the privileges of this primacy and supremacy are not personal only (as the peculiar gifts of Paul or John undoubtedly were), but official, hereditary and transferable; (3) that they were actually transferred by Peter, not upon the bishop of Jerusalem, or Antioch (where 97 Philip Schaff History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325. Yüklə 5,76 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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