munity. Nor does this method of popular election, or control over election, appear only in the dim shadow of the subapostolic age: counteracted at all times by other influences, it yet lasted on as the ideal of the Church for centuries. The emperor Alexander Severus 'was fond of praising the careful way in which the Church posted the names of all whom she destined for the priesthood, so that any, who knew evil of them, might object.' He would have it made a model in the appointment of provincial governors. We know, again, that the bishop to be elected over any Church was to be thoroughly known in the Church-one who had passed through the inferior grades of the ministry. That custom is to be diligently observed,' says Cyprian, 'as of divine tradition and apostolic observance, which is maintained amongst us also and almost over all provinces, that, with a view to the due celebration of ordinations, the neighbouring bishops of the same province should come together to the community for which a ruler is to be ordained, and the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people who have complete knowledge of each man's life and conduct by his conversation among them.' This popular check on ordinations he requires no less for the presbyterate and the diaconate. So, again, it is regarded by Pope

1 Didache xv. 1: χειροτονήσατε οὖν ἑαυτοῖς ἐπισκόπους καὶ διακόνους. Cf. also the very ancient Egypt. Ch. Ordinances 16: If there be a paucity of men, and in any place there be a number less than twelve of those who can vote for a bishop,' and Canones Hippolyti ¡¡. (Texte u. Untersuch. Bd. vi. p. 39).

2 As in the first period by prophetic nomination; see Clem. Alex. Quis Dives 42: 'St. John would go about here to appoint bishops, there to ordain to the clergy some one of those pointed out by the Spirit.'

3 Mason Diocletian Persecution pp. 84, and 85 n.1 'dicebatque grave esse, cum id Christiani et Iudaei facerent in praedicandis sacerdotibus qui ordinandi sunt, non fieri in provinciarum rectoribus quibus et fortunae hominum committerentur et capita' (Ael. Lampr. Alex. xlv. 7).

4 Ep. lxvii. 5; see Bingham Ant. ii. 10. 2.

Julius as monstrous that 'Gregory, a stranger to the city, who had not been baptized there and was not known to the community in general and had not been asked for by presbyters or bishops or people,' should be obtruded on the Church of Alexandria, 'whereas the ordination of a bishop ought not to have taken place thus lawlessly and contrary to the ecclesiastical canon, but he should have been ordained in the Church itself (over which he is to rule), out of the priesthood, out of the actual body of the clergy, and not, as now, in violation of the canons which come from the Apostles.'1 Priscillian the Spaniard, again, gives us, as the sentiment of the bishops contemporary with him in Spain about A.D. 380, the view that, 'as a bishop's consecration lies with the bishop, so the choice of whom to ask for lies with the people.' 2 Once more Leo the Great, 'the founder of the papacy,' writes: 'He who is to preside over all must be elected by all.' 'Before a consecration must go the suffrages of the citizens, the approbation of the people, the judgment of persons of distinction, the choice of the clergy-that the rule of apostolic authority may be in all respects observed, which enjoins that a priest to govern the Church should be supported not only by the approval of the faithful, but also by the testimony of those without.' 'No metropolitan should we allow to ordain a priest (bishop) on his own judgment without the consent of clergy and people: the consent of the whole community must elect the president of the Church': only where division makes unanimity impossible the

2 Priscillian, Tract. ii. p. 40 (ed. Schepss in the Vienna Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat.): 'sicut dedicationem sacerdotis in sacerdote, sic electionem consistere petitionis [in] plebe.'

metropolitan may decide the election in favour of the man who has the best support. 'No reason can tolerate that persons should be held to be bishops' (so he says on another occasion to the African clergy) 'who were neither chosen by the clergy, nor demanded by the laity, nor ordained by the provincial bishops with the consent of the metropolitan.'1 Quotations to this effect might be greatly multiplied, and from later sources. The Latin rites of ordination are framed in recognition of this representative system.2 This then was undoubtedly the ideal of the bishop's election in the early Church.3 The bishop was to be really the persona of the Church he ruled.

This, moreover, he was enabled to be in some real sense in virtue of the very small community over which he presided. Through the greater part at least of the Roman empire each town-community had its bishop, and the country-bishop supplemented his authority in the surrounding district, first in the East and later in the West. The bishop of Rome was in an extraordinary position in the middle of the third century, because he had under him as many as forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, and seven subdeacons, besides those of minor orders. Ordinarily the numbers would have been very much smaller. Thus the bishop, according to the early ideal, was by no means the great prelate; he was the pastor of

1 Leo Epp. x. 4-6; xiii. 3; xiv. 5; clxvii. 1.

2 See App. Note C. Cf. also R. B. Rackham in Essays on Church Reform (Murray 1898) pp. 72 ff.

3 On the extent and limits of its observance see Bingham Ant. ii. 10. 3-7; also Dict. Chr. Ant. S. V. BISHOP. Mr. Haddan, the author, remarks how vaguely the words suffragium testimonium iudicium consensus are used (i. p. 214). Vague unformulated rights are more easily overridden.

4 Euseb. H.E. vi. 43.

a flock, like the vicar of a modern town, in intimate relations with all his people.1

absolute.

Nor was he in theory absolute even within the and not limits of his 'parish' or diocese. For, in the first place, he was himself subject to the laws which he administered. When St. Chrysostom is referring to the custom of holding the Gospel over the head of the bishop who is being ordained, he says that it is to remind him that 'if he is the head of all, yet he acts under these laws (of the Gospel), ruling all and ruled by the law, ordering all and himself ordered': it is a symbol of the fact that he is 'under authority.' 2 At first indeed this authority had no visible sanction; St. Cyprian claims repeatedly for the bishop that he is 'responsible to none but God.' Later it came to be embodied in provincial and ecumenical councils. Secondly, within his own diocese he shared his rule with others. No doubt his power was not subject to formal limitations; but round him there was the council of his presbyters, 'the Church's senate'; 3 and St. Cyprian tells us that he made it a fixed rule from his consecration 'to do nothing on his own private judgment, but everything with the counsel of his clergy and the consent of his laity.' The whole conception indeed of the diocesan synod was the basis of a great representative system which culminated at last in the ecumenical council.5 Thus the ideal of church government in early days was not at all absolute. If the guilds of the Roman

1 The facts are well known: see Bingham Ant. ii. 12, Hatch B.L. lect. viii.

The principle is exemplified in the Apost. Ch. Ordinances 16.

2 Bingham Ant. ii. 11. 8.

3 Bingham Ant. ii. 19. 7.

4 Ep. xiv. 4. See other references in Bingham Ant. ii. 19. 7, 8.

5 Cf. art. CYPRIAN in Dict. Chr. Bieg. i. p. 753: 'the assembly representative: each bishop the elect of his flock.'

The change to imperialism

empire represented, as they did, the elements of free life and spontaneous movement through all the classes of non-Christian society down to the lowest, the principle of liberty and spontaneity was at least as prominent and real in the supernatural society of the Church. It was by no means necessarily an imperialist institution, though its officers were of divine authority and apostolic descent.

But the effect of 'establishment' in the East was to tend to assimilate the Church to the empire in ideas and methods no less than in gradation of dignities. In the West the essentially imperialist temper of Rome moulded the institutions of Christendom, and gave them a new direction and new characteristics. Thus in the fifth century Socrates remarks that 'the episcopate of the Romans, like that of the Alexandrians, had already for some time advanced beyond the limits proper to the priesthood to the point of despotism.'1 So it was that episcopacy passed into a new phase. The authority of kings and popes overwhelmed the democratic elements in the Christian polity. If they survived, they survived rather as names and forms than as realities. But names and forms still bear witness beyond their present power to a principle which is not dead.

Thus the mediaeval and modern prelate, Anglican or Roman, is not the only, or the original, type of bishop. He differs a good deal from the bishop of the earliest period-not indeed in fundamental, spiritual principle, but in outward appearance and rank. We need not necessarily deplore the change.

1 πέρα τῆς ἱερωσύνης ἐπὶ δυναστείαν ἤδη πάλαι προελθούσης (Η.Ε. vii. 1). He is speaking of Celestine suppressing the Novatian body in Rome. Cf. vii. 7.

2 Dr. Hatch describes the change in B.L. lect. viii and Growth of Ch. Instit. See also Rosmini Five Wounds of the Holy Church ch. v.