had received the Eucharist, in the expectation of death, was, if he recovered, to be reduced to the fourth class of penitents, the co-standers, for the remainder of the time which had been assigned for his penance. According to other Canons, such persons were to be reduced to the class of prostrators, or to that class in which they had been when they received the Eucharist, and to go regularly through their penance. See Bingham, b. xviii. c. 4. s. 3.

XIV. 1. The Catechumens.] The Catechumens, as Bingham shows, were divided into four classes. 1. Those who were under under private instruction only, and not yet publicly received as Catechumens in the Church. 2. The Hearers, who were permitted to hear the Scriptures read, and the Sermon preached, but not to remain for any of the prayers, not even for those which related to the other classes of Catechumens. 3. The Kneelers, who remained during the prayers for the Catechumens, which immediately followed the Bishop's Sermon, together with those for the Energumens and Penitents. Together with these prayers, they received the imposition of hands, kneeling. 4. The Competentes, or Electi, called in Greek, βαπτιζόμενοι, Οι φωτιζόμενοι, who were the immediate candidates for Baptism, and had received the Bishop's examination and approval, whence their names. The second and third of these classes are those mentioned in this Canon. Bingham, b. x. c. 2.

XV. 1. To another.] This was the general rule of the ancient Church, though it might be departed from on some particular occasions, when the good of the Church, or some other weighty cause, seemed to require it. See Beveridge on the Can. and on Apost. Can. 14.

XVI. 1. Parish.] i. e. Diocese, as we now call it. See note 4. on the Synodical Epistle.

2. Without communion.] This expression, when applied to the Clergy as in this Canon, is not to be understood as forbidding the Eucharist to be given to them, but as prohibiting their performing any part of their ecclesiastical functions, and rendering them incapable of receiving any ecclesiastical office from the Bishop of the city to which they had removed. Zonaras, and from him Beveridge, say, that there were two sorts of excommunication; the one from receiving the Eucharist, which applied

to laymen; the other from performing any ecclesiastical offices, which was proper to the Clergy. See Apost. Can. 15, and 25 Before a Clergyman was subjected to the former of these, he was deposed from his rank, and reduced to that of a layman.

XVII. 1. The hundredth part.] EKATOOTάs. This was the common rate of usury amongst the ancients, according to which a sum equal to the hundredth part of the principal was to be paid monthly, which is equivalent to twelve per cent. per annum.

2. The whole and a half.] hμiolio vs. The Greek Scholiasts upon this Canon explain this expression as meaning the half of the usual interest, that is, six per cent.; but Beveridge shows from various authors, that the real meaning of the word is the whole and a half, and that the expression refers to a sort of usury which was most commonly exacted when the thing lent was in kind, as corn or wine, the return for which was the whole amount lent, and one half in addition.

XVIII. 1. Deacons.] Although the Deacons were always reckoned amongst the superior orders of the Clergy, and even at times spoken of as having a share in the Priesthood, yet they were always considered inferior to Presbyters, and not allowed to perform the more solemn parts of divine service. The fourth Council of Carthage says expressly, that Deacons are not ordained to the Priesthood, but only to the Ministry. They were, therefore, never allowed to offer the bread and wine on the Altar, or to consecrate them, but only to receive the people's offerings, and present them to the Priest, who presented them to God at the Altar, after which the Deacon repeated publicly the names of the offerers. The Deacons also, when the Bishop or Presbyter had offered and consecrated the bread and wine, assisted him in the distribution of them to the people present, and carried them to those who were sick at their own houses. For a full account of all the duties of Deacons, see Bingham, b. ii. c. 20.

2. Sit amongst the Presbyters.] This relates particularly to sitting amongst the Presbyters, in the Bema or Chancel, during divine service.

XIX. 1. The Paulianists.] The Paulianists derived their name from Paulus Samosatensis, who was elected Bishop of Antioch, A. D. 260. He maintained, amongst other errors, that our Lord

was a mere man, and had not come down from heaven. He was condemned and deposed by a Council at Antioch, A. D. 272. The Canon requires the Paulianists to be rebaptized, because in baptizing they did not use the only lawful form, according to our Saviour's command, " In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." This, indeed, was a general rule in the ancient Church applicable to all heretics, that those who did not use that form should be baptized on their admission into the Church, but that those who did use it should be admitted by imposition of hands without any fresh baptism.

2. Deaconesses.] The office of Deaconess was of primitive, and apparently of apostolical, institution. St. Paul gives the name to Phoebe, a servant, as we translate it, of the Church of Cenchrea, Rom. xvi. 1. The original word is diúkovos, Deaconess, answering to the Latin word Ministra, by which name, Pliny says, the female servants of the Church were called. Plin. Ep. lib. x. ep. 97. A full account of all the particulars of their office, and of the manner of their ordination, is given by Bingham, b. ii. c. 22. The general rule was, that they were chosen from amongst the widows or virgins of the Church, and that they were not to be ordained till sixty years old, though some Canons allowed it at fifty, and even forty. Their ordination was performed by imposition of hands; but it was not such an ordination as conferred an authority to discharge any priestly office. The offices which they had to perform were these: 1. To assist at the baptism of women. 2. To be a sort of private Catechists to the female Catechumens. 3. To visit and attend women who were sick or in distress. 4. To minister to Martyrs and Confessors in prison. 5. To attend the women's gate in the Church. 6. To preside over the widows. The office was not abolished throughout the Church at once, but in different places at different times. It continued in the Greek Church longer than in the Latin, and in some parts of the Latin longer than in others. There are, indeed, early Councils in some, both of the Eastern and Western Churches, forbidding any more to be ordained; but they existed at Constantinople as late as the twelfth century, and were not quite extinct in all the Western Churches before the tenth or eleventh. There is some difficulty in understanding the part of this Canon relating

to them, but it appears from it that there were two orders; those who were Deaconesses by ordination, and those who were only so in dress, ¿v T σxiμari. Zonaras explains these latter words by a reference to the virgins of the Church, from amongst whom the Deaconesses were sometimes chosen and ordained when not less than forty years old. They, however, he says, received a certain dress from the Bishop, when twenty-five years old, without any imposition of hands. Although, therefore, they were Deaconesses in dress, they were still only of the laity. This explanation, if well-grounded, gives an intelligible sense to the Canon.

XX. 1. Kneel.] Although kneeling was the common posture for prayer in the primitive Church, yet the custom had prevailed, even from the earliest times, of standing at prayer on the Lord'sday, and during the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost. Tertullian, in a passage in his treatise De Corona Militis, which is often quoted, mentions it amongst other observances, which, though not expressly commanded in Scripture, yet were universally practised upon the authority of tradition. "We consider it unlawful," he says, " to fast, or to pray kneeling, upon the Lord'sday; we enjoy the same liberty from Easter-day to that of Pentecost." De Cor. Mil. s. 3. 4. Many other of the Fathers notice the same practice, the reason of which, as given by Augustin and others, was to commemorate the resurrection of our Lord, and to signify the rest and joy of our own resurrection, which that of our Lord assured. This Canon, as Beveridge observes, is a proof of the importance formerly attached to an uniformity of sacred rites throughout the Church, which made the Nicene Fathers thus sanction and enforce by their authority, a practice which in itself is indifferent, and not commanded directly or indirectly in Scripture, and assign this as their reason for doing so; “In order that all things may be observed in like manner in every parish," or diocese.

These twenty are all the genuine Canons of the Council of Nice. A second volume containing eighty-four Canons is indeed added in an Arabic collection by Joseph Egyptius, but Beveridge shows that it is utterly destitute of any pretensions to being genuine.

An attempt was also made in the beginning of the fifth century by Zosimus, the then bishop of Rome, to pass off the Canons of the Council of Sardica as Canons of the Council of Nice; and as Romish writers in later days have alleged those Canons as establishing the Pope's claim to the right of receiving appeals, and have pretended that they are to be considered as at least an appendix to those of Nice, it may be as well to give some account of them, and of the attempt alluded to above; the history of which establishes beyond doubt the fact of the genuine Canons of Nice being only twenty in number, and at the same time shows the very high degree of reverence which those Canons received in the Church.

“Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, and several others, being deposed by the Arian party, which prevailed in the East through the countenance which the Emperor Constantius gave to their cause, took refuge at Rome. Julius, Bishop of that city, heard their cause in a Synod assembled for that purpose, A. D. 340, and decided in favor of them, that they ought to be restored to their sees; and wrote to the Eastern Bishops, requiring them to restore them accordingly. When this was refused, Constans, Emperor of the West, espoused their cause, and threatened Constantius with a war in case he did not oblige the Bishops to recall their sentence, and permit Athanasius and his associates to return to their bishoprics. Hereupon, by the joint consent of both Emperors, a Synod was appointed to meet at Sardica in Illyricum, to give a final decision to this dispute. The Eastern Bishops, to the number of seventy-six, came to Sardica; but the great majority of them being Arians, refused to assemble with the Westwho were orthodox, and went and formed an assembly of their own, at Philippopolis in Thrace. The Western, with Athanasius and the other refugees, held a Synod at Sardica, A. D. 347, where they absolved Athanasius and the other orthodox Bishops from the sentence of deposition, and for their further security made the Canons in question. This Council was intended to be a general one, being called by the Emperors both of the East and the West, and designed to consist of the Bishops of both parts; but in the event, by the secession of the Eastern Bishops, it came to pass that it was really a Western Synod

ern,