The canons which imply spheres of ecclesiastical jurisdiction are 30 and 34:—
30. Aepiscopus quislibet qui de sua in alteram progreditur parruchiam nec ordinare praesumat nisi permissionem acceperit ab eo qui in suo principatu[m] est; die dominica offerat tantum susceptione et obsequi hic contentus sit.
34. Diaconus nobiscum similiter qui inconsultu suo abbate sine litteris in aliam parruchiam absentat [MS. adsentiat] nec cibum ministrare decet et a suo presbitero quem contempsit per penitentiam uindicetur.
The first of these canons implies that a bishop has a defined paruchia and that he cannot perform episcopal acts in another paruchia without the permission of its princeps. The second deals with the case of a deacon belonging to a monastic community, the head of which is not a bishop but a presbyter; he is forbidden to betake himself to another district without a letter from his abbot.
Canon 30 corresponds to the 22nd canon of the Council of Antioch (A.D. 341, Mansi, Conc., ii. 649), ἐπίσκοπον μὴ ἐπιβαίνειν ἀλλοτρίᾳ πόλει ... εἰ μὴ ἄρα μετὰ γνώμης τοῦ οἰκείου τής χώρας ἐπισκόπου.[266] Paruchia means an episcopal diocese[267] as in Eusebius, Hist. ecc. v. 33, 1 and 3. For the considerations which show that Patrick must have defined spheres of episcopal jurisdiction, I must refer to [Excursus 18 in Appendix C] on the Patrician Episcopate.
In canon 34 paruchia seems to have a different meaning, and refer to the district which the church of the abbot’s monastery served. It is the district of a presbyter, not of a bishop. This ambiguity would not be fatal to the genuineness of the canon. In the passage of Eusebius, cited above, παροικίαι also occurs in the sense of rural districts, several of which were under one bishop, as Duchesne has pointed out.[268] But the canon may well be a later addition to the genuine document, belonging to an age when the monastic communities had acquired greater importance.
(3) The mos antiquus of canon 25 may refer not to Ireland but to the Christian Church generally.
(4) Another objection is founded on canon 33, which enjoins:
Clericus qui de Britanis ad nos ueniat sine epistola etsi habitet in plebe non licitum ministrare.