Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom

by T. W. Allies

4. The fourth point which I will endeavour to sum up is the practice of the Church in the period preceding the Nicene Council as to the election of bishops and the other ministers of inferior rank to the bishop from the priest downwards, together with the principle on which this practice was founded.

It has been shown above how the first bishops were planted by St. Peter, St. Paul, and the other Apostles, who chose by direction of the Holy Spirit, in the cities wherein they preached, those whom they would invest with the plenitude of the priesthood, to be sources of future spiritual rule and centres of Christian life. But when successors to those had in the course of time to be appointed, what rule was followed?

The form of the sacred elections in those first ages was this: when a bishop died, the bishops of the province, together with the metropolitan, assembled in the city of the defunct prelate. They here took information from the clergy and the people respecting the persons who were considered worthy of episcopal rank. The bishops deliberated by themselves on the matter, and then proposed in public the person whom they considered worthy of the bishop’s seat. They heard thereupon the opinion and the wish of the clergy and the faithful people. Having heard these, they issued their judgment, in which the sentence of the metropolitan had the larger share; and the new bishop being elected, they at once consecrated him. As to the election of the priests and the other inferior clergy, the same order was pursued in consulting clergy and people, and the whole judgment was ultimately reserved to the bishop.

St. Cyprian has left us in his 68th letter a most lucid testimony to this being the custom in his day, not only in the Churches of Africa, but in all other provinces. “We must,” he says, “diligently observe and maintain the custom which has come down to us by divine tradition and apostolical observance, which is kept among ourselves and in almost every province. In order that ordination be rightly celebrated, the nearest bishops of the province must assemble among that people for whom a superior is to be appointed. The bishop must be chosen in the presence of the people, which has the fullest knowledge of the life of every one, and is thoroughly acquainted with his conduct by his acts.” He supports the custom by the example of Eleazar, who, though chosen to be high priest by Moses alone, in obedience to a divine command, was yet set before the people, to show that sacerdotal ordinations should be made in the presence of those who by intimate knowledge can testify the merits of those chosen; and, again, by the example of the Apostles, who, in the election as well of St. Matthias as of the seven deacons, called together the people and heard their testimony, “that no unworthy person might find means to be advanced to a higher rank or the sacerdotal dignity.”

The outcome of these three centuries is, that the election of the bishop lay in the hands of the metropolitan, assisted by the bishops of his province, and that the election of the metropolitan lay in the synod of his bishops, but confirmed by the bishops of the first Sees, to whom belonged the consecration of metropolitans.[129] This was the discipline in the East, while in the West the Roman Pontiff, through the dignity of his throne as head of the whole Church and of all particular Churches, did not personally intervene in the election of bishops to vacant Sees, but the successor was chosen by the neighbouring bishops according to the desires of the clergy and people, and the decree of the election was transmitted him, leaving to his choice its confirmation, or provision for the vacant See in some other manner, as might seem to him most expedient.

The election of all ministers below the bishop belonged to the bishop alone.

It is evident that the great number of bishops who in the course of two centuries were sent out by the Roman Pontiffs[130] to convert the nations to the faith were not elected by the faithful people which they themselves founded; nor could the testimony or the consent of the people be asked. But if the election of ministers had belonged by divine institution to the faithful laity and the Christian people, neither the Apostles, nor their disciples, nor the successors of St. Peter could have altered a divine disposition, nor elected pastors without the consent of the people.

But the principle on which the Church acted from the beginning is as clear as her practice; for the priesthood and the whole order of pastors in the Church having been established by the Son of God, and the perpetuity of this same priesthood in this same Church being also necessary by this divine disposition, it follows that the election of sacred ministers to maintain the succession and the disposition given by Christ to the Church, must belong by divine order to some one. As it cannot belong to laymen, it must belong to the clergy alone. In fact, St. Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, declares that God Himself prescribed the form of this election in the priesthood of Aaron, and that this form was observed by our Lord. “No one,” he says, “takes this honour to himself but he that is called by God, as was Aaron. So, too, Christ glorified not Himself to be called High Priest, but He that said to Him, ‘Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee;’ as also in another place He says, ‘Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.’”

Exactly, then, as Aaron was elected solely by Moses at God’s command, without waiting for any consent or any council of the people, so in the Church bishops did not need the consent or counsel of the people to be elected to their ministry, but they required the suffrage and the institution of their own order. And our Lord, on the day of His Resurrection, when He met His assembled Apostles, gave the whole rule, order, and descent of election and institution in His Church in the words, “As My Father sent Me, so I also send you.” As He elected His apostles and disciples, excluding all consent of the multitude, so He made them electors and institutors of the ministers who should succeed them, independent of popular election. In His Church power is from above, not from below; from within, not from without; nor is any truth attested with a more complete and unbroken witness in the history of three hundred years than this.

5. The fifth point to be considered is the administration of the Church’s temporal goods.