This canon illustrates the strangely anomalous condition of the Church at the period of its adoption. It takes no notice of country elders, as the proceedings of such an humble class of functionaries probably awakened no jealousy; and it degrades country bishops, who unquestionably belonged to the episcopal order, by placing them in a position inferior to that of city presbyters. About sixty years before, or in the middle of the third century, three of these country bishops were deemed competent to ordain a bishop of Rome; [598:1] but now they are deprived of the right of ordaining even elders and deacons. It is easy to understand why city presbyters were still permitted, under certain conditions, to exercise this privilege. As they constituted the council of the city chief pastor, their influence was considerable; and as they had, until a recent date, been accustomed even to take part in his own consecration, it was deemed inexpedient to tempt so formidable a class of churchmen to make common cause with the country bishops by stripping both at once of their ancient prerogatives. The country bishops, as the weaker party, were first subjected to a process of spoliation. But the recognition of Christianity by Constantine gave an immense impulse to the progress of the hierarchy, and the city presbyters were soon afterwards deprived of the privilege now wrested from the country bishops.
The current of events had placed the Church, about the middle of the third century, in a position which it could not long maintain. As the growth of Christianity in towns was steady and rapid, the bishop there rose quickly into wealth and power; but, among the comparatively poor and thinly-scattered population of the country, his condition remained nearly stationary. When Cyprian, in A.D. 256, addressed the eighty-seven bishops assembled in the Council of Carthage, and told them that they were all on an equality, he might have felt that the doctrine of episcopal parity, as then understood, must be given up as indefensible if assailed by the skill of a vigorous logician. Who could believe that the bishop of Carthage held exactly the same official rank as every one of his episcopal auditors? He was the chief pastor of a flourishing metropolis; he had several congregations under his care, and several of his presbyters were preachers; [599:1] but many of the bishops before him were ministers of single congregations and without even one elder competent to deliver a sermon, [599:2] In point of ministerial gifts and actual influence some of the presbyters of Carthage were, no doubt, far superior to many of the bishops of the council. And who could affirm that Paul of Samosata, the chief pastor of the capital of the Eastern Empire, was quite on a level with every one of the village bishops around him whom he bribed to celebrate his praises? No wonder that it was soon found necessary to remodel the episcopal system. The city bishops had a show of equity in their favour when they asserted their superiority, and their brethren in rural districts were too feeble and dependent effectively to resist their own degradation.
The ecclesiastical title metropolitan came into use about the time of the Council of Nice in A.D. 325. [599:3] and there is reason to believe that the territorial jurisdiction it implied was then first distinctly defined and generally established; but the changes of the preceding three quarters of a century, had been preparing the way for the new arrangement. Many of the country bishops had meanwhile been reduced to a condition of subserviency, whilst a considerable number of the chief pastors in the great cities had been recognized as the constant presidents of the synods which met in their respective capitals. It is easy to see how these prelates acquired such a position. Talent, if exerted, must always assert its ascendency; and it is probable that the metropolitan bishops were generally more able and accomplished than the majority of their brethren. They could fairly plead that zeal for the good of the Church prompted them to take a lead in ecclesiastical affairs, and their place of residence supplied them with facilities for communicating with other pastors of which they often deemed it prudent to avail themselves. When the synod met in the metropolis, the bishop of the city was wont to entertain many of the members as his guests; and, as he was elevated above most, if not all, of those with whom he acted, in point of wealth, social standing, address, and knowledge of the world, he was usually called on to occupy the chair of the moderator. In process of time that which was originally conceded as a matter of courtesy passed into an admitted right. So long as the metropolitan bishop was inducted into office by mere presbyters, the circumstances of his investiture pointed out to him the duty of humility; but when the most distinguished chief pastors of the province deemed it an honour to take part in his consecration, he immediately increased his pretensions. Thus it is that the change in the mode of episcopal inauguration forms a new era in the history of ecclesiastical assumption.
About the middle of the third century various circumstances conspired to augment the authority of the great bishops. In the Decian and Valerian persecutions the chief pastors were specially marked out for attack, and the heroic constancy with which some of the most eminent encountered a cruel death vastly enhanced the reputation of their order. In a few years several bishops of Rome were martyred; Cyprian of Carthage endured the same fate: Alexander of Jerusalem, and Babylas of Antioch, also laid down their lives for their religion. [600:1] At the same time the schism of Novatian at Rome, and the schism of Felicissimus at Carthage threatened the Church with new divisions, and the same arguments which were used, upwards of a hundred years before, for increasing the power of the president of the eldership, could now be urged with equal pertinency for adding to the authority of the president of the synod. In point of fact perhaps the earliest occasion on which the bishop of Rome executed discipline in his archiepiscopal capacity was immediately connected with the schism of Novatian; for we have no record of any exercise of such power until Cornelius, at the head of a council held in the Imperial city, deposed the pastors who had officiated at the consecration of his rival. [601:1] From this date the Roman metropolitan probably presided at all the ordinations of the bishops in his vicinity.
To prevent the recurrence of schisms such as had now happened at Rome and Carthage, it was, in all likelihood, arranged about this period, at least in some quarters of the Church, that the presence or sanction of the stated president of the provincial synod should be necessary to the validity of all episcopal consecrations. There were still, however, many districts in which the provincial synod had no fixed chairman. Hence an ancient canon directs that at the ordination of a member of the hierarchy, "one of the principal bishops shall pray to God over the approved candidate." [601:2] By a "principal bishop" we are to understand the chief pastor of a principal or apostolic church; [601:3] but in some provinces several such churches were to be found, and this regulation attests that there no single ecclesiastic had yet acquired an unchallenged precedence. As the close of the third century approached, the ecclesiastical structure exhibited increasing uniformity; and one dignitary in each region began to be known as the stated president of the episcopal body. In one of the so-called apostolical canons, framed probably before the Council of Nice, this arrangement is embodied. "The bishops of every nation," says the ordinance, "ought to know who is the first among them, and him they ought to esteem as their head, and not do any great thing without his consent. … But neither let him do anything without the consent of all." [602:1]
This canon is apparently couched in terms of studied ambiguity, for the expression "the first among the bishops of every nation" admits of various interpretations. In many cases it probably meant the senior bishop of the district; in others, it perhaps denoted the chief pastor of the chief city of the province; and in others again, it may have indicated the prelate of a great metropolis who had contrived to establish his authority over a still more extensive territory. The rise of the city bishops had completely destroyed that balance of power which originally existed in the Church; and much commotion preceded the settlement of a new ecclesiastical equilibrium. During the last forty years of the third century the Christians enjoyed almost uninterrupted peace; the chief pastors were meanwhile perpetually engaged in contests for superiority; and about this time the bishops of Rome, of Alexandria, and of Antioch, rapidly extended their influence. So rampant was the usurping spirit of churchmen that even the violence of the Diocletian persecution was not sufficient to check them in their career of ambition. A contemporary writer, who was himself a member of the episcopal order, bears testimony to this melancholy fact. "Some," said he, "who were reputed our pastors, contemning the law of piety, were, under the excitement of mutual animosities, fomenting nothing else but disputes and threatenings and rivalry and reciprocal hostility and hatred, as they contentiously prosecuted their ambitious designs for sovereignty." [601:2]
What a change had passed over the Christian commonwealth in the course of little more than two hundred years! When the Apostle John died, the city church was governed by the common council of the elders, and their president simply announced and executed the decisions of his brethren: now, the president was transformed into a prelate who, by gradual encroachments, had stripped the presbytery of a large share of its authority. At the close of the first century the Church of Rome was, perhaps, less influential than the Church of Ephesus, and the very name of its moderator at that period is a matter of disputed and doubtful tradition; but the Diocletian persecution had scarcely terminated when the bishop of the great metropolis was found sitting in a council in the palace of the Lateran, and claiming jurisdiction over eight or ten provinces of Italy! These revolutions were not effected without much opposition. The strife between the presbyters and the bishops was succeeded by a general warfare among the possessors of episcopal power, for the constant moderator of the synod was as anxious to increase his authority as the constant moderator of the presbytery. About the close of the third century the Church appears to have been sadly scandalised by the quarrels of the bishops, and Eusebius accordingly intimates that, in the reign of terror which so quickly followed, they suffered a righteous retribution for their misconduct.
Discussions respecting questions of Church polity are often exceedingly distasteful to persons of contracted views but of genuine piety, for they cannot understand how the progress of vital godliness can be influenced by forms of ecclesiastical government. [603:1] About this period such sentiments were probably not uncommon, and much of the apathy with which innovations were contemplated may thus be easily explained. Besides, if the early bishop was a man of ability and address, his influence in his own church was nearly overwhelming; for as he was the ordinary, if not the only, preacher, he thus possessed the most effective means of recommending any favourite scheme, and of giving a decided tone to public opinion. When a parochial charge became vacant by the demise of the chief pastor, the election of a successor was often vigorously contested; and when an influential presbyter was defeated, he sometimes exhibited his mortification by contending for the rights of his order, and by disputing the pretensions of his successful rival. But as such opposition was obviously dictated by the spirit of faction, it was commonly brief, ill-sustained, and abortive. The young, talented, and aspiring presbyters must have been strongly tempted to encourage the growth of episcopal prerogative, for each might one day hope to occupy the place of dignity, and thus to reap the fruits of present encroachments. The bishops seem to have resisted more strenuously the establishment of metropolitan ascendency. An ecclesiastical regulation of great antiquity, [604:1] condemned their translation from one parish to another, so that when the episcopate was gained, all farther prospects of promotion were extinguished, for the place of first among the bishops was either inherited by seniority or claimed by the prelate of the chief city. Hence it was that the pastors withstood so firmly all infringements on their theoretical parity; and hence those "ambitious disputes," [604:2] and those "collisions of bishops with bishops," [604:3] even amidst the fires of martyrdom, over which the historian of the Church professes his anxiety to cast the veil of oblivion.