we are to investigate. And we are to begin this morning by considering the position of the see of Rome during the first three centuries.

The local church in Rome was organized in early times in precisely the same way as the local churches in other cities. Each local church was governed by a bishop, who had his priests and deacons to assist him. When the bishop of any church died, his successor was normally chosen from among the priests or deacons who formed the clergy of that church. This was the rule at Rome, as it was the rule elsewhere. The bishops of the various churches looked on each other as brothers and colleagues. When Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, writes to Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, he begins his letter as follows: "Cornelius to Cyprian, his brother, greeting;" and he concludes with the words, "Fare thee well, dearest brother." " And when Cyprian replies, he writes in the same strain: "Cyprian to Cornelius, his brother, greeting;" and he goes on, "You have acted, dearest brother, with diligence and affection, in dispatching to us in haste Nicephorus the acolyte." We have various letters written by S. Cyprian to other Roman bishops besides Cornelius, as, for example, to Lucius and to Stephen, and they are all written in the same tone of perfect equality. Similarly, when S. Cyprian writes to another African bishop about the Roman pope, he alludes to him, not as a superior, but as an equal. To Pompeius, Bishop of Sabrata, Cyprian says, "Since you have desired to be informed what answer our brother Stephen returned to my letter, I have sent you a copy of that answer; on reading which you will more and more discover his error." 4 Stephen is, of course, the pope.

All the bishops, wherever their sees might be, were held to be successors of the apostles, both as regards order and as regards jurisdiction; so that, as the great Belgian canonist,

1 Some modern Protestant writers suppose that the episcopate did not exist at Rome until the second century. Bishop Lightfoot, on the other hand, says concerning the names of S. Linus and S. Anencletus, the two bishops of Rome who, according to tradition, immediately followed the apostles and preceded S. Clement, "I see no reason to question that they not only represent historical persons, but that they were bishops in the sense of monarchical rulers of the Roman Church, though their monarchy may have been much less autocratic than the episcopate even of the succeeding century" (S. Clement of Rome, ed. 1890, i. 340; compare i. 68).

Ep. S. Cornelii, inter Cyprianicas xlvi., Opp., ed. Hartel, ii. 608.

3 Ep. lii. § 1, Opp., ii. 616.

4

Ep. lxxiv. ad Pompeium, § 1, Opp., ii. 799. One may also notice that S. Cyprian, writing (Ep. lv. § 1, Opp., ii. 624) to the Bishop Antonianus, speaks of "our colleague Cornelius" ("Cornelium collegam nostrum "), and of " our brother bishop Cornelius" ("Cornelio co-episcopo nostro "); and writing (Ep. ix. § 1, Opp., ii. 488) to the priests and deacons of Rome about Pope Fabian, he calls him "that good man my colleague" ("boni viri collegae mei").

Van Espen, says, "The bishops receive by succession the very authority of the apostles, so that whatever the apostles had of episcopal power-that is, of power concerned with the government of the Church-has been transferred by them into the bishops, as their successors in the Church's administration and government." 1 It is important to notice that Van Espen, following the early writers, teaches that the bishops succeed to the apostles, not only in matters connected with order, such as the power of confirming and ordaining, but also in matters connected with jurisdiction, such as the administration and government of the Church. Moreover, he says that in their governing authority the bishops succeed not merely to this or that apostle, but to all of them in common; in other words, each bishop inherits the whole episcopal jurisdiction of the apostolic college. To use the words of S. Cyprian: "The episcopate is one, an [undivided] share of which is held by each of the bishops in such wise as that they are, each of them, joint-tenants of the whole" ("Episcopatus unus est, cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur"). And the result of this primitive teaching, as Van Espen points out, is that "essentially, and setting aside later legislation, all bishops are equal in their power and authority in governing the Church."

Having laid down the doctrine of the essential equality of all bishops, not only as regards order, but also as regards jurisdiction, as a foundation, we go on to notice two crossprinciples, which came in afterwards, and in practice modified that equality. The first cross-principle is the special authority which gradually grew up in the church of the principal city of each of the geographical regions which collectively made up the Roman empire. As a rule, Christianity would get a

'Jus Eccl. Univ., I. xvi. i. 7. Dr. Neale describes Van Espen as "the first canonist of his own or of any age" (History of the Church of Holland, p. 175). He was born in 1646, and died in 1728.

2 By what may be called the by-laws of the Church, a bishop is, under ordinary circumstances, restrained from exercising his jurisdiction outside of his own particular diocese; but in a provincial synod a bishop legislates for the province, and in an Ecumenical Synod for the Church at large.

The

S. Cypr. De Unit. Eccl., § 5, Opp., i. 214. Archbishop Benson (Smith and Wace, Dictionary of Christian Biography, i. 745), describing S. Cyprian's teaching in this passage, says, "The apostleship, continued for ever in the episcopate, is thus universal, yet one; each bishop's authority perfect and independent, yet not forming with the others a mere agglomerate, but being a full tenure on a totality, like that of a shareholder in a joint-stock property.' expression "in solidum" is a technical legal phrase. Examples of its use may be found under the second title of the 45th book of the Digest (vol. ii. pp. 677-680, ed. Mommsen, 1870). To give one instance-Priscus Javolenus says, "Cum duo eandem pecuniam aut promiserint aut stipulati sunt, ipso jure et singuli in solidum debentur et singuli debent: ideoque petitione acceptilatione[ve] unius tota solvitur obligatio."

4

Suppl. in Jus Univ. Eccl., I. xvi. i. 7.

* In some cases the limits of the ecclesiastical province did not coincide with

footing first in the metropolis of each region. The other lesser cities would be evangelized by missions sent forth from thence; and so the suffragan sees would look on themselves as daughters of the metropolitical see. The metropolitan bishop was the natural centre of unity for the bishops of the province. When a see became vacant, it would be the metropolitan who would call together his brother bishops to consult about the appointment of a worthy pastor to succeed to the empty throne; and the metropolitan would naturally preside at the preliminary meetings for consultation and election, as well as at the consecration itself. If troubles arose among the bishops, whether heresies or schisms or quarrels or other wrong-doings, or if new and difficult questions emerged, concerning which it seemed desirable that the neighbouring bishops should act together, it would be natural for the bishops to meet in synod, and it would also be natural that the metropolitan should take the initiative and summon his brethren; and the metropolis would normally be the obvious place of meeting. Under such circumstances the metropolitan would of course preside, and in most cases he would be entrusted by the synod with the duty of seeing that its decisions were carried out. Thus by the natural course of events, and by the free action of the essentially co-equal prelates, a certain precedence and pre-eminence, and, more than that, a certain right of initiative and of inspection and of administration, would by common consent be lodged in the occupant of the metropolitical see.1 But the very fact that what we may call the provincial system grew up naturally, and adapted itself to the varying geographical and ethnographical and political circumstances of the several regions, would necessarily result in a great want of uniformity. In some places the ecclesiastical provinces would be very small; in others they would be very much larger. The bishops of the great cities of the empire, such as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, would naturally extend their influence over a far wider area than the limits of the civil province. Geographical facilities of access made themselves more felt than the provincial boundaries, as laid down by the imperial government; e.g. the Bishops of Tyre and Ptolemais, in the province of Syria, attended a synod at Caesarea, in Palestine, in the latter part of the second century (cf. Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chrétien, pp. 18, 19).

1 Compare Möhler, On the Unity of the Church, part ii. chap. ii. §§ 57–60 (French translation, pp. 189-198, ed. Bruxelles, 1839). Möhler's summary of this chapter is worth noting: "Les communautés voisines se réunissent, et leurs évêques forment un tout uni ensemble qui se crée un organe et un centre dans la personne du métropolitain," etc. There is an admirable paragraph describing the natural process by which the office of the metropolitan grew up, in an article by Father de Smedt, S.J., the President of the Bollandists, in the Revue des Questions Historiques for October, 1891, pp. 424, 425. The title of the article is, L'organisation des Églises Chrétiennes au iiie siècle. Compare Duchesne, Origines Chrétiennes, PP. 334, 335.

would the bishops of places like Thessalonica or Corinth. Thus there would be large provinces and small provinces, and the metropolitan of a large province would normally be a more important person than the metropolitan of a small province. And again, while the system was growing up, there would be no necessary uniformity in regard to the measure of power which was delegated by the bishops of the province to the metropolitan. In a small province containing several flourishing churches, the suffragan bishops would maintain a very independent position, delegating only the minimum of initiative and direction to the metropolitan. In a large province containing one very important central church and a great number of relatively weak churches, there would be a strong centralizing tendency, and the metropolitan bishop would be entrusted with very large powers over his suffragans. Such was eminently the case with the churches in the two chief cities of the empire, Rome and Alexandria. The Bishop of Rome presided in anteNicene times, as metropolitan, over the bishops throughout Italy; and ultimately the three islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were aggregated to his province. Similarly, the Bishop of Alexandria was the ecclesiastical centre, not only for Egypt, but also for Libya and the Pentapolis; and both at Rome and Alexandria the metropolitan bishops exerted an authority over their suffragans which was quite abnormal and tended to obscure the inherent equality of the various members of the episcopal body. Doubtless this tendency did not show itself fully during the first three centuries, and perhaps during those centuries there was nothing actually unhealthy; but undoubtedly the great concentration of authority which gradually grew up in those sees constituted a germ, which might easily develop into a source of danger.2

I hope that I have now made it clear, that the civil

1 Cf. Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chrétien, p. 30. See also Additional Note I, p. 434.

2 Cf. Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chrétien, p. 375, n. 2, as regards the relations of the Bishop of Rome to his suburbicarian suffragans. In illustration of the statement in the text, so far as it deals with Alexandria, I would refer to the article on "Synesius" in Smith and Wace, D. C.B. (iv. 779). The writer of the article 66 says, Equally noticeable is the unqualified obedience which Synesius, though himself Metropolitan of Pentapolis, cheerfully yielded to the apostolic throne' of Alexandria. It is at once my wish and my duty to consider whatever decree comes from that throne binding upon me,' he writes, to [the patriarch] Theophilus. The unquestionable superiority of Alexandria to all the cities of Eastern Africa had given to the Patriarch of Alexandria an authority over the bishops of those cities unsurpassed, even if it was rivalled, by the supremacy of Rome in that day over the bishoprics of Central and Southern Italy.' See also Dr. Bright's Notes on the Canons of the First Four General Councils, pp. 17, 18, 207-209, and Professor Gwatkin's Studies of Arianism:, p. 30, n.

importance of the city, in which an episcopal see was erected, very often reacted on the ecclesiastical relations of the bishop of that see to the bishops of the cities round about. Moreover, in the case of the leading cities of the empire, such as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, Ephesus, the order of their relative importance, as estimated by common opinion, was reproduced in the hierarchy of the Church. Thus the city of Rome was the capital of the empire; and as a result the Bishop of Rome took precedence of the other bishops in the Church. Alexandria was commonly regarded as the second city in the empire, and the Bishop of Alexandria ranked next to the Bishop of Rome in the order of the Catholic episcopate; and so on with the rest. And this precedence carried with it influence. In all organized bodies the highest person is most often made a referee or arbitrator, simply because he is highest. People naturally consult the one who stands first. Under normal circumstances, he is the natural spokesman and representative of the whole body on occasions when some spokesman or representative is needed. And what takes place in other organized bodies necessarily took place and still takes place in the Church. We have only to look at our own English branch of the Church, and we see it taking place on a large scale there. The jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury is confined to the province of Canterbury; but just because he is, by the consent of all, acknowledged to be the first bishop on the roll of the Anglican episcopate, therefore his influence extends throughout the whole Anglican communion. He naturally presides in the Lambeth Conference; he has the chief share in deciding what subjects shall be discussed there; his advice is continually asked in regard to matters occurring in the colonial churches; in a very true sense the care of all the churches is upon him; and all this comes to him simply because he is first. No canon gives him this influence; nor does that influence arise out of his pretending to any primacy by divine right. He wields it simply because, in the providence of God, he stands first on the list. And we may see in him a picture of what, in early days, took place in regard to the Bishop of Rome, and also in their measure in regard to the Bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, and the rest.

Thus the principle of inherent equality, without being in

1 See Additional Note 2, p. 435.

There are a few scattered colonial and missionary dioceses which belong to no colonial province, and which look to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their quasi-metropolitan; but they may be considered to be appendages of the province of Canterbury. Their position is abnormal, and in time they will doubtless get more into line.