OFFICERS OF THE CHURCH 31'
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of the term. Scribes must, of course, have enrolled the army; but it remains uncertain whether these enlisting officers were permanently connected with the army. — Winer, ii, 419. See Census; Si'X'kktauy.
Officers of the Church, those who are appointed as ministers of the Church, and who therefore exist ybr its sake, and not the Church for theirs. Some persons are accustomed to think and speak of the spiritual com- munity as if it consisted only of its officers. Hence the error which confounds the Church wilh the ministry, and which is partly kept up, perhaps, by men's neg- lecting to notice one peculiarity belonging to Christ's kingdom at its first establishment; viz. that it did then consist of ministers only, though it was by no means designed so to continue. All tlie discijiles who consti- tuted the infant Church were those destined to be em- ployed in various offices therein ; so that an inattentive reader is liable to confound together what our Lord said to them as ministers, and what as members ; as rulers of a Church, and as the Church itself — Eden, Ch. Diet. s. V. See Bishop; Cnuiicii; Deacon; Elder.
Offices, the forms of prayer used in Eomish and Episcopal churches. Before the Keformation the offices of the Church consisted in missals, breviaries, psalter- ies, graduals, and pontificals. See under the respective titles, and also the article Offick, the Divine.
Offices of Christ. See Christ, Offices of.
Official is the title given to an episcopal ecclesiastic who is intrusted with the trial of offences in a diocese. The official originated in the 12th century, as if to check the power of the archdeacon. The official of an arch- deacon stands to him as a chancellor to a bishop. But there was a practice in very early times in the Church which gave rise to such ajipointment. The bishops, as far back as the days of St. Gregory and St. Basil, employ- ed assistants; and pope Damasus sent the priest Simpli- cius to assist St. Ambrose. The Council of Lateran con- tented itself with suggesting the employment of "fitting men" to assist bishops ; and it appears that at first the titles of vicar-general and official were tenable together, as now in Italy, for the administration by one person both of voluntary and contentious jurisdiction. A bish- op, when absent from his diocese, or when ill or incapa- ble, was obliged to appoint a vicar. He was sometimes called a " missus dominicus." The principal officials and vicar-general in temporals and spirituals hold the consistory court as the bishop's representatives as if he sat in person. The official has a territory or district, and holds his office by commission, for hearing causes in a whole diocese, but without the power of inquiry, correction, or punishment of offences; he can only de- prive of a benefice, or give admission to it by special commission. A vicar -general holds all these powers except collation to a benefice. A commissary-general is a special deputy. An official's powers terminate with the death of him by whose appointment he acts; and he may also be recalled. An appeal lies from his sentence, not to the bishop, but to him to whom an ap- peal would be made from the bishop himself. The official principal resides in the chief place, and is an or- dinary; others are deputies, "officiales foranei" (i. e. living out of it), and from them appeal lies to the bishop. The official principal is the assistant of the bishop in matters of a civil or criminal nature, to aid him in points of law and to defend the rights of the Church. These officers were not at first deputed and assigned to any certain place, but supplied the ofiice of the bishops at large in hearing ecclesiastical causes which were of a contentious jurisdiction. They were called "judices," or "officiales foranei," viz. "ofliciales astricti cuidam foro diocceseos tantum." To them the cognizance of causes is generally committed by such as have ecclesi- astical jurisdiction throughout all the diocese, but not the power of inquisition, nor the correction of crimes, nor can they remove persons from t he benefices or col- late to benefices without a special commission. The
archdeacon's official exercises jurisdiction in certain parts of a diocese for cognizance and hearing of causes transferred, in virtue of the office itself, by some general commission made to him for that purpose, and he may visit in the right of the archdeacon when the lattej himself is hindered. — Blunt, Diet. Theol. s. v.
Officium Divinum. See Office, the Divine.
O'Fihely, Maurice, an Irish Roman Catholic prel- ate, studied at the University of Oxford, and joinecl the Franciscans. He afterwards studied philosophy and the- ology at Padua, where he graduated, and later taught, In 1480 he was corrector for the renowned printers Oc- taviaii Schott and Locatelle, of Venice, a position which learned men at that time did not look upon as beneath their dignity. Julius II made him archbishop of Tuam in 1506, but O'Fihely preferred to remaiu in Venice, where he devoted himself to scholastic philosophy and to literature. In 1512 he took part in the first two ses- sions of the Council of Lateran. Finally, in 1513, he made up his mind to go to Ireland, but died on landing at Galway, INIay 25. He wrote, Expositio in qvcvstioneit dialecticas Joannis Scoti in Tsagogen Porphyrii (Fer- rara, 1499; Venice, 1512, fol.) : — Co7icordunti(e et casti- gationes in metaphgsicalia Doct. Sultilis (Venice, 1501, fol.) : — Compendium veritatum iv libr, Sententiarum (ibid. 1505, 4to) : — De rerum contingentia et divina prce- destinatione (ibid. 1505, 4to) : — Commeniaria Doctoris Suhiilis J. Scoti in xii lib. Metuphysicce Aristotelis (ibid. 1507, fol.): — Enchiridion jidei (ibid. 1509, 4to) : — Epi- themata informalitatum opus de mente Doctoris Subiilis (ibid. 1514, fol.) : — Dictionarium Sacrce Scnpturce (ibid. 1603, fol.) ; the publication stopped at the word exstin^ guere, but there is said to exist a complete MS. copy in the Bodleian Library. See Wood, Athena Oxon.; Pos- sevin. Apparatus sacer ; Jean de Saint-Antoine, Bibli' oth. Eraneiscaine, vol. ii. — Hoefer, N^ouv. Bing. Generale, xxxviii, 548; Allibone, Diet, of Brit, and Amer. Au.- thors, s. v. (J. N. P.)