This impost is termed cathedraticum "in honorem cathedra'," and synodaticum as being collected during the session of synod; but it has in practice been paid at other times as well, and is exacted even where no synod is held, unless a custom recognised in law for- bids (Benedict XIV, ut sup. etc.). A tax expressive
SYNODIC.^
93
SYNUSIAST^
of subordination is required in any case, amounting gen- erally to two sulidi. It must be jiaid by all cburclics and benefices and their incuuibents, and also by semi- naries with which beuetices are incorporated, and lay unions having a church of their own. Regulars are exempt with reference to convents and convent church- es in which they personally minister. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem is likewise exempt. In practice, how ever, it has not always been possible to collect these taxes. Austria ceased to pay them under imperial re- scripts of 1783 and 1802, and in many other districts of Germany they were (piietly discontinued. Their valid- ity was decreed in Bavaria, on the other hand, so late as 1841 (see Permaneder, Handb. d. Kirchenrechls, 3d ed., p. 319, note). — Herzog, Reul-EiicyUop. s. v.
Synodicae {awo^iKai^ were letters written by a new bishop informing other bishops of his promotion, and to testify his desire to hold communion with them. A neglect to write such letters was interpreted as a re- fusal to hold such communion and a virtual charge of heresy upon his fellows. Circular letters summoning the bishops to a provincial synod were also called Sy- nodicw.
Synoditae (from avi'oSoc, a community') were moidvs wlio lived in communities or convents, differing in this respect from the Anchorets.
Synods form a noticeable feature in the history of the general Church. Particular synods have served to indicate particular stages in the progress or retrogres- sion of the life of the Church, as respects the develop- ment of knowledge and teaching, the formation of the worship and the constitution of the Church itself; and all synods serve, more clearly than other institutions, to reveal the ruling spirit, the measure of strength, or tlie type of disease, in anj' given period. The breadth of the field covered by this title will appear from the fact that Mansi's (q. v.) collection of the acts, etc., of councils, extending only into the 15th century, em- braces 31 volumes folio.
With respect to the origin of synods opinions differ. Some authors hold them to have been divinely insti- tuted through the agency of the apostles (Acts xv, es- pecially ver. 28, " It seemed good to the Holy (ihost, and to us"), while others concede to them a merely ac- cidental rise. The council in Acts xv must certainly be considered a synod, though it does not appear that it was designed to introduce a permanent institution. On the other band, the situation of the Church and the progress of events furnished the providential conditions by which ecclesiastical assemblies became necessary, so that the theory of a merely human origin for them can- not be accepted. The history of our subject, excluding the period since the Reformation, admits of being di- vided into five periods.
I. The Beyinidnys of the Institution of Synods as Fur- nished by Provincial Synods (to A.D. 325). — The earliest of such synods of which mention is made are one al- leged to have been held in Sicily in A.D. 125 against the gnostic Heracleon (q. v.), and one at Rome under bishop Telesphorus (d. 139); but there is not the slightest evidence that either of them was held. The earliest of which we have authentic information were held in Asia JNIinor against the Montanists (Eusebius, Hist. L'ccl. V, 16), probably not before A.D. 150. Soon afterwards various synods were held to discuss the cele- bration of Easter {ibid.v, 23) and other questions; so that Tertullian speaks {De J(juniis, c. 13) of the con- vening of such bodies as a custom among the (ireeks, and thereby at the same time imfilics that such assem- blies were not known in his own (African) Church. Such conferences promoted Christian unity and laid the foundation for a government of the churches by supe- rior authority. By the middle of the 3d century syn- ods were regularly held in each year, and were attend- ed by bishops and elders, so that they bad already be- come a fixed and periodically recurring institution, in
which the different churches shared in the persons of their aiipropriate re]}rcsentatives (see Firniiliau's letter to Cyprian, Fj'p. No. 75). The earliest synods in the West were held in Africa about A.D. 216, and soon such assemblies became freiiuent. The next stage in the de- velopment of synods ajipears in the extension of their jurisdiction over larger areas than a single district or province, by which the inauguration of oecumenical councils was ])repared for. At Icouium, in 26G, rejire- sentatives were present from Galatia, Cilicia, etc. Ev- ery part of Spain was represented at Elvira; and the Synod of Aries, in 314, was attended by bishops from Gaid, Britain, Germany, Spain, North Africa, and Italy.
II. A.D. 325 to 8ti9. — The oecumenical synods of the (Jreek Church, beginning with that of Nica;a (q. v.) and closing with the Iburih Council of Constantinople (q. v.).
III. A.D. 8(59 to 1311.— Councils of the Western Church under the direction of the papacy, including a great number of provincial and national synods whose pro- ceedings indicated both the utmost devotion and the most decided opposition to the rule of the popes — end- ing w^ith the general Council of Vienne in Gaul (q. v. severally).