gated, it prepared the way for the overthrow of the popular government of the Church.
Above all, the doctrine of the divine right of the priesthood aimed a fatal blow at the liberties of the people. The clergy were no longer the servants of the people, chosen by them to the work of the ministry, but an independent and privileged order, like the Levitical priesthood, and, like them, by divine right invested with peculiar prerogatives. This independence they began by degrees to assert and to exercise. The bishop began in the 3d century to appoint at pleasure his own deacons and other inferior orders of the clergv. In other appointments, also, he endeavored to disturb the freedom of the elections and to direct them agreeably to his own will (Pertsch, Kirchengeseh. des drit.Jahrhund. p. 439-454; Planck, Gesell.-Verfass. i, 183). Against these encroachments of ecclesiastical ambition and power the people continued to oppose a firm but in- effectual resistance. They asserted, and in a measure maintained, their primitive right of choosing their own spiritual teachers (Gieseler, i, 272; for a more full and detailed account of these changes of ecclesiastical policy and of the means by which they were introduced, the reader is referred to the volume of J. G. Planck, Gesch. der christ.-Kirchl. Gesellschaftsverfussung, i, 149-212, 433 sq.). There are on record instances in the 4th, and even in the 5th century, where the appointment of a bishop was effectually resisted by the refusal of the peo- ple to ratify the nomination of the candidate to a vacant see ((iregorius Naz. Orat. 10; comp. Orat. 19. p. 308 J 21, p. 377; Bingham, bk. iv, ch. i, § 3; Planck, i, 440, n. 10). The rule had been established by decree of councils, and often repeated, requiring the presence and unanimous concurrence of all the provincial bishops in the election and ordination of one to the office of bishop. This afforded them a convenient means of defeating any popular election by an affected disagreement among themselves. The same canonical authority had made the concurrence of the metropolitan necessary to the validity of any appointment. His veto was accordingly another efficient expedient by which to baffle the suf- frages of the people and to constrain them into a reluc- tant acquiescence in the will of the clergy (Cone. Nic. c. 4; Cone. Antioch. c. 16; Carthag. A^D. 390, c. 12; Planck, i, 433-452).
Elections to ecclesiastical offices were also disturbed by the interference of secular influence from without, in consequence of that disastrous union of Church and State which was formed in the 4th century under Constantine the Great. During this century (1) the emperors con- vened and presided in general councils ; (2) confirmed their decrees; (3) enacted laws relative to ecclesiastic- al matters by their own authority; (4) pronounced de- cisions concerning heresies and controversies ; (5) ap- pointed bishops; (6) inflicted punishment on ecclesias- tical persons. Agitated and harassed by the conflict of these discordant elements, the popular assemblies for the election of men to fill the highest offices of the holy ministry became scenes of tumult and disorder that would disgrace a modern political canvass.
To correct these disorders various but ineffectual ex- pedients were adopted at different times and places. The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 361, c. 13) denied to the multitude — Tolg ox^oiq, the rabble — any vote in the choice of persons for the sacred office. Justinian in the 6th century sought, with no better success, to remedy the evils in question by limiting the elective franchise to a mixed aristocracy composed of the clergy and the chief men of the city. These were jointly to nominate three candidates, declaring under oath that in making the selection they had been influenced by no sinister mo- tive. From these three the ordaining person was to or- dain the one whom he judged best qualified (Justin. Novell. 123, c. 1; 137, c. 2; Cod. lib. 1, tit. 3; De Episcop. leg. 42). The Council of Aries (A.D. 452, c. 51) in like manner ordered the bishops to nominate three candidates, from whom the clergy and the people
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should make the election; and (bat of Barcelona (A.D.
599, c. 3) ordered the clergy and people to make the nomination, ami the metropolitan and bishopa were to determine the election by lot Bui even these ineffec- tual efforts i" restore measurably the right of the peo- ple show to whal extenl ii was already lost,
The doctrine thai to the clergy was promised a divine guidance from the Spirit of God had its influence also in completing the subjugation of the people. Resistance to Midi an authority under the infallible guidance of - nil was rebellion against High Heaven, which the laity had not the impiety to maintain. The gov- ernment ami discipline of I he < Ihurch by the priesthood was but the natural resull of their cm it nil of the elective franchise. It established and commemorated the in- dependence, the supremacy of prelacy. The bishops, no longer the ministers and representatives of the Church, arc the priests of God to dictate the laws and admin- ister the discipline of the Church (Mosheim, 1>< Rebus Christ, sec ii. § 23). By the middle of the 1th century prelacy, by various expedients, acquired the control of the whole penal jurisdiction of the laity, opening and closing at pleasure the doors "i the Church, inflicting sentence of excommunication, prescribing penances, ab- solving penitents, and restoring them t « » the church by arbitrary authority | Planck, GeseU.-Verfass. ii, 509).