250 THIBD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590
enough making prudence subservient to truth, but never truth subservient to prudence.
Meantime, in the Greek church also, as early as the fourth century, the Augustinian view here and there made its way ; and Basil the Great, in his shorter monastic Rule," rejected even accommodation (oIkovo/j-io) for a good end, because Christ ascribes the lie, without distinction of kinds, exclusively to Satan.' In this respect, therefore, Ohrysostom did not stand at the head of his age, but represented without doubt the pre* vailing view of the Eastern churcli.
The legislation of the councils with reference to the clergy, shows in general the earnestness and rigor with which the church guarded the moral purity and dignity of her servants. The canonical age was, on the average, after the analogy of the Old Testament, the five-and-twentieth year for the diaconate, the thirtieth for the priesthood and episcopate. Catechumens, neophytes, persons baptized at the point of death, penitents, energumens (such as were possessed of a devil), actors, dancers, soldiers, curials (court, state, and municipal officials),' slaves, eunuchs, bigamists, and all who led a scandalous life after baptism, were debarred from ordination. The frequenting of taverns and theatres, dancing and gambling, usury and the pursuit of secular business were forbidden to clergymen. But on the other hand, the frequent repetition of warnings against even the lowest and most common sins, such as licentiousness, drunkenness, fighting, and buffoonery, and the threatening of coi-poral punishment for certain misdemeanors, yield an unfavorable conclusion in regard to the moral standing of the
' Regul. brev. interrogat. 76, cited by Ncander in his monograph on Ohrysostom (3d ed.) i. p. 97. Neander tliere adduces still another similar testimony against the lawfuhiess of the lie, by the contemporaneous Egyptian monk, John of Lycopolis, from Pallad. Hist. Lauaiaca.
' John, viii. 44.
' The ground on which even civil officers were excluded, is stated by the Roman council of 402, which ordained in the tenth canon : " One who is clothed with a civil office cannot, on account of the sins almost necessarily connected with it, be* come a cler^raan without previo is penance" Comp. Mansi, iii. 113:i, and Hefele, u. 76.
§ 52. THE LOWER CLERGY. 251
Bucred order.' Even at the councils the clerical dignity was not seldom desecrated by outbreaks of coarse passion ; insomuch that the conncil of Ephesus, in 449, is notorious as the " council of robbers,"
In looking at this picture, however, we must not forget that in this period of the sinking empire of Home the task of the clergy was exceedingly difficult, and amidst the nominal conversion of the whole population of the empire, their numbei-s and education could not keep pace with the sudden and extraordinary expansion of tlieir field of labor. After all, the clerical office was the great repository of intellectual and moral force for the world. It stayed the flood of corruption ; rebuked the vices of the times ; fearlessly opposed tyrannical cruelty ; founded institutions of charity and public benefit ; prolonged the existence of the Koman empire ; rescued the literary treasures of antiqiiity ; carried the gospel to the bar- ])arians, and undertook to educate and civilize their rude and vigorous hordes. Out of the mass of mediocrities tower the great church teachers of the fourth and fifth centuries, combining all the learning, the talent, and the piety of the time, and through their immortal writings mightily moulding the succeedina; asres of the world.
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§ 52. The Lmoer Clergy.
As the authority and influence of the bishops, after the accession of Constantino, increased, the lower clergy became more and more dependent upon them. The episcopate and tlie presbyterate were now rigidly distinguished. And yet the memory of their primitive identity lingered. Jerome, at the end of the fourth century, reminds the bishops that tlioy owe their elevation above the presbyters, not so much to Divine in-
' Comp. the decrees of councils in Hefele, ii. 574, 638, 686, 687, 753, 760, &c. Even the Can. Apost. 27, 65, and 72, are directed against common crimes in tha clergy, such as battery, murder, and theft, which therefore must have already appeared, for legislation always has regard to the actual state of things. The PastoraJ Epistles of Paul contain no exhortations or prohibitions of this kind.