270 THniD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
small town, for wliicli a single priest is snfficicnl, a bishop sliould be stationed, lest the episcopal dignity and authority Buffer scandal ; ' but the bishops of the eparchy (province) shall appoint bishops only for those places where bishops have already been, or where the town is so populous that it is considered worthy to be a bishopric." The j)lace of these chorepiscopi was thenceforth supplied either by visitators {TrepioBevrai), who in the name of the bishop visited the country congregations from time to time, and performed the necessary functions, or by resident presbj^ters (parochi), under the immediate sujicrvision of the city bishop.
Among the city bishops towered the bishops of the capital cities of the various provinces. They were styled in the East ^neiropolitans, in the West usually arehhis/i02:)s.'^ They had the oversight of the other bishops of the province ; ordained them, in connection with two or three assistants ; summoned provincial synods, which, according to the fifth canon of the council of I^ice and the direction of other councils, were to be held twice a year ; and presided in such synods. They promoted union among the different churches by tlie reciprocal communication of synodal acts, and confirmed the organism of the hierarchy.
Tliis metropolitan constitution, which had gradually arisen out of the necessities of the church, became legally established in the East in the fourth century, and passed thence to the Graeco-Russian clmi-ch. The coimcil of Nice, at that early day, ordered in the fourth canon, that every new bishop should be ordained by all, or at least by three, of the bishops of the eparchy (the municipal province), under the direction and with the sanction of the metropolitan.' Still clearer is the
' Can. 6 : . . . Iva /j.^ Karei/Tf Ai|TjTat rh toC fwicrKSirov ivo/xa ko.) ?'; av^evria ; or, in the Latin version : " Ne vilescat nomen episcopi ct juictoritas." Com p. Ilcfele. i. p. 55G. The differences between the Greelv and Latin text in tlie first part of this canon have no influence on the prohibition of the appointment of country bishops.
' MijTpoTToAiTTjy, metropolitanus, and the kindred title i^apxos (applied to the most powerful metropolitans) ; apxicria-KOTros, archiepiscopus, and primas.
' This canon has been recently discovered also in a Coptic translation, and pub liflhed by Pitra. in the Spicilegiura Solesmense, i. 626 sq.
§ 55, THE PATKIAECH8. 271
ninth canon of the council of Antioch, in 341 : " The bisliopg of each eparchy (province) should know, that upon the bishop of the metropolis (the municipal capital) also devolves a care for the whole eparchy, because in the metropolis all, who havb business, gather together from all quarters. Hence it has been found good, that he should also have a precedence in honor,' and that the other bishops should do nothing without him — ■ according to the old and still binding canon of our fathers — except tliat which pertains to the supervision and jurisdiction of their parishes (i. e. dioceses in the modern terminology), and the provinces belonging to them ; as in fact they ordain presbyters and deacons, and decide all judicial matters. Otherwise they ought to do nothing without the bishop of the metropolis, and he nothing without the consent of the other bishops." This council, in the nineteenth canon, forbade a bishop being ordained without the presence of the metropolitan and the presence or concurrence of the majority of the bishops of the province.
In Afi-ica a similar system had existed from the time of Cyprian, before the church and the state were united. Every province had a Primas ; the oldest bishop being usually chosen to this office. The bishop of Carthage, however, was not only primate of Africa proconsularis, but at the same time, corresponding to the proconsul of Carthage, the ecclesiastical head of Kumidia and Mauretania, and had power to summon a general council of Africa.'