§ 55. The Patriarchs.
Mien. Le Quien (French Dominican, t 1733) : Oriens Christianus, in quatnor patriarchatus digestns, quo eshibentur ecclesiaj, patriarchsa cseterique prtesules totius Orientis. Opus posthumum, Par. 17^0, 8 ■fols. fol. (a thorough description of the oriental dioceses from the beginning to 1732). P. Jos. Cautelius (Jesuit) : Metropolitanarum nrbium historia civilis et ecclesiastica, in qua Romans Sedis dignitas
' Kai T7* Tiu^ 7rpo7J7e?(rSai avrbv.
^ Cyprian, Epist. 45, says of his province of Carthage : " Latius fusa est nostrn provincia ; habet enim Numidiam et Mauretaniam sibi cohserentes."
272 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311--590.
et imperatoriim et reguin in earn morita explicantnr, Par. 1685 (im portaut for ecclesiastical statistics of the West, and the extension ot the Roman patriarchate). Bingham (Anglican) : Antiquities, 1. ii. c. 17. JoH. El. Theoi). Wiltsoii (Evangel.) : Handbuch der kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik, Borl. 1846, vol. i. p. 56 sqq. Fhiede. Maassev (R. C.) : Der Primat des Bischofa von Rom. n. die alten Patriarchalkirchen, Bonn. 1853. Thomas Gkeenwood : Cathedra Petri, a Political History of the Latin Patriarchate, Lond. 1859 sqq. (vol. L p. 158-^89). Comp. my review of this work in the Am. Theol. Rev., New York, 1864, p. 9 sqq.
Still above tlie metropolitans stood the five Patriarchs,' tliG oligarchical summit, so to speak, the five towers in the edifice of the Catholic hierarchy of the Grseco-Roman empire.
These patriarchs, in the official sense of the word as already fixed at the time of the fourth ecumenical council, were the bishops of the four great capitals of the empire, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople ; to whom was added, by way of honorary distinction, the bishop of Jerusalem, as president of the oldest Christian congi-egation, though the proper continuity of that office had been broken by the destruction of tlie holy city. They had oversight of one or more dioceses ; at least of two or more provinces or eparchies.'' They ordained the metropolitans ; rendered the final decision in church controversies ; conducted the ecumenical councils ; publislied the decrees of the councils and the church laws of the emperors ; and united in themselves the supreme legislative and executive power of the hierarchy. They bore the same relation to the metropolitans of single provinces, as the ecumenical councils to the provincial. They did not, however, form a college ; each acted for himself. Yet in important matters they con-
TlaTptdpxv^ ; patriarclia ; sometimes also, after the political terminology, itapxo^. The name palri.arch, originally applied to the progenitors of Israel (Ileb. vii. 1, to Abraham ; Acts vii. 8 sq., to the twelve sons of Jacob; ii. 20, to David, aa founder of the Davidlc Messianic house), was at first in the Eastern church an honorary title for bishops in general (so in Gregory Xiizianzen, and Gregory of Nyssa), but after the council of Constantinople (381), and still more after that of Chalcedon (451), it came to be used in an official sense and restricted to the five most eminent luetropolitans. In the West, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of Aquileia, bore this title honoris causa. The bishop of Rome declined that particular term, aa placing him on a level with other patriarchs, and preferred the name papa. " Pt triarch " bespeaks an oligarchical church government ; " pope," a monarchical. ' According to the political division of the emoire after Constantinc. Comp. i? .'St
§ 35. THE PATRIARCHS. 273
suited with one another, and had the right also to keep resident legates {wpoGrisiarii) at the imperial conrt at Constantinople.
In prerogativ^e they were equal, but in the extent of their dioceses and in influence they differed, and had a system of rank among themselves. Before the founding of Constantinople, and down to the I^icene council, Rome maintained the first rank, Alexandria the second, and Antioch the third, in both ecclesiastical and political importance. After the end of the fourth century this order was modified by the insertion of Constantinople as the second capital, between Rome and Alexandria, and the addition of Jerusalem as the fifth and smallest patriarchate.
The jDatriarch of Jerusalem presided only over the three meagre provinces of Palestine ; ' the patriarch of Antioch, over the greater part of the political diocese of the Orient, which comprised fifteen provinces, Syria, Phenicia, Cilicia, Arabia, Mesoi)otamia, tfec. ;* the patriarch of Alexandria, over the whole diocese of Egypt with its nine rich provinces, j:Egyptus prima and secunda, the lower and upper Thebaid, lower and upper Libya, (fee. ; ' the patriarch of Constantinople, over three dioceses, Pontus, Asia Minor, and Thrace, with eight and twenty provinces, and at the same time over the bishoprics among the barbarians;* the patriarch of Rome gradually extended his influence over the entire West, two })refectures, the Italian and the Gallic, with all their dioceses and provinces.^
The patriarchal system had reference primarily only to the imperial church, but indirectly affected also the barbarians, who received Christianity from the empire. Yet even within the empire, several metropolitans, especially the bishop of
' Comp. Wiltsch, i. p. 206 sqq. The statement of Ziegler, which Wiltach quotes and seems to approve, that the fifth ecumenical couneii, of 553, added to the patriarchal circuit of Jerusalem the metropolitans of Berytus in Phenicia, and Ruba in Syria, appears to be an error. Ruba nowhere appears in the acts of the council, and Berytus belonged to Phcenicia prima, consequently to the patriarchate of Antioch. Le Quien knows nothing of such an enlargement of the patriarchate ol Ilicrosolyma.
' Wiltsch, i. 189 sqq. * Ibid. i. 177 sqq.
* Ibid. p. 143 sqq. * Comp. § 67; below.