276 THIRD TEEIOD. A.D. 311-590.
the otlier eparchies or j. rovinces were secured their admitted rights.' The bishoprics of Alexandria, Korne, and Autioch were placed substantially on equal footing, yet in such tone, that Antioch, as the third capital of the Roman empire, already stands as a stepjjing stone to the ordinary metropolitans. By the " other eparchies " of the canon are to be understood either all provinces, and therefore all metropolitan districts, or more probably, as in the second canon of the first council of Constantinople, only the three eparchates of C^esarea in Cappadocia, Ephesus, and Asia Minor, and Heraclea in Thrace, which, after Constantine's division of the East, possessed similar pre rogatives, but were subsequently overshadowed and absorbed by Constantinople. In any case, however, this addition proves that at that time the rights and dignity of the patriarchs were not yet strictly distinguished from those of the other metropolitans. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch here appear in relation to the other bishops simply as jprimi inter ^ares, or as metropolitans of the first rank, in whom the highest political eminence was joined with the highest ecclesiastical. N^ext to them, in the second rank, come the bishops of Ephesus in the Asiatic diocese of the empire, of Neo-Caesarea in tlie Pontic, and of Heraclea in the Thracian ; while Constantinople, which was not founded till five years later, is wholly unnoticed in the Nicene council, and Jerusalem is mentioned only under the name of ^lia.
Between the first and second ecumenical councils arose the new patriarchate of Constantinople, or New Rome, built by Con- Btantine in 330, and elevated to the rank of the imperial residence. The bishop of this city was not only the successor of the bishop
' So Greenwood also views the matter, Cathedra Petri, 1859, t ^. i. p. 181 : " It was manifestly not tlie object of this canon to confer any new jurisdiction npon the church of Alexandria, but simply to confirm its customary prerogative. By way of illustration, it places that prerogative, whatever it was, upon the same level with that of the two other eparchal churches of Home and Antioch. Moreover, the worda of the canon disclose no other ground of claim but custom ; and tlie customs of each eparchia are restricted to the territorial limits of the diocese or eparchia itself. And though, within those limits, 'he several customary rights and prerogatives niaj have diflercd, yet beyond them uo jurisdiction of aav kind c( uld, by virtue of thit canon, have any existence at all"
§ 56. SYNODIC AL LEGISLATION, ETC. 271
of the ancient Byzantium, hitherto under the jui isdictioii of the metropolitan of Heraclea, but, through the f{.,vor of the imperial court and the bishops who were always numerously assembled there, it placed itself in a few decenuia among the tirst metropoHtans of the East, and in the fifth century becamthe most powerful rival of the bishop of old Eome.
This new patriarchate was first ofiicially recognized at tho .^ first ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, imd[2) was conceded " ths precedence in honoi\ next to the hishop of Rome^'' the second place among all bishops ; and that, on the purely political consideration, that JSTew Rome was the residence of the emperor.' At the same time the imperial city and the diocese of Thrace (whose ecclesiastical metropolis hitherto had been Heraclea) were assigned as its district,^
Many Greeks took this as a formal assertion of the equality of the bishop of Constantinople with the bishop of Rome, understanding " next " or " after " (//.era) as referring only to time, not to rank. But it is more natural to regard this as conceding a primacy of honor, which the Roman see could claim on diflerent grounds. The popes, as the subsequent protest of Leo shows, were not satisfied with this, because they were unwilling to be placed in the same category with the Constantiuopolitan fledgling, and at the same time assumed a supremacy of jurisdiction over the whole church. On tlie other hand, this decree was unwelcome also to the patriarch
' Cone. Constant, i. can. 3 : "thv fiivToi KdovcnavTivoviToXiocs firlaKovov ex^"* ''" •* w p€ a fi €7a r rj s t i fXTJ s fieT a r hp t rj s 'Pci/uTjy iirlaKo-KOv, Sia rh elvai ouT^/K veav "PtiiJ.7}v. This canon is quoted also by Socrates, v. 8, and Sozomen, vii. 9, and confirmed by tlie council of Chalcedon (see below) ; so that it must be from pure dogmatical bias, that Baronius (Annal. ad ann. 381, n. 35, 36) questions its genuineness.
^ The latter is not, indeed, expressly said in the above canon, which seems to epeak only of an honorary precedence. But the canon was so understood by the bishops of Constantinople, and by the historians Socrates (v. 8) and Theodore* (Epist. 86, ad Flavianum), and so interpreted by the Chalcedonian council (can. 28). The relation of the bishop of Constantinople to the metropolitan of Heraclea, however, remained for a long time uncertain, ajid at the council ad Quercum, 403, in the affair of Chrysostom, Paul of Heraclea took the presidency, though the patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria was present. Comp. Le Quien, torn. i. p. 18 ; and Wiltsch. i. p. 139.