278 THIRD PERIOD. A.D, 311-590.
of Alexandria, because this see had hitherto held tlie second rank, and was now required to take the third. Hence the canon was not subscribed by Timotheus of Alexandria, and was reo-arded in Egypt as void. Afterward, however, the emperors prevailed with the Alexandrian patriarchs to yield this point.
After the council of 381, tlie bishop of Constantinople indulged in manifold encroachments on tlie rights of the metropolitans of Ephesus and Caesarea in Cappadocia, and even on the rights of the other patriarchs. In this extension of his authority he was favored by the fact that, in spite of the prohibition of the council of Sardica, the bishops of all the districts of the East continually resided in Constantinople, in order to present all kinds of interests to the emperor. These con cerns of distant bishops were generally referred by the emperor to the bishop of Constantinople and his council, the crwoSo? ivBr)/xovaa, as it was called, that is, a council of the bishops resident {evhr}^ovvT(cv) in Constantinople, under his presidency. In this way his trespasses even upon the bounds of other patriarchs obtained the right of custom by consent of parties, if not the sanction of church legislation. Nectarius, who was not elected till after that council, claimed the presidency at a council in 394, over the two patriarchs who were present, Theophilus of Alexandria and Flavian of Antioch ; decided the matter almost alone ; and thus was the first to exercise the primacy over the entire East. Under his successor, Chrysostom, the compass of the see extended itself still farther, and, according to Theodoret,' stretched over the capital, over all Thrace with its six provinces, over all Asia (Asia proconsularis) with eleven provinces, and over Pontus, which likewise embraced eleven provinces ; thus covering twenty-eight provinces in all. In the year 400, Chrysostom went " by retpiest to Ephesus," to ordain there Ileraclides of Ephesus, and at tha same time to institute six bishops in the places of others deposed for simony.' Ilis second successor, Atticus, about the
' H. E. lib. V. cap. 28.
" According to Sozomen it was thirteen, according to Theophilus of Alexandria at the council ad Quercam seventeen bishops, whom he instituted ; and tliis act wat charged against him as an unheard-of crime. See Wiltsch, i. 141.
§ 56. SYNODICAL LEGISLATION, ETC. 27C
year 421, procured from tlie younger Theodosius a law, that no bishop should be ordained in the neighboring dioceses without the consent of the bishop of Constantinople.' Thia power still needed the solemn sanction of a general council, before it could have a firm legal foundation. It received thia sanction at Chalcedon.
The fourth ecumenical council, held at Chalcedon in 451, tonfirmed and extended the power of the bishop of Constantinople, by ordaining in the celebrated twenty-eighth canon :
"Following throughout the decrees of the holy fathers, and being ac- "quainted with the recently read canon of the hundred and fifty bishops " [i. e. the third canon of the second ecumenical councU of 381], we also " have determined and decreed the same in reference to the prerogatives "of the most holy church of Constantinople or New Rome. For with " reason did the fathers confer prerogatives (ra npea^ela) oq the throne '* [the episcopal chair] of ancient Rome, on account of her character as the " imperial city (8ia t6 (iaai\(v(iv) ; and, moved by the same consideration, " the hundred and fifty bishops recognized the same prerogatives (ra ura ''TTpecr^e'ia) also in the most holy throne of New Rome ; with good reason "judging, that the city, which is honored with the imperial dignity and " the senate [i. e. where the emperor and senate reside], and enjoys the " same [municipal] privileges as the ancient imperial Rome, should also bo " equally elevated in ecclesiastical respects, and be the second after he-
" (pfwipai/ fxer iKfLVqv)y
"And [we decree] that of tlie dioceses of Pontus, Asia [Asia procon- "sularis], and Thrace, only the metropolitans, but in such districts of those "dioceses as are occupied by barbarians, also the [ordinary] bishops, be " ordained by the most holy throne of the most holy church at Constanti- "nople; while of course every metropolitan in those dioceses ordains the " new bishops of a province in concurrence with the existing bishops of " that province, as is directed in the divine (Seiou) canons. But the me- " tropolitans of those dioceses, as already said, shall be ordained by the " archbishop {npxifniaKimov) of Constantinople, after they shall have been "unanimously elected in the usual way, and he [the archbishop of Con- " stantinople] shall have been informed of it."
We have divided this celebrated Chalcedonian canon into two parts, though in the Greek text the parts are (by koI ware) closely connected. The first part assigns to the bishop of
' Socrates, H. E. 1. vii. 28, where such a law is incidentally mentioned. The inhabitants of Cyzicus in the Hellespont, however, transgressed the I w, on tin pre oumptini that it was merely a personal privilege of Atticus.