§ 67. r.OOKS OF KCCLESIASTICAL LAW. 353
twelve or more Latin general councils, down to the Vatican (1870); but to all these the Greek and Protestant churches can concede only a sectional character. Three hundred and thirty-six years elapsed between the last undisputed Grseco- Latin ecumenical council of the ancient church (a.d. 787), and the first Latin ecumenical council of the mediseval church (1123). The authority of the papal see had to be established in the intervening centuries.'
§ 67. Books of Ecclesiastical Law.
I. BiBiiiOTHECA JURIS CANONici VETEEis, ed. Voellus (theologian of the
Sorbonne) and Justellus (Justean, connsellor and secretary to the French king), Par. 1661, 2 vols. fol. (Vol. i. contains the canons of the universal chiu-ch, Greek and Latin, the ecclesiastical canons of Dionysius Exiguus, or of the old Eoman church, the canons of the African church, etc. See a list of contents in Darling's Cyclop. Bibliographica, p. 1702 sq.)
II. See the literature in vol. ii. I 56 (j:*. 183). The brothers BailLerini: De antiqiiis turn editis turn ineditis collectionibus et collectoribus canonum ad Gratianum usque in ed. 0pp. Leon M. Ven., 1753 sqq. The treatises of Quesnel, Maeca, Constant, Dkey, Theineb, etc., on the history of the collections of canons. Comp. Ferd. Waltheb: Lehrbuch des Kirclienrechts, p. 109 sqq., 8th ed., 1839.
The universal councils, through their disciplinary enactments or canons, were the main fountain of ecclesiastical law. To their canons were added the decrees of the most important provincial councils of the fourth century, at Ancyra (314),
' On the number of the ecumenical councils till that of Trent the Roman divines themselves are not agreed. The Gallicans reckon twenty-one, Bellarmine eighteen, Hefele only sixteen. The undisputed ones, besides the eight already mentioned Graeco-Latin councils, are these eight Latin: the first Lateran (Roman) council, A.D. 1123; the second Lateran, a.T). 1139; the third Lateran, a.d. 1179; the fourth Lateran, a.d. 1315; the first of Lyons, a.d. 1345 ; the second of Lyons, a.d. 1274; that of Florence, a.d. 1439; (the fifth Lateran, 1513-1517, is disputed;) and that of Trent, a.d. 154.5-1563. The ecumenical character of the three reformatory councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and of the fifth Lateran council, a.d. 1512-1517, is questioned among the Roman divines, and is differently viewed upon ultramontane and upon Galilean principles. Hefele considers them partially ecumenical ; that is, so far as they were ratified by the pope. [But in the Revised edition of his Conciliengeschichtfi, 1S73 sqq., he reckons twenty ecumenical councils, including the Vatican, 1870. See Appendix, p. 1033.]
354 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Neo-Caesarea (314), Antioeh (341), Sardica (343), Gangra (305) and Laodicea (between 343 and 381) ; and in a third series, the orders of eminent bishops, popes, and empercrs. From these sources arose, after the beginning of the fifth century, oi at all events before the council of Chalcedon, various colle(5tions of the church laws in the East, in North Africa, in Italy, Gaul, and Spain ; which, however, had only provincial authority, and in many respects did not agree among themselves, A codex canoiium ecclesioe universce did not exist. The earlier collections became eclipsed by two, which, the one in the West, the other in the East, attained the highest consideration. The most important Latin collection comes from the Ro* man, though by descent Scythian, abbot Dionysius Exiguus,' who also, notwithstanding the chronological error at the base of his reckoning, immortalized himself by tlie introduction of the Christian calendar, the " Dionysian Era." It was a great thought of this "little" monk to view Christ as the turning point of ages, and to introduce this view into chronology. About the year 500 Dionysius translated for the bishop Stephen of Salona a collection of canons from Greek into Latin, which is still extant, with its prefatory address to Stephen." It contains, first, the fifty so-called Apostolic Canons, which pretend to have been collected by Clement of Rome, but in tiTitli were a gradual production of the third and fourth centuries ; ' then the canons of the most important councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, including those of Sardica and Africa ; and lastly, the papal decretal letters from Siricius (385) to
' It 13 uncertain whether he obtained the surname Exiguus from his small stature or his monastic humility.
' It may be found in the above-cited Bibliotheca, vol. i., and in all good collections of councils. He says in the preface that, confusione prisca; translationis (the Priflca or Itala) offen.sus, he has undertaken a new translation of the Greek canons.
' " Canones, qui dicuntur apostolorum, . . . quibus plurimi consenaum non praebuere facilcm ; " implying that Dionysius himself, with many others, doubted thi-ir apostolic origin. In a later collection of canons by Dionysius, of which only the preface I'cmains, he entirely omitted the apostolic canons, with the remark : "Quos non admisit universitas, ego quoque in hoc opere prajtermisi." On the pseudo-apostolic Canons and Constitutions, comp. vol. i. §113 (p. 440 -442), and the well-known critical work of the Roman Catholic theologian Drey.