§ 67. BOOKS OF ECCLESIASTICAL LAW. 355
Anastasius II. (498). The Codex Dionysii was gradually en larged by additions, genuine and spurious, and through the favor of the popes, attained the authority of Taw almost throughout the West. Yet there were other collections also in use, particularly in Spain and ISforth Africa.
Some fifty years after Dionysius, John Scholasticus, previously an advocate, then presbyter at Antioch, and after 504 patriarch of Constantinople, published a collection of canons in Greek,* which surpassed the former in completeness and convenience of arrangement, and for this reason, as well as the eminence of the author, soon rose to universal authority in the Greek church. Ii it he gives eighty-five Apostolic Canons, and the ordinances of the councils of Ancyra (314) and Nicsea (325), down to that of Chalcedon (451), in fifty titles, according to the order of subjects. The second Trullan council (Quinieextum, of 692), which passes with the Greeks for ecumenical, adopted the eighty-five Apostolic Canons, while it rejected the Apostolic Constitutions, because, though, like the canons, of apostolic origin, they had been early adulterated. Thus arose the difference between the Greek and Latin churches in reference to the number of the so-called Apostolic canons ; the Latin church retaining only the fifty of the Dionysian collection.
The same John, while patriarch of Constantinople, com piled from the Novelles of Justinian a collection of the ecclesi astical state-laws, or vo/not, as they were called in distinction from the sjmodal church-laws or Kav6ve<i. Practical wants then led to a union of the two, under the title of Nomocanon.
These books of ecclesiastical law served to complete and confirm the hierarchical organization, to regulate the life of the clergy, and to promote order and discipline ; but they tended also to fix upon the church an outward legalism, and to embarrass the spirit of progress.
* 'S.vv'Ta.-yii.a. Kay6va>i', Concordia canonum. in the Bibliotheca rf JuBtellus, torn, ii
CHAPTEK "VI.
CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND SCHISMS.
§68. DeoUne cf Discipline.
The principal sources are the bocks of ecclesiastical law and the acts ol councils. Oomp. the literature at § 67, and at vol. ii. I 57 (p. 187).
The union of the cliurch with the state shed, in general, an injurious influence upon the discipline of the church ; and that, in two opposite directions.
On the one hand it increased the stringency of discipline and led to a penal code for spiritual offences. The state gave her help to the church, lent the power of law to acts of suspension and excommunication, and accompanied those acts with civil penalties. Hence the innumerable depositions and banishments of bishops during the theological controversies of the Nicene and the following age, especiall j under the influence of the Byzantine despotism and the religious intolerance and bigotry of the times. Even the penalty of death was decreed, at least against the Priscillianists, though under the protest of nobler divines, who clave to the spiritual character of the church and of her weapons.' Heresy was regarded as the most grievous and unpardonable crime against society, and was treated accordingly by the ruling party, without respect of creed.
But on the other hand discipline became weakened. "With the increasing stringency against heretics, firmness against practical errors diminished. Hatred of heresy and laxity of morals, zeal for purity of doctrine and indifference to purity
* Comp. § 27, above.
§ 68. DECLINE OF DISCIPLINE, o57
of life, wliicli ouglit to exclude each other, do really often stand in union. Think of the history of Pharisaism at the time of Christ, of orthodox Lutheranism in its opposition to Spener and the Pietistic movement, and of prelatical Anglicanism in its conflict with Methodism and the evangelical party. Even in the Johannean age this was the case in the church of Ephesus, which prefigured in this respect both the light and shade of the later Eastern church.' The earnest, but stifi", mechanical penitential discipline, with its four grades of penance, which had developed itself during the Dioclesian persecution,' con tir.ued in force, it is true, as to the letter, and was repeatedly reaffirmed by the councils of the fourth century. But the great change of circumstances rendered the practical execution of it more aud more difficult, by the very multiplication and high position of those on whom it ought to be enforced. In that mighty revolution under Constantino the church lost her virginity, and allied herself with the mass of heathendom, which had not yet experienced an inward change. Not seldom did the emperors themselves, and other persons of authority, who ought to have led the way with a good example, render themselves, with all their zeal for theoretical orthodoxy, most vvorthy of suspension and excommunication by their scandalous conduct, while they were surrounded by weak or worldly bishops, who cared more for the favor of their earthly masters, than for the honor of their heavenly Lord and the dignity of the church. Even Eusebius, otherwise one of the better bishops of his time, had no word of rebuke for the gross crimes of Constantino, but only the most extravagant eulogies for his merits.
In the Greek church the discipline gradually decayed, to the great disadvantage of public morality, and every one was allowed to partake of the communion according to his conscience. The bishops alone reserved the right of debarring the vicious from the table of the Lord. The patriarch IS^ecta rius of Constantinople, about 390, abolished the office of peui tcntial priest (presbyter poenitentiarius), who was set over the
> Rev. ii. 1-1. Comp. my Hist, of the Apostolic Church, p. 429.
'■^ Comp. vol. ii. § 57 (p. 190 sqq.).