RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Canisius Canon Law
quenses tilustres. II. Melchior Cano, pp. 279, 382, Madrid, 1871.
CANON : A word used in a variety of senses in ecclesiastical terminology, all more or less related to the primary meaning of the Greek word kanon, " a straight rod or bar, rule, standard." (1) The decisive list of the books considered as forming part of' the Holy Scriptures (see Canon of Sceiptuke). (2) In ancient usage, any official church list, as of those who were to be commemorated in the liturgy, whence the term canonization, or of the clergy attached to a certain church, whence (3) A member of a body of clergy living together under a more or less definite rule in connection with a cathedral or collegiate church or in a quasimonastic organization as canons regular (see Chapter; Augustinians; Premonstratensians). (4) The decree or decision of a council for the regulation of doctrine or discipline (see Canon Law). (5) The fixed, most important portion of the mass, from the Sandus to the Pater noster. (6) In the hymnology of the Eastern Church, an important class of long and elaborate hymns usually sung in the morning office, founded mainly on the Old Testament canticles then used, and composed of either eight or nine odes.
CANONESS : A member of a company of women under the rule of an abbess and bound by vows of celibacy and obedience, but not by one of poverty. Some canonesses were "secular," and the houses they lived in were homes for ladies of the nobility; but others were "religious" and lived in nunneries of the Benedictine or Augustinian order. Few of these establishments survived the Reformation, and their inmates generally became Protestants. Some of the houses became Protestant homes for noble ladies, as those at Gandersheim, Herford, and Quedlinburg in Germany.
CANON LAW.
I. Definition and General Dis- Africa (§ 1).
cussion. Spain (§2).
II. Collections of Canons and British Isles (§3).
Decretals. Frankish Empire (§ 4).
1. Early History. 5. Further Systematization.
2. First Codification. Forerunners of Gratian
3. Earliest Western Collec- (§1).
tions. Gratian (§ 2).
The Quesnelliana (§ 1). 6. Collections of Decretals. The PrUca (§ 2). Before Gregory IX. (§ 1).
Collections of Dionysius Collection of Gregory
, « 3). (§ 2).
4. Next period, by Coun- Supplements to It (§ 3).
'nes- 7. Corpus Juris Canonici.
Canon law is the sum total of the legal enactments of the Church.
I. Definition and General Discussion: In modern times the differences between various Christian Churches have brought about a variance of law, smce it springs in the first instance from the development of the ecclesiastical consciousness; and it is thus possible to speak of Roman Catholic and Protestant canon law. While the expression is most commonly used in connection with the former, it is not quite coextensive or identical with the law of the Roman Catholic Church, but designates rather the content of the Corpus juris canonici (see below, II., 7), in contrast with the newer
regulations based on the decisions of the Council of Trent, the concordats and bulls of circumscription of the nineteenth century, and the Vatican Council. These have in many particulars modified or superseded the older law, until a new codification of the whole mass of enactments has become necessary, and is now contemplated under the direction of Pope Pius X.
The canon law, in the sense thus assigned to the term, contains a large number of regulations pertaining to matters which, according to modern constitutions, have been withdrawn from ecclesiastical jurisdiction and placed under the ordinary secular tribunals. These provisions have thus ceased to be operative. They include the relations between Church and State, the legal status of heretics, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, etc. The Roman Catholic Church, it is true, still maintains in theory the permanent validity of these enactments, and claims the same preeminent power and independence of the State as it possessed in the Middle Ages. Since the Reformation and the upbuilding of modern nationalities, however, the principle of the unity of jurisdiction and the authority of the law has proved irreconcilable with these claims. The freedom and independence conceded to the Church in the ordering of its own internal affairs by no means involves the absolute supremacy and validity of the canon law when it comes into conflict with the civil law, or releases the ecclesiastical authorities from their responsibility and their obedience to the State; for the freedom of the Church, like all other freedom in the modern world, is a freedom within the bounds of the law. But while the Roman Catholic Church appeals to divine mission and inalienable rights in support of its protest against these limitations, and has occasionally provoked serious conflicts by insistence upon its position in this matter, Protestantism from the very start took a much more restricted view of the extent of ecclesiastical operations and of the authority of its own law, sometimes, where it is established, working directly with the State, but always submitting without question to civil ordinances. The difference is seen again in the fact that while Roman Catholicism recognizes only one Church, and thus only one valid church law, Protestantism, though holding its own interpretation of the Christian faith for the true one, does not claim exclusive jurisdiction over all creatures, and concedes to the various bodies which it conceives as forming an invisible unity the right to their own independent action in matters of legislation.
Canon law, the outcome of the Church's development, rests upon positive enactment, and the attempt to construct a natural ecclesiastical law on rational principles must necessarily fail, setting as it does arbitrary and subjective views in place of the positive data of church history. A philosophical treatment of church law is, on the other hand, of great importance. It grasps in their entirety the fundamental principles on which as a basis the actual development has taken place, correlates them with the objective conceptions and principles of the Church itself, and in this way
Canon Law