Читать книгу Church History (Vol.1-3) - J. H. Kurtz - Страница 56

The distinction between clergy and laity was ever becoming more and more clearly marked and in the higher church offices there grew up a spiritual aristocracy alongside of the secular aristocracy. The priesthood arrogated a position high above the laity just as the soul is higher than the body. There was consequently such a thronging into the clerical ranks that a restriction had to be put upon it by the civil laws. The choice of the clergy was made by the bishops with the formal consent of the members of the church. In the East the election of bishops lay ordinarily with the episcopal board of the province concerned though under the presidency of the metropolitan, whose duty it was to ordain the individual so elected. The episcopal chair of the imperial capital, however, was generally under the patronage of the court. In the West on the other hand the old practice was continued, according to which bishops, clergy and members of the church together made the election. At Rome, however, the emperor maintained the right of confirming the appointment of the new bishop. The exchange of one bishopric for another was forbidden by the Nicene Council as spiritual adultery (Eph. v. 33 ff.), but was nevertheless frequently practised. The monarchical rank of the bishop among the clergy was undisputed. The Chorepiscopi (§ 34, 3) had their episcopal privileges and authority always more and more restricted, were made subordinate to the city bishops, and finally, about A.D. 360, were quite set aside. To the Presbyters, on the other hand, in consequence of the success of the anti-episcopal reaction, especially among the daughter and country churches, complete independence was granted in regard to the ministry of the word and dispensation of sacraments, with the exception of the ordination of the clergy, and in the West also the confirmation of the baptism, which the bishop alone was allowed to perform.

§ 45.1. Training of the Clergy.—The few theological seminaries of Alexandria, Cæsarea, Antioch, Edessa and Nisibis could not satisfy the need of clerical training, and even these for the most part disappeared amid the political and ecclesiastical upheavals of the 5th and 6th centuries. The West was entirely without such institutions. So long as pagan schools of learning flourished at Athens, Alexandria, Nicomedia, etc., many Christian youths sought their scientific preparation for the service of the church in them, and added to this on the Christian side by asceticism and theological study among the anchorets or monks. Others despised classical culture and were satisfied with what the monasteries could give. Others again began their clerical career even in boyhood as readers or episcopal secretaries, and grew up under the oversight and direction of the bishop or experienced clergymen. Augustine organized his clergy into a monastic association, Monasterium Clericorum, and gave it the character of a clerical seminary. This useful institution found much favour and was introduced into Sicily and Sardinia by the bishops driven out by the Vandals. The Regula Augustini, so often referred to the Latin Middle Ages, is of later and uncertain origin, but is based upon two discourses of Augustine, “De Moribus Clericorum” and an Epistle to the Nuns at Hippo.—The age of thirty was fixed upon as the canonical age for entering the order of presbyter or priest; twenty-five for that of deacon. Neophytes, those who had been baptized on a sickbed (Clinici), penitents and energoumeni, Bigenie, the mutilated, eunuchs, slaves, actors, comedians, dancers, soldiers, etc., were excluded from the clerical office. The African church even in the 4th century prescribed a strict examination of candidates as to their attainments and orthodoxy. Justinian at least insisted upon a guarantee of orthodoxy by means of episcopal examination.—Ordination123 made its appearance as an appendage to the baptismal anointing as a sacramental ordinance. The one was consecration to the priesthood in the special sense: the other in the general sense; both bore a character indelibilis. Their efficacy was generally regarded as of a magical kind. The imparting of ordination was exclusively an episcopal privilege; but presbyters could assist at the consecration of those of their own order. The proposition: Ne quis vage ordinatur, was of universal application; the missionary office was the only exception. The anniversaries of episcopal ordinations, Natales episcoporum, were frequently observed as festivals. Legally no one could be ordained to a higher ecclesiastical office, who had not passed through all the lower offices from that of subdeacon. In earlier times ordination consisted only in imposition of hands; but subsequently, after the pattern of baptism there was added an anointing with Chrism, i.e. oil with balsam. The Lord’s Supper was partaken of before ordination, the candidate having previously observed a fast.—From the 5th century it was made imperative that the party ordained should adopt the Tonsure.124 It had been introduced first in connection with the penitents, then as a symbol of humility it found favour among the monks, and from these it passed over to the clergy. Originally the whole head was shaved bare. At a later period the Greek tonsure, Tonsura Pauli, which merely shaved the forehead, was distinguished from the Romish, Tonsura Petri, which left a circle of hair round about the crown of the head, as a memorial of Christ’s crown of thorns or as the symbol of the royal priesthood, Corona sacerdotalis. The shaving of the beard, as an effeminate foppish custom, seemed to the ancient church to detract from the sternness and dignity of the clerical rank. In all Eastern churches the full beard was retained, and the wearing of it by-and-by made obligatory, as it is to this day. In the West, however, perhaps to mark a contrast to the bearded clergy of the Arian Germans, shaving became general among the Catholic clergy, and by papal and synodal ordinances became almost universally prevalent. The adoption of the custom was also perhaps furthered by a desire to give symbolic expression by the removal of the beard to the renunciation of the claims of the male sex on the part of a celibate clergy.—A solemn Investiture with the insignia of office (§ 59, 7) was gradually introduced, and was that which marked distinctions between the consecrations to the various ranks of clerical offices.

§ 45.2. The Injunction of Celibacy.—In accordance with a hint given by the Spanish Provincial Synod of Elvira in A.D. 306 in its 32nd canon, the Œcumenical Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 was inclined to make the obligation of celibacy at least for the Ordines Majores a binding law over the whole church. But on the other hand the Egyptian bishop Paphnutius, a confessor and from his youth an ascetic, stoutly maintained that the fellowship of married persons too is chastity. His powerful voice decided the matter. The usual practice, however, was that bishops, presbyters and deacons should not contract a second marriage (1 Tim. iii. 2), after ordination should contract no marriage at all, and if previously married, should continue to live with their wives or not as they themselves should find most fit. The Easterns maintained this free standpoint and at the Synod of Gangra in A.D. 360 contended against the Eustathianists (§ 44, 7) for the holiness of marriage and the legitimacy of married priests; and in the 5th Apost. Canon there was an express injunction: Episcopus vel presbyter, vel diaconus uxorem suam non rejiciat religionis prætexti; sin autem rejecerit segregetur, et si perseveret deponatur. Examples of married bishops are not rare in the 4th and 5th centuries; e.g. the father of Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, Synesius of Ptolemais, etc. Justinian I. forbade the election of a married man as bishop. The second Trullan Council in A.D. 692 (§ 63, 2) confirmed this decree, interdicted second marriages to all the clergy, but, with an express protest against the unnatural hardness of the Roman church, allowed to presbyters a single marriage with all its privileges which, however, must have been entered upon before consecration, and during the period of service at the altar all marital intercourse had to be discontinued. In Rome, however, the Spanish principles were strictly maintained. A decretal of the Roman bishop, Siricius, in A.D. 385, with semi-Manichæan abuse of marriage, insisted on the celibacy of all bishops, presbyters and deacons, and Leo the Great included even subdeacons under this obligation. All the more distinguished Latin church teachers contended zealously for the universal application of the injunction of clerical celibacy. Yet there were numerous instances of the contravention of the order in Italy, in Gaul, and in Spain itself, and conformity could not be secured even by the most emphatic re-issue of the injunction by successive Synods. In the British and Iro-Scottish church the right of the clergy and even of bishops to marry was insisted upon (§ 77, 3).125

§ 45.3. Later Ecclesiastical Offices.—In addition to the older church offices we now meet with attendants on the sick or Parabolani, from παραβάλλεσθαι τὴν ζωήν, and grave-diggers, κοπιαταί, Fossarii, whose number in the capital cities rose to an almost incredible extent. They formed a bodyguard ever ready to gratify episcopal love of pomp. Theodosius II. in A.D. 418 restricted the number of the Parabolani of Alexandria to six hundred and the number of the Copiati of Constantinople to nine hundred and fifty. For the administration of Church property there were οἰκόνομοι; for the administration of the laws of the church there were advocates, ἔνδικοι, σύνδικοι, Defensores; for drawing up legal documents in regard to church affairs there were Notarii, ταχύγραφοι, besides, Keepers of Archives, χαρτοφύλακες, Librarians, Thesaurarii, σκευοφύλακες, etc. None of these as such had clerical consecration. But also within the ranks of the Ordines Majores new offices sprang up. In the 4th century we meet with an Archdeacon at the head of the deacons. He was the right hand of the bishop, his representative and plenipotentiary in the administration and government of the diocese, frequently also his successor in office. The college of presbyters, too, had as its head the Arch-Presbyter who represented and supported the bishop in all acts of public worship. A city presbyter was entrusted with the supervision of the country churches as Visitor. The African Seniores plebis were mere lay elders without clerical ordination. The office of Deaconess more or less lost its significance and gradually fell into disuse.—Justinian I. restricted the number of ecclesiastical officers in the four great churches of Constantinople to 525; namely, in addition to the bishop, 60 presbyters, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers, 24 singers, and 100 doorkeepers.

§ 45.4. Church Property.—The possessions of the church regularly increased by presents and bequests was regarded down to the 5th century generally as the property of the poor, Patrimonium pauperum, while the cost of maintaining public worship and supplying the clergy with the means of livelihood were defrayed by the voluntary contributions, Oblationes, of the church members. But the growing demands of the clergy, especially of the bishops, for an income corresponding to their official rank and the increasing magnificence of the service, led, first of all in Rome, to the apportioning of the whole sum into four parts; for the bishops, for the subordinate clergy, for the expenses of public worship (buildings, vestments, etc.), and for the needs of the poor. With the introduction of the Old Testament idea of priesthood the thought gradually gained ground that the laity were under obligation, at first regarded simply as a moral obligation, to surrender a tenth of all their possessions to the church, and at a very early date this, in the form of freewill offerings, was often realised. But the Council at Macon in A.D. 585, demanded these tithes as a right of the church resting on divine institution, without, however, being thereby able to effect what first was secured by the Carolingian legislation (§ 86, 1). The demand that all property which a cleric earned in the service of the church, should revert to the church after his death, was given effect to in a Council at Carthage in A.D. 397.