Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
That which the Sixth Canon of the Council witnesses, therefore, is the
original jurisdiction of the two great mother Sees of Alexandria and
Antioch over their daughter churches, which it corroborates by referring
to the norm, as it were, supplied by the still greater See of Rome.
Though these Sees were not called at the time of the Nicene Council
patriarchal, a name which arose in the fifth century; yet the thing
itself, and the institution which it denoted, existed from the beginning.
The system of mother and daughter churches is shown in the highest degree
in these three great Sees, in two of which St. Peter himself sat, while
he founded the third by his disciple Mark. It is, in fact, a derivation
from St. Peter's Primacy, and the constituent principle of the hierarchy
in its intermediate gradation of ranks. As the institution of bishops
throughout the world is a derivation of apostolic authority, so likewise
is the repartition of jurisdiction among them. One and the same
principle—power coming from above—made the whole hierarchy, whether in
the bishop over the simple diocese, or in the metropolitan over a single
province, or in the primate over several metropolitans, or in the central
See of St. Peter, the Head of all. The three former of these gradations,
the Sixth Canon of the Council recognised as of immemorial existence.
With regard to the fourth, when the Roman legate at the Council of
Chalcedon cited this canon, he cited it with the heading: "The Roman
church always had the Primacy." And although the Greek copies of the
Council did not bear this heading, the Greek bishops there did not
dispute the fact which it stated. And it must be noted that this heading
did not assert the Primacy of Rome to be given by the Council, but that
it had always existed; nor was any fact more constantly repeated by Pope
after Pope when addressing the Church in her bishops, than this, that his
authority, whatever it was, was the gift of Christ to St. Peter, and not
bestowed by any Council: and so of divine, not apostolical, institution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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