POST THREE
5) THE ALMOST IMMEDIATE TENDENCY TO ABUSE POWER FOR THE GAIN OF PROPERTY, FOR THE INCREASE IN MEMBERSHIP AND THE OPRESSION OF THOSE UNWILLING TO CONFORM
Among the clergy, the bishop had all priority, and “any cleric who opposes a bishop in anything must be deposed with all his followers, as having attempted to seize power: he is a rebel. All the laymen who follow him must be excommunicated.” (127 canons of the Apostles 2.22, in PO 8:673)
Almost immediately, they shielded themselves from normal laws by use of their power and position. “Bishops are to be judged by God,” not by men. They are above all human law.” (Pius I, Epistola 1.2, in PG 5:1121. “Laymen are not to be heard if they bring charges [against bishops]….“No bishop may be refuted or accused of anything by the people or by vulgar persons.” “anyone who says a word against [a bishop], the eyese of the Lord, is guilty of the crime of lesemajeste…Those who accuse bishops are slain not by human but by divine agency.” “There is no worse crime than to bring a charge against a priest. The priest may be guilty, but even so, he must be left entirely to the judgment of God. For if all crimes are to be punished in this world, there will be nothing left for the exercise of divine judgment!” Such religious rules rendered the higher orders of priesthood immune to the normal responsibilities and retribution for evil acts.
“Anyone who kills his wife,” a letter of Pius I avers, “and does so entirely without reason must do public penance; but if he is disobedient toward a bishop, let him be anathemized.” (Pius I, Etis, in PG 5:1127)
Such aspirations of individual bishops for power and riches and authority is clearly seen through the rules coming out of synods they held. To decrease inter-bishopric antagonism, in 314 the council of Arles passed a rule that “no bishop should annoy another bishop”
Council of Nicaea, 325 :
Canon 15 Because of great disorder and rioting it will be necessary to abolish the old custom of allowing a bishop, priest, or deacon to move from one city to another. If any presumes to do this , he shall be sent back to the city in which he was ordained.
Canon 16 Priests, deacons, or others living under the canon who frivolously and irresponsibly leave their churches will be forced to return to them by all possible means. If they refuse to return they shall be deposed. If anyone steals a cleric against a bishop’s will and ordained him to serve in his own church, the ordination shall be void.”
Council of Encaeniss (Antioch), a.d. 341
Canon 3 A priests or deacon who moved permanently to another place and ignores his bishop’s appeal to return must lose the right to all office; if he goes to work for another bishop he must be punished to the bargain for breaking church law.
Canon 9 Bishops in every province must understand that the bishop in the metropolis has charge of the whole province because all who have business to transact come from all directions to the metropolis.
Canon 11 Any bishop, priests, or any churchman at all who dares to go to the emperor without a letter from his metropolitan shall be ejected utterly, not only from his church, but from his priesthood…
Canon 16 When a bishop seizes a vacant seat without the okay of a full synod, he must be deposed, even though the people have elected him.
Canon 18 A bishop who cannot take over a church because the congregation will not have him must remain in honor and office but may not meddle in the affairs of the church where he is forces to remain.
Sardika a.d. 347
Canon 1 No bishop ever moves from a larger to a smaller city but only in the other direction (the size of the city increasingly become the measure of ambition and domination).
Canon 2 If it can be proven that a man has bribed parties to stir up a clamor for him as bishop “so to make it seem that the people are actually asking him to be their bishop,” he shall be excommunicated. (the reason such a rule had to be established should be obvious)
Epaon, a.d. 517
Canon 3 If the king acts against us, all bishops will withdraw to monasteries, and no bishop shall stir out again until the king has given peace to each and all bishops alike.
Canon 20 No layman may arrest, question, or punish a cleric without okay of the church. When a cleric appears in court, it must be with okay of his bishop, and no sentence may be passed without the presence of his spiritual superior.
Canon 32 Descendants of church slaves who have found their way back to the original place of their ancestors must be brought back to the church slavery, no matter how long or for how many generations they have been free. (Increasingly, the canons will favor the accumulation of money, property and individual lives)
Paris, a.d. 557
Canon 1 No one may hold that church property changes political denominations : no one can claim that church property ever passes under another ruler “since the dominion of God knows no geographical bounderies.” No one may claim that he holds as a gift from the king property that once belonged to the church. All property given by King Chlodwig of blessed memory and handed down as an inheritance must now be given back to the church.
Macon. A.d. 585
Canon 15 Whenever a layman meets a higher cleric, he must bow to him. If both are mounted, the layman must remove his hat. If the layman alone is mounted, he must dismount to greet the cleric.
Toledo, a.d. 589
Canon 20 Many bishops burden their clerics with intolerable compulsory services and contributions. Clerics thus cruelly oppressed may complain to the metropolitan.
Nabonne, a.d. 589
Canon 13 Subdeacons must hold curtains and doors open for superior clergy. If they refuse to do so they must pay a fine; lower clergy who refuse must be beaten.
Reims, a.d. 624-625
Canon 13 No one, not even a bishop, may ever sell the property or slaves of the church.(such a rule would mean that the church can only continue to gain property and financial value but it can never decrease it’s holdings.)
Toledo, a.d. 633
Canon 67 Bishops may not free slaves of the church unless they reimburse the church out of their private fortunes, and the bishop’s successors can reclaim any thus freed.
Canon 68 A bishop who frees a slave of the church without reserving the patrocinium [financial holdings] for the church must give the church two slaves in his place. If the person freed makes any complaint about the way he was treated while he was a slave, he must again become a church slave
Toledo a.d. 638
Canon 3 Thank God for the edict of King Chintila banishing all Jews from Spain, with the order that “only Catholics may live in the land…Resolved that any future king before mounting the throne should swear an oath not to tolerate the Jewish Unglauben [unbelief]…If he breaks this oath, let him be anathema and maranatha [excommunicated] before God and food for the eternal fire.”
Toledo a.d. 656
Canon 6 Children over ten years of age may dedicate themselves to the religious life without consenting their parents. When smaller children are tonsured or given the religious garment, unless their parents lodge immediate protest, they are bound to the religious discipline for life.
Emerita a.d. 666
Canon 15 It often happens that priests who fall sick blame church slaves for their condition and torture them out of revenge. This must cease.
Canon 16 Bishops must stop taking more than their third. They must not take from the church’s third for their private use.
Toledo a.d. 694
Canon 8 Jews must be denied all religious practice. Their children must be taken from them at seven years ande must marry Christians. P 130
Boniface a.d. 745
Statute 13 Pasquil [jokes about the authorities] must be severely punished, even with exile.
Paderborn a.d. 785
Canon 21 anyone engaging in pagan rites must pay a heavy fine. If he cannot pay, no matter what his station, he becomes a slave of the church until he has paid up.
Canon 23 Soothsayers and fortune-tellers shall be given to churches and priests as slaves.
Lateran IV, a.d. 1215
Canon 3 All condemned heretics must be turned over to the secular authorities for punishment…Their property must be confiscated by the church. Those who have not been able to clear themselves of charges of heresy are excommunicated and must be avoided by all. If they remain a year under the ban, they must be condemned as hereticks. All civic officers must take a public oath to defend the faith and expel from their territories all heretics. Whoever, when ordered to do so by the church, does not purify his district or domain of heretics will be put under the ban. If he does not give satisfaction within a year, he must be reported to the pope, who will absolve his vassals from all duty to him and declare his lands open to legitimate conquest by Catholics : those who participate in the attack will receive the same privileges as regular crusaders. …. Anyone who preaches without the authorization of a bishop is excommunicated…A bishop must inspect his diocese. His officers are authorized to have all inhabitants swear an oath to expose to the bishop all sectarians that can be discovered…anyone who refuses to take the oath automatically makes himself a traitor. ….
The goal of oppression, and gain of riches and control becomes clear as one reviews such canons. I believe that such policies would, over a period of several hundred years, bring to the roman religious movement, the very things such rules and actions were designed to bring to them. As the clergy asserted greater and greater control of government, private life, and family life, the accumulation of power and resources would have happened at an increasing rate.
I believe that there were geopolitical reasons why, historically, the early Roman Christian Religious Movement became increasingly powerful and more influential and assumed greater numbers until the age when such overt policies could not survive in an increasingly educated world where individual freedoms increase to the point that only covert policies can remain active (at least in the more "modern" nations).
However, my point is, that this organization that developed their own type of Bishops; their own type of ecclesiastical line of authority; their own methods of reaching prominence and pre-imminence and power; influence and riches, was NOT the organization Ignatius was referring to in 100 a.d. when he used the adjective καθολικος (“Catholic”).
In any case, I hope your spiritual journey and historical insights are wonderful in this life.
Clear
σεφυδρνεω
END OF THREE POSTS
