A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

416 A Source Book for Ancient Church Historyothers; and they suggest the characters of the inner powers thatrule the soul by giving them the names of the patriarchs; and onthe other hand, they attribute the signs of the stars to those underwhich they put the body.§ 74. The Position of the State Church in the Social Order of theEmpireThe elevation of the Church exposed the Church to worldlinesswhereby selfish men, or men carried away with partisan zeal,took advantages of its privileges or contended fiercely for importantappointments. The clergy all too frequently ingratiatedthemselves with wealthy members of their flocks that they mightreceive from them valuable legacies, an abuse which had to becorrected by civil law; factional spirit occasionally led to bloodshedin episcopal elections. But on the other hand the Churchwas employed by the State in an important work which properlybelonged to the secular administration, viz., the administrationof justice in the episcopal courts of arbitration, for which seeCod. Just., I, tit. 3, de Episcopali Audientia; cf. E. Loening,Geschichte des deutschen Kirchenrechts, vol. I; and in the supervisionof civil officials in the expenditures of funds for publicimprovements. These are but instances of their large publicactivity according to law.(a) Ammianus Marcellinus, Hist. Rom., XXVII, 3, §§ 12 ff. Cf.Kirch, nn. 607 ff.Damasus and Ursinus.The strife which attained shocking proportions in connectionwith the election of Damasus seems to have been connectedwith the schism at Rome occasioned by the attitude of Liberius