The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

20 RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL SUPREMACY.The chief city of a province gave the title of Metropolitan,and likewise of Primate, to its bishop. The metropolis ofa diocese conferred on its pastor the dignity of Exarch.Over the exarchs were placed four presidents or patriarchs,corresponding to the four praetorian prefects created byConstantino. But it is probable that the title of Patriarch,which is of Jewish origin, was at first common to all bishops,and gradually came to be employed as a term of dignity and>^ eminence. The first distinct reco gnition of the order occursin the Council of Constanti nople, a^d^_38L* At that timewe find but three of these great dignitaries in existence,—theBishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria ;was now added.but a fourthThe Council, taking into consideration thatConstantinople was the residence of theEmperor, decreed" that the Bishop of Constantinople should have the prerogative,next after the Bishop of Home, because his city wascalled New Rome."-}-In the following century the Councilo-f Chalcedon declared the bishops of the two cities on alevel as regarded their spiritual rank.;}:But the prestige ofold Rome was more powerful than the decree of the fathers.Despite the rising grandeur of her formidable rival, the eit}''on the Tiber continued to be the one city of the earth, andher pastor to hold the foremost place among the patriarchsof the Christian world.In no long time wars broke out betweenthese four spiritual potentates. The primates ofAlexandria and Antioch threw themselves for protectionupon the patriarch of the west ; and the concessions theymade as the price of the succour which was extended tothem tended still more to enhance the importance of theRoman see.§* Socrates, Eccles. Hist, book V. chap. viii. ; Lond. 1649. Salmasius De:— Primatu Papro, cap. iv. p. 48 " Aliud genus patriarchum cognitum inccclcsia non fiiit usque ad Concilium Constantinopolitanum."\ " Junior Roma." (Concl. Constan. can. iii., Ilarduin. vol. i. p. 809.)X A.D. 451. " Sanctissimo Novio Ilom;e throno a?qualia privilegia tribuerunt."(Concl. Chalced. can. xxviii., Harduin. vol. ii. p. 614.)§ Salmasius has compendiously enumerated the successive stages of tho