of the civil arrangement that caused the Bishop of Ephesus to be considered Primate over the Metropolitans of Asia, and the Bishop of Cæsarea to become Primate of Pontus. Thrace belonged at first to Heraclea, and then became the share of the Bishop of Constantinople, as we shall see.
In 381 the second general council (Constantinople I) accepts this hierarchy. Its second Canon says: "Bishops who are outside their diocese shall not go up (ἐπιέναι) to Churches outside their frontiers, and shall not confuse the Churches; but, according to the Canons, the Bishop of Alexandria shall only rule over Egypt, the bishops of the East shall only govern the East, keeping the Primacy (τὰ πρεσβεία) of the Church of Antioch, according to the Canons of Nicæa. And the bishops of the dioceses of Asia shall rule over Asia only, those of Pontus over Pontus only, those of Thrace over Thrace only."[1]
The council means to stop bishops from wandering about outside their own diocese and then suddenly appearing at local synods of other countries and interfering in affairs with which they ought to have no business. It tells the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch to stay at home and look after their own patriarchates. The Fathers do not, of course, think of speaking so to the Roman Patriarch, because they know that he is also Pope and has jurisdiction over the whole Christian world. But what interests us here is that they go on to mention the three other civil dioceses of the Eastern Prefecture, and so draw up a list of just these five divisions made by the Empire—Egypt, the "East," Asia, Pontus, and Thrace.
The Diocese of Thrace concerns Heraclea and Constantinople, to which we shall presently come back. A word may here be added about the other two, Asia (Ephesus) and Pontus (Cæsarea) before we finally lose sight of them. Both these Sees of Ephesus and Cagsarea had illustrious records. Ephesus kept the sacred memory of her first bishop, St. John the Apostle.
- ↑ It should be added that this little council of one hundred and fifty bishops was only gradually recognized as œcumenical by the West, and that only its dogmatic decrees and not the disciplinary canons, which already show anti-Western feeling, are accepted by Rome. Nevertheless this Canon II is in our Corpus Juris, C. ix. ¶ ii. c. 8.
