comprehends them all. It is distinguished from that of priests by peculiar privileges, the chief of which are that of conferring orders, commonly called the power of ordaining; of administering confirmation; and consecrating altars, churches, and burial places.b

Priests are the next order. They have the power of consecrating. the Eucharist, baptizing, administering the other sacraments except order and confirmation, and of preaching and teaching.c

We come now to those who are not in sacerdotio, but in sacris. And with them commences the ministry as contra-distinguished from the priesthood. The first order in this class is the Diaconate. The functions of the deacon are expressed by these words of the Roman Pontifical:-Diaconum opportet ministrare ad altare, baptizare, prædicare. He must attend on and assist the bishop and the priest at the altar, baptize and preach.d

Subdeacons are properly subsidiary to the order of deacons. Their duty is to assist the deacon at the altar, to prepare all that is required for Divine service, and to read the Epistle. This is the first of the orders conferred, as minor orders are, without imposition of hands.f

The remaining orders are not holy, but minor orders; and those on whom they are conferred are neither in sacerdotio nor in sacris. They are acolytes, exorcists, readers, doorkeepers, and (according to the Canonists) clerks simply tonsured. They have different inferior ministerial functions, which are indicated sufficiently for our purpose by their names.g

Such are the chief rules of the Canon Law regarding the hierarchy of order.

We must now proceed to the hierarchy of jurisdiction.

The status conferred by orders gives a capacity to have and exercise jurisdiction; and this rule shows the relation which the two species of hierarchy bear one to the other. But the power called jurisdiction is not so inherent in order as to be inseparable therefrom. Jurisdiction depends on an authority over or with regard to persons. Thus a bishop who has been deposed retains order, but he loses jurisdiction, because he has no longer any subditi-that is to say, persons Hericourt, Loix Eccles., ch. i., p. 185, E.I.; Fleury, Instit. au Droit Eccles., pars i., ch. iii., p. 49.

a

e Ibid. § 27. Van Espen, Jus. Canon., pars i., tit. i., cap. iii. A learned author, but to be read with caution.

f Van Espen, ubi supra, num. 4.

8 Devoti, Inst. ubi supra, § 29, et seq.; Van Espen, ubi supra, cap. ii.; Bing

ham, Antiq. book iii. chap. i., &c; Devoti, Inst. lib. i., tit. i. § 12.

over whom that jurisdiction can be exercised. Therefore, if he perform any act belonging to jurisdiction, such as excommunication, it is null and void. But if he do anything arising from order, such as administering the sacraments of ordination or confirmation, it is valid, though he is thereby guilty of a grave crime. Fieri non debuit, sed factum valet. The same is the case with regard to a bishop who is a heretic or a schismatic, or excommunicated.a

b

It follows, from these principles, that for a bishop to possess the powers both of orders and of jurisdiction, he must have both ordination, and what is technically called, lawful mission, or legitima missio; whereby certain persons are assigned to him, who are made subject to his jurisdiction. This assignment must proceed from a higher ecclesiastical power, and not from the civil magistrate; because no one can assign to another a spiritual jurisdiction, unless he has it himself in the first instance. It is on this principle that a clerk receives the cure of souls in a particular parish, not from the patron nor from the civil power, but from the bishop who gives him mission by instituting him to the benefice. The principle of the Canon Law, is-Nemo dat quod non habet.

Having shown these fundamental principles, let us proceed to the further examination of the hierarchy of jurisdiction.

That hierarchy regards the polity and regimen of the Church, which, being a society of men, must have its magistrates and officers for due order and good government, and the fulfilment of its own purpose, as civil societies have. This is evident, for the Church is a society not of souls only but of men; and it therefore requires an outward and visible polity or constitution.

The Canon Law regards the Church as a monarchical body, or a body politic in the nature of a monarchy, of which the supreme Pontiff is the head. This body politic, thus fashioned in a monarchical form, has a supreme Parliament called an Ecumenical or General Council, of which the Pope is the head, and a necessary part, as the Crown is of the Parliament in the civil constitution of this kingdom.f

• Devoti, Inst. lib. i. tit. ii., §§ 3, 4, 5; see the Decretals, lib. i., tit. xiii., De Ordinatis ab Episcopo qui renunciavit.

b Ibid. § 6. And see what Hooker says respecting "Bishops with restraint.” Eccles. Polit. b. 7 § 4.

• Institution is where the Bishop saith, Instituo te rectorem talis Ecclesiæ, cum curá animarum, et accipe curam tuam et meam; Co. Litt. 344. b.

d Devoti, Inst., lib. i. tit. iii., § i.

• Ibid., Prolegom., cap. ii., § 19.

* Ibid., §§ 21, 22.

N

The Church of the Canon Law unites a federal to a monarchical constitution. It is composed of a variety of ecclesiastical bodies or churches, each of which has its superior bishop, its synod or church parliament, and its peculiar laws, customs and privileges. All these bodies are represented in the Ecumenical Council by their bishops. And they stand respectively in divers relations to the civil communities wherein they exist, and are affected in divers ways by the temporal laws, customs, and institutions of those communities. But, notwithstanding these local peculiarities, they are all bound together into one universal body by identity of faith, by similarity of constitution, by community of laws, and by their submission to the one supreme power, the Holy See-which is the centre of their unity and the summit of the hierarchy of jurisdiction.

Under that supreme power the hierarchy of jurisdiction is continued by a regular gradation of magistrates and officers, the nature of whose functions, and the extent of whose authority, are defined by the Canon Law.

Thus, patriarchs have the ecclesiastical government of several nations or countries; primates, that of one nation or country; metropolitans, that of a province; and diocesan bishops of a diocese.a All these are equal in point of order, for they are all bishops; but one is superior to the other in the hierarchy of jurisdiction. And so the Pope has no order distinct from the Episcopate. But he is supreme head of them all in the hierarchy of jurisdiction, of which he alone has the plenitude.

The remainder of the magistrates of the Church are created to assist the bishop. Such are coadjutors, the diocesan's deputies and assistants; vicars, who are the bishop's vicegerents for certain purposes as Vicars Apostolic are to the Pope; archdeacons, who are the bishop's vicars in their archdeaconry, and are called oculi Episcopi ; and archpriests, or rural deans. The most numerous and necessary of these inferior magistrates are the parochial clergy, who preside over and have the cure of souls in parishes, which are the smallest territorial divisions of the Church. They have a jurisdcition proprio jure, on institution to their cures, by the bishop.d

There are also various offices to which belongs administration without jurisdiction or pre-eminence. Some offices also have a certain pre

с

Ibid., lib. i., tit. iii., sect. viii. § 71; Van Espen, Jus Eccles. Univers., pars i., tit. vi.

a Ibid., lib. i., tit. iii., sect. x., § 87.

eminence or rank assigned to them, and then they are called dignities. Such are different offices belonging to Cathedral and Collegiate Churches.a

I have now given a sketch of the fundamental principles of the Canon Law of Persons, showing the general constitution of the Church, especially that part of it to which its government and administration belong. The Law of Things and Actions will be the subject of my concluding Reading.

Devoti, Inst. Canon., lib. i., tit. iii., §§ 10, 11; Ibid., tit. iii., sect. viii.; Van Espen, Jus Eccles. Univers. pars i., tit. xi., xii.

FIFTEENTH READING.

(Michaelmas Term, 1850.)

GENERAL VIEW OF THE CANON LAW CONTINUED.-THE LAW OF THINGS.-THE LAW OF ACTIONS.

THE last Reading gave you a sketch of the first great head of the Canon Law-the Law of Persons. You have seen the chief classification of persons with regard to their due subordination and the place. which they respectively occupy in the public economy of the Church. You have before you the outlines of the Church's constitution according to the Canon Law, with the principal features of that constitution. The Law of Things is the next subject for our consideration.

It is here necessary to notice an important distinction between the Canon and the Civil, and indeed, between Ecclesiastical and Temporal Law.

Savigny observes that every relation of law (which consists in a right or an obligation) has its peculiar rules, whereby it commences and terminates for a given person. And he cites a celebrated law of Ulpian, who says—Totum jus consistit aut in adquirendo, aut in conservando, aut in minuendo. Ulpian explains this dictum by adding that the law regards either the acquisition of something by some one, or whether and how some one shall retain a thing or right, or alienate or lose it. If Civil Law be regarded with reference to its ultimate and practical effect, this comprehensive statement will be found correct. The reason is, that though Civil Law is derived from the two great primary laws from whence hang all laws, yet as it regulates man in civil society, and with reference to its order, so its ultimate effect relates to the use of things in that state. And thus civil or temporal law regards rights and other things in the light of property.

But it is otherwise with Ecclesiastical Law. It looks upon things with reference to the direct object and the ultimate object of the Canon Law, which are those of the Church itself. Thus we shall find that this famous text of Ulpian applies to only one class of things in

Savigny, Traité de Droit Rom., vol. iii., p. 2; L. xl., ff. De Legibus; Instit. tit. De Interdictis, §§ 2, 3, 4.