6-5. The Clergy’s Defeat of Church Democracy
But in spite of any occasional reassertions of the older freedom, it did nevertheless remain true that the cursus and all it stood for was gradually establishing itself as a real influence: and it stood for a body continually growing in size, in articulation, in strength, in dead weight, which drove in like a wedge between bishop and people, and fortified itself by encroachments on both sides. Doubtless it would have been natural in any case that bishop and people, no longer enjoying the old affectionateness of personal intercourse, should lose the sense of community and imperceptibly drift apart: but the process was at least hastened and the gap widened by the interposition of the clerus. It was no longer the laity, but the clergy alone, who were in direct touch with the bishop. Even the fundamental right of the people to elect their bishop slipped gradually from their hands into the hands of the clergy. Within the clerical class a continual and steady upward pressure was at work. The minor orders take over the business of the diaconate: deacons assert themselves against presbyters: presbyters in turn are no longer a body of counsellors to the bishop acting in common, but, having of necessity begun to take over all pastoral relations with the laity, tend as parish priests to a centrifugal independence. The process of entrenchment within the parochial freehold was still only in its first beginnings: but already in the fourth century — when theologians and exegetes were feeling after a formal and scientific basis for what had been natural, instinctive, traditional — we find presbyters asserting the claim of an ultimate identity of order with the episcopate.
Such are the summary outlines of the picture, which must now be filled in, here and there, with more detail. And the details will serve to reinforce the conclusion that the principal features of the history of church organisation in the fourth and fifth centuries are not unconnected accidents, but are to a large extent just different aspects of a single process, the multiplication and development of the Christian clergy.
1. The people had originally chosen their bishop without serious possibility of interference from the clergy. Voting by orders in the modern sense was hardly known: in so far as any check existed on the unfettered choice of the laity, it lay in the hands of the neighbouring bishops from whom the bishop-elect would naturally receive consecration. Cyprian, it is clear from his whole correspondence, was made bishop of Carthage by the laity against the decided wishes of his colleagues in the presbyterate. After the death of Anteros of Rome in 236, we learn from the story in Eusebius that "all the brethren were gathered together for the appointment of a successor to the bishopric." And this was still the practice after the middle of the fourth century : the description of the election of St Ambrose in 374 by his biographer mentions the people only, "cum populus ad seditionem surgeret in petendo episcopo . . . quia et Arriani sibi et Catholici sibi episcopum cupiebant superatis alterutris ordinari."
Another biography, that of St Martin of Tours by Sulpicius Severus, depicts a similar scene about the same date: Martin was elected, in the face of opposition from some of the assembled bishops, by the persistent vote of the people. The laity too, at least in some churches, still selected even the candidates for the priesthood. Possidius, the biographer of St Augustine, relates how Valerius of Hippo put before the "plebs dei" the need for an additional presbyter, and how the Catholic people, "knowing Saint Augustine's faith and life," seized hold of him, and, "ut in talibus consuetum est," presented him to the bishop for ordination.
In Rome however the influence of the clergy was already predominant. The episcopal elections, during the troubled decade that followed the exile of Liberius in 355, are described in the Gesta inter Liberium et Felicem: the clergy — "clerus omnis, id est presbyteri et archidiaconus Felix et ipse Damasus diaconus et cuncta ecclesiae officia" — first pledge their loyalty to Liberius and then accept Felix in his place: the opposition, who clung all through to Liberius and after his death elected Ursinus as his successor, are represented as mainly a lay party — "multitude fidelium," "sancta plebs," "fidelis populus," "dei populus" — yet even in their electoral assembly the clergy receive principal mention, "presbyteri et diacones . . . cum plebe sancta." And though there are some indications that the party of Ursinus had strong support in the local episcopate, it was Damasus, the candidate of the majority of the clergy, who secured recognition by the civil power.
At the end of the fourth century a definite place is accorded to the clergy in the theory of episcopal appointments. The eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions distinguishes the three steps of election by the people, approval by the clergy, consecration by the bishops. Siricius of Rome, in his decretal letter to Himerius, puts the clergy before the people, "si eum cleri ac plebis edecumarit electio": the phrase "cleri plebisque" became normal in this connexion, and ultimately meant that it was for the clergy to elect and for the people to approve.
Fundamental as these changes were, no doubt each stage of them seemed natural enough at its time. Indirect election was an expedient unknown as yet: real election by the laity, in view of the dimensions of the Christian population, became more and more difficult, and the pretence of it tumultuous and unsatisfactory. The members of the clergy on the other hand were now considerable enough for a genuine electing body, yet not too unwieldy for control: and the people were gradually ousted from any effective participation. So far as the influence of the laity still continued to make itself felt, it was through the interference of the State. Under either alternative Christian feeling had to content itself with a grave deflection from primitive ideals.
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The clergy as the 4th Century Church's version of today's bureaucrats / deep state, separating the people from their representatives and parasitically usurping the powers of both.