6-10. The Right to Preach
Whatever special conditions may have affected the course of development at Rome or Alexandria, it may be taken as generally true that, by the end of the fourth century the Christian presbyter's right to celebrate the Eucharist was coming to be regarded as inherent in his sacerdotium rather than as devolved upon him by the bishop. With this right went also the right to be served by deacons as ministri and ultimately the right to preach. While the 18th canon of Nicaea still regards the deacons as ** ministers "of the bishop only, later in the fourth century the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions speaks of "their service to both bishops and priests," and Ambrosiaster is aghast at the audacity of trying to put presbyters and their servants on a par, "presbyteris ministros ipsorum pares facere." The right to preach had never been formally associated with any order of the Christian ministry: Ambrosiaster was certainly interpreting the documents on his own account, rather than recording tradition, when he asserts (in Eph. iv. 11, 12) "omnibus inter initia concessum est et evangelizare et baptizare et scripturas in ecclesia explanare," but it is clear that in early times even a layman, like Origen, might at the bishop's request expound Scripture to the congregation.
Nevertheless, though the right might be thus deputed, the sermon was part of the Eucharistic service, and Justin Martyr no doubt describes the normal practice when he makes the president of the assembly in person expound and apply the lections just read from Prophets or Gospels. In the fourth century it was treated as axiomatic that the right to preach, as part of the liturgy, could not even be deputed save to those to whom could also be deputed the right to offer the Eucharist itself. It is true that in many parts of the West the archdeacon did compose and pronounce a solemn thanksgiving once a year, at the lighting of the Paschal candle on Easter Eve: but even this extraliturgical sermon de laudibus cerei was unknown at Rome, and Jerome, or whoever was the author of the letter addressed in 384 to a deacon of Piacenza printed in the appendix to Vallarsi's edition, finds in it a gross violation of Church order, "tacente episcopo, et presbyteris quodammodo in plebeium cultum redactis, levita loquitur docetque quod paene non didicit, et festivissimo praedicans tempore toto dehinc anno iustitium vocis eius indicitur." Even the rights of presbyters in this respect were inchoate and still strictly circumscribed. In the Eastern churches it was customary for some of them to preach in the presence of the bishop and for the bishop to preach after them: and Valerius of Hippo was consciously introducing an Eastern use into Africa — he was himself a Greek, and therefore unable to speak fluently to his Latin flock — when he commissioned his presbyter Augustine "against the custom of the African churches" to expound the Gospel and preach frequently in his presence. To Jerome, familiar with the Eastern custom, it was "pessimae consuetudinis" that in some, doubtless Western, churches presbyters kept silence in the presence of their bishop: their right to preach attached directly to the pastoral office which they held, according to him, in common with the bishop.
But because presbyters might preach in the bishop's church, where he could note and correct at once any defects in their teaching, it does not necessarily follow that they might preach in the parish churches, and there does not seem to be any clear indication in the fourth and fifth centuries that they did in fact do so. For Rome indeed this is hardly surprising: we have seen how jealously parochial independence was there limited, and even at the bishop's mass, if we may believe the historian Sozomen, there were no sermons either by priest or bishop. In fact St Leo's sermons — he became pope just about the time that Sozomen published his Church History — are the first of which we hear after Justin's time in Rome. But in Gaul too, and as late as the beginning of the sixth century, only the city priests, the priests, that is, who served in the bishop's church, had the right to preach: the second canon of the second Council of Vaison in 529 extends the right, apparently for the first time, to country parishes, "placuit ut non solum in civitatibus sed etiam in omnibus parrociis verbum faciendi daremus presbyteris potestatem" ; if the priest is at any time unable to preach through illness, the deacon is to read to the people “homilies of the holy fathers.”
It is perhaps surprising at first sight to find that in the fourth and fifth centuries presbyters are establishing a new independence in face of the bishop, rather than bishops exerting a new and stricter authority over presbyters. The conclusion has been reached by direct evidence; but it is also the conclusion clearly indicated by the analogy of the whole upward movement which we have seen at work in respect both to the minor orders and to the diaconate.
But if this movement exerted so powerful an influence on the one hand upon minor orders and diaconate, and on the other hand upon the priesthood, we could not expect that bishops should be exempt from it. How and where it led in their case it will be part of our business, in the second half of this chapter, to trace. It was outside their own borders that the bishops of the great churches were tempted to look for a wider field of activity and a more commanding position. From the very first the bishop of each community had represented it in its relation to other Christian communities, had been, so to say, its minister for foreign affairs. The Visions of Hermas were to be communicated to "the cities outside" by Clement, "for that function belongs to him." The complex developments of this function, from the second century to the fifth, must now engage our attention.
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