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LET the clergy of the poor-houses,
monasteries, and martyries remain under the authority of the bishops in every
city according to the tradition of the holy Fathers; and let no one arrogantly
cast off the rule of his own bishop; and if any shall contravene this canon in
any way whatever, and will not be subject to their own bishop, if they be
clergy, let them be subjected to canonical censure, and if they be monks or
laymen, let them be excommunicated.
NOTES.
ANCIENT EPITOME OF CANON VIII.
Any clergyman is an almshouse or
monastery must submit himself to the authority of the bishop of the city. But
he who rebels against this let him pay the penalty.
VAN ESPEN.
From this canon we learn that the
synod of Chalcedon willed that all who were in charge of such pious
institutions should be subject to the bishop, and in making this decree the
synod only followed the tradition of the Fathers and Canons. Although in its
first part the canon only mentions "clergymen," yet in the second
part monks are named, and, as Balsamon and Zonoras point out, both are
included.
BRIGHT.
What a ptwkeioo was may be seen
from what Gibbon calls the "noble and charitable foundation, almost a new
city" (iii. 252), established by St. Basil at a little distance from
Caesarea, and called in consequence the Basiliad. Gregory Nazianzen describes
it as a large set of buildings with rooms for the sick, especially for lepers,
and also for house-less travellers; "a storehouse of piety, where disease
was borne philosophically, and sympathy was tested" (Orat., xliii., 63,
compare Basil himself, Epist., xciv., on its staff of nurses and physicians and
cl., 3). Sozomen calls it "a most celebrated resting-place for the
poor," and names Prapidius as having been its warden while acting as
"bishop over many villages" (vi. 34, see on Nic., viii.). Another
ptwkotrofeion is mentioned by Basil
(Epist., cxliij.) as governed by a
chorepiscopus.
St. Chrysostom, on coming to the
see of Constantinople, ordered the excess of episcopal expenditure to be
transferred to the hospital for the sick (nosokomeion), and "founded other
such hospitals setting over them two pious presbyters, with physicians and
cooks. . . . so that foreigners arriving in the city, on being attacked by
disease, might receive aid, both because it was a good work in itself, and for
the glory of the Saviour" (Palladius, Dial., p. 19). At Ephesus Bassian
founded a ptwkeitoo with seventy pallets for the sick (Mansi, vii., 277), and
there were several such houses in Egypt (ib., vi., 1013; in the next century
there was a hospital for the sick at Daphne near Antioch (Evagr., iv., 35).
"The tradition of the holy fathers" is here cited as barring any
claim on the part of clerics officiating in these institutions, or in
monasteries or martyries, to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary.
They are to "abide under it," and not to indulge selfwill by
"turning restive" against their bishop's authority" (afhnixw is
literally to get the bit between the teeth, and is used by Aetius for
274
"not choosing to obey,"
Mansi, vii., 72). Those who dare to violate this clearly defined rule
(diatupwsin, comp. tupos in Nic., xix.), and to refuse subjection to their own
bishop, are, if clerics, to incur canonical censure, if monks or laics, to be
excommunicated. The allusion to laics points to laymen as founders or
benefactors of such institutions.
This canon is found in the Corpus
Juris Canonici, Gratian's Decretum, Pars II., Causa XVIII., Q. II., canon x.,
3.
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