214 EXARCHS INTRODUCED LINDER CONSTANTINE. It ishere fartherobservable, thatwhereas divers provincesheld com- munion and intercourse, so that upon occasion they, by their formed [formal] letters, rendered to one another anaccount oftheir proceed- ings, being of great moment, especially of those which concerned the general state of Christianity and common faith, calling, when need was, for assistance one of another, to resolve points of faith, or to settle order and peace,therewas, in so doing, a special respect given to the metropolites, of great cities: and to prevent dissensions, which naturally ambition prompts men to, grounded upondegrees of respect, an order was fixed among them, according to which, in subscriptions of letters, in accidental congresses, and the like occasions, some should precede others, that distinction being chiefly and commonlygrounded on the greatness, splendour, opulency of cities, or following the secu- lar dignity of them; whence Rome had the " first" place, Alexandria the " second," Antioch the " third," Jerusalem the " fourth," &c. Afterward, Constantine having introduced a new partition of the empire, whereby divers provinces were combined together into one territory, under the regiment [regimen] of avicar, or a lieutenant of a. prcefectusprcetorio, which territorywas called a " diocese," 1 the ecclesiastical state was adapted in conformity thereto, new ecclesias- tical systems and a new sort of spiritual heads thence springingup; so that in each diocese, consisting of divers provinces, an ecclesiastical exarch,2 otherwise sometimes called a " primate," sometimes a " dio- cesan,"3 sometimes a patriarch,"4 was constituted, answerable to the civil exarch of a diocese, who, by such constitution, obtained a like authority over the metropolitans of provinces as they had in their province over the bishops of cities ;5 so that it appertained to them to call together the synods of the whole diocese, to preside in them, and in them to despatch the principal affairs concerning that precinct, to ordain metropolitans, to confirm the ordinations of bishops, [and] to decide causes and controversies betweenbishops, upon appeal from provincial synods. Some conceive the synod of Nice established it; but that can hardly well be, for that synod was held about the time of that divi- sion (after that Constantine was settled in a peaceful enjoyment of the empire), and scarce could take notice of so fresh a change in the Zos., lib. ii. p. 63; Sextus Rufus, Brev. 2'Larxoaorulnaa má i íp pou. Syn. Chale., Act. x. p. 388. 3 Grorxnmñ;.Zpist. Orient. ad Rufurn. in Syn. Eph., p. 396; Dist. xcix. cap. 1, 2. 4 O; ávararor crarprdpxar iii" '2'uu iidarns.Syn. Chale., Act. ii. p. 211. Ephesi óixarav .rarpra?.xrxáv.Evagp. iii. 6. 5 Trviç pcáv igdpxouç rmv OrorxfiaSW, 70Úç vramprápxou; epaa;. Zon., ad xxviii.; Can. Chale. Novell. cxxxvii. cap. 5, et cxxiii. cap. 10; P. Greg. I., Ep. xi. 56. Ordo episcoporum quadripartitus est, id est, in patriarchis, archiepiscopis, metropolitanis, atque episcopis. Isid. Dist. xxi. cap. 1. Dionysius Ex. translates ï;apyov, primatem, in Syn. Chale., can. ix. 17.
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