OF THE.ROMAN EMPIRE.

2ttl

tries;’ but the opposition or contempt of the chap.

civil power served to cement the discipline of_

the primitive church. The Christians had beenobliged to elect their own magistrates, to raiseand distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regu-late the internal policy of their republic by acode of laws, which were ratified by the con-sent of the people, and the practice of threehundred years. When Constantine embracedthe faith of the Christians , he seemed to con-tract a perpetual alliance with a distinct andindependent society; and the privileges grantedor confirmed by that emperor, or by his suc-cessors, were accepted, not as the precariousfavours of the court, but as the just and in-alienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.

The catholic church was administered by the state ofspiritual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen huu- op S umictdred bishops ; r of whom one thousand were {|' a e n C g™seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in theLatin , provinces of the empire. The extent andboundaries of their respective dioceses had beenvariously and accidentally decided by the zealand success of the first missionaries, by thewishes of the people, and by the propagation

Plutarch , in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us, that the kingsof Egypt , who were not already priests, were initiated, after their elec-tion into the sacerdotal order.

T The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer, or originalcatalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern churches arc compara-tively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto. Paolo, of LukeHolstenins, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all the epis-copal sees of the catholic church, which was almost commensurate withthe Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian Antiquities is avery accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.