e
heresies.]

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of
the civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, [110] the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of
time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of
the Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal
prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character.
[111] 1. Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and
asserted the inestimable privilege of being tried only by their peers;
and even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the
sole judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it
was inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine
was satisfied, [112] that secret impunity would be less pernicious
than public scandal: and the Nicene council was edited by his public
declaration, that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery,
he should cast his Imperial mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The
domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege and a
restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes were decently
withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular judge. Their venial offences
were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or punishment; and the
gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may endure from its
parents or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of the
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which could not
be sufficiently expiated by their degradation from an honorable and
beneficial profession, the Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice,
without any regard to ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration
of the bishops was ratified by a positive law; and the judges were
instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees,
whose validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the parties. The
conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire, might
gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians. But they
still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities
and integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed
the satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were
perpetually interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or
the possession of silver and gold, of lands and cat