tly aimed at the disorders which had grown
up during the reign of Valens. One of them checks the reckless
accusations which were brought against the bishops by ordering that no
charge of heresy should be received from heretics and such like. Such a
disqualification of accusers was not unreasonable, as it did not apply
to charges of private wrong; yet this clerical privilege grew into one
of the worst scandals of the Middle Ages. The forged decretals of the
ninth century not only order the strictest scrutiny of witnesses against
a bishop, but require seventy-two of them to convict him of any crime
_except_ heresy. Another canon forbids the intrusion of bishops into
other dioceses. 'Nevertheless, the bishop of Constantinople shall hold
the first rank after the bishop of Rome, because Constantinople is New
Rome.' This is the famous third canon, which laid a foundation for the
ecclesiastical authority of Constantinople. It was extended at Chalcedon
[Sidenote: 451.] into a jurisdiction over the whole country from Mount
Taurus to the Danube, and by Justinian into the supremacy of the East.
The canon, therefore, marks a clear step in the concentration of the
Eastern Church and Empire round Constantinople. The blow struck Rome on
one side, Alexandria on the other. It was the reason why Rome withheld
for centuries her full approval from the council of Constantinople.
[Sidenote: 1215.] She could not safely give it till her Eastern rival
was humiliated; and this was not till the time of the Latin Emperors in
the thirteenth century.

[Sidenote: Second edict defining orthodoxy.]

The council having ratified the Emperor's work, it only remained for the
Emperor to complete that of the council. A new edict in July forbade
Arians of every sort to build churches. Even their old liberty to build
outside the walls of cities was now taken from them. At the end of the
month Theodosius issued an amended definition of orthodoxy. Henceforth
sound belief was to be guaranteed by communion, no longer with Rome and
Alexandria, but with Constantinople, Alexandria, and the chief
bishoprics of the East. The choice of bishops was decided partly by
their own importance, partly by that of their sees. Gregory of Nyssa may
represent one class, Helladius of Caesarea the other. The omissions,
however, are significant. We miss not only Antioch and Jerusalem, but
Ephesus and Hadrianople, and even Nicomedia. There is a broad space left
clear around the Bosphor