Ibid. p. 143 sqq. ' Comp. § 57, below. TOL. n. — 18 — > 6 274 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. Cyprus in tlie Eastern cliurch, and tlie bishops of Milan, Aqnileia, and Ravenna in the Western, during this period maintained their autocracy with reference to the patriarchs to whose dioceses they geographically belonged. In the fifth century, the patriarclis of Antioch attempted to subject the island of Cyprus, where Paul first had preached the gospel, to their jurisdiction; but the ecumenical council of Ephesus, in 4^1, confirmed to the church of Cyprus its ancient right to ordain its own bishops.' The North African bishops also, with all respect for the Roman see, long maintained Cyprian's spirit of independence, and in a council at Hippo Regius, in 393, protested against such titles as princeps sacerdotum, summus sacerdos, assumed by the patriarchs, and were willing- only to allow the title ofprimcB sedis ejpiscopus: When, in consequence of the Christological controversies, the Nestorians and Monophy sites split oft' from the orthodox church, they established independent schismatic patriarchates, which continue to this day, showing that the patriarchal con- stitution answers most nearly to the oriental type of Christi- anity. The orthodox Greek church, as well as the schismatic sects of the East, has substantially remained true to the patriarchal system down to the present time ; while the Latin church endeavored to establish the principle of monarchical centralization so early as Leo tlie Great, and in the course of the middle age produced the absolute papacy. § 56. Synodical Legislation on the Patriarchal Power and Jurisdiction. To follow now the ecclesiastical legislation respecting this patriarchal oligarchy in chronological order : Tlie germs of it already lay in the ante-Nicene period, when the bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, partly in virtue of the age and apostolic origin of their churches, partly on account of the political prominence of those three cities as the three capitals of the Roman empire, steadily as^ ' Comp. Wiltsch, i. p. 232 sq., and ii. 469. ^ Cod. can. eccl. Afr. can. 39, cited by Neander, iii. p. 333 (Germ. ed.). § 56. SYNODIC AL LEGISLATION, ETC. 275 serted a position of preeminence. The apostolic origin of tlie churches of Rome and Antioch is evident from the New Tes- tament : Alexandria traced its Christianity, at least indirectly through the evangelist Mark, to Peter, and was politically more important than Antioch ; while Home from the first had pre- cedence of both in church and in state. This preeminence of the oldest and most powerful metropolitans acquired formal legislative validity and firm establishment through the ecu- menical councils of the fourth and fifth centuries. ^ The first ecumenical council of Nic^, in 325, as yet knew C^J?-C*^ nothmg of five patriarchs, but only the three metropolitans above named, confirming them in their traditional rights." In the much-canvassed sixth canon, probably on occasion of the Meletian schism in Egypt, and the attacks connected with it on the rights of