the bishop of Alexandria, that council de- clared as follows : " The ancient custom, whicli has obtained in Egypt, Libya, and the "Pentapolis, shall continue in force, viz. : that the bishop of Alexandria " have rule over all these [provinces], since this also is customary Avith the ''bishop of Eome [that is, not in Egypt, but with reference to his own "diocese]. Likewise also at Antioch and in. the other eparchies, the " churches shall retain their prerogatives. Now, it is perfectly clear, that, " if any one has been made bishop without the consent of the metropolitan, " the great council does not allow him to be bishop." * The Nicene fathers passed this canon not as introducing anything new, but merely as confirming an existing relation on the basis of church tradition ; and that, with special refer- ence to Alexandria, on account of the troubles existing there. Rome was named only for illustration ; and Antioch and all ' Accordingly Pope Nicolas, in 866, in a letter to the Bulgarian prince Boo-oris, would acknowledge only the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch as patriarchs in the proper sense, because they presided over apostohc churches ; -whereas Con- stantinople was not of apostolic founding, and was not even mentioned by the most venerable of all councils, the Nicene ; Jerusalem was named indeed by these coun- cils, but only under the name of uElia. ^ In the oldest Latin Cod. canonum (in Mansi, vi, 1186) this canon is preceded by the important words : Ecclesia Romana semper hahuit primatum. These are, however, manifestly spurious, being originally no part of the canon itself, but a superscription, which gave an expression to the Roman inference from the Xicene canon. Comp. Gieseler, i. 2, § 93, note 1 ; and Hefele, Hist, of Councils, i. 384 sqq. (/Kb 276 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. the other eparchies or provinces were secured their admitted rights.' The bishoprics of Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were placed substantially on equal footing, yet in such tone, that Antioch, as the third capital of the Roman empire, already stands as a stepping stone to the ordinary metropolitans. By the " other eparchies " of the canon are to be understood either all provinces, and therefore all metropolitan districts, or more probably, as in the second canon of the first council of Con- stantinople, only the three eparchates of Csesarea in Cappado- cia, Ephesus^>*s^ Asia Minor, and Heraclea in Thrace, which, after Constantine's division of the East, possessed similar pre- rogatives, but were subsequently overshadowed and absorbed by Constantinople. In any case, however, this addition j^roves that at that time the rights and dignity of the patriarchs were not yet strictly distinguished from those of the other metro- politans. The bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch here appear in relation to the other bishops simply as primi inter j)ares, or as metropolitans of the first rank, in whom the highest political eminence was joined with the highest