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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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Pages
Page 29
It may not be amiss to add that abundant proof of the high esteem in which Balsamon was held is found in contemporary authors, and no words can give an exaggerated idea of the weight of his opinion on all legal matters, religious and profane; his works were undertaken at the command of the Emperor and of the Patriarch, and were received with an unmixed admiration. [40]
In the thirteenth century a certain Chumnus who had been Nomophylax and was afterwards elevated to the Archiepiscopal chair of Thessalonica wrote a little book on the "Degrees of Relationship." [41]
In the fourteenth century we find Matthew Blastares writing "An Alphabetical Table" [42] of the contents of the canons of the councils, and of the laws of the Emperors.
And in the same century we find Constantine Harmenopulus, who was born in 1320. He was, when thirty years of age, a member of the first court of civil justice (Judex Dromi). Subsequently he was appointed Counsellor of the Emperor, John Cantacuzene, and finally Sebastos and Curopalatos under John Paleologus. In the year 1345 he published a "Manual of Jurisprudence." [43] This work is of great value to the student of Roman law as he completes the work of the Emperor Basil by adding the imperial constitutions since that time. But our chief concern with him is as the author of an "Epitome of the Divine and Sacred Canons." [44]
Constantine Harmenopulus was the last Greek jurist, and then Constantinople fell, to the everlasting disgrace of a divided Christendom, into the hands of the Infidel, and the law of the false Prophet supplanted the Roman Law, the Code of Civilization and Christianity.
I pass now to the history of the growth of the canon law in the West. No one reading even cursorily the canons contained in the present volume can fail to notice that, with the exception of those of the African code, they are primarily intended for the government of the East and of persons more immediately under the shadow of the imperial city. In fact in the canons of the Council in Trullo and in those of the Seventh Synod there are places which not even covertly are attacks, or at least reflections, upon the Western customs of the time. And it does not seem to be an unjust view of the matter to detect in the Council of Chalcedon and its canon on the position of the See of Rome, a beginning of that unhappy spirit which found its full expression in that most lamentable breaking off of communion between East and West.
While, then, as I have pointed out, in the East the Canon Law was developed and digested side by side and in consonance with the civil law, in the West the state of things was wholly different, and while in secular matters the secular power was supposed to be supreme, there grew up a great body of Ecclesiastical Law, often at variance with the secular decrees upon the subject. To trace this, step by step, is no part of my duty in this excursus, and I shall only give so brief an outline that the reader may be able to understand the references in the notes which accompany the Canons in the text.
[40] Ibid., Prol. ยง XVI.-XIX.
[41] Found in Leunclavius, Jur. Grec. Rom., Vol. ii.
[42] Suntagma kata Stoicheon, found in Beveridge's Synodicon, but (says Schoell) "in a manner very little correct."
[43] Procheiron ton nomon. Of this there have been many editions since the first, which was that of Paris, 1540, edited by Snallenberg, without any Latin translation and without notes. The first Latin version was published at Cologne in 1547, a second at Lyons in 1556, and a third at Lausanne in 1580. At last in 1587, at Geneva, there appeared an edition in Greek and Latin.
[44] 'Epitome ton theion kai ieron kanonon. This work is found with a Latin version in the Collection of Loewenklaw.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/introduction.asp?pg=29
