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court, defining and laying down the law of the Church of England. Now, as long as the appeal lay to the old High Court of Delegates, which was appointed by special commission and included bishops and ecclesiastical judges, it might fairly be held that the court was, in its constitution as well as in its function, ecclesiastical. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, though assisted by ecclesiastical assessors, is essentially a civil court, and the problem before the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission was, while preserving the organic relation of Church and State, to remove any possibility of a civil tribunal interfering in spiritual matters. The proposal of the commission which has met with general approval, is that the ancient provincial court shall be the final court of strictly ecclesiastical appeal; but that there shall be from it an appeal to the Crown, that is to say, to a court of eminent and appropriate judges serving in rota from a panel appointed by the Crown. This court to hear appeals to the Crown, being a civil court, will have no power to decide any question touching the doctrine, discipline or use of the Church of England: if any such question arises it is to be referred to the assembled Archbishops and Bishops of both provinces, whose ruling is to be final thereon.

The Church of England thus retains a position of ancient privilege which may be justified on many grounds, including that of services rendered. But, apart from this special position and all that follows from it, the general scheme by which the State Courts support and control the churches is by recognising their own discipline over their own members and by enforcing obligations due from and to them as such.

In addition to its chief recommendations the Report of the Commission is concerned with other matters to which a very brief reference may be made. The "Bishop's Veto" was exhaustively discussed by the Commission of 1906. The clergy are, of course, amenable to the ordinary law like everyone else, but a higher standard is expected from them by reason of their profession, and they are peculiarly open to unjustified attack. The present Commission is therefore of the opinion that charges of immorality against the clergy should not be prosecuted in the bishop's court without the consent of the bishop whose duty it is to protect them as well as to supervise. In all other cases the "veto" is to be abolished as soon as is practicable.

Lord Phillimore, in a note to the Report, observes that the Church Courts still retain part of their original jurisdiction for the correction of morals. So far as the laity are concerned this jurisdiction is practically in abeyance, and the Report does not recommend that it should be revived, even if that were possible. But it may be suggested that there may be many lay members of the Church who would welcome, for their own guidance and self-respect, some authoritative and fairly detailed statement of the duties and observances which belong to practising membership.

The last matter to which I wish to refer is one of great importance. Dr. Darwell Stone who, in addition to the weight of his own views, represents a considerable body of opinion, records his judgment that the Report will not command the confidence of the Church unless there is added to its recommendations a provision giving the Church an effective voice in the appointment of bishops. This, of course, raises once more the ancient controversy which has at various times met with various fortunes in various countries, both "catholic " and " reformed." But, is it true to suggest that the Church of England has no effective voice in the appointment of bishops? The voice is not, indeed, so peremptory as the voice of Parliament in the appointment of a Prime Minister, or even in that of a Cabinet Minister, but the field of possible appointment to bishoprics is strictly limited by attainments and esteem already enjoyed in the Church itself; and, if one may judge by results, the king or his minister gives ear to the most enlightened voices with which the Church can speak. The alternative to the present system would, I suppose, be by election. But election notoriously fails to secure the ablest men, and it also fails to confer prestige. English people, like most other people, in practice have less respect for officers who are elected than for those who are appointed. Whatever some of the clergy might gain by an electoral system would be far outweighed by the loss of efficiency and prestige in the episcopate and in the Church as a whole.

H. C. DOWDALL

THE DECAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. By M. ROSTOVTZEFF. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1926.

SOME

OME three years ago Professor Bury, in his "Later Roman Empire," brought his great learning and acumen to bear on the problem which Gibbon's title made a household word, and despaired of finding a solution in general terms. It was suggested in this REVIEW (October, 1923) that on a closer examination of the facts the historical process which led to the dissolution of the fabric of the Western Empire became in its broader aspects intelligible, and that there was no need to ascribe the result to "a a series of contingent events" without seeking for general causes. We now have, in Prof. Rostovtzeff's volume, an erudite version of the earlier chapters in the story of Imperial Rome, leading to the establishment of that Oriental despotism, the fortunes of which are the subject of Prof. Bury's history. The methods of the two writers are in strong contrast. Bury gives a narrative based, in the main, on the works of ancient historians, as well ecclesiastical as civil. Rostovtzeff, professedly focussing attention on the currents of social and economic change, has relatively little to say of the influence of personalities on history, although the policies of individual emperors naturally receive due attention, but is intensely interested in the search for general formulæ under which to subsume the bewildering multitude of individual facts brought to light by the study of material remains and contemporary documents in stone or papyrus.

No one living is more intimately acquainted than Prof. Rostovtzeff with the vast mass of material of this kind now available, to which additions are being made daily; and he has wisely presented his conclusions in a series of chapters recalling the volumes on the provinces which Mommsen published in lieu of a history of the Roman Empire, and helping us to measure the increase of knowledge which exploration and discovery have since brought about. He reserves the evidence on which his statements are based for a series of closely-printed notes occupying nearly 150 pages. These form a quarry in which patient scholars

will delve for years to come, opening up many a rich vein of precious ore. Nor should we fail to mention the abundant and admirably chosen illustrations which picture to us, not only the emperors as shown in their busts and on their coins, but the men and women over whom they ruled at their daily workminers, cameldrivers, bankers, cobblers, landowners, ploughmen, and so on-as well as their shops, their temples, their ships, their houses in town and country. A number of these illustrations are taken from the grave-monuments of Gaul and of the Rhine and Moselle regions, and Rostovtzeff makes a timely protest (p. 535) against the notion that they represent an " art of parvenus." To quote his words :

Both the gorgeous monuments of the Moselle magnate and the modest cippi of Gallic artisans, with their realistic sculpture representing the daily toil of the departed, are typical expressions of a high appreciation of labour, as being not a bitter necessity but a social and religious duty-an ideal diametrically opposed to some ideas of the Roman aristocracy of the first century B.C., e.g., Cicero, who regarded trade and industry as occupations which have a degrading influence on human character and considered leisure to be the main goal of human life.

The great imperial monuments are, of course, not neglected, such as the arch which still stands at Beneventum, at the startingpoint of the new road constructed by Trajan between that town and Brundisium, the chief port of embarkation for the East. On this we have a series of reliefs which, in effect, embody a political and social programme-that of Trajan and his successor. Their symbolism, which has been the subject of much learned discussion, is made clear in an interesting note. The military exploits of the emperors are, from the nature of the case, of less interest to Rostovtzeff than their other activities; but we have illustrations taken from the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius. It is to be regretted, however, that he has been persuaded by a recent writer on the first-named monument, Lehmann-Hartleben, that identification of the places represented is impossible, which is by no means always the case.

Many readers will be tempted to glance first of all at the conclusions arrived at by Rostovtzeff in his last chapter on the problem of the decay of ancient civilization. He there states clearly and correctly what this phenomenon was, namely, “a gradual absorption of the higher classes by the lower, accompanied

by a gradual levelling-down of standards." The question, therefore, as he puts it, is: "Why was the city-civilization of Greece and Italy unable to assimilate the masses; why did it remain a civilization of the élite; why was it incapable of creating conditions which should secure for the ancient world a continuous, uninterrupted movement along the same path which our modern world is traversing again?"

Rostovtzeff classifies and reviews the numerous answers which have been given to this question and, having weighed them in the balance, finds them all wanting. It was not the absorption of the Greek city-States in the Roman Empire that prevented the creative forces of the Greek genius from developing and consolidating a large-scale civilization: those forces had already been dissipated in internecine strife, and (we may add) the ablest of the descendants of the Greeks of the Great Age had the ear of Roman rulers, and took their share in moulding imperial institutions. The reduction of the military establishment below safety-point is a suggestion long since abandoned; the "disastrous accident" by which Commodus succeeded to Marcus Aurelius is not a vera causa; and Mr. Heitland's view, that the Empire fell because it failed to develop representative institutions, merely calls attention to one aspect of the phenomenon which it is sought to explain. Moreover, says Rostovtzeff," the most modern political and social theories suggest that democracy is an antiquated institution," though here he is of course only referring ironically to the doctrines of Bolshevism. The economic explanation of the neo-Marxians fares even worse at our author's hands: the varieties of "houseeconomy" and capitalistic economy to be observed at different places and in different periods and their complex inter-relations defy reduction to a formula, and "the economic simplification of ancient life" under the later Empire was not a cause but a symptom of decay. Exhaustion of the soil cannot be proved; the revival of husbandry under favourable political and social conditions in the Gaul of Sidonius Apollinaris, and the parallel decline of agriculture in Egypt, where the soil is inexhaustible, furnish a disproof, both positive and negative, of this thesis. The ambitious "biological solution which makes play with " racemixture" and "race-suicide" rests on unproved assumptions, and in the end" states the fact, but gives no explanation." Lastly, to hold Christianity responsible for the decay of the ancient world is again to mistake a symptom for a cause.

VOL 245 No. 500.

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