Content deleted Content added
→General concept and classification: clearer |
more neutral |
||
Line 3:
'''Ecclesiastical jurisdiction''' signifies [[jurisdiction]] by church leaders over other church leaders and over the [[laity]].
[[Jurisdiction]] is a word borrowed from the legal system which has acquired a wide extension in [[theology]], wherein, for example, it is frequently used in contradistinction to order, to express the right to administer [[sacraments]] as something added onto the power to celebrate them. So it is used to express the territorial or other limits of ecclesiastical, executive or legislative authority. Here it is used as the authority by which judicial officers investigate and decide cases under [[
Such authority in the minds of lay [[Roman law]]yers who first used
It was viewed as also ordained of God, who had dominion over his temporal estate. As the Church in the earliest ages had executive and legislative power in its own spiritual sphere, so also it had judicial officers, investigating and deciding cases. Before its union with the State, its power in this direction, as in others, was merely over the spirits of men. Coercive temporal authority over their bodies or estates could only be given by concession from the temporal ruler. Moreover, even spiritual authority over members of the Church, i.e. baptized persons, could not be exclusively claimed as a right by the Church tribunals, if the subject matter of the cause were purely temporal. On the other hand, it is clear that all the faithful were subject to these courts (when acting within their own sphere), and that, in the earliest times, no distinction was made in this respect between clergy and laity.{{sfn|Phillimore|1911|p=853}}
| |||