826 



DIOCESAN COURTS 



DIODATI 



Diocesan Courts. See CONSISTORY and 

 COMMISSARY. 



Diocese (Fr., from Gr. dioikesis, 'administra- 

 tion ' ), the territory over which a bishop exercises, 

 ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The term occurs as early 

 as the time of Demosthenes, to signify the treasury 

 or department of finance. It is found in Cicero, 

 both as a Greek and as a Latin word, as the 

 special designation of districts in Asia Minor. 

 At this time, the area denoted by this term was 

 but a small one, for Cicero mentions that three 

 dioceses were included in the single province of 

 Cilicia. But in the organisation of the Roman 

 empire introduced by Constantine the Great, the 

 designation diocese was applied to the larger 

 divisions, which were subdivided into provinces or 

 eparchies. About the middle of the 5th century, 

 the dioceses of the empire were the East, Asia, 

 Pontus, Thrace, Macedonia, Dacia, Illyria, Italy, 

 Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain. The city of 

 Rome, with its seven ' suburbicanian ' provinces, 

 constituted a diocese in itself, and was not included 

 in that of Italy. The dioceses were governed 

 collectively by four Praetorian Prefects, each of 

 whom had several such territories under his juris- 

 diction, and singly by officers styled Eparchs, 

 Counts, or Vicars. The provinces ( numbering one 

 hundred and seventeen) were under Exarchs or 

 Rectors. The government of the Christian church, 

 as established by Constantine, was assimilated to 

 this division, and the term diocese and others 

 passed over to ecclesiastical matters. At first a 

 diocese meant an aggregate of metropolitan 

 churches or provinces, each under the charge of an 

 archbishop, which had previously been called a 

 parish, into a single jurisdiction under an exarch 

 (Balsamon, ad Can. ix., Cone. Chalced.}; and the 

 actual distribution in the 4th and 5th centuries 

 was founded on, and closely corresponded to, the 

 civil division. The four (later five) patriarchates 

 corresponded to the four praetorian prefectures ; 

 and the diocese of the Orient contained fifteen pro- 

 vinces, all under the Patriarch of Antioch, till the 

 erection of the patriarchate of Jerusalem in 450, 

 when Palestine, Phoenicia, and Arabia were with- 

 drawn from Antioch to constitute the new juris- 

 diction ; Egypt, under the Patriarch of Alexandria, 

 had six provinces ; Asia, eleven ; Pontus, eleven ; 

 Thrace, six; Macedonia, six; Dacia, five; Italy, 

 seventeen, of which seven were in the diocese of 

 Rome ; Illyria, six ; Africa, six ; Spain, seven ; 

 Gaul, seventeen; and Britain, five. In a later 

 stage of the church's history, the term diocese is 

 applied to a single metropolitanate or province 

 (Greg. Mag. Epist., VII. ii. 17), and lastly it came 

 to signify the local jurisdiction of any one bishop 

 (a meaning already applied to it as early as the 

 second Council of Carthage, in 390 A.D., canon v.), 

 of whatever rank. It does not appear in England 

 till the writings of Matthew Paris in the middle of 

 the 13th century; Bede, for example, using only 

 the terms episcopatus, provincia, ecclesia. On 

 the other hand, it is found as the equivalent of 

 'parish' in canons of the councils of Agde 

 (506 A.D.), Epaon (517), Orleans IV. (541), and 

 also in the capitularies of Charlemagne, VII. c. 

 360. England and Wales are divided ecclesiastic- 

 ally into two provinces viz. Canterbury and York, 

 the former being presided over by the Primate of 

 All England, and the latter by the Primate of 

 England. Each of them is subdivided into dioceses, 

 and these again into archdeaconries, rural deaneries, 

 and parishes. See BISHOP. 



Diocletian. VALERIUS DIOCLETIANUS, 

 Roman emperor (284-305 A. p.), was born of 

 humble parentage near Salona, in Dalmatia, in 245. 

 He inherited from his mother, Dioclea, the name 



of Diocles, which he afterwards enlarged into 

 Diocletianus, and attached as a cognomen to 

 Valerius, a name of the most patrician associa- 

 tions. He adopted a military career, and served 

 with distinction under Probus and Aurelian, 

 accompanied Carus on his Persian campaign, and 

 finally, on the murder of Numerianus having been 

 discovered at Chalcedon, he was proclaimed 

 emperor in 284 by the army on its homeward 

 march. The suspected assassin of Numerianus,, 

 the prefect Arrius Aper, he slew with his own 

 hands, in order, it is alleged, to fulfil a prophecy 

 communicated to him, while still a lad, by a 

 Druidess of Gaul, that he should mount a throne 

 as soon as he had slain the wild-boar (aper). 

 Next year he commenced hostilities against Cari- 

 nus, the joint-emperor along with the deceased 

 Numerianus, who, although victorious in the 

 decisive battle that ensued, was murdered by his 

 own officers, thus leaving to Diocletian the undis- 

 puted supremacy. His first years of government 

 were so molested by the incursions of barbarians, 

 that, in order to repel their growing aggressiveness, 

 he took to himself a colleague namely, Maxi- 

 mianus who, under the title of Augustus, became 

 joint-emperor in 286. Diocletian reserved for him- 

 self the charge of the eastern empire, and gave the 

 western to Maximian. Still the attacks of the 

 barbarians continued as formidable as ever. The 

 empire was menaced by the Persians in the east, 

 by the Germans and other barbarians in the west ; 

 and in order to provide for its permanent security, 

 Diocletian subjected it to a still further division. 

 In 292 Constantius Chlorus and Galerius were pro- 

 claimed as Caesars, and the distribution of the 

 Roman empire was now fourfold : Diocletian tak- 

 ing the East, with Nicomedia as his seat of govern- 

 ment ; Maximian, Italy and Africa, with Milan 

 as his residence ; Constantius, Britain, Gaul, and 

 Spain, with Treves as his headquarters ; Galerius, 

 Iflyricum and the entire valley of the Danube, 

 with Sirmium as his imperial abode. It was upon 

 his colleagues that most of the burden of engaging 

 actively in hostilities fell, as Diocletian seldom 

 took the field in person. Among the conquests, or 

 rather re-conquests, that were made under his rule, 

 may be enumerated that of Britain, which, after 

 maintaining independence under Carausius and 

 Allectus, was in 296 restored to the empire ; that 

 of the Persians, who were defeated, and compelled 

 to capitulate in 298 ; and that of the Marcomanni, 

 and others of the northern barbarians, who were 

 driven beyond the Roman frontier. Diocletian, 

 after twenty-one years' harassing tenure of govern- 

 ment, desired to pass the remainder of his days in 

 tranquillity. Accordingly, on the 1st of May 305, 

 he abdicated the imperial throne at Nicomedia, and 

 compelled his reluctant colleague, Maximian, to do 

 likewise at Milan. He sought retirement in his 

 native province of Dalmatia, and for eight years 

 resided at Salona, devoting himself to philosophic 

 reflection, to rural recreation, and to horticultural 

 pursuits. Two years before his abdication, he was- 

 instigated by his colleague, Galerius, to that 

 determined and sanguinary persecution of the 

 Christians for which his reign is chiefly memorable. 

 He died in 313. 



Dio'dati, JEAN, a Calvinistic divine, was born 

 at Geneva, 6th June 1576, became professor of 

 Hebrew there in 1597, pastor of the reformed 

 church in 1608, and in 1609, on the death of Beza, 

 professor of Theology. He was a preacher at 

 Nlmes from 1614 to 1617, and at the Synod of Dort 

 was representative of Geneva. Diodati, whose 

 family was originally of Lucca in Italy, tried in 

 vain to introduce the reformed doctrine in Venice. 

 He is remembered chiefly through his Italian trans- 

 lation of the Bible, issued (without imprint) at 



