# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_August 1858_S228
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

228 On the Transfer of Preachers.

...where it is thus ordained: "If a presbyter, deacon, or any clergyman has thought it good to leave his congregation and pass over to another, and, once he has moved there, seeks to remain there permanently: it is not fitting for him to continue administering the spiritual office, especially once he has been admonished by his bishop to return. If, after his bishop's summons, he does not render obedience but persists in disobedience, he shall be entirely removed from his office, and shall never again have hope of being reinstated. But if another bishop receives one who has been removed on this account, he thereby earns the penalty of reprimand from the general synod, as one who tears apart the order of the church." Let us add further the 59th and 60th chapters of the third book of the Life of Constantine, where the emperor praises Eusebius because he was content with his office and see and wished to remain there, and had for that reason not accepted the see of Antioch that had been offered him.

8. Yet indeed, if one looks rightly at canons of this kind, one will at once find that they do not forbid pastors — whose devout zeal, learning, and particular gifts become evident over the course of time — from being transferred, for the general good, from a lesser or less important place to a higher and more important one; otherwise there would be conflict and contradiction with the other canons cited above from the Corpus Canonicum. Rather, according to Osiander's interpretation, it is only forbidden that anyone should abandon the congregation entrusted to him, and, out of ambition or greed, intrude by base means into another congregation without a regular call — especially where much confusion and unrest is to be feared, as that first Nicene canon most clearly indicates in its preamble. Eusebius did rightly in declining the see of Antioch — not as though it were altogether unlawful for him to move to another congregation, but because Eustathius had there been deposed from his office in the most unjust manner, a story told at length by Sozomen I, 18, and Nicephorus VIII, 45. He could not in good conscience become his successor. For where the removal of the former occupant is not lawful, there the installation of the successor cannot be lawful either.

9. Let every servant of the church therefore take this as said to himself: You must regard your calling in such a way that you turn all your thoughts away from every summons elsewhere: you could live better elsewhere, but God has bound you to a congregation that feeds you only meagerly; elsewhere you would be held in greater honor, but God has assigned you precisely a place where you are to live in lowliness; elsewhere there is a healthier or lovelier region, but here your dwelling is appointed for you. You might wish to deal with more cultivated people; their ingratitude, pride, or coarseness offends you; you find, in the end, no pleasure at all in the manners and customs of the people: