Translation, Biblical

SEE VERSIONS, TRANSLATION, in ecclesiastical usage, is the removal of a bishop from the charge of one diocese to that of another. After such removal, the bishop, in all his attestations, dates: from the year of his translation (anno translationis nostrae), not from that of his consecration (anno consecrationis nostrae). In the early Church a bishop could not translate himself to another see without the consent and approbation of a provincial council. Some, indeed, thought it absolutely unlawful for a bishop to forsake his first see and betake himself to any other, because they looked upon his consecration to be a sort of marriage to his church, and therefore looked upon his removal to another see as spiritual adultery.