Hence the notorious rabies theologorum was more active in the fourth and fifth centuries than it has been in any other period of history, excepting, perhaps, in the great revolution of the sixteenth century.

We have on this point the testimony of contemporaries and of the acts of the councils themselves. St. Gregory Nazianzen, who, in the judgment of Socrates, was the most devout and eloquent man of his time, and who himself, as a bishop of Constantinople, presided for a time over the second œcumenical council, had so bitter an observation and experience as even to lose, though without sufficient reason, all confidence in councils, and to call them in his poems "assemblies of cranes and geese." "To tell the truth"--thus in 382 (a year after the second œcumenical council, and doubtless including that assembly in his allusion) he answered Procopius, who, in the name of the emperor, summoned him in vain to a synod-" to tell the truth, I am inclined to shun every collection of bishops, because I have never yet seen that a synod came to a good end, or abated evils instead of increasing them. For in those assemblies (and I do not think I express myself too strongly here) indescribable contentiousness and ambition prevail, and it is easier for one to incur the reproach of wishing to set himself up as a judge of the wickedness of others, than to attain any success in putting the wickedness away. Therefore I have withdrawn myself, and have found rest to my soul only in solitude." It is true, the contemplative Gregory had an aversion to all public life, and in such views yielded unduly to his personal inclinations. And in any case he is inconsistent; for he elsewhere speaks with great respect of the council of Nice, and was, next to Athanasius, the leading advocate of the Nicene creed. Yet there remains enough in his many unfavorable pictures of the bishops and synods of his time, to dispel all illusions of their immaculate purity. Beausobre correctly observes, that either Gregory the Great must be a slanderer, or the bishops of his day were very remiss. In the fifth century it was no better, but rather worse. At the third general council, at Ephesus, 431, all accounts agree that a shameful intrigue, uncharitable lust of condemnation, and

coarse violence of conduct were almost as prevalent as in the notorious robber-council of Ephesus in 449; though with the important difference, that the former synod was contending for truth, the latter for error. Even at Chalcedon, the introduction of the renowned expositor and historian, Theodoret, provoked a scene which almost involuntarily reminds us of the modern brawls of Greek and Roman monks at the holy sepulchre, under the restraining supervision of the Turkish policy. His Egyptian opponents shouted with all their might: "The faith is gone! Away with him, this teacher of Nestorius!" His friends replied with equal violence: "They forced us [as the robber-council] by blows to subscribe; away with the Manichæans, the enemies of Flavian, the enemies of the faith! Away with the murderer Dioscurus! Who does not know his wicked deeds?" The Egyptian bishops cried again: "Away with the Jew, the adversary of God, and call him not bishop!" To which the oriental bishops answered: "Away with the rioters, away with the murderers. The orthodox man belongs to the council!" At last the imperial commissioners interfered, and put an end to what they justly called an unworthy and useless uproar.

In all these outbreaks of human passion, however, we must not forget that the Lord was sitting in the ship of the church, directing her safely through the billows and storms. The Spirit of truth, who was not to depart from her, always triumphed over error at last, and even glorified himself through the weaknesses of his instruments.

Upon this unmistakable guidance from above, only set out by the contrast of human imperfections, our reverence for the councils must be based. Soli Deo gloria: or, in the language of Chrysostom, Δόξα τῷ θεῷ πάντων ἕνεκεν.

We only add, by way of a general view, a list of all the œcumenical councils of the Græco-Roman church:

1. The CONCILIUM NICENUM I., A. D. 325; held at Nice in Bithynia; consisting of three hundred and eighteen bishops; called by Constantine the Great, for the settlement of the Arian controversy. The result of this council was the establishment of the doctrine of the true divinity of Christ, the

identity of the essence between the Son and the Father. It is styled emphatically "the great and holy council," holds the highest place among the councils, especially with the Greeks, and still lives in the Nicene creed; though this symbol was not decided upon and composed in its present form, (excepting the still later Latin insertion of filioque), until the second general council. Besides this the council issued a number of canons, usually reckoned twenty, on various questions of discipline; the most important being those on the rights of Metropolitans, the time of Easter, and the validity of heretical baptism.

2. The CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM I., A. D. 381; summoned by Theodosius the Great, and held at the imperial city, which had not even name in history till five years after the former council. This council, however, comprised only a hundred and fifty bishops, as the emperor had summoned none but the adherents of the Nicene party, which had become very much reduced under the previous reign. The emperor did not attend it. Meletius of Antioch was president till his death; then, Gregory Nazianzen; and after his resignation the newly elected patriarch Nektarius of Constantinople. The council enlarged the Nicene confession by an article on the divinity and personality of the Holy Ghost, in opposition to the Macedonians or Pneumatomachists, (hence the title Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum), and issued seven more canons, of which the Latin versions, however, give only the first four, leaving the genuineness of the other three, as many think, in doubt.

3. The CONCILIUM EPHESINUM, A. D. 431; called by Theodosius II., and held under the direction of the ambitious and violent Cyril of Alexandria. This council consisted of, at first, a hundred and sixty bishops, afterwards a hundred and ninetyeight, and condemned the error of Nestorius on the relation of the two natures in Christ. It produced, therefore, but a negative result, and is the least important of the first four councils, as it stands lowest also in moral character. It is entirely rejected by the Nestorians or Chaldaic Christians. Its six canons relate exclusively to Nestorian and Pelagian

affairs, and are wholly omitted by Dionysius Exiguus in his collection.

4. The CONCILIUM CHALCEDONENSE, A. D. 451; summoned by the emperor Marcian, at the instance of the Roman bishop Leo; held at Chalcedon in Bithynia, opposite Constantinople; and composed of five hundred and twenty, some say six hundred and thirty bishops. It fixed the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ in opposition to Eutychianism and Nestorianism, and enacted thirty canons, (according to some manuscripts only twenty-seven or twenty-eight), of which the twenty-eighth was resisted by the Roman Legates and Leo I. This was the most numerous, and next to the Nicene, the most important of all the general councils, but it is repudiated by all the Monophysite sects of the eastern church.

5. The CONCILIUM CONSTANTINOPOLITANUM II., was assembled by the emperor Justinian, A. D. 553, without consent of the pope, for the adjustment of the three chapters. It was presided over by the patriarch Eutychius of Constantinople, consisted of only one hundred and sixty-four bishops, and issued fourteen anathemas against Christological errors. It was not recognized, however, by many western bishops, even after pope Vigilius gave in his assent to it, and it induced a temporary schism between upper Italy and the Roman See. As to importance, it stands far below the previous councils. Its Acts in Greek, with the exception of the fourteen anathemas, are lost.

Besides these, there are two later councils, which have attained among the Greeks and Latins an undisputed œcumenical authority, the THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, under Constantine Progonatus, A. D. 680, which condemned Monothelitism (and pope Honorius) and consummated the old Catholic Christology; and the SECOND COUNCIL OF NICE, under the empress Irene, A. D. 787, which sanctioned the image worship of the church.

Thus Nicæa-now the miserable Turkish hamlet Is-nik, (sis Nixasav), has the honor of both opening and closing the succession of acknowleged œcumenical councils.

From this time forth the Greeks and Latins part, and œcumenical councils are no longer to be named.

The Greeks considered the second Trullan council, the quinisexta, of 692, which enacted no symbol of faith, but canons only, an appendix to the sixth œcumenical council; against which view the Latin church has always protested. The Latin church, on the other hand, elevates the fourth council of Constantinople, A. D. 869, which deposed the patriarch Photius, the champion of the Greek church, in her contest with the Latin, to the dignity of an eighth œcumenical council, but this council was annulled for the Greek church by the subsequent restoration of Photius.

The Roman church, also, in pursuance of her claims to exclusive Catholicity, adds to the eight Greek councils eight or more Latin general councils, including that of Trent; but to all these the Greek and Protestant churches concede only a sectional character.