[63] Ep. LXXIX.
[64] Epp. LXXIX. LXXX. LXXXI. LXXXII. LXXXIII.
[65] Ep. LXXXVI.
[66] "Theodoret's condemnation was the chief object aimed at in summoning" the Latrocinium. He was "the bugbear of the whole Eutychian party and consequently condemned in advance." Canon Venables, Dict. Christ. Biog. iv. 913 and Martin Brigandage à Ephèse p. 192.
[67] See specially Gibbon Chap. xlvii. Milman Hist. Lat. Christ. Book II. Chap. iv. Stanley, Christian Institutions, Chap. xvi. 4 and Canon Bright Art. Dioscorus in Dict. Christ. Biog. General Councils, it may be remarked, have been depreciated and ridiculed by historians of two kinds; the anti-Christian, such as Gibbon, who have been glad of the opportunity of bringing discredit on the Church; and the Roman, such as Cardinal Newman, who are aware that the authority of Councils is not always reconcileable with the asserted authority of the Bishop of their favourite see. ("Even those councils which were oecumenical have nothing to boast of in regard to the Fathers, taken individually, which compose them. They appear as the antagonist host in a battle, not as the shepherds of their people." Hist. Sketches, p. 335.) And it must be conceded that so far as outward circumstances went the Latrocinium was as good a council as any other. As is pointed out by Dean Milman, "It is difficult to discover in what respect, either in the legality of its convocation or the number and dignity of the assembled prelates, consists its inferiority to more received and honoured councils. Two imperial commissioners attended to maintain order in the council and peace in the city. Dioscorus the patriarch of Alexandria by the Imperial command assumed the presidency. The Bishops who formed the Synod of Constantinople were excluded as parties in the transaction, but Flavianus took his place with the Metropolitans of Antioch and Jerusalem and no less than three hundred and sixty bishops and ecclesiastics. Three ecclesiastics, Julian a bishop, Renatus a presbyter, and Hilarius a deacon were to represent the bishop of Rome. The Abbot Barsumas (this was an innovation) took his seat in the Council as a kind of representative of the monks." Milman, Lat. Christ. Book II. Chap. iv. The fact is that the great Councils of the Early Church are like the great men of the Early Church. Some have authority and some have not. But their authority does not depend upon formal circumstances or outward position. They have authority because the inspired common sense of the Church has seen and valued the truth and wisdom of their utterances. Athanasius, Arius, Cyril, and Nestorius, were all great churchmen. Athanasius and Cyril stand out against the background of centuries as champions of the faith. Arius and Nestorius are counted as heretics. Character does not outweigh doctrine. Nestorius is unsound in the faith though he was an amiable and virtuous man; Cyril is an authority of orthodoxy though his personal qualities were not saintly. Of all the councils that according to Ammianus Marcellinus hamstrung the postal resources of the Empire, take Nicæa, Tyre, and the two Ephesian councils of 431 and 449. Nicæa and the earlier Ephesian are accepted by the Church Catholic. Tyre and the later Ephesian, though both were summoned at the will of princes and attended by a large concourse of bishops, are rejected. Why? The earlier Ephesian in the disorder and violence of its proceedings was as disgraceful as the Tyrian and the later Ephesian. The councils of Nicæa and of Ephesus, called the first and the third oecumenical councils, are vindicated by the assent of the wisest of the Church. The dictum securus judicat orbis terrarum here holds good, and is seen to be identical with the ultimate foundation of the great Aristotelian definition "defined by reason, and as the wise man would define." And such is also the practical outcome of the statement of Article XXI, of the Church of England. cf. the striking passage of Augustine (Cont. Maximin. Arian. ii. 14). "Sed nunc nec ego Nicænum, nec tu debes Ariminense, tanquam proejudicaturus, proferre consilium. Nec ego hujus auctoritate, nec tu illius detineris. Scripturarum auctoritatibus, non quorumque propriis, sed utrisque communibus testibus, res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione concertet." On the first four accepted oecumenical councils Dr. Salmon (Infallibility of the Church, p. 287) remarks, "Gregory the Great says that he venerates these four as the four Gospels, and describes them as the four square stones on which the structure of faith rests. Yet the hard struggle each of these councils had to make and the number of years which the struggle lasted before its decrees obtained general acceptance, show that they obtain their authority because of the truth which they declared and it was not because of their authority that the decrees were recognised as true."
[68] Canon Venables Dict. Christ. Biog. Actes du Brigandage, pp. 193, 195.
[69] Evagrius i. 10.