§ G5. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 331
sentatives of the unity and autliority of the old CathoKc cbnrcli They referred originally to the Eoman empire, bnt afterward included the adjacent barbarian countries, so far as those countries were represented in them by bishops. They rise up like lofty peaks or majestic pyramids from the plan of ancient church history, and mark the ultimate authoritative settlement of the general questions of doctrine and discipline which agitated Christendom in the Grseco-Eoman empire.
The synodical system in general bad its rise in tbe apostolic council at Jerusalem,' and completed its development, under its Catholic form, in the course of the first five centuries. Like the episcopate, it presented a hierarchical gradation of orders. There_was, first, the diocesan aY_ district council, in which the bishop of a diocese (in the later sense of the word) presided over his clergy ; then the jprovincial council, consisting of the metropolitan or archbishop and the bishops of his ecclesiastical province ; next, i\\e patriarchal council, embracing all the bishops of a patriarchal district ^or a diocese in the old sense of the term) ; then the national council, inaccurately styled also general^ representing'eifcSer the, RutirprOrf;^k f\r tlift entii'e Latin church (like the later Lateran councils and the council of Trent) ; and finally, at the summit stood tlie eciu— menical council, for the_wh_ole_.ChmtiajijwoiMj..^ was besides these a peculiar and abnormal kind of synod, styled avvoho's evB7]fjiovo-a, frequently held by the bishop of Constantinople with the provincial bishops resident {evZrjjjbovvre'^) on the spot."
properly, the whole inhabited earth ; then, in a narrower sense, the earth inhabited by Greeks, in distinction from the barbarian countries ; finally, with the Romans, the orbis Romanus, the political limits of which coincided with those of the ancient GriEco-Latin church. But as the bishops of the barbarians outside the empire were admitted, the ecumenical councils represented the entire Catholic Christian world.
' Acts XV., and Gal. ii. Comp, my History of the Apostolic Church, §§ 67-69 (Engl, ed., p. 245-257). Mausi, 1. c. tom. i. p. 22 (De quadruplici Synodo Apostolorum), and other Roman Catholic writers, speak oi four Apostolic Synods: Acts i. 13 sqq., for the election of an apostle; ch. vi. for the election of deacons; ch. xv for the settlement of the question of the binding authority of the law of Moses ; and ch. xxi. for a similar object. But we should distinguish between a private conference and consultation, and a public synod.
' It is usually supposed there were only four or five different kind? of council. But Hefele reckons eight (i. p. 3 and 4), adding to those above named thp irregnlai
332 THIhO PERIOD. A..D. 311-590.
Ill the earlier centuries the councils assembled withont fixed reguhirity, at the instance of present necessities, like the Montanist and the Easter controversies in the latter part of the second century. Firmilian of Cappadocia, in Ids letter to Cyprian, first mentions, that at his time, in the middle of the third century, the churches of Asia Minor held regular annual synods, consisting of bishops and presbyters. From that time we find an increasing number of such assemblies in Egypt, Syria, Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, and Gaul. The council of Nicaea, a. d. 325, ordained, in the fifth canon, that the jpromncial councils should meet twice a year : during the fast season before Easter, and in the fall.' In regard to the other synods no direction was given.
The ECUMENICAL councils were not stated, but extraordinary assemblies, occasioned by the great theological controversies of the ancient church. They could not arise until after the conversion of the Roman emperor and the ascendency of Christianity as the religion of the state. They w^ere the highest, and the last, manifestation of the power of the Greek church, which in general took the lead in the first age of Christianity, and was the chief seat of all theological activity. Hence in that church, as well as in others, they arc still held in the highest veneration, and kept alive in the popular mind by pictures in the churches. The Greek and Russian Christians have annually commemorated the seven ecumenical councils, since the year 842, on the first Sunday in Lent, as the festival of the triumph of orthodoxy ; " and they live in the hope that an eighth ecumenical council shall yet heal the divisions and infirmities of the Christian world. Through their symbols of
awoloi fvBriixodaai, also the synods of the bishops of two or more provinces, and finally the concilia mixta, consisting of the secular and spiritual dignitaries ol' a province, as separate classes.
• A similar order, with different times, appears still earlier in the S'Zth of the apostolic canons, where it is said (in the ed. of Ueltzen, p. 244) : Aeur«poi/ tov trov ovvoZos yevfirba) rHiv (iriaKowwv.
• This Sunday, the celebration of which was ordered by the empi ess Theodc« jii 842 is called among the Greeks the KvpiaK-q ttjs opdoSoJi'as. On that day tlie ancient councils are dramatically reproduced in the public worship.