§ 65. THE ECDMEKICAL COUNCILS. 337
more remarkable, since at that time lie liad uot jet even been baptized. When Marcian and Pulcheria appeared with their court at the council of Chalcedon, to confirm its decrees, they were greeted bj the assembled bishops in the bombastic style of the East, as defenders of the faith, as pillars of orthodoxy ^ as enemies and persecutors of heretics ; the emperor as a second Constantine, a new Paul, a new David ; the empress as a second Helena ; with other high-sounding predicates.' Tlie second and fifth general councils were the only ones at which the emperor was not represented, and in them the presidency wab in the hands of the patriarchs of Constantinople.
But together with the imperial commissioners, or in their absence, the different patriarchs or their representatives, especially the legates of the Roman bishop, the most powei'ful of the patriarchs, took part in the presiding office. This was the case at the third and fourth, and the sixth, seventh, and eiglith universal councils.
For the emperor's connection with the council had reference rather to the conduct of business and to the external affairs of the synod, than to its theological and religious discussions. This distinction appears in the well-known dictum of Constantine respecting a double episcopate, which we have already noticed. And at the ]S[icene council the emperor acted accordingly. He paid the bishops greater reverence than his heathen predecessoi'S had shovni the Roman senators. He wished to be a servant, not a judge, of the successors of the apostles, who are constituted priests and gods on earth. After his opening address, he "resigned the word" to the (clerical) ofiacers of the council,' by whom probably Alexander,
' Mansi, vii. 170 sqq. The emperor is called there not simply diviiie, which would be idolatrous enough, but most divine, 6 SieioraTos Kal evae^faraToi iifj-o/p oeaiTOTT}?, divinissimus et piissimus noster imperator ad sanctam synodum dixit, etc. And these adulatory epithets occur repeatedly in the acts of this council.
* Eusebius, Vita Const, iii. 13 : 'O /xev St; tout' elwwv 'PcofxaiayAdrrri [which wa.s still the official language], v(pep/j.-qvevovTos Irepov, irapeSiSov rhf Koyov to7s t tj r a vv65ov irpoeSpois. Yet, according to the immediately following words of Eusebius, the emperor continued to take lively interest in the proceedings, hearing, speaking, and exhorting to harmony. Eusebius' whole account of this synod is brief and unsatisfactory.
338 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590.
bishop of Alexandria, Eiistatlnus of Antiocli, and Hosius of Cordova — the latter as special friend of the emperor, and as representative of the Western churches and perhaps of the bishop of Rome — are to be understood. The same distinction between a secular and spiritual presidency meets us in Theodosius II., who sent the comes Candidian as his deputy to the third general council, with full power over the entire business proceedings, but none over theological matters tliemselves ; "for" — wrote he to the council — "it is not proper that one who does not belong to the catalogue of most holy bishops, should meddle in ecclesiastical discussions." Yet Cyril of Alexandria presided at this council, and conducted the business, at first alone, afterward in conjunction with the papal legates ; while Candidian supported the Nestorian opposition, wliich held a council of its ow^n under the patriarch John of Antioch. Finally, from the emperors proceeded \\\q ratification of the councils*_ Partly by- tlieii^-signatures, partly by special edicts, they gave the decrees of the_council legal validity ; they raiaed-iheBa-ttr-fewe- of the reakoj^ they took painsto have them observed, and punished the disobedient with deposition and banishment. This was done by Constantino the Great for the decrees of Nice ; by Theodosius the Great for those of Constantinople ; by Marcian for those of Chalcedon. The second ecumenical council expressly prayed the emperor for such sanction, since he was present neither in person nor by commission. The papal confirmation, on the contrary, was not considered necessary, until after the fourth general council, in 451.' And notwithstanding this, Justinian broke throiigli tlie decrees of the fifth council, of 553, without the consent, and in fact despite the intimated refusal of Pope Yigilius, In the middle ages, however, the case was reversed. Tlie influence of the pope on the councils increased, and that of tlie emperor declined ; or rather, the German emjx^ror ne^ cr claimed so preeminent a position in the church as the Byzantine. Yet the relation of the pope to a general council, the
' To wit, in a leuer of the council to Leo (Ep. 89, in the Epistles of Leo, ed. Bailer., torn. i. p. 1099), and in a letter of Marcian tj Leo (Ep. 110, torn. i. p 1182 sq.).