§ 65. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 341
Constantine tlie Great, in a circular letter to the cliurcliea, Btyles the decrees of the Nicenc council a divine command ; a phrase, however, in reference to which the abuse of the word divine, in the language of the Byzantine despots, must not ba forgotten. Athanasius says, with reference to the doctrine of the divinity of Christ : "What God has spoken by the council of Nice, abides forever." " The council of Chalcedon pronounced the decrees of the Nicene fathers unalterable statutes, since God himself had spoken through them." The council of Ephesus, in the sentence of deposition against Nestorius, uses the formula : " The Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has blasphemed, determines tlirough this most holy council." ^ Pope Leo speaks of an " irretraotabilis consensus " of the council of Chalcedon upon the doctrine of the person of Christ. Pope Gregory the Great even placed the first four conncils, which refuted and destroyed respectively the heresies and impieties of Arius, Macedonius, ]S"estorius, and Eutyches, on a level with the four canonical Gospels." In like manner Justinian puts
Cypriani) : " Placuit nobis, Sancto Spiritu suggerente, et Domino per visiones multas et manifestas admonente." So the council of Aries, in 314 : " Placuit ergo, presente Spiritu Sancto et angelis ejus."
' ®dav ivro\-t]v, and Saiav Povhrjcnvy in Euseb., Vita Const, iii. 20. Comp. his Ep. ad Eccl. Alexandr., in Socrates, H. E. i. 9, where he uses similar expressions.
^ Isidore of Pelusium also styles the Nicene council divinely inspired, ,&edae» f/j.wvevff^e'ifra (Ep. 1. iv. ep. 99). So Basil the Great, Ep. 114 (in the Benedictuie edition of his Opera omnia, tom. iii. p. 207), where he says that the 318 fathers of Nice have not spoken without the ivipjua. rov ayiov Trvfiinaro': (non sine Spiritua Sancti afflatu).
^ Act. i., in Mansi, vi. p. 672. We quote from the Latin translation: "NuUo autem modo patimur a quibusdam concuti definitam fidem, give fidei symbolum, a Sanctis patribus nostris qui apud Nicteam convenerimt illis temporibus : nee permittimus aut nobis, aut aliis, mutare aliquod verbum ex his quffi ibidem coutinentur, aut unam syllabam prseterire, memores dicentis : N'e trans/eras terminos ceternos, quos posuerunt patres tut (Prov. xxii. 8 ; Matt. x. 20). Non enim erant ipsi loquentes, sed ipse Spiritus Dei et Patris qui procedit ex ipso."
* 'O Pka(T(priixr]^(\s Trap' avTov Kvptos 'lr](T. Xpiarhs u>pi(Te 5ia rrjs trapovaris aytwrd TTjs avvoSov.
* Lib. i. Ep. 25 (ad Joannem episcopum Constant., et cseteros patiiarchas, rn Migne's edition of Gr. Opera, tom. iii. p. 4*78, or in the Bened. ed. iii. 515) : "Praeterea, quia corde creditur ad justitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem, sicut Bancti evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia suscipere et venerari me fateon Nicaenum sciUcet in quo perversion Arii dogma destruitur; CrjnstantiEopoIi'
312 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
I he dogmas of the first fouj* councils on the same footing witK the Holy Scriptures, and their canons by the side of laws of the realm.' The remaining three general councils have neither a theological importance, nor therefore an authority, equal to that of those first four, which laid the foundations of ecumenical orthodoxy. Otherwise Gregory would have mentioned also the fifth council, of 553, in the passage to which we have just referred. And even among the first four there is a difference of rank ; the councils of Nice and Chalcedon standing highest in the character of their results.
!N^ot so with the rules of discipline prescribed in the canones. These were never considered universally binding, like the symbols of faith ; since matters of organization and usage, pertaining rather to the external form of the church, are more or less subject to the vicissitude of time. The fifteenth canon of the council of Nice, which prohibited and declared invalid the transfer of the clergy from one place to another,^ Gregory Nazianzen, fifty-seven years later (382), reckons among statutes long dead.' Gregory himself repeatedly changed his location, and Chrysostom was called from Antioch to Constantino] )le. Leo I. spoke with strong disrespect of the third canon of the second ecumenical council, for assigning to the bishop of Constantinople the first rank after the bishop of Rome ; and for
tanum quoque, in quo Eiinomii et Macedonii error convincitur ; Epbesinum etiam primum, in quo Nestorii impietas judicatur ; Chalcedonense vero, in quo Eutychetii [Eutychis] Dioscorique pravitas reprobatur, totu dcvotione complector, integerrima approbatione custodio : quia in his velut in quadrato lapide, sanctae fidei structura consurgit, et cujuslibet vitae atque actionis existat, quisquis eorum soliditatem non tenet, etiam si lapis esse cemitur, tamen extra sedificium jacct. Quintum quoque concilium pariter veneror, in quo et epistola, quaj Ibae dicitur, erroris plena, reprobatur," etc.
' Justin. Novell, cxxxi. : " Quatuor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas scriptura-s accipimus, et regulas sicut leges observamus."
' Cone. Nic. can. 15 : "fio-re airb nrSKeui els ■>r6\ii' /u.^ jxera^aiveLv /ur'/re iiriffKOirov firiTi. TTperrfivTfpoi' fiTjTe StaKovov. This prohibition arose from the theory of thr relation between a clergyman and his congregation, as a mystical marriage, and was designed to restrain clerical ambition. It ajjpears in the Can. Apost. 13, 14, but was often violated. At the Nicene council itself there were several bishops, like Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eustathius of Antioch, who had exchanged their first bishopric for another and a better.
* Ud/xovi irdxai rt^yr]K6rat, Carm. de vita sua, v. 1810.