§ 65. THE ECUMENICAL COTJNCIL8. 342
the same reason he protested against the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth ecumenical coimcil.' Indeed the Roman church has made no point of adopting all the disciplinary laws enacted by those synods.
Augustine, the ablest and the most devout of the fathers, 3onceived, in the best vein of his age, a philosophical view of this authority of the councils, which strikes a wise and wholesome mean between the extremes of veneration and disparagement, and approaches the free spirit of evangelical Protestant ism. He justly subordinates these councils to the Holy Scriptures,.-\vhieh. are-tlie- Ixighest and the perfect rule of faith, and supposes that the decrees of a council may be, not indeed set aside and repealed, yet enlarged and completed by the deeper research of a later day. They embody, for the general need, tlie results already duly prepared by preceding theological controversies, and give the consciousness of the church, on the subject in question, the clearest and most precise expression possible at the time. But this consciousness itself is subject to development. While the Holy Scriptures present the truth unequivocally and infallibly, and allow no room for doubt, the judgment of bishops may be corrected and enriched with new truths from the word of God, by the wiser judgment of other bishops ; the judgment of the provincial council by that of a general ; and the views of one general council by those of a later.' In this Augustine presumed, that all the
' Epist. 106 (al. 80) ad Anatolium, and Epist. 105 ad Pulcheriam. Comp above, § 5Y. Even Gregory I., so late as 600, writes in reference to the eanones of the Constantinopolitan council of 381 : " Romana autem ecclesia eosdem canonea vol gesta Synodi illius hactenus non habet, nee accepit ; in hoc autem earn accepit, quod est per earn contra Macedonium definitum." Lib. vii. Ep. 34, ad Eulogium piscopum Alexandr. (torn. iii. p. 882, ed. Bened., and in Migne's ed., iii. 893.)
' De Baptism© contra Donatistas, 1. ii. 3 (in the Benedictine edition of August. Ouera, torn. ix. p. 98) : " Quis autem nesciat, sanctam Scripturam canonicam, tarn Veteris quam Novi Testamenti, certis suis terminis contineri, eamque omnibus posterioribus Episcoporum Uteris ita prseponi, ut de ilia omnino dubitari et disceptari non possit, utrum verum vel utrum rectum sit, quidquid in ea scriptum esse constiterit ; Episcoporum autem literas quae post confirmatum canonem vel scriptae surt vel scribuntur, et per sermonem forte sapientiorem cujuslibet in ea re peritioris, el per aliorum Episcoporum graviorem auctoritatem doctioremque prudentiam, et per concilia licere repreliendi, si quid in eis forte a veritate deviatum est ; et ipsa concilia,
344 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590.
trausactions of a council were conducted in the spirit of Chris tiau humility, iiarniony, and love ; but had he attended the council of Ephesus, in 431, to which he was suraraoned about the time of his death, he would, to his grief, have found the very opposite spirit reigning there. Augnstine, therefore, manifestly acknowledges a gradual advancerpent of the church doctrine, which reaches its corresponding expression from time to time through the general councils ; but a progress within the truth, without positive error. For in a certain sense, as against heretics, he made the authority of Holy Scripture dejjendcnt on the authority of the catholic church, in his famous dictum against the Manichsean heretics : " I would not believe the gospel, did not the authority of the catholic church compel nje." ' In like manner Vincentius Lerinensis teaches, that the church doctrine passes indeed througli various stages of growth in knowledge, and becomes more and more clearly defined in o])position to ever-rising errors, but can never become altered or dismembered."
The Protestant church makes the authority of the general councils, and of all ecclesiastical tradition, depend on the de-
quse per singulas rcgiones vel provincias Uuntj plenariorum concilionim aucioritati, quae fiunt ex universo orbe Christiano, sine ullis ambagibus cedere ; ipsaqiie phnaria scepe priora postcrioribus emendari, quum aliquo experiracnto ronim aperitur quod clausum erat et cognoscitur quod latcbat ; sine uUo typho sacrilogaj superbias, sine ulla inflata cervice arrogautise, sine ulla contentione lividaj invidiae, cum sancta humilitate, cum pace catholica, cum caritate cliiistiaua." Comp. the passage Contra Maximinum Arianum, ii. cap. 14, § 3 (in the Beued. cd., torn. viii. p. 704), where he will have even the decision of the Nicenc council concerning the homousion measured by the higher standard of the Scriptures.
' Contra Epistolam Manichaei, lib. i. c. 5 (in the Bened. ed., torn. viii. p. 154) : "Ego vero evangelic non crederem, nisi me ecclesia) catholica? commoveret auctoritas."
* Commonitorlum, c. 23 (in Mignc's Curs. Patrol, torn. 50, p. 067): "Sed forsitnn dicit aliquis : Nulhisne ergo in ecclesia Christi profectus habcbitur religionis ?
Habeatur plane et raaximus Sed ita tamcn ut vere profectus sit illc
fidei, non permutatio. Siquidem ad profectum pertinct ut in scmetipsum unaqua?qua refl amplillcctur ; ad permutationem vero, ut aliquid ex alio in aliud transvertatur. Crescat igitur oportet et multum vehementerque proficiat tam singulorum quaru omnium, tam unius hominis, quam totius ecclcsi», ictatum ac seculorum gradibus. Intelligentia, scientia, sapicntia, sed in suo dutaxat gencre, in eodem scilicet dogmate eodenc sensu, eademque sententia."