§ 65. THE ECUMENICAL COimCILS. 347
of the acts of the coinicils themselv^es. St. Gregory Naziac. zen, who, in the judgment of Socrates, was the most devout and eloquent man of his age,' and who himself, as bishop of Constantinople, presided for a time over the second ecumeni cal council, had so bitter an observation and experience as even to lose, though without sufficient reason, all confidence in councils, and to call them in his poems " assemblies of cranes and geese." " To tell the truth " — thus in 382 (a year after the second ecumenical council, and doubtless including that assembly in his allusion) he answered Procopius, who in the name of the emperor sammoned him in vain to a synod — " to tell the truth, I am inclined to shun every collection of bishops, because I have never yet seen that a synod came to a good end, or abated evils instead of increasing them. For in those assemblies (and I do not think I express myself too strongly here) indescribable. contentiousness and ambition prevail, and it is easier for one to incur the reproach of wishing to set himself up as jndge of the wickedness of others, than to attain any success in putting the wickedness away. Therefore I have withdrawn myself, and have found rest to my soul only in solitude." * It is true, the contemplative Gregory had an aversion to all public life, and in such views yielded unduly to his personal inclinations. And in any case he is inconsistent ; for he elsewhere speaks with great respect of the council of Nice, and was, next to Athanasius, the leading advocate of the Nicene creed. Yet there remains enough in his many unfavorable pictures of the bishops and synods of his time, to dispel all illusions of their immaculate purity. Beausobre correctly observes, that either Gregory the Great must be a slanderer, or the bishops of his day were very remiss. In the
' Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. 7.
■•' Ep. ad Procop. 55, old order (al. 130). Similar representations occur ia Ep 76, 84 ; Carm. de vita sua, v. 1680-1688 ; Carm. x. v. 92 ; Carm. adv. Episc. t. 154. Comp. Ullmann, Gregor. von Naz., p. 246 snq., and p. 270. It is remarkable that Gibbon makes no use of these passages to support his summary judgment of the general councils at the end of his twentieth chapter, where he savs : "The progresa of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness, thf assion, the ignor »nce, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods ; and the Catholic world haa unani moualy submitted to the infallible decrees of the general councils."
348 TumD PEKioD. A.D. 311-590.
6fth century it was no better, but rather worse. At tlio tliird general council, at E])hesus, 431, all accounts agree that shameful intrigue, uncliaritable lust of condemnation, and coarse violence of conduct were almost as prevalent as in the notorious robber-council of Ephesus in 449 ; though with the important difference, that the former synod was contending for truth, the latter for error. Even at Chalcedon, the introduction of the renowned expositor and historian Theodoret provoked a scene, which almost involuntarily reminds us of the modern brawls of Greek and Koman monks at the holy sepul chre under the restraining su])erv:sion of the Turkish police. His Egyptian opponents shouted with all their might : " The faith is gone ! Away with him, this teacher of Nestorius ! " His friends replied with equal violence : '• They forced us [at the robber-council] by blows to subscribe ; away with the Manichseans, the enemies of Flavian, the enemies of the faith ! Away with the murderer Dioscurus ? Who docs not know his wicked deeds ? " The Egyptian bishops cried again : " Away with the Jew, the adversary of God, and call him not bishop ! " To which the oriental bishops answered : " Away with the rioters, away with the murderers ! The orthodox man belongs to the council ! " At last the imperial commissioners interfered, and put an end to what they justly called an unworthy and useless uproar,'
In all these outbreaks of human passion, however, we must not forget that the Lord was sitting in the ship of the church, directing her safely through the billows and storms. The Spirit of truth, who was not to depart from her, always triumphed over error at last, and even glorified himself through the weaknesses of his instruments. Upon this unmistakable guidance from above, only set out by the contrast of human imperfections, our reverence for the councils must be based. Soli Deo gloria ; or, in the language of Chrysostom: Ao^a TM ^6&> iravratv eveKev !
' 'EKfioTjcreis SriixoTiKal. See Harduin, torn. ii. p. 71 sqq. -uid M.insi, torn vi p. 590 sq, Comp. also Hcfele, ii. p. 406 sq.