§ 66. LIST OF ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. Ct4*J
^66. List of the Ecumenical Councils of i i^ Ancient Church,
We only add, by way of a general view, a list of all the ecumenical councils of the Grseco-Roman church, with a brief account of their character and work.
1. The Concilium Nicenum I., a. d. 325 ; held at ITicaea in Bithynia, a lively commercial town near the imperial residence of IsTicomedia, and easily accessible by land and sea. It consisted of three hundred and eighteen bishops,' besides a large number of priests, deacons, and acolytes, mostly from the East, and was called by Constantino the Great, for the settlement of the Arian controversy. Having become, by decisive victories in 323, master of the whole Roman empire, he desired to complete the restoration of unity and peace with the help of the dignitaries of the church. The result of this council was the establishment (by anticipation) of the doctrine of the true divinity of Christ, tlie identity of essence between tlie Son and the Eather. The fundamental importance of tliis dogma, the number, learning, piety and wisdom of the bishops, many of whom still bore tlie marks of the Diocletian persecution, the personal presence of the first Christian emperor, of Eusebius, " the father of church history," and of Athanasius, " the father of orthodoxy " (though at that time only archdeacon), as well as the remarkable character of this epoch, combined in giving to this first general synod a peculiar weight and authority. It is styled emphatically " the great and holy council," holds the highest place among all the councils, especially with the Greeks," and still lives in the Nicene Creed., which is second in authority only to the ever venerable Apostles' Creed. This symbol was, however, not finally settled and completed
' This is the usual estimate, resting on the authority of Athanasius, Basil (Ep 114 ; Opera, t. iii. p 207, ed. Bened.), Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret ; whence the council is sometimes called the Assembly of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Other data reduce the number to three hundred, or to two hundred and seventy or two hundred and fifty, or two hundred and eighteen ; while later tradition swell* it to two thousand or more.
' For some time the Egyotian and Syrian churches commemorated tie council ol N'icaea by an aunual festival
350 THIRD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
in its present form (excepting the still later Latin insertior of JiUoqiie)^ until the second general council. Besides this the fathers assembled at Nicica issued a number of canons, usually reckoned twenty, on various questions of discipline ; the most important being those on the riglits of metropolitans, the timu of Easter, and the validity of heretical baptism.
2. The Concilium Constantinopolitanum I., a. d. 381 ; summoned by Theodosius the Great, and held at the imperial city, which had not even name in history till five years aftei the former council. This council, however, was exclusively oriental, and comprised only a hundred and fifty bishops, as the emperor had summoned none but the adherents of the Nicene party, which had become very much reduced under the previous reign. The emperor did not attend it. Meletius of Antioch was president till his death ; then Gregory Nazianzen ; and, after his resignation, the newly elected patriarch N^ectarius of Constantinople. The council enlarged the Nicene confession by an article on the divinity and personality of the Holy Ghost, in opposition to the Macedonians or Pneumatomachists (hence the title Synibolum Nica&no-Constantinojpolita/num)^ and issued seven more canons, of which the Latin versions, however, give only the first four, leaving the genuineness of the other three, as many think, in doubt.
3. The Concilium Ephesinusi, a. d. 431 ; called by Theodosius II., in connection with the Western co-emperor Yalentinian III., and held under the direction of the ambitious and violent Cyril of Alexandria. Tliis council consisted of, at first, a hundred and sixty bishops, afterward a hundred and ninetyeight," including, for the first time, papal delegates from Kome, who were instructed not to mix in the debates, but to sit as judges over the opinions of the rest. It condemned the error of IJ^estorius on the relation of the two natures in Christ, without stating clearly the correct doctrine. It produced, therefore, but a negative result, and is the least important of the first
' The opposition council, which John of Antioch, on his subsequent arrival, held in the same city in the cause of Nestorius and under the protection of the imperial commissioner Candidian, numbered forty-three members, and excommunicated Cyril, ^ Cyril bad excommunicated Nestorius.