In our October article on Councils we closed with the council that was
assembled by Mrs. Irene in the year 787. The Franks, having heard that a
council at Constantinople had ordained the adoration of images,
assembled, in the year 794, by order of Charles, son of Pepin,
afterwards named Charlemagne, a very numerous council. In this council
the second council of Nice is spoken of as an impertinent and arrogant
synod held in Greece for the promotion of the worship of pictures. This
council, held at Frankfort, was composed of three hundred clergymen from
England, Italy, France and Germany. Aventin, Hinemar and Regina say the
Frankfortians rescinded the decisions of the false Grecian synod in
favor of image worship.
In 842 a grand council was held at Constantinople, convened by the
Empress Theodora. Here the worship of images was solemnly established.
The Greeks still have a feast in honor of this council called
"_Orthodoxia_." Theodora did not preside at this council.
"In 861 a council was held at Constantinople consisting of three hundred
and eighteen bishops, assembled by the Emperor Michael. St. Ignatius,
patriarch of Constantinople, was deposed and Photius elected.
"In 866 another council was held at Constantinople, in which Pope
Nicholas III. was deposed for contumacy and excommunicated.
"In 869 was another council at Constantinople; in this Photius, in turn,
was deposed and excommunicated and St. Ignatius restored.
"In 879 another council was held in Constantinople, in which Photius,
already restored, was acknowledged as true patriarch by the legates of
Pope John VIII., who declares all those to be Judases who say that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
"In 1122-3 a council was held at Rome, in the church of St. John of
Lateran, by Pope Calixtus II. This was the first general council
assembled by the popes. The emperors of the west had now scarcely any
authority, and the emperors of the east, pressed by the Mahometans and
by the crusaders, held none but little wretched councils. In this
council the bishops complained heavily of the monks. 'They possess,'
said they, 'the churches, the lands, the castles, the tithes, the
offerings of the living and the dead; they have only to take from us the
ring and the crosier.' _The monks remained in possession._"
"In 1139 was another council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent II. It is said
a thousand bishops were present. Here the ecclesiastical tithes are
declared to be of _divine right_, and all laymen possessing any of them
are excommunicated.
"In 1215 was the last general council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent III.
Four hundred and twelve bishops and eight hundred abbots were here. This
was in the time of the Crusades, and the popes have established a Latin
patriarch at Jerusalem and one at Constantinople. These patriarchs
attend this council. This council declares, among other things, that 'no
one can be saved out of the Catholic church.' The word
transubstantiation was not known until after this council. It forbade
the establishment of new religious orders; but, since that time, no less
than eighty have been instituted. It was in this council that Raimond,
Count of Toulouse, was stripped of all his lands.
"In 1245 a council assembled at the city of Lyons. Innocent IV. brings
thither the Emperor of Constantinople, John Puleologus, and makes him
sit beside him. He deposes the Emperor Frederick as a felon, and gives
the cardinals a red but, as a sign of hostility to Frederick, and the
source of thirty years of civil war.
"In 1274 another council is held at the city of Lyons. Five hundred
bishops are present, seventy great and a thousand lesser abbots. The
Greek emperor, Michael Paleologus, that he may have the protection of
the Pope, sends his Greek patriarch, Theophanes, to unite, in his name,
with the Latin church; but the Greek church disowns these bishops.
"In 1311 Pope Clement V. assembled a general council in the small town
of Vienne, in Dauphiny, in which he abolishes the order of the Templars.
It is here ordained that the Begares, Beguins and Beguines shall be
burned. These were a species of heretics '_to whom was imputed all that
had formerly been imputed to the primitive Christians_.'" So says
Voltaire. He does not, like the pitiful blaspheming infidels of to-day,
try to heap all this corruption of the dark ages upon primitive
Christianity. No! The hull of Voltaire's soul was too great for such a
deed.
"In 1414 the great council of Constance was assembled by an emperor who
resumes his rights, viz: by Sigismund. Here Pope John XXIII., convicted
of numerous crimes, is deposed, and John Huss and Jerome of Sprague
convicted of _obstinacy and burned_.
"In 1431 a council was held at Basle, where they in vain depose Pope
Eugene IV., who is too clever for the council. This was a stormy
council, and it is said that Eugene regretted in _his_ old age that he
ever left his monastery.
"In 1438 a council assembled at Ferrara, transferred to Florence, where
the excommunicated pope excommunicates the council, and declares it
guilty of high treason. Here a feigned union is made with the Greek
church, crushed by the Turkish synods held sword in hand.
"Pope Julius II. would have had his council of Lateran in 1512 pass for
an ecumenical council. In it that pope solemnly excommunicated Louis
XII., King of France, laid France under an interdict, summoned the whole
Parliament of Provence to appear before him, and excommunicated all the
philosophers because most of them had taken part with Louis XII. Yet
this council was not like that of Ephesus, called the council of
robbers.
"In 1537 the council of Trent was first assembled at Mantua, by Paul
III., afterwards at Trent, in 1543, and terminated in Dec., 1561, under
Pius VI." See vol. Phil. Dic.
"Pope Pius IX. convened a council in 1869, which in July, 1870, decreed
the _personal infallability of the Pope_ in matters of faith and morals,
to be a dogma of the church."
Reader, if you will digest this little piece of history, you will
doubtless discover good reasons for asserting the right of private
judgment and the liberty of conscience. _Truth stands true to her god;
men alone vascillate._