_Infallibility of Councils._
All councils are, doubtless, infallible, being composed of men. It is
not possible that the passions, that intrigues, that the spirit of
contention, that hatred or jealousy, that prejudice or ignorance, should
ever influence these assemblies. But why, it will be said, have so many
councils been opposed to one another? To exercise our faith. They were
all right, each in its time. At this day, the Roman Catholics believe in
such councils only as are approved in the Vatican; the Greek Catholics
believe only in those approved at Constantinople; and the Protestants
make a jest of both the one and the other: so that every one ought to be
content.
We shall here examine only the great councils: the lesser ones are not
worth the trouble. The first was that of Nice, assembled in the year 325
of the modern era, after Constantine had written and sent by Osius his
noble letter to the rather turbulent clergy of Alexandria. It was
debated whether Jesus was created or uncreated. This in no way concerned
morality, which is the only thing essential. Whether Jesus was in time
or before time, it is not the less our duty to be honest. After much
altercation, it was at last decided that the Son was as old as the
Father, and _consubstantial_ with the Father. This decision is not very
easy of comprehension, which makes it but the more sublime. Seventeen
bishops protested against the decree; and an old Alexandrian chronicle,
preserved at Oxford, says that two thousand priests likewise protested.
But prelates make not much account of mere priests, who are in general
poor. However, there was nothing said of the Trinity in this first
council. The formula runs thus: "We believe Jesus to be consubstantial
with the Father, God of God, light of light, begotten, not made; we also
believe in the Holy Ghost." It must be acknowledged that the Holy Ghost
was treated very cavalierly.
We have already said, that in the supplement to the Council of Nice it
is related that the fathers, being much perplexed to find out which were
the authentic and which the apocryphal books of the Old and the New
Testament, laid them all upon an altar, and the books which they were to
reject fell to the ground. What a pity that so fine an ordeal has been
lost!
After the first Council of Nice, composed of three hundred and seventeen
infallible bishops, another council was held at Rimini; on which
occasion the number of the infallible was four hundred, without
reckoning a strong detachment, at Seleucia, of about two hundred. These
six hundred bishops, after four months of contention, unanimously took
from Jesus his _consubstantiality_. It has since been restored to him,
except by the Socinians: so nothing is amiss.
One of the great councils was that of Ephesus, in 431. There, as already
stated, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, a great persecutor of
heretics, was himself condemned as a heretic, for having maintained
that, although Jesus was really God, yet His mother was not absolutely
mother of God, but mother of Jesus. St. Cyril procured the condemnation
of Nestorius; but the partisans of Nestorius also procured the
deposition of St. Cyril, in the same council; which put the Holy Ghost
in considerable perplexity.
Here, gentle reader, carefully observe, that the Gospel says not one
syllable of the consubstantiality of the Word, nor of Mary's having had
the honor of being mother of God, no more than of the other disputed
points which brought together so many infallible councils.
Eutyches was a monk, who had cried out sturdily against Nestorius, whose
heresy was nothing less than supposing two persons in Jesus; which is
quite frightful. The monk, the better to contradict his adversary,
affirmed that Jesus had but one nature. One Flavian, bishop of
Constantinople, maintained against him, that there must absolutely be
two natures in Jesus. Thereupon, a numerous council was held at Ephesus
in 449, and the argument made use of was the cudgel, as in the lesser
council of Cirta, in 355, and in a certain conference held at Carthage.
Flavian's nature was well thrashed, and two natures were assigned to
Jesus. At the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, Jesus was again reduced to
one nature.
I pass by councils held on less weighty questions, and come to the sixth
general Council of Constantinople, assembled to ascertain precisely
whether Jesus--who, after having for a long period had but one nature,
was then possessed of two--had also two wills. It is obvious how
important this knowledge is to doing the will of God.
This council was convoked by Constantine the Bearded, as all the others
had been by the preceding emperors. The legates from the bishop of Rome
were on the left hand, and the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch
on the right. The train-bearers at Rome may, for aught I know, assert
that the left hand is the place of honor. However, the result was that
Jesus obtained two wills.
The Mosaic law forbade images. Painters and sculptors had never made
their fortunes among the Jews. We do not find that Jesus ever had any
pictures, excepting perhaps that of Mary, painted by Luke. It is,
however, certain that Jesus Christ nowhere recommends the worship of
images. Nevertheless the primitive Christians began to worship them
about the end of the fourth century, when they had become familiar with
the fine arts. In the eighth century this abuse had arrived at such a
pitch that Constantine Copronymus assembled, at Constantinople, a
council of three hundred and twenty bishops, who anathematized
image-worship, and declared it to be idolatry.
The empress Irene, the same who afterwards had her son's eyes torn out,
convoked the second Council of Nice in 787, when the adoration of images
was re-established. But in 794 Charlemagne had another council held at
Frankfort, which declared the second of Nice idolatrous. Pope Adrian IV.
sent two legates to it, but he did not convoke it.
The first great council convoked by a pope was the first of Lateran, in
1139; there were about a thousand bishops assembled; but scarcely
anything was done, except that all those were anathematized who said
that the Church was too rich. In 1179, another great council of Lateran
was held by Alexander III., in which the cardinals, for the first time,
took precedence of the bishops. The discussions were confined to matters
of discipline. In another great council of Lateran, in 1215, Pope
Innocent III. stripped the count of Toulouse of all his possessions, by
virtue of his excommunication. It was then that the first mention was
made of _transubstantiation_.
In 1245, was held a general council at Lyons, then an imperial city, in
which Pope Innocent IV. excommunicated the emperor Frederick II., and
consequently deposed him, and forbade him the use of fire and water. On
this occasion, a red hat was given to the cardinals, to remind them that
they must imbrue their hands in the blood of the emperor's partisans.
This council was the cause of the destruction of the house of Suabia,
and of thirty years of anarchy in Italy and Germany.
In a general council held at Vienne, in Dauphiny, in 1311, the Order of
the Templars was abolished: its principal members having been condemned
to the most horrible deaths, on charges most imperfectly established.
The great Council of Constance, in 1414, contented itself with
dismissing Pope John XXIII., convicted of a thousand crimes, but had
John Huss and Jerome of Prague burned for being obstinate; obstinacy
being a much more grievous crime than either murder, rape, simony, or
sodomy. In 1430 was held the great council of Basel, not recognized at
Rome because it deposed Pope Eugenius IV., who would not be deposed. The
Romans reckon among the general councils the fifth Council of Lateran,
convoked against Louis XII., king of France, by Pope Julius II.; but
that warlike pope dying, the council had no result.
Lastly, we have the great Council of Trent, which is not received in
France in matters of discipline; but its doctrine is indisputable,
since, as Fra Paolo Sarpi tells us, the Holy Ghost arrived at Trent from
Rome every week in the courier's bag. But Fra Paolo Sarpi was a little
tainted with heresy.