a closer bond of union was early formed between the churches of the same
province, so also the Christian catholic spirit introduced the custom
that, in all pressing matters, controversies on doctrinal points, things
relating to the ecclesiastical life, and very commonly in those relating
to church discipline, general deliberations should be held by deputies
from these churches. Such assemblies become familiar to us in the
controversies about the time of celebrating Easter, and in the
transactions about the Montanistic prophecies, in the last half of the
second century. But these provincial synods appear, for the first time,
as a constant and regular institution, fixed to definite times, about
the end of the second or the beginning of the third century; and it was
in this case a peculiarity of one country, where particular local causes
may have introduced such an arrangement earlier than in other regions.
This country was, in fact, exactly Greece, where, from the time of the
Achaic league, the system of confederation had maintained itself; and as
Christianity is able to connect itself with all the peculiarities of a
people, provided they contain nothing immoral, and, entering into them,
to take itself a peculiar form resembling them, so, also, it might
easily happen that here the civil federal spirit which already existed
worked upon the ecclesiastical catholic spirit, and gave it earlier than
in other regions a tolerably good form, so that out of the
representative assemblies of the civil communities, the Amphictyonic
councils, were formed the representative assemblies of the
ecclesiastical communities, that is, the provincial synods. As the
Christians, in the consciousness that they are nothing, and can do
nothing, without the Spirit from above, were accustomed to begin all
important business with prayer, they prepared themselves here, also, for
their general deliberations by common prayer, at the opening of these
assemblies, to Him who has promised that he will enlighten and guide, by
his Spirit, those who believe in him, if they will give themselves up to
him wholly, and that he will be among them, where they are gathered
together in his name. It appears that this regular institution met at
first with opposition as an innovation, so that Tertullian felt himself
called upon to stand up in its defence. Nevertheless, the ruling spirit
of the church decided for this institution; and, down to the middle of
the third century, the annual provincial synods appear to have been
general in the church, as we may conclude, because we find them
prevalent, at the same time, in parts of the church as far distant from
each other as North Africa and Cappadocia.
These provincial synods might certainly become very useful for the
churches; and, in many respects, they did become so. By means of a
general deliberation, the views of individuals might mutually be
enlarged and corrected; wants, abuses, and necessary reforms, might thus
more easily be mutually communicated, and be deliberated on in many
different points of view; and the experience of every individual, by
being communicated, might be made useful to all. Certainly, men had
every right to trust that Christ would be among them, according to his
promise, and would lead those who were assembled in his name by his
Spirit. Certainly it was neither enthusiasm nor hierarchical
presumption, if the deputies, collected together to consult upon the
affairs of their churches, and the pastors of these churches, hoped that
a higher Spirit than that of man, by his illumination, would show them
what they could never find by their own reason, whose insufficiency they
felt deeply, if it were left to itself. It would far rather have been a
proud self-confidence, had they been so little acquainted with the
shallowness of their own heart, the poverty of human reason, and the
self-deceits of human wisdom, as to expect that without the influence of
that higher Spirit of holiness and truth they could provide sufficiently
for the advantage of their churches. But this confidence, in itself just
and salutary, took a false and destructive turn, when it was not
constantly accompanied by the spirit of humility and self-watchfulness,
with fear and trembling; when men were not constantly mindful of the
important condition under which alone man could hope to share in the
fulfilment of that promise, in that divine illumination and
guidance,--the condition, that they were really assembled in the name of
Christ, in lively faith in him, and honest devotion to him, and prepared
to sacrifice their own wills; and when the people gave themselves up to
the fancy, that such an assembly, whatever might be the hearts of those
who were assembled, had unalienable claims to the illumination of the
Holy Spirit; for then, in the confusion and the intermixture of human
and divine, men were abandoned to every kind of self-delusion; and the
formula, “_Spiritu Sancto suggerente_,” “By the suggestion of the Holy
Spirit,” might become a pretence and sanction for all the suggestions of
man’s own will. And farther, the provincial synods would necessarily
become prejudicial to the progress of the churches, if, instead of
providing for the advantage of the churches according to the changing
wants of each period, they wished to lay down unchanging laws in
changeable things. Evil was it at last, that the participation of the
churches was entirely excluded from these synods, that at length the
bishops alone decided every thing in them, and that their power, by
means of their connection with each other in these synods, was
constantly on the increase. As the provincial synods were also
accustomed to communicate their resolutions to distant bishops in
weighty matters of general concernment, they were serviceable, at the
same time, toward setting distant parts of the church in connection with
each other, and maintaining that connection.
In the second century after the birth of Christ, eight local synods were
held on church affairs, about which little information is now extant,
except that they related to the heresy of Montanus, the rebaptizing of
heretics, and the time for celebrating the festival of Easter. In the
third century eighteen synods were held; the principal of which were,
that of Alexandria, against Origen; that of Africa, against the
schismatic Novatus; that of Antioch, against the heresy of Sabellius,
and another in the same city against Paul of Samosata; that of Carthage,
against such persons as fell away in time of persecution; and that of
Rome, against Novatian and other schismatics. Prior to the assembling of
the first general council at Nice, A. D. 325, three synods were held at
Sinuessa, Cirtha, and Alexandria, the subjects discussed in which are
unworthy of notice. Others were held, the discussions in which are so
far interesting as they show how desirous the Ante-Nicene fathers were
to regulate the doctrine and practice of the church according to the
apostolic model. The fourth was that of Elvira, which rejected by its
thirty-sixth canon any use whatever even of pictures. “We would not,”
say they, “have pictures placed in churches, that the object of our
worship and adoration should not be painted on their walls.” The synod
at Carthage not having brought the rival pretensions of Cæcilian and
Majorinus to the episcopate of that city to a favourable issue, the
Emperors Constantine appointed a commission (there being so few bishops
present, it could not deserve any other title) to sit, first at Rome,
and afterward at Arles, for the purpose of rehearing the matter. At
Arles, it was decreed, that Easter should be celebrated on the same
Sunday throughout the world; and that heretics, who had been baptized in
the name of the Trinity, should not be rebaptized. The synods of Ancyra
and Neo-Cæsarea followed. The tenth canon, decreed by the latter, shows
the sense of the fathers on the subject of celibacy: namely, “If deacons
declare at the time of their ordination that they would marry, they
should not be deprived of their function if they did marry.” Rigid
decrees were passed generally against such of the clergy as ate meats
which had been sacrificed to idols. After the forementioned synods, two
were convened at Alexandria, A. D. 322, against Arius. But their acts
merge in the subsequent proceedings of the church. From the termination
of the council of Nice to the next œcumenical council, A. D. 381, no
fewer than forty-three synods, eastern and western were convened. The
professed object of these meetings was the tranquillity of the church;
yet, from the unhappy divisions which prevailed in these assemblies,
their deliberations were conducted with much of the violence of party
feeling; and, according as the one party or the other prevailed, they
severally hurled spiritual thunder-bolts against their doctrinal rivals,
as if against the enemies of God himself. Of the synod of Sardica a
separate and more particular account will be subsequently given, because
on the authority of that unimportant assembly the church of Rome grounds
the right of appeal to itself before any other church. In the whole, no
fewer than eighty-one synods were assembled throughout the universal
church in this century. The principal subjects which engaged their
attention related to Arianism, which was generally rejected by the
western church; but experienced various vicissitudes in the east,
according to the view taken of it by the reigning power. Unfortunately
for the peace of the church, this heresy gave birth to numerous others.
Marcellus, Photinus, Macedonius, and Priscilian, were severally betrayed
by their violence into systems no less revolting to reason and common
sense than the Arian impieties. Of sixty synods which were convened to
regulate the affairs of the church between the second and third general
councils, A. D. 381–431, more than half of that number were assembled in
Africa:--no inconsiderable proof of the vigilance exercised by the local
bishops over the interests of that portion of the church universal
committed to their care. In the latter part of the fifth century many
synods were held, some eastern and others western, but none of them
possessed peculiar interest. In the commencement of this century,
Zosimus, bishop of Rome, absolved the heresiarchs, Pelagius and
Cælestius, and by this act confirmed their errors. On the latter
appealing to him for support, Zosimus sent the Sardican canon to a
council held at the time in Carthage, as if that canon had been decreed
by the council of Nice; because it allowed the right of appeal to the
see of Rome. The African council rejected it with disdain, having found,
on reference to the eastern patriarchs, that no such canons belonged to
the Nicene council, or were ever before heard of. Thus was the reputed
infallible head of an equally infallible church detected in a gross act
of imposition; so gross as to compel our good Bishop Jewel to call
Zosimus “a forger and falsifier of councils,” The same pope pronounced
his unerring judgment in the dispute between the bishops of Arles and
Vincennes; while Boniface, his successor, under the influence of the
same inerrant principle and in the plenitude of the same apostolic
power, reversed that judgment. In the year 498, Symmachus and Laurentius
were elected to the pontificate on the same day by different parties;
and while they maintained the validity of their respective elections,
they reciprocally denounced each other. Where, then, did infallibility
reside before Theodoric, king of the Goths, gave it a supposed
habitation in the person of Symmachus? Theodoric, an Arian, and
consequently a heretic in the eyes of the Romish church, awarded the
keys of St. Peter to Symmachus; a circumstance which must have vitiated
the boasted apostolic succession in the bishops of Rome, and therefore
have destroyed their title to infallibility! Cabals and intrigues for
being elected to the popedom disgraced the commencement of the sixth
century. Their prevention in future, however, was decreed; and certain
rules, having in view the peace and order of the western church, were
laid down by two synods convened at Rome about the same time. From this
period to the middle of the century, upward of twenty local meetings of
the clergy were held in different parts of Europe, fifteen in Asia, and
only four in Africa. The directions for the married clergy, which
occasionally present themselves to view in the proceedings of these
synods, prove that _celibacy_ was not at this period a general
regulation; while _communion in both kinds_ appears to have been an
established usage. The synods which were held during the remainder of
the sixth century were confined to France and Spain. They amount in
number to twenty-six; and, like the rest of the minor class which
preceded them, canons are interspersed among their acts which have in
view the security of church property, and the rights, privileges, and
powers of the different ranks of the clergy. The remaining canons relate
to discipline, with the exception of the few which were at different
times ordained for the suppression of heretical opinions, for the
regulation of both the married and celibate clergy, and of the fees to
which they should be entitled on the performance of certain duties. In
none of them is to be found the least authority for the distinguishing
tenets of the modern church of Rome; so that, to the very close of the
sixth century, she may be considered as being orthodox, pure, and
uncorrupt. Whatever deference she might claim as an elder branch of the
church of Christ, she raised no pretensions to a lordly preëminence over
the rights and privileges of other churches. Her jurisdiction was
circumscribed within her own diocesan boundaries; and, beyond them, none
was demanded. After the commencement of the seventh century, however, a
complete change took place in this respect, so that if a comparison be
instituted between the tenets which the church of Rome held in the first
ages, and those which she subsequently professed, the precise period at
which the novelties commenced which now distinguish her from her former
self might easily be ascertained. The order of St. Benedict, which
served as a model for the other monastic fraternities that were
subsequently instituted, was founded in the early part of this century
As the history of synods after the sixth century dwindles down into a
meagre narrative of the unjust incroachments and corrupt innovations of
the church of Rome, and of the ineffectual struggles of Christian
churches in various parts of Europe to resist his usurpation, we shall
close this article with an account of the popish synod of Sardica and of
the Protestant synod of Dort. After a long night of darkness, the
glimmerings of a bright day were perceived at a distance, when, in the
fourteenth century, our celebrated countryman, the immortal Wickliffe,
appeared as the precursor of the reformation from popery. The light
increased during the succeeding century, when those brave witnesses for
the truth, John Huss and Jerome of Prague, suffered martyrdom; and the
sixteenth century was favoured with the full blaze of day when Luther
and Melancthon were encouraged and supported in their benevolent and
arduous undertaking, and succeeded in putting down the shadowy forms of
superstition and idolatry. Soon was the greatest part of irradiated
Europe called upon to rejoice in this light; and to some of the best
patriots in those countries that slighted such an opportunity, their own
culpable supineness or neglect has been a source of deep national regret
from one generation to another.
THE SYNOD OF SARDICA was held A. D. 347. The Emperors Constans and
Constantius, being anxious to restore that peace to the church of which
it was deprived by the continuance of Arius’s heresy, agreed to convene
an ecclesiastical assembly in Sardica, a city of Mæsia on the verge of
their respective empires. About a hundred western and seventy eastern
bishops attended; but altercation, and not debate, ensued. The smaller
party, apprehensive for their personal safety, withdrew to a town in
Thrace; a circumstance that disclosed the first symptoms of discord and
schism between the Greek and Latin churches. Before this period the
right of appeal from all other churches to the see of Rome had not been
claimed; but from it we date the first aspirations of Roman pontiffs to
lordly preëminence, and they bent their restless energies to establish a
spiritual tyranny over all the nations of the earth. Ecclesiastics,
excommunicated by the oriental or African churches, fled to Rome for
refuge, one after another; and as the bishop of that city afforded them
his protection, gratified as he was at every occasion which made it
necessary, they, in order to testify their gratitude, unwittingly
compromised the rights of the clergy, when, to the extent of their
individual sanction, they invested him with the appellant jurisdiction.
Among the refugees at Rome was the celebrated bishop of Alexandria.
Athanasius, persecuted by the Arian party in the east, knelt as a
suppliant on the threshold of the Vatican. Julius gladly espoused his
cause, and declared him to have been illegally condemned; a declaration
that seemed to come with authority, but which the eastern bishops
opposed as an usurpation of undue power. They went so far as even to
excommunicate Hosius, Gaudentius, Julius the bishop of Rome, and others,
on the alleged assumption of authority. They maintained the principle
laid down in the canons, that the judgment passed on any individual,
either by an eastern or western synod, ought to be confirmed by the
other. And while they complained that the bishops of the west should
disturb the whole church, on account of one or two troublesome fellows,
they accused them of arrogantly attempting to establish a new law for
the purpose of empowering themselves to reëxamine what had been already
determined. Chrysostom, too, in his distress, implored, at a subsequent
period, the interference of Innocent, the then occupant of the papal
chair, with the emperor of the east, for the purpose of procuring a
reversal of the sentence of deposition pronounced against him by an
obscure synod in the suburbs of Chalcedon. But that father never once
supposed that the Roman pontiff had any right to hear his cause. His
appeal lay to the supreme tribunal of a free and general council, from a
packed assembly which the empress Eudoxia had been instrumental in
calling together, in order to effect his ruin. As these two cases of
Athanasius and Chrysostom are pleaded by Romish writers in support of
the appellant authority with which they invest the bishop of Rome, it is
a matter of importance to examine the stability of this ground-work, on
which is laid the immense structure of papal supremacy. Hosius, who
presided in the Sardican synod, as he did at every council where he
happened to be present, is reported to have proposed that an appeal
should be made to Rome out of respect to the chair of St. Peter, and
not, as was ruled at the council of Nice, to the bishops of the
neighbouring province, when any decision had been come to in a
provincial synod. But what is the language of the proposition made by
Hosius? “If it be a favourite object with you, let us honour the memory
of Peter, so that a letter may be addressed to Julius, bishop of Rome,
by those who decided on the matter; that, if necessary, the judgment may
be reviewed by the bishops in his neighbourhood, and that he may appoint
some to hear the cause.” Here neither canon nor Scripture is referred
to; while it is left optional with the assembly whether deference was or
was not to be paid to Julius, who is simply styled συνεπίσκοπος, “a
fellow bishop.” The fourth canon of this synod ordains, “that an
archbishop, &c, deposed by a provincial synod, must not be expelled,
until the bishop of Rome shall determine whether the cause shall be
reëxamined;” and the fifth canon decrees, “that the bishop of Rome, if
he deem it proper, shall order a rehearing of the matter; that, if
convenient, he shall send deputies for the purpose; if not, that he
should leave the decision of the case to the synod itself.” From the
third and fourth canons it appears that a novelty in discipline is
established, and made obligatory on the churches of both empires, but
only by a handful of bishops belonging to one of them; and from the
fifth, that the bishop of Rome, if he deemed a judgment erroneous, might
convene a new council and send deputies to it, for the purpose of
reconsidering the matter. These canons, no doubt, were very flattering
to the ambition of the Roman pontiff, and, accordingly, they are pleaded
in behalf of his supremacy; but how preposterous is it to ascribe that
to a human law, which, it is asserted, belongs to him by the law of God!
There are other canons regulating the intercourse between bishops and
the imperial court; after such a manner, however, as to make the bishop
of Rome the judge of the propriety of the petitions which they intended
to prefer. Notwithstanding all this, they can never be rescued from the
imputation of being forgeries. For, 1. They were never received by
either the eastern or African church as general laws. At the sixth
council of Carthage, Austin strenuously denied the right of appeal to
the Roman see, although a letter has been forged in his name,
strenuously contending for it, which is now deposited among the pious
frauds of the Vatican. It happened, also, in the early part of the fifth
century, that Appiarius, who had been excommunicated by the African
bishops, applied to Zosimus, bishop of Rome. This pontiff forthwith sent
them the Sardican canon, which conferred on him the right of appeal.
This they indignantly rejected, inasmuch as their predecessors, who
attended the council of Sardica, left no record of it; and because the
eastern patriarchs, whom they consulted on the occasion, not only
disclaimed all knowledge of any such canon being in existence, but
furnished their brethren with an exact copy of the Nicene canons, among
which the Sardican one was not to be found. 2. The Sardican canons were
not inserted in the code of canons approved of by the council of
Chalcedon. 3. The council which passed them is not reckoned, even by the
church of Rome, as one of the eighteen general councils, whose authority
it acknowledges; nor does Bellarmine himself say that it is one of those
councils which his church receives in part and rejects in part. 4. When
the western bishops entreated the Emperor Theodosius to summon a
council, A.D. 407, so far were they from making any allusion to the
doctrine of an appeal to the Roman see, that they distinctly disclaimed
the thought of such a prerogative, and only sought the fellowship of a
common arbitration. 5. Lastly, if, as the historian Sozomen says, the
Sardican synod wrote to Julius, bishop of Rome, to apprize him of what
they had done, and of their decrees being drawn up in the spirit of the
council of Nice, the purport of the letter was not so strong as that
which they addressed to the church of Alexandria, in which they pray it
to give its suffrage to the determination of the council, additional
suspicions are created. From all these circumstances taken together, it
is evident that no value is to be attached to the decrees of this
obscure council; and that, although due respect was paid to St. Peter’s
chair, it was no acknowledgment of the superiority of its possessor as
to ecclesiastical authority or jurisdiction.