COUNCILS OF EPHESUS AND CHALCEDON.
A.D. 431-451.
Augustine died just as a great council was about to be held in the East.
In preparing for this council, a compliment was paid to him which was
not paid to any other person; for, whereas it was usual to invite the
chief bishop only of each province to such meetings, and to leave him
to choose which of his brethren should accompany him, a special
invitation was sent to Augustine, although he was not even a
metropolitan,[39] but only bishop of a small town. This shows what fame
he had gained, and in what respect his name was held, even in the
Eastern church.
[39] See page 82.
The object of calling the council was to inquire into the opinions of
Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople. It would have been well for it if
it had enjoyed the benefit of the great and good Augustine's presence;
for its proceedings were carried on in such a way that it is not
pleasant to read of them. But, whatever may have been the faults of
those who were active in the council, it laid down clearly the truth
which Nestorius was charged with denying--that (as is said in the
Athanasian creed) our blessed Lord, "although He be God and man, yet is
He not two, but one Christ;" and this council, which was held at Ephesus
in the year 431, is reckoned as the third general council.
Some years after it, a disturbance arose about a monk of Constantinople,
named Eutyches, who had been very zealous against Nestorius, and now ran
into errors of an opposite kind. Another council was held at Ephesus in
449; but Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, and a number of disorderly
monks who were favourable to Eutyches, behaved in such a furious manner
at this assembly, that, instead of being considered as a general
council, it is known by a name which means a _meeting of robbers_. But
two years later, when a new emperor had succeeded to the government of
the east, another general council was held at Chalcedon (A.D. 451); and
there the doctrines of Eutyches were condemned, and Dioscorus was
deprived of his bishopric. This council, which was the fourth of the
general councils, was attended by six hundred and thirty bishops. It
laid down the doctrine that our Lord is "One, not by conversion [or
_turning_] of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into
God: One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of
person; for, as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and
man is one Christ."
According, then, to these two councils, which were held against
Nestorius and Eutyches, we are to believe that our blessed Lord is
really God and really man. The Godhead and the manhood are not _mixed_
together in Him, so as to make something which would be neither the one
nor the other (which is what the creed means by "confusion of
substance"); but they are in Him distinct from each other, just as the
soul and the body are distinct in man; and yet they are not two
_Persons_, but are joined together in one Person, just as the soul and
the body are joined in one man. All this may perhaps be rather hard for
young readers to understand, but the third and fourth general councils
are too important to be passed over, even in a little book like this;
and, even if what has been said here should not be quite understood, it
will at least show that all those distinctions in the Athanasian creed
mean _something_, and that they were not set forth without some reason,
but in order to meet errors which had actually been taught.
I may mention here two other things which were settled by the Council of
Chalcedon--that it gave the bishops of Constantinople authority over
Thrace, Asia, and Pontus; and that it raised Jerusalem, which until then
had been only an ordinary bishopric, to have authority of the same kind
over the Holy Land. These chief bishops are now called _patriarchs_, and
there were thus five patriarchs--namely, the bishops of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The map will show
you how these patriarchates were divided;[40] but there were still some
Christian countries which did not belong to any of them.
[40] Read here the Explanation of the Map, at the end of the volume.
Having thus mentioned the title of patriarchs, I may explain here the
use of another title which we hear much oftener,--I mean the title of
_pope_. The proper meaning of it is _father_; in short, it is nothing
else than the word _papa_, which children among ourselves use in
speaking to their fathers. This title of pope (or father), then, was at
first given to all bishops; but, by degrees, it came to be confined in
its use; so that, in the east, only the bishops of Rome and Alexandria
were called by it, while in the west it was given to the bishop or
patriarch of Rome alone.