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diction was adjudged to Alexandria, and a very restricted one to Rome, because "ancient usages were strictly recognized in defining these jurisdictions. The subsequent Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon still more closely limited the Roman jurisdiction, and defined it as a canonical grant, and by no means an apostolical bequest. All these facts must be borne in mind with reference to future discussions; but I need not speak here of the minor patriarchates, nor of the honorary distinction of Jerusalem as the "mother of all churches." I have already shown why she was not invested with any corresponding powers.1 It is only necessary to note that Cyprus was pronounced autocephalous, having no dependency even upon Antioch, its natural centre; while, for like reason, all insular churches were rendered equally independent of the patriarchs. By this fundamental law, the Anglican Church reasserted her independence, of which she had never been deprived by any canonical authority.2

17. THE GREAT COUNCILS.

The Councils truly Ecumenical, not including the normal Council of Jerusalem, were six. There never has been an Ecumenical Council since the division of the West from its Eastern mother. Nor in the nature of things could there be. How can any council be universal, in which the Orientals are not heard, and with which they have not consented? But of the six which are truly Cath

1 Lecture II. § 3.

2 See Note N'.

olic, four are conspicuously the Great Councils; and these Gregory, Patriarch of Rome, reckoned next to the Four Gospels. The fifth and sixth, like the codicils of a will, are the supplement of the foregoing; unlike codicils, they took nothing away from their originals. They enacted no canons. Such Councils only confirm and adjust more specifically and minutely what their originals established.

18. THE SECOND COUNCIL.

The Second Great Synod was held (A. D. 381) under Theodosius, to confirm the Nicene faith and to complete the Great Symbol, bearing testimony against the "Macedonians," who were teaching a new doctrine about the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed, as left by the Council, did not touch this subject, which we must infer was left to usage indifferently; the West probably closing the Confession with the language of the Apostles' Creed, and the East reciting that of the Creed of Jerusalem, so called. The Second Council now adopted the latter, slightly expounded it, and set it forth as the unalterable creed of Christendom. So, when we speak precisely, we call it the Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed; commonly, to say "the Nicene Creed" is sufficiently correct.1

This council forbade all bishops to meddle with churches beyond their jurisdiction, and it reaffirmed the Nicene decrees as to Alexandria and Antioch, and also as to "New Rome."

1 See Note O'.

It was

very numerously attended by the bishops of the East, and was made Ecumenical afterwards by its universal acceptance in the West. It is noteworthy that Theodosius, who was now Cæsar, had carried on the work of Constantine so effectually as to make the Christianity of the Empire a fixed fact. Paganism was abolished, and temples and basilicas were turned into churches; but, like snow-drifts behind walls and fences, that linger in April, while the harvests are green in the blade about them, Paganism had its lurking places. And far down, till the Goths came, among the rustics of Magna Græcia, one might have come upon a group of pagans, wreathing a goat or a lamb for sacrifice before some altar of the old idolatry, concealed by a grove, or hidden amid masses of projecting rock; but as for their deities,

"They lived no longer in the faith of reason,"

and another Julian was impossible.

19. THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS.

In A. D. 431 met the Third Council, at Ephesus. Theodosius was still Emperor. It settled the dispute which Nestorius had raised about the two natures of Him who is "perfect God and perfect man," and it justified the expression Theotokos as applicable to the mother of the God-man. This is not literally rendered "Mother of God," which is an awkward rendering into English of a word delicately compounded in the Greek. I prefer the beautiful Latin Deipara, or even the Greek word reduced to the form Theotoce, the God-bearer. It

means just what was said by Elizabeth, when she saluted the Virgin as "the Mother of her Lord."

20. THE FOURTH COUNCIL.

The Fourth Council was that of Chalcedon, A. D. 451. Marcian was Emperor, and Leo I. was Bishop of Rome. He wanted to be something more than the canons had made him. He honestly felt his want of power. The Western churches needed his influence and support. Had he been a "pope," a mere Gallican papacy would have been a good thing for the moment. A great man he was, but not a little peevish about the departing dignity of his see. Naturally he looked with some surprise upon its upstart rival; upon a new Rome where no apostolic foot had ever been planted; and naturally enough he began to boast about St. Peter, and to rest his dignity on the apostolic antiquity of the genuine Rome, so cruelly stripped of its ancient headship. Yet he could not influence the Easterns to look at it just so. They reverenced the older seat of empire, but there was a glory in the Christian city which had supplanted it, and which held its unrivalled site on the Bosporus as a trophy of the cross. Besides, the Easterns regarded Antioch, rather than Rome, as the great Apostolic See, where St. Peter had preached and ministered, where St. Paul and St. Barnabas had begun their world-wide mission; where, while Rome was yet without a clergy, apostles and martyrs had been moved by the Holy Ghost, in Pentecostal oracles, to send missionaries to the West.

Doubtless Old Rome had its dignities, but if Antioch and Alexandria could yield their apostolic honours to the new Rome, so also must Leo. Such, as we shall see, was the spirit of this Council, which ratified anew what had been done at Nicæa and Constantinople, assigning to Old Rome, in presence of Leo's representatives and in spite of its distasteful features, the permanent and indelible character of one among many apostolic sees. In no respect was it superior to its more ancient sisters, but it merited a primacy of honour, not by any divine right, but by concession of its sister churches, because it was the ancient capital. It was not any more than divers other apostolic cities associated with St. Peter. It had never been his see, for his mission was limited to Jewish Christians, and St. Paul had the earlier claim to be its founder, with his larger jurisdiction as the 'Apostle of the Gentiles." Such was the thrice uttered voice of the Catholic Church, in her holy and Ecumenical Synods. The seal and final ratification were set at Chalcedon.

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21. CHALCEDON.

This city was called the "City of the Blind," because they who founded it had overlooked the more eligible site of Byzantium. But if theirs was the modest ambition to enjoy rather than to traffic, to satisfy taste and not commercial greed, we must own that they were wise in their generation. Lying over against Byzantium, like Birkenhead to Liverpool, or Jersey City to New York,

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