Forbes on Article XXI: Of the Authority of General Councils

before. Inerrancy is not the gift of any individual Church, but of the Church (Ecumenical ; and if the Eastern Church be, as we have shewn, a real Church, then, while the East is separate from the West, the power of inerrancy cannot be set in motion or pro moted ; all that has been decreed in either branch of the Church since the schism is liable to revision, and the promise of guidance given to the Apostles remains restrained as to its present use, in consequence of the perversity of the human will.

And yet the Church still remains a witness to the truth, even if for the time she has ceased to declare infallibly fresh truth. She testifies as to the old, if she cannot sanction the imposition of new dogma. While the schism lasts, we must be content with this, and in the meantime, it is our duty to labour and pray for unity, that God, in the way He thinks fit, may build up the breaches in the walls of Zion, may unite the scattered limbs of His mystical Body, may mend the rents in His holy coat, may restore Pen tecostal unity, and then the long silent voice will again be heard, and the Urim and the Thummim be restored, and the heavens shall rejoice, and the earth exult, that the wall of separation is pulled down, that peace and concord have returned, and that Christ the corner-stone, Who out of two hath made one, hath united in the bonds of love both walls, and held them together in the covenant of eternal unity h.

h £ulla Eugenii IK, Hard. Act. Cone. Flor., tom. k. p. 985.

GENEEALIA Concilia, sine jussu, et vokmtate principum congregari non possunt; et ubi convenerint, quia ex hominibus constant, qui non omnes spiritu, et verbo Dei, reguntur, et errare possunt, et interdum errarunt etiam in Ms qua ad normam pietatis (al. ad Deimi) per tinent; ideoque qua ab ittis constituuntur, ut ad salu- tem necessaria, neque robur habent, neque authoritatem, nisi ostendi possint e sacris liter is esse desumpta.

” Of the Authority of General Councils.

” GENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes ; and when they be gathered together (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as neces sary to salvation, have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.”

IT having been shewn in the preceding Article that the Eccksia docens hath power to decree rites and cere monies, and hath authority in controversies of faith, we come to consider one great channel or organ of

that power — the (Ecumenical Council a. Given that the Church has this power, by whom or how is it to be exercised ? By whom but by the Apostolic ministry who are appointed ” for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ ;” by those to whom was committed the power of the keys, who had among other duties con nected with admission to communion to test the or thodoxy of applicants ; by those whose important office it was to hand on the form of sound words which they had received, to their successors. Each bishop held individually what belonged to all in solidum. A pa ramount authority, therefore, belonged to each Bishop in his diocese, by containing in his single person the authority of the whole body. This is the basis of the Cyprianic theory.

But a state of things like this was not sufficient, in view of the constant efforts of Satan to sow tares amid the good wheat. The restless activity of the human mind, and the hatred which the sinful in tellect bears to the true doctrine of the Incarnation, early necessitated a stronger organization. Error often was too powerful for a single bishop to cope with in his own diocese. Error extended beyond the diocese. Nay, error infected the Bishop himself. Moreover, questions arose which could not be settled by the

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appeal to the sure practice of the Apostles and their followers. The very lapse of time weakened the in dividual appeal to antiquity. Something else was necessary, and accordingly — acting on the precedent of the Acts of the Apostles, when the Apostles and Elders came together to settle the terms of admission of the Gentile converts into the infant Church — we find that before the days of Tertullian, ” Throughout Greece were held Councils out of all Churches, by means of which matters of importance were treated in common, and the representation of the whole Chris tian name celebrated with great veneration b.” Fur thermore, it was held in accordance with our Lord’s promise, ” that where two or three were gathered to gether in His Name, He was in the midst of them ;” and men dwelt upon other promises of special guid ance, that He, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, were specially present on such occasions to control and di rect the proceedings, to save them from error, and to bless the deliberations.

The earliest record which we have of a Council, after that mentioned in the Acts of the holy Apostles, is a Sicilian Council held in the year A.D. 125, on the subject of an error respecting the impossibility of a fall after baptism c. Soon after the synodicon men tions a synod at Rome, in the time of Pope Victor, against Theodotus of Byzantium, who not only had sacrificed in persecution, but had denied the divinity of our Lordd. At Pergamos, in A.D. 152, a synod of

b De Jejun., c. 13. ’ Labbe, i. 558. d Ib., 568.

seven bishops anathematized a form of Gnosticism called the Colorbasian heresy ; in the East, in A.D. 160, Cerdon was thus condemned; at Rome, in A.D. 170 and 198, the Quarto-decimans ; at Hierapolis, in A.D. 173, Montanus and Maximilla ; and in Palestine, in Pontus, at Lyons, in A.D. 198, the Quarto-decimans again. The Roman synod against Sabellius and Noetus was probably held about A.D. 258 e.

During these early times, from the constant liability of persecution, and the fact of the empire being still heathen, the action of the Church was by small local Councils in different parts, as questions happened to arise, and these, as they got accepted by the other Churches, became the voice of the whole Church.

In short, during this period we find that every ques tion that arose was settled by local Councils, increasing in importance and weight, till the State-establishment, under Constantino, allowed a representation in a large sense of the whole Church of God in the great (Ecu menical Synod of Nicsea. The language with regard to its authority is very strong, and it is remarkable that in spite of the efforts of the Arians and the Arian- izing emperors to establish counter synods, and in spite of the crucial word the Homoiision not having been universally enforced, that Council had a grasp upon the conscience of the Church which none of its rivals succeeded in effecting.

So great was its effect, that henceforward the autho-

e Baluz, Nov. Coll. in Cone. i. 848, Col.

rity of the episcopate became merged in the repre sentative institution of Councils. In the midst of much human feeling, violence, and fraud, God used this form of legislation to preserve the truth once declared to the saints. While the intellect of the East surged up and down, a very sea of speculation on the most recondite mysteries of the faith, it was always felt that the decision of a General Council closed the matter for ever ; they who could not agree continued in their error, but outside the Catholic Church. Thus the Nestorians were cut off after the decision at Ephesus ; and the Cophts, refusing the decree of Chalcedon, to this day remain separate from the orthodox Eastern Church.

However, from the date of the Council of Nicsea, another power had been asserting itself in the Church, the power of the successor of St. Peter. Often resisted successfully, often urged upon inconsistent and false grounds, that power was gradually more and more felt, especially when the Eastern Empire became weak, and the Western Church, by the conversion of the bar barians, had placed itself at the head of the new civil ization. The question eventually was a question be tween the authority of the General Council and the authority of the Apostolic See. Following up the teaching of the false decretals, the Lateran Councils did all they could to support the Papal authority ; but in the next century, the dreadful corruption and schism induced the princes of Europe to insist on the summon ing of the synods of Constance and Basle. There the

doctrine was asserted, and acted on, that the Pope is inferior to the Council. The rival Councils of Ferrara and Florence were in the interests of the Papacy. The Council of Trent left the question un solved.

1. The first proposition in the Article does not touch the marrow of the question. It is a mere matter of policy. Under the Empire it was of course an impos sibility that large bodies of bishops, with their at tendants, should be allowed to assemble in any city without the cognizance of the civil power. Religious questions then, were what political questions are now. There was the same, or greater excitement prevailing with regard to the question of the Divinity of our Lord or the double Procession, as there is now regarding the most hotly discussed question of secular government ; and just as the first duty of the State is to maintain tranquillity at any price, so it was the duty of the Em perors to maintain peace in their dominions by the exercise of a control over the assembling of Councils.

Moreover, recognising as they did the authority of the Council — though in after times we see, as in the case of Zeno and the Henoticon, that they did seek, unsuc cessfully indeed, to impose formulas by the authority of the civil power — they used the Councils as great State engines for the welfare of their people. It was by their own will and suggestion that the General Councils were actually called. This power, in the West in abeyance for many centuries, was evoked again in the instance of Constance and Basle, though

the forms of a certain deference to the ecclesiastical authority were maintained on the score of a long pre scription.

It is the same at the present moment. However much a General Council might be desired on the part of the Church authorities, no Council worthy of that name could really be called without the concurrence of the civil powers of Christendom. Even those as semblages of prelates of the Latin Communion which from time to time have been summoned, have been controlled by the civil authorities of the different countries; much more a Council, such as that of Flo renee, where free access was given to all to state their claims, would need to have the moral support and sanction of the authorities of the different nationali ties. No doubt the union between Church and State is loosening all over Christendom, and the time might come when such a condition of things should be possible ; but at this moment, in the present condition of the Church and of civil society, it may be safely admitted that a Council ought not to be assembled ” without the commandment and will of princes f”

The proposition in the Article has distinct his torical support. From the time that the Emperors were converted by Christianity, the affairs of the Church were mightily affected by them, and the most important Councils took place at their

f Vide Dr. Pusey’s ” Royal Supremacy/’ « Socrates, Hist., lib. v., prooem. v. Jus. G. E. 317.

Constantino the Great summoned that of Nicseah; Theodosius that of Constantinople1; Theodosius the Younger, that of Ephesus k ; Martian and Valentinian, that of Chalcedon l ; Justinian, the fifth, at Constan tinople m ; Justinian II., that in Trullo n ; Constan- tine and Irene the second Nicene ° ; and Basil, the eighth, which was held at Constantinople p.

Yet the Emperors, even as representing the laity, were checked in their interference in Councils. Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, writes to the Emperor : ” Mix not thyself in ecclesiastical affairs, and lay not on us com mands concerning them, but rather learn from us. God has given the imperium to thee, to us the eccle siastical power q.” St. Ambrose asks Valentinian the Younger1, “When, 0 most clement Emperor, did laics judge a bishop in matters of faith ?” Theodosius the Younger, when he sent Count Candidian to the Coun cil of Ephesus, lays this principle down in his com mission.

2. The second point to be considered is the relation between the decisions of a General Council and Holy Scripture. That relation was symbolized by a copy of the holy Gospels being put on a throne in the midst of the assembly as the type of the blessed

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Harduin, vol. v. p. 1025. •» Ep. ad Const, op. S. AtJian., torn. i.

p. 371. r Ep. 21.

Spirit. It was always assumed that the duty of a Council was to declare what had been the faith from the beginning, not to propound new objects of belief. A Council might make that matter of explicit faith, which before, being matter of implicit faith only, might in ignorance be contradicted without sin, but it could only give authority to it as a portion of the original deposit and revelation. It must witness to a continuous tradition, and give authority to its enunciation, but it could teach nothing as of divine faith which it did not trace up to the Holy Scriptures. The Council of Car thage (A.D. 348) declares that it makes its decrees “mindful of the divine precepts, and of the magis terial authority of the divine Scriptures s.”

3. The next point asserted is that General Councils may err, and sometimes have erred, in things pertain ing to God. This proposition is strictly true, for it may be proved by the evidence of ecclesiastical his tory. Not to speak of such Councils as the Arian Councils of Sirmium, that of Ariminum reached the proportions of a general synod ; more than 400 Bishops were assembled there ; a number beyond that at Nice ; much more beyond those of Constantinople. And yet the Synod of Ariminum erred in things pertaining to God. But there is a much stronger instance in the Latrocinium of Ephesus. It was duly summoned with all the appropriate forms ; there was present an im mense representation of the Church of God, yet it

• Labbe, Cone., torn. ii. p. 747 ; cit. Owen’s ” Dogmatic Theology,” p. 14.

went wrong. The inerrancy of a Council can never be guaranteed at the moment. The test of the value of a Council is its after-reception by the Church. Synods of very limited numbers, in very obscure places, have by after reception assumed the weight of an (Ecumenical Council, as, for example, that of Orange on the question of grace ; on the other hand, one act of the holiest of all Councils, that of Jeru salem in the Acts of the Apostles, in the matter of things strangled, has in the “West become obsolete. Again, some canons of a Council are accepted, and some reprobated. Discipline also may change, so that in the matter of authority there is not only an after verdict on the part of the living Church, but there is also a constant correction, or rather corrective process, on its part going on, in matters of discipline, which certainly pertain to God ; of course, in the case of dogma, the decision of an approved (Ecumenical Coun cil forecloses the matter for ever.

To the understanding of the Article, another most important distinction must be borne in mind. It speaks of General Councils, not of (Ecumenical Coun cils. Now, though in the strict sense of the term, General, Universal, (Ecumenical, are the same, yet the term (Ecumenical has been consecrated by usage to mean ( a General Council, lawful, approved, and re ceived by all the Church/ A Council may be general without being lawful. To be General, all the bishops of the world should be summoned to it, and no one excluded but heretics and excommunicated persons.

To be lawful and truly (Ecumenical, it is necessary that all that occurs should be done regularly, and that the Church should receive it. Hence there have been Councils, general in their convocation, but not so in their acts or event; such as the Council of Milan, held in the case of St. Athanasius in A.D. 354, and others *.

While the Church, then, is in her present rended condition, local Churches must be content to make local decrees, and these may hereafter either by re ception by the whole Church become part of the Church’s living teaching, or receive a certain modi fication.

As to the number of Councils, the Churches are not agreed as to their number. The Anglican Church in some of her documents refers to St. Gregory’s four, in others to six. The Greek Church holds seven, though Barlaam, in A.D. 1339, treating with Benedict XII., mentions only six u. The Latin Church is not at one with itself on the subject. Some doctors count twenty- one ; that is, two of Nicsea, four of Constantinople, one of Ephesus, one of Chalcedon, five of Lateran, two of Lyons, one of Yienna, one of Pisa, one of Constance, one of Basle, one of Florence, and one of Trent. Others count only eighteen, cutting off Pisa, Basle, and Constance in its later sessions. This is the common opi mon of the Italians. The French do not consider either the fifth Lateran or that of Florence (Ecumenical x.

u Palmer, ii. p. 203. * Richard, Analyse de Conciles, t. i. p. 108.

The Council of Florence was styled by its editor the eighth (Ecumenical, and is so termed in the Papal licence3”. Gaspar Contarini terms it the ninth (Ecu menical z.

Date,

Numbers i

Easterns,

Westerns,

Nicsea … Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon . . Constantinople Constantinople

y Launoius Epistol., part viii. ep. xi. p. 563, ed. 1571, cit. Palmer.

Opera Contareni,

Notes

• Richard, Analyse de Candles, torn. i. p. 4. Paris, 1772.