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Councils of the Church - The Italian System

One party in the popish communion reckoned the general councils at eighteen. Of these, five met respectively at Ephesus, Chalcedon, Vienna, Florence, and Trent. Two convened at Nicaea, two at Lyons, four at Constantinople, and five at the Lateran. The patrons of this enumeration are, in general, the Italian faction, headed by the Pope, and maintaining his temporal as well as his spiritual authority. Baronius and Bellarmine in particular, have patronized this scheme with learning and ability. Bellarmine, besides the eighteen which are approved, reckons eight general councils which are reprobated, and six which are partly admitted and partly rejected. One, which is the Pisan,- strange to tell- is neither adopted nor proscribed.

Simplicius and Felix, enumerating the councils which they acknowledged, mention only those of Nicasa, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. Gregory the Great declared that the Roman church possessed neither the acts nor canons of the Byzantine assembly, though his Infallibility, in glorious inconsistency, elsewhere affirmed that he esteemed the four ecumenical councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, Constantinople, and Chalcedon as the four gospels. The Ephesian synod was anathematized, and for several years, rejected by the orientals. Its universality, during its celebration, consisted in a few Asians and Egyptians.

The Greeks called the second Ephesian council a gang of felons, and the designation would, with equal propriety, have characterized the former assembly, which, if possible, excelled its successor in all the arts of villany. The character of Cyril and the council have been portrayed, in strong colours, by the orientals, Candidian, Isidorus, and Gennadius. The orientals called Cyril's decision tyranny and heretical perfidy.

The Latins proscribed the twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council, which conferred the same honour on the Byzantine patriarch as on the Roman pontiff. Leo and after him Simplicius opposed it with all their might, but without any success, and confirmed only the faith of the council. Its authority, in consequence, has been rejected by the Latins : though Pelagius, Gregory, Pascal, and Boniface acknowledged the first four councils. The second Byzantine or fifth general council, under Justinian, was, for some time, rejected by Pope Vigilius, by the Africans, and by many in Illyria, Italy, Liguria, Tuscany, Istria, France, Spain, and Ireland.

The seventh general council, which assembled at Nicoea, in favor of image-worship, was disclaimed for more than a century. Irene's son Constantine, in the east, on obtaining a shadow of power, proceeded, says Platina, to repeal the synodal and imperial laws which countenanced emblematic worship. Leo, Michael, and Theophilus followed Constantine's example, with determined resolution and signal effect. Two councils, one in 814 and the other in 821, decided against the Nicene assembly. The Nicene acts remained in a state of proscription among the Greeks, till the final establishment of idolatry by the Empress Theodora.

The canons of the twelfth general council, which met at the Lateran palace in 1215, lay, for 322 years, neglected and unknown. This celebrated ecclesiastical congress has, in latter days, occasioned a wonderful diversity of opinion. The councils of Oxford, Constance, and Trent maintained its universality and authority. Bellarmine supported its ecumenicity, and accounted its rejection a heresy. The council, according to these historians and critics, did nothing; and ended in laughter and mockery. Its canons, in all their worth or worthlessness, rested, for more than three centuries, in a state of dormancy, unknown to pontiff, cardinal, bishop, critic, or historian.

The Florentian System

A third party in the Romish Church reject the whole or a part of the councils, which, in the Italian system, occur from the eighth at Constantinople, to the sixteenth at Florence. All these were retrenched by Abrahamus, Clement, and Pole. The edition of the Florentian synod, published by Abrahamus, reckons it the eighth general council. This system proscribed the eight general councils which met at Constantinople, Lateran, Lyons, and Vienna. Cardinal Cantarin's account differs little from that of Abrahamus, Clement, and Pole. The cardinal, in 1562, in his summary of councils, addressed to Paul the third, reckons the Byzantine the eighth, and the Florentian the ninth general council. He therefore omits two of Lyons, four of the Lateran, and those of Vienna, Pisa, Constance, and Basil; and excludes ten which have been owned by the French and Italian schools.

Sixtus the fifth, in 1588, erected paintings and inscriptions of the general councils in the Vatican. These omit the first and second of the Lateran, which, destitute of canons, have no paintings or inscriptions in the Vatican. These two, therefore, are discarded by a celebrated pontiff at the headquarters of Romanism.