Florence, 1759-1798, with the remark: "Cette collection, dont le dernier volume s'arrete a I'annee 1509, est peu commune a Paris ou elle re- venait a 600 fr." Strictly speaking it stops in the middle of the 15th cen- tury, except in a few di icuments which reach further.) Useful abstracts are the Summa Conciliorum of Barth. Caraxza, in many editions ; and in the German language, the Bibliothek der Kirchenversammlun- gen (4th and 5th centuries), by Fuchs, Leipz., 1780-1784, 4 vols. n. Chk. Wilh. Feaxz "Walch (Luth.) : Entwurf einer vollstandigen His- toric der Kirchenversammhingen, Leipz., 1759. Edw. H. Landon (Anglic.) : A manual of Councils of the Holy Catholick Church, com- prising the substance of the most remarkable and important canons, alphabetically arranged, 12mo. London, 1846. C. J. Hefele (R. C.) : ."S AV, ' '^4'ff*M Conciliengeshichte, Freiburg, 1855-3l*^S^4>-sx>ls.^(a^very valuable ^work, > 'A lijf^^ n&t-ye^fiHkh^d~yoL^g.-Ci imfc&.dQvgJi^o- At-^^a&O). Comp. my Essay ' ^ * on Oekumenische Concilien, in Corner's Annals of Ger. Theol. vol. i^p^ff, viii. 326-346. /t^ffi ^ Above the patriarchs, even above the patriarch of Rome, ^^i stood the ecumenical or general councils,' the hiojhest repre- •y » # 1 f« \ ^ The name avvalos o1kovjj.{vik7] (concilium universale, s. generale) occurs first in ^ / the sixth cauou of the council of Constantinople in SSI. The oiKovfiivn (sc. 77";) is, § 65. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 331 sentatives of the unity and authority of the old Catholic church. They referred originally to the Eoman empire, but afterward included the adjacent barbarian countries, so far as those counti'ies were represented in them by bishops. They rise up like lofty peaks or majestic pyramids from the plan of ancient church history, and mark the ultimate authoritative settlement of the general questions of doctrine and discipline which agi- tated Christendom in the Grseco-Roman empire. Tlie synodical system in general had its rise in the apostolic council at Jerusalem,' and completed its development, under its Catholic form, in the course of the first five centuries. Like the episcopate, it presented a hierarchical gradation of orders. There was, first, the diocesan or district council, in which the bishop of a diocese (in the later sense of the word) presided over his clergy ; then the provincial council, consist- ing of the metropolitan or archbishop and the bishops of his ecclesiastical province ; next, t\\e patriarchal council, embracing all the bishops of a patriarchal district (or a diocese in tlie old sense of the term) ; then the national council, inaccurately styled also general^ representing either the entire Greek or the entire Latin church (like the later Lateran councils and the council of Trent) ; and finally, at the summit stood the ecu- menical council, for the whole Christian world. There was be- sides these a peculiar and abnormal kind of synod, styled (Tvvoho<i ivSij/xovaa, frequently held by the bishop of Constantinople with the provincial bishops resident {ivSrj/Movvre'i) on the spot." properly, the whole inhabited earth ; then, in a narrower sense, the earth