finally the concilia mixta, consisting of the secular and spiritual dignitaries of a province, as separate classes. * A similar order, with different times, appears still earlier in the 37 th of the apostolic canons, where it is said (in the ed. of Ueltzeu, p. 244) : Aevrtpov tov stovs avyoSos y^via'ba) twv iTricrKonoDV. * This Sunday, the celebration of which was ordered by the empress Tlicodora in 842, is called among the Greeks the KvpiaK-l} ttjs op^oSo^las. On that day tlic ancient councils are dramatically reproduced in the public worship. § 65. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 333 faitli tliose councils, especially of Nice and of Cbalcedon, still ^£.M^ live in the Western church, both Roman Catholic and Evan- gelical Protestant. Strictly speaking, none of these councils properly repre- sented the entire Christian world. Apart from the fact that the laity, and even the lower clergy, were excluded from them, the assembled bishops themselves formed but a small part of the Catholic episcopate. The province of North Africa alone numbered many more bishops than were present at either the second, the third, or the fifth general council.' The councils bore a prevailingly oriental character, were occupied with Greek controversies, used the Greek language, sat in Constantinople or in its vicinity, and consisted almost wholly of Greek members. The Latin church was usually represented only by a couple of delegates of the Roman bishop ; though these delegates, it is true, acted more or less in the name of the entu-e West. Even the five hundred and twenty, or the six hundred and thirty members of the council of Chalcedou, excepting the two representatives of Leo L, and two African fugitives accidentally present, were all from the East. The council of Constantinople in 381 contained not a single Latin bishop, and only a hundred and fifty Greek, and was raised to the ecumenical rank by the consent of the Latin church to- ward the middle of the following century. On the other hand, the council of Ephesus, in 449, was designed by emperor and pope to be an ecumenical council ; but instead of this it has been branded in history as the synod of robbers, for its violent sanction of the Eutychian heresy. The council of Sardica, in 343, was likewise intended to be a general council, but immediately after its assembling assumed a sectional char- acter, through the secession and counter-organization of the Eastern bishops. It is, therefore, not the number of bishops present, nor even ' The schismatical Donatists alone held a council at Carthage in 308, of two hundred and seventy bishops (comp. Wiltsch, Kirchl. Geogr. u. Statistik, i. p. 53 and 54) ; while the second ecumenical council numbered only a hundred and fifty, the third a hundred and sixty (a hundred and ninety-eight), and the fifth a hundred and sixty-four. 334 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. the regularity of the summons alone, wliicli determines the ecumenical character of a council, but the result, the impor- tance and