correctness of the decisions, and, above all, the con- sent of the orthodox Christian world.' The number of the councils thus raised by the public opin- ion of the Greek and Latin churches to the ecumenical dignity, is seven. The succession begins with the first council of Nicsea, in the year 325, which settled the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and condemned the Arian heresy. It closes with the second council of Nice, in 787, which sanctioned the use of images in the church. The first four of these councils com- mand high theological regard in the orthodox Evangelical churches, while the last three are less important and far more rarely mentioned. The ecumenical councils have not only an ecclesiastical significance, but bear also a^jpolitical or state-church (character. The very name refers to the oUovfievrj^ the orbis Romanus^ the empire. Such synods were rendered possible only by that great transformation, which is marked by the accession of Constantino. That emperor caused the assembling of the first ecumenical council, though the idea was probably suggested to him by friends among the bishops ; at least Rufinus says, he summoned the council " ex sacerdotum sententia." At all events the Christian Grgeco-Roman emperor is indispensable to an ecumenical council in the ancient sense of the term ; its temporal head and its legislative strength. According to the rigid hierai'chical or papistic theory, as carried out in the middle ages, and still asserted by Roman divines, the pope alone, as universal head of the church, can summon, conduct, and confirm a universal council. But the history of the first seven, or, as the Roman reckoning is, eight, ecumenical councils, fi'om 325 to 807, assigns this thi-eefold power to the Byzantine emperors. This is placed beyond all contradiction, by the still extant edicts of the emperors, the acts of the councils, the accounts of all the Greek historians, ' Schrockh says (vol. viii. p. 201), unjustly, that this general consent belon^'s among the " empty conceits." Of course the unanimity must be limited to ortlwdox Chiistcudom. § 65. THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS. 335 and the coiiteraporaiy Latin sources. Upon this Byzantine precedent, and upon the example of the kings of Israel, the Russian Czars and the Protestant princes of Germany, Scan- dinavia, and England — be it justly or unjustly — ^build their claim to a similar and still more extended supervision of the church in their dominions. In the first place, the call of the ecumenical councils ema- nated from the emperors.' They fixed the place and time of the assembly, summoned the metropolitans and more distin- guished bishops of the empire by an edict, provided the means of transit, and paid the cost of travel and the other expenses out of the public treasury. In the case of the council of Nicaea and the first of Constantinople the call was issued without previous advice or consent from the bishop of Rome.' In the council of Chalcedon, in 451, the papal influence is