foot of the signatures of the bishops. In this prominent posi- tion they sometimes exercised, when they had a theological interest or opinion of their own, no small influence on the dis- cussions and decisions, though they had no votum y as the pre- siding officers of deliberative and legislative bodies generally have no vote, excei^t when the decision of a question depends upon their voice. To this presidency of the emperor or of his commissioners the acts of the councils and the Greek historians often refer. Even Pope Stephen Y. (a. d. 817) writes, that Constantino the Great presided in the council of Nice, According to Eusebius, lie introduced the principal matters of business with a solemn discourse, constantly attended the sessions, and took the place of honor in the assembly. His presence among the bishops at the banquet, which he gave them at the close of the council, seemed to that panegyrical historian a tyj^e of Christ among his saints ! ' This prominence of Constantino in the most celebrated and the most important of all the councils is the ' Euseb., Vita Const, iii. IS: XpioroD /Sao-iAeias e5o|cv &«' tij (pavTacriovadai eiicJva, uyap t' iJi/ai aW' ovx vnap rh yiv6iXivov. § 65. THE ECUMENICAL C0IJXCIL8. 337 more remarkable, siuce at that time he had not yet even been baptized . "When Marcian and Pulcheria appeared with tlieii- court at the council of Chalcedon, to confirm its decrees, they were greeted hy the assembled bishops in the bombastic style of the East, as defenders of the faith, as pillars of ortliodoxy, as enemies and persecutors of heretics ; the emperor as a second Constantine, a new Paul, a new David ; the empress as a second Ileleiia ; with other high-sounding predicates/ The second and fifth general councils were the only ones at which the emperor was not represented, and in them the presidency was in the hands of the patriarchs of Constantinople. But together with the imperial commissioners, or in their absence, the diflerent patriarchs or their representatives, espe- cially the legates of the Eoman bishop, the most powerful of the patriarchs, took part in the presiding office. This was the case at the third and fourth, and the sixth, seventh, and eightli universal councils. For the emperors connection with the council had refer- ence rather to the conduct of business and to the external affairs of the sjmod, than to its theological and religious dis- cussions. This distinction appears in the well-known dictum of Constantine respecting a double episcopate, which we have already noticed. And at the Xicene council the emperor acted accordingly. He paid the bishops greater reverence than his heathen predecessors had sho^\Ti the Eoman senators. He wished to be a servant, not a judge, of the successors of the apostles, who are constituted priests and gods on earth. After his opening address, he "resigned the word" to the (clerical) officers of the council,^ by whom probably Alexander, ' Mansi, \u. 170 sqq. The