Placuit nobis, Sancto Spivitu suggerente, et Domino per visiones multas et manifestas admonente." So the council of Aries, in 314 : "Placuit ergo, ^re- sente Spiritu Sancto et angelis ejus." ' ©eiav evTo\r]v, and ^eiav 0ov\ri(nv, in Euseb., Vita Const, iii. 20. Comp. his Ep. ad Eccl. Alexandr., in Socrates, H. E. i. 9, where he uses similar expressions. ^ Isidore of Pelusium also styles the Nicene council divinely inspired, Sieo^eu eixTTfeva^eTaa (Ep. 1. iv. ep. 99). So Basil the Great, Ep. 114 (in the Benedictine edition of his Opera omnia, torn. iii. p. 207), where he says that the 318 fathers of Nice have not spoken without the evipjeia toS ayiov irvivixaroi (non sine Spiritus Sancti afflatu). ^ Act. i., in Mansi, vi. p. 6*72. We quote from the Latin translation: "Nullo autem modo patimur a quibusdam coucuti definitam fidem, sive fidei symbolum, a Sanctis patribus nostris qui apud NicEeam couvenerunt illis temporibus : nee per- mittimus aut nobis, aut aliis, mutare aliquod verbum ex his quae ibidem continentur, aut unam syllabam prseterire, memores dicentis : Ne transferas terminos ceternoSy quos posuerunt patres tui (Prov. xxii. 8 ; Matt. x. 20). Non enim erant ipsi loquen- tes, sed ipse Spiritus Dei et Patris qui procedit ex ipso." * 'O ^KaacprjuTj^^ls 7r«p' avrov Kvpios 'Itjo". X/Jitrrbs wpi(Te 5ia rrjs TrapoiKXTis ayiwrd- TTji avvoSov. ^ Lib. i. Ep. 25 (ad Joannem episcopum Constant., et casteros patriarchas, ia Migne's edition of Gr. Opera, tom. iii. p. 4*78, or in the Bened. ed. iii. 515): "Pra?- terea, quia corde creditur ad justitiam, ore autem confessio fit ad salutem, sicut sancti evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor concilia suscipere et venerari me fateoi'. Nicaenura scilicet in quo perversum Arii dogma destruitur; Oonstantinopoli- 342 THIKD PEKIOD. A.D, 311-590. the dogmas of the first four councils on the same footing witli the Holy Scriptures, and their canons by the side of laws of the realm.' The remaining three general councils have neither a theological importance, nor therefore an authority, equal to that of those first four, which laid the foundations of ecumenical orthodoxy. Otherwise Gregory would have mentioned also the fifth council, of 553, in the passage to which we have just referred. And even among the first four there is a difference of rank ; the councils of Nice and Chalcedon standing highest in the character of their results. ISTot so with the rules of discipline prescribed in the canones. These were never considered universally binding, like the symbols of faith ; since matters of organization and usage, per- taining rather to the external form of the church, are more or less subject to the vicissitude of time. The fifteenth canon of the council of Nice, which prohibited and declared invalid the transfer of the clergy from one place to another," Gregory Naziauzen, fifty-seven years later (382), reckons among statutes long dead.^ Gregory himself repeatedly changed his location, and Chrysostom was called from Antioch to Constantinople. Leo I. spoke with strong disrespect of the third canon