summoned him in vain to a synod — " to tell the truth, I am inclined to shun every collection of bishops, because I have never yet seen that a synod came to a good end, or abated evils instead of increasing them. For in those assemblies (and I do not think I express myself too strongly here) indescribable contentiousness and ambition pre- vail, and it is easier for one to incur the reproach of wishing to set himself up as judge of the wickedness of others, than to attain any success in putting the wickedness away. Therefore I have withdrawn myself, and have found rest to my soul only in solitude." ^ It is true, the contemplative Gregory had an aversion to all public life, and in such views yielded unduly to his personal inclinations. And in any case he is inconsistent ; for he elsewhere speaks with great respect of the council of Xice, and was, next to Athanasius, the leading advocate of the Nicene creed. Tet there remains enough in his many un- favorable pictures of the bishops and synods of his time, to dispel all illusions of their immaculate purity. Beausobre correctly observes, that either Gregory the Great must be a slanderer, or the bishops of his day were very remiss. In the ' Hist. Eccl. lib. v. cap. '7. ■^ Ep. ad Procop. 55, old order (aL 130). Similar representations occur in Ep. 76, 84 ; Carm. de vita sua, v. 1680-1688 ; Carm. x. v. 92 ; Carm. adv. Episc. v. 154. Comp. Ullmann, Gregor. von Naz., p. 246 sqq., and p. 210. It is remarkable that Gibbon makes no use of these passages to support his summary judgment of the general council3 at the end of his twentieth chapter, where he says : " The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness, the passion, the ignor- ance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods ; and the Catholic world has unani- mously submitted to the infallible decrees of the general councils." 348 THIBD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. fifth century it was no better, but rather worse. At the third general council, at Ephesus, 431, all accounts agree that shameful intrigue, uncharitable lust of condemnation, and coarse violence of conduct were almost as prevalent as in the notorious robber-council of Ephesus in 449 ; though with the important difference, that the former synod was contending for trutli, the latter for error. Even at Chalcedon, the introduc- tion of the renowned expositor and historian Theodoret pro- voked a scene, which almost involuntarily reminds us of the modern brawls of Greek and Roman monks at the holy sepul- chre under the restraining supervision of the Turkish police. His Egyptian opponents shouted with all their might : " The faith is gone ! Away with him, this teacher of Nestorius ! " His friends replied with equal violence : " They forced us [at the robber-council] by blows to subscribe ; away with the Manichseans, the