The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-03-17
PoPEs AND COUNCILS.

Cardinal Manning, who may be said
to represent the Church of Rome in
England, recently had the rashness to
declare that, as the sovereigns of Eng
land have been the heads Of the parli-
ments Of England, so the successor of
Peter, the Pope, has been the chief
legislator in nineteen ecumenical coun-
ellis. The cardinals statement is too
promiscuous. 1t may be what the Ro-
man Catholic church, to suit its pur-
poses, calls history, but it is not correct
ecclesiastical history. Before the fourth
century the councils regulating the
doctrine and discipline of the church,
represented few provinces and were
called provincial councils. Over these
councils the provincial bishops pre-
sided, and whatever power they had
was simply the result of mutual agree
ment. From these councils sprang, as
growths, first diocesan synods, then ma
tional, and thence ecumenical councils.
Twenty ecumenical councils are recog-
nized by the Roman Catholic church,
and the question Of the Pope's subordi-
nation to their DEGREES, was, for long
time, vigorously contested, a fact of
which Cardinal Manning cannot GER
tainly be ignorant.
The first general council (Nice, A. D.
325,) was called to oppose the Arian
heresy, and was not summoned by the
Pope, Sylvester I. While he was rep
resented at it, he presided over it
neither in person, nor by proxy, neither
did he in any way shape its legislation.
The first council of Constantinople, ca.
D. 3S1,) was convoked under the EN-
peror Theodosius, and not by the Pope,
to determine the Catholic doctrine of
the Holy Ghost. Its first president
was a bishop who was communicated
and disowned; no western bishop was
present at this council, or represented
in it. One of its canons declared, by
fair implication, that any precedence
accorded to Rome by general (ecumen-
icaD councils was because it was the
capital of the empire, and not because
it was the episcopate of the successor
of Peter. The Pope really had no
more to do with this council than he
had with the last meeting of the Evan
gelical Alliance.
The Iirst council of Ephesus, con-
vened by the Emperor rheodosius the
younger, A. D. 431, and which con-
demned the HISTORIAN heresy, heard
the opinion of the Pope without con-
sidering it as in any way decisive, de-
bated the matter, and came to the same
opinion as the Pope. But why was the
council necessary if the Pope's opinion
was decisive =? The council of Chalce-
don (451, y which maintained the union
of the human and divine natures in
Christ, met under the remonstrance and
disapproval of Pope Leo l., and under
call from the Emperor Marcian. The
Pope does not seem to have been ''the
chief legislator in these councils. Nor
was he in the second council of Con-
stantinople $3.50, which after condemn
ing the heresies of Origen and Arius,
compelled the Pope to retract his own
doctrine and to affirm what he had pre-
viously condmned /; which does not look
as if he was thought infallible. The
third council of Constantinople (6S1),
mathematical as hereto Pope, Hon
orius l., who had died in 625, and who,
if this council and subsequent ones are
to be believed, was not infallible. The
fourth council Of Constantinople 1851
engaged in business somewhat local,
and then compelled the Pope to retract
former assent, and to pronounce or
thodox what he had previously declared
heterodoxl The Pope, John Will,
does not seem to have been "the chief
legislator" in that council. On the
contrary, he seems to have been an I'M
willing executor of its DEGREES.
Coming down to the council of Con-
stantinople in 1414, and which sat for
four years, we find that after condemn
ing the doctrines of John Huss and Je-
rome of P rague, it asserted very posi-
lively the authority Of an ecumenical
council over the Pope which does not
look as if it considered the Pope its
"chief legislator" Cardinal Manning