is declared on high authority to have been an active member of the Council of Nice while only a deacon. That this champion against Arianism was duly chosen and ordained to be the bishop of Alexandria, according to the customs of that church and the directions of the Council of Nice, whereof he had been an active member but five months before, there is no reason to question. That he had attended that council as a deacon, and, at the death of Alexander, was an archdeacon.

If further authority were necessary on this subject, it is found in Blondell, Apologia, p. 202 et seq.

The practical effect of these councils, from the beginning, was to give undue consideration and influence to the clergy; which continually increased, until it finally ended in the full establishment of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

§ 5. OF COUNCILS UNDER THE EMPERORS.

AFTER the conversion of Constantine, the councils of the church fell under the influence of the Byzantine emperors; and at a still later period, they submitted to the presidency and dictation of the bishop of Rome.

The celebrated Council of Nicæa, A. D. 325, is distinguished as having been the first which pronounced a decision respecting a speculative Christian doctrine, or article of religious faith; as well as the first over which a temporal prince presided. Hosius, the courtier of the emperor, was in form the president. But Constantine exercised a controlling influence over their deliberations, and virtually presided. He convened the council by his own authority. He opened the council in person with a public speech, in which he says, "When, contrary to all expectation, I had received information of your disagreement, I looked upon that thing as in nowise to be neglected.' The same author also informs us that, when a great controversy had arisen by reason of their mutual accusations, "the emperor with an intent mind received their proposed questions, and by degrees reduced those who pertinaciously opposed each other to a more sedate mind; inducing some to be of his opinion by the force of his arguments; wooing others by entreaties; praising others who spoke well; exciting all to an agreement, till at length he made them all of the same mind and opinion in relation to all matters concerning which they had before been disagreed.

1

A bishop, we are told by Episcopal authority, filled "that honoured chair," nor did Constantine presume to take his seat

All this, however, was

"until requested by the bishops to do so." merely the etiquette of the time, and betokened no peculiar deference to the bishops. We have at least a fair illustration of the respect in which he held these dignitaries of the church, in his letter to the Synod of Tyre, soon after the Council of Nice. "If any person, which I don't in the least expect, presuming at this juncture to violate our precept, shall refuse to be present, one shall be forthwith despatched from us, who, by an imperial order, shall drive that person into exile, and shall teach him that 'tis in no wise fit to resist the determinations of an emperor when published in defence of the truth." So much for the profound submission which Constantine yielded to episcopal authority! The controlling influence of the emperor over the Council of Nice is well expressed by Gibbon in the words following:- The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and his firm declaration that those who resisted the divine judgment of the synod must prepare themselves for an immediate exile, annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition, which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two."

There were no general councils until the emperors became Christian. Constantine set the example; and, without invading the peculiar province of the ecclesiastic, presided in the Council of Nice, and probably prevented much discord.

It is also usually reckoned as the first general council; but it was, in fact, a council only of the oriental church; the Spanish bishop Hosius and two Roman presbyters were the only ecclesiastics from the Western Church. All the particulars respecting this remarkable and important council are given by the authors who are mentioned in the index of authorities.*

To the desired result the emperor brought the bishops by means of influences which none ever knew how better to use to his own advantage. He supported them at his own expense; he feasted them at his palace, and enriched them with princely presents; while the fearful bans of the church awaited any who should dare to dissent from the decisions of the council.

And yet the emperor had the audacity to claim for these decisions, so obtained, the authority of Divine inspiration, and "that judgment which God, who seeth all things, would approve!" It was claimed, indeed, for the decrees of councils generally, that they were dictated by the Spirit of God, that they were of equal authority with the word of God; that they contained all that was essential to eternal life; and that to disregard them was to sin against the Holy Ghost.

The influence of them was to bring into neglect the word of God, to suppress the reading of the Scriptures, to deny the right of private judgment, to bind the conscience, to exalt the power of the bishops over the church; and, under the Christian emperors, to degrade them to the condition of mere sycophants of the civil rulers.

Thus the hierarchy withheld from the people the word of life, offering instead the creeds, the canons, and the decrees of their own councils.

We have been more minute in setting forth the influence of Constantine over the ecclesiastical councils, for the purpose of showing the interest which temporal princes manifested in the affairs of the church. The example of Constantine was imitated more or less by his successors to change essentially their political relations to the church, both in the Eastern and Western empire. It was indeed the commencement of the disastrous union of church and state-a union more pernicious in its consequences to the church than all the persecutions of the civil power under which she from the beginning had been bleeding. Socrates, the ancient historian of the church, indeed, assigns the same reason for interweaving with his fourth book the history of this emperor, "because all the affairs of the church depended upon his nod." "By this interference of the emperor with these ecclesiastical councils," says the sagacious Spittler, "and while the affairs of religion were treated as a concern of the state, these councils assumed a high political importance. The decrees of the provincial synods were authoritative only within their respective provinces; even the œcumenical councils would have never become general had they continued to be strictly ecclesiastical. They were not imperative even upon those who assented to their authority; so that the adherents of the bishops were still at liberty to dissent from them. But when the highest prelates of the realm were summoned by the emperor to convene in general council, and their authority became known, then the emperor began to claim the direction of them as his own institution. Whether their decisions should be obeyed or not was no longer a matter of indifference; for the concerns of religion became so intermingled with his interests that their decrees became the laws of the church. The arm of the civil authority accordingly fell heavily upon them who refused to listen to the voice of their spiritual fathers. This is the date of that disastrous hour when the decrees of a few hundred bishops, enforced by the severest threats of the emperor, became the rule of faith and of

conduct to all christendom." The degeneracy of the church and the corruption of religion which followed so soon, were only the legitimate consequences of the ecclesiastical polity which was legalized under Constantine. It was the final overthrow of the primitive simplicity and purity which had hitherto prevailed.

The various influences of these early synods in overthrowing the primitive constitution of the church are clearly sketched by Mosheim, who remarks that "these councils were productive of so great an alteration in the general state of the church as nearly to effect the entire subversion of its ancient constitution. For, in the first place, the primitive rights of the people, in consequence of this new arrangement of things, experienced a considerable diminution, inasmuch as thenceforward none but affairs of comparatively trifling importance were ever made the subject of popular deliberation and adjustment;—the councils of the associated churches assuming to themselves the right of discussing and regulating every thing of moment or importance; as well as of determining all questions to which any sort of weight was attached. In the next place, the dignity and authority of the bishops were very much augmented and enlarged. In the infancy, indeed, of the councils, the bishops did not scruple to acknowledge that they appeared there merely as the ministers or legates of their respective churches; and that they were in fact nothing more than representatives acting under instructions. But it was not long before this humble language began by little and little to be exchanged for a loftier tone; and they, at length, took it upon them to assert that they were the legitimate successors of the apostles themselves, and might, consequently, by their own proper authority, dictate to the Christian flock. To what extent the inconveniences and evils arising out of these preposterous pretensions reached in after times, is too well known to require any particular notice in this place."

Many examples of the abuse of prerogatives and of power by the bishops, and of their shameful strife for preferment, as they gained the ascendency in these councils, might be drawn from ancient history. But let one authority suffice. It is that of a great and good bishop of the fourth century, who still retained much of the piety and unpretending simplicity of other days. On being summoned to the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 381, he addressed a letter to Procopius declining his attendance:- How I wish there had been no precedence, no priority of place, no authoritative dictatorship, that we might be distinguished by virtue

alone. But now this right hand, and left hand, and middle, and higher and lower, this going before and going in company, have produced to us much unprofitable affliction; brought many into a snare, and thrust them out among the herd of the goats; and these, not only of the inferior order, but even of the shepherds, who, though masters in Israel, have not known these things." ... "I am worn out with contending against the envy of the holy bishops; disturbing the public peace by their contentions, and subordinating the Christian faith to their own private interests.".... “If I must write the whole truth, I am determined to absent myself from all assemblies of the bishops; for I have never seen a happy result of any councils, nor any that did not occasion an increase of evils, rather than a reformation of them, by reason of these pertinacious contentions, and this vehement thirst for power, such as no words can express."

Of the bishops of the Council of Constantinople he says-These conveyers of the Holy Ghost, these preachers of peace to all men, grew bitterly outrageous and clamorous against one another; in the midst of the church-meetings accusing each other and leaping about as if they had been mad, under the furious impulse of a lust of power and dominion, as though they would have rent the world in pieces." He is also almost equally severe upon the unprincipled ambition and shameful conduct of the clergy at the Council of Nice, A. D. 425. The pride, venality, and corruption of these ministers of the gospel continued to increase, until pure and undefiled religion ceased almost from the ministry and from the church. Then primitive Christianity, wearied at length with the vain pomp of power, and in disgust at the bigotry, venality, and corruption which disgraced her name, retired from the gaze of men to the secluded cloister, drew the curtains, and sank into repose through a long, dark night of barbarism and superstition, until the dawn of a better day in the Reformation.