In 879, another great council assembled at Constantinople, in which Photius, already restored, is acknowledged as true patriarch by the legates of Pope John VIII. Here the great œcumenical council, in which Photius was deposed, receives the appellation of" conciliabulum." Pope John VIII. declares all those to be Judases, who say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. In 1122-3, a great council at Rome was held in the church of St. John of Lateran by Pope Calixtus II. This was the first general council convoked by the popes. The emperors of the west had now scarcely any authority; and the emperors of the east, pressed by the Mahometans and by the Crusaders, held none but little wretched councils. It is not precisely known what this Lateran was. Some small councils had before been assembled in the Lateran. Some say that it was a house built by one Lateran in Nero's time; others, that it was St. John's church itself, built by Bishop Sylvester. In this council, the bishops complained heavily of the monks. "They possess,' said they, "the churches, the lands, the castles, the tithes, the offerings of the living and the dead; they have only to take from us the ring and the crosier." The monks remained in possession. In 1139 was another great council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent II. It is said, there were present a thousand bishops. A great many, certainly. Here the ecclesiastical tithes are declared to be of divine right, and all laymen possessing any of them are excommunicated. In 1179 was another great council of Lateran, by Pope Alexander III. There were three hundred bishops and one Greek abbot. The decrees are all on discipline. The plurality of benefices is forbidden. In 1215 was the last general council of Lateran, by Pope Innocent III. Four hundred and twelve bishops, and eight hundred abbots. At this time, which is that of the Crusades, the popes have established a Latin patriarch at Jerusalem, and one at Constantinople. These patriarchs attend the council. This great council says, that "God having given the doctrine of salvation to men by Moses, at length caused his son to be born of a virgin, to show the way more clearly," and that "no one can be saved out of the Catholic church." The transubstantiation was not known until after this council. It forbade the establishment of new religious orders; but, since that time, no less than eighty have been instituted. It was in this council that Raimond, Count of Toulouse, was stripped of all his lands. In 1245, a great council assembled at the imperial city of Lyons. Innocent IV. brings thither the Emperor of Constantinople, John Paleologus, and makes him sit beside him. He deposes the Emperor Frederic as a felon, and gives the cardinals a red hat, as a sign of hostility to Frederic. This was the source of thirty years of civil war. In 1274, another general council was held at Lyons. Five hundred bishops, seventy great and a thousand lesser abbots. The Greek Emperor Michael Paleologus, that he may have the protection of the pope, sends his Greek Patriarch Theophanes to unite, in his name, with the Latin church, But the Greek church disowns these bishops. In 1311, Pope Clement V. assembled a general council in the small town of Vienne, in Dauphiny, in which he abolishes the Order of the Templars. It is here ordained that the Bégares, Beguins, and Béguines, shall be burned. These were a species of heretics, to whom was imputed all that had formerly been imputed to the primitive Christians. In 1414, the great council of Constance was convoked by an emperor who resumes his rights, viz. by Sigismund. Here Pope John XXIII., convicted of numerous crimes, is deposed; and John Huss and Jerome of Prague, convicted of obstinacy, are burned. In 1431, a great council was held at Basle, where they in vain depose Pope council. In 1438, a great council assembled at Ferrara, transferred to Florence, where the excommunicated pope excommunicates the council, and declares it guilty of high treason. Here a feigned union is made with the Greek church, crushed by the Turkish synods held sword in hand. To exercise our faith. They were al right, each in its time. At this day, the Roman Catholics be lieve in such councils only as are approved in the Vatican; the Greek Catholics believe only in those approved at Constantinople; and the Protestants make a jest of both the one and the other: so that every one ought to be content. We shall here examine only the great Pope Julius II. would have had his councils: the lesser ones are not worth council of Lateran, in 1512, pass for an {the trouble. The first was that of Nice, œcumenical council. In it that pope assembled in the year 325 of the modern solemnly excommunicated Louis XIÎ., { era, after Constantine had written and sent King of France, laid France under an in- by Osius his noble letter to the rather terdict, summoned the whole parliament turbulent clergy of Alexandria. It was of Provence to appear before him, and debated whether Jesus was created or excommunicated all the philosophers, uncreated. This in no way concerned because most of them had taken part with morality, which is the only thing essential. Louis XII. Yet this council was not, Whether Jesus was in time or before like that of Ephesus, called the Council time, it is not the less our duty to be of Robbers. honest. After much altercation, it was at last decided that the Son was as old as the Father, and consubstantial with the Father. This decision is not very easy of comprehension, which makes it but the more sublime. Seventeen bishops protested against the decree; and an old Alexandrian chronicle, preserved at Ox In 1537, the council of Trent was convoked, first at Mantua by Paul III., afterwards at Trent in 1543, and terminated in December, 1561, under Pius VI. Catholic princes submitted to it on points of doctrine, and two or three of them in matters of discipline. wise protested. But prelates make not much account of mere priests, who are in general poor. However, there was no It is thought that henceforward thereford, says that two thousand priests likewill be no more general councils than there will be states-general in France or Spain. In the Vatican there is a fine picture,thing said of the Trinity in this first containing a list of the general councils, in which are inscribed such only as are approved by the court of Rome. Every one puts what he chuses in his own archives. SECTION III. Infallibility of Councils. All councils are, doubtless, infallible, being composed of men. It is not possible that the passions, that intrigues, that the spirit of contention, that hatred or jealousy, that prejudice or ignorance, should ever influence these assemblies. But why, it will be said, have so many councils been opposed to one another? council. The formula runs thus :-"We believe Jesus to be consubstantial with the Father, God of God, light of light, begotten, not made; we also believe in the Holy Ghost." It must be acknowledged that the Holy Ghost was treated very cavalierly. We have already said, that in the supplement to the council of Nice it is related, that the fathers being much perplexed to find out which were the authentic and which the apocryphal books of the Old and the New Testament, laid them all upon an altar, and the books which they were to reject fell to the ground. What a pity, that so fine an ordeal has been lost! in 451, Jesus was again reduced to one nature. I pass by councils held on less weighty questions, and come to the sixth general council of Constantinople, assembled to After the first council of Nice, composed of three hundred and seventeen infallible bishops, another council was held at Rimini; on which occasion the number of the infallible was four hundred, without reckoning a strong detachment, at Seleu-ascertain precisely whether Jesus-who, eis, of about two hundred. These six hundred bishops, after four months of contention, unanimously took from Jesus his consubstantiality. It has since been restored to him, except by the Socinians: so nothing is amiss. One of the great councils was that of Ephesus, in 431. There, as already stated, Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, a great persecutor of heretics, was himself condemned as a heretic, for having maintained that, although Jesus was really God, yet his mother was not absoJutely mother of God, but mother of Jesus. St. Cyril procured the condemnation of Nestorius; but the partisans of Nestorius also procured the deposition of St. Cyril, in the same council; which put the Holy Ghost in considerable perplexity. Here, gentle reader, carefully observe, taat the gospel says not one syllable of the consubstantiality of the Word, nor of Mary's having had the honour of being mother of God, no more than of the other disputed points which brought together so many infallible councils. after having for a long period had but one nature, was then possessed of twohad also two wills. It is obvious how important this knowledge is to the doing the will of God. This council was convoked by Constantine the Bearded, as all the others had been by the preceding emperors. The legates from the Bishop of Rome were on the left hand, and the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch on the right. The train-bearers at Rome may, for aught I know, assert that the left hand is the place of honour. However, the result was, that Jesus obtained two wills. The Mosaic law forbade images. Painters and sculptors had never made their fortunes among the Jews. We do not find that Jesus ever had any pictures, excepting perhaps that of Mary, painted by Luke. It is however certain, that Jesus Christ nowhere recommends the worship of images. Nevertheless, the primitive Christians began to worship them about the end of the fourth century, when they had become familiar with the fine arts. In the eighth century, this abuse had arrived at such a pitch, that Constantine Copronymus assembled, at Constantinople, a council of three hundred and twenty bishops, who anathematised image-worship, and declared it to be idolatry. The Empress Irene, the same who afterwards had her son's eyes torn out, convoked the second council of Nice in 787, when the adoration of images was re-es Eutyches was a monk, who had cried out sturdily against Nestorius, whose heresy was nothing less than the supposing two persons in Jesus; which is quite frightful. The monk, the better to contradict his adversary, affirmed that Jesus had but one nature. One Fiavian, Bishop of Constantinople, maintained against him, that there must absolutely be two natures in Jesus. Thereupon, a numerous council was held at Ephesus in 449,tablished. and the argument made use of was the cudgel, as in the lesser council of Cirtha, in 355, and in a certain conference held at Carthage. Flavian's nature was well thrashed, and two natures were assigned to Jesus. At the council of Chalcedon, But in 794, Charlemagne had another council held at Frankfort, which declared the second of Nice idolatrous. Pope Adrian IV. sent two legates to it, but he did not convoke it. The first great council convoked by a pope was the first of Lateran, in 1139: there were about a thousand bishops assembled; but scarcely anything was done, except that all those were anathematised who said that the church was too rich. In 1179, another great council of Lateran was held by Alexander III., in which the cardinals, for the first time, took precedence of the bishops. The discussions were confined to matters of discipline. "In another great council of Lateran, in 1215, Pope Innocent III. stripped the Count of Toulouse of all his possessions, by virtue of his excommunication. It was then that the first mention was made of transubstantiation. In 1245, was held a general council at Lyons, then an imperial city, in which Pope Innocent IV. excommunicated the Emperor Frederic II., and consequently deposed him, and forbade him the use of fire and water. On this occasion, a red hat was given to the cardinals, to remind them that they must embrue their hands in the blood of the emperors's partisans. This council was the cause of the destruction of the house of Swabia, and of thirty years of anarchy in Italy and Germany. ACCORDING to our custom, we confine ourselves on this subject to the statement of a few queries which we cannot resolve. Has a Jew a country? If he is born at Coimbra, it is in the midst of a crowd of ignorant and absurd persons, who will dispute with him, and to whom he makes foolish answers, if he dare reply at all. He is surrounded by inquisitors, who would burn him if they knew that he declined to eat bacon, and all his wealth would belong to them. Is Coimbra his country? Can he exclaim, like the Horatii in Corneille— Mourir pour la patrie est un si digne sort In a general council held at Vienne, in Dauphiny, in 1311, the Order of the Templars was abolished: its principal-Again: is Jerusalem his country? He members having been condemned to the most horrible deaths, on charges most imperfectly established. has probably heard of his ancestors of old; that they had formerly inhabited a sterile and stony country, which is borThe great council of Constance, in dered by a horrible desert, of which 1414, contented itself with dismissing little country the Turks are at present Pope John XXIII., convicted of a thou- masters, but derive little or nothing from sand crimes, but had John Huss and Je-it. Jerusalem is, therefore, not his counrome of Prague burned for being obstinate; obstinacy being a much more grievous crime than either murder, rape, simony, or sodomy. try. In short, he has no country: there is not a square foot of land on the globe which belongs to him. The Guebre, more ancient, and a hundred times more respectable than the Jew, a slave of the Turks, the Persians, or the Great Mogul, can he regard as his country the fire-altars which he raises in secret among the mountains? The Banian, the Armenian, who pass their lives in wandering through all the east, in the capacity of money-brokers, can they exclaim, "My dear country, my Among the nations of Europe, all those cut-throats who let out their services to hire, and sell their blood to the first king who will purchase it,--have they a country? Not so much so as a bird of prey, who returns every evening to the hollow of the rock where its mother built its nest! dear country"—who have no other coun- dost thou mean by country? said a neightry than their purses and their account-bour to him. Is it thy oven? Is it the books? village where thou wert born, which thou hast never seen, and to which thou wilt never return? Is it the street in which thy father and mother reside! Is it the town-hall, where thou wilt never become so much as a clerk to an alderman? Is it the church of Notre Dame, in which thou hast not been able to obtain a place among the boys of the choir, although a very silly person, who is archbishop and duke, obtains from it an annual income of twenty-four thousand louis d'or? The monks-will they venture to say that they have a country? It is in heaven, they say. All in good time; but in this world I know nothing about one. This expression, " my country," how sounds it from the mouth of a Greek, who, altogether ignorant of the previous existence of a Miltiades, an Agesilaus, only knows that he is the slave of a janissary, who is the slave of an aga, who is the slave of a pacha, who is the slave of a vizier, who is the slave of an individual whom we call, in Paris, the Grand Turk? The young pastry-cook knew not how to reply; and a person of reflection, who overheard the conversation, was led to infer that a country of moderate extent may contain many millions of men who have no country at all. And thou, voluptuous Parisian, who hast never made a longer voyage than to Dieppe, to feed upon fresh sea-fish,who art acquainted only with thy splendid town-house, thy pretty villa in the country, thy box at that opera which all the world makes it a point to feel tiresome but thyself;-who speakest thy own language agreeably enough, because thou art ignorant of every other; thou lovest all this, no doubt, as well as thy brilliant champagne from Rheims, and thy rents payable every six months; and loving these, thou dwellest upon thy love for thy country. What then is country?-Is it not, probably, a good piece of ground, in the midst of which the owner, residing in a well-built and commodious house, may say, "This field which I cultivate, this house which I have built, is my own; I live under the protection of laws which no tyrant can infringe. When those who like me possess fields and houses assemble for their common interests, I have a voice in such assembly. I am a part of the whole, one of the community, a portion of the sovereignty: behold my country!" What cannot be included in this description too often amounts to little beyond studs of horses under the command of a groom, who employs the whip at his pleasure. People may have arine? country under a good king, but never under a bad one. SECTION II. A young pastry-cook who had been to college, and who had mustered some phrases from Cicero, gave himself airs one day about loving his country. What Speaking conscientiously, can a financier cordially love his country? Where was the country of the Duke of Guise, surnamed Balafré-at Nanci, at Paris, at Madrid, or at Rome? What country had your Cardinals Balue, Duprat, Lorraine, and Maza Where was the country of Attala situated, or that of a hundred other heroes of the same kind, who, although eternally travelling, make themselves always at home? I should be much obliged to any one who would acquaint me with the country of Abraham. |