THE

CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW

AND CHRONICLE.

JUNE, 1843.

THE DEFINITIONS OF FAITH, AND CANONS OF DISCIPLINE, OF THE SIX ECUMENICAL COUNCILS, WITH THE REMAINING CANONS OF THE CODE OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. Translated, with Notes, to which are added, The Apostolical Canons. By the Rev. WILLIAM ANDREW HAMMOND, M.A. of Christ Church, Oxford. London: Rivingtons. 1843.

THE imposing canon of Vincentius of Lirens, the celebrated master of traditional authority, like all such devices of human invention, when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, is found utterly worthless and vain. It has a show, indeed, of excellency, putting on the appearance of simplicity and comprehensiveness; and yet is continually driven to the most unseemly shifts, the craftiest subtleties, and the very falsest misrepresentations, to maintain its assumed characteristics of universality, antiquity, and

consent.

In ipsâ etiam Catholicâ Ecclesiâ magnopere curandum est, ut id teneamus, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum

est.

Such is the canon itself. But when we ask for the practical explication of it,-how and where we are to find, what has been everywhere, always, and of all believed, then it is that the maintainers of this rule are driven to the most miserable contrivances to keep up the pretence of its validity, and to make out anything like a decent case for it. The Romanist, indeed, is very bold, and JUNE, 1843.

3 F

tells you at once that from the time of the Council of Jerusalem, at which James the Apostle presided, down to that of Trent, there were some twenty or more general councils, in which the whole Church assembled together to uphold the truth, and to transmit it to succeeding generations; and with this bold assertion, which not one in a thousand can give the time to investigate, he silences all objection. The modern Traditionist, however, the Tractarian of our Oxford school, is not yet bold enough to go this extreme length, although he has a horror of the work of the Reformation, and deep yearnings after Tridentine decrees; and he contents himself, therefore, with the "universality, antiquity, and consent," which he imagines he discovers in the first six or seven centuries, and rejoices in an everywhere, an always, and an all men, which are limited to certain places, times, and persons of his own selecting. He makes, however, a great pretence of authority for this, and would have us believe that we in England of the Reformed Church are bound by the decrees of a certain council held at Celchyth in Northumberland, in favour of the Nicene Creed and the six general councils; and that, because at such a council in the year A.D. 787, some of our forefathers committed themselves to these things, we who have our own Articles, Liturgy, Homilies, and Canons, formed at the Reformation, are by the "foregone conclusion" of others committed to their act. This is the quiet assumption and bold assertion of Dr. Pusey, just as if it were some self-evident incontrovertible truth. "Our Church of old," says he, "formally accepted the six Ecumenical Councils," and in a note we are told that this was at the Council of Celchyth. Previous to making this assertion, however, it was necessary to get rid of one difficulty. Our Twentyfirst article affirms that "general councils may err, and sometimes have erred," and as this comprehends all councils pretending to be general, it was necessary to get rid of this judgment by a subterfuge well worthy of the object. Accordingly we are told, as if this also was unquestionable, "We believe that (although councils, which have been termed "general," or which Rome has claimed to be so, have erred,) no real Ecumenical Council ever did.”— Letter to Bishop of Oxford, p. 44. To the same purpose, and in the same spirit, Mr. Newman misinterprets and falsifies the article in his comment upon it,-"General councils may err, unless in any case it is promised, as a matter of express supernatural privilege, that they shall not err; a case which lies beyond the scope of this article, or at any rate beside its determination. Such a promise, however, does exist, in cases where general councils . . are gathered together in the name of CHRIST, according to

.

،،

а

our Lord's promise. . . While councils are a thing of earth, their infallibility is not guaranteed; when they are a thing of heaven, their deliberations are overruled, and their decrees authoritative. In such cases they are Catholic councils . . Thus Catholic or Ecumenical councils are general councils, and something more."-Tract 90, p. 21. In this easy and quiet manner, so characteristically described by the Bishop of Oxford, as system of interpretation by which the Articles may be made to mean anything or nothing," do both Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman set aside the Anglican article which denounces general councils, and set up their "Catholic or Ecumenical councils," of which they tell us that they are something more than general councils, and of course therefore not to be included in the judgment of the article! It would seem, then, that all we want to know is, which were these Catholic or Ecumenical councils, and what were their decrees, and we shall have those infallible guides of truth, which the traditionary principle, quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est, authoritatively proposes to us. This Mr. Hammond has supplied us with in his publication of "The Definitions of Faith and Canons of Discipline of the Six Ecumenical Councils." Nor is Mr. Hammond one whit behind his great masters Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman in the authority he claims for the documents he has edited; for in his preface he tells us that "the Definitions of Faith are to be considered as the authoritative teaching of the Church upon the subjects to which they relate, and as such they have a well-founded claim to being received by all her members;" and again, “ It is hardly conceivable that a truly general council, assembled lawfully and deliberating freely, and the decisions of which have been received and ratified by the consent of the whole Church, should err in matters of faith."-(p. 2.) The extent also, to which the authoritative teaching of the councils is to be received, is plainly implied by his repudiating "the muchvaunted principle of private judgment, according to which it is the right and duty of all persons to exercise their own private judgment, independently of the authoritative teaching of the Church, in the study of the Scriptures, and to form from them their own opinions, even upon the highest and deepest mysteries of the gospel." (p. 5.) "The humble-minded Christian will therefore be disposed to submit himself unhesitatingly to the authoritative teaching of the Catholic church, on the points upon which she has deliberated and delivered her decided sentence."-(p. 8.) Thus does Mr. Hammond demand for these councils the fullest authority that assumed infallibility can pretend to. In assailing the article of the Church of England too, he hauls closer upon the wind than

either of his masters have done, and almost sails in the eye of it; for whereas they were cautious to speak of Catholic and Ecumenical, rather than general councils, as allowed by the article, he is bolder and calls them "truly general councils." And upon what plea are they presumed to be so? Upon the common traditionary canon, ubique, semper, ab omnibus. We would not wish to put this canon to a better test in proof of its unsoundness, than is afforded by the statements in this volume alone, and accordingly, before we refer to the documents themselves, we will first enquire what claim these councils have to the pre-eminence of being Catholic, Ecumenical, or truly general councils. In so doing we shall try the ab omnibus principle, and see how far it is the fact, or not, that these truths have always been received of all men ; for this is pretended as one of the proofs of the excellency and value of tradition.

Of the six councils claimed as Ecumenical, the first, that of Nicæa, seems to have the best claim to unanimity, for of the 318 bishops said to have been present, although Eusebius mentions only 250, nearly all agreed in the definition of faith which the council drew up. Mr. Keble says, "all, with seventeen or eighteen exceptions," and since this is the admission of one who is a leader in this school, we may take it as the most favourable representation he could make. So that of those who were assembled, "all, with seventeen or eighteen exceptions," condemned the Arians and maintained the Catholic truth. It might have been supposed that this minority, small as it was, would have vitiated the principle ab omnibus creditum est. But not so. There is a well-known legal principle, not a quibble, good reader, not a piece of special pleading, but really an useful rule in its way, that determines de minimis non curat lex; and this the traditionists seem well to understand, for they never pay any regard to minorities; and consequently, though there were dissentient voices at Nicæa, and, to the last, dissentient votes, yet what signify a few? All believe except the few, and their opinion is not worth consulting; so that, in effect, all do believe, and thus it is plain we have the condition fulfilled, and the truth is established, because it is ab omnibus creditum! Again, it may be fairly questioned whether, since there were in the Nicene age as many as eighteen hundred prelates, the three hundred and eighteen assembled at Nicæa did represent the rest. It is impossible to assume this, for the facts of history are against such a conclusion. And what are those facts? Why that, before the council of Nicæa, two councils at Alexandria had delivered decrees favourable to the Arians; and after that council, others at Antioch, Cæsarea, Tyre,

Jerusalem, Constantinople, Antioch again, Constantinople again, Antioch the third time, Sirmich, Arles, Antioch the fourth time; and at Milan the Arians obtained decrees in their favour, besides having, immediately after the council of Nicæa, won the emperor over to their side. It is therefore utterly impossible that, even if the council of Nicæa had been unanimous,-which it was not,-it could be taken as the representative of the faith of all bishops, or of all the churches, or of all men.

The second council was that of Constantinople, which how it can be even named as a general council passes understanding, for the most that can be said of it is, that there were one hundred and fifty oriental bishops present. But where were the occidentals? If the east was represented, why not the west also? And if the western churches were not represented, which they were not, what becomes of the claim of this council to the ab omnibus principle? The next, the council of Ephesus, is still worse, for it was proposed in this council that John of Antioch should be the arbiter of the differences between Cyril and Nestorius, in consequence of which the latter declined to attend a council where he had no prospect of a fair hearing or adjudication; and the historian, recording the results of this unanimous council, says, "Instead of healing divisions, it did but inflame them more and more, and almost destroyed all hope of restoring concord and tranquillity in the Church." (Mosheim.) It is, moreover, amusing enough to read the council's own account of their ecumenity. "When we were assembled in the metropolis of Ephesus, according to the religious decrees of the emperor, certain persons, a little more than thirty in number, separated from us." And yet for all this we are told, with great solemnity, that this was a council and a time when the Church was "at one," when there was complete harmony, when all believed the same things, and that these things are truth, because they were so believed of all!

In the interval between this last œcumenical council, and that of Chalcedon, was assembled another at Ephesus, having all the requisites of a general council according to the notions of those who believe in such things, having been lawfully summoned by the emperor Theodosius, but which council is very prudently suppressed and avoided by the traditionists, as the most forcible argument possible against their whole system. It was so outrageous in its whole conduct, as to have obtained the respectable title of the Council of Robbers, or the Brigandage of Ephesus. But let that pass, and proceed we to the council of Chalcedon. In this the western churches prevailed, the council having been called at the instigation of Leo the Great, bishop of Rome, and his legates