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Edited from a variety of translations (mentioned in the preface) by H. R. Percival
THE ECUMENICAL COUNCILS Resources Online and in Print
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82 Pages
Page 5
I do not think there is any need of my delaying longer over Dr. Neale's note, which I have noticed at all only because of his profound scholarship, and not because on this particular point I thought he had thrown any new light upon the matter, nor urged any argument really calling for an answer.
Sir William Palmer's argument (A Treatise on the Church of Christ, Pt. IV., Chapter X., Sect. IV.) is one of much greater force, and needs an answer. He points out how, long after the Council of Nice, the number of the General Councils was still spoken of as being Six, and that in some instances this council is referred to as the "pseudo" General Council of Nice. Now at first sight this argument seems to be of great force. But upon further consideration it will be seen to be after all of no great weight. We may not be able to explain, nor are we called upon to do so, why in certain cases writers chose still to speak of Six instead of Seven General Councils, but we would point out that the same continuance of the old expression can be found with regard to others of the General Councils. For example, St. Gregory the Great says that he "revered the four Ecumenical Councils as he did the four Gospels," but the fifth Ecumenical Synod had been held a number of years before. Will anyone pretend from this to draw the conclusion that at that time the Ecumenical character of the Fifth Synod (II. Constantinople) was not recognized at Rome? Moreover, among the instances cited (and there are but a very few all told) one of them is fatal to the argument. For if Pope Hadrian in 871 still speaks of only six Ecumenical Synods, he omits two (according to Roman count), for this date is after the synod which deposed Photius--a synod rejected indeed afterwards by the Greeks, but always accepted by the Latins as the Eighth of the Ecumenical Councils. Would Sir William pretend for an instant that Hadrian and the Church of Rome did not recognize that Council as Ecumenical and as the Eighth Synod? He could not, for on page 208 he ingenuously confesses that that Council "had been approved and confirmed by that Pope."
But after all, the contention fails in its very beginning, for Sir William frankly recognizes that the Popes from the first espoused the cause of the council and were ready to defend it. Now this involved the acknowledgment of its ecumenical character, for it was called as an Ecumenical Synod, this we expressly learn from the letter of Tarasius to the other Eastern Patriarchs (Labbe, Conc., Tom. VII., col. 165), from the letter of the Emperor and Empress to the bishops throughout the empire (L. and C., Conc., Tom. VII., col. 53), and (above all) from the witness of the Council itself, assuming the style of the "Holy Ecumenical Synod." In the face of such evidence any further proof is surely uncalled for.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/ecumenical-councils/seventh.asp?pg=5
