There
was no means of summoning a General Council until the Roman Empire became
officially Christian, for only an imperial edict could command obedience
everywhere, and provide the facilities for attendance. The first General Council, held at Nicaea (A.D.
325), was summoned by the first Christian Emperor, Constantine, and
all the other ‘General’ or ‘Ecumenical’ Councils
were summoned by the head of the state: the Council of Constantinople
(A.D. 381) by Theodosius I; the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) by Theodosius
II; the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) by Marcianus; the second Council
of Constantinople (A.D. 553) by Justinian; the third Council of
Constantinople (A.D. 680)
by Constantine Pogonatus; the second Council of Nicaea (A.D.
787) by the Empress Irene, (which sanctioned the adoration of images
and declared the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist to be the very Body
and Blood of Christ). Hence the remark of the 5th century ecclesiastical
historian, Socrates: ‘We continually include the Emperors in our
history, because from the time they began to profess Christianity the
affairs of the Church depended upon them, and according to their will
the greatest Councils were and are still assembled’.[1]
There
was abundant precedent in the history of Israel for this relation between
the civil and religious departments in the state.
It was Moses the leader, and not Aaron the priest, who called
together the seventy elders,[2] the predecessors
of the standing Council of the Jewish people, the Sanhedrim; David commanded
the priests to arrange for the return of the Ark of the Covenant;[3]
and Solomon ordered them to bring it to its place in the Temple.[4]
The
Church survived the collapse of the declining Empire under the attacks
of the heathen Goths and Franks in the 5th century, and set about converting
them. In the work of stabilization
and reconstruction that followed, the influence and pretensions of the
papacy steadily grew; the struggle for supremacy between Church and
State began in earnest, and a decisive event in the conflict took place
on Christmas Day, A.D. 800, when the Emperor Charlemange did fealty
to the Pope and received from him the imperial crown.
Papal claims were a main issue in the separation between Eastern
and Western Christendom in A.D. 1054, after which the West settled down
under increasing subjection to the Roman see in the Middle Ages.
But
the desire for freedom was not totally crushed during what Luther called
the Babylonish captivity of the Church; there was always an underground
resistance movement, which occasionally broke into open revolt. Several events in the century preceding the Reformation gave an
immense impetus to this spirit: the Greeks with the traditional freedom
of their civilization poured into western Europe after the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks (A.D. 1453); the view was put forward that
the earth was not the fixed centre of the universe, but turned on its
axis and moved like the stars; most exciting of all, the discoveries
of the navigators had proved that there were other peoples and cultures
whose existence had never been guessed.
The liberating and expansive effects of these happenings were
enormous; they powerfully contributed to the intellectual atmosphere
of the Reformation age. A new‑found sense of freedom was abroad
which expressed itself in resentment at papal usurpation and fostered
demands for national independence.
The Anglican Reformation is the best example of this movement. By abolishing papal jurisdiction and asserting
his headship of the national Church, Henry VIII laid the foundation
of future ecclesiastical reform.
The
Act of Supremacy restored at once the ancient rights of the civil power
in Church affairs, and implied a return to the original method of summoning
General Councils. At the