The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
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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 Palæologus, 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 Basel, where they in vain depose Pope Eugene IV., who is too clever for the 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. Pope Julius II. would have had his Council of Lateran, in 1512, pass for an ecumenical council. In it that pope solemnly excommunicated Louis XII., king of France, laid France under an interdict, summoned the whole parliament of Provence to appear before him, and excommunicated all the philosophers, because most of them had taken part with Louis XII. Yet this council was not, like that of Ephesus, called the Council of Robbers.
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. It is thought that henceforward there will be no more general councils than there will be states-general in France or Spain. In the Vatican there is a fine picture, 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 chooses 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? To exercise our faith. They were all right, each in its time. At this day, the Roman Catholics believe 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 councils: the lesser ones are not worth the trouble. The first was that of Nice, assembled in the year 325 of the modern era, after Constantine had written and sent by Osius his noble letter to the rather turbulent clergy of Alexandria. It was debated whether Jesus was created or uncreated. This in no way concerned morality, which is the only thing essential. Whether Jesus was in time or before time, it is not the less our duty to be 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 Oxford, says that two thousand priests likewise protested. But prelates make not much account of mere priests, who are in general poor. However, there was nothing said of the Trinity in this first 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!
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 Seleucia, 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 absolutely 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, that the Gospel says not one syllable of the consubstantiality of the Word, nor of Mary's having had the honor of being mother of God, no more than of the other disputed points which brought together so many infallible councils.
Eutyches was a monk, who had cried out sturdily against Nestorius, whose heresy was nothing less than 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 Flavian, 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, and the argument made use of was the cudgel, as in the lesser council of Cirta, 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, 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 ascertain precisely whether Jesus—who, after having for a long period had but one nature, was then possessed of two—had also two wills. It is obvious how important this knowledge is to 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 honor. 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 anathematized 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-established. 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 anathematized 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.
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