§1
I have shown that some authority must necessarily exist in the Church, living and judging clearly and distinctly between the parties. Catholics acknowledge the Pontiff as that judge, whether he judges in a General Council or even without a council—which I do not now dispute. For since heretics hate the Pontiff and are exasperated against him in many ways, I do not wish to name him as judge in vain, for they will immediately demand the Apostles. Therefore I propose a General Council. If its authority is not infallible, there is absolutely no authority which can render the interpretations of Scripture certain for us. From this, I have shown, it follows that darkness and doubts are thoroughly introduced into the Christian religion, the possession of faith is tossed in astonishing ways, and a far greater confusion arises than in the ἀταξίᾳ [disorder] of empires, when the equity of laws is agitated by the cunning of crafty men and the integrity and fear of judgments have been removed.
Moreover, the authority even of provincial councils is enormous in the Church, and the practice has always prevailed that assemblies of bishops be gathered to form morals rightly and to break heresies. They seek their beginning from the deed of Christ the Lord, who, after summoning the Apostles, questioned them concerning the sum of the faith: “Whom do men say the Son of Man to be?” And, “Whom do you say that I am?” The Apostles too, in Acts 1, 6, and 15, governed the Church and rooted out errors after a council was assembled.
For the end of councils is the preservation of faith and morals. The Catholic Church of Christ itself, the diligent and cautious guardian of the dogmas committed to it, never changes anything in them, diminishes nothing, adds nothing; it does not amputate necessary things, append superfluous ones, lose its own, or usurp things belonging to another. But with every industry it attends to this one thing: that by treating ancient things faithfully and wisely, if any were formed and begun in antiquity, it may refine and polish them; if any have already been expressed and unfolded, it may consolidate and strengthen them; if any have already been confirmed and defined, it may guard them. Finally, what other cause has there ever been for the decrees of councils than that what was formerly believed simply should afterward be believed more diligently; that what was formerly preached more gently should afterward be preached more urgently; and that what was formerly cultivated more securely should afterward be cultivated more solicitously? This, I say, and nothing besides, has the Catholic Church—stirred by the novelties of heretics—always accomplished by the decrees of its councils: that what it had first received from its forefathers by customary tradition, it should thereafter consign to posterity by the chirograph of Scripture, comprehending a great sum of matters in a few letters and, generally for the light of understanding, designating not a new sense of faith by the propriety of a new appellation.
§2
Such, therefore, was the solicitude of the bishops after the Apostles that, because they were impeded by the bitterness of persecution and it was not lawful to hold a General Council, they nevertheless met together frequently. Thus Pope Victor, in the year 198 under the emperor Severus, proclaimed a council, and at nearly the same time the Pontic, Gallic, Osroene, and Asian councils were celebrated. In 217, the African council was proclaimed by Agrippinus of Carthage. In 242, the Labesitan council under the pontificate of Fabian; likewise, in 149, the Arabian. In 253, the Roman council while the see was vacant, and the first Carthaginian under Cornelius in 254. Then, under the same pontiff, the first and second Roman councils, likewise an Italian and another Carthaginian. While Pope Stephen governed the Church, the council called the First African was held, likewise the Iconian, the Synadan, and three Carthaginian councils. Under Pope Dionysius, one at Rome and two at Antioch; under Marcellinus, the Cirtense and Sinuessan; under Marcellus, the Eliberitan and two assemblies of the Donatists held at Carthage; under Miltiades, the Roman; under Sylvester, the First Council of Arles, the Ancyran, the Neocaesarean, the Roman, two Alexandrian, the Laodicean, another Roman, and finally the General Council of Nicaea.
Who would not marvel that at that time, when pagan fury raged openly and manifestly and heresies sprouted everywhere, there was so great a spirit in those brave heroes of the Church that, as though in the highest peace, they gathered assemblies of bishops, expounded the norm of faith, and cut off heretics? I am not ignorant that there were more synods within that period; I speak of those of which either all or some acts survive. Nor did I wish to pass over even condemned conventicles and those of heretics, for by their own preposterous emulation they demonstrate to us the custom of the Church. There is no need to mention subsequent times. They possessed seventeen General Councils and hundreds of provincial ones, so that the Church should deservedly embrace the aid which it has always employed, and with such felicity that condemned heresies perished so completely that almost no memory of them now survives except in the books of Catholics by which they are refuted.
Here it is pleasing to attend to what the most learned Pammelius comments upon chapter 13 of Tertullian against the Psychics.
These are the words of Tertullian: “Throughout those regions of Greece, councils from all the churches are held in fixed places, through which all the higher matters are treated in common and the very representation of the whole Christian name is celebrated with great veneration.” These are the words from Pammelius’s commentary: “And thus this passage contributes greatly to the authority of councils. We are accustomed to confirm it especially by the same Scriptures by which we confirm the authority of the Church: Matthew 28 and Luke 21; likewise that passage in Matthew 18: ‘Where two or three have been gathered in my name, there am I in their midst.’ Next, this too contributes to the same point: that in the Apostles’ Council at Jerusalem, Acts 15, James expressly wrote back in these words: ‘It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.’ Blessed Irenaeus in book 3, chapter
12, makes so much of this that from the words of that synod he proves the one God against Marcion.
“But if anyone desires to know the first synods after Christ down to the times of Tertullian, he will find first the synods of the Apostles celebrated at Jerusalem: Acts 1, in the election of Matthias; Acts 2, at Pentecost; Acts 6, in the election of the seven deacons; Acts 15, the council already cited; and finally that concerning which Galatians 2 speaks, when Peter was ordained to the apostolate of the circumcision, but Paul among the gentiles. To these add the council in which the Canons of the Apostles and the Apostolic Constitutions, afterward collected by Blessed Clement of Rome, were published. Likewise that in which James, the brother of the Lord, was elected bishop of Jerusalem, according to what Clement of Alexandria writes in book 6 of the Hypotyposes, cited by Eusebius in book 2, chapter 1.
“Next you have the Antiochene council of Acts 13, where Blessed Paul and Barnabas were separated from one another, and the Ephesian, to which Paul summoned all the presbyters and bishops of the Ephesians and, as far as appears, of all Asia, Acts 20. To these the Corinthian council seems to be added, in which—according to what Blessed Augustine asserts in the letter to Casulanus—according to his promise which he had spoken in 1 Corinthians 11, ‘I shall arrange the remaining things when I come,’ Paul established many things concerning the rite of the Eucharist.
“Moreover, since Apostolic Canon 37 establishes that assemblies of bishops concerning dogmas of religion and ecclesiastical controversies be held twice in each year, there is no doubt that frequent synods were already celebrated in the individual provinces. That their statutes were sent to Rome long ago through Pope Damasus to Aurelius, bishop of Carthage, is established from his letter which Blessed Isidore of Seville prefixed to his canons of councils. He says that none of his predecessors from Blessed Peter onward omitted to send something of their statutes. Although it seems to us that he alludes to the decretal letters of the Roman Pontiffs, which were generally written in Roman councils, we nevertheless leave the judgment free to the reader, referring him to the books which Francis Torres composed on their authority.
“Yet the Roman councils under Clement cannot be passed over—which Anacletus mentions in Letter 1—nor those under Alexander I, Sixtus I, and Telesphorus, since they mention them in their decretals. Certainly, under Victor, Eusebius enumerates almost innumerable councils concerning the day of Passover in History, book 5, chapter 20 or 22, and after him Nicephorus in book 4, chapter 30; and expressly the Roman council with Victor presiding and that of the Gauls under Blessed Irenaeus in the West; likewise one at Caesarea in Palestine, one in Pontus through Osroene, and the Corinthian or Achaean council. To these it is permissible to add the Alexandrian, which Victor himself mentions in Decretal 1, and that of Asia, in which Nicephorus, book 4, final chapter, writes that even the Asians—who had defined the contrary in their own synods—yielded to Pope Victor and published the same decree. And these seem to me the councils which the author here commemorates as held throughout the regions of Greece. Moreover, Eusebius in chapter 23 of the same book, and Nicephorus after him, from Apollinaris’s first book against Montanus, mention many assemblies of Asia in which Montanus with his followers was expelled from communion.”
§3
Although they ought deservedly to hear the Pontiff—since he who deserts his chair is not in the Church; since the Roman faith is apostolic; since it is the matrix and principal Church and the chair of Peter; since priestly unity arose from it; since perfidy cannot possess access to it; since he who communicates with him communicates with the Catholic Church, and he who does not communicate with him cannot communicate with it—contempt for him is itself also the beginning of schisms and heresies. For these reasons, I say, which I report from Cyprian, although those who err ought deservedly to hear their pastor, I nevertheless prefer to propose a council to them, if perhaps, when it has been read or heard, hatred of the name may obstruct the learning of the faith less.
Moreover, all the holy Fathers and the councils themselves are witnesses of this matter. For all General Councils attributed infallible judgment to themselves, even the Nicene and others which are received by the innovators. If their authority was uncertain, it was also a fault and a pernicious error. But Bellarmine gives the authorities of the holy Fathers in book 2, chapter 3, where he can be consulted concerning this matter.