Summa de Ecclesia

Having seen who of themselves and necessarily come to be summoned to universal councils, namely the greater prelates, next it comes to be examined whether necessarily all the greater prelates of the world are to be summoned and ought to take part in the universal council. For the determination of this question the distinction of the universal council which we set down above must be repeated by us. For we said that the universal council at present is taken in two ways. In one way said from the universe, as the provincial from the province; and in this way that is called a universal council which the pope or his legate celebrates with the fathers from the whole universe, which according to Aug. we call a plenary council. In another way it is called universal from the universality of authority which is over the whole Church. Speaking in the first way of the universal council which is called plenary, we say that for the perfection of this council all the bishops of the world are to be convoked, and if not particularly, in common — at least by convoking and inviting all patriarchs and primates, that they themselves come to the council with bishops whom they shall have deemed to be chosen, since it is neither possible nor even useful that all come together at once; this is proved quite openly from the deeds of the eighth council, to which the Emperor Basil is said to have convoked the architects of the ecclesiastical tabernacle from the ends of the world. Likewise it is read there that on the arrival of the vicar of the patriarch of Alexandria, who was wanting, the fathers of that council said: We glorify the God of all who has supplied what was wanting to the universal council and now has shown it most perfect; these things there. Whence Abbot Anastasius speaking of the eighth synod in the letter to Pope Adrian says thus: This most holy synod was therefore made in the third year of the empire of Basil the pious prince, who, having bishops as servants in their place holding all the patriarchal thrones so that to none of the others, is not unfittingly called universal by all. For it is universal first because the catholic faith is in it, and the holy laws which ought to be cherished and venerated not only by priests but by all Christians, and defended against their enemies with one voice; then because, since in Christ in his body which is the Church there are as many patriarchal sees as there are senses in the body of any mortal, certainly nothing would be wanting to the generality of the Church if all those sees were of one will, just as nothing is wanting to the motion of the body if all the senses are wholly of common health. Among which sees namely, because the Roman excels, it is not undeservedly compared to sight, which indeed excels all the senses, being sharper than they and having communion with all as none of them has; these things there. From which it is plain that a universal council is not so called because all the rulers of the world come together in presence, but only representatively. Whence the fathers themselves coming, though few in respect of the others, yet since they represent the universality of the others, fulfil the authority of the council, since they come in the name of the others. Whence in the second African council it is said that the legates in the name of others give full authority to the council. And hence it is that whatever has been concluded by those present is said concluded by universal consent, as is gathered from ch. Sicut dist. 19, where blessed Gregory after commemoration of the first five universal councils says thus: Those persons who reject the aforesaid venerable councils I reject; those who venerate them I embrace, since while they were established by universal consent, he destroys himself and not them whosoever presumes, etc. For although all the prelates of the world were not gathered in those councils, yet because those present represented all who had been summoned, they are judged to have had the authority or consent of all of them. Whence in a certain Toledan council it is thus said: If anyone, whether of ours or of those who are now wanting to the holy synod from the province, shall presume to oppose this salutary ordination, convicted let him be held a stranger to the whole fraternal charity. For those present are deemed to have all authority, the others having been duly summoned to the synod; these things there. In this manner of universality the first eight councils are called universal, since to them fathers came together from the whole Christian world, and though few in number yet all were in authority by representation; for the first was of 318 fathers, the second of 150, the third of 200, the fourth of 230; yet equally they are said to have been universal and plenary councils, both from the authoritative presence of the apostolic see which has the primacy over the whole world, and from the representation in those present of the consent of all bishops of the world. Which is also manifestly gathered from the third action of the seventh synod, where in the letter which the eastern bishops write to Caesarius, patriarch of Constantinople, it is thus had: If ye will not celebrate the synod, let it not seem a trouble to you that the absence of the three apostolic patriarchal sees and of the most holy bishops who dwell under them happens not from their own purpose but from the terrible threats and death-bearing punishments of those dominating them. This however is to be considered more subtly even from the sacred and universal sixth synod itself, in which none of those who at that time were bishops in these parts is found to have come together owing to the prevailing of the foul, but no prejudice attached from this to the holy synod, nor had any prohibition force, for decreeing and making manifest the right dogmas of piety, especially since the most holy and apostolic Roman Pope has agreed, and is found therein through his apocrisiaries; and now, most holy one, this will likewise come to pass with God's help; these things there. Where it is not to be passed over that in these universal councils celebrated in such parts of the east, few or none of the laity were present besides the legates of the pope. But speaking in the second way of the universal council, said not from the universality of the world so that fathers from the whole world have been summoned or have come together, but from the universality of power, in which way that is called a universal council which the pope by himself or his legate celebrates with some prelates summoned concerning things which regard the universal Church, we say that it is not necessary to summon to it all the prelates of the world or bishops from the whole world, but it suffices to summon some from some provinces, and those concerning whom according as for the quality of affairs and the opportunity of times it shall seem expedient to the Roman pontiff and there shall have been faculty, now from many, now from fewer provinces, or even from one only, as in ch. Guilisanus 23, q. 4, the pope says: with the bishops whom I could gather. This however we also show by example. First indeed by the example and practice of the councils celebrated in the time of the primitive Church by the apostles. For although blessed Peter, first constituted by Christ supreme pontiff of the universal Church, is read to have celebrated with the apostles several councils, even universal ones, as we commemorated above in ch. 2, yet he is not read to have celebrated them with all the apostles present, nor are the absent apostles, who in those times were dispersed through Judea for preaching, read to have been summoned or to have come, but he is read to have celebrated only with those apostles and elders who were at Jerusalem. Nay in the council which was celebrated in matter of faith concerning the question of the cessation of the legal observances, only blessed Peter and James who was bishop of Jerusalem, and Paul and Barnabas who had come to Jerusalem to have the determination of the aforesaid question, are read to have come together. Second, this same is gathered from the practice of the other councils which are read celebrated by the holy fathers. For in the time of Pope Cornelius, when a new heresy sprang up denying that indulgence could be obtained after a lapse, whose author they say was Novatus the priest, a most celebrated synod was gathered at Rome by blessed Cornelius himself, in which Novatus himself with his accomplices was cast out from the Church, and it was defined that those who had lapsed could obtain indulgence; to which synod however neither all patriarchs nor bishops of the world are read summoned. Besides, the same is plain concerning the most ample synod celebrated at Rome by blessed Sylvester after the Nicene synod, of 277 bishops, in which, the rules of the Nicene council confirmed and Arius damned, many things profitable to ecclesiastics were defined, and yet to this synod bishops from the whole world are not read gathered. The same is also concerning the synod gathered at Rome in the time of Pope Celestine, most celebrated, which damned Nestorius as a heretic; concerning which synod blessed Cyril bishop of Alexandria says thus in the synodal letter to the same Nestorius: Behold therefore with the holy synod which has been gathered in the ample city of Rome, our most holy and venerable brother and fellow priest Celestine the bishop presiding, by these synodal writings we address thee, and now for the third time we meet, etc.; and so of many others, etc., which were universal and most celebrated, to which prelates are not read to have been convoked from the whole Christian world, but only from some provinces from which they could more conveniently and easily come together, and yet in them there was treated of the faith which is universal, and many things were instituted to whose observance the whole Church is bound, just as we could easily adduce examples of many councils, as of those celebrated under Pope Hilary, under Felix the third, under Gelasius, under Symmachus, under Stephen the 3rd, under Nicholas the 1st, under Gregory the 7th, under Calixtus the 2nd, under Innoc. the 2nd, under Eugenius the 3rd, under Alexander the 3rd, under Innoc. the 3rd and Clement the 5th. An example also — that to a general synod only fathers of one province were summoned — can be gathered from that council of the apostles which was gathered concerning the question of the legal observances in Acts 15, where with the apostles only the elders of the province of Judea are said to have come together, nor were the other absent apostles or disciples summoned, as we noted above concerning ch. 2. It is however to be noted concerning the universal councils which are called plenary, to which fathers from the whole world were summoned, both that such had exceeding difficulty and labor, and were not gathered save for the greatest and arduous matters, as for instance when heresies arisen had great authors and favorers or a multitude of bishops, as happened concerning the aforesaid eight universal councils, and therefore they are rarely read celebrated by the fathers, according as can be gathered from the times of the supreme pontiffs. Whence from the first Nicene council, which was celebrated under Pope Sylvester, even unto the second, which was celebrated at Constantinople under Pope Damasus, 52 years flowed. From the second synod even unto the third, which was the first Ephesine, which was celebrated under Pope Celestine, 60 years flowed. From the third council indeed even unto the fourth at Chalcedon, which was celebrated in the time of first Pope Leo, according to some 30, according to others 19 years flowed. From the fourth even unto the fifth synod, which was celebrated at Constantinople, 128 years flowed. From the sixth even unto the seventh, which was celebrated in the city of Nicaea in the time of Pope Adrian, 110 flowed. From the seventh even unto the eighth, which was celebrated at Constantinople in the time of Adrian the 2nd, 82 years flowed. And thus it is plain how rarely those general councils were celebrated in those times, since in the space of five hundred and forty-five years only eight plenary councils are read celebrated.