There is a general impression, even in the minds of historical students, that when once a council which after ages were to style "œcumenical" had given its decision on a point, that question was settled finally; and that any one who did not subscribe to it, wrote himself down heretic at once by his refusal. As a matter of fact no settlement was authoritative till it was generally accepted. In the eyes of contemporaries, Ephesus was simply an assembly, whose dictum needed re-enacting and "stiffening" (according to one party) at the second council held at that place, which we usually call by the name of the "Latrocinium"[1]; while according to the other party (the majority) its decision needed restating, and co-ordinating with other truths at Chalcedon.
This latter council, too, no more settled the question at issue than did that of Nicæa. Each was the beginning of a period of strife, not its conclusion. But whereas the dispute argued at Nicæa did come to an end (for the time) within three centuries after the dispersal of the council,[2] the problems "settled" at Chalcedon are causes of schism still, and will remain so, while Armenian, Copt and Jacobite remain unreconciled.
The council was rejected, either at once or after a very short interval, by whole provinces of the empire—not altogether, it is true, for theological reasons—but that does not alter the fact. Broadly, it was rejected absolutely by Egypt and Palestine, the former of which will have none of it to this day. A large majority of the Christians of the
- ↑ One may accept fully the doctrinal statement endorsed by the first Council of Ephesus, and yet feel that the contrast between it and the second is not so marked as to make it obvious why the members of the first form a gathering of inspired fathers, and of the second, a "gang of brigands."
- ↑ i.e. with the abandonment of Arianism by the Lombards, temp. Gregory the Great.
