Snippets from the Introduction pages of "The Seven Ecumenical Councils", by Philip Schaff:
Concerning Ecumenical Councils Of The Church Fathers.
AN Ecumenical Synod may be defined as a synod the decrees of which have found acceptance by the Church in the whole world. It is not necessary to make a council ecumenical that the number of bishops present should be large, there were but 325 at Nice, and 150 at Constantinople; it is not necessary that it should be assembled with the intention of its being ecumenical, such was not the case with Constantinople; it is not necessary that all parts of the world should have been represented or even that the bishops of such parts should have been invited. All that is necessary is that its decrees find ecumenical acceptance afterwards, and its ecumenical character be universally recognized.
The reader will notice that in the foregoing I have not proceeded from the theological foundation of what an Ecumenical Synod should be but from a consideration of the historical question as to what the Seven Councils have in common, which distinguishes them from the other councils of the Christian Church. And here it is well to note that there have been many “General Councils” which have not been “Ecumenical.” It is true that in ordinary parlance we often use the expressions as interchangeable, but such really is not the case. There are but seven universally recognized and undisputed “Ecumenical Councils”; on the other hand, the number of “General Councils” is very considerable, and as a matter of fact of these last several very large ones fell into heresy. It is only necessary to mention as examples the Latrocinium and the spurious “Seventh Council,” held by the iconoclastic heretics. It is therefore the mere statement of an historical fact to say that General Councils have erred. The Ecumenical Councils claimed for themselves an immunity from error in their doctrinal and moral teaching, resting such claim upon the promise of the presence and guidance of the Holy Ghost. The Council looked upon itself, not as revealing any new truth, but as setting forth the faith once for all delivered to the Saints, its decisions therefore were in themselves ecumenical, as being an expression of the mind of the whole body of the faithful both clerical and lay, the sensus communis of the Church. And by the then teaching of the Church that ecumenical consensus was considered free from the suspicion of error, guarded, (as was believed,) by the Lord’s promise that the gates of hell should not prevail against his Church. This then is what Orthodox Christians mean when they affirm the infallibility of Ecumenical Councils. Whether this opinion is true or false is a question outside the scope of the present discussion. It was necessary, however, to state that these Councils looked upon themselves as divinely protected in their decisions from error in faith and morals. This was until the division of the East and West the definition accepted by all the whole Christian world. But since the Church has been divided, while the East has kept to the old definition and has not pretended to have held any Ecumenical Councils, the Roman Church has made a new definition of the old term and has then proceeded to hold a very considerable number of synods which she recognizes as Ecumenical. I say “a very considerable number,” for even among Roman Catholic theologians there is much dispute as to the number of these “Ecumenical Synods,” the decrees of which, like those of Trent and the Vatican, have never been received by about half of the Christian world, including four of the five patriarchates and of the fifth patriarchate all the Anglican communion. According to modern Roman writers the definition of these non-ecumenically
received Ecumenical Synods is “Ecumenical councils are those to which the bishops and others entitled to vote are convoked from the whole world under the Presidency of the Pope or his legates, and the decrees of which, having received Papal confirmation, bind all Christians.” Addis and Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, s. v. Councils. The reader will notice that by this definition one at least (I. Constantinople), probably three, of the seven undisputed Ecumenical Synods cease to be such. The reader should otherwise be at a loss to understand the anathematisms which follow the decrees, and which indeed would be singularly out of place, if the decrees which they thus emphatically affirm were supposed to rest only upon human wisdom and speculation, instead of upon divine authority.
The editor also ventures to call the attention of the reader to the fact that in this First council, as in every other of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the question the Fathers considered was not what they supposed Holy Scripture might mean, nor what they, from à priori arguments, thought would be consistent with the mind of God, but something entirely different, to wit, what they had received. They understood their position to be that of witnesses, not that of exegetes. They recognized but one duty resting upon them in this respect—to hand down to other faithful men that good thing the Church had received according to the command of God. The first requirement was not learning, but honesty. The question they were called upon to answer was not, What do I think probable, or even certain, from Holy Scripture? but, What have I been taught, what has been entrusted to me to hand down to others? When the time came, in the Fourth Council, to examine the Tome of Pope St. Leo, the question was not whether it could be proved to the satisfaction of the assembled fathers from Holy Scripture, but whether it was the traditional faith of the Church. It was not the doctrine of Leo in the fifth century, but the doctrine of Peter in the first, and of the Church since then, that they desired to believe and to teach, and so, when they had studied the Tome, they cried out: “This is the faith of the Fathers! This is the faith of the Apostles!…Peter hath thus spoken by Leo! The Apostles thus taught! Cyril thus taught!” etc.
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