tation of corn, by finding out the secret of making, even in French, dialogues as amusing as our best romances, and as instructive as our good serious books. If this work did not diminish the price of bread, it gave great pleasure to the nation, which was what it valued most. The partisans of unlimited exportation answered him smartly. The result was, that the readers no longer knew where they were, and the greater part took to reading romances, expecting that the three or four following years of abundance would enable them to judge. The ladies were no longer able to distinguish wheat from rye, while honest devotees continued to believe, that grain must lie and rot in the ground, in order to spring up again. COUNCILS.* Meetings of Ecclesiastics, called together to resolve Doubts or Questions on Points of Faith or Discipline. THE use of councils was not unknown to the followers of the ancient religion of Zerdusht, whom we call Zoroaster.t About the year 200 of our era, Ardeshir Babecan, king of Persia, called together forty thousand priests, to consult them touching some of his doubts about paradise and hell, which they call the gehen a term adopted by the Jews during their captivity at Babylon, as they did the names of the angels and of the months. Erdoviraph, the most celebrated of the magi, having drunk three glasses of a soporific wine, had an extasy which lasted seven days and seven nights, during which his soul was transported to God. When the paroxysm was over, he re-assured the faith of the king, by relating to The subject matter of each of these three sections of the article COUNCILS being precisely the same, we think it necessary once more to observe, that the different sections which compose each article being, in almost every instance, taken from works published separately, cannot but contain some repetitions: but as the tone of each article, the reflections, or the manner of introducing them, is almost always different, we have thought proper the preserve each entire.-French Editor's Note. † Hyde-Religion of the Persians, chap. xxi. him the great many wonderful things he had seen in the other world, and having them written down. We know that Jesus was called Christ, a Greek word signifying anointed; and his doctrine Christianity, or gospel, i. e. good news, because having, as was his custom, entered one sabbath-day the synagogue of Nazareth, where he was brought up, he applied to himself this passage of Isaiah, which he had just read: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor." They of the synagogue did, to be sure, drive him out of their town, and carry him to a point of the hill, on which it was built, in order to throw him headlong from it; and his relatives "went out to lay hold on him," for they were told, and they said, "that he was beside himself."+ Nor is it less certain that Jesus constantly declared, he was come not to destroy the law or the prophecies, but to fulfil them. ↑ But, as he left nothing written, § his first disciples were divided on the famous question, whether the Gentiles were to be circumcised and ordered to keep the Mosaic law. The apostles and the priests, therefore, assembled at Jerusalem to examine this point; and, after many conferences, they wrote to the brethren among the Gentiles, at Antioch, in Syria, and in Cilicia, a letter of which we give the substance:-" It has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, not to impose upon you any obligations but those which are necessary, viz. to abstain from meats offered up to idols, from blood, from the flesh of choked animals, and from fornication." The decision of this council did not prevent Peter, when at Antioch, from continuing to eat with the Gentiles, before some of the circumcised, who came from James, had arrived. || But Paul, seeing that he did not walk straight in the path of gospel truth, resisted him * Luke chap. iv. 18. + Mark, chap. iii. v. 21. Matthew, chap. v. ver. 17. St. Jerome on chap. xliv. v. 29 of Ezekiel. VOL. II. 2 D to the face, saying to him before them all," If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" Indeed Peter had lived like the Gentiles ever since he had seen, in a trance, "heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth: Wherein were all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air. And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter, kill, and eat.' Paul, who so loudly reproved Peter for using this dissimulation to make them believe that he still observed the law, had himself recourse to a similar feint at Jerusalem. Being accused of teaching the Jews who were among the Gentiles to renounce Moses, he went and purified himself in the temple for seven days, in order that all might know that what they had heard of him was false, and that he continued to observe the law: this, too, was done by the advice of all the priests, assembled at the house of James,-which priests were the same who had decided, with the Holy Ghost, that these observances were unnecessary. Councils were afterwards distinguished into general and particular. Particular councils are of three kindsnational, convoked by the prince, the patriarch, or the primate; provincial, assembled by the metropolitan or archbishop; and diocesan, or synods held by each bishop. The following is a decree of one of the councils held at Macon: "Whenever a layman meet a priest or a deacon on the road, he shall offer him his arm: if the priest and the layman are both on horseback, the layman shall stop and salute the priest reverently; and if the priest be on foot, and the layman on horseback, the layman shall dismount, and shall not mount again until the ecclesiastic be at a certain distance :-all on pain of interdiction for as long a time as it shall please the metropolitan." * Acts, chap. x. v. 10, 13. † Acts, chap. xxi. v. 23. The list of the councils, in Moréri's Dictionary, occupies more than sixteen pages: but as authors are not agreed concerning the number of general councils, we shall here confine ourselves to the results of the first eight that were assembled by order of the emperors. Two priests of Alexandria, seeking to know whether Jesus was God or creature, not only did the bishops and priests dispute, but the whole people were divided, and the disorder arrived at such a pitch that the pagans ridiculed Christianity on the stage. The emperor Constantine first wrote in these terms to bishop Alexander and the priest Arius, the authors of the dissension: "These questions, which are unnecessary, and spring only from unprofitable idleness, may be discussed in order to exercise the intellect; but they should not be repeated in the hearing of the people. Being divided on so small a matter, it is not just that you should govern according to your thoughts so great a multitude of God's people. Such conduct is mean and puerile, unworthy of the priestly office, and of men of sense. I do not say this to compel you entirely to agree on this frivolous question, whatever it is. You may, with a private difference, preserve unity, provided these subtleties and different opinions remain secret in your inmost thoughts." The emperor, having learned that his letter was without effect, resolved, by the advice of the bishops, to convoke an oecumenical council-i. e. a council of the whole habitable earth, and chose for the place of meeting the town of Nicea, in Bithynia. There came thither two thousand and forty-eight bishops, who, as Eutychius relates,* were all of different sentiments and opinions. This prince, having had the patience to hear them dispute on this point, was much surprised at finding among them so little unanimity; and the author of the Arabic preface to this council says, that the records of these disputes amounted to forty volumes. * Annals of Alexandria, p. 440. This prodigious number of bishops will not appear incredible, when it is recollected that Usher, quoted by Selden,* relates that St. Patrick, who lived in the fifth century, founded three hundred and sixty-five churches, and ordained the like number of bishops; which proves that then each church had its bishop, that is, its overlooker. In the council of Nice there was read a letter from Eusebius of Nicomedia, containing manifest heresy, and discovering the cabal of Arius's party. In it was said, amongst other things, that if Jesus were acknowledged to be the Son of God uncreated, he must also be acknowledged to be consubstantial with the Father. Therefore it was that Athanasius, a deacon of Alexandria, persuaded the fathers to dwell on the word consubstantial, which had been rejected as improper by the council of Antioch, held against Paul of Samosata; but he took it in a gross sense, marking division; as we say, that several pieces of money are of the same metal whereas the orthodox explained the term consubstantial so well, that the emperor himself comprehended that it involved no corporeal idea-signified no division of the absolutely immaterial and spiritual substance of the Father--but was to be understood in a divine and ineffable sense. They moreover showed the injustice of the Arians in rejecting this word on pretence that it was not in the scriptures-they who employ so many words which are not there to be found: and who say that the Son of God was brought out of nothing, and had not existed from all eternity. : Constantine then wrote two letters at the same time, to give publicity to the ordinances of the council, and make them known to such as had not attended it. The first, addressed to the churches in general, says, in so many words, that the question of the faith has been examined, and so well cleared up, that no difficulty remains. In the second, amongst others, the church of Alexandria in particular is thus addressed :-"What * Page 86. |