rival, who ruled over all the Jacobites living between the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the Metropolitan of Edessa sent legates to Rome, for in 1444 Eugene had once more moved the council, that still went on sitting, to Rome. All the Maronites who had not already been converted at the time of the Crusades now came in too, but only one Nestorian bishop (Timothy of Tarsus) with a few people. Of course all these heretics gave up their errors, accepted the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon and acknowledged the Roman Primacy.[1] We count the Council of Florence as the seventeenth œcumenical synod. It is difficult to see from what point of view its œcumenical character could be denied. It was held in the presence of the Pope, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the legates of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. There were many more Easterns present than there had been Latins at any of the early synods that we all agree in calling œcumenical. Even if one were to take up the shamelessly Erastian position that the Emperor's presence and consent are necessary, Florence had both. Indeed, as a last possibility, if one were to require the presence of such old schismatical bodies as the Monophysites and Nestorians (a position which the Orthodox would of course abhor, and which would involve the denial of all councils except the first two), the heads of the Armenian, Coptic, and Abyssinian Churches were represented, and there were at least some Jacobites and Nestorians present. So that except, perhaps, Nicæa in 325 no council has ever had such a clear right to be considered œcumenical. This is, perhaps, the reason why the Orthodox who now reject its decrees quite specially hate it.[2] But the union of Florence was destined to come to as bad an end as that of Lyons two centuries before. On the Byzantine side it had been from the beginning a political move of the Government which the people had never wanted. As soon as the Emperor and his followers came home again to Constanti-
- ↑ Most of these Churches fell away again in part afterwards. But since the Council of Florence there has always been a body of Uniates from each, and all the Maronites are still Catholics.
- ↑ For the history of the Council of Florence see the Acts in Mansi, xxi.; the decree in Denzinger, lxxiii. Also Hefele, vii. pp. 681, seq.
