rs; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in
the public opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride,
and sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign.
The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the weakness,
the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods;
and the Catholic world has unanimously submitted [129] to the infallible
decrees of the general councils. [130]

[Footnote 125: The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations concerning synods,
metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons have been variously
tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the interest
of the clergy. The Suburbicarian churches, assigned (by Rufinus) to the
bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement controversy (See
Sirmond, Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238.)]

[Footnote 126: We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal
subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account, reckons six
hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 422.]

[Footnote 127: See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre, Hist.
du Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of bishop, which is given by
Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i. p. 440, vers.
Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even
episcopal ordination.]

[Footnote 128: See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 6-21.
Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.]

[Footnote 129: Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quae a quatuor
Sanctis Coueiliis.... expositae sunt act firmatae. Praedictarum enim
quat uor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas Scripturas et regulas sicut
leges observamus. Justinian. Novell. cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect.
proleg. p. 2) remarks, that the emperors never made new laws in
ecclesiastical matters; and Giannone observes, in a very different
spirit, that they gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils.
Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.]

[Footnote 130: See the article Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom. iii.
p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The author, M. de docteur Bouchaud,
has discussed, according to the principles of the Gallican church,
the principal questions which relate to the form and constitution of
general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see Preface, p.
xvi.) have reason to be proud of this art