be
abstained from.' And Flavian likewise seemed to have been against this. But
after the Emperor, with good intentions, had convoked the Synod, Leo gives
his consent, and sends the letter to the Synod, in which he praises the
Emperor for being willing to hold an assembly of Bishops, 'that by a fuller
judgment all error may be done away with.' He mentions that he had sent
Legates, who, says he, 'in my stead shall be present at the sacred assembly
of your Brotherhood, and determine, by a joint sentence with you, what
shall please the Lord.'

"Here are three points: first, that in questions of faith it is not always
necessary for an Ecumenical Council to be assembled. Secondly, that Leo,
great Pontiff as he was, did not decline a judgment, if the cause required
it, after the matter had been judged by himself. Thirdly, that, if a Synod
were held, it behoved that all error should be done away with by a fuller
judgment, and the question be terminated by the Apostolic See, by a joint
sentence with the Bishops, in which he acknowledges that full force of
consent, so often mentioned by me.

"But after Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, the protector of Eutyches, had
done every thing with violence and crime, and not a Council, but an
assembly of robbers downright, had been held at Ephesus, then, when the
Episcopal order had been divided, and the whole Church thrown into
confusion, under the name of the Second Ecumenical Council of Ephesus, Leo
himself admits that a new general Council must be held, which should either
remove or mitigate all offences, so that there should no longer be either
any doubt as to faith, or division in charity. Therefore he perceived that
schisms, and such a fluctuation of minds respecting the faith itself, could
not be sufficiently removed by his own judgment. And the Pontiff, no less
wise and good than resolute, demanded a fuller, firmer, greater judgment,
by the authority of a General Council, by which, that is, all doubt might
be removed.

"But the Emperor Theodosius would not hear of a new Council, so long as he
thought that due order had been preserved at Ephesus. 'For the matter was
settled at Ephesus by the deposition of those who deserved it; and a
decision having been once passed, nothing else can be determined after it.'
Here the difference between the judgments of Roman Pontiffs and of General
Councils is very evident; the judgment of the Roman Pontiff being
reconsidered in a Council, whereas