One of the great councils was that of Ephesus, in 431. There, as already stated, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, a great persecutor of heretics, was himself condemned as a heretic, for having maintained that, although Jesus was really God, yet His mother was not absolutely mother of God, but mother of Jesus. St. Cyril procured the condemnation of Nestorius; but the partisans of Nestorius also procured the deposition of St. Cyril, in the same council; which put the Holy Ghost in considerable perplexity. Here, gentle reader, carefully observe, that the Gospel says not one syllable of the consubstantiality of the Word, nor of Mary's having had the honor of being mother of God, no more than of the other disputed points which brought together so many infallible councils. Eutyches was a monk, who had cried out sturdily against Nestorius, whose heresy was nothing less than supposing two persons in Jesus; which is quite frightful. The monk, the better to contradict his adversary, affirmed that Jesus had but one nature. One Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, maintained against him, that there must absolutely be two natures in Jesus. Thereupon, a numerous council was held at Ephesus in 449, and the argument made use of was the cudgel, as in the lesser council of Cirta, in 355, and in a certain conference held at Carthage. Flavian's nature was well thrashed, and two natures were assigned to Jesus. At the Council of Chalcedon, in 451, Jesus was again reduced to one nature. I pass by councils held on less weighty questions, and come to the sixth general Council of Constantinople, assembled to ascertain precisely whether Jesus--who, after having for a long period had but one nature, was then possessed of two--had also two wills. It is obvious how important this knowledge is to doing the will of God. This council was convoked by Constantine the Bearded, as all the others had been by the preceding emperors. The legates from the bishop of Rome were on the left hand, and the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch on the right. The train-bearers at Rome may, for aught I know, assert that the left hand is the place of honor. However, the result was that Jesus obtained two wills. The Mosaic law forbade images. Painters and sculptors had never made their fortunes among the Jews. We do not find that Jesus ever had any pictures, excepting perhaps that of Mary, painted by Luke. It is, however, certain that Jesus Christ nowhere recommends the worship of images. Nevertheless the primitive Christians began to worship them about the end of the fourth century, when they had become familiar with the fine arts. In the eighth century this abuse had arrived at such a pitch that Constantine Copronymus assembled, at Constantinople, a council of three hundred and twenty bishops, who anathematized image-worship, and declared it to be idolatry.