The Authority of this Council has ever been great among the _Greeks_, who style it an Oecumenical Council, and had often recourse to it as such in the Council of _Chalcedon_[1145]. The Bishops of the _Hellespont_ speak of it with the greatest Respect and Reverence, in a Letter they writ to the Emperor _Leo_[1146]. [Sidenote: _and the_ Latins.] As for the _Latins_, I find a great Disagreement among the Popes themselves concerning the Authority of this Council; nay, the greatest of them all disagrees even with himself about it. The Legates of Pope _Leo_ rejected its Canons, alleging that they had never been inserted in the Book of the Canons[1147]. In like manner the Popes _Simplicius_ and _Felix_ II. speaking of the Councils which they received, name those only of _Nice_, _Ephesus_, and _Chalcedon_[1148]. _Gregory the Great_ writes, that the Church of _Rome_ had neither the Acts nor the Canons of the Council of _Constantinople_; that the Condemnation of the _Macedonians_ was the only thing done by that Council which they admitted; and that as to other Heresies condemned there, they rejected them, as having been condemned before by other Councils[1149]. But he declares elsewhere, and often repeats it, that he received the Four Oecumenical Councils, as he did the Four Gospels[1150], naming the Council of _Constantinople_ in the Second Place. [Sidenote: _The Popes at Variance among and with themselves about it._] In the same Manner, and with the same Words, were the Four Oecumenical Councils received by _Gelasius_, and several Popes before him, as well as by _Martin_ I. and several others after him: so that the Council of _Constantinople_ is, according to some Popes, of equal Authority with the Gospel; according to others, of no Authority at all: nay, it is thus by the same Pope at one time extolled, at another undervalued. Let _Baronius_ and _Bellarmine_ reconcile these Contradictions, if they can. [Sidenote: _This Council was assembled by the Emperor, and not by_ Damasus.]