Note 208 — I. THE CHURCHES OF THE LYCUS.

This council cannot have been held earlier than the year 344, as the 7th canon makes mention of the Photinians, and Photinus did not attract notice before that year: see Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. p. 722 sq. In the ancient lists of Councils it stands after that of Antioch (A.D. 341), and before that of Constantinople (A.D. 381). Dr Westcott (History of the Canon, p. 400) is inclined to place it about A.D. 363, and this is the time very generally adopted.

Here however a difficulty presents itself, which has not been noticed hitherto. In the Syriac MS Brit. Mus. Add. 14,528, are lists of the bishops present at the earlier councils, including Laodicea (see Wright’s Catalogue of the Syriac MSS in the British Museum, DCCCVI, p. 1030 sq.). These lists have been published by Cowper (Syriac Miscell. p. 42 sq., Analecta Nicæna p. 36), who however has transposed the lists of Antioch and Laodicea, so that he ascribes to the Antiochian Synod the names which really belong to the Laodicean. This is determined (as I am informed by Prof. Wright) by the position of the lists.

The Laodicean list then, which seems to be imperfect, contains twenty names; and, when examined, it yields these results. (1) At least three-fourths of the names can be identified with bishops who sat at Nicæa, and probably the exceptions would be fewer, if in some cases they had not been obscured by transcription into Syriac and by the errors of copyists. (2) When identified, they are found to belong in almost every instance to Cœlesyria, Phœnicia, Palestine, Cilicia, and Isauria, whereas apparently not one comes from Phrygia, Lydia, or the other western districts of Asia Minor.

Supposing that this is a genuine Laodicean list, we are led by the first result to place it as near in time as possible to the Council of Nicæa; and by the second to question whether after all the Syrian Laodicea may not have been meant instead of the Phrygian. On the other hand tradition is unanimous in placing this synod in the Phrygian town, and in this very Syriac MS the heading of the canons begins ‘Of the Synod of Laodicea of Phrygia.’ On the whole it appears probable that this supposed list of bishops who met at Laodicea belongs to some other Council. The Laodicean Synod seems to have been, as Dr Westcott describes it (l.c.), ‘A small gathering of clergy from parts of Lydia and Phrygia.’

In a large mosaic in the Church at Bethlehem, in which all the more important Councils are represented, we find the following inscription; [Ἡ] ἁγία σύνοδος ἡ ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ τῆς Φρυγίας των κὲ ἐπισκόπων γέγονεν διὰ Μοντανὸν κὲ [τ]ὰ[ς] λοιπὰς ἑρέσεις· τού[τους] ὡς αἱρετικοὺς καὶ ἐχθροὺς τῆς ἀλεθείας ἡ ἁγία σύνοδος ἀνεθεμάτισεν (Ciampini de Sacr. Ædif. a Constant. constr. p. 156; comp. Boeckh Corp. Inscr. 8953). From its position we might infer that the synod to which this inscription refers was supposed to have taken place before the Council of Nicæa; and if so, it may have been one of those Asiatic synods held against Montanism at the end of the second or beginning of the third century. But, inasmuch as no record of any such synod is preserved elsewhere, we must probably refer it to the well-known Council of Laodicea in the fourth century. In this case however the description is not very correct, for though Montanism is incidentally condemned in the eighth canon, yet this condemnation was not the main object of the council and occupies a very subordinate place. The Bethlehem mosaics were completed A.D. 1169: see Boeckh C. I. 8736.