councils originated in Greece, it is plain that it gives no sanction whatever to any such theory.  Neither does it afford the slightest foundation for the inference that, at the time when it was written, these ecclesiastical convocations were unknown in Africa and Italy.  We have direct proof that before this period they not only met in Rome, but that the bishop of the great city had been in the habit of requesting his brother pastors in other countries to hold such assemblies. [614:1] There is, too, satisfactory evidence that they were now not unknown at Carthage, [614:2] and Tertullian himself elsewhere apparently refers to the proceedings of African synods. [614:3] He must have been well aware that they had recently assembled in various parts of the West to pronounce judgment in the Paschal controversy; for the decisions of the Gallic and Roman synods mentioned by Eusebius seem to have been published all over the Church; and the reason why he refers to the convocations of the Greeks was, not because such meetings were not held in other lands, but because these, from their peculiar method of procedure in the way of fasting, [614:4] supplied, as he conceived, a very apposite argument in support of the discipline which he was so desirous to recommend.

If historians have erred in stating that synods commenced in Greece, they have been still more egregiously mistaken in asserting that the once famous Amphictyonic Council suggested their establishment, and furnished the model for their construction.  In the second century of the Christian era the Council of the Amphictyons was shorn of its glory, and though it then continued to meet, [615:1] it had long ceased to be either an exponent of the national mind, or a free and independent assembly.  It is not to be imagined that the Christian community, in the full vigour of its early growth, would all at once have abandoned its apostolic constitution, and adopted a form of government borrowed from an effete institute.  Synods, which now formed so prominent a part of the ecclesiastical polity, could claim a higher and holier original.  They were obviously nothing more than the legitimate development of the primitive structure of the Church, for they could be traced up to that meeting of the apostles and elders at Jerusalem which relieved the Gentile converts from the observance of the rite of circumcision.

The most plausible argument in support of the theory that the Amphictyonic Council suggested the establishment of synodical conventions is based upon the alleged fact that these ecclesiastical meetings were at first held in spring and autumn, or exactly at the times when the Greek political deputies were accustomed to assemble. [615:2] But this statement, when closely examined, is found to be quite destitute of evidence.  Tertullian does not say that the Greek synods met twice a year, and we know that, at least half a century afterwards, they assembled only annually.  This fact is attested by Firmilian of Cappadocia in his