ered with regard to its head, but as it embraces all the faithful, or laics, under the obedience of the pope, it is not proper to say it is infallible in teaching and defin- ing, because its gift in this respect is not to teach, but to learn and believe ; wherefore the Church, in this view, is said to be ' passibly infallible,' or infallible in learn- ing, beUeving, practising, etc. Therefore it is impossi- ble that the whole Church, obedient to the pope, should believe any thing as revealed, or practice any thing as good which is not such ; hence it can be said that the sense of the universal Cluirch is always true, and its practice or usage always good" (Dens, Theol, tom. ii, De Ecclesia, No.80, De I njallMHtate Ecclesice). The same author affirms also that "the Church is an infallible judge of controversies of faith; that this authority is vested in the bishops only, especiallj' in the pope, and that lay persons, priests, doctors, or others, have no part in making infallible decisions in the Church." He says the government of the Church is a monarchy with re- gard to its head, but, at the same time, tempered with an aristocracy. A unanimous consent is not necessary to make a decision infallible ; a majority is sufficient for this purpose. He also says that a tacit consent is suffi- cient to make a decision infallilile; for to be silent is to consent. Hence he concludes that "when the pope de- fines anything, and the majority of bishops do not object, it is impossible that this definition should embrace error" (Dens, Theol. tom. ii. No. 82, Qnalis essp (hlif^/i/ C'lih^cnstis Kjnscoporum). " From the above we collect \'< >ur princi- pal systems which concern the seat of infallihility, and these contain a considerable number of subilivisions, the chief of which are expressed in the following analysis. First Si/stem: This embraces the infaUibility of the whole Church, and includes two cases : (1.) The Church dilfusive, that is, all her clergy as a body, inasmuch as the people, whenever infaUibility is concerned, compose no part of the Church. (2.) The bishops, as the rejwe- sentatives of the Church, though not assembled in coun- cil. Second Si/steni : A council composed of all the bish- ops; and this also is divided into two cases : (1.) The de- cision of a council when approved by the whole Church. (2.) The decision of a council when not approved by the whole Church. Thii-d Si/stem: A council and pope united. There are foiu: cases of this : (1 .) A council convened by the pope. (2.) A council confirmed by the pope. (3.) A council convened by the pope, and whose decisions are received by the whole Church, or the body of her pastors, (4.) A council confirmed by the pope, and received subsequently by the Church. Fourth St/s- tem : Respects the infallibility of the pope himself. This has the four following cases: (1.) The pope himself de- ciding officialh\ (2.) The pope and a few bishops. (3.) The pope, when his decisions are received by the whole Church. (4.) The pope and a few bishops, whose de- cisions are received by the whole Church. Any person who will examine the quotations given from Roman Catholic authors will perceive these four distinct sys- tems, together with the several cases under each. If we also consider their differences in regard to the extent of infallibility (some confining it to articles of faith and precepts of morality, and others making distinctions be- tween matters of nr/ht and facts, and then of facts con- nected with faith, and also that their Church has not precisely defined where this infallibility is to be found), then we may safely say that the bare recital of their endless divisions respecting the seat of infallibility will prove that the thing is not in existence" (Elliott, On Romnnism, p. 66).
This infallibility of the Church Romanists attempt to prove (1.) from a supposed unanimity of the bishops, which, they argue, woidd, if considered as mere human testimony, carrj' with it an. amount of moral certainty admitting of no doubt, and therefore equivalent to infal- libility; (2.) from the divinely appointed mission of a clergy regidarly descended from the apostles, who them- selves had the most positive )iromises of Christ (John XX, 21; XV, 15; Matt, xxviii, 19, 20; John xiv, 16, 17;
mFALLIBILITY
570
INFALLIBILITY
Luke X, 16). They also quote 2 Tim. i, 14; ii,2; and Acts XX, 28, to show that the apostles claimed this priv- ilege for themselves, as well as the power of transmit- ting it to those they appointed over the churches.
The same privilege has also been ascribed to the pope as successor of St. Peter, and God's only vicege- rent. The ultramontanes, such as Bellarmine, Baronius, etc., maintain that whatever dogmatic judgment or de- cision on a doctrinal point the pope addressed to the whole church, is necessarily correct. But as it has re- peatedly occurred that the Church, as represented in councils, has disagreed with the pope on points of doc- trine, it follows that, if both arc equally infallible, the people are bound to believe equally two opposite doc- trines. The French Church settled the difficulty by proclaiming general councils superior to the pope (or " more ijifallible") ; the assembly of the clergy, in 1682, asserted that " in controversies of faith the office of the pope is the chief, and that his decrees pertain to aU chiurches; nevertheless, that his judgment is not irre- fonnibile unless it is contirmcd by the consent of the Church." Bossuet sustained this principle with great talent and eloquence in his Defemio Dedarai. Cleri Gallic, ii, pt. i, 12 sq. He proves by the decrees of coun- cils, by the testimony of fathers, doctors, and schoolmen, by the declarations of popes themselves, and especially of Adrian YI, that the infallibility of the pope was a new doctrine, altogether unknown in the early ages of the Church. " He disproves the infallibility of the pope not merely by negative, but by a long and strong chain of positive evidence; by adducing a number of instances, as well as direct assertions of his infallibility from gen- eration after generation ; by showing, from a large induc- tion of facts, that during a series of centuries he was re- garded antl treated as fallible, and never as otherwise than fallible ; and that, when another opinion began to gain ground, it arose mainly from the exercise of that authority which belongs to a supreme power" (Hare, Contest with Rome, p. 213). Bossuet's views were held by Fleury, Dupin, cardinal Bausset, etc. They were attack- ed by De IMaistre in his work Du Pape. A work of great interest on this subject is the recently discovered Refutation of all Heresies of Hippolytus, which gives us a clear idea of the manner in which the Roman bishops were considered in his times. '• Fn Germany, where truth is held the most precious of all possessions, even by members of the Catholic Church, the conviction of the mischiefs produced by the doctrine of the infallibili- ty of the pope is so strongly felt by many, that one of the greatest philosophers of the last generation, Baader, who was a zealous champion of the Christian truth, and himself an earnest Roman Catholic, used perpetually to repeat the pregnant words of St. Martin, 'Le Papisme est la faiblesse du Catholicisme ; et le Catholicisme est la force du Papisme' " (Hare, Contest tcith Rome, p. 218). As regards the infallibility of the Church, Dr. New- man himself, in his Lectures on Romdvism, p. 61, said: " In the creed of pope Pius not a word is said expressly al)out the Church's infallibility: it forms no article of faitli thorp. Her interpretation indeed of Scripture is rccogniseil as authoritative; but so also is 'the unani- mous consent of the fathers, whether as primitive or con- cordant; they believe the existing Church to he infalli- ble; and, if ancient belief is at variance with it, which of course they ilo not allow, but if it is, then antiquity must be mistaken — that is all.'"