it became generally known that it was intended to bring this subject before the council, a number of works ap- peareil, discussing the proposed innovation in every as- pect. By far the most important of these is the one published in tJermany under the title Ikr Papst umi <liis C'incil (Mentz, 1809; Engl, transl. The Pope and the Conuril), which gives an exhaustive history of the views of the Church concerning infallibility. The author of the work, who on the title-page calls himself Janus, was subsequently found to be professor Huber, of the Univer- sity of Munich. The book is a storehouse of immense learning, for the author quotes thousands of individual cases to show that no one can for a moment believe in this doctrine without falsifying the whole history of the Church. " For thirteen centuries," says our author, " an incom])rehensible silence on this fundamental article reigned throughout the whole Church and her litera- ture. None of the ancient confessions of faith, no cate- chism, none of the patristic writings composed for the instruction of the people, contain a syllable about the pope, still less any hint that all certainty of faith and doctrine depends on him." Not a single question of doctrine for the first thousand years was finally decided by the popes; in none of the early controversies did they take any part at all ; and their interposition, when they began to interpose, was often far from felicitous. Pope Zosimus commended the Pelagian teaching of Ce- lestius, pope Julian affirmed the orthodoxy of the Sa- bellian Marcellus of Ancyra, pope Liberius subscribed an Arian creed, pope Vigilius contradicted himself three times running on a question of faith, pope Honorius lent tlie will lie weight of his authority to the support of the newly-introduced IMonothelite heresy, and was solemnly anathematized by three oecumenical councils for doing 80. Nor do these "errors and contradictions of the popes" grow by any means fewer or less important as time goes on. The blundering of successive popes about the conditions of valid ordination — on which, according to Catholic theology, the whole sacramental system, and therefore the means of salvation, depend — are alone sufficient to dispose forever of th;ir claim to infallibilit}'. Neither, again, did the Roman i)ontiffs possess, in the ancient constitution of the Church, any ot those powers which are now held to be inherent in their sovereign office, and which must undoubtedly be reckoned among the essential attributes of absolute sovereignty. They convoked none of the general councils, and only pre- sided, by their legates, at three of them ; nor were the canons enacted there held to refpiire their confirmation. They had neither legislative, administrative, nor judi- cial power in the Church, nor was any further efficacy attributed to their excommunication than to that of any other bishop. No special prerogatives were held to have liccu Ix'ipieathed to them by St, Peter, and the only duty considered to devolve on them in virtue of their primacy was that of watching over the observance of the canons. The limited right of hearing appeals, granted to them by the Council of Sardica in 347, was avowedly an innovation, of purely ecclesiastical origin, and, moreover, was never admitted or exercised in Afri- ca or the East. Many national churches, like the Ar- menian, the Syro-Persian, the Irish, and the ancient British, were independent of any influence of Pome. When first something like the papal system was put into words by an Eastern patriarch, St. (Jregory, the greatest and best of all the early popes, repudiated the idea as a wicked blasphemy. Not one of the fathers explains the passages of the New Testament about St. Peter in the ultramontane sense; and the Tridentine profession of faith binds all the clergy to interpret Scrijj- ture in accordance with their unanimous consent. " To prove the doctrine of papal infallibility, nothing less is required than a complete falsification of Church history."
The following are interesting specimens of cases in Avhich the popes expressly contradicted other popes, or the doctrine of the Church as it is now recognised :
"Imiocent I and Gelasius I, the former writing to the
I Council of Blilevis, the laHer in his epistle to the bish" ops of Picenum, declared it to be so indispensable for in- fants to receive communion, that those who die without it go straight to hell (St. August. Ojop. ii, 640; ConciL Coll. [ ed. Labbe ] , i v, 1 178). A thousand years later the Council of Trent anathematized this doctrine.
" It is the constant teaching of the Church that ordi' nation received from a bishop, quite irrespectively of his ]iersonal worthiness or unworthiness, is valid and in- delible. Putting aside baptism, the whole security of the sacraments rests on this principle of faith, and re- ordination has always been opposed in the Church as a crime and a profanation of the sacrament. Only in Rome, during the devastation which the endless wars 6f Goths and Lombards inflicted on Central Italy, there was a collapse of all learning and theology, which dis- turbed and distorted the dogmatic tradition. Since the 8th century, the ordinations of certain popes began to be annulled, and the bishops and priests ordained by them were compelled to be reordained. This occurred first in 7G9, when Constantine II, who had got posses- sion of the papal chair by force of arms, and kept it for thirteen months, was blinded, and deposed at a synod, and all his ordinations pronounced invalid.