The management of the council was entirely in the hands of the pope and his cardinals and advisers. The proceedings were entirely in Latin, the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. The subjects for con- sideration were classitied under four heads, or divisions, and each division assigned to a conyregatio, or commis- sion, of twenty-six prelates, presided over by a cardinal appointed by the pope. The divisions were faith, dis- cipline, reliyious orders, and rites. The decrees were prepared by a commission of the most eminent prelates and theologians of the Catholic world, previous to the assembling of the council, in the form of schemata, or programmes; and on tlie basis of these the different commissions pre.sented decrees for the adoption of the council. These were discussed and adopted in secret session and the results proclaimed publicly.
The chief object of the council was to protest against
modern infidelity and settle the question of papal infal- libility (q. v.). The first two public sessions were held Dec. 8, 1869, and Jan. C, 1870. The third was held April 24, 1870, and it was here that the "decrees on the dog- matic constitution of the Catholic faith" were unani- mously adopted. These decrees are directed against modern rationalism, pantheisin, materialism, and athe- ism, and proclaim the orthodox doctrine of God, the cre- ation, and the relations of faith and reason. At the fourth "solemn session," which was held July 18, 1870, the " decrees on the dogmatic constitution of the Church of Christ" were adopted with two dissenting voices. These decrees set forth the doctrine of papal absohitisra and infallibility, and caused much discussion and the departure of a number of bishops before the public vote. The council was adjourned and indefinitely postponed Oct. 20, 1870, on account of the Franco-Prussian war, and the occupation of Rome by Italian troops.
See Manning, Petri Privileyinm (Lond. 1871); Glad- stone, The Vatican Decrees (1874); id. ]'aficanisni (1875); Bacon, An Inside View of the ]'aticau Council (1872).
Vatican Hill. See Rome.
Vatican Manuscript (1) (Codex Vaticinits, designated as B) is one of the oldest and most valuable MSS. of the (ireek Testament, numbered 1209 in the library of the Vatican at Rome, where it seems to have been brouglit shortly after the establishment of the li- brarj' bj' pope Nicholas V (who died in 1455) ; but notli- ing is known of its previous history. It is a quarto volume of 146 leaves, bounil in red morocco, ten and a half inches high, ten broad, and half an inch thick. It once contained the whole Bible in (ireek, i. e. the Old Test, of the Sept. version, excepting Gen. i-xlvi (the ^LS. begins at TraXi j'. Gen. xlvi, 8 ), and Psa. cv-cxxxvii, together with the New Test, complete down to Heb. ix, 14, /ca^rt; the rest of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the four Pastoral Epistles (the Catholic Epistles had followed the Acts), and the Apocalypse being written in a later hand. The MS. is on very thin vellum ; the letters are comparatively small and regularly formed; tliree columns are on each page (except in some of tlie poeti- cal parts of the Old Test., which are written stichomct- rically, and with but two columns); each column con- tains about forty-two lines, and each line from sixteen to eighteen letters, with no intervals between the words, a space of half a letter being left at the end of a sentence, and a little more at the conclusion of a paragrajdi. It has been doubted whether any of the stops are by the first han<l ; and the breathings and accents are now gen- erally allowed to have been added by a second hand. This hand, apparently about the 8th century, retraced, with as much care as such an operation would admit, the faint lines of the original writing (the ink whereof was, perhaps, never quite black), the remains of which can even now be seen ; and, at the same time, the reviser left untouched such words or letters as he wished, for critical purposes, to reject, and these still express the original condition of the MS., being unaccented. The initial capitals are also due to the later hand, being in blue or red, as also the broad green bar surmounted with three red crosses at the head of each book. F'ewer abridgments than usual occur. The form of the letters points to the 4th century as the date of the M.S.
The (iosiiels contain neither the Ammonian sections nor the Eusebian canons, nor yet tlie larger chapters; but they are divided into numbered sections; Matthew having 170, Mark 61, Luke 152, and John 80. Those in the Acts and Catholic Epistles differ from the Eutlia- lian, and amount to 79. Paul's Epistles are treated as one book, the .sections running on continuously. Thus, the last section in Galatians is numbered 58, and Ephe- sians begins with 70 (showing an omission of 11 sec- tions); but after 2 Thessalonians (the last division of which is marked 93), Hebrews begins with section 59, showing tliat it once occupied the above gap between
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