504 FGUKTH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
the verdict not only of Protestants,1 but also of Galilean and other liberal Catholic historians.2
2.. Honorius was condemned by the sixth oacumenical Council as " the former pope of Old Rome," who with the help of the old serpent had scattered deadly error.3 This anathema was repeated by the seventh oacumenical Council, 787, and by the eighth, 869. The Greeks, who were used to heretical patriarchs of New Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, felt no surprise, and perhaps some secret satisfaction at the heresy of a pope of Old Rome.
Here again ultramontane historians have resorted to the im possible denial either of the genuineness of the act of condemna tion in the sixth oacumenical Council,4 or of the true meaning of that act.5 The only consistent way for papal infallibilists is to deny the infallibility of the oecumenical Council as regards the dogmatic fact.6 In this case it would involve at the same time a charge of gross injustice to Honorius.
3. But this last theory is refuted by the popes themselves, who condemned Honorius as a heretic, and thus bore testi mony for papal fallibility. His first successor, Severinus, had a brief pontificate of only three months. His second suc cessor, John IV., apologized for him by putting a forced con-
1 Walch, Neander, Gieseler, Baur, Dorner, Kurtz, etc. See note on p. 502.
2 Richer, Dupin, Bossuet, Dollinger.
3 Mansi, XL 622, 635, 655, 666.
* Baronius (Ad ann. 633 and 681), and Pighius (Diatribe de Actis VI. et VII. Concil.).
5 As a condemnation, not of the heresy of Honorius, but of his negligence in suppressing heresy by his counsel of silence (ob imprudentem silentii ceconomiam). So the Jesuit Gamier, De Honor ii et eoncilii VI. causa, in an appendix to his edition of the Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum, quoted by llefele (III. 175), who takes the trouble of refuting this view by three arguments.
6 An error not in the dogmatic definition, but in facto dogmatico. It is argued that an oacumenical council as well as a pope may err in matters de facto, though not de fide and dejure. This view was taken by Anastasius, the papal librarian, Cardinal Turrecremata, Bellarmin, Pallavicino, Melchior Canus, Jos. Sim. Assemani, and recently by Professor Pennachi. See Hefele, III. 174, note 4.
\ 113. THE HERESY OF HONOKIUS. 505
structioii on his language. Agatho prudeutly ignored him.1 But ins successor, Leo 11., who translated the acts of the sixth Council from Greek into Latin, saw that he could not save the honor of Honorius without contradicting the verdict of the council iii which the papal delegates had taken part ; and there fore he expressly condemned him in the strongest language, both in a letter to the Greek emperor and in a letter to the bishops of Spain, as a traitor to the Roman church for trying to subvert her immaculate fate. Not only so, but the condem nation of the unfortunate Houorius Avas inserted in the confes sion of faith which every newly-elected pope had to sign down to the eleventh century, and which is embodied in the Liber Diurnus, I. e, the official book of formulas of the Roman church for the use of the papal curia.2 In the editions of the Roman Breviary down to the sixteenth century his name appears, yet without title and without explanation, along with the rest who had been condemned by the sixth Council. But the precise facts were gradually forgotten, and the mediaeval chroniclers and lists of popes ignore them. After the middle of the six teenth century the case of Honorius again attracted attention, and was urged as an irrefutable argument against the ultramon tane theory. At first the letter of Leo II. was boldly rejected as a forgery as well as those of Honorius ; 3 but this was made impossible when the Liber Diurnus came to light.
The verdict of history, after the most thorough investigation from all sides and by all parties remains unshaken. The whole church, East and West, as represented by the official acts of
1 Or rather lie told an untruth when he declared that all popes had done their duty with regard to false doctrine.
a In this Confession the popes are required to anathematize " Serqi.um .... una cum Honor io, qui pravis eorum assertionibus fomentum impendit." Lib. Dittrn. cap. II. tit. 9, professio 2. The oath was probably prescribed by Gregory II. at the beginning of the eighth century.
3 Baronius rejects the letter of Leo II. as spurious, Bellarmin as corrupted. Bower (History of the Popes) remarks: "Nothing but the utmost despair could have suggested to the annalist (Baronius) so desperate a shift."