But more than this: the sixth oecumenical Council, held 680, pronounced the anathema on Honorius, 'the former Pope of old Rome,' for teaching officially the Monothelite heresy; and this anathema was signed by all the members of the Council, including the three delegates of the Pope, and was several times repeated by the seventh and eighth Councils, which were presided over by Papal delegates. But we must return to this famous case again in another connection.
3. The Fathers, even those who unconsciously did most service to Rome, and laid the foundation for its colossal pretensions, yet had no idea of ascribing absolute supremacy and infallibility to the Pope.
Clement of Rome, the first Roman Bishop of whom we have any authentic account, wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth--not in his name, but in the name of the Roman Congregation; not with an air of superior authority, but as a brother to brethren--barely mentioning Peter, but eulogizing Paul, and with a clear consciousness of the great difference between an Apostle and a Bishop or Elder.
Ignatius of Antioch, who suffered martyrdom in Rome under Trajan, highly as he extols Episcopacy and Church unity in his seven Epistles, one of which is addressed to the Roman Christians, makes no distinction of rank among Bishops, but treats them as equals.
Irenæus of Lyons, the champion of the Catholic faith against the Gnostic heresy at the close of the second century, and the author of the famous and variously understood passage about the potentior principalitas (proteia) ecclesiæ Romanæ, sharply reproved Victor of Rome when he ventured to excommunicate the Asiatic Christians for their different mode of celebrating Easter, and told him that it was contrary to Apostolic doctrine and practice to judge brethren on account of eating and drinking, feasts and new moons. Cyprian, likewise a saint and a martyr, in the middle of the third century, in his zeal for visible and tangible unity against the schismatics of his diocese, first brought out the fertile doctrine of the Roman See as the chair of Peter and the centre of Catholic unity; yet with all his Romanizing tendency he was the great champion of the Episcopal solidarity and equality system, and always addressed the Roman Bishop as his 'brother' and 'colleague;' he even stoutly opposed Pope Stephen's view of the validity of heretical baptism, charging him with error, obstinacy, and presumption. He never yielded, and the African Bishops, at the third Council at Carthage (256), emphatically indorsed his opposition. Firmilian, Bishop of Cæsarea, and Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, likewise bitterly condemned the doctrine and conduct of Stephen, and told him that in excommunicating others he only excommunicated himself.
Augustine is often quoted by Infallibilists on account of his famous dictum, Roma locuta est, causa finita est. [332] But he simply means that, since the Councils of Mileve and Carthage had spoken, and Pope Innocent I. had acceded to their decision, the Pelagian controversy was finally settled (although it was, after all, not settled till after his death, at the Council of Ephesus). Had he dreamed of the abuse made of this utterance, [333] he would have spoken very differently. For the same Augustine apologized for Cyprian's opposition to Pope Stephen on the ground that the controversy had then not yet been decided by a Council, and maintained the view of the liability of Councils to correction and improvement by subsequent Councils. He moreover himself opposed Pope Zosimus, when, deceived by Pelagius, he declared him sound in the faith, although Pope Innocent I. had previously excommunicated him as a dangerous heretic. And so determined were the Africans, under the lead of Augustine (417 and 418), that Zosimus finally saw proper to yield and to condemn Pelagianism in his 'Epistula Tractoria.'
Gregory I., or the Great, the last of the Latin Fathers, and the first of the mediæval Popes (590-604), stoutly protested against the assumption of the title oecumenical or universal Bishop on the part of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, and denounced this whole title and claim as blasphemous, anti-Christian, and devilish, since Christ alone was the Head and Bishop of the Church universal, while Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John, were members under the same Head, and heads only of single portions of the whole. Gregory would rather call himself 'the servant of the servants of God,' which, in the mouths of his successors, pretending to be Bishops of bishops and Lords of lords, has become a shameless irony. [334]
As to the Greek Fathers, it would be useless to quote them, for the entire Greek Church in her genuine testimonies has never accepted the doctrine of Papal supremacy, much less of Papal Infallibility.
4. Heretical Popes.--We may readily admit the rock-like stability of the Roman Church in the early controversies on the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ, as compared with the motion and changeability of the Greek churches during the same period, when the East was the chief theatre of dogmatic controversy and progress. Without some foundation in history, the Vatican dogma could not well have arisen. It would be impossible to raise the claim of infallibility in behalf of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, or Antioch, or Alexandria, or Constantinople, among whom were noted Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Monothelites, and other heretics. Yet there are not a few exceptions to the rule; and as many Popes, in their lives, flatly contradicted their title of holiness, so many departed, in their views, from Catholic truth. That the Popes after the Reformation condemned and cursed Protestant truths well founded in the Scriptures, we leave here out of sight, and confine our reasoning to facts within the limits of Roman Catholic orthodoxy.
The canon law assumes throughout that a Pope may openly teach heresy, or contumaciously contradict the Catholic doctrine; for it declares that, while he stands above all secular tribunals, yet he can be judged and deposed for the crime of heresy. [335] This assumption was so interwoven in the faith of the Middle Ages that even the most powerful of all Popes, Innocent III. (d. 1216), gave expression to it when he said that, though he was only responsible to God, he may sin against the faith, and thus become subject to the judgment of the Church. [336] Innocent IV. (d. 1254) speaks of heretical commands of the Pope, which need not be obeyed. When Boniface VIII. (d. 1303) declared that every creature must obey the Pope at the loss of eternal salvation, he was charged with having a devil, because he presumed to be infallible, which was impossible without witchcraft. Even Hadrian VI., in the sixteenth century, expressed the view, which he did not recant as Pope, that 'if by the Roman Church is understood its head, the Pope, it is certain that he can err even in matters of faith.'
This old Catholic theory of the fallibility of the Pope is abundantly borne out by actual facts, which have been established again and again by Catholic scholars of the highest authority for learning and candor. We need no better proofs than those furnished by them.
Zephyrinus (201-219) and Callistus (219-223) held and taught (according to the 'Philosophumena' of Hippolytus, a martyr and saint) the Patripassian heresy, that God the Father became incarnate and suffered with the Son.
Pope Liberius, in 358, subscribed an Arian creed for the purpose of regaining his episcopate, and condemned Athanasius, 'the father of orthodoxy,' who mentions the fact with indignation.
During the same period, his rival, Felix II., was a decided Arian; but there is a dispute about his legitimacy; some regarding him as an anti-Pope, although he has a place in the Romish Calendar of Saints, and Gregory XIII. (1582) confirmed his claim to sanctity, against which Baronius protested.
In the Pelagian controversy, Pope Zosimus at first indorsed the orthodoxy of Pelagius and Celestius, whom his predecessor, Innocent I., had condemned; but he yielded afterwards to the firm protest of St. Augustine and the African Bishops.
In the Three-Chapter controversy, Pope Vigilius (538-555) showed a contemptible vacillation between two opinions: first indorsing; then, a year afterwards, condemning (in obedience to the Emperor's wishes) the Three Chapters (i.e., the writings of Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas); then refusing the condemnation; then, tired of exile, submitting to the fifth oecumenical Council (553), which had broken off communion with him; and confessing that he had unfortunately been the tool of Satan, who labors for the destruction of the Church. A long schism in the West was the consequence. Pope Pelagius II. (585) significantly excused this weakness by the inconsistency of St. Peter at Antioch.
John XXII. (d. 1334) maintained, in opposition to Nicholas III. and Clement V. (d. 1314), that the Apostles did not live in perfect poverty, and branded the opposite doctrine of his predecessors as heretical and dangerous. He also held an opinion concerning the middle state of the righteous, which was condemned as heresy by the University of Paris.
Contradictory opinions were taught by different Popes on the sacraments, on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary (see p. 123), on matrimony, and on the subjection of the temporal power to the Church. [337]
But the most notorious case of an undeniably official indorsement of heresy by a Pope is that of Honorius I. (625-638), which alone is sufficient to disprove Papal Infallibility, according to the maxim: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. [338] This case has been sifted to the very bottom before and during the Council, especially by Bishop Hefele and Père Gratry. The following decisive facts are established by the best documentary evidence:
(1.) Honorius taught ex cathedra (in two letters to his heretical colleague, Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople) the Monothelite heresy, which was condemned by the sixth oecumenical Council, i.e., the doctrine that Christ had only one will, and not two (corresponding to his two natures). [339]
(2.) An oecumenical Council, universally acknowledged in the East and in the West, held in Constantinople, 680, condemned and excommunicated Honorius, 'the former Pope of Old Rome,' as a heretic, who with the help of the old serpent had scattered deadly error. [340] The seventh oecumenical Council (787) and the eighth (869) repeated the anathema of the sixth.
(3.) The succeeding Popes down to the eleventh century, in a solemn oath at their accession, indorsed the sixth oecumenical Council, and pronounced 'an eternal anathema' on the authors of the Monothelite heresy, together with Pope Honorius, because he had given aid and comfort to the perverse doctrines of the heretics. [341] The Popes themselves, therefore, for more than three centuries, publicly recognized, first, that an oecumenical Council may condemn a Pope for open heresy, and, secondly, that Pope Honorius was justly condemned for heresy. Pope Leo II., in a letter to the Emperor, strongly confirmed the decree of the Council, and denounced his predecessor Honorius as one who 'endeavored by profane treason to overthrow the immaculate faith of the Roman Church.' [342] The same Pope says, in a letter to the Spanish Bishops: 'With eternal damnation have been punished Theodore, Cyrus, Sergius--together with Honorius, who did not extinguish at the very beginning the flame of heretical doctrine, as was becoming to his apostolic authority, but nursed it by his carelessness.' [343]
This case of Honorius is as clear and strong as any fact in Church history. [344] Infallibilists have been driven to desperate efforts. Some pronounce the acts of the Council, which exist in Greek and Latin, downright forgeries (Baronius); others, admitting the acts, declare the letters of Honoring forgeries, so that he was unjustly condemned by the Council (Bellarmin)--both without a shadow of proof; still others, being forced at last to acknowledge the genuineness of the letters and acts, distort the former into an orthodox sense by a non-natural exegesis, and thus unwillingly fasten upon oecumenical Councils and Popes the charge of either dogmatic ignorance and stupidity, or malignant representation. [345] Yet in every case the decisive fact remains that both Councils and Popes for several hundred years believed in the fallibility of the Pope, in flat contradiction to the Vatican Council. Such acts of violence upon history remind one of King James's short method with Dissenters: 'Only hang them, that's all.'