[329] Archbishop Manning (III. p. 118) speaks of history as 'a wilderness without guide or path,' and says: 'Whensoever any doctrine is contained in the divine revelation of the Church' [the very point which can not be proved in the case before us], 'all difficulties from human history are excluded, as Tertullian lays down, by prescription. The only source of revealed truth is God; the only channel of his revelation is the Church. No human history can declare what is contained in that revelation. The Church alone can determine its limits, and therefore its contents.'
[330] This Archbishop Kenrick, in his Concio, frankly admits: 'Irenæi, Tertulliani, Augustini, Vincentii Lirinensis exempla secutus, fidei Catholicæ probationes ex traditione potius quam ex Scripturarum interpretatione quærendas duxi; quæ interpretatio, juxta Tertullianum magis apta est ad veritatem obumbitandum quam demonstrandum.'
[331] 'Die ganze Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends der Kirche wäre eine andere gewesen, wenn in dem Bischof von Rom das Bewusstsein, in der Kirche auch nur eine Ahnung davon gewesen wäre, dass dort ein Quell unfehlbarer Wahrheit fliesse. Statt all der bittern, verstörenden Kämpfe gegen wirkliche oder vermeintliche Häretiker, gegen die man Bücher schrieb und Synoden aller Art versammelte, würden alle Wohlmeinende sich auf den unfehlbaren Spruch des Papstes berufen haben, und mehr als einst das Orakel des Apollo zu Delphi würde das zu Rom befragt worden sein. Dagegen war es in jenen Jahrhunderten, als alles Christenthum auf die Spitze eines Dogmas gestellt wurde, nichts unerhörtes, dass auch ein Papst vor der subtilen Bestimmung des siegenden Dogma zum Häretiker wurde.' Hase, Polemik, Buch I. c.iv. p. 161.
[332] Or in a modified form: 'Causa finita est, utinam aliquando finiatur error!' Serm. 131, c. 10. See Janus, Rauscher, von Schulte versus Cardoni and Hergenröther, quoted by Frommann, p. 424.
[333] As well as some other of his sententious sayings. His explanation of coge intrare was made to justify religious persecutions, from which his heart would have shrunk in horror.
[334] The passages of Gregory on this subject are well known to every scholar. And yet the Vatican decree, in ch. iii., by omitting the principal part, makes him say almost the very opposite.
[335] Decret. Gratian. Dist. xl. c. 6, in conformity with the sentence of Hadrian II.: 'Cunctos ipsos judicaturus [Papa], a nemine est judicandus, nisi deprehendatur a fide devius.' See on this point especially von Schulte, Concilien, pp. 188 sqq.
[336] Serm. II. de consecrat. Pontificis: 'In tantum mihi fides necessaria est, cum de cæteris peccatis Deum judicem habeam, ut propter solum peccatum quod in fidem committitur, possim ab Ecclesia judicari.'
[337] See examples under this head in Janus, pp. 54 sqq. (Irrthümer and Widersprüche der Päpste), p. 51 of the London ed.
[338] Or, as Perrone, himself an Infallibilist, who in his Dogmatic Theology characteristically treats of the Pope before the Holy Scriptures and tradition, puts it: 'Si vel unicus ejusmodi error deprehenderetur, appareret omnes adductas probationes in nihilum redactum iri.'
[339] Honorius prescribed the technical term of the Monothelites as a dogma to the Church (dogma ecclesiasticum). In a reply to the Monothelite Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, which is still extant in Greek and Latin (Mansi, Coll. Concil. Tom. XI. pp. 538 sqq.), he approves of his heretical view, and says as clearly as words can make it: 'Therefore we confess also one will (hen thelema) of our Lord Jesus Christ, since the Godhead has assumed our nature, but not our guilt.' In a second letter to Sergius, of which we have two fragments (Mansi, l.c. p. 579), Honorius rejects the orthodox term two energies (duo energeiai, duæ operationes), which is used alongside with two wills (duo thelemata, voluntates). Christ, he reasons, assumed human nature as it was before the fall, when it had not a law in the members which resists the law of the Spirit. He knew only a sinful human will. The Catholic Church rejects Monothelitism, or the doctrine of one will of Christ, as involving or necessarily leading to Monophysitism, i.e., the doctrine that Christ had but one nature; for will is an attribute of nature, not of the person. The Godhead has three persons, but only one nature, and only one will. Christ has two wills, because he has two natures. The compromise formula of Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople endeavored to reconcile the Monophysites with the orthodox Church by teaching that Christ had two natures, but only one will and one energy.
[340] Sessio XVI.: 'Sergio hæretico anathema, Cyro hæretico anathema, Honorio hæretico anathema.' . . . Sessio XVIII.: 'Honorius, qui fuit Papa antiquæ Romæ . . . non vacavit . . . Ecelesiæ erroris scandalum suscitare unius voluntatis, et unius operationis in duabus naturis unius Christi,' etc. See Mansi, Conc. Tom. XI. pp. 622, 635, 655, 666.
[341] 'Quia pravis hæreticorum assertionibus fomentum impendit.' This Papal oath was probably prescribed by Gregory II. (at the beginning of the eighth century), and is found in the Liber Diurnus (the book of formularies of the Roman chancery from the fifth to the eleventh century), edited by Eugène de Rozière, Paris, 1869, No. 84. The Liber Pontificalis agrees with the Liber Diurnus. Editions of the Roman Breviary down to the sixteenth century reiterated the charge against Honorius, since silently dropped.
[342] ' Nec non et Honorium [anathematizamus], qui hanc apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolicæ traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione immaculatam fidem subvertere conatus est.' Mansi, Tom. XI. p. 731.
[343] 'Cum Honorio, qui flammam hæeretici dogmatis, non ut decuit apostolicam auctoritatem, incipientem extinxit, sed negligendo confovit.' Mansi, p. 1052.
[344] Comp. especially the tract of Bishop Hefele, above quoted. The learned author of the History of the Councils has proved the case as conclusively as a mathematical demonstration.
[345] So Perrone, in his Dogmatics, and Pennachi, in his Liber de Honorii I. Rom. Pont. causa, 1870, which is effectually disposed of by Hefele in an Appendix to the German edition of his tract. Nevertheless, Archbishop Manning, sublimely ignoring all but Infallibilist authorities on Honorius, has the face to assert (III. p. 223) that the case of Honorius is doubtful; that he defined no doctrine whatever; and that his two epistles are entirely orthodox! Is Manning more infallible than the infallible Pope Leo II., who denounced Honorius ex cathedra as a heretic?
[346] See my Church History, Vol. I. § 69, p. 219, and the tract of Lutterbeck above quoted.
[347] The third anti-Pope, Gregory XII., resigned.
[348] So Overberg's Katechismus, III. Hauptstück, Fr. 349: 'Müssen wir auch glauben, dass der Papst unfehlbar ist? Nein, dies ist kein Glaubensartikel.' Keenan's Controversial Catechism, in the editions before 1871, declared Papal Infallibility to be 'a Protestant invention.' The Irish Bishops--Doyle, Murray, Kelly--affirmed under oath, before a Committee of the English Parliament in 1825, that the Papal authority is limited by Councils, that it does not extend to civil affairs and the temporal rights of princes, and that Papal decrees are not binding on Catholics without the consent of the whole Church, either dispersed or assembled in Council. See the original in the Appendix to Archbishop Kenrick's Concio in Friedrich's Documenta, I. pp. 228-242. But the Irish Catholics, who almost believe in the infallibility of their priests, can be very easily taught to believe in the infallibility of the Pope.
[349] That is, delosis kai aletheia, doctrina et veritas, Ex. xxviii. 15-30; Deut. xxxiii. 8, 9; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6. The Urim and Thummim were inscribed on the garment of Aaron. Some interpreters identify them with the twelve stones on which the names of the tribes of Israel were engraved; others regard them as a plate of gold with the sacred name of Jehovah; still others as polished diamonds, in form like dice, which, being thrown on the table or Ark of the Covenant, were consulted as an oracle. See the able article of Plumptre, in Smith's Bible Dictionary, Vol. IV. pp. 3356 sqq. (Am. ed.).
[350] The panta implies a strong argument for the completeness of Christ's revelation in the New Testament against the Romish doctrine of addition.
[351] The phrase eis ten aletheian pasan (John xvi. 13), or, according to another reading, en te aletheia pase (test. rec. eis pasan ten aletheian), expresses the truth as taught by Christ in its completeness--the whole truth--and proves likewise the sufficiency of the Scriptures. The A.V. and its predecessors ('into all truth'), also Luther (in alle Wahrheit, instead of die ganze or volle Wahrheit), miss the true sense by omitting the article, and conveying the false idea that the Holy Ghost would impart to all the apostles a kind of omniscience. Comp. my annotations to Lange's John on the passages (pp. 445, 478, etc.).
[352] Literally: 'Receive Holy Spirit'--labete pneuma hagion. The absence of the article may indicate a partial or preparatory inspiration as distinct from the full Pentecostal effusion.
[353] Perrone and the Vatican decree on Infallibility confine themselves to these passages.
[354] Augustine says somewhere: 'Nulla falsa doctrina est, quæ non aliquid veri permisceat.'
[355] This fact is so obnoxious to Papists that some of them doubt or deny that the Cephas of Galatians ii. 11 was the Apostle Peter, although the New Testament knows no other. So Perrone, who also asserts, from his own preconceived theory, not from the text, that Paul withstood Peter from respectful love as an inferior to a superior, but not as a superior to an inferior! Let any Bishop try the same experiment against the Pope, and he will soon be sent to perdition.
[356] For a full discussion of Petros and petra, see my edition of Lange's Comm. on Matt. xvi. 18, pp. 203 sqq.; and on the Romish perversion of the boskein and poimainein ta arnia, probata and probatia into a katakureiuein, and even withdrawal of nourishment, see my ed. of Lange on John, pp. 638 sqq.
[357] This patristic dissensus was brought out during the Council in the Questio distributed by Bishop Ketteler with all the proofs; see Friedrich, Docum. I. pp. 6 sqq. Kenrick in his speech makes use of it. Comp. also my annotations to Lange's Comm. on Matthew in loco.
[358] Even Kenrick confesses that it is doubtful whether any instance of that unanimous consent can be found (in his Concio, see Friedr. Docum. I. p.195): 'Regula interpetrandi Scripturas nobis imposita, hæc est: eas contra unanimem Patrum consensum non interpetrari. Si unquam detur consensus iste unanimis dubitari possit. Eo tamen deficiente, regula ista videtur nobis legem imponere majorem, qui ad unanimitatem accedere videretur, patrum numerum, in suis Scripturæ interpretationibus sequendi.'
[359] This logical inference is also noticed by Archbishop Kenrick (Concio, in Friedrich's Docum. I. p. 200): 'Præterea singula verba in ista Christi ad Petrum allocutione de Petri successoribus intelligi nequeunt, quin aliquid maxime absurdi exinde sequi videretur. "Tu autem conversus," respiciunt certe conversionem Petri. Si priora verba; "orari pro te," et posteriora: "confirma fratres tuos," ad successores Petri coelestem vim, et munus transiisse probent, non videtur quarenam intermedia verba: "tu autem conversus," ad eos etiam pertinere, et aliquali sensu de eis intelligi, non debeant.'