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53 ها I.
THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL.
THE POPE
AND
THE COUNCIL
By JANUS
Ignatiua com Sillinger
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN
BOSTON
ROBERTS BROTHERS
1870
CAMBRIDGE:
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
Lebenry y . ki bunesis
3-4.34"
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
NOTICE BY TRANSLATOR . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
PREFACE .................. xiii
INTRODUCTION -
Jesuit Programme for the Council. ....... I
Recent Provincial Synods on Papal Infallibility. ...
Method of Proceedings pre-arranged .......
CHAPTER I.
MAKING THE SYLLABUS DOGMATIC.
Schrader's Affirmative Statement of the Propositions : 8
(1.) Coercive Power of the Church . . . . . . . 8
(2.) Political Supremacy of the Popes .......
(3.) Revision of History . . . . . . . . . . . 13
(4.) Freedom of Conscience and Persecution. ... 14
(5.) Modern Civilization and Constitutionalism con-
demned . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER II.
THE NEW DOGMA ABOUT Mary . .
. .
. . . .
29
vi
Table of Contents.
CHAPTER III.
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY.
PAGE
SECT. I. Ultramontanism . . . . . . . . . . . 31
SECT. 2. Consequences of the Dogma of Infallibility. . 38
SECT. 3. Errors and Contradictions of the Popes ... 42
SECT. 4. The Verdict of History on the Position of Bish-
ops of Rome in the Ancient Church ... 52
SECT. 5. The Primacy in the Ancient Constitution of
the Church . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
SECT. 6. The Teaching of the Fathers on the Primacy. 70
SECT.7. Forgeries -
The Isidorian Decretals . . . . . . . . 78
Forgeries of the Hildebrandine Era. ...
Earlier Roman Fabrications ......
The Liber. Pontificalis ........
The Donation of Constantine . . . . . 106
Donations of Pepin and Charlemagne ..
The Decretum-of Gratian. ........
SECT. 8. Progress of Papal Power in the Twelfth and
Thirteenth centuries ........ 122
SECT. 9. Papal Encroachments on Episcopal Rights -
Legates · · · ... · · · · · · · · 133
Exemptions and Dispensations .....
The Pallium ......· · · · · ·
Plenitudo Potestatis . . . . . . . . . 137
Appeals to Rome ...........
Papal Patronage .....:
Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
The Oath of Obedience . . . . . . . . 143
· Table of Conterits.
vii
PAGB
161
190
202
220
226
Interference with Diocesan Administration
and its Results ......... 143
Sect. 10. Personal Attitude of the Popes. ..... 147
SECT. II. Relation of Pope's to Councils in the Middle
Ages . . . . . . . . ·
153
Sect. 12. Neglect of Theology at Rome .......
SECT. 13. The College of Cardinals ......
Sect. 14. The “Curia”.............
SECT. 15. The Fudgments of Contemporaries. ... 181
SECT. 16. The Inquisition ...........
Sect. 17. Trials for Witchcraft ........
Sect. 18. Dominican Forgeries and their Results .. 212
SECT. 19. Papal Infallibility Disputed ......
Sect. 20. Fresh Forgeries ..........
SECT. 21. Interdicts .............
SECT. 22. The Schism of the Antipopes . . . . . . .17
SECT. 23. The Council of Constance .......
SECT. 24. The Council of Basle . . . . . . . . . 250
SECT. 25. The Union with the Greek Church .... 259
SECT. 26. The Papal Reaction ... ...... 266
SECT. 27. Temper and Circumstances of the Fifteenth
Century . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Sect. 28. The Opening of the Sixteenth Century -
The Fifth Lateran Synod . ...... 282
Security of the Curia ...........
The Roman Chancery ......i
Conecte and Savonarola .......
SECT. 29. The State of Contemporary Opinion. ... 288
SECT. 30. The Council of Trent and its Results ... · 297
Sect. 31. Papal Infallibility formulized into a Doctrine -
Italian Theologians ........ 302
viii
Table of Contents.
PAGE
Admissions made by Infallibilists, ... 307
Bull of Paul IV., Cum ex Apostolatús officio 311
Bull, In Cænd Domini . ....... 313
The Jesuit Divines ......... 315
Bellarmine . . . . . . . . . . . .
Corruptions of the Breviary. . . . . . 322
The Roman Martyrology corrupted ...
The Isidorian Forgeries maintained ... 326
Definitions ex Cathedra ....... 328
Sect. 32. The Infallibility of the Church and of the
Popes compared
Infallibility of the Church . . . . . . 333
Infallibility of the Pope . . . . . . . 334
Moral Effect of the Theory on the Popes · 336
SECT. 33. What is meant by a Free Council . .... 340
NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR.
TT will be obvious at a glance to the reader, that
this work emanates from Catholic authorship, and
discusses the great religious crisis through which the
Church and the world are now passing from a Catho-
lic, though a " liberal Catholic,” point of view. That
it bears evidence of no common attainments and
grasp of mind a very cursory examination will suf-
fice to show. An English translation is offered to
the public under the belief that there are very many
in this country, as well Protestants as Catholics, who
will gladly avail themselves of an opportunity of
learning, on the most direct authority, how the grave
questions which just now agitate the Church are re-
garded by the members of a school, morally if not
numerically strong, within her pale, who yield indeed
to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic truth, but
are unable to identify its interests with the advance
of Ultramontanism, or rather, who cannot but recog-
Notice by the Translator.
nize between the two an antithesis which the Church
history of the last thousand years too eloquently at-
tests, and to which present facts, no less than past
experience, give all the significance of a solemn
warning it would be worse than unwisdom to ig-
nore.
Two rival tendencies, alien alike in their princi-
ples and their aims, which have long been silently
developing themselves, are now contending for the
mastery within the bosom of the Church, like the
unborn babes in Rebekah's womb, and it is simply
a truism to assert that every section of our divided
Christendom is interested in the result of the strug-
gle. We live in an age powerful beyond all that
have gone before for good and for evil, penetrated
perhaps more deeply than controversialists are will..
ing to admit by Christian sentiment, but also pre-
senting in too many quarters a spectacle unprece-
dented in modern history, of fixed and deliberate
antagonism to the dogmas of the Christian creed.
Not only the world of sense, but of supernatural
revelation, is delivered over to the disputations of
men. At such a moment, it is proposed, amid the
fervid acclamations of one party, the earnest and sor-
rowful protests of another, the careless acquiescence
or sullen indifference of a host of nominal believers,
and the triumphant sneers of an amused but unbe-
15
Notice by the Translator.
lieving outside world, to erect Papal Infallibility into
an article -- and therefore inevitably the cardinal arti-
cle-of the Catholic faith. Under a profound sense
of the range and gravity of the issues involved this
work was written, and with a similar feeling, which
each day's experience only deepens, it has been trans-
lated. Man's necessity, we know, is God's oppor-
tunity, and even at the eleventh hour He may stretch
forth His arm to save His menaced and afflicted
Church. “Oculi omnium in Te sperant, Domine, et
Tu das escam illorum in tempore opportuno." .
before the ecumenical pretensions of the Latrocinium
of Ephesus were formally superseded, and that for
more than twenty the Church lay, technically at least,
under the reproach of heresy inflicted on her by the
Council of Rimini, to which St. Jerome gave expres-
sion in the well-known words, “ mundus miratus est
se esse Arianum.” Meanwhile, it behooves us to pos-
sess our souls in patience, as knowing that the Church
is greater than any parties or individuals who for the
moment may usurp her functions and prostitute her
awful name, and that, come what will, truth must
ultimately prevail.
It may be well to add that the substance of the
earlier portion of this volume appeared in a series of
articles on - The Council and the Civiltà,” published
xii
Notice by the Translator.
during last March in the Allgemeine Zeitung,' which
attracted very general attention on the Continent. But
the whole subject is here worked out in detail, and
with constant reference to the original authorities for
every statement that is dwelt upon.
1 See Allg. Z. for March 10-15, 1869.
Sept. 10, 1869.
PRE FACE.
THE immediate object of this work is to investigate
by the light of history those questions which,
we are credibly informed, are to be decided at the
Ecumenical Council already announced. And as we
have endeavored to fulfil this task by direct reference
to original authorities, it is not perhaps too much to
hope that our labors will attract attention in scientific
circles, and serve as a contribution to Ecclesiastical
History. But this work aims also at something more
than the mere calm and aimless exhibition of histori-
cal events; the reader will readily perceive that it has
a far wider scope, and deals with ecclesiastical politics,
- in one word, that it is a pleading for very life, an
appeal to the thinkers among believing Christians, a
protest based on history against a menacing future,
against the programme of a powerful coalition, at one
time openly proclaimed, at another more darkly insin-
uated, and which thousands of busy hands are daily
and hourly employed in carrying out.
xiv
Preface.
We have written under a deep sense of anxiety in
presence of a serious danger, threatening primarily the
internal condition of the Catholic Church, and then —
as is inevitable with what affects a corporation includ-
ing 180 millions of men - destined to assume vaster
dimensions, and take the shape of a great social prob-
lem, which cannot be without its influence on eccle-
siastical communities and nations outside the Catholic
Church.
This danger does not date from yesterday, and did
not begin with the proclamation of the Council. For
the Catholic Church, which is now swollen to a mighty
torrent, has been manifesting itself, and now it is pre-
paring, like an advancing flood tide, to take possession
of the whole organic life of the Church by means of
this. Council.
We — and the plural must not here be understood
figuratively, but literally — we confess to entertaining
that view of the Catholic Church and her mission
which its opponents designate by that much-abused
term, so convenient in its vagueness for polemical pur-
poses — Liberal; a term in the worst repute with all
uncompromising adherents of the Court of Rome and
of the Jesuits — two powers intimately allied, — and
never mentioned by them without bitterness. We are
of their opinion who are persuaded, first, that the
Preface.
1. xr
.
.
Catholic Church, far from assuming an hostile and
suspicious attitude towards the principles of political,
intellectual, and religious freedom and independence
of judgment, in so far as they are capable of a Chris-
tian interpretation, or rather are directly derived from
the letter and spirit of the Gospel, ought, on the con-
trary, to be in positive accord with them, and to exer-
cise a constant purifying and ennobling influence on
their development; secondly, that a great and search-
ing reformation of the Church is necessary and inevi-
table, however long it may be evaded.
To us the Catholic Church and the Papacy are by
no means convertible terms, and therefore, while in
outward communion with them, we are inwardly sepa-
rated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the
Church is an universal empire spiritually, and, where
it is possible, physically, ruled by a single inonarch, —
an empire of force and oppression, where the spiritual
authority is aided by the secular arm in summarily
suppressing every movement it dislikes. In a word,
we reject that doctrine and idea of the Church which
has for years been commended by the organ of the
Roman Jesuits as alone true, as the sole remaining
anchor of deliverance for the perishing human race.
It will more precisely indicate our point of view if
we quote the words of a man regarded in his lifetime
as the ornament and pride of the German clergy, the
xvi
Preface.
Cardinal and Prince Bishop Diepenbrock, who was
himself the pupil of the ever-memorable Sailer, and
shared his sentiments. Diepenbrock replied to the
reforming suggestions of his friend Passavant, involv-
ing an alteration in the hierarchy, a softening of the
sharp distinction between clergy and laity, a co-opera-
tion of the people in Church-government, and a trans-
formation of the Roman Court, by, saying that" only
in this way can health be restored to the general body,
and earthly conditions be elevated and ennobled,
which is a task that Christianity must accomplish;
only thus, by developing and quickening the constitu-
tion and doctrine of the Church, can the questionings
and aspirations this remarkable age of ours is every-
where seething with obtain their rest and satisfac-
tion.”
“ It is true, indeed,” he added, " that the ultra party
in the Church hopes to reach its goal by. an opposite
road. But such a return to the past is an impossibility
in history. The Middle Ages are left behind once for
all, and nothing but a fata morgana can make them
hover like a possible future before the lively imagina-
tion of and his allies. The necessity of a com-
plete renovation of the Church is already dawning
on the vision of all who think without prejudice, while
to the few only its nature and method are as clear
as the thing itself.. To speak out such ideas openly
Preface.
xvii
I hold to be a sort of duty of charity towards man-
kind.” 1
It would be easy to quote from the writings of
Gügler, Görres, Eckstein, Francis Baader, and Möhler
– to mention only the departed — a series of testimo-
nies to prove that the most gifted and enlightened
among German Catholics have entertained the same
or kindred viėws.
approaches of that Ultramontanism which he has de-
scribed. What appeared in his time as an isolated
and half-unconscious tendency, has since grown up into
has gained a firm footing through the wide ramifica-
tions of the Jesuit Order, and enlists the energetic ser-
vices of a constantly increasing body of fellow-laborers
in the clergy educated at the Jesuit College in Rome.
As it had become necessary to assail this party,
which carries on its plans either in ignorance of Church
history or by deliberately falsifying it, we were obliged
to distinguish the primacy as it existed in the ancient
Church from its later form, and we could not therefore
avoid bringing forward in this connection a very dark
side of the history of the Papacy. Every one who
examines the internal relations of Church history will
1 See Letters published in Passavant's Nachlass (Remains),
p. 87.
.
xviii
Preface.
be constrained to acknowledge that, since the eleventh
century, there has been no period of it on which a
Christian student can dwell with unmixed satisfaction;
and as he endeavors to get at the bottom of the causes
underlying that unmistakable decay of Church life,
constantly getting a deeper hold, and more widely
spreading, he will always be brought back to the dis-
tortion and transformation of the Primacy as the
ultimate root of the evil. If the Primacy is on the one
hand a source of strength to the Catholic Church, yet
on the other hand it cannot be denied that, when one
looks at it from the standpoint of the ancient Church —
from the Apostolic age till about 845, — the Papacy,
such as it has become, presents the appearance of a
disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the
organization of the Church, hindering and decompos-
ing the action of its vital powers, and bringing mani-
fold diseases in its train. And now, when for many
years preparations have been going on for effecting
the final completion of the system which lies at the
root of the present incongruities in the Church, and
surrounding it with an impregnable bulwark by the
doctrine of Infallibility, it becomes the duty of every
one who wishes well to the Church and to society, to
which it supplies an element of life, to try, according
to the measure of his knowledge and working power,
what can yet be done to ward off so fatal a catastrophe.
Preface.
xix
We do not conceal from ourselves that the charge
of a radical aversion to the Papacy will be brought
from more than one quarter against this book and its
authors. Their number is legion at the present day,
for whom the scriptural saying, “ Meliora sunt vulnera
diligentis quam fraudulenta oscula odientis,” has no
meaning, and who cannot comprehend how a man can
at once love and honor an institution, and yet expose
its weak points, denounce its faults, and purposely
exhibit their mischievous results. In their opinion,
things of the kind should be carefully hushed up, or
only apologetically referred to. And for some time
past this way of looking at matters has been designated
“piety.” It is therefore pious to believe gladly and
readily fables and falsehoods which have been invented
for certain ends connected with religion, or are clothed
in a religious dress; it is pious either wholly to deny
the injuries and abuses of the Church's life, and the
perversities in her government, or, when this is im-
practicable, to do one's utmost to defend them, and to
gain them the credit of being due to good motives, or,
at least, of having a tolerable side. The absence of
the reproach of impiety—a reproach which, accord-
ingly, our work is sure not to escape. But we do not
acknowledge the justice of this view; we consider it,
indeed, a commendable piety to maintain silence about
XX
I
• Preface.
the personal infirmities or errors of a man in high
position, or even at the head of the Church, or at least
to deal gently with them, but we think it a complete
misapplication of the term when it is called a duty of
piety to conceal or color historical facts and faulty
institutions. On the contrary, we believe our piety
owes its first duties to the Divine institution of the
Church and to the truth, and it is precisely this piety
which constrains us to oppose, frankly and decisively,
or the other. And we hold it the more imperative on
us to come forward, when not only hereditary evils are
not to be got rid of, but are actually to be increased
by new abuses, and that too at a time when the fall-
ing away from Christianity has become so general
and cuts so deep — partly for this very reason, that,
under the mass of rubbish it is overlaid with, its eter-
nal, divine, and saving germ is hidden from the short-
sighted gaze of the present generation. In proof that
herein we are but acting in the spirit of the Church,
we can appeal to sayings, the one of a Pope, the
other of a highly venerated saint. Innocent III. said,
“Falsitas sub velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet,”
and St. Bernard declares, “ Melius est ut scandalum
oriatur quam veritas relinquatur."
Every faithful Catholic is convinced — and to that
conviction the authors of this book profess their ac-
- Preface.
xxi
herence — that the primacy rests on Divine appoint-
ment. The Church from the first was founded upon.
it, and the Lord of the Church ordained its type in
the person of Peter. It has therefore, from the neces-
sity of the case, developed itself up to a certain point,
but on this has followed, since the ninth century, a
further development - artificial and sickly rather than
sound and natural — of the Primacy into the Papacy,
a transformation more than a development, the con-
sequences of which have been the splitting up of the
previously united Church into three great ecclesias-
tical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other.
The ancient Church found the need of a centre of
unity, of a bishop possessed of primatial authority, to
whom the oppressed might turn, and by whose power-
ful intercession they might obtain justice. But when
the presidency in the Church became an empire, when
in place of the first bishop deliberating and deciding
in union with his “ brethren” on the affairs of the
Church, and setting them the example of submission
to her laws, was substituted the despotic rule of an.
absolute monarch, then the unity of the Church, so'
firmly secured before, was broken up. When we in-
quire for definite, fixed, and universally acknowledged
during the first Christian centuries by the bishop of
Rome, as holding the primacy, we seem to lose sight
xxii
Preface.
of him again, for of the privileges afterwards obtained
or laid claim to by the Popes not one can be traced up
to the earliest times, and pointed to as a right unin-
terruptedly and everywhere exercised. But we meet
with abundant facts which prove unmistakably that
the Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be
in possession of a Divine right, and acted accordingly,
but that this right was actually recognized by others.
And if it was often affirmed, as by the Council of Chal-
cedon, that the Roman Church had received its privi-
leges from the Fathers, we shall have to consider that
the Primacy itself, the first rank among Churches, was
not given to it by any Synod at any fixed time, but
had always existed since the time of the Apostles,
and that to any heathen who asked which among their
Churches was the first and principal one, whose voice
and testimony had the greatest weight and influence,
every Christian would have answered at once that it
was the Roman Church, where the two chief Apostles,
Peter and Paul, sealed their testimony with their blood,
just as Irenæus has expressed it.
But we shall be obliged to allow that the form
which this primacy took depended on the concessions
of the particular local Churches, and was never there-
fore the same everywhere, acting within certain fixed
limits prescribed by law. No one acquainted with
Church history will choose to affirm that the Popes
Preface..
xxiii
:
S
ever exercised a fixed primatial right, in the same
way in Africa as in Egypt, in Gaul as in Mesopota-
mia ; and the well-known fact speaks clearly enough
for itself, that throughout the whole ancient canon
law, whether in the collections preserved in the East-
ern or the Western Church, there is no mention of
Papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined
action of the bishop of Rome in other Churches, with
the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which
never obtained universally even in the West.
A good illustration of this relation of the Primacy to
the Church is afforded by the Council of Chalcedon in ·
451. The position of Pope Leo, though he was not
present, is evidently a very high and influential one;
more honor was shown to him and his church than
had been ever shown at any Synod to any other
bishop, and his legates presided with great authority
at this most numerous of the ancient assemblies of
the Church. Meanwhile matters came at last to a
point, where the Council maintained, and eventually,
after long opposition on the side of Rome, carried out
its own will against the legates, and the instructions
they had received from Leo.1
1 In the account of patristic teaching on the Roman pri-
macy given below (pp. 70 sqq.), there is no mention made of
one important name, St. Jerome's. As the omission might
be considered intentional, we take this opportunity of making'
some remarks on him. His letters to Pope Damasus of 375
xxiv
Preface.
In this book the first attempt has been made to
give a history of the hypothesis of Papal Infallibility
from its first beginnings to the end of the sixteenth
century, when it appears in its complete form. That
hypothesis, late as was the date of its invention, and
though for a long time it met with strenuous opposi-
tion, will yet always have numerous adherents, if it
is to remain for the future in its former condition of
a mere theological opinion, for it is recommended by.
its convenience and facility of application. It seems
to attain, by the shortest road, in the simplest way,
and with least waste of time, what the ancient Church
expended so much trouble upon, with so many appli-
(Opp. ed. Vallarsi, i. 39), were written under the pressure of
his distress in Syria from the charge of heresy; he was un-
willing to use the received expression, " three hypostases,”
instead of "three persons,” and was therefore accused of
Sabellianism. He then urged the Pope, with courtly and
high-sounding professions of unconditional submission to his
authority, but, at the same time, in a strictly menacing tone,
to pronounce upon this term in the sense needed for justifying
him. In fact, he gave St. Cyril of Jerusalem, to whom he
sent his profession of faith, as high a place as the Pope. But
Cyril, with good ground, thought the case a suspicious one,
and gave him no answer. St. Jerome's well-known saying,
“Inter duodecim unus eligitur, ut capite constituto schismatis
tolleretur occasio,” gives the most pointed expression to the
view then entertained by the faithful of the nature of the
Primacy, only the notions current in our day of the privi-
leges involved in this description of it are more extensive
than was then the case.
Preface.
XXV
ances, and for so long a time. But, if once generally
accepted as a rule of faith, it becomes not only a soft
cushion on which the wearied or perplexed mind, as
well of the layman as of the theologian, may repose
softly, and abandon itself to undisturbed slumber, but
it also supplies to the intellectual world in religious
matters what our steam conveyances and electrical
wires supply to the material world in the saving of
time and labor. Nothing could be more economical
or better adapted to save study and intellectual toil even
for Rome herself; for the inevitable result of the prin-
ciple would speedily bring us to this point, that the -
essence of Infallibility consists in the Pope's signature
to a decree hastily drawn up by a congregation or a
single theologian. The remark has frequently been
made that it is chiefly converts, with little theological
cultivation, but plenty of youthful zeal, who surren-
der themselves in willing and joyful mental slavery to
the infallible ruler of souls; rejoicing and deeming
themselves fortunate to have a master, visible, palpa-
ble, and easily inquired of. Christ seems to them so
exalted and so distant, the Church so large and wide,
so many sided in its opinions, and so silent on many
points people would like to know about. How much
easier to get a dogmatic decision from a Pope by the ·
proper amount of pressure! We may call to mind,
in this connection, the clecisions of Alexander VII. in
xxvii
Preface.
.
S
favor of the newly discovered doctrine of attrition, the
decrees of Clement XI. and Benedict XIII., and the
powers which have thereby been called into operation.
"But if raising the doctrine of Infallibility into an
article of faith must, on the one hand, cripple all intel- -
lectual movement and scientific activity in the Catholic
Church, it would, on the other hand, build up a new
wall of partition, and that the strongest and most
impenetrable of all, between that Church and the
religious communities separated from her. We must
renounce that dearest hope which no Christian can
banish from his breast, the hope of a future reunion
of the divided Churches both of the East and the
West. For no one who is moderately acquainted
with the history of the Eastern Church and of the
Protestant bodies, will seriously hold it to be con-
ceivable that a time can ever come in which even
any considerable portion of these Churches will sub-
ject itself, of its own free-will, to the arbitrary power
of a single man, stretched, as it would be, through
the doctrine of Infallibility, even beyond its present
proportions. Only when a universal conflagration of
libraries had destroyed all historical documents, when
Easterns and Westerns knew no more of their own
early history than the Maories in New Zealand know
of theirs now, and when, by a miracle, great nations
had abjured their whole intellectual character and
Preface.
xxvii
habits of thought, — then, and not till then, would
such a submission be possible.
What was it that gave the Councils of Constance
and Basle, in the fifteenth century, so constraining an
authority and such a lasting influence on the condition
of the Church? It was the power of public opinion
which backed them up. And if at this day a strong
and unanimous public opinion, at once positive in its
faith and firm in its resistance to the realization of the
Ultramontane scheme, were awakened and openly
proclaimed in Europe, or even in Germany only, then,
in spite of the utterances, so suggestive of gloomy
forebodings, of the Bishops of Mayence, St. Pölten,
and Mechlin, the present danger would happily pass
away. We have attempted in this work to contribute
to the awakening and direction of such a public
opinion. It may, perchance, produce no more per-
manent effect than a stone thrown into the water,
which makes a momentary ripple on the surface, and
then leaves all as it was before ; but yet it may act
like a net cast into the sea, which brings in a rich
draught of fishes.
For many reasons no names of authors are placed
on our title-page. We consider that a work so en-
tirely made up of facts, and supporting all its state-
ments by reference to the original authorities, must
and can speak for itself, without needing any names
S
xxviii
Preface.
attached to it. We are anxious that the reader's
attention should be exclusively concentrated on the
matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking con-
troversy, no opportunity should be given for trans-
ferring the dispute from the sphere of objective and
scientific investigation of the weighty questions under
review, conducted with dignity and calmness, into
the alien region of venomous personal defamation
and invective.
Fuly 31, 1869.
INTRODUCTION.
THE veil which has hitherto hung over the prepa-
1 rations and intention of the great General Council
is already lifted.
the following remarkable article, in the form of a
communication from France: 66 The liberal Catholics
are afraid the Council may proclaim the doctrines of
ihe Syllabus and the Infallibility of the Pope, but they
do not give up the hope that it may modify or interpret
certain statements of the Syllabus in a sense favorable
to their own ideas, and that the question of Infallibility
will either not be mooted or not decided. The true
Catholics, who are the great majority of the faithful,
entertain opposite hopes. They wish the Council to
promulgate the doctrines of the Syllabus. In any
case, the Council could put out in a positive form,
and with the requisite developments, the negative
statements of the Syllabus, and thereby quite set aside
the misapprehensions which exist about some of them.
Catholics will accept with delight the proclamation of
the Pope's dogmatic infallibility. Every one knows
that he himself is not disposed to take the initiative
Introduction.'
in a matter so directly concerning himself; but it is
hoped that his infallibility will be defined unani-
mously, by acclamation, by the mouth of the assem-
bled Fathers, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.
Finally, many Catholics wish the Council to crown
the many honors the Church has bestowed on the all-
blessed Virgin, by promulgating her glorious assump-
tion into heaven as a dogma.” It is said before, that
“ Catholics believe the Council will be of short dura-
tion, like the Council of Chalcedon (i.e., that it will
only last three weeks). It is believed that the Bishops
will be so united on the main points, that the minority,
however willing, will not be able to make any pro-
longed opposition.”
In a later issue of the Civiltà similar wishes are put
into the mouth of the Belgian Catholics, “who are not
only devoted body and soul to the interests of the
Church and the Holy See, but submit without hesi-
They hope, among other things, that the Council will
once for all put an end to the division among Cath-
olics, by striking a decisive blow at the spirit and
doctrines of Liberalism, and that the doctrine of the
Pope's infallibility and supremacy over a General
Council will be defined. The Belgian correspondent
is no less emphatic in repudiating the tolerably oppo-
site desires of the so-called liberal Catholics. These,
who number many of the younger clergy among their
ranks, and who have not completely submitted to the
teaching of the Encyclical and Syllabus, maintain that
political questions do not belong to the Popes, and
some of them have violently distorted the Encyclical
Introduction.
and Syllabus in their own sense. Their blindness, to
say nothing worse, is so great, that they either expect
opposite decisions to these, or an interpretation in
their own sense.
We shall not be wrong in taking these correspond-
ents' articles of the Civiltà, which are, perhaps, to
be followed by others from other parts of the Cath-
olic world, as something more than feelers merely to
ascertain whether things are ripe for the dogmatic
surprises already prepared. No! these zealots are
not accustomed to pay the very slightest regard to
the mental disposition of their age. In these com-
munications about the wishes and hopes of Catholics,
which take the innocent form of petitions to the Holy
See, we have significant hints of what the Council is
expected to do; significant hints, first to the Bishops
to acquaint themselves with their duty, and abstain
from useless opposition; and next, to the rest of the
Catholic world to prepare itself for the approaching
" " announcements of the Holy Ghost.”
The Civiltà, written by Roman Jesuits, and com-
mended some years ago in a Papal Brief as the purest
journalistic organ of true Church doctrine, may be
regarded as in some sense the Moniteur of the Court
of Rome. It is not too much to say that in all im-
portant questions its thoughts are identical with those
of the chief head, and of many other - heads," in
Rome. Its lofty tone and arrogant handling of all
opponents correspond to this official character. Its
articles often read like Papal Bulls spun out. One
1 [This seems to refer to the Pastoral of the Bishop of
Orleans, Dupanloup. - Tr.]
Introduction.
could not therefore desire a more trustworthy authority
as to the aims of Rome in convoking this Council.
Nor are other instructive signs wanting besides the -
statements of the Civiltà. The Jesuits have been
active for some time past in founding confraternities
which bind themselves to hold and propagate Papal
Infallibility as an article of faith. For the same object
the institution of Provincial Synods has been revived
during the last ten years, under stringent and repeated
exhortations from Rome. And it may be seen from
the published acts of those held both in and out of
Ģermany, that the question of Papal Infallibility and
of the theses of the Syllabus has been laid before
them. The Jesuit Schneemann reports that the Pro-
vincial Synods of Cologne, Colocsa, Utrecht, and
those held in North America, have accepted Papal
Infallibility." He observes that “these Synodal affir-
mations of Papal Infallibility, revised at Rome, are
important as showing that, though as yet no formal
article of faith, it is in the eyes of Rome, and of the
Bishops, an indubitable truth. For Provincial Synods
are strictly forbidden to decide controverted points
of belief.” We may safely assume, on such good
authority, that these decisions were not waited for at
Rome, but were sent from Rome to the Provincial
Synods for approval. The answers could have been
known beforehand in the present state of things in
the Church; they will be produced in the Council
as proofs of the belief of the majority of Catholic
Bishops, and to give the appearance of the definition
of Papal Infallibility not being so exclusively the work
i Literarischer Handweiser, 1867, pp. 439 seq.
Introduction. ..
i
of the Jesuits, an appearance Pius IX. was anxious to
avoid in the case of the Immaculate Conception. It
appears, by a letter of Flir's from Rome, that he
yielded quite unexpectedly in that case to Cardinal
Rauscher's demand for striking out of the Bull some
of the irrelevant proofs alleged, because, as he said,
this must be endured, though a humiliation for Rome,
that people might not say every thing depended on
the Jesuits.1
We know on good authority that the whole plan
of the campaign for fixing the Infallibility dogma is
already mapped out. An English Prelate — we could
name him — has undertaken at the commencement of
proceedings to direct a humble prayer to the Holy
Father to raise the opinion of his infallibility to the
dignity of a dogma. The Jesuits and their Roman
allies hope that the majority of the Bishops present,
who have been already primed for the occasion, will
accede by acclamation to this petition, and the Holy
Father will gladly yield to the pressure coming on
him spontaneously, and, as it were, through a sudden
and irresistible inspiration from on high, and so the
new dogma will be settled at one sitting, without
further examination, as by the stroke of a magician's
wand. As the Roman people are told after a Con-
1 Briefe aus Rom (Innsbruck, 1864), p. 25: “The Holy
Father has found this criticism of a stranger (viz. Rauscher)
very unpleasant, and said --- Questo è una mortificazione
per Roma, ma è bisogno di soffrirla, affinché non si dica, che,
tutto sia dipendente dai Gesuiti." [Flir was Rėctor of the
German Church at Rome, and Auditor of the Rota. His
Letters are reviewed in the Saturday Review for May 28,
1864. –TR]
Introduction.
clave, Habemus Papam, on the evening of this mem-
orable sitting the news will go forth to the whole
Catholic world, Habemus Papam infallibilem. And
before this newly risen and bright sun of divine truth,
all the ghosts of false science and forms of modern
civilization will be scared away for ever.
Meanwhile, to keep to the articles of the Civiltà
already quoted, it is clear from them that the Council
is summoned chiefly for the purpose of satisfying the
darling wishes of the Jesuits and that part of the Curia
which is led by them.
We propose to examine these theories in the follow-
ing order: first we shall take the Syllabus and what
concerns it; then we shall briefly discuss the new
dogma about Mary; and lastly we shall set the dogma
of Papal Infallibility in the light of history.
CHAPTER I.
MAKING THE SYLLABUS DOGMATIC.
THE articles of the Syllabus — such, we are told,
is one of the urgent wishes of true Catholics -
are to be defined by the Council in the form of posi-
tive dogmas. The Church will thus be enriched with
a considerable number of new articles of faith, hitherto
unheard of or abundantly contradicted; but when once
Papal Infallibility has become matter of faith, this will
be only the first fruits of a far richer harvest in the
future. The extent of the Catholic Church will thereby
be gradually narrowed, perhaps till it presents the
spectacle once offered to the world by a Pope, Peter
de Luna, Benedict XIII., who from his castle of Penis-
cola condemned the whole of Christendom which re-
fused to acknowledge him; and finally, when the
Council of Constance had solemnly deposed him
(1417), and the number of his adherents was reduced
to a few individuals, declared 6 The whole Church
is assembled in Peniscola, not in Constance, as once
the whole human race was collected in Noah's ark.”
But this will give them little concern; nay, the more
the educated classes are forced out of the Church, the
easier will it be for Loyola's steersmen to guide the
ship, and reduce the true flock that still remains in it
to more complete subjection. Catholicism, hitherto
8
The Syllabus.
.
regarded as a universal religion, would, by a notable
irony of its fate, be transformed into the precise
opposite of what its name and notion imports. As
the assembled Bishops are to exercise their power of
formulating dogmas on the contents of the Syllabus,
they have only to set their conciliar seal on a work
already prepared to their hand by the Vienna Jesuit,
Schrader. He has already turned the negative state-
ments of the Syllabus into affirmatives, and so we
can, without trouble, anticipate the decisions of the
Council on this matter. And, as it is to last only
three weeks, from and after 29th December, 1869, the
Roman Catholic world will be enriched by the follow-
ing truths, and will have to accept, on peril of sal-
vation, the following principles :-
(1.) The Church has the right of employing exter-
nal coercion; she has direct and indirect temporal
power, potestatem temporalem as distinguished from
spiritualem, or, in ecclesiastical language, power of
civil and corporal punishment. Schrader himself in-
timates that this is meant when he says, “ It is not only
minds that are under the power of the Church." 3 His
fellow - Jesuit, Schneemann, speaks out clearly and
roundly enough on this point: “ As the Church has
1 Der Pabst und die modernen Ideen. Heft 11. Die Ency-
clica. Wien, 1865.
2 The Syllabus condemns the following propositions : “Ec-
clesia vis inferendæ potestatem non habet, neque potestatem
ullam temporalem, directam aut indirectam” (24). “Præter
potestatem episcopatui inhærentem, alia ei attributa est tem-
poralis potestas a civili imperio vel expresse vel tacite concessa,
revocanda propterea, cum libuerit, a civili imperio” (25).
3 Der Pabst, p. 64.
The Syllabus..
an external jurisdiction she can impose temporal pun-
ishments, and not only deprive the guilty of spiritual
privileges. ... The love of earthly things, which
injures the Church's order, obviously cannot be effec-
tively put down by merely spiritual punishments. It
is little affected by them. If that order is to be
avenged on what has injured it, if that is to suffer
which has enjoyed the sin, temporal and sensible pun-
ishments must be employed.” Among these Schnee-
mann reckons fines, imprisonment, scourging, and
banishment, and he is but endorsing an article in the
Civiltà, Del potere coattivo della Chiesa, which
maintains the necessity of the Church visiting her op-
ponents with fines, fasts, imprisonment, and scourg-
ing, because without this external power the Church
could not last to the end of the world. She herself is
to fix the limits of this power, and he is a rebel against
God who denies it. Schneemann does not conceal his
grief that the present world is so far gone from the
apprehension and application of these wholesome
truths: “We see that the State does not always fulfil
its duties towards the Church according to the divine
idea, and, let us add, cannot always fulfil them, through
the wickedness of men. And thus the Church's rights
in inflicting temporal punishment and the use of phy-
sical force are reduced to a minimum.” 1
1 Schneemann's Die kirchliche Gewalt und ihre Träger
forms vol. vii. of the Stimmen aus Maria Laach (Freiburg,
1867). The passages quoted are from pp. 18, 41. The article
of the Civiltà referred to appeared in 1854, vol. vii. p. 6o3. It
is said expressly of the Church that against those " che recu-
sano la soggezione dello spirito, operi per via di castighi tem-:
ΙΟ
The Syllabus.
It was from the spirit here manifested thať Pius IX.
in 1851 censured the teaching of the canonist Nuytz in
Turin, because he allowed only the power of spiritual
punishment to the Church. And in the Concordat
made in 1863 with the Republics of South America, it
is laid down in Article 8 that the civil authorities are
absolutely bound to execute every penalty decreed
by the spiritual courts. In a statement addressed by
Pius IX. to Count Duval de Beaulieu, published in
the Allgemeine Zeitung of November 13, 1864, the
power of the Church over the government of civil
society, and its direct jurisdiction in temporal matters,
is expressly guarded.
It follows that they are greatly mistaken who sup-
pose that the Biblical and old Christian spirit has pre-
vailed in the Church over the mediæval notion of her
being an institution with coercive power to imprison,
hang, and burn. On the contrary, these doctrines are
to receive fresh sanction from a General Council, and
that pet theory of the Popes — that they could force
kings and magistrates, by excommunication and its
consequences, to carry out their sentences of confisca-
tion, imprisonment, and death - is now to become an
infallible dogma. It follows that not only is the old
institution of the Inquisition justified, but it is recom-
mended as an urgent necessity in view of the unbelief
of the present age. The Civiltà has long since de-
porali, multandoli nelle sostanze, maurandoli con privazioni
e digiuni, affligendoli con carcere e battiture. The other
references to the Civiltà are from vol. viii. pp. 42, 279-282.
Fus Eccles. Univ. Tractat.
The Syllabus.
II.
scribed it as “a sublime spectacle of social perfec-
tion ;”1 and the two recent canonizations and beatifi-
cations of inquisitors, following in rapid succession,
gain in this connection a new and remarkable signifi-
cance.
(2.) According to Schrader's affirmative statement
of the twenty-third proposition of the Syllabus, the
Popes have never exceeded the bounds of their power
or usurped the rights of princes. All Catholics must
for the future acknowledge, and all teachers of civil
law and theology must maintain, that the Popes can
still depose kings at their will, and give away whole
kingdoms and nations at their good pleasure.
When, for instance, Martin IV. placed King Pedro
of Aragon under excommunication and interdict for
rising of the Sicilians against the tyranny of Charles I.
(in 1282), and then promised indulgences for all their
sins to those who fought with him and Charles against -
Pedro, and finally declared his kingdom forfeit, and
made it over for a yearly tribute to Charles of Valois
- a step which cost the two kings of France and Ara-
gon their life, and the French the loss of an army, 8 —
1 In 1855, vol. i. p. 55, the Inquisition is called “un sublime
spettacolo della perfezione sociale."
2 The Syllabus condemns the following proposition (23),
“Romani Pontifices et Concilia Ecumenica a limitibus suæ
Schrader, ut sup. p. 63.
3 See Raynald. Annal. Eccles. (ed. Mansi), vol. iii. pp. 183-4.
The Bull of Martin IV. against Peter of Aragon runs thus:
“Regnum Aragoniæ cæterasque terras Regis ipsius expo-
nentes, ut sequitur, ipsum Petrum regem Aragonum eisdem
12
The Syllabus.
this was not, as the world in its false enlightenment
has hitherto supposed, a violent usurpation, but the
application of a divine right which every Pope still
possesses in full, though prudence may require that for
the moment, and perhaps for some time to come, they
should let it lie dormant, and adopt meantime a wait-
ing attitude.
Pope Clement IV., in 1265, after selling millions of
South Italians to Charles of Anjou for a yearly tribute
of eight hundred ounces of gold, declared that he
would be excommunicated if the first payment was
deferred beyond the appointed term, and that for the
second neglect the whole nation would incur interdict,
i.e., be deprived of sacraments and divine worship.1
regno et terris regioque honore sententialiter, justitiâ exigente,
privamus; et privantes exponimus eadem occupanda Catholi-
cis, de quibus et prout Sedes Apostolica duxerit providendum,
in dictis regno et terris ejusdem Ecclesiæ Romanæ jure salvo."
The Pope required of Charles of Anjou, “quingentas libras
parvorum Turonensium" as Papal tribute, and for this con-
sideration had a crusade preached against Peter, with the
following proinise (1283): “Omnibus Christi fidelibus qui
contra Regem Aragoniæ nobis, Ecclesiae vel Regi Siciliæ
astiterint, si eos propterea in conflictu mori contigerit, illam
peccatorum suorum, de quibus corde contriti et ore professi
fuerint, veniam indulgenus quæ transfretantibus in terræ
sanctæ subsidium consueverit.” It is noteworthy that Martin
IV. compelled several German churches (Liége, Metz, Verdun,
Basle) to pay a tenth of all ecclesiastical property to France
for carrying on this war. When Rudolph of Hapsburg re-
claimed vigorously against so unheard of a demand, Martin's
successor, Honorius IV., exhorted him "to submit patiently
to the exaction out of reverence for the Papal See.” Raynald.
ut sup. pp. 600-1.
1 Raynald. p. 162. "Quod si in secundo termino infra subse-
The Syllabus.
13
Nevertheless, the Bishops of the future Council are
to make it an article of faith that the Pope did not
thereby exceed the limits of his power; in other words,
that he could at his mere caprice, and for purely polit-
ical or pecuniary ends, deprive millions of innocent
men of what, according to the teaching of the Church,
(3.) If the Council executes the programme of the
Civiltà, it will also undertake a correction of the hith-
erto prevalent estimate of history. We now read in
all historical books and systems of Church law that
the immunities of the clergy (e.g. the privilegium
fori, the unrestricted right of acquiring property, and
exemption from civil functions) were gradually con-
ceded to the Church by the Roman emperors and later
kings, and have therefore a civil origin. This will be
characterized as heresy.1
Those also will become guilty of heresy who write
or teach that the extravagant pretensions of the Popes
contributed to the separation of the Eastern and West-
ern Churches, though this may be discovered in official
documents from the twelfth to the sixteenth century,
and the avowals of a number of contemporary author-
ities.?
quentes duos menses eundem censum sine diminutione quali-
bet non persolveritis, totum regnum ac tota terra predicta
ecclesiastico erunt supposita interdicto.”
i The Syllabus condemns the prop. (30), “Ecclesiæ et per-
sonarum ecclesiasticarum immunitas a jure civili ortum
habuit."
? It condemns proposition 38, “Divisioni Ecclesiae in
Orientalem atque Occidentalem Romanorum Pontificum ar-
bitria contulerunt."
14
The Syllabus.
In prospect of such decrees all Catholic writers on
Law or History should be urgently advised to publish
their works before 30th December, 1869; for, from
thenceforward, “ magnus ab integro sæclorum nascitur
ordo," and only Jesuits or their pupils will be called or
qualified, without savor of heresy, to write on secular
or Church history, civil law, politics, canon law, etc.
There will at least be required for literary and academ-
ical work a flexibility and elastic versatility of spirit and
pen hitherto confined to journalism.
(4.) Still more dangerous will be the questions of
freedom of conscience, and persecution, when once
the propositions of the Syllabus are made articles of
faith, according to the will of the Jesuits and the Bish-
ops acting under their guidance.
The Syllabus condemns the whole existing view of .
the rights of conscience and religious faith and profes-'.
sion: it is a wicked error to admit Protestants to equal
political rights with Catholics, or to allow Protestant
immigrants the free use of their worship;' on the
contrary, to coerce and suppress them is a sacred duty,
when it has become possible, as the Jesuit Fathers and
1 It condemns prop. 77, "Ætate hâc nostrâ non amplius
expedit religionem Catholicam haberi tanquam unicam statas
religionem, cæteris quibuscunque cultibus exclusis; ” — prop.
78, “Hinc laudabiliter in quibusdam Catholici nominis regi-
onibus lege cautum est, ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus
liceat publicum proprii cujusque cultùs exercitium habere;”.
- prop. 79, “Enimvero falsum est civilem cujusque cultûs
libertatem, itemque plenam potestatem omnibus attributam
quaslibet opiniones cogitationesque palam publiceque mani-
festandi, conducere ad populorum mores animosque facilius
corrumpendos ac indifferentismi pestem propagandam.”
The Syllabus.
15
·
their adherents teach. Till then, Schneemann" says,
the Church will, of course, act with the greatest pru-
dence in the use of her temporal and physical power,
according to altered circumstances, and will not there-
fore at present adopt her entire mediæval policy.
The inevitable result of this is to propagate, from
generation to generation, lies, hypocrisy, and deceit by
wholesale ; but that is the lesser evil. For freedom of
opinion and worship produces, according to the Sylla-
bus, profligacy and the pest of indifferentism. That,
too, is to become an article of faith, and the future
commentators on the decrees of the Council will have
to confirm its truth by reference to the actual condition
of the nations which have these liberties. They will
point to the Germans, the English, the French, and
the Belgians as the most profligate of men, while the
Neapolitans, Spaniards, and inhabitants of the Roman
States, with whom the exclusive system flourishes, or
did till quite lately, are a brilliant model of virtue
among all nations of the earth. To speak seriously,
the contest inaugurated by the Encyclical of 1864 will
have to be carried out with the free use of every avail-
able Church weapon, — a contest against the common
sentiment and moral sense of every civilized people,
and all the institutions that have grown out of them.
It is but a few years since Ketteler, Bishop of May-
ence, in a widespread work praised by all the Catholic
journals of the day, undertook to show the moderation,
tolerance, and self-restraint of the Catholic Church in
its relations with the State and the separate Churches.
He insists that the Church so thoroughly respects free-
1 Schneemann, ut supra, p. 30.
16
The Syllabus.
dom of conscience as to repudiate all outward coercion
of those beyond her pale as immoral and utterly un-
lawful; that nothing is further from her mind than to
employ any physical force against those who, as being
baptized, are her members; that she must leave it en-
tirely to their own freest determination whether they
will accept her faith ; and that it is absurd for Protes-
tants to suppose they have any need to fear a forcible
conversion, etc. etc.? How far these statements can be
verified by history is indeed very doubtful.
Meanwhile the Bishop is instructed by the Syllabus
and its commentator, Schrader, that he has fallen into
that forbidden liberalism which is, according to the
Roman view, one of the grossest errors of the day, and
that it was by special indulgence of Rome that his
book was not put on the Index. What a light this
throws on the condition of the Church, and what an
unworthy mental slavery the Roman Jesuit party
threatens foreign Catholics with, is thus made clear
enough! An illustrious bishop speaks, amid universal
bishops, on those grave questions, upon the right
answer to which the legal position and beneficial
action of the Church in our days in large measure
depends. And now, a few years afterwards, the Pope,
without indeed naming him, condemns his doctrinė,
and the very people who applauded the bishop's book
applaud the Encyclical with yet profounder homage,
and are convinced that what they took for white is
black. Ketteler, who knows well enough that the
main object of the Syllabus is to exalt principles at
1 Freiheit Autorität, und Kirche, Mainz, 1862.
The Syllabus.
17
first only applied to the condition and circumstances
of a particular country into universal articles of faith,
tried to save himself by the pitiful evasion that these
articles of the Syllabus do not contain a general prin-
ciple, but only one applicable to certain countries,
especially Spain. It appears, then, that our bishops,
our theologians and preachers, and our people, did not
know what the true doctrine of the Catholic Church
is, but only those monks and monsignori, especially
the Jesuits, who compose the Roman Congregations,
and who have now for the first time since the Ency-
clical of Gregory XVI. opened the hitherto jealously
closed fountains of knowledge. And thus the sin-
gular fact has come to light that the Catholic nations
have for a long time been thoroughly heterodox, and
that their appointed teachers have helped on the error,
and sworn to Constitutions moulded in utterly vicious
principles and laid under ban of Rome.
. (5.) The Syllabus closes with the notorious asser-
tion that “they are in damnable error who regard the
reconciliation of the Pope with modern civilization as
possible or desirable.” 2
Every existing Constitution in Europe, with the sole
exception of Russia and the Roman States, is an out-
growth of this modern civilization. Freedom of relig-
ious profession, worship, and teaching, freedom of
political rights and duties before the law, - these,
with the people's right of taxing themselves, and
i Deutschland nach dem Kriege, Mainz, 1867, cap. 12.
2 The Syllabus condemns prop. So, “Romanus Pontifex
potest ac debet cum progressu cum liberalismo et cum recenti
civilisatione sese reconciliare et componere.”
IS
The Syllabus.
taking a part in legislation and municipal self-govern-
ment, are the dominant principles and ideas which
interpenetrate all existing Constitutions, and they are
so closely connected, and so sustain each other, that
where some of them are conceded, the rest inevitably
follow. But an opposite course has been steadily pur-
sued in the Church for centuries, especially since the
pseudo-Isidorian decretals; the hierarchical system has
become more and more built up into an unlimited
oligarchical absolutism, and a constantly growing and
encroaching bureaucratic centralization has killed out
all the old Church-life in its harmonious disposition
and synodal self-government, or turned it into a mere.
empty form.
Thus Church and State are like two parallel streams,
one flowing north, the other south. The modern civil
Constitutions, and the efforts for self-government and
the limitation of arbitrary royal power, are in the
strongest contradiction to Ultramontanism, the very
kernel and ruling principle of which is the consoli-
dation of absolutism in the Church. But State and
Church are intimately connected ; they act and react
on one another, and it is inevitable that the political
views and tendencies of a nation should sooner or
later influence it in Church matters also.
Hence the profound hatred, at the bottom of the
soul of every genuine ultramontane, of free insti-
tutions and the whole constitutional system. The
Civiltà not long since gave pointed utterance to it:
“ Christian States have ceased to exist; human society
is again become heathen, and is like an earthly body
with no breath from heaven. But with God nothing
The Syllabus.
19
is impossible; he can quicken the dry bones, as in
Ezekiel's vision. The political power, parliaments,
voting urns, civil marriages, are dry bones. The
universities are not only dry, but stinking bones, so
great is the stench that rises from their deadly and
pestilential teaching. But these bones can be recalled
to life if they hear God's word and receive His law,
which is proclaimed to them by the supreme and
infallible doctor, the Pope.”1
Let us remember that the noble mother of Euro-
pean Constitutions, the English Magna Charta, was
visited with the severest anger of Pope Innocent III.,
who understood its importance well enough. He saw
therein a contempt for the Apostolic See, a curtailing
of royal prerogatives, and a disgrace to the English
nation; he therefore pronounced it null and void, and
excommunicated the English barons who obtained it.?
1 Vol. iii. pp. 265 seq., 1868. “Ossa, non pur aride, ma fe-
tenti le università, tanto è il puzzo, che n’esce di dottrine
corrompitrici e pestiferi."
2 The Bull (Aug. 15, 1215) runs thus: “Nos tantæ indig-
nitatis audaciam dissimulare nolentes, in apostolicæ sedis
contemptum, regalis juris dispendium, Anglicanæ gentis
opprobrium et grave periculum totius negotii crucifixi (quod
utique immineret, nisi per auctoritatem nostram revocarentur
omnia, quæ a tanto Principe cruce signato totaliter sunt ex-
torta, etiam ipso volente illa servari): ex parte Dei omnipo-
tentis, Patris et Filii, et Spiritus sancti, auctoritate quoque
beatorum Petri et Pauli Apostolorum ejus, ac nostra, de com-
muni fratrum nostrorum consilio, compositionem hujusmodi
reprobamus penitus et damnamus; sub interminatione anathe-
matis prohibentes, ne dictus Rex eam observare præsumat,
aut Barones cum complicibus suis ipsam exigant observari :
tam chartam quam obligationes seu cautiones, quæcunque
pro ipsa vel de ipsa sunt factæ, irritantes penitus, aut cassan-
20
The Syllabus.
.
We may readily do Pius IX. and his Jesuit counsel-
lors, who are notoriously the authors of the Encyclical
and Syllabus, the justice of admitting that they have
done in 1864 what Innocent in 1215 was prophet
cnough to consider for the interests of the Church.
What was then a weak and tender sapling has grown,
in spite of the curse of the most powerful of all the
Popes, into a mighty tree, overshadowing half the
world, and is blest with blooming children and chil-
dren's children. And so, too, its latest offspring, the
Austrian Constitution, - which a far feebler successor
of Innocent has stigmatized as an “unspeakable
abomination” (infanda sane),—may rest in peace,
and appeal confidently to the world's verdict on the
world's history. And the more so, since this very suc-
cessor was not ashamed, a year or two ago, to have
the question asked in London, whether he too might
not find a residence in the motherland of those “de-
moralizing” laws of freedom.
Rome has shown herself no less hostile to the French
than to the English Constitution. In 1824, Leo XII.
addressed a letter to Louis XVIII., pointing out the bad-
ness of the French Constitution, and urgently pressing
him to expunge from the charter those articles which
savored of liberalism. When Charles X. tried to
change the Constitution by the ordinances of July 1830,
every one gave the blame to his episcopal advisers,
tes, ut nullo unquam tempore aliquam habeant firmitatem.”
- Rymer, Foedera, etc. (ed. Clarke), i. p. 135. Innocent sent
a similar document to the English barons, and when they
took no heed of it the ban and interdict followed.
I See Artaud de Montor, Hist. Leo XII. (Paris, 1843), vol. i.
p. 234 seq.
The Syllabus.
.
21
and especially his confessor, Cardinal Latil. The fall
of the Bourbons was the result. Soon after the estab-
lishment of the new Belgian Constitution in 1832,
Gregory XVI. issued his famous Encyclical, recently
used and confirmed by Pius IX., which pronounces
freedom of conscience an insane folly, and freedom of
the press a pestiferous error, which cannot be suffi-
ciently detested. The immediate consequence was
the rise of a liberal party in Belgium, at internecine
feud with the Catholic party. The contest still goes
on, after nearly forty years; the schism has grown
ever wider and deeper, and the hatred fiercer be-
tween them, and, as Ultramontanism makes every
understanding or compromise between them impos-
sible, the political controversy has merged in a sys-
tematic attacking and undermining of all positive
religion. The Belgian Catholics have never been able
to meet the reproach of being necessarily enemies to
a Constitution condemned as wicked by the Pope, and
that all their assurances of loyalty and conscientious
respect for the fundamental law of the country are
mere hypocrisy. And thus, with all the religiousness
of the people, the liberal and anti-religious party is
constantly gaining ground, while the Catholic party,
divided against itself by the split between ultramon-
tanes and liberals (i.e., Catholics true to the Constitu-
tion), is no longer competent to form any available
Cabinet. The attempt of the Congress of Malines in
1863 was wrecked; the Syllabus has pronounced sen-
tence of death on its programme, so eloquently set
forth by Montalembert, for reconciling the Church with
civil freedom.
22
The Syllabus.
In the United States, Catholics cannot form a politi-
cal party. There, too, as an American bishop has as-
sured us, their situation is most unfavorable as regards
political influence and admission to office, because it
is always cast in their teeth by Protestants that they
find their principles in Papal pronouncements, and
cannot therefore honestly accept the common liberties
and obligations of a free State, but always cherish an
arrière pensée that if ever they become strong enough
they will upset the Constitution.
In Italy the Papal Government has used every effort
to deter Austria and the other Italian sovereigns from
granting parliamentary and free municipal institutions.
The documents proving this are to be seen in print.
The Roman Court declared that it could not suffer
even the very mildest forms of parliamentary govern-
ment in its neighborhood, on account of the bad ex-
ample. The mild and just Grand-Duke Leopold of
1 Prince Schwarzenberg reported this in 1850 to Baron
Hügel in Florence. As the document is not well known north
of the Alps, we give the passage. The whole letter will be
found in a book printed by Gennarelli at Florence in 1862 —
" Le Dottrine civili e religiose della Corte di Roma," p. 72.
It says, in reference to the Tuscan Constitution of 1848, “Le
Gouvernement pontifical avoue, que ses repugnances à cet
égard se fondent aussi sur des motifs, qui lui sont plus par-
ticuliers. Il ne cherche nullement à dissimuler, que, forcé
comme il est, à devoir reconnoître et proclamer tout régime
parlementaire comme directement menaçant pour le libre
exercice du pouvoir spirituel, il ne sauroit voir sans alarme se
propager et se consolider autour de lui non seulement des -
principes constitutionnels imposés originairement par la ré-
volution, mais encore des formes représentatives plus mitigées,
dont la contagion lui semble non moins inévitable et désas-
The Syllabus.
23
Tuscany was compelled against his will, under pres-
sure from Rome, to abolish that article of the Constitu-
tion which asserted the equality of all citizens before
the law, without distinction of religion, because the
Pope declared that it could not be promulgated “tuta
conscientia."1 Under the same influence the Jewish
physicians in Tuscany were first in 1852 forbidden to
practise, as they had long been allowed to do. Who
can wonder, after this, at the hatred of the Italians
towards the Papacy as it now is, or think any perma-
nent peace possible between Italy and such a hierarchy
as this?
That the Bavarian Constitution, with its equality of
religious confessions, and of all citizens before the law,
is looked on with an evil eye at Rome, is sufficiently
shown by the constant reproaches of the Curia since
1818.2 And finally, the Austrian Constitution has
drawn on itself the curse of the Vatican. In the Allo-
cution of the 22d June, 1868, we read -
“By our apostolic authority we reject and condemn
the above-mentioned (new Austrian) laws in general,
and in particular all that has been ordered, done, or
enacted in these and in other things against the rights
of the Church by the Austrian Government or its sub-
ordinates; by the same authority we declare these laws
treuse dans l'intérieur des états,” etc. In other words, “Our
absolutist system, supported by the Inquisition, the strictest
censorship, the suppression of all literature, the privileged
exemption of the clergy, and arbitrary power of bishops, can-
not endure any other than absolutist governments in Italy,"
1 Gennarelli, ut supra, pp. 78 seg.
2 See, for these, Concordat und Constitutions Eid der Ka-
thol. in Bayern (Augsburg, 1847), pp. 244 seq.
24
The Syllabus.
and their consequences to have been, and to be for the
future, null and void (nulliusque roboris fuisse ac
fore). We exhort and adjure their authors, especially
those who call themselves Catholics, and all who have
dared to propose, to accept, to approve, and to execute
them, to remember the censures and spiritual penalties
incurred ipso facto, according to the apostolical con-.
stitutions and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, by
those who violate the rights of the Church.”
By this sentence the whole legislature and executive
of Austria is placed under ban, with the Emperor,
Francis Joseph at its head, and the Austrians may be
thankful that the whole territories of the empire are
not placed under interdict, according to the earlier pre-
cedent put in practice the last time against Venice
(1606).
Pius IX. condemns the Austrian Constitution for
making Catholics bury the bodies of heretics in their
cemeteries where they have none of their own, and he
considers it “abominable" (abominabilis), because it
allows Protestants and Jews to erect educational insti-
tutions. He seems to have quite forgotten that similar
laws have long prevailed elsewhere without opposition
from Rome.
If the will of the Civiltà is accomplished, the Bish-
ops will solemnly condemn, by implication, next De-
cember, the Constitutions of the countries they live in,
and the laws which they, or many of them, have sworn
to observe, and will bind themselves to use all their
efforts for the abolition of those laws and the overthrow
of the Constitutions. This will not, of course, be so
openly stated; the Civiltà and its allies will say, what
The Syllabus.
25
has often been said since 1864, that the Church must
observe for a time a prudent economy, and must so far
take account of circumstances and accomplished facts,
as, without any modification of her real principles, to
pay a certain external deference to them. The Bishops
do well to endure the lesser evil, as long as open resist-
ance would lead to worse consequences, and prejudice
the interests of the Church. But this submission, or
rather silence and endurance, is only provisional, and
simply means that the lesser evil must be chosen in
preference to a contest with no present prospect of
success.
As soon as the situation changes, and there is a hope
of contending successfully against free laws, the atti-
tude of the bishops and clergy changes too. Then,
as the Court of Rome and the Jesuits teach, every oath
taken to a Constitution in general or to particular laws
. loses its force. The oft-quoted saying of the apostle,
that we must obey God rather than man, means, in the
Jesuit gloss, that we must obey the Pope, as God's
representative on earth, and the infallible interpreter
of His will, rather than any civil authority or laws.
Therefore Innocent X., in his Bull of 20th November,
1648, “ Zelus domús Dei," which condemns the Peace
of Westphalia as “null and void, and of no effect or
authority for past, present, or future,” expressly adds,
that no one, though he had sworn to observe the Peace,
is bound to keep his oath. It was chiefly those con-
1 The passage referred to runs as follows: “Motu proprio,
ac ex certâ scientiâ et matura deliberatione nostris, deque
Apostolicæ potestatis plenitudine, prædictos alterius seu utri-
usque Pacis hujusmodi articulos cæteraque in dictis Instru-
26
The Syllabus.
ditions of the Westphalian Peace which secured to
Protestants the free exercise of their religion, and ad-
mission to civil offices, that filled the Pope, as he said,
with profound grief (cum intimo doloris sensu). And
this sentence was adhered to, for in 1789 Pius VI. de-
clared that the Church had never admitted the West-
phalian Peace, “ Pacem Westphalicam Ecclesia
nunquam probavit.” Thus again in 1805, Pius VII.,
in writing to his nuncio at Venice, upholds the punish-
ments imposed by Innocent III. for heresy, viz., con-
fiscation of property for private persons, and the
relaxation of all obligations of tribute and subjection
to heretical princes; and he only regrets that we are
fallen on such evil days, and the Bride of Christ is
so humbled, that it is neither possible to carry out, nor
even of any avail to recall, these holy maxims, and
she cannot exercise a righteous severity against the ene-
mies of the faith.1
These “holy maxims,” then, are allowed for a while
to lie dormant, though, according to the Jesuit plan of
the campaign, they are to be raised at the approaching
Council to the dignity of irreversible dognras through
the assertion of Papal Infallibility. Better times must
be waited for, when the Church (that is, the Court of
Rome) shall be raised once more from the dust, and
mentis contenta .... ipso jure nulla, irrita, invalida, injusta,
damnata, reprobata, inania, viribusque et effectu vana omnia
fuisse, esse et in perpetuo fore; neminemque ad illorum et
cujus libet eorum etiamsi juramento vallata sint, observan-
tiam teneri....decernimus et declaramus.” — Magnum Bullar.
Roman. t. v. p. 466 seq. Luxemb. 1727.
1 The Italian text of the letter is given in Essai sur la
Puissance Temp. des Papes (Paris, 1818), vol. ii. p. 320.
The Syllabus.
seated on the throne of her universal, world-wide, spir-
itual sovereignty.
But here “ the true Catholics” are divided into two
parties. The one party, which is sufficiently educated
to understand something of the spirit and tendencies
of the age, cherishes no illusions as to the possibility,
or at least the near approach, of a thousand years'
reign of absolute Papal dominion, and therefore de-
spairs of humanity, which in its scornful blindness has
rejected its last anchor of hope. The age we live in
is the dark age of Antichristian dominion, the age of
wailing and woe which is to precede the appearance
of the bodily Antichrist for two years and a half, after
which comes the end of all things and the general
judgment. This party was represented in Bavaria by
a learned and influential ecclesiastic, now dead, who
gave it expression in a pastoral of the present Cardinal
Reisach. It simply means: As history does not go
our way, there shall be no more history, or, in other
words, the world must come to an end, because our
system is not carried out. As their wisdom is at fault,
they presume the wisdom of Providence is exhausted
also! Men of this school think a Council so near the
end of the world superfluous, or at best only last warn-
ing, given to men rather in wrath than in mercy.
The other party, and the Jesuits at their head, see in
the Council the last star of hope, and expect that,
when Papal Infallibility and the articles of the Syllabus
have been proclaimed, mankind will bow down its
1 [Windischmann, Vicar-General of Cardinal Reisach when
Archbishop of Munich, one of the few very learned men mod-
ern Ultramontanism has produced. - Tr.]
28
The Syllabus.
proud neck, like the royal Sicambrian, Clovis, and
will burn what it adored before, and adore what it
burnt.
A holy bishop, Francis of Sales, often expressed his
dislike of writings which deal with political questions,
such as the indirect power of the Pope over princes,
and thought with good reason that, in an age when the
Church has so many open enemies, such questions
should not be mooted. But St. Francis of Sales is no
authority for the Jesuits.
1 Euvres, xi. 406.
CHAPTER II.
THE NEW DOGMA ABOUT MARY.
TN comparison with the principles involved in sanc-
1 tioning the Syllabus, the new dogma proposed
about Mary is harmless enough. No one indeed can
comprehend the urgent need for it only a few years
after Pius IX. has solemnly proclaimed the Immaculate
Conception as a revealed truth. But there never seems
to be enough done for the glorification of Mary. It is
worth while, however, to take note of this second ex-
hibition of the characteristic contempt of the Jesuits for
the tradition of the ancient Church.
Ņeither the New Testament nor the Patristic writings
tell us any thing about the destiny of the Holy Virgin
after the death of Christ. . Two apocryphal works of
the fourth or fifth century — one ascribed to St. John,
the other to Melito, Bishop of Sardis - are the earliest
authorities for the tradition about her bodily assump-
tion. It is contained also in the pseudo-Dionysius :
he and Gregory of Tours brought it into the Western
Church. But centuries passed before it found any
recognition. Even the Martyrology of Usuard, used
in the Roman Church in the ninth century, confined
1 Εις την Κοίμησιν της υπεραγίας Δεσποίνης, and De Transitu
Mariæ.
2 De Nom. Div. 3. De Glor. Mart. i. 4.
30
The Assumption.
:
, itself to the statement that nothing was known of the
manner of the Holy Virgin's death and the subsequent
condition of her body : 6 Plus eligebat sobrietas Ec-
clesiæ cum pietate nescire, quam aliquid frivolum et
apocryphum inde tenendo docere.”i If this floating
tradition too is made into a dogma under Jesuit inspi-
ration, it may easily be foreseen that the Order — lap-
pétit vient en mangeant — will bestow many a jewel
hereafter on the dogma-thirsting world, out of the rich
treasures of its traditions and pet theological doctrines.
There is, for instance, the doctrine of Probabilism,
which lies quite as near its heart as the Syllabus and
Papal Infallibility, and which has stood it in such ex-
cellent stead in practice.2 What a glorious justifica-
tion it would be for an Order which has been so widely
blamed, if the Council were to be so accommodating
as to set its seal to this doctrine too as an article of
faith!
We know that the Order expects another important
service from the Council, viz., that the gymnasia and
schools of higher education should be placed in its
hands, as being specially called and fitted for the work,
and that the Bishops should engage, wherever they
have the power, to hand over these establishments to
the Fathers of the Society. It is therefore extremely
desirable, nay necessary, that that ever-gaping wound
in the reputation of the Order - its moral system -
should be healed by a decree of the Council.
1 Usuard, Martyrol. 18 Kal. Sept.
2 [The lax system of Jesuit casuistry exposed in the Pro-
vincial Letters of Pascal. Innocent XI. condemned some of
the extremer forms of it. — Tr.]
CHAPTER III.
PAPAL INFALL IBILITY.
$ 1.- Ultramontanism.
TT is the fundamental principle of the Ultramon-
1 tane view that when we speak of the Church,
its rights and its action, we always mean the Pope, and
the Pope only. “When we speak of the Church, we
mean the Pope," says the Jesuit Gretser, at the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century, Professor at Ingold-
stadt, and one of the most learned theologians of the
Order. Taken by itself, as the community of believ-
ers; clergy, and bishops, the Church, according to
Cardinal Cajetan — the classical theologian of the
Roman Court - is the slave (serva) of the Pope.
Neither in its whole nor its parts (National Churches)
can it desire, strive for, approve, or disapprove any
thing not in absolute accordance with the Papal will
and pleasure. In an article of the Civiltà, entitled
66 The Pope the Father of the Faithful,” we read as
follows:-
“ It is not enough for the people only to know that
the Pope is the head of the Church and the Bishops;
they must also understand that their own faith and re-
ligious life flow from him; that in him is the bond
which unites Catholics to one another, and the power
32
Papal Infallibility.
which strengthens and the light which guides them;
that he is the dispenser of spiritual graces, the giver
of the benefits of religion, the upholder of justice, and
the protector of the oppressed. And still this is not
enough; it is further requisite to refute the accusations
directed against the Pope by the impious and the Pro-
testants, and to show how serviceable the Papacy and
the Pope have at all times been to civil society, to the
Italian people, to families, and to individuals, even in
regard to their temporal interests.” 1
It was St. Jerome's reproach to the Pelagians that,
according to their theory, God had, as it were, wound
up a watch once for all, and then gone to sleep be-
cause there was nothing more for Him to do. Here
we have the Jesuit supplement to this view. God has
gone to sleep because in His place His ever wakeful.
and infallible Vicar on earth rules, as lord of the world,
and dispenser of grace and of punishment. St. Paul's
saying, “In him we live, and move, and are,” is trans-
ferred to the Pope. Few even of the Italian canonists
of the fifteenth century could screw themselves up to
1 Civ. 1867, vol. xii. pp. 86 seq.- “Non basta che il popolo
sappia essere (il Papa) il capo della chiesa e dei vescovi:
bisogna che intenda da lui derivare la propria fede, da lui la
propria vita religiosa, in lui resiedere il vincolo che unisce
insieme i cattolici, la forza che li convalida, la guida che li
dirige: lui essere il dispensiere delle grazie spirituali, lui il
promotore dei beneficii che la religione impartisce, lui il con-
servatore della giustizia, lui il protettore degli oppressi. Né
cid solo basta; si richiede di più che dileguinsi le accuse lan-
ciate contro del Papa dagli empii e dai protestanti, e che
dimostrisi quanto benefico alle società civili, ai popoli italiani,
alle famiglie e agli individui, eziando in ordine agl' interessi
temporali sia stato in ogni tempo il Papato e il Papa."
Ultramontanisın..
33
this point, those greedy place-hunters and sycophants,
who were blamed even in Rome as mainly responsible
for the corruption of the Church caused by the Popes.
Under the lead of the new Order of the sixteenth cen-
tury all hitherto said and done for the exaltation of the
Papal dignity was thrown into the background. We
owe it to Bellarmine and other Jesuits that in some
documents the Pope is expressly designated “ Vice-
God.” The Civiltà, too, after asserting that all the
treasures of divine revelation, of truth, righteousness,
and the gifts of God, are in the Pope's hand, who is
their sole dispenser and guardian, comes to the conclu-
sion that the Pope carries on Christ's work on earth,
and is in relation to us what Christ would be if He was
still visibly present to rule His Church. It is but one
step from this to declare the Pope an incarnation of
God.?
1 Vol. iii. p. 259, 1868. “I tesori di questa revelazione,
tesori di verità, tesori di giustizia, tesori di carisini, vennero
da dio depositati in terra nelle mani di un uomo, che ne è solo
dispensiero e custode ... quest' uomo è il Papa. Ciò evi-
dentemente è racchiuso nella sua stessa appellazione di Vicario
di Christo. Imperocchè se egli sostiene in terra le veci di
Christo, vuol dire che egli continua nel mondo l'opera di
Christo; ed è rispetto a noi ciò che sarebbe esso Christo, se
per sè medesimo et visibilmente quaggiù governasse la
chiesa."
2 [Compare with this Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 327: “One
recently returned froin Rome had the impression that some
of the extreme Ultramontanes, if they do not say so in so
many words, imply a quasi-hypostatic union of the Holy Ghost
with each successive Pope.' The accurate writer who reported
this to me observed in answer, 'This seems to me to be Llama-
ism."" -TR.)
34
Papal Infallibility.
· Ultramontanism, then, is essentially Papalism, and
its starting-point is that the Pope is infallible in all
doctrinal decisions, not only on matters of faith, but in
the domain of ethics, on the relations of religion to
society, of Church to State, and even on State institu-
tions, and that every such decision claims unlimited
and unreserved submission in word and deed from all
Catholics. On this view the power of the Pope over
the Church is purely monarchical, and neither knows
nor tolerates any limits. He is to be sole and absolute
master; all beside him are his plenipotentiaries and
servants, and are, in fact, whether mediately or imme-
diately, the inere executors of his orders, whose powers
he can restrict or cancel at his pleasure. On Ultra-
montane principles the Church is in a normal and
flourishing condition in proportion as it is ruled, ad-
ministered, supervised, and regulated, down to the
minutest details, in all its branches and national boun-
daries, from Rome. Rome is to act as a gigantic ma-
chine of ecclesiastical administration, a Briareus with a
hundred arms, which finally decides every thing, which
reaches everywhere with its denunciations, censures,
and manifold means of repression, and secures a rigid
uniformity. For the Church-ideal of the Ultramon-
tanes is the Romanizing of all particular Churches,
and above all the suppression of every shred of in-
dividuality in National Churches.? Nay, more, they
consider it the conscientious duty of all nations to
1 [“Romanism," "Romanize," etc., are used by German
writers not as synonymous terms with Roman Catholicism,
etc., but for the Romanist or Ultramontane party in the
Roman Catholic Church. - Tr.]
Ultramontanism.
35
mould themselves, to the utmost of their power, into
the specifically clerico-Italian fashion of thinking and
feeling. How should they not, when the Civiltà says
roundly, “As the Jews were formerly God's people,
· so are the Romans under the New Covenant. They
have a supernatural dignity”?1.
The Ultramontane knows nothing higher than the
breath and law of Rome. For him Rome is an eccle-
ing oracle — the Civiltà calls the Pope summum
oraculum -- which can give at once an infallible solu-
tion of every doubt, speculative or practical. While
others are guided in their judgment on facts and
events by the moral and religious sentiment developed
in their Church-life, with Ultramontanes, the authority
of Rome and the typical example of Roman morals
and customs are the embodiment of the moral and
ecclesiastical law. If Jewish parents are forcibly
1 Vol. iii. p. II, 1862. “Sopranaturale essendo il fine, per
cui Iddio conserva lo stato Romano, sopranaturale in qualche
inodo si vedrà essere la dignità di questo popolo.” These
praises of the so-called Roman people, which no longer ex-
ists — for the population of Rome is a mere fluctuating med-
ley of Italians, and especially Italian clerics, from all parts
of the Peninsula - seem to be phrases brought up from a
foriner age. Thus, for example, in 1626, Carrerio, Provost
and Professor at Padua, says, “The Italians are exalted
above all nations by the special grace of God, who gives
them in the Pope a spiritual monarch, who has put down
from their thrones great kings and yet mightier emperors,
and set others in their place, to whom the greatest kingdoms
have long paid tribute, as they do to no other, and who dis-
penses such riches to his courtiers that no king or emperor
has ever had so much to give.”
36
Papal Infallibility.
.
robbed of their child in Rome, that he may be brought
up a Christian, the Ultramontane finds it quite in order
that natural human rights should yield to the ordi-
nances of Rome, however late devised, although theo-
logians used to maintain that in this case the law of
Nature is the law of God, and therefore above any
mere human and ecclesiastical ordinance. If the
Inquisition still proclaims excommunication in the
States of the Church against every son and daughter
if they omit to denounce their parents, and get them
put into prison for using flesh or milk on a fast-day, i
or reading a book on the Index, the Romanist is pre-
pared to justify this too. If the Roman Government,
by its lottery, openly conducted by priests, fosters the
passion for gambling, and produces the ruin of whole
families, the Civiltà composes an apology for the lot-
tery, although Alexander VII. and Benedict XIII.
forbade it under pain of excommunication. If in
Rome, clergymen (the so-called preti di piazza)
stand in the public places till some one hires them
for a mass, this gives no more offence to the Romanist
than the sale of indulgence-bills; and so the Roman
commissionaires, after showing visitors the various
sights of the place, finally point out this spectacle to
them. He thinks it at least very excusable that the
very utmost is got out of dispensations and indulgences
as a mine of pecuniary profit; that, for instance, the
indulgences of " privileged altars” are sold to certain
churches at a scudo apiece, thus giving occasion to the
grossest superstition about the delivery of souls from
Purgatory;. that certain marriage dispensations are
granted to the wealthy for a high price, which are
Ultramontanism.
37
:
denied to the poorer; that some kinds of matrimonial
causes are carried to Rome, against the express stipu-
lation of treaties, and the citizens thereby subjected
to protracted and costly processes, -as happened not
long since in a German State, when this new en-
croachment seemed to the local bishops so strong a
case, that they made energetic representations at Rome
on the subject, which resulted in the demand being
given up for a while, and the question being allowed
to be settled on the spot.
Rome on her part omits no means of confirming the
whole Catholic world in this clerico-Italian manner of
thinking and feeling. More than nine-tenths of the
Roman congregations and tribunals are composed of
Italians, and they regulate every thing through their
precepts and decisions, spun out into the minutest and
most frivolous detail, and issued in the name of the
Pope. Every breath of religious life is to be drawn
by Italian rule. Bishoprics out of Italy are to be
filled, as far as possible, by men who have got the
Catholic mind in Rome, or who at least have been
trained by the Jesuits or their pupils.
The more questions any country or diocese refers
to Rome — the more dispensations, indulgences, altar
privileges, consecrated objects, and the like, it receives
from Rome -- the more presents of money it sends
there, -- so much the higher praise it gets for piety
and genuine Catholic sentiment. What is called Cath-
olicity can only be attained in the eyes of the Court of
Rome by every one translating himself and his ideas,
on every subject that has any connection with religion,
into Italian. If, in points where the Italian form or
38
Papal Infallibility.
view, or practice or manner of devotion, conflicts with
their national feeling, or is being forced into the place
of what is native and suits them better, — Germans or
Frenchmen or Englishmen repudiate the foreign use, -
they are said to be on a wrong road, they are not
66 genuine Catholics,” but only liberal Catholics ; for so
the Society of Jesus distinguishes what we should call
6. Ultramontane," or simply " Catholic.”
$ II. — Consequences of the Dogma.
The root of the whole Ultramontane habit of mind
is the personal infallibility of the Pope, and according-
ly the Jesuits declare it to be the wish of true Catholics
that this dogma should be defined at the forthcoming
Council. If this desire is accomplished, a new prin-
ciple of immeasurable importance, both retrospective
and prospective, will be established - a principle which,
when once irrevocably fixed, will extend its dominion
over men's minds more and more, till it has coerced
them into subjection to every Papal pronouncement in
matters of religion, morals, politics, and social science.
For it will be idle to talk any more of the Pope's en-
croaching on a foreign domain; he, and he alone, as
being infallible, will have the right of determining the
limits of his teaching and action at his own good
pleasure, and every such determination will bear the
stainp of infallibility. When once the narrow adher-
ence of many Catholic theologians to the ancient tra-
dition and the Church of the first six centuries is
happily broken through, the pedantic horror of new
dogmas completely got rid of, and the well-known
Consequences of the Dogma. 39
canon of St. Vincent, “Quod sempér, quod ubique,
quod ab omnibus,” which is still respected here and
there, set aside — then every Pope, however ignorant
of theology, will be free to make what use he likes of
his power of dogmatic creativeness, and to erect his
own thoughts into the common belief, binding on the
whole Church. We say advisedly, “however ignorant
he may be of theology," for the Jesuit theologians
have already foreseen this contingency as being not an
unusual one with Popes, and one of them, Professor
Erbermann of Mayence, has observed, -"A thor-
oughly ignorant Pope may very well be infallible, for
God has before now pointed out the right road by the
mouth of a speaking ass."1 But, after Infallibility has
been made into a dogma, whoever dares to question
the plenary authority of any new article of faith coined
in the Vatican mint will incur, according to the
Jesuits, excommunication in this world and everlasting
damnation in the next. Councils will for the future
be superfluous; the Bishops will no doubt be assem-
bled in Rome now and then to swell the pomp of a
they will have nothing more to do with dogmas. If
they wish to confirm a Papal decision, itself the result
of direct Divine inspiration, - as, e.g., the Council of
Chalcedon, after careful examination, sanctioned the
dogmatic letter of Pope Leo I., — this would be bring-
ing lanterns to aid the light of the noonday sun. The
1 Irenic Cathol. (Mogunt. 1645), cap. vi. p. 97: “Quomodo
hinc infertur, nos fidem salutemque nostram ab unico tali
homine suspendere et non potius ab eo, qui novit etiam per
asinam loquentem dirigere iter nostrum.”
40
- Papal Infallibility.
form hitherto used by the Bishops in subscribing the
doctrinal decisions of Councils, definiens subscripsi,
would for the future be a blasphemy.
Papal Infallibility, once defined as a dogma, will give
the impulse to a theological, ecclesiastical, and even
political revolution, the nature of which very few —
and least of all those who are urging it on — have
clearly ſealized, and no hand of man will be able to
stay its course. In Rome itself the saying will be
verified, “ Thou wilt shudder thyself at thy likeness to
God."
In the next place, the newly-coined article of faith
will inevitably take root as the foundation and corner-
whole activity of theologians will be concentrated on
the one point of ascertaining whether or not a Papal
decision can be quoted for any given doctrine, and in
laboring to discover and amass proof for it from his-
tory and literature. Every other authority will pale be-
side the living oracle on the Tiber, which speaks with
plenary inspiration, and can always be appealed to.
What use in tedious investigations of Scripture,
what use in wasting time on the difficult study of tra-
dition, which requires so many kinds of preliminary
knowledge, when a single utterance of the infallible
Pope may shatter at a breath the labors of half a life-
time, and a telegraphic message to Rome will get an
answer in a few hours or a few days, which becomes
an axiom and article of faith? On one side the work of
theologians will be greatly simplified, while on the other
it becomes harder and more extensive. A single comma
in a single Bull (of Pius V. against Baius) has before
Consequences of the Dogma.
-
41
now led to endless disputes, because it is doubtful
whether it should precede or follow certain words, and
the whole dogmatic meaning of the Bull depends on
its position. But the dispute, which has gone on three
centuries, can never be settled now, not even by exam-
ining the original document at Rome, which is written,
according to the old custom, without punctuation.
And how will it be in the future? The Rabbis say,
On every apostrophe in the Bible hang whole moun-
tains of hidden sense,” and this will apply equally to
Papal Bulls; and thus theology, in the hands of the
Ultramontane school, which will alone prevail, prom-
ises to become more and more Talmudical.
To prove the dogma of Papal Infallibility from
Church history nothing less is required than a com-
plete falsification of it. The declarations of Popes
which contradict the doctrines of the Church, or
contradict each other (as the same Pope sometimes
contradicts himself), will have to be twisted into agree-
ment, so as to show that their heterodox or mutually
destructive enunciations are at bottom sound doctrine;
or, when a little has been subtracted from one dictum
and added to the other, are not really contradictory,
and mean the same thing. And here future theo-
logians will have to get well indoctrinated in the
Rabbinical school; and indeed they will find a good
deal of valuable matter ready to their hand in the
Jesuit casuists. These last, meantime, will be their
best teachers in the skilful manipulation of history.
They never had any particular difficulty in manufact-
uring Church history; they have already performed
the most incredible feats in that line. Not to speak
42
Papal Infallibility.
y
now of their zeal for the discovery and dissemination
of apocryphal tales of miracles and lives of saints, of
which the Catholic world owes to them so many, we
will merely refer here to their huge falsification of
Spanish Church-history. They have provided Spain
with a wholly new history, in accordance with the
interests of their Order, as well as the national wish,
and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; and
this could only be accomplished by the Jesuit, Roman
De la Higuera, inventing chronicles and archæological
records, with the necessary appurtenance of relics, the,
genuineness of which had to be proved by a miracle
brought forward for this express purpose.
$ III. — Errors and Contradictions of the Popes.
It is necessary for illustrating the question of Infalli-
bility to recall some of the historical difficulties it is
beset with.
Innocent I. and Gelasius I., the former writing to
the Council of Milevis, the latter in his epistle to the
Bishops of Picenum, declared it to be so indispen-
sable for infants to receive communion, that those
who die without it go straight to hell.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 personal worthiness or unworthiness, is valid and
indelible. Putting aside Baptism, the whole security
of the sacraments rests on this principle of faith, and
1 S. Aug. Opp. ii. 640; Concil. Coll. (ed. Labbé), iv. 1178.
Errors and Contradictions of the Popes. 43
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 of Goths and Lombards inflicted on Central Italy,
there was a collapse of all learning and theology, which
disturbed and distorted the dogmatic tradition. Since
the eighth century, the ordinations of certain Popes
began to be annulled, and the bishops and priests
ordained by them were compelled to be re-ordained.
This occurred first in 769, when Constantine II., who
had got possession of the Papal chair by force of arms,
and kept it for thirteen months, was blinded, and de-
posed at a Synod, and all his ordinations pronounced
invalid.
But the strongest case occurred at the end of the
ninth century, after the death of Pope Formosus, when
the repeated rejections of his ordinations threw the
whole Italian Church into the greatest confusion, and
produced a general uncertainty as to whether there
were any valid sacraments in Italy. Auxilius, who
was a contemporary, said that through this universal
rejection and repetition of orders (ordinatio, exordi-
natio, et superordinatio”) matters had come to such
a pass in Rome, that for twenty years the Christian
religion had been interrupted and extinguished in
diction to one another, now for, now against, the
validity of the ordinations, and it was self-evident that
in Rome all sure knowledge on the doctrine of ordi-
nation was lost. At the end of his second work,
Auxilius, speaking in the name of those numerous
priests and bishops whose ecclesiastical status was
44
Papal Infallibility.
called in question by the decisions of Stephen VII.
and Sergius III., demanded the strict investigation of
a General Council, as the only authority capable of
solving the complication introduced by the Popes.1
But the Council never met, and the dogmatic uncer-
tainty and confusion in Rome continued. In the mid-
dle of the eleventh century the great contest against
Simony, which was then thought equivalent to heresy,
broke out, and the ordinations of a simoniacal bishop
were pronounced invalid. Leo IX. re-ordained a num-
ber of persons on this ground, as Peter Damiani relates.?
Gregory VII., at his fifth Roman Synod, made the in-
validity of all simoniacal ordinations a rule, and the
principle, confirmed by Urban II., that a simoniacal
bishop can give nothing in ordination, because he has
nothing, passed into the Decretum of Gratian.3
In these cases it is obvious that doctrine and practice
were most intimately connected. It was only from
their holding a false, and, in its consequences, most
injurious, notion of the force and nature of this sacra-
ment, that the Popes acted as they did, and if they had
then been generally considered infallible, a hopeless
confusion must have been introduced, not only into
Italy, but the whole Church.
· In contrast to Pope Pelagius, who had declared, with
the whole Eastern and Western Church, the indispen-
sable necessity of the invocation of the Trinity in Bap-
tism, Nicolas I. assured the Bulgarians that baptism
in the name of Christ alone was quite sufficient, and
thus exposed the Christians there to the danger of an
1 Mabillon, Analecta (Paris, 1723), p. 39.
2 Petri Damiani Opusc. p. 419. 3 Caus. i. Q. 7, c. 24.
Errors and Contradictions of the Popes. 45
invalid baptism. The same Pope declared confirma-
tion administered by priests, according to the Greek
usage from remote antiquity, invalid, and ordered
those so confirmed to be confirmed anew by a bishop,
thereby denying to the whole Eastern Church the pos:
session of a sacrament, and laying the foundation of the
bitter estrangement which led to a permanent division.'
Stephen II. (III.) allowed marriage with a slave
girl to be dissolved, and a new one contracted, whereas
all previous Popes had pronounced such marriages
indissoluble. He also declared baptism, in cases of
Celestine III. tried to loosen the marriage tie by de-
claring it dissolved if either party became heretical.
Innocent III. annulled this decision, and Hadrian VI.
called Celestine a heretic for giving it. This decision
was afterwards expunged from the MS. collections of
Papal decrees, but the Spanish theologian Alphonsus
de Castro had seen it there.4
The Capernaite doctrine, that Christ's body is sen-
sibly (sensualiter) touched by the hands and broken
by the teeth in the Eucharist -- an error rejected by the
whole Church, and contradicting the impassibility of
His body, — was affirined by Nicolas II. at the Synod
of Rome in 1059, and Berengar compelled to acknowl-
edge it. Lanfranc reproaches Berengar with afterwards
wanting to make Cardinal Humbert, instead of the
Pope, responsible for this doctrine.
i Concil. Coll. (ed. Labbé), vi. 548. 2 16. vi. 1650.
8 Ib. vi. 1652.
4 Adv. Hor. (ed. Paris), 1565. Cf. Melch. Canus, p. 240.
5 Lanfranc, De Euch. c. 3 (ed. Migne), p. 412.
C
80
Papal Infallibility.
Innocent III., in order to exhibit the Papal power in
the fullest splendor of its divine omnipotence, invented
the new doctrine that the spiritual bond which unites
a bishop to his diocese is firmer and more indissoluble
than the 6 carnal” bond, as he called it, between man
and wife, and that God alone can loose it, viz., translate
a bishop from one see to another. But as the Pope
is the representative of the true God on earth, he and
he alone can dissolve this holy and indissoluble bond,
not by human but divine authority, and it is God, not
man, who looses it.The obvious and direct corollary, :
that the Pope can also dissolve the less firm and holy
bond of marriage, Innocent, as we have seen, over-
looked, for he solemnly condemned Celestine III.'s de-
cision on that point; and thus he unwittingly involved
himself in a contradiction. Many canonists have ac-
cepted this as the legitimate consequence of his teaching.
Innocent betrayed his utter ignorance of theology,
when he declared that the Fifth Book of Moses, being
called Deuteronomy, or the Second Book of the Law,
must bind the Christian Church, which is the second
Church. This great Pope seems never to have read
Deuteronomy, or he could hardly have fallen into the
blunder of supposing, e.g., that the Old Testament
prohibitions of particular kinds of food, the burnt-
offerings, the harsh penal code and bloody laws of war,
the prohibitions of woollen and linen garments, etc.,
1 Decretal " De Transl. Episc.,"C. 2, 3, 4. This was to intro-
duce a new article of faith. The Church had not known for
centuries that resignations, depositions, and translations of
bishops, belonged by divine right to the Pope.
2 Decretal "Qui filii sint legitimi,” C. 13.
1
Errors and Contradictions of the Popes. 47
were to be again made obligatory on Christians. And
as the Jews were allowed in Deuteronomy to put away
a wife who displeased them, and take another, Inno-
cent ran the risk of falling himself into a greater error
about marriage than Celestine III.
Great light is thrown on this question by the history
of the alternate approbations and persecutions of the
Franciscan Order by the Popes.
Nicolas III. in the decretal “ Exiit qui seminat,"
gave an exposition of the rule of St. Francis, and af-
firmed the renunciation of all personal or corporate
property to be holy and meritorious; that Christ Him-
also the first founders of the Church. The Fran-
ciscans therefore were to have the use only, not the
possession, of property: the possession he adjudged
to belong to the Roman Church. He expressly added
that this exposition of the rule of St. Francis was to
have permanent force, and, like every other constitu-
tion or decretal, to be used in the schools and literally
interpreted. He forbade, under pain of excommunica-
tion, all glosses against the literal sense. There can
be no shadow of doubt that Nicolas meant in this
decree to issue a solemn decision on a matter of faith.
It is not addressed to the Franciscan Order only, but
to the schools (i.e. universities) and the whole Church.
Clement V., in the decretal “Exivi de Paradiso,"
renewed the ordinance assigning the property of Fran-
ciscans to the Roman Church; and John XXII., in
the Bull " quorundam," declared this ordinance of
Nicolas III. and Clement V. to be salutary, clear,
and of force. But no sooner did John come into con-
48
Papal Infallibility.
flict with the Order, partly in his attempts to limit
their ludicrous excesses in the exhibition of Evangeli-
cal poverty, partly from the strong denunciations of
for a reformation in the Church, which issued from the
bosom of the Franciscan Order, than he began gradu-
ally, and as far as he could without prejudicing his
authority, to undermine the constitution of Nicolas III.
First, he removed the excommunication for all non-
literal interpretations of the Franciscan rule, and then
attacked certain of its details. Meanwhile the strife.
grew fiercer; the 6 Spirituals,” in union with Louis
of Bavaria, began to brand John as a heretic, and he,
in a new Bull, declared the distinction between use
and possession impossible, neither serviceable for the
Church nor for Christian perfection, and finally reject-
ed the doctrine of his predecessor, that Christ and the
Apostles were in word and deed patterns of the Fran-
ciscan ideal of poverty, as heretical, and hostile to the
Catholic faith.
And thus the perplexing spectacle was afforded the
Church of one Pope unequivocally charging another
with false doctrine. What Nicolas III. and Clement
V. had solemnly commended as right and holy, their
successor branded, as solemnly, as noxious and wrong.
The Franciscans repeated the charge of heresy against
John XXII. with the more emphasis, “ since what the
Popes had once defined in faith and morals, through
the keys of wisdom, their successors could not call in
question."1 John condemned the writings of D’Olive,
1 Cf. Bossuet, Defens. Declarat. — Euvres, xviii. pp. 339
seg. Liége, 1768.
Errors and Contradictions of the Popes. 49
and several more of their theologians, and handed over
the whole community of the “Spirituals,” or Fratri-
celli, as the advocates of extreme poverty were called,
to the Inquisition. Between 1316 and 1352, 114 of
them were burnt, —- martyrs to their misconception of
Evangelical poverty and Papal infallibility; for they
were among the first champions of that theory, then
still new in the Church. After long and bitter perse-
cutions, Sixtus IV. at last made some satisfaction to
the “ Spirituals,” by letting the works of their prophet
and theologian, D’Olive, be re-examined, and, in con-
tradiction to the sentence of John XXII., declared
orthodox. Later Popes resumed possession of the
property of the Franciscans, which John had repu-
diated.
One of the most comprehensive, dogmatic docu-
ments ever issued by a Pope is the decree of Eugenius
IV.“ to the Armenians,” dated 22d November, 1439,
three months after the Council of Florence was brought
to an end by the departure of the Greeks. It is a con-
fession of faith of the Roman Church, intended to
serve as a rule of doctrine and practice for the Arme-
nians, on those points they had previously differed
about. The dogmas of the Unity of the Divine Na-
ture, the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Seven Sac-
raments, are expounded, and the Pope moreover asserts
that the decree thus solemnly issued has received the
sanction of the Council, that is, of the Italian bishops
whom he had detained in Florence.
If this decree of the Pope were really a rule of faith,
the Eastern Church would have only four sacraments
instead of seven; the Western Church would for at
50
Papal Infallibility.
least eight centuries have been deprived of three sac-
raments, and of one, the want of which would make
all the rest, with one exception, invalid. Eugenius IV.
determines in this decree the form and matter, the sub-
stance, of the sacraments, or of those things on the
presence or absence of which the existence of the sac-
rament itself depends, according to the universal doc-
trine of the Church. He gives a form of Confirmation
which never existed in one-half of the Church, and
first came into use in the other after the tenth century.
So again with Penance. What is given as the essen-
tial form of the sacrament was unknown in the West-
ern Church for eleven hundred years, and never known
in the Greek. And when the touching the sacred ves-
sels, and the words accompanying the rite, are given
as the form and matter of Ordination, it follows that
the Latin Church for a thousand years had neither
priests nor bishops, — nay, like the Greek Church,
which never adopted this usage, possesses to this hour
neither priests nor bishops, and consequently no sacra-
ments except Baptism, and perhaps Marriage.
It is noteworthy that this decree -- with which
Papal Infallibility or the whole hierarchy and the sacra-
ments of the Church stand or fall — is cited, refuted,
and appealed to by all dogmatic writers, but that the
adherents of Papal Infallibility have never meddled
1 Cf. Denzinger, Enchirid. Symbol. et Definit. (Wirceb.
1854), pp. 200 seg. But Denzinger, in order to conceal the
purely dogmatic character of this famous decree, has omitted
the first part, on the Trinity and Incarnation, which is given
in Raynaldus's Annals, 1439. [The same conspicuously un-
tenable explanation was adopted in the Dublin Review for -
January, 1866. — Tr.]
Errors and Contradictions of the Popes. 51
with it. Neither Bellarmine, nor Charlas, nor Aguirre,
nor Orsi, nor the other apologists of the Roman Court,
troubled themselves with it.
After the Papal claim to infallibility had taken a
more definite shape at Rome, Sixtus V. himself brought
it again into jeopardy by his edition of the Bible.
The Council of Trent had pronounced St. Jerome's
version authentic for the Western Church, but there
was no authentic edition of the Latin Bible sanctioned
by the Church. Sixtus V. undertook to provide one,
which appeared, garnished with the stereotyped forms
of anathema and penal enactments. His Bull declared
that this edition, corrected by his own hand, must be
received and used by everybody as the only true and
genuine one, under pain of excommunication, every
change, even of a single word, being forbidden under
anathema.
But it soon appeared that it was full of blunders,
some two thousand of them introduced by the Pope
himself. It was said the Bible of Sixtus V. must be
publicly prohibited. But Bellarmine advised that the
peril Sixtus had brought the Church into should be
· hushed up as far as possible; all the copies were to
be called in, and the corrected Bible printed anew,
under the name of Sixtus V., with a statement in the
Preface that the errors had crept in through the fault
of the compositors and the carelessness of others. Bel-
larmine himself was commissioned to give circulation
to these lies, to which the new Pope gave his name,
by composing the Preface. In his autobiography this
Jesuit and Cardinal congratulates himself on" having
thus requited Sixtus with good for evil ; for the Pope
52
Papal Infallibility:
had put his great work on Controversies on the Index, -
because he had not maintained the direct, but only the
indirect, dominion of the Pope over the whole world.
And now followed a fresh mishap. The Autobiogra-
phy, which was kept in the archives of the Roman
Jesuits, got known in Rome through several tran-
scripts. On this Cardinal Azzolini urged that, as Bel-,
larmine had insulted three Popes and exhibited two as
liars, viz., Gregory XIV. and Clement VIII., his work -
should be suppressed and burnt, and the strictest se-
crecy inculcated about it.1
$ IV.- The Verdict of History.
Some explanation is imperatively needed of the
strange phenomenon, that an opinion according to
which Christ has made the Pope of the day the one
vehicle of His inspirations, the pillar and exclusive
organ of Divine truth, without whom the Church - is
like a body without a soul, deprived of the power of
vision, and unable to determine any point of faith-
that such an opinion, which is for the future to be a
sort of dogmatic Atlas carrying the whole edifice of
faith and morals on its shoulders, should have first
i For, thought Azzolini, what shall we say, if our adversaries
— the Pope can err in expounding Scripture — nay, hath
erred, "non solum in exponendo sed in eâ multa perperam
mutando," not only in expounding it, but in inaking many
wrong changes in the text? - Voto nella causa della Beatif.
del Card. Bellarm. (Ferrara, 1761), p. 40.
The Verdict of History. ' 53
- but is from henceforth to be placed as a primary arti-
cle of faith at the head of every catechism..
For thirteen centuries an incomprehensible silence
on this fundamental article reigned throughout the
whole Church and her literature. None of the ancient
confessions of faith, no catechism, 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.
For the-first thousand years of Church history not a
question of doctrine was finally decided by the Pope.
The Roman bishops took no part in the commotions
which the numerous Gnostic sects, the Montanists and
Chiliasts, produced in the early Church, nor can a
single dogmatic decree issued by one of them be found
during the first four centuries, nor a trace of the ex-
istence of any. Even the controversy about Christ
kindled by Paul of Samosata, which occupied the
whole Eastern Church for a long time, and necessi-
tated the assembling of several Councils, was termi-
nated without the Pope taking any part in it. So
again in the chain of controversies and discussions
connected with the names of Theodotus, Artemon,
Noetus, Sabellius, Beryllus, and Lucian of Antioch,
nearly 150 years, there is no proof that the Roman
bishops 'acted beyond the limits of their own local
Church, or accomplished any dogmatic result. The
only exception is the dogmatic treatise of the Roman
bishop Dionysius, following a Synod held at Rome in
262, denouncing and rejecting Sabellianism and the
opposite method of expression of Dionysius of Alex-
54
Papal Infallibility.
O
andria. This document, if any authority had been
ascribed to it, was well fitted in itself to cut short, or
rather strangle at its birth, the long Arian disturbance;
but it was not known out of Alexandria, and exercised
no influence whatever on the later course of the con-
troversy. It is only known from the fragments quoted
afterwards by Athanasius.
Roman Church took an active part, — the question
about Easter, about heretical baptism, and about the,
penitential discipline. In all three the Popes were
unable to carry out their own will and view and prac-
tice, and the other Churches maintained their different
usage without its leading to any permanent division.
Pope Victor's attempt to compel the Churches of Asia
Minor to adopt the Roman usage, by excluding them
from his communion, proved a failure. .
The dispute about the stricter or milder adminis-
tration of penance, and as to whether certain heinous
sins should exclude from communion for life, lasted
a long time in the Church of Rome, as elsewhere,
There is no trace found of any attempt to force other
Churches to adopt the principles received at Rome;
and even in the fourth century, the Spanish Synod
of Elvira established rules differing widely from the
Roman. This difference had an intimate relation to
dogma.
The dispute about heretical baptism, in the middle
of the third century, had a still more clearly dogmatic
character, for the whole Church doctrine of the effi-
cacy and conditions of sacramental grace was involved.
Yet the opposition of Pope Stephen to the doctrine,
The Verdict of History.
55
'
confirmed at several African and Asiatic Synods,
against the validity of schismatical baptism, remained
wholly inoperative. Stephen went so far as to exclude
those Churches from his communion, but he only
drew down sharp censures on his unlawful arrogance.
Both St. Cyprian and Firmilian of Cesarea denied his
having any right to dictate a doctrine to other bishops
, and Churches. And the other Eastern Churches, too,
which were not directly mixed up in the dispute,
retained their own practice for a long time, quite un-
disturbed by the Roman theory. Later on, St. Augus-
tine, looking back at this dispute, maintains that the
pronouncement of Stephen, categorical as it was, was
no decision of the Church, and that St. Cyprian and
the Africans were therefore justified in rejecting it;
he says the real obligation of conforming to a common
practice originated with the decree of a great plena-
rium) Council, meaning the Council of Arles in 314.1
In the Arian disputes, which engaged and disturbed
the Church beyond all others for above half a century,
and were discussed in more than fifty Synods, the Ro-
man See for a long time remained passive. Through
the long episcopate of Pope Silvester (314-335) there
is no document or sign of doctrinal activity, any more
than from all his predecessors from 269 to 314. Julius
and Liberius (337–366) were the first to take part in
the course of events, but they only increased the uncer-
. 1 Aug., De Bapt. contr. Donat., Opp. (ed. Benedict.) ix.
pp. 98-111. The advocates of Papal Infallibility are obliged
to give up St. Augustine. Orsi formally rebukes him, and
Bellarmnine (De Eccles. i. 4) thinks he perhaps spoke a false-
hood.
56
Papal Infallibility.
tainty. Julius pronounced Marcellus of Ancyra, an
avowed Sabellian, orthodox at his Roman Synod; and
Liberius purchased his return from exile from the Em-
peror by condemning Athanasius, and subscribing an
Arian creed. " Anathema to thee, Liberius !” was
then the cry of zealous Catholic bishops like Hilary of
Poitiers. This apostasy of Liberius sufficed, through
the whole of the middle ages, for a proof that Popes
could fall into heresy as well as other people.
Later on, and especially after thc unfortunate issue,
of the Synods of Milan, Sirmium, Rimini, and Seleu-
cia, when men's confidence in this method of securing .
sound definitions was greatly shaken, and St. Jerome
wrote that the world was amazed to find itself Arian
- then, if ever, we might expect that Christians and
parts of the empire to the Roman See for aid and
counsel, as the one anchor of salvation and rock of or-
thodoxy; but nothing of the kind took place; so far:
from it, that in all the treatises and discussions conse-
quent on the Synods of Rimini and Seleucia in 359, the
Pope's name is never once mentioned. The first sign
of life he gave was some years afterwards, when he
adopted the procedure of the Synod of Alexandria
against the Bishops who fell at Rimini.)
During all the fourth century Councils alone decided
dogmatic questions. If the Bishop of Rome was ever
appealed to for a decision, it was understood that he
was desired to call a Synod to decide the point at issue.
At the second Ecumenical Council in 381, which de-
creed the most important definition of faith since the
. 1 Epist. Pontif. (ed. Coust.) p. 448.
The Verdict of History. :: 57
Nicene, by first formulizing the doctrine of the Holy.
Ghost, the Church of Rome was not represented at all;
only the decrees were communicated to it as to other
Churches. Two Roman Synods, under Damasus,
about 378, did indeed anathematize certain errors with-
out naming their authors; but Pope Siricius (384-398)
declined to pronounce on the false doctrine of a bishop
(Bonosus), when requested to do so, on the ground
that he had no right, and must await the sentence of
the bishops of the province, “ to make it the rule of his
own.”1 He condemned the teaching of Jovinian,
which originated in Rome itself, but only through the
means of a Synod.
A greater share fell to the Popes in the Pelagian
controversies, which chiefly concerned the West, than
in previous ones. Innocent I., when invoked by the
Africans, after five years of disputing, had sanctioned
the decrees of their two Synods of Milevis and Carthage
(417), and pronounced a work of Pelagius heretical,
so that St. Augustine said, in a sermon, “ The matter
is now ended.” 2 But he deceived himself, for the strife
was only fairly begun, and it was not ended till many
years later, by the decision of the Ecumenical Coun-
cil of Ephesus in 431. Meanwhile Pope Zosimus
spoke on the Pelagian doctrine in a very different fash-
ion from his immediate predecessor, Innocent. He
bestowed high commendation on the profession of faith
of Celestius, who was accused before him of the here-
· sy, though it contained an open denial of Original Sin,
and severely rebuked the Africân bishops, who had
- 1 Epist. Pontif. (ed. Coust.) p. 679.
2 Sermo 13!, c. I. Opp. (ed. Antwerp) v. 449.
58
Papal Infallibility.
made the complaint, for accusing so orthodox a person
of heresy. It was only after they had addressed an
energetic letter to Zosimus, telling him that they ad-
hered to their decision, and that he was mistaken, and
after they had again anathematized the teaching of
Pelagius and Celestius, at a Council held at Carthage,
that the Pope assented to their judgment.
But St. Augustine's saying, quoted above, has been
alleged in proof of his accepting Papal Infallibility,
which, in dealing with the baptismal controversy, he
so often and so pointedly repudiates. Such a notion
was utterly foreign to his mind. The Pelagian system
was in his eyes so manifest and deadly an error (aperta
pernicies), that there seemed to him no need even of
a Synod to condeinn it. The two African Synods,
and the Pope's assent to their decrees, appeared to him
more than enough, and so the matter might be regarded
as at an end. That a Roman judgment in itself was
not conclusive, but that a “Concilium plenarium” was
necessary for that purpose, he had himself emphati-
cally maintained; and the conduct. of Pope Zosimus
could only confirm his opinion.
opens with the year 430, which was the starting-point
of the controversies on the Incarnation and the relation
of the two natures in Christ, which lasted on to the
close of the seventh century. Pope Celestine's con-
demnation of Nestorius was superseded by the Em-
peror's convoking a General Council at Ephesus in
431, where it was submitted to examination and
approved. When the Eutychian controversy arose, the
. Contr. Ep. Pelag. i. 4, c. ult.
The Verdict of. History.
.: 59
letter of Leo the Great to Flavian appeared in 449, and
this was the first dogmatic writing of a Pope which
found acceptance both in East and West, but not until
it had been examined at the Council of Chalcedon.
Leo himself acknowledged that his treatise could not
become a rule of faith till it was confirmed by the
bishops.
Pope Vigilius was less happy in the dispute about
the “ Three Chapters," — the writings of Theodore,
Theodoret, and Ibas, which were held to be Nestorian,
- which he first pronounced orthodox in 546, then
condemned the next year, and then again reversed this
sentence in deference to the Western bishops, and thus
came into conflict with the Fifth General Council,
which excommunicated him. Finally, he submitted to
the judgment of the Council, declaring that he had
unfortunately been a tool in the hands of Satan, who
labors for the destruction of the Church, and had thus
been divided from his colleagues, but God had now
first he anathematized those who condemned the Three
Chapters as erroneous; then he anathematized those
who held them to be orthodox, as he had just before
himself held them to be; soon after he condemned the
condemnation of the Three Chapters; and lastly, the
Emperor and Council triumphed again over the fickle
Pope. A long schism in the West was the conse-
quence. Whole National Churches – Africa, North
Italy, Illyria — broke off communion with the Popes,
1 Leonis Ep. ad Episc. Gall. See Mansi, Concil. vi. 181.
2 See his letter to the Patriarch Eutychius. Cf. De Marca,
Dissert. (Paris, 1669), p. 45:
60
Papal Infallibility.
whom they accused of having sacrificed the faith and
authority in the Council of Chalcedon by condemning
the Three Chapters. Pelagius I., Vigilius's successor,
whose orthodoxy was on this ground suspected by the
Frankish king, Childebert, and the bishops of Gaul,
never dreamt of claiming immunity from error, but
excused himself in all directions. He laid before
Childebert a public profession of his faith, and de-
clared himself, before the bishops of Tuscany, ready
to give to every one an account of his faith.
i
Often and earnestly as the Popes exhorted separated
bishops and Churches to return to communion with
Rome, they never appealed to any peculiar authority
or exemption from error in the Roman See.
The Monothelite controversy, growing out of the as-
sertion that Christ had not two wills, a human and a
Divine, but one Divine will only, led to the General
Synod of Constantinople in 680. At the beginning of
the controversy, Pope Honorius I., when questioned
by three Patriarchs, had spoken entirely in favor of the
heretical doctrine in letters addressed to them, and had
thereby powerfully aided the new sect. Later on, in
649, Pope Martin, with a Synod of 105 bishops from
Southern and Central Italy, condemned Monothelism.
But the sentence of a Pope and a small Synod had no
binding authority then, and the Emperor Constantine
found it necessary to summon a General Council to
settle the question. It was foreseen that Pope Ho-
norius I., who had hitherto been protected by silence,
must share the fate of the other chief authors of the
heresy at this Council. He was, in fact, condemned
for heresy in the most solemn manner, and not a single
The Verdict of History.
; 61
voice, not even of the Papal legates who were present,
was raised in his defence. His dogmatic writings
were committed to the flames as heretical. The
Popes submitted to the inevitable; they subscribed the
anathema, and themselves undertook to see that the
“ heretic” Honorius was condemned in the West as
well as throughout the East, and his name struck out
of the Liturgy. This one fact--that a Great Coun-
cil, universally received afterwards without hesitation
throughout the Church, and presided over by Papal
legates, pronounced the dogmatic decision of a Pope
heretical, and anathematized him by name as a heretic -
-- is a proof, clear as the sun at noonday, that the
notion of any peculiar enlightenment or inerrancy of
the Popes was then utterly unknown to the whole
Church. The only resource of the defenders of Papal
Infallibility, since Torquemada and Bellarmine, has
been to attack the Acts of the Council, as spurious,
and maintain that they are a wholesale forgery of the
Greeks. The Jesuits clung tenaciously to this notion
till the middle of the last century. Since it has had to
be abandoned, the device has been to try and torture
the words of Honorius into a sort of orthodox sense.
But whatever comes of that, nothing can alter the fact,
that at the time both Councils and Popes were con-
vinced of the fallibility of the Pope.
A century later, Pope Hadrian I. vainly endeavored
to get the decrees, of the second Nicene Council on
Image Worship, which he had approved, received by
Charles the Great and his bishops.' The great as-
sembly at Frankfort in 794, and the Caroline books,
rejected and attacked these decrees, and Hadrian did
62
Papal Infallibility.
not venture to offer more than verbal opposition. In
824 the bishops assembled in synod at Paris spoke
without remorse of the “ absurdities"(absona) of Pope
Hadrian, who, they said, had commanded an heretical
worship of images.
No less light is thrown on the relations of Western
bishops to the Pope by the Predestinarian controversy
occasioned by the monk Gottschalk, and prolonged for
ten years at Synods and in various writings. : The first
prelates of the day, Hincmar, Rhabanus, Amolo, Pru-
dentius, Wenilo, and others, took opposite sides, Synod
contended against Synod, and there seemed no possi-
bility of coming to an agreement. Yet it never oc-
curred to any one to appeal to the Pope's sentence,
ready as he was to interpose in the affairs of the
Frankish Church; only at the last Gottschalk himself
made an unsuccessful attempt to get his hard fate miti-
gated by the Pope.
Up to the time of the Isidorian decretals no serious
attempt was made anywhere to introduce the neo-
Roman theory of Infallibility. The Popes did not
dream of laying claim to such a privilege. Their re-
lation to the Church had to be fundamentally revolution-
ized, and the idea of the Primacy altered, before there
could be any room for this doctrine to grow up; after
that iť developed itself by a sort of logical sequence,
but very slowly, being at issue with notorious historical
facts.
1 Mansi, Concil. xiv. 415 soq.
Ancient Constitution of the Church.. 63
§ V. - The Ancient Constitution of the Church.
To get a view of the enormous difference in the po-
sition and action of the Primacy, as it was in the Ro-
man Empire, and as it became in the later middle
ages, it is enough to point out the following facts :-
(1.) The Popes took no part in convoking Councils.
All Great Councils, to which bishops came from dif-
ferent countries were convoked by the Emperors, nor
were the Popes ever consulted about it beforehand.
If they thought a General Council necessary, they
had to petition the Imperial Court, as Innocent did in
the matter of St. Chrysostom, and Leo after the Synod
of 449;1 and then they did not always prevail, as both
the Popes just named learned by experience.
(2.) They were not always allowed to preside, per-
sonally or by deputy, at the Great Councils, though no
one denied them the first rank in the Church. At
Nice, at the two Councils of Ephesus in 431 and 449,
and at the Fifth General Council in 553, others pre-,
sided ; only at Chalcedon in 451, and Constantinople
in 680, did the Papal legates preside. And it is clear
that the Popes did not claim this as their exclusive
right, from the conduct of Leo I. in sending his leg-
ates to Ephesus, although he knew that the Emperor
had named, not him, but the bishop of Alexandria, to
preside.
(3.) Neither the dogmatic nor the disciplinary deci-
sions of these Councils required Papal confirmation,
for their force and authority depended on the consent
of the Church, as expressed in the Synod, and after-
[The “ Latrocinium” of Ephesus. — TR.)
64
Papal Infallibility.
wards in the fact of its being generally received. The
confirmation of the Nicene Council by Pope Silvester
was afterwards invented at Rome, because facts would
not square with the newly-devised theory.
(4.) For the first thousand years no Pope ever issued
a doctrinal decision intended for and addressed to the
whole Church. Their doctrinal pronouncements, if
designed to condemn new heresies, were always sub-.
mitted to a Synod, or were answers to inquiries from
one or more bishops. They only became a standard
of faith after being read, examined, and approved at
(5.) The Popes possessed none of the three powers
which are the proper attributes of sovereignty, neither
the legislative, the administrative, nor the judicial.
The Council of Sardica, in 343, gave them, indeed, a
handle for the attempt to usurp the latter. Here it
was decreed, for the first time, and as a personal privi-
lege to the then Pope, Julius, that he should be author-
ized to appoint judges for a bishop in the second instance
to hear the cause on the spot, with the assistance of a
Roman legate, and, in the event of a further appeal, to
pronounce sentence himself. But this regulation was
received neither by the Eastern Church nor the Afri-
can, never observed by the former, and steadily rejected
by the latter, and it never came into full force any-
where till after the Isidorian decretals were fabricated.
The African bishops wrote to Pope Boniface I., in
419, “ We are resolved not to admit this arrogant
claim.” 1
1 Epist. Pontif. (ed. Coust.), p. 113: “Non sumus jam
istum typhum passuri.”
Ancient Constitution of the Church. '. 65
· The Popes at that time made no attempt to exercise
legislative power. For a long time, according to their
own statement, no canons but those of the first Nicene
Council obtained in the West, in the East only the
canons of Eastern Synods. Declarations or ordinances
issued by Popes in reply to questions of particular
bishops could not be regarded as general laws of the
Church, for the simple reason that they were only
known to particular bishops and Churches. The spread
of the Dionysian writings, with the second part com-
posed of Papal documents, after the sixth century,
began gradually to pioneer the way for the notion that
certain decretals of the Roman bishops had the force
of law, but their authority was still limited, as in the
else was.made dependent on their express acceptance
by : National Churches. Even if the Popes had at-
tempted at that time to exercise a formal government
over the Church, the thing was a sheer impossibility.'
Government cannot be carried on by occasional Sy-
nods, and there was no other means of governing.
The Popes would have required a court, a system of
clerical officials, congregations, and the like, but noth-
ing of the kind was remotely dreamt of. The Roman
clergy were organized just like every other; for all
the offices and functions undertaken later, and still
discharged by the court, there was then neither need
nor occasion.
(6.) Nobody thought of getting dispensations from
Church laws from the Roman bishops, nor was a sin-
gle tax or tribute paid to the Roman See, for no court
as yet existed. To make laws which could be dis-
66
Papal Infallibility:
pensed for money would have appeared both a folly
and a crime. The power of the keys, or of binding
and loosing, was universally held to belong to the other
bishops just as much as to the bishop of Rome.
(7.) The bishops of Rome could exclude neither
individuals nor Churches from the communion of
the Church Universal. They could withdraw their
own Church from communion with particular bishops
or Churches, and they often did so, but this in nowise
affected their relations to other bishops or Churches,
as was shown, among other instances, by the long
Antiochene schism from 361 to 413. And, on the other
hand, if they admitted into their own communion one
excommunicated by other Churches, this did not bring
him into communion with any other Church.
(8.) For a long time nothing was known in Rome
of definite rights bequeathed by Peter to his successors.
Nothing but a care for the weal of the Church, and the
· duty of watching over the observance of the canons,
was ascribed to them. Only after the Sardican Coun-
cil, and in reliance solely on it, or the Nicene, which
. was designedly confounded with it, was a right of
hearing appeals laid claim to. Innocent I. himself
(402-417), who tried to give the widest extent to the
Sardican canon, and claimed, on the strength of it, a
right to interpose in all graver Church questions,
grounded his claim entirely on the Fathers” and the
Synod. So, too, with Zosimus (417-418), — it was
the Fathers who had given the See of Rome the priv-
ilege of final decision in appeals. But soon after-
wards, at the Council of Ephesus, the Roman legates
1 Mansi, Concil. iv. 366.
Ancient Constitution of the Church.. 67
declared that Peter, to whom Christ gave the power
of binding and loosing, lives and judges in his succes-
sors. No one put forward this plea more frequently
or more energetically than Leo I. But when the Coun-
cil of Chalcedon declared, in its famous twenty-eighth
canon, that it was the Fathers who adjudged the pri-
macy to Rome, and that too on account of the political
dignity of the city, Leo did not venture to contradict
them, though he strenuously resisted the main purport
of the canon, which raised the See of Constantinople
to the first rank after the Roman, and to equal rights.
It was not the degradation of the Roman See, but only
the injury done to the Eastern Patriarchs and the
Nicene canon, which, according to his own assurance,
was the ground of his refusing his assent to the canon
of Chalcedon.He had, indeed, some years before,
induced the Emperor Valentinian III. to issue an edict
in favor of the See of Rome, which subjected all the
bishops of the then very reduced Western empire
(strictly only those of Italy and. Gaul) to the Pope,
and which, had it obtained full force, would have
changed the whole constitution of the Western Church.
This edict names, besides the canon of Sardica, and
the greatness of the city, “the merit of St. Peter,” as
the first ground for so comprehensive a power, which
the bishops were to be compelled by the imperial
officers to bow to. But when Leo had to deal with
Byzantium and the East, he no longer dared to plead
1 Mansi, Concil. iv. 1296.
2 The sixth Nicene canon, referring to the rights of the
Roman See over part of the Italian Church, had given the
same rights to the bishops of Alexandria and Antioch over
their own Patriarchates.
68
Papal Infallibility.
this argument, - which would alone have proved the
hated twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon to be null and
void, - but preferred to appeal to the Nicene Council,
utterly untenable as his inferences from the sixth canon
must have appeared to the Greeks. The opposition
of his successors was equally fruitless. The canon
took full effect, and from that day to this has determined
the form and constitution of the Eastern Church, and
its view of the prerogatives of Rome.
(9.) What was afterwards called the Papal system,
when first proclaimed in words only, was repudiated
with horror by that best and greatest of Popes, Gregory
the Great. On this theory the Pope has the plenitude
of power, all other bishops are only his servants and
auxiliaries, from him all power is derived, and he is
concurrent ordinary in every diocese. So Gregory
understood the title of “Ecumenical Patriarch,” and
would not endure that so "wicked and blaspheinous a
title" should be given to himself or any one else.
(10.) There are many National Churches which
were never under Rome, and never even had any inter-
course by letter with Rome, without this being consid-
ered a defect, or causing any difficulty about Church
communion. Such an autonomous Church, always
independent of Rome, was the most ancient of those
founded beyond the limits of the empire, the Armenian,
wherein the primatial dignity descended for a long
time in the family of the national apostle, Gregory the
Illuminator. The great Syro-Persian Church in Meso-
potamia, and the western part of the kingdom of the
Sassanidæ, with its thousands of martyrs, was from the
i Lib. v. Ep. 18 ad Foann ; Lib. viii. Ep. 30 ad Eulog. etc.
Ancient Constitution of the Church. 69
first, and always remained, equally free from any in-
ture we find no trace of the arm of Rome having
reached there. The same holds good of the Ethiopian
or Abyssinian Church, which was indeed united to the
See of Alexandria, but wherein nothing, except per-
haps a distant echo, was heard of the claims of Rome.
In the West, the Irish and the ancient British Church
remained for centuries autonomous, and under no sort
of influence of Rome.
If we put into a positive form this negative account
of the position of the ancient Popes, we get the follow-
ing picture of the organization of the ancient Church :
Without prejudice to its agreement with the Church
Universal in all essential points, every Church man-
ages its own affairs with perfect freedom and inde-
pendence, and maintains its own traditional usages and
discipline, all questions not concerning the whole
Church, or of primary importance, being settled on
the spot. The Church is organized in dioceses, prov-
inces, patriarchates (National Churches were added
afterwards in the West), with the bishop of Rome at
the head as first Patriarch, the Centre and Representa-
tive of unity, and, as such, the bond between East and
West, between the Churches of the Greek and the
Latin tongue, the chief watcher and guardian of the,
as yet very few, common laws of the Church, — for a
long time only the Nicene; but he does not encroach
on the rights of patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops.
Laws and articles of faith, of universal obligation, are
issued only by the whole Church, concentrated and
represented at an (Ecumenical Council.
70
Papal Infallibility.
$ VI. — The Teaching of the Fathers.
What has now become a rule in dogmatic works-
to give a separate “ treatise” or “locus” to the Pope
--- came in with Aquinas, the first theologian who, on
grounds to be explained presently, made the doctrine
of the Pope a formal part of dogmatic theology, i.e., of
the Scholastic, and it thus dates from 1274. Since
then every doctrinal treatise has its section on the
“Primacy,” and since Melchior Canus (about 1550)
more especially, but in a shorter form with Aquinas,
a discussion of the Pope's authority in matters of faith.
With the Jesuit theologians (compare e.g., among liv- :
ing writers, Passaglia, Schrader, Weninger, etc.), the
monarchical authority and magisterial power of the
Pope is the chief article on which all the rest depends,
and which comes before all in weight and fundamental
significance. And rightly so, if the Pope is infallible
in his decisions; for then every authority in the Church,
that of Councils included, is a mere derivation from
his, and all certainty of faith rests ultimately on him
and his divine prerogative of being the vehicle of a
permanent Divine inspiration. Every Christian must
say: 6 I believe this or that article of faith, because I
believe in the Pope's infallibility, and because the
Pope has decided it, or has ratified the decision and
teaching of others.”
And now compare with this the silence of the an-
cient Church. In the first three centuries, St. Irenæus
is the only writer who connects the superiority of the
Roman Church with doctrine; but he places this
superiority, rightly understood, only in its antiquity,
The Teaching of the Fathers..
76
its double apostolical origin, and in the circumstance
of the pure tradition being guarded and maintained
there through the constant concourse of the faithful
from all countries. Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius,
know nothing of special Papal prerogative, or of any
· higher or supreme right of deciding in matter of doc-
trine. In the writings of the Greek doctors, Eusebius,
St. Athanasius, St. Basil the Great, the two Gregories,
and St. Epiphanius, there is not one word of any pre-
rogatives of the Roman bishop. The most copious of
the Greek Fathers, St. Chrysostom, is wholly silent on
the subject, and so are the two Cyrils ; equally silent
are the Latins, Hilary, Pacian, Zeno, Lucifer, Sulpi-
cius, and. St. Ambrose. Even the Roman writer Ur-
sinus (about 440), in defending the Roman view of
re-baptism, avoids — perhaps cannot venture upon any
appeal to the authority of the Roman Church, as
final, or even of especial weight !3
St. Augustine has written more on the Church, its
unity and authority, than all the other Fathers put
together. Yet, from all his numerous works, filling
ten folios, only one sentence, in one letter, can be
1 On the famous interpolation in Cyprian's De Unit. Eccles.
see later.
2 St. Basil (Opp. ed. Bened. iii. 301, Epp. 239 and 214) has
expressed most strongly his contempt for the writings of the
Popes, “those insolent and puffed up Occidentals, who would
only sanction false doctrine.” He says he would not receive
their letters if they fell from heaven. He was provoked by
the support given at Rome to the open Sabellianism of Mar-
cellus and the unsettling of the Antiochene Church.
3 That he is the author is clear from the all but contempo-
rary statement of Gennadius, and the oldest MS. See Ben-
nettis, Privilegia R. P. Vindicata (Roma, 1756), ii. 274.
72
Papal Infallibility.
quoted, where he says that the principality of the .
Apostolic Chair has always been in Rome, — which
could, of course, be said then with equal truth of An-
tioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria. Any reader of his
Pastoral Letter to the separated Donatists on the Unity
of the Church, must find it inexplicable, on the Jesuit :
theory, that in these seventy-five chapters there is not
a single word on the necessity of communion with
Rome as the centre of unity. He urges all sorts of
arguments to show that the Donatists are bound to
return to the Church, but of the Papal Chair, as one
of them, he knows nothing. So again with the famous
Commonitorium of St. Vincent of Lerins, composed
in 434. If the view of Roman infallibility had existed
anywhere in the Church at that time, it could not have
been possibly passed over in a book exclusively con-
cerned with the question of the means for ascertaining
the genuine Christian doctrine. But the author keeps
to the three notes of universality, permanence, and
consent, and to the Ecumenical Councils. Even
Pope Pelagius I. praises St. Augustine for “ being
mindful of the divine doctrine which places the found-
ation of the Church in the Apostolical Sees, and teach-
ing that they are schismatics who separate themselves
from the communion of these Apostolical Sees.” 2 This
Pope (555-560), then, knows nothing of any exclusive
teaching privilege of Rome, but only of the necessity
of adhering in disputed questions of faith to the Apos-
tolical Churches — Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusa-
lem, as well as Rome.3
1 Ep. 43, Opp. (Antwerp), ii. 69.
2 Mansi, Concil. ix. 716.
3 Ib. ix. 732.
The Teaching of the Fathers.
73
Moreover, we have writings or statements about the
ranks of the hierarchy in the ancient Church, and the
Papal dignity is never named as one of them, or men-
tioned as any thing existing apart in the Church. In
the writings of the Areopagite, composed at the end
of the fifth century, on the hierarchy, only bishops,
presbyters, and deacons are mentioned. In 631, the
famous Spanish theologian, Isidore of Seville, de-
bishops into four ranks, - Patriarchs, Archbishops,
Metropolitans, and Bishops. Gratian incorporated this
long chapter from Isidore into his Decretum, strange
as it must have appeared to him that the first and
highest office should not be named at all. As late as
789 the Spanish Abbot Beatus gives the same account;
he too knows no higher office in the Church than
Patriarchs, of whom he calls the Roman the first.
There is another fact the infallibilist will find it
impossible to explain. We have a copious litera-
ture on the Christian sects and heresies of the first six
centuries, - Irenæus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius, Philas-
trius, St. Augustine; and, later, Leontius and Timo-
theus, have left us accounts of them to the number
of eighty, but not a single one is reproached with
rejecting the Pope's authority in matters of faith, while
Aërius, e.g., is reproached with denying the episcopate
as a grade of the hierarchy. Had the mot d'ordre
been given for centuries to observe a dead silence on
this, in the Ultramontane view, articulus stantis vel
cadentis Ecclesiæ ?
All this is intelligible enough, if we look at the
1 Beati Comment. in Apoc. (Madr. 1776), p. 99.
- 74
Papal Infallibility.
patristic interpretation of the words of Christ to St.
Peter. Of all the Fathers who interpret these pas-
sages in the Gospels (Matt. xvi. 18, John xxi. 17), not
a single one applies them to the Roman bishops as
Peter's successors. How many Fathers have busied
themselves with these texts, yet not one of them whose
commentaries we possess, — Origen, Chrysostom, Hi-
lary, Augustine, Cyril, Theodoret, and those whose
interpretations are collected in catenas, — has dropped
the faintest hint that the primacy of Rome is the conse-
quence of the commission and promise to Peter! Not ;
one of them has explained the rock or foundation
on which Christ would build His Church of the office
given to Peter to be transmitted to his successors, but
they understood by it either Christ Himself, or Peter's
confession of faith in Christ; often both together. Or
else they thought Peter was the foundation equally
with all the other Apostles, the Twelve being together
the foundation-stones of the Church (Apoc. xxi. 14).
The Fathers could the less recognize in the power
of the keys, and the power of binding and loosing,
any special prerogative or lordship of the Roman
bishop, inasmuch as — what is obvious to any one at
first sight-- they did not regard a power first given to
Peter, and afterwards conferred in precisely the same
words on all the Apostles, as any thing peculiar to
him, or hereditary in the line of Roman bishops, and
they held the symbol of the keys as meaning just
the same as the figurative expression of binding and
loosing.
1 Döllinger might therefore have spared himself the trouble
of trying to show that the power of the keys differs from the
The Teaching of the Fathers.
75
Every one knows the one classical passage of Scrip-
ture on which the edifice of Papal Infallibility has
been reared: “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith
fail not: and when thou art converted, confirm thy
brethren."1. But these words manifestly refer only to
Peter personally, to his denial of Christ and his con-
version; he is told that he, whose failure of faith
would be only of short duration, is to strengthen the
other Apostles, whose faith would likewise waver.
It is directly against the sense of the passage, which
speaks simply of faith, first wavering, and then to be
confirmed in the Messianic dignity of Christ, to find
in it a promise of future infallibility to a succession of
Popes, just because they hold the office Peter first held
in the Roman Church. No single writer to the end
of the seventh century dreamt of such an interpre-
tation; all without exception -- and there are eighteen
of them- explain it simply as a prayer of Christ that
his Apostle might not wholly succumb, and lose his
faith entirely in his approaching trial. The first to
find in it a promise of privileges to the Church of
Rome was Pope Agatho in 680, when trying to avert
the threatened condemnation of his predecessor, Ho-
norius, through whom the Roman Church had lost its
boasted privilege of doctrinal purity.
Now, the Tridentine profession of faith, imposed on
power of binding and loosing, so that the former extended
over the whole Church, and passed to Peter's successors
(First Age of the Church, pp. 29, 30, 2d ed.). This contradicts
all the patristic interpretations, and the exegetical tradition
of the Church.
i Luke xxii. 32.
76
Papal Infallibility.
the clergy since Pius IV., contains a vow never to in-
terpret Holy Scripture otherwise than in accord with
the unanimous consent of the Fathers — that is, the
great Church doctors of the first six centuries, for
Gregory the Great, who died in 604, was the last of
the Fathers; every bishop and theologian therefore
breaks his oath when he interprets the passage in ques-
tion of a gift of infallibility promised by Christ to the
Popes.
§ VII. — Forgeries.
At the beginning of the ninth century no change had
taken place in the constitution of the Church as we
have described it, and especially none as to the author-
ity for deciding matters of faith. When the Frankish
bishops came to Leo III., he assured them that, far
from setting himself above the Fathers of the Council
in 381, who made the additions to the Nicene Creed,
he did not venture to put himself on a par with them,
and therefore refused to sanction the interpolation of
Filioque into the Creed. I
But in the middle of that century — about 845 —
arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals,
which had results far beyond what its author contem-
plated, and gradually, but surely, changed the whole
constitution and government of the Church. It would
be difficult to find in all history a second instance of
so successful, and yet so clumsy a forgery. For three
centuries past it has been exposed, yet the principles
it introduced and brought into practice have taken
such deep root in the soil of the Church, and have
1 Concil. Gall. (ed. Sirmondi) ii. 256.
Forgeries.
: 77
so grown into her life, that the exposure of the fraud
has produced no result in shaking the dominant system.
About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest
Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other
Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fab-
ricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon
by Pope Nicolas I. at Rome, to be used as genuine
documents in support of the new claims put forward
by himself and his successors. The immediate object
of the compiler of this forgery was to protect bishops
against their metropolitans and other authorities, so as-
to secure absolute impunity, and the exclusion of all
influence of the secular power. This end was to be
gained through such an immense extension of the Papal
power, that, as these principles gradually penetrated
the Church, and were followed out into their conse-
quences, she necessarily assumed the form of an abso-
lute monarchy subjected to the arbitrary power of a
single individual, and the foundation of the edifice of
Papal infallibility was already laid — first, by the prin-
ciple that the decrees of every Council require Papal
eonfirmation : secondly, by the assertion that the ful-
ness of power, even in matters of faith, resides in the
while the other bishops are his servants.
Now, if the Pope is really the bishop of the whole
Church, so that every other bishop is his servant, he,
who is the sole and legitimate mouth of the Church,
ought to be infallible. If the decrees of Councils are
invalid without Papal confirmation, the divine attesta-
tion of a doctrine undeniably rests in the last resort on
the word of one man, and the notion of the absolute
78
Papal Infallibility. '
power of that one man over the whole Church includes
that of his infallibility, as the shell contains the kernel.
With perfect consistency, therefore, the pseudo-Isidore
makes his early Popes say: “ The Roman Church re-
mains to the end free from stain of heresy."1
Formerly all learned students of ecclesiastical anti-
quity and canon-law — men like De Marca, Baluze,
Coustant, Gibert, Berardi, Zallwein, etc. -- were agreed
that the change introduced by the pseudo-Isidore was
a substantial one, that it displaced the old system of
Church government and brought in the new. Modern
writers have maintained that the compiler of the forgery
only meant to codify the existing state of things, and
give it a formal status, and that the same develop-
ment would have taken place without his trick. The
truth is :-
First, Before his fabrication many very efficacious
forgeries had won a gradual recognition at Rome since
the beginning of the sixth century; and on them was
based the maxim that the Pope, as supreme in the
Church, could be judged by no man.
Secondly, The Isidorian doctrine contradicted itself,
for it aimed at two things which were mutually incom-
patible, — the complete independence and impunity of
bishops on the one hand, and the advancement of
Papal power on the other. The first point it sought to
1 Ep. Luċii in Hinschius' ed. of Decretals, p. 179. Cf. p.
206. The same statement is put into the mouth of Marcus
and Felix I.
2 So Walter, Phillips, Schulte, Pachmann, among canon-
ists, and Döllinger in his Church History (ii. 41-43), on
grounds betraying a very imperfect knowledge of the de-
cretals.
.
: 79
Forgeries.
effect by such strange and unpractical rules that they
never attained any real vitality, while, on the contrary,
the principles about the power of the Roman See
worked their way, and became dominant under favor-
able circunstances, but with a result greatly opposed
to the views of Isidore, by bringing the bishops into
complete subjection to Rome. But that the pseudo-
Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole
constitution of the Church, and introduced a new
system in place of the old, — on that point there can
be no controversy among candid historians.
At the time when the forged decretals began to be
widely known, the See of Rome was occupied by
Nicolas I. (858-867), a Pope who exceeded all his
predecessors in the audacity of his designs. Favored
and protected by the break-up of the empire of Charles
the Great, he met East and West alike with the firm
resolution of pressing to the uttermost every claim of
any one of his predecessors, and pushing the limits of
the Roman supremacy to the point of absolute monar-
chy. By a bold but non-natural torturing of a single
word against the sense of a whole code of law, he
managed to give à turn to a canon of a General Coun-
cil, excluding all appeals to Rome, as though it opened
to the whole clergy in East and West a right of appeal
to Rome, and made the Pope the supreme judge of all
bishops and clergy of the whole world. He wrote
I Canon 17 of Chalcedon, which speaks of appeals to the
"primas dioceseos," i.e., one of the Eastern patriarchs, not a
civil ruler, as Baxmann thinks (Politik der Päbste, ii. 13).
Nicolas said the singular meant the plural, "dioceseon," and
that the primate” meant the Pope, - a notion which would
not seem worth a reply in Constantinople.
80
Papal Infallibility.
this to the Eastern Emperor, to the Frankish king,
Charles, and to all the Frankish bishops. And he
referred the Orientals, and so sharp-sighted a man as
Photius, to these fabrications fathered on Popes Silves-
ter and Sixtus, which were thenceforth used for centu-
ries, and gained the Roman Church the oft-repeated
reproach from the Greeks, of being the native home
of inventions and falsifications of documents. Soon
after, receiving the new implements forged in the
Isidorian workshop (about 863 or 864), Nicolas met
the doubts of the Frankish bishops with the assurance
that the Roman Church had long preserved all those -
documents with honor in her archives, and that every
writing of a Pope, even if not part of the Dionysian
collection of canons, was binding on the whole
Church.2 In a Synod at Rome in 863 he had accord-
ingly anathematized all who should refuse to receive
the teaching or ordinances of a Pope. If, indeed, all
Papal utterances were a rule for the whole Church,
and all decrees of Councils dependent on the Pope's
good pleasure, — as Nicolas asserted on the strength
of the Isidorian forgery, — then there would be but
one step further to the promulgation of Papal Infalli-
bility, though it has been long delayed. It was thought
enough to repeat from time to time that the Roman
Church keeps the faith pure, and is free from every
stain.
Nearly three centuries passed before the seed sown
produced its full harvest. For almost two hundred
years, from the death of Nicolas I. to the time of Leo
1 Mansi, Concil. v. 202, 688, 694.
2 Mansi, Concil. xv. 695. 3 Harduin, Concil. v. 574.
Forgeries..
i 81
.
IX., the Roman See was in a condition which did not
allow of any systematic acquisition and enforcement
of new or extended rights. For above sixty years
(883-955) the Roman Church was enslaved and de-
graded, while the Apostolic See became the prey and
the plaything of rival factions of the nobles, and for a
long time of ambitious and profligate women. It was
only renovated for a brief interval (997-1003) in the
persons of Gregory V. and Silvester II., by the in-
fluence of the Saxon emperor. Then the Papacy sank
back into utter confusion and moral impotence; the
Tuscan Counts made it hereditary in their family ;
again and again dissolute boys, like John XII. and
Benedict IX., occupied and disgraced the Apostolic
throne, which was now bought and sold like a piece
of merchandise, and at last three Popes fought for the
tiara, until the Emperor Henry III. put an end to the
scandal by elevating a German bishop to the See of
Rome.
With Leo IX. (1048-1054) was inaugurated a new
era of the Papacy, which may be called the Hilde-
brandine. Within sixty years, through the contest
with kings, bishops, and clergy, against simony, cleri-
cal marriage, and investiture, the Roman See had risen
to a height of power even Nicolas I. never aspired to.
· A large and powerful party, stronger than that which
two hundred years before had undertaken to carry
through the Isidorian forgery, had been laboring since
the middle of the eleventh century, with all its might,
to weld the States of Europe into a theocratic priest-
kingdoma, with the Pope as its head. The urgent need
of reform in the Church helped on the growth of the
82
Papal Infallibility.
spiritual monarchy, and again the purification of the
Church seemed to need such a concentration and in-
crease of ecclesiastical power. In France this party
was supported by the most influential spiritual corpo-
ration of the time, the Congregation of Cluny. In
Italy, men like Peter Damiani, Bishop Anselm of
Lucca, Humbert, Deusdedit, and above all Hildebrand,
— who was the life and soul of the enterprise, - helped
on the new system, though some of them, as Damiani i
and Hildebrand, differed widely both in theory and
practice.
It has not perhaps been sufficiently observed that
Gregory VII. is in fact the only one of all the Popes
who set himself with clear and deliberate purpose to
introduce a new constitution of the Church, and by
new means. He regarded himself not merely as the
reformer of the Church, but as the divinely commis-
sioned founder of a wholly new order of things, fond
alone approaches him in this, but none of the later
Popes, all of whom, even the boldest, have but filled
in the outline he sketched.
Gregory saw from the first that Synods regularly
held by the Popes, and new codes of Church law, were
the means for introducing the new system. Synods
had been held, at his suggestion, by Leo IX. and his
successors, and he himself carried on the work in those
assembled after 1073. But only Popes and their legates
were henceforth to hold Synods; in every other form
the institution was to disappear. Gregory collected
about him by degrees the right men for elaborating his
system of Church law. Anselm of Lucca, nephew of
Forgeries.
83
Pope Alexander II., compiled the most important and
comprehensive work, at his command, between 1080
and 1086. Anselın may be called the founder of the
new Gregorian system of Church law, first, by extract-
ing and putting into convenient working shape every
thing in the Isidorian forgeries serviceable for the
Papal absolutism; next, by altering the law of the
Church, through a tissue of fresh inventions and inter-
party and the stand-point of Gregory.? Then came
Deusdedit, whom Gregory made a Cardinal, with some
more inventions. At the same time Bonizo compiled
his work, the main object of which was to exalt the
Papal prerogatives. The forty propositions or titles
of this part of his work correspond entirely to Grego-
ry's Dictatus and the materials supplied by Anselm
and Deusdedit.? The last great work of the Gregorians
(before Gratian) was the Polycarpus of Cardinal
Gregory of Pavia (before 1118), which almost always
adheres to Anselm in its falsifications.3
The preface of Deusdedit to his work is the pro-
gramme of the whole school whose labors were at
1 The contents of the Anselmian collection are known from
the list of chapters in the Spicilegium Rom. (ed. Mai, vi.);
from Antonius Augustinus, Epitome Juris Pontif. (Paris,
1641); and from the citations of Pithou in the Paris edition
of Gratian, 1686.
2 Nova Patrum Biblioth. (ed: Mai), vii. 3, 48.
3 Ivo of Chartres, though a contemporary of Cardinal
Gregory, cannot be reckoned among the Gregorian canonists.
Much as he was influenced in his compilations by Isidore,
and sometimes by Anselm, still in certain important articles
he held to the old Church law.
Papal Infallibility.
length crowned with such complete success. The
Roman Church, says. the Cardinal, is the mother of
all Churches, for Peter first founded the Patriarchal
Sees of the East, and then gave bishops to all the cities
of the West. Councils cannot be held without the
sanction of the Pope, according to the decisions of the
the Pope, when the See is vacant, and therefore Cy-
prian and the Africans humbly submitted to their deci-
sions before the election of Cornelius — a pet crotchet
of the Cardinal's, which Anselm, who was not a Car-
dinal, did not adopt. He adds, that he writes in order
to confirm the authority of Rome and the liberty of
the Church against its assailants, and maintains that
the testimonies he has collected disprove all objections,
on the principle that the lesser must always yield to
the greater — i.e., the authority of Councils and Fa-
thers to the Pope. With this one axiom -- which not
only opened the door wide for the Isidorian decretals,
but prevented any attempt to moderate their system by
an appeal to the ancient canons—the revolution in the
Church was accomplished in the simplest and least
troublesome manner.
Clearly and cautiously as the Gregorian party went
to work, they lived in a world of dreams and illusions
about the past and about remote countries. They could
not escape the imperative necessity of demonstrating
their new system to have been the constant practice of
the Church, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to
distinguish where involuntary delusion merged into,
1 It is, found in Memorie del Card. Passionei (Roma,
1762), p. 30.
U
Forgeries.
85
conscious deceit. Whatever present exigencies re-
quired was selected from the mythical stores at their
command hastily and recklessly; then fresh inventions
were added, and soon every claim of Rome could be
shown to have a legitimate foundation in existing
records and decrees.
It is so far true to say, that without the pseudo-
Isidore there would have been no Gregory VII., that
the Isidorian forgeries were the broad foundation the
Gregorians built upon. But the first object of Isidore
was to secure the impunity of bishops, whereas the
Roman party -- which for a long time had a majority
of the bishops against it -wanted to introduce a state
of things where the Popes or their legates could sum-
marily depose bishops, intimidate them, and reduce
them to complete subjection to every Papal command.
The newly invented doctrines about the deposing
power contributed to this end. In a word, a new his-
tory and a new civil and canon law was required, and
both had to be obtained by improving on the Isidorian
principles with new forgeries. The correction of his-
tory was to some extent provided for in Germany by
the monk Bernold, and in Italy by the zealous Grego-
rian Bonizo, Bishop of Piacenza, who tried, among
other things, to get rid of the coronation of Charles the
Great. Their other assistants had to invent or adapt
historical facts for party purposes, for their new codes
of Church law innovated largely on ancient Church
history. Gregory himself had his own little stock of
fabricated or distorted facts to support pretensions and
1 See Jaffé's Introduction to his edition of Bonitho in Monu-
menta Gregor., pp. 596 seq.
86
Papal Infallibility:
undertakings which seemed to his contemporaries
strange and unauthorized. It was, for instance, an
axiomatic fact with him that Pope Innocent I. excom-
municated the Emperor Arcadius, that Pope Zachary
deposed the Frankish king Childeric, and that Gregory
the Great threatened to depose the kings who should:
rob a hospice at Autun. He treated the Donation of
Constantine as a valuable and important document; it
gave him a right over Corsica and Sardinia.? His
pupil Leo IX. used it against the Greeks, and his
friend Peter Damiani against Germany; Anselm and
Deusdedit assigned it a prominent place in their legal
books.
At the same time, Gregory thought it most impor-
tant, with all his legislative activity and lofty claims
and high-handed measures, not to seem too much of
an innovator and despot; he constantly affirmed that
he only wished to restore the ancient laws of the Church,
and abolish late abuses. When he drew out the whole
system of Papal omnipotence in twenty-seven theses in
his Dictatus, these theses were partly mere repetitions
or corollaries of the Isidorian decretals; partly he and
his friends and allies sought to give them the appear-
ance of tradition and antiquity by new fictions. 3
Gregory's chief work is his letter to Bishop Hermann
1 He appealed to a recently forged document in Autun,
which Launoi (Opp. v. p. ii. 445) has dissected.
2 Döllinger is mistaken in saying (Pabstfabeln, p. 84) that
Gregory never appealed to it.
3 As to this Dictatus being his own work, and an authentic
part of the Register edited by himself, see Giesebrecht, Ge-
setzgeb. der Röm. Kirche., Münchner hist. Fahrbuch, 1866,
p. 149.
11
87
Forgeries.
of Metz, designed to prove how well grounded is the
Pope's dominion over emperors and kings, and his
right to depose them in cases of necessity. In this he
showed his adherents how to manipulate facts and
texts, by twisting a passage in a letter of Pope Gela-
sius to the Emperor Anastasius so skilfully, by means
of omissions and arbitrary collocations, as to make
Gelasius say just the opposite of what he really said, -
viz., that kings are absolutely and universally subject
to the Pope, whereas what he did say was, that the
rulers of the Church are always subject to the laws of
the emperors, only disclaiming the interference of the
secular power in questions of faith and the sacra-
ments.
How what was a falsification to begin with was falsi-
fied again in the interests of the new system, and accen-
tuated to serve the cause of ecclesiastical despotism,
may be seen from the eleventh canon of Causa 25,
Q. 1, in Gratian. The Council of Toledo in 646 had
excommunicated the Spanish priests who took part in
the rebellion against the King, and included the King
himself in the anathema if he violated this censure
(hujus canonis censuran). Out of this Isidore made,
two hundred years afterwards, the following: The
anatliema applied to all kings who violated any canon
binding under censure, or allowed it to be violated by
others; and this he put into the mouth of Pope Ha-
drian. In the new text-books compiled by Anselm,
Deusdedit, and Gregory of Pavia, the (pretended) de-
crees of the Popes were put in place of the canons of
i Registr. (ed. Jaffé), p. 457.
2 Capp. Angilram. p. 769 (ed. Hinsch.).
88
Papal Infallibility.
Councils, and this supplied just what was wanted — a
system of ancient Church law to justify the procedures
of Gregory VII. and Urban II. against the princes of
their own day — and a Pope would never lack some
pretext for threatening excommunication, with all its
consequences.
Gregory borrowed one main pillar of his system from
the False Decretals. Isidore had made Pope Julius
(about 338) write to the Eastern bishops, — “The
Church of Rome, by a singular privilege, has the right
of opening and shutting the gates of heaven to whom
she will.” 2 On this Gregory built his scheme of
dominion.: How should not he be able to judge on
earth, on whose will hung the salvation or damnation
of men? The passage was made into a special decree
or chapter in the new codes. The typical formula of
binding and loosing had become an inexhaustible
treasure-chamber of rights and claims. The Grego-
rians used it as a charm to put them in possession of
everything worth having. If Gregory - who was
notoriously the first to undertake dethroning kings —
wanted to depose the German Emperor, he said, “ To
me is given power to bind and loose on earth and in
heaven.” 5 Were subjects to be absolved from their
1 The monk Bernold, in his Apol. contr. Schismat., written
in 1087 (Ussermann, ed. p. 361), fabricates “ Apostolicæ Sedis
statuta."
2 Decret. pseudo-Is. (ed. Hinsch.), p. 464.
3 Monum. Gregor. (ed. Jaffé), p. 445.
4 By Deusdedit; see Galland. Syll. ii. 745 ; by Anselm,
Maii Spicil. Rom. vi. 317. 23; by Bonizo, Maii Pat. Nov.
Biblioth. vii. 3, 47; Gregory's Polycarpus, i. 4, tit. 34.
5 See the form in Mansi, xx. 467.
:
Forgeries.
89
oaths of allegiance? - which he was also the first to
attempt, - he did it by virtue of his power to loose.
Did he want to dispose of other people's property? he
declared, as at his Roman Synod of 1080,— “We
desire to show the world that we can give or take away
at our will kingdoms, duchies, earldoms, in a word, the
possessions of all men; for we can bind and loose.”1 In
the same way a saying ascribed to Constantine, at the
Council of Nice, in a legend recorded by Rufinus, was
amplified till it was fashioned into a perfect mine of
high-flying pretensions. Constantine, according to this
against each other were laid before him, burned them,
saying, in allusion to a verse of the Psalter, that the
bishops were gods, and no man could dare to judge
them. Nicolas I. quoted this to the Emperor Michael.?
Anselm adopted the story into his collection, Gratian
followed, and Gregory himself found in it clear evi-
dence that he, the Pope, the bishop of bishops, stood
in unapproachable majesty over all monarchs of the
earth. For, as the passage stood in Anselm and Gra-
tian, it was the Pope whom Constantine called a god,
and so it has been understood and explained ever
since. 8
A man like Gregory VII., little familiar as he was
1 Mansi, xx. 536, “Quia si potestis in cælo ligare et solvere,
potestis in terrâ imperia ... et omnium hominum possessiones
pro meritis tollere unicuique et concedere."
2 Mansi, xy. 215.
3 Dist. 96, 97. “Satis evidenter ostenditur a sæculari po-
testate nec ligari prorsus nec solvi posse Pontificem, quem
constat a pio Principe Constantino Deum appellatum, nec posse
Deum ab hominibus judicari manifestum est.”
Papal Infallibility.
with theological questions, must have held the prerog-
ative of Infallibility the most precious jewel of his
crown. His claims to universal dominion, to the de-
posing power, and the right of dispensing subjects
from their oaths, all rested ultimately on his own au-
thority. All was to be believed because he, the infal-
lible Pope, affirmed it. Accordingly, stronger proofs
and testimonies than Isidore supplied had to be found
for this infallibility of his.
Pope Agatho had said at a Roman Synod, in 680,
that all the English bishops were to observe the ordi-
nances made in former Roman Synods for the Anglo-
Saxon Church.Cardinal Deusdedit made this into a
decree issued by Agatho to all bishops in the world,
saying they must receive all Papal orders as though
attested by the very voice of Peter, and therefore, of
course, infallible. One of the boldest falsifications the
Gregorians allowed themselves occurs first in Anselm's,
and then in Cardinal Gregory's works, from whom
Gratian borrowed it. St. Augustine had said that all
those canonical writings (of the Bible) were pre-emi-
nently attested, which Apostolical Churches had first
received and possessed. He meant the Churches of
Corinth, Ephesus, etc. The passage was corrupted
into, ~_“Those epistles belong to canonical writings
which the Holy See has issued ;” and thus it came to
pass that the mediæval theologians and canonists, who
i Labbé, Concil. vi. 580.
2 It occurs in the same spurious form in Gregory's Poly-
carpus, Ivo's Collection, and — which was, of course, quite
conclusive - in Gratian's Decretum, Dist. 19, C. 2.
3 See Pithou's ed. of Gratian. Cf. Grat. Dist. 19, c. 6.
Forgeries....
91
generally derived their whole knowledge of the Fathers
from the passages collected by Peter Lombard and
Gratian, really believed that St. Augustine had put
the decretal letters of Popes on a par with Scripture.
When Cardinal Turrecremata, about 1450, and Cardi-
nal Cajetan, about 1516, put the Infallibility doctrine
into formal shape, they too relied on the clear testi-
mony of St. Augustine, which left no doubt that the
first theologian of the ancient Church had declared
every Papal utterance to be as free from error as the
Apostolical Epistles.”
That Papal Infallibility might be more firmly be-
lieved, personal sanctity was also ascribed to every
Pope. This notion was first invented by Ennodius,
deacon, and secretary of Pope Symmachus, who wrote
in 503 to defend him against certain charges. The
Popes, he said, must be held to inherit innocence and
sanctity from Peter. Isidore eagerly seized on this,
and invented two Roman Synods, which had unani-
mously approved and subscribed the work of Ennodi-
us. Gregory VII. made this holiness of all Popes,
which he said he had personal experience of, the
foundation of his claim to universal dominion. Every
sovereign, he said, however good before, becomes
corrupted by the use of power, whereas every rightly
i The title of the canon in Gratian is, “Inter canonicas
Scripturas decretales epistolæ annumerantur."
2 Turrecremata; Summa de Eccl. P. ii. ; Cajetan, De Primat.
Rom. c. 14. Alphonsus de Castro has exposed the whole
forgery in his work Adv. Heres, (Paris, 1565) i. II.
3 Liber Apol., Opp. (Sirmondi) i. 1621.
4 Decret. pseudo-Isidor. (ed. Hinsch.), pp. 675 seg.
5 Ep. viii. 21 (Jaffé), p. 463.
92
Papal Infallibility.
appointed Popel becomes a saint through the imputed
merits of St. Peter. Even an exorcist? among the
clergy, he added, is higher and more powerful than
every secular monarch, for he casts out devils, whose
slaves evil princes are. This doctrine of the personal
sanctity of every Pope, put forward by the Gregorians,
and by Gregory VII. himself, as a claim made by
Pope Symmachus, was adopted into the codes of canon
law. But as notorious facts, and the crimes and exces-
ses of many Popes, which no denials could get rid of,
were in glaring contradiction to it, a supplementary
theory had to be invented, which Cardinal Deusdedit
published under the venerated name of St. Boniface,
the apostle of Germany. It was to this effect: Even
if a Pope is so bad that he drags down whole nations
to hell with him in troops, nobody can rebuke him ;
for he who judges all can be judged of no man; the
only exception is in case of his swerving from the
faith. That this could have been written nowhere but
in Rome, and certainly not by St. Boniface, is self-evi-
dent. There were no 6 innumerable nations” in this
day for the Pope to drag down into hell with him like
slaves. The words imply past experience of many
profligate Popes, and a period of enormously extended
Papal power over the nations, and were clearly in-
vented after the pontificate of Benedict IX. Gratian
has, of course, adopted them from Deusdedit.
The Gregorian doctrine since 1080 then is, that every
1 This proviso was meant to cover the frequent cases of
such evil Popes as, c.g., John XII. and Benedict IX.
2 [One of the lower ranks of the Catholic clergy. - Tr.]
3 Dist. 40, C. 53.
Forgeries.
93
Pope, lawfully appointed, and not thrust in by force,
is holy and infallible. But his holiness is imputed, not
inherent, so that if he have no merits of his own, he
inherits those of his predecessor St. Peter. Notwith-
standing his holiness, he may drag countless troops of
men down to hell, and none of them may withstand
or warn him; notwithstanding his infallibility he may
become an apostate, and then he may be resisted. Prob-
ably the latter distinction between his official or ex
cathedrd infallibility and his personal denial of the
faith was implied here.
Gregory VII. seems to have sincerely believed that
his infallibility was already acknowledged throughout
the Christian world, even in the East. He wrote to
the Emperor Henry, “ The Greek Church is fallen
away, and the Armenians also have lost the right faith,
but,” he adds, " all the Easterns await from St. Peter,
(viz., from me) the decision on their various opinions,
and at this time will the promise of Peter's confirming
his brethren be fulfilled.” He wanted then (in 1074)
to go at the head of a great army to Constantinople,
and there to hold his solemn judgment in matters of
faith, for he does not seem to have counted on the vol-
untary submission of the Greeks ; instead of which he
contented hiinself with plunging Germany and Italy
into a religious and civil war, the end of which he
did not live to see. All history proves, he says, how
clearly holiness is connected with infallibility in the
Popes. While there are at most only a few kings or
emperors who have been holy, out of 153 Popes 100
have not only been holy, but have reached the highest
1 Ep. ii. 31, p. 45 (Jaffé).
94
· Papal Infallibility.
the fable, which even the well-known annals of the
Popes contradicted, that of the thirty before Constan-
tine all but one were martyrs.2 The Gregorians busied
themselves greatly with the rectification of Papal his-
tory, and as the 'apostasy of Liberius - copied from
St. Jerome's Chronicle into so many historical works
- was not easy to reconcile with Papal infallibility
and sanctity, Anselm adopted into his codex the earlier
fable, that Liberius, when exiled, had ordained Felix
· his successor, by advice of the Roman clergy, and
abdicated, so that his subsequent apostasy did not
matter.
If every Pope is holy and infallible, then, according
to the Gregorian view, all Christendom must tremble
before him, as before an Asiatic despot whose disfavor
is death. Accordingly, Anselm and Cardinal Gregory
extracted passages from older forgeries, especially from
a spurious speech of St. Peter, to the effect that no one
should hold intercourse with a man under the Pope's
displeasure. Like the successive strata of the earth
covering one another, so layer after layer of forgeries
and fabrications was piled up in the Church. This
shows itself most conspicuously, in the great Church
question of Synods, where the two contradictory views
of the self-government and administration of the
Church by Councils, and of the absolute sovereignty
1 Ep. viii. 21, p. 463 (Jaffé).
2 Bonizo, Patr. Nov. Bibl. vii. 3, 37 (ed. Mai).
3 Schelstrate (Antiq. Illustr. i. 456) quotes the passage froin
Anselm.
4 See Gratian, Dist. 93, c. i.
.
95
HOYS
Forgeries.
of the Pope and Court of Rome over the whole Church,
were at issue. In 342, Pope Julius had written to the
Eastern Bishops, who had confirmed the deposition of
St. Athanasius at the Synod of Antioch, that they
should not have acted for themselves in a matter affect-
ing the whole Church, but, according to ecclesiastical
custom, in union with “ all of us,” i.e., the bishops of
the West. Socrates, who welcomed an opportunity
of pointing out the ambition of the Roman Church,
had twisted this into Julius saying that nothing could
be decided without the bishop of Rome. His Latin
translator, Epiphanius the Italian, about 500, went a
step further, and made the Pope say that no Council
could be held without his consent.3 Isidore worked
up these materials, and made Pope Julius write, in
two spurious epistles, that the Apostles and the Nicene
Council had said no Council could be held without
the Pope's injunction. And thus Anselm and the other
Gregorian canonists could quote a whole string of
primitive decrees resting Councils and all their de-
cisions on the arbitrament of the Pope, and Gratian
has borrowed the whole of his seventeenth Distinction
from Anselm.
Even this was not enough. Not only were Councils
to be made dependent, but the institution itself, as it
had existed for nine hundred years, was to be abol-
ished. As the kings who had become absolute in the
1 Ep. Rom. Pont. (ed. Coustant), p. 386.
2 Thus he observes (vii. 11) that the Roman See, like the
Alexandrian, had for some time advanced to dominion (ovvao-
Tela) over the priesthood.
3 Hist. Trip. i. 4, 9.
96
Papal Infallibility.
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could no longer
endure any representative assemblies, so the. Papacy,
when it wished to become absolute, found that Synods
of particular National Churches were better out of the
way altogether. For it was only in and by means of
Synods of particular districts, provinces, and National
Churches, that a healthy and somewhat independent
Church life could spread and maintain itself. These
had therefore to be put an end to, or at least broken
up and made so difficult that they could only proceed
at the beck of Rome. The following forgery was used
for the purpose :-
The opponents of Pope Symmachus, in 503, in order
to show that they could assemble in Rome without
him, had affirmed that the annual Provincial Synods
prescribed by the Church would not lose their force
merely because the Pope was not present at them.
Ennodius, in his defence of Symmachus, replied that
weighty causes (causæ majores) were by the canon of
Sardica reserved to the Pope. That was itself a mis-
representation, long current in Rome; the canon only
gave a right of appeal to Rome for bishops. Anselm
of Lucca, and Cardinal Gregory, and Gratian after
him, made out of this the following decree of Pope
Symmachus: “ The Provincial. Councils ordered by
the canons to be held annually, have lost their validity
from the Pope not being present at them.” And the
title of the decree is, “ Provincial Synods without the
Pope's presence have no force” (pondere carent).1
And thus an ecclesiastical revolution was brought
about in three lines.
1 Dist. 17, c. 6.
Forgeries.
97
But a formal prohibition of all Synods was still
wanted, and this was attained by Anselm, Cardinal
Gregory, and Gratian after them, making Pope Greg-
ory the Great declare that no one ever had been, or
ever would be, permitted to hold a particular (not
Ecumenical) Synod. The fraud lay in converting
what Pelagius I. had said, in the particular case of the
schism of Aquileia, of a Council assembled against
the Fifth Ecumenical into a general prohibition issued
by Gregory I. against all Synods, while, by changing
the plural into the singular, a reference to the authority
of the Apostolic Churches of Alexandria and Antioch
was altered into an exaltation of Papal authority.2
And thus the double end was attained of putting down
all meetings of bishops as in itself an illegal act of
presumption, and at the same time bringing out prom-
inently the plenitude of the Papal power, which could
even withdraw from all Christendom the apostolic in-
stitution of Synods at its will.
But Isidore's chief contribution to the designs of
Gregory VII. was by his inventions about the effect
of excommunication, for this, in the extended sense
given it by Gregory, was the sharpest weapon in the
struggle for Papal domination. Isidore had made the
earliest Popes assert that no speech ever could be held
with an excommunicated man, whence Gregory and
his allies inferred that this applied also to kings and
emperors, and that nobody could, even in matters of
business, hold any intercourse with them if excom-
1 Decret. Dist. 17, C. 4.
2 Cf. on this and other falsifications, Berardi, Gratian, Can.
ii. 489.
98
Papal Infallibility.
municated, so that they were no longer fit to reign, and
must be deposed. By this extension of the idea,
wholly unknown to the ancient Church, and destruc-
- tive of the entire original character of the institution,
an enormous instrument of power was created, which
not only might be abused, but was itself a standing
abuse, a confusion of things human and divine, and a
perpetual source of civil disturbance and division.
Bossuet has admitted that it was a false doctrine which
Gregory introduced into the Church, by altering and
distorting the notion of excommunication. Gregory
himself must have known he was the first to make the
claim, and that even in the Isidorian decretals there
was nothing like it, yet at the Synod of 1078 2 he
grounded it exclusively on the statutes of his predeces-
sors. To make their spiritual arms irresistible, the
Gregorians also borrowed from Isidore an alleged rule
of Pope Urban I., addressed to all bishops, that even
an unjust excommunication by a bishop must be re-
spected, and nobody could receive the condemned
man.s
If we look at the whole Papal system of universal
monarchy, as it has been gradually built up during
seven centuries, and is now being energetically pushed
on to its final completion, we can clearly distinguish
the separate stones the building is composed of. For
a long time all that was done was to interpret the
i Defens. Declar. pars. I. 1. 3. c. 7.
2 Ivo and Gratian, for the misfortune of Europe, received
this into their codes (c. 15, qu. 6. 4).
8 Thus Anselm and Card. Gregory, and then Gratian, C. II,
"1. 3. 27
Forgeries.
99
canon of Sardica so as to extend the appellant jurisdic-
tion of the Pope to whatever could be brought under
the general and elastic term of " greater causes.” But
from the end of the fifth century the Papal pretensions
had advanced to a point beyond this, in consequence
of the attitude assumed by Leo and Gelasius, and from
that time began a course of systematic fabrications,
sometimes manufactured in Rome, sometimes originat-
ing elsewhere, but adopted and utilized there.
The conduct of the Popes since Innocent I. and
Zosimus, in constantly quoting the Sardican canon on
appeals as a canon of Nice, cannot be exactly ascribed
to conscious fraud — the arrangement of their collection
of canons misled them. There was more deliberate
purpose in inserting in the Roman manuscript of the
sixth Nicene canon, " The Roman Church always had
the primacy,” of which there is no syllable in the orig-
inal, - a fraud exposed at the Council of Chalcedon,
to the confusion of the Roman legates, by reading the
original.1
Towards the end of the fifth and beginning of the
sixth century, the process of forgeries and fictions in
the interests of Rome was actively carried on there.
Then began the compilation of spurious acts of Roman
martyrs,' which was continued for some centuries, and
which modern criticism, even at Rome, has been
obliged to give up; as, for instance, is done by Pape-
broch, Ruinart, Orsi, and Saccarelli. The fabulous
story of the conversion and baptism of Constantine
was invented to glorify the Church of Rome, and
make Pope Silvester appear a worker of miracles.
1 Mansi, Concil. vii. 444.
7
100
Papal Infallibility.
Then the inviolability of the Pope had to be estab-
lished, and the principle that he cannot be judged by
any human tribunal, but only by himself. For four
years before 514 Rome was the scene of a bloody strife
about this question; the adherents of Symmachus and
his opponent Laurentius murdered one another in the
streets, and the Arian Goth, King Theodoric, was as
little acceptable as a judge as the Emperor, who was
hated in Rome. So the acts of the Council of Sinuessa
and the legend of Pope Marcellinus were invented,
and the “ Constitution of Silvester,” viz., the decision
of a Synod of 284 bishops, pretended to have been
held by him in 321 at Rome, evidently compiled while
the bloody scenes in which clerics were murdered or
executed for their crimes were fresh in men's minds.
There again the principle was inculcated that no one
can judge the first See.
Some other records were fabricated at Rome in the
same barbarous Latin, such as the Gesta Liberië, de-
signed to confirm the legend of Constantine's baptism
at Rome, and to represent Pope Liberius as purified
from his heresy by repentance, and graced by a divine
Xystus III. and the History of Polychronius, where the
Pope is accused, but the condemnation of his accuser
follows, as also of the accuser of the fabulous Poly-
chronius, Bishop of Jerusalem. These fabrications of
the beginning of the sixth century, which all belong
to the same class, had a reference also to the attitude
of Rome towards the Church of Constantinople. It
was the period of the long interruption of communion
Forgeries.
IOI
between East and West caused by the Henoticon (484–
519), when Felix II. even summoned the Patriarch
Acacius to Rome, and Pope Gelasius, about 495,- for
the first time insulted the Greeks and their twenty-
eighth canon of Chalcedon, by affirming that every
Council must be confirmed and every Church judged
by Rome, but she can be judged by none. It was
not by canons, as the Council of Chalcedon affirmed,
but by the word of Christ, that she received the pri-
macy. In this he went beyond all the claims of his
predecessors. Thence came the fictions manufactured
at Rome after his death, - a letter of the Nicene.
Council praying Pope Silvester for its confirmation,
Synod; the declaration in the acts of Xystus III. that
the Emperor had convoked the Council by the Pope's
authority; the History of Polychronius, exhibiting the
Pope, as early as 435, sitting in judgment on an Eastern
Patriarch; and lastly, the fabulous history of the Synod
held by Silvester, which adopted Gelasius's saying
about the divine origin of the Roman primacy, and
confirmed the order of precedence of the Churches of
Alexandria and Antioch next after Rome, making
no mention of Constantinople, and thus upsetting
the canons of 381 and 451, which gave her the prece-
dence.2
While this tendency to forging documents was so
strong in Rome, it is remarkable that for a thousand
years no attempt was made there to form a collection
i Mansi, viii. 54.
2 These documents are printed from MSS. of the eighth
century in Amort's Elementa Furis Canon. ii. 432-486.
102
Papal Infallibility.
of canons of her own, such as the Easterns had as
early as the fifth century, clearly because for a long
time Rome took so very little part in ecclesiastical
legislation. No doubt constant appeal was made to
the canons of Councils, and Rome professed her re-
solve to secure their observance with all her night,
and by her conspicuous example; but the canon she
had chiefly at heart was the third of Sardica, and the
Sardican canons were never received at all in the East.1
When Dionysius gave the Roman Church her first
tolerably comprehensive collection of canons, viz., his
translation of the Greek canons, with the African and
Sardican, more than twenty Synods had been held in
Rome since 313, but there were no records of them
to be found.
Towards the end of the sixth century a fabrication
was undertaken in Rome, the full effect of which did
not appear till long afterwards. The famous passage
in St. Cyprian's book on the Unity of the Church was
adorned, in Pope Pelagius II.'s letter to the Istrian
bishops, with such additions as the Roman pretensions
required. St. Cyprian said that all the Apostles, had
received from Christ equal power and authority with
Peter, and this was too glaring a contradiction of the
theory set up since the time of Gelasius. So the fol-
1 Dionysius Exiguus observes this in the Preface to the
second edition of his Collection, prepared by command of
Pope Hormisdas. See Andres, Lettera à G. Morelli (Parma,
1802), p. 66. It will be seen that there was always a quarrel
about the Nicene canons, and one party wished to replace
them (probably the sixth canon) by others. This points to
the decisions of Silvester and his Synod, mentioned above.
Forgeries.
103
:
lowing words were interpolated : “ The primacy was
given to Peter to show the unity of the Church and of
the chair. How can he believe himself to be in the
Church who forsakes the chair of Peter, on which the
Church is built?” 1 The varying judgments of the later
Roman clergy on Cyprian, who had up to his death
been a decided opponent of Rome, seem to have had
an influence on this interpolation. He was at first
almost the only foreign martyr whose annual feast was
kept in Rome; but after Gelasius had included his
writings in a list of works rejected by the Church, it
became necessary to find some way of reconciling the
high reverence accorded to the man with the disap-
proval of his writings. This seems to have led to the
interpolation, so that the first rank among orthodox
Fathers was assigned to Cyprian in the revised edition
of the catalogue of Gelasius, in direct contradiction to
the passage in the same decree placing him among
6 apocryphal,” viz., rejected authors. But as Cyprian's
1 Cf. the notes of Rigault, Baluze, and Krabinger, to their
2 When in later times Cyprian was edited at Rome by
Manutius in 1563, the Roman censors insisted on the inter-
polated passages being retained, though not found in the
MSS., as the editor, Latino Latini, complains in his Letters
(Viterbii, 1667, ii. 109). The minister, Cardinal Fleury, made
the same condition for the Paris edition of Baluze. See
Chiniac, Histoire des Capitul. (Paris, 1772), p. 226. The
ininister named a commission to decide whether the inter-
polations erased by Baluze, and expunged from every critical
edition, should be printed, but Fleury was. Cardinal as well
as minister, and "à moins que de vouloir se faire une querelle
d'état avec Rome impérieuse, il falloit que le passage fût re-
stitué, parceque en le laissant supprimé en vertu d'une décision
104
Papal Infallibility.
writings had not spread from Rome, but had long
been much read in the Gallican and North Italian
Churches, the additions did not get into the manu-
scripts.
Earlier than this an interpolation of the old catalogue
of Roman bishops had been undertaken for a definite
purpose, and thus the foundation was laid of the Liber
Pontificalis, afterwards enlarged. It exists in Schel-
strate's edition, in its original form, of about 530.2 The
second edition, and continuation to the time of Conon
(687) written about 730, and afterwards brought down
to 724 by the same hand, is based on contemporary
records for the sixth and seventh century. It is the
first edition of 530 which is chiefly to be reckoned as
a calculated forgery, and an important link in the chain
of Roman inventions and interpolations. It is all com-
posed in the barbarous and ungrammatical Latin com-
mon to the Roman fabrications of the sixth century.8
The objects were - first, to attest the mass of spurious
acts of Roman martyrs, and the reiterated statements
that the earliest Popes had appointed a number of no-
taries to compile these acts, and seven deacons to
superintend them ;, secondly, to confirm the existing
ministérielle, il auroit semblé qu'on vouloit porter atteinte à
la primauté Romaine. Le passage fut restitué par le moyen
d'un carton."
1 The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius (falsely so called),
was usually quoted as a work of Pope Damasus in the middle
ages.
? He has collated the two editions in his Antiq. Eccl. Rom.
1693, i. 402-495; 'in parallel columns.
3 See the careful analysis of the whole work in Piper's Ein-
leitung in die Monum. Theol. (Gotha, 1867), pp. 315-349.
Forgeries.
105
'. :
legends of Popes and Emperors, — such as the Roman
baptism of Constantine, the stories about Silvester,
Felix, and Liberius, Xystus III., and the like; thirdly,
to assign' a greater antiquity to some later liturgical
usages; fourthly, to exhibit the Popes as legislators
for the whole Church, although, apart from the litur-
gical directions ascribed to them, and the constantly
recurring assertion that they had marked out the par-
ishes and the hierarchical grades of the clergy in Rome,
no particular ordinances of theirs could be quoted, and
people had to be content with stating generally that
Damasus or Gelasius or Hilary had made a law bind-
ing the whole Church. In the later and more his-
torical portion (from 440 to 530) the Pope is specially
represented as teacher of doctrine and supreme judge,
with a view to the Greeks. In the first edition every
historical notice, except about buildings, sacred offer-
ings, and cemeteries, is false : the author's statements
about the fortunes and acts of particular Popes never
agree with what is known of their history, but rather
contradict it, sometimes glaringly; and thus we must
regard as fabulous even what cannot be proved such
from sources now accessible to us, for there is almost
always an obvious design.2
1 The phrase "fecit Constitutum de omni Ecclesià” is
repeated on nearly every page, but what the ordinance was
is never specified while the pretended liturgical appointments
are always precisely expressed.
2 The Liber Pontificalis has been critically examined by
Tillemont, and more fully by Coustant, and its gross anach-
ronisms proved, so that there can be no doubt about its
fabulous character, and it gives one the impression throughout
of deliberate fraud, Clearly the compilers had no historica
106
· Papal Infallibility.
The fictions of the Liber Pontificalis had a far-
reaching influence after they became known, and were
used - first by Bede about 710- in the rest of the
West. They supplied the basis for the notion of the
Popes having constantly acted from the first as legisla-
tors of the whole Church, and they greatly helped on
the later fabrication of Isidore, who incorporated these
records of Papal enactments into his decretals, and
thereby gave them an appearance of being genuine.
This agreement of the forged decretals with the annals
of the Popes is what gave the former so long a hold
on public belief.
After the middle of the eighth century, the famous
Donation of Constantine was concocted at Rome. It
is based on the earlier fifth-century legend of his cure
from leprosy, and baptism by Pope Silvester, which
is repeated at length, and the Emperor is said, out
of gratitude, to have bestowed Italy and the western
provinces on the Pope, and also to have made many
regulations about the honorary prerogatives and dress
of the Roman clergy.1 The Pope is, moreover, repre-
or documentary evidence. The first enlargement of the Li-
berian catalogue reached almost to Damasus, and must have
been composed early in the sixth century. The two letters
of Damasus and Jerome were invented for it, according to
which Damasus collected and sent to St. Jerome what could
be found of the biographies of the Popes. In a second and
altered edition, some twenty years later, about 536, was added
the list of Popes from Damasus to Felix IV. This last part,
from 440, is historical, but strongly colored, and garnished
with fables devised in the interest of Rome.
1 The western provinces" must not be understood of
Gaul, Spain, etc. The phrase is used for the northern parts
Forgeries.
107
sented as lord and master of all bishops, and having
authority over the four great thrones of Antioch, Alex-
andria, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
The forgery betrayed its Roman authorship in every
line; it is self-evident that a cleric of the Lateran
Church was the composer. The document was obvi-
ously intended to be shown to the Frankish king,
Pepin, and must have been compiled just before 754.
Constantine relates in it how he served the Pope as
his groom, and led his horse some distance. This
induced Pepin to offer the Pope a homage, so foreign
to Frankish ideas, and the Pope told him from the
first that he expected, not a gift, but restitution from
him and his Franks. The first reference to this gift
of the peninsula — Lombardy, Venetia, and Istria, — which
do not properly belong to Roman Italy.
1 There can be no doubt as to the Roman origin of the
“Donation.” The Jesuit Cantel has rightly recognized this
in his Hist. Metrop. Urb. p. 195. He thinks a Roman sub-
deacon, John, was the author. The document had a threefold
object, -- against the Longobards, who were threatening Rome,
against the Greeks, who would acknowledge no supremacy of
the Roman See over their Church, and with a view to the
Franks. The attempt of the Jesuits in the Civiltà to make
a Frank the author, simply because Æneas of Paris and Ado
of Vienne mention the gift in the ninth century, is not worth
serious notice; it refutes itself. There is the closest agree-
ment in style and idea between the “Donation” and contem-
porary Roman documents, especially the Constitutum Pauli 1.
(Harduin, Concil. iii. 1999 seq.) and the Epistola S. Petri,
compiled in 753 or 754. The phrase “Concinnatio lumina-
rium,” used only in Papal letters of that date, and in the
the form of imprecation and threat of hell-torments, found
108
Papal Infallibility.
of Constantine occurs in Hadrian's letter to Charles
Constantine, he has indeed given the Church what is
her own, but that he has more of the old Imperial
endowments to restore to her. The Popes had already
been accustomed, for several years, since 752, to speak,
not of gifts, but restitutions, in their letters; the
Italian towns and provinces were to be restored, some-
times to St. Peter, sometimes to the Roman republic.?
Such language first became intelligible when the Dona-
tion of Constantine was brought forward to show that
the Pope was the rightful possessor as heir of the Roman
Cæsars in Italy; for, he being at once the successor of
Peter and of Constantine, what was given to the Roman
Republic was given to Peter, and vice versa. In this
way it was made clear to Pepin that he had simply to
reject, the demands of the Greek Imperial Court about
the restoration of its territory as unauthorized.
It would indeed be incomprehensible how Pepin
could have been induced to give the Exarchate, with
twenty towns, to the Pope, who never possessed it,
and thereby to draw on himself the enmity of the still
powerful Imperial Court, merely that the lamps in the
also in the Constitutum and Epistola S. Petri, and the term
" Satrapæ," wholly foreign to the West, and found only in
the “Donation,” and in contemporary Papal letters. See
Cenni, Monum. Dominat. Pontif. i. 154.
1 “Exarchatum Ravennæ et rei-publicæ jura seu loca red-
dere” is the phrase in the Liber Pontif. See Le Cointe, Annal.
Eccl. Franc. V. 424. Again, in the letter of Pope Stephen we
read, “per Donationis paginam civitates et loca . . . restitu-
cnda confirmâstis." And so constantly when the Exarchate
and Pentapolis are spoken of.
.
Forgeries.
Roman churches might be furnished with oil,1 had he
not been shown that the Pope had a right to it by the
gift of Constantine, and terrified by the threat of ven-
geance from the Prince of the Apostles, if his property
should be withheld. There was no fear of such docu-
ments as the Epistle of Peter and the Donation of
Constantine being critically examined at the warlike
Court of Pepin. Men who might be written to that
their bodies and souls would be eternally lacerated
and tormented in hell if they did not fight against the
enemies of the Church, believed readily enough that
Constantine had given Italy to Pope Silvester. Those
were days of darkness in France, and, in the complete
extinction of all learning, there was not a single man
about Pepin whose sharpsightedness the Roman agents
had reason to dread.2
. One is tempted to ascribe to the same hand the
Epistle of St. Peter to his "adopted son” the King of
the Franks, which appeared also at this moment of
+
and pretensions, - a fabrication which for strangeness
and audacity has never been exceeded. Entreating and
promising victory, and then again threatening the pains
of hell, the Prince of the Apostles adjures the Franks
to deliver Rome and the Roman Church. The Epistle
really went from Rome to the Frankish kingdom, and
seems to have produced its effect there.3
1 This was always given in the covetous begging-letters of
the Popes as their main ground for demanding the gifts of
land they wished for.
2 See the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, iv. 3.
3 It was incorporated in the official collection of the Codex
Carolinus. Cf. Cenni, op. cit. 150.
ΙΙο
Papal Infallibility.
Twenty years later the need was felt at Rome of a
more extensive invention or interpolation. Pepin had
given the Pope the Exarchate, taken away from the
Longobards, with Ravenna for its capital, and twenty
other towns of the Emilia, Flaminia, and Pentapolis,
or the triangle of coast between Bologna, Comacchio,
and Ancona. More he had been unable to give, for
this was all the territory the Longobards had shortly
before acquired, and were now obliged to give up. In
774 Pepin's son, Charles the Great, after taking Pavia,
became king of the Longobardic territory, stretching
far southwards. No more could be said about the gift
of Constantine; Charles would have had at once to
abdicate. Moreover, a strong Italian sovereign was
wanted at Rome, who from his own part of the penin-
sula could also keep the Papal dominions in subjection ;
at the same time, the Roman lust for land and subjects
and revenues was not long satisfied with the Exarchate
and its belongings. So a document was laid before
the King in Rome, professing to be his father's gift or
promise (promissio) of Kiersy. He renewed it, as it
was shown him, and gave away thereby the greater
part of Italy, including a good deal that did not belong
to him ; for the document, as quoted in Adrian's Biog
raphy, specifies as territories to be assigned to the
Popes all Corsica, Venetia, and Istria, Luni, Monse-
lice, Parma, Reggio, Mantua, the duchies of Spoleto
and Benevento, and the Exarchate.2
1 This is clear from the enumerations in the Liber Pontif.
and the notice in Leo of Ostia. See Le Cointe, v. 484, and
Mock, De Donat à Car. M. oblatâ, pp. 8 seq. .
2 Lib. Pontif. (ed. Vignol.) ii. 193.
Forgeries.
III
It has seemed to every one mysterious and inexpli-
cable that Charlemagne should have made so compre-
hensive a gift, leaving himself but little of his Italian
kingdom. Accordingly Muratori, Sugenheim, Hegel,
Gregorovius, and Niehues have either declared the
passage spurious, or accused the Papal biographer of
falsehood; else, observes Niehues, we must accuse
Charles of consciously indorsing a perjury, and Adrian
of a cowardly negligence. Abel thinks the suspicions
against the genuineness of the passage are strong, but
not conclusive, and contents himself with assuming
that the gift was really equal to Pepin's, but was very
limited. Lastly, Mock accepts the extent of the gift,
but rejects its equality to Pepin's, and therefore the
truth of Adrian's Biography; and Baxmann, the latest
authority, leaves all uncertain. In short, no one has
şucceeded in unravelling the secret.
But the thing explains itself when we compare the
twice printed and wholly fabulous document,4 profess-
ing to be the pact or bond of Pepin, and which really
describes the geographical extent of the gift as it is
stated in Adrian's Biography, only with the addition
of more names of towns. This document is closely
related to the Donation of Constantine. Like Constan-
i Geschichte des Verhältn. zwischen Kaiserthum und Pab-
sthum. i. 565.
2 Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte, i. 469 seq. Fahr-
bich, i. 131.
3 Politik der Päbste. 1. 277.
4 Fantuzzi, Monum. Ravennati. vi. 264; Troya, Codice
diplom. Longobard. (Napoli, 1854), iv. 503 seq. Troya thinks
the document genuine, which is unintelligible in a man of his
information.
II2
Pakai
Papal Infallibility.
tine, Pepin gives an express account of his relations to
the Pope as an explanation to the Greeks and Lom-
bards of his gifts, and disclaims for himself and his
successors all interest in the alienated territories, ex-
cept the right of having prayers offered for the rest of
their souls, and the title of a Roman patrician; for
those territories were become the lawful property of
the Pope through so many imperial deeds of gift. For
this document, obviously composed in the style of the
Donation of Constantine and the Roman biographies
of Popes, it is difficult to assign any other origin or
object than the purpose of having it laid before Charle-
magne;1 and it shows how he was induced to make a
promise he found it impossible to keep; for he hence-
forth vigorously withstood the perpetually renewed
demands of the Popes, and made the counter requisi-
tion that Rome should prove its title to each particular.
domain separately.
There have unquestionably been some falsifications.
in the privileges granted to the Roman See by Em-
perors later than Charles the Great, though they do
not go so far as has often been maintained. The pact
or gift of Louis the Pious in 817 bears internal signs
of genuineness, but has evidently been interpolated.2
later Carlovingians. Clearly it was designed for the eye of
a Frankish king, and after the establishinent of the empire
Pepin's disclaimer of reserving any power in the alienated
dominions would have no further object. We must therefore
.. hold to Charles the Great, and the date of 774, and attribute
the wrong name of the Pope to the ignorance of a later
copyist.
2 It has been held as a pure invention by most scholars, as
Forgeries. ...
II3
It makes the Emperor give the islands of Corsica,
Sardinia, and Sicily, with the opposite coasts, and all
Tuscany and Spoleto, to Pope Pascal. It is needless
to observe that if Louis had really partly given and
partly confirmed to the Pope the greater part of Italy
in this elastic and unlimited fashion, the whole subse-
quent history of the Papacy to Gregory VII. would be
an insoluble riddle; for the Popes neither possessed
nor once claimed those territories, which together
make up a large kingdom. Innocent III. was the
first to maintain that all Tuscany belonged to the
Popes; no one did so before him. Gregory VII. first
claimed the duchy of Spoleto. The falsification cer-
tainly took place towards the end of the eleventh cen-
tury, when matters were managed so actively and
astutely at Rome ; for Gregory VII. was also the first
to claim Sardinia, but he takes occasion to observe
that the Sardinians have hitherto had no relations
with the Roman See, or rather, as he thinks, have
become as much strangers to it, through the negli-
gence of his predecessors, as the people at the ends
of the earth. Urban II., indeed, in 1091, proved that
Corsica was a Papal fief, not merely from the gift of
Louis or Charlemagne, but from the Donation of Con-
stantine, which, as then interpreted, assigned to Pope
Silvester all islands of the West, including the Balearic
Isles, and even Ireland. So again with the privileges
Pagi, Muratori, Beretto, Le Bret, Pertz, Gregorovius, Bax-
mann, and lastly, that great master in the criticism of the
Caroline documents, Sickel, while Marini (Nuovo Esame,
etc., Roma, 1822) and Gfrörer defend it as genuine.
1 Epist. i. 29.
114
Papal Infallibility:
of the Emperors Otho I. in 962, and Henry II. in
1020. The documents are in both cases genuine, or
copies of genuine ones, in the main, but the statement
of the Liber Pontificalis about Charlemagne's Dona-
tion was manifestly interpolated wholesale afterwards.1
It is well known that the Countess Matilda, who
was entirely under the influence of Gregory VII. and
Anselm of Lucca, gave Liguria and Tuscany to the
Roman See in 1077.2 When we remember that Gre-
gory VII., in 1081, required of the pretender Rudolph
an oath that he would restore the lands and revenues
which Constantine and Charlemagne had given to St. .
Peter,3 that Leo IX. had already solemnly appealed to
the Donation of Constantine, and that Matilda's ad- .
viser, Anselm, had inserted this Donation in his Codex,
we may easily judge what document was used to con-
vince her that she was obliged in conscience to make
so extensive an abdication or restitution.
We cannot suppose that such a man as Gregory VII.
would consciously take part in these fabrications, but,
in his unlimited credulity, and eager desire for territory
and dominion, lie appealed to the first forged document
that came to hand as a solid proof. Thus, in 1081,
he affirmed that, according to the documents preserved
in the archives of St. Peter's, Charles the Great had
made the whole of Gaul tributary to the Roman
Church, and given to her all Saxony. A document
1 Cf. Watterich, Vitæ Pont. i. 45; Hefele, Concil. Geschichte,
iv. 580; Beiträge, i. 255.
2 Leo Cassinensis in Pertz, Monum. Germ. ix. 738. Liguria
means the Lombardic duchies belonging to Matilda.
8 Ep. viii. 8. 26.
4 Ep. viii. 23.
Forgeries.
115
.
.
forged at Rome in the tenth or eleventh century is
undoubtedly referred to, which may be found in Tor-
rigio.1 Charles there calls himself Emperor in the
year 797, and his kingdoms are Francia, Aquitania,
and Gaul; Alcuin is his Chancellor, and each of his
kingdoms is to pay an annual tribute of 400 pounds to
Rome.
We have put forward these facts about the deeds of
gift, because they set in a clear light the line habitually
followed at Rome from the sixth to the twelfth century,
and because their authors are undoubtedly the very
persons chargeable with the fictions undertaken in the
interests of ecclesiastical supremacy. We shall now
continue our enumeration and examination of the for-
geries by which the whole constitution of the Church
was gradually changed.
The pseudo-Isidorian forgery of the middle of the
ninth century has been already mentioned. Rome, as
we have seen, had no part in that, though she after-
wards took full advantage of it for extending her power,
the substance of these forgeries being incorporated into
the canonical collections of the Gregorian party.
The most potent instrument of the new Papal system
was Gratian's Decretum, which issued about the
middle of the twelfth century from the first school of
Law in Europe, the juristic teacher of the whole of
1 Le Grotte Vaticane (Roma, 1639), pp. 505-510. As Acts
of the Martyrs had been fabricated there earlier, so, from the
tenth century, false documents were fabricated wholesale at
Rome, as the monographs about particular Roman churches
prove. So the first document of 570 Marini quotes (Papiri
Diplom. Roma, 1805) is an invention. See Jaffé, Regesta,
p. 936.
116
Papal Infallibility.
Western Christendom, Bologna. In this work the
Isidorian forgeries were combined with those of the
Gregorian writers, Deusdedit, Anselm, Gregory of
Pavia, and with Gratian's own additions. His work
displaced all the older collections of canon law, and
became the manual and repertory, not for canonists,
only, but for the scholastic theologians, who, for the
most part, derived all their knowledge of Fathers and
Councils from it. No book has ever come near it in
its influence in the Church, although there is scarcely
another so chokefull of gross errors, both intentional
and unintentional. Not only Anselm, Deusdedit, and
Cardinal Gregory, whose works had little circulation,
but also the German Burkard (or his assistant, the-
Abhot Olbert) had pioneered the way for Gratian.
Burkard had not only made copious use of the
Isidorian fictions in his Collection, compiled between
1012 and 1024, but had also ascribed the ecclesiastical
decisions in the capitularies to various Popes, so that
from the middle of the eleventh century the erroneous
notion took rise that the free determinations of Frankish
Synods in the ninth century were the autocratic com-
mands of Popes. All these fabrications — the rich
harvest of three centuries -- Gratian inserted in good
faith into his collection, but he also added, knowingly
and deliberately, a number of fresh corruptions, all in
the spirit and interest of the Papal system.
It may be shown by certain examples, going deep
into the development of the new Church system, how
Gratian the Italian forwarded by his own interpola-
tions the grand national scheme of making the whole
Christian world, in a certain sense, the domain of the
Forgeries.
1:17
Italian clergy, through the Papacy. The German and
West Frankish bishops had already bowed to the Isi-
dorian decretals. Their influence is shown in the
decisions of the German National Synod at Tribur in
895. We may see here how deeply the pseudo-Isi-
dore, with the imperial dignity of his Popes, and their
dictatorial commands, had penetrated into the very
life-blood of the German hierarchy. It came to this,
that the bishops had bound themselves most closely to
King Arnulf, who was present, and took a prominent
part in the Synod, and that he, desiring the imperial
crown, which had already once allured him into Italy,
could only obtain it by the favor of Pope Formosus.
So they decided that, though the yoke of Rome should
become intolerable, it ought to be borne with pious
resignation.
How often has this saying been repeated since! It
was ascribed to Charles the Great, just as Constantine
is affirmed to have called the Pope a God. And since
Gratian adopted it as a capitulary of Charles, and
stamped it as a universal canon, it became the current
view up to the time of the Council of Constance, albeit
sometimes contradicted in act, that it is a duty to en-
dure the unendurable if Rome imposes it.
The corruption of the thirty-sixth canon of the Ecu-
menical Council of 692 is Gratian's own doing. It
renewed the canon of Chalcedon (451), which gave
.1 Dist. 19. C. 3.
2 Dist. 22.6. The Roman correctors have substituted “nec
non” for Gratian's fabrication of “non tamen,” which was
left for 400 years.
118
Papal Infallibility.
·
rights with the Roman Patriarch. Gratian, by a
change of two words, gives it a precisely opposite
sense, and suppresses the reference to the canon of
Chalcedon. He also reduces the five Patriarchs to
four; for the ancient equality of position of the Roman
bishop and the four chief bishops of the East was now
to disappear, though even the Gregorians, as, e.g.,
Anselm, had treated him as one of the Patriarchs.1
There was no longer any room for the patriarchal
dignity of the Roman See; he who had drawn to
himself every conceivable right in the Church could
hardly exercise a particular patriarchal power in one
portion of it. The plenary powers of the Pope were
become a mare magnum, within which there could
be no sea or lake of special privileges. This showed
itself conspicuously in reference to the provinces of
Eastern Illyricum, — Macedonia, Thessaly, Epirus,
Dardania, — which were before under the patriarchal
jurisdiction of the Roman bishop, so that the metro-
politan of Thessalonica was appointed his vicar over
them. The Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, separated
those provinces from Rome about 730, and they now
belonged to the patriarchate of Constantinople. There
was a long dispute about it; the perpetually renewed
demands of the Popes gained no attention at Constan-
tinople till the establishment of the Latin Empire there
1 Anselm and Deusdedit set aside the famous decree of
Nicolas II., giving the German Emperor the right of confirm-
ing Papal elections, on the ground that one patriarch, the
Roman, could not annul the decision of five patriarchs at
Constantinople.
' 2 The numberless privileges accorded by Popes to the Men-
dicant Orders were afterwards called a “mare magnum."
Forgeries.
· 119
in 1204 gave them power for the moment in these
Eastern lands also. And it is significant that Innocent
III., far from attempting to resume his ancient patri-
archal rights there, made the Bishop of Tornobus
Patriarch, - an ephemeral creation, soon to be again
extinguished.
The canon of the African Synod, — that immovable
stumbling-block of all Papalists, -- which forbids any
appeal beyond the seas, i.e., to Rome, Gratian adapted
to the service of the new system by an addition which
made the Synod affirm precisely what it denies. If
Isidore undertook by his fabrications to annul the old
law forbidding bishops being moved from one see to
another, Gratian, following Anselm and Cardinal
Gregory, improved on this by a fresh forgery, appro-
priating to the Pope alone the right of translation.2
One of the most important of his additions, and also
an evidence of the wide divergence between the old
and new Church law, is the chapter -- also based on
Anselm, Deusdedit, and Cardinal Gregory – which
elaborated a system of religious persecution. While,
on the one hand, by falsifying a canon quoted by Ivo
and Burkard, he makes Gregory the Great order that
the Church should protect homicides and murderers ; 4
on the other hand, he takes great pains to inculcate, in
. a long series of canons, that it is lawful, nay, a duty,
to constrain men to goodness, and therefore to faith,
and to what was then reckoned matter of faith, by all
means of physical compulsion, and particularly to tor-
1 Le Quien, Oriens Christ. i. 96-98; ii. 24, 25.
2 Caus. 7. Q. i. 34.
3 Caus. 23. Q. iv. 4, 5.
4 Caus. 23. Q. v. 7. .
120
Papal Infallibility.
ture and execute heretics, and confiscate their property.
In this he went beyond the Gregorian canonists. He
does not fail to urge that Urban II. had declared any
one who should kill an excommunicated person, out
of zeal to the Church, to be by no means a murderer,
and hence draws the general conclusion that it is clear
the "bad" --- all who are declared 6s bad” by the
Church authorities — are not only to be scourged; but
executed.
Still worse things may be found in the work of the
Bolognese monk, which, through the instrumentality
of the Curia, became the manual and canonical code
of the West, to the scandal of religion and the Church,
and this medley, not of simple, but complicated and
multiplied forgeries, was rich in materials containing
the germ of future developments, and cutting deep in
their consequences intò both the civil and ecclesiastical
life of the West. So it was with the idea of heresy,
which even then was fashioned into a two-edged sword,
and veritable instrument of ecclesiastical domination.
Pope Nicolas I. had affirmed, in his letter to the Greek
Emperor Michael, that by the sixth canon of the Ecu-
menical Council of 381 (the first of Constantinople),
which he grossly distorted, schismatics and excommu-
nicated men were to be treated as heretics. Anselm
and Gratian embodied this statement in their new
codes; ? so that at the very time when heresy was
stamped as a capital offence, the term received a terri-
ble and unlimited extension, as indeed everything had
been done by earlier fabrications to make heretics of
I Caus. 4. Q. i. c. 2.
Forgeries.
I21
all who dared to disobey a Papal command, or speak
against a Papal decision on doctrine.
The earlier Gregorians had not laid down so clearly
and nakedly as Gratian, that in his unlimited superi-
ority to all law, the Pope stands on an equality with
the Son of God. Gratian says that, as Christ submit-
ted to the law on earth, though in truth he was its
Lord, so the Pope is high above all laws of the Church,
and can dispose of them as he will, since they derive
all their force from him alone. This became, and
chiefly through Gratian's influence, the prevalent doc-
trine of the Curia, so that even after the great reform-
ing Councils, Eugenius IV., in 1439, answered King
Charles VII., when he appealed to the laws of the
Church, that it was simply ludicrous to come with
such an appeal to the Pope, who remits, suspends,
changes, or annuls these laws at his good pleasure.2
In the fifty years between the appearance of Gra-
tian's Decretum and the pontificate of the most pow-
erful of the Popes, Innocent III., the Papal system,
such as it had become in its three stages of develop-
ment, through the pseudo-Isidore, the Gregorian school,
and Gratian, worked its way to complete dominion.
In the Roman courts Gratian's Code was acted upon
- at Bologna it was taught; even the Emperor Fred-
erick I. had his son Henry VI. instructed in the Decre-
tum and Roman law. The whole decretal legislation
from 1159 to 1320 is built upon the foundation of Gra-
tian. The same is true of Aquinas's dogmatic theology
1 Caus. 25. Q. i. C. II, 12, 16. 2 Raynald, anno 1439, 37.
3 Cf. Böhmer, Eiss. de Decr. Grat. in Pref. to his Corp.
Fur. Can. p. xvii.
I 22
Papal Infallibility.
on all kindred points, as, indeed, the whole scholastic
system in questions of Church constitution was mod-
elled on the favorite science of the clergy of the period,
Jurisprudence, as interpreted by Gratian, Raymund,
and the other compilers of decretals. The theologians
borrowed theory, texts, and proofs, alike from these
compilations. As early as the twelfth century, in
quoting a passage from Gratian, the Popes used to say,
it was “ in sacris canonibus," or, sin decretis.” 1
· And about 1570, the Roman correctors of the Decre-
tum, appointed by three Popes, said the work was in-
trusted to them, that the authority of this most useful
and weighty Codex might not be weakened. So high
stood the character of this work, saturated through
and through as it is with deceit and error and forgeries,
which, like a great wedge driven into the fabric of
the Church, gradually loosened, disjointed, and disin-
tegrated the whole of its ancient order, not, indeed,
without putting another, and, in its way, very strong
constitution in its place.
§ VIII. — Progress of the Papal Power.
Alexander III. (1159–81) and Innocent III. (1198–
1216) were the chief authors of the development of
the new system, and creators of the decretal canon law,
through the number of their edicts, and the unity and
1 Thus Alex. III. (Decr.c.6 de Despons. inpub.), Clem. III.
(De Jure Patron. c. 25), and Innoc. III., cite Gratian with
the words, “in corpore decretorum.”
2 “Ne hujusce utilissimi et gravissimi Codicis vacillaret
auctoritas."
Progress of the Papal Power.
123
coherence of their policy, based on one fundamental
idea. The notion is more prominent with Innocent
than even with Gregory VII., that the Pope is God's
locum tenens on earth, set to watch over the social,
political, and religious condition of mankind, like a
Divine Providence, as chief overseer and lord, who
must put down all opposition. The radical principle
with him, as with Gregory, is that all rank and author-
ity not held by priests is an incongruity in the Divine
plan of the world, introduced through human folly and
sinfulness, while the priesthood is, properly speaking,
the sole ordinance and institution of God.1 Gregory
had declared, of course in direct contradiction to the
Gospel teaching about the Divine institution of govern-
ment, that the royal power was set up at the instiga-
tion of Satan, by persons ignorant of God, and full of
crimes, out of mere lust of dominion, whereas before
men had been equal.?
New means of influence accrued to the Roman See.
· through the Crusades, and the consequent change in
the system of penance and indulgences, the privileges
awarded to Crusaders, and the leadership in these holy
wars, which, as a matter of course, devolved on the
Popes. The same end was served by the military
Orders, which acknowledged the Pope as their only
1 See Ep. ad Foan. Angl. Reg. in Rymer's Fædera Reg.
Angl. i. I, 119, “Institutum fuit sacerdotium per ordinationem
Divinam, regnum autem per extortionem humanam,” etc.
iis habuisse principium, qui Deum ignorantes, superbia, ra-
pinis, perfidiâ, homicidiis, postremo universis pene sceleribus,
mundi principe diabolo videlicet agitante, dominari cæcâ
cupiditate et intolerabili præsumtione affectaverunt!”
I24
Papal Infallibility.
superior; the constant union with France, clergy as
well as kings (before 1300); and still more by the
intellectual power the Papal monarchy derived from
the two great Universities — Bologna, the school of
Papal canon law, and Paris, the home of scholasticism,
· which was more and more lending itself to the Papal
system. But, above all, from the beginning of the
thirteenth century, the new Religious Orders of Men-
dicants, which swarmed over the whole Christian
world — Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, and
Carmelites, especially the two first — were the strong- .
Isidorian decretals and Gratian, the introduction of
these Orders, with their rigid monarchical organiza-
tion, was the third great lever whereby the old Church
system, resting on the gradation of bishops, presbyte-
ries, and parish priests, was undermined and destroyed.
Completely under Roman control, and acting every-
where as Papal delegates, wholly independent of bish-
ops, with plenary power to encroach on the rights of
parish priests, these monks set up their own churches
in the Church, labored for the honor and greatness of
their Order, and for the Papal authority on which their
prerogatives rested. We may say that that authority
was literally doubled through their means. They be-
came masters of literature, of the pulpits, and of the
university chairs; they travelled about as Papal tax-
gatherers and preachers of indulgences, with plenary
power, even of inflicting excommunication. And thus
the spiritual campaign organized at Rome was carried
into every village, and the parish clergy generally suc-
cumbed to the Mendicants, armed as they were with
Progress of the Papal Power. .
125
privileges from head to heel. For they possessed and
used the effective expedients of easy absolution, and
new devotions and methods of salvation, invented by
themselves, to which the parish priests had nothing to
oppose, while their isolation made every attempt at
open resistance on their part useless. They could
compel both priest and people, by excommunication,
to hear them preach the Papal indulgences, and could
absolve from reserved sins in the confessional. Bish-
ops and priests felt their impotence against the new
power of these monks, strengthened by the Inquisition,
and had, however indignantly, to bend under the yoke
laid on their necks by two powers irresistible in their
union.
If Gregory VII. supported his new clạims, his polit-
ical lordship and subjugation of the monarchy, on false-
hoods, not indeed of his own coining, Innocent III:
went further in this direction, and dealt with history as
with the Bible, according to the exigencies of the case.
He invented the story that the empire had been trans-
ferred from the Greeks to the Franks by a Papal sen-
tence;1 and thence inferred that the German princes
derived their right of electing the Emperor from the
Pope only, and asserted that he had the right of reject-
ing their nominee. Later Papal authors have trans-
formed these assertions into historical facts invented
by themselves.
One of Gregory VII.'s maxims, ascribing personal
holiness to every rightly elected Pope, was suffered to
drop. There was danger of the want of holiness sug-
gesting the invalidity of the election, and therefore the
1 De Elect. c. 34.
126
Papal Infallibility.
decretal books, while upholding the rest of Gregory's
postulates, were silent about this. Moreover, every
one knew and said that simony, which was generally
treated as heresy, was rampant in the Roman Court,
and that taking bribes for benefices and legal pro-
ceedings was a daily occurrence with the Popes and
Cardinals. The charge of heresy going on under the
very eyes of the Pope, and with his express or tacit
consent, could not be answered, and was constantly
urged, till the canonists hit upon the resource of main-
taining that what was simony in others was not simony
in the Pope, because he is superior to law, and every-
thing in the Church is his property, which he can deal
with as he will."
The Gregorian system required the most complete
immunity of the whole clergy from the secular power
and civil courts. It served to create an immense army,
exclusively belonging to the Pope, and widely sepa-
rated by common caste feeling and caste interests from
the lay world. Every clergyman was to recognize but.
one lord and ruler, the Pope, who disposed of him
indirectly, through the bishops, who were bound by..
oath to himself, or directly, in cases of exemption, and
used him as a tool for the execution of his commands.
Gratian has adapted his Codex to these views, partly
by means of the pseudo-Isidorian fabrications, partly
1 Thus the canonist John of God, about 1245, quotes and
repudiates the statement, “Lex Julia dicit quod apud Romam
simonia non committitur” (De Pæn. D. Papæ). See excerpts
in Theodori Pænitent. (ed. Petit.) Paris, 1677. There was a
long controversy about it.
2 Thus (Caus. ii. Q.i. c. 5) he has expunged the words of a
Progress of the Papal Power.
127
The Papal prescriptions in the code of decretals com-
pletely establish the principle that clerics are exempt
from secular courts, and that by Divine ordinance.1
The Popes added that no cleric could renounce this
privilege, as it belonged to the whole Church.
need for so perilous an instrument as falsification of
texts, when all that was required for the development
of Papal domination in Church and State could easily
be built on the strong and broad foundation of Gratian's
Decretum. And yet the same method was still pur-
sued, and that too with texts of Scripture. Innocent
III. wished to make Deuteronomy a code for Christians,
that he might get Bible authority for his doctrine of
Papal power over life and death ; but for that the
words had to be altered. It is there said that an
Israelite may appeal to the high priest and chief judge,
and if he does not abide by their sentence shall be put
to death. Innocent, by a slight interpolation in the
text of the Vulgate, made this into a statement that
whoever does not submit to the decision of the high
priest (whose place the Pope occupies under the New
Covenant) is to be sentenced by the judge to execu-
tion. And Leo X. quoted the passage with the same
law of Theodosius confining the exemption to spiritual matters,
and thereby wholly altered it. So (ib. c. 5) he changed the
words " sine scientiâ Pontificis” into “sine licentiâ,” to make
. the civil authority over clerics dependent on delegation from
the bishops.
1 Decr. de Fudic. C. 4, 8, 10; De Foro Compet. c. i. 2. Q.
12, 13.
2 Deut. xvii. 12.
8 Decr. Per Venerabilem, “Qui filii sint legitimi,” 4. 17.
128
Papal Infallibility.
corruption, in a Bull of his, giving a false reference to
the Book of Kings instead of Deuteronomy, to prove
that whoever disobeyed the Pope must be put to death.1
Innocent went beyond Gratian, above all, in fixing
the relations of the Church to the State and secular
princes. He taught that the Papal power is to the
imperial and royal as the sun to the moon, which last
has only a borrowed light, or the soul to the body,
which exists not for itself, but only to be the slave of
the soul, and the two swords (Luke xxii. 38) are a
symbol of the ecclesiastical and secular power, both of
and intrusts the other to princes to use at his behest,
and for the service of the Church.2. In his famous
decretal Novit, Innocent was the first to lay down the
theory, often repeated by later Popes, that wherever a
serious sin has been committed, or is charged by one
party on the other, it behooves the Pope to interpose
with his judgment, to punish, and to annul the de-
cisions of the civil tribunal. The principle this newly
devised claim is based upon must apply to every
clergyman, parish priest, or bishop, within his own
sphere, and a general domination of clergy over laity
would follow, as in Thibet; the Popes, however,
claimed the right for themselves alone. Moreover
there accrued to the Popes new and unlimited powers,
exalting them over princes, peoples, and courts of
i Pastor Æternus, Harduin, Concil. ix. 1826.
2 Innoc. III. in c. 6, De Majorit. et Obed., D. i. 33. Gregory
VII. had before used the symbol of the two heavenly lumi-
naries, Ep. ad Guil. Regem.
3 C. 13 de Judic. D. 2. I. It belongs to the Pope "de quo-
cunque peccato corripere quemlibet Christianum."
Progress of the Papal. Power.
129
justice, beyond what any mortal had yet enjoyed, from
the so-called “Evangelical denunciation.” It means
that by asserting that it is a sin on the part of the
defendant not to admit the right of the plaintiff, any
cause can be brought before the Pope, if he chooses to
meddle with it, - before a judge, that is, who is re-
sponsible to God alone.
All roads at that time led to Rome. Whichever of
the Isidorio-Gregorian maxims one started from, the
result was the same. Either it was said the right of
the Church is alone Diviñe, and therefore takes prece-
dence of all other rights, but in the Church the Pope
is the fountain and possessor of all rights, and thus
every one is absolutely subject to him; or, the Pope is
the ruler of souls, but the body is the mere vassal and
instrument of the soul, - therefore the Pope is also su-
preme over bodies, with power of life and death.
And again, whoever disobeys a Papal command shows
of Papal power, and the irresistible force of Papal
commands and prohibitions, and thus he incurs at
least vehement suspicion of heresy, and must answer
for his orthodoxy before the Holy Office.
The very names the Popes assumed or accepted
mark the broad division between the earlier and new
Gregorian Papacy. To the end of the twelfth century
they had called themselves Vicars of Peter, but since
Innocent III. this title was superseded by Vicar of
Christ.2 In fact the gulf between the position and
rights of a Gregory I. and the pretensions and plenary
1 The chief authority is Decret. C. 13, De Judic. ii. i.
2 Bougnet, Scriptor Rerum Gallic. X. Prof. 47.
130
Papal Infallibility.
power of a Gregory IX., or between 600 and 1230, is
as wide as from Peter to Christ. All bishops had for- ,
merly been styled representatives of Christ, but when
the Pope laid claim to this title, it meant--"I am the
representative on earth of the Almighty, and my power
stands high above all earthly power and limitations,
in me and through me is the Church free,” — accord-
ing to the mediæval clerical view of Church freedom,
which regarded the Church as free only if omnipotent,
and the Church in the last resort as simply meaning
the Pope.
Gregory IX. went still further in his assertion of an
absolute domination over the State, when he declared,
on the strength of the forged Donation of Constantine,
that the Pope is properly lord and master of the whole
.world, things as well as persons, so that his predeces-
sors had only in some sense delegated their power to
emperors and kings, but had relinquished nothing of
the substance of their jurisdiction. Innocent IV. .
claimed, as self-evident, the same direct dominion over
the world, and all that is in it, only that he proclaimed
in´yet stronger terms the absolute universal supremacy
of the Popes, and the union of the two supreme powers
in one hand. He thought it false to say that Constan-
tine had given secular power to the Papal Chair, for
this it possessed from the nature of the case and di-
rectly from Christ, who founded a kingdom, and gave
to Peter the keys both of earthly and heavenly sover-
eignty. Secular power was only so far legitimate as
1 See Huillard Bréholles, Codex dipl. Frieder. ii. iv. 921.
“Ut in universo mundo rerum obtineret et corporum princi-
patum.”
Progress of the Papal Power. 131
secular princes used it by commission from the Pope.
Constantine had in truth only given back to the Church
part of what was hers from the beginning, and what
he had no right to hold. If possible, he spoke even
more disparagingly than Gregory VII. of the origin of
secular princedoms and their possessors. Innocent IV.
supplemented the hierarchical organization by adding a
link hitherto wanting to the papal chain, when he es-
tablished the principle that every cleric must obey the
Pope, even if he commands what is wrong, for no one
can judge him. The only exception was if the com-
mand involved heresy or tended to the destruction of
the whole Church. Boniface VIII. gave a dogmatic
and biblical foundation to the doctrine of the univer-
sality of papal dominion in his Bull, Unam Sanctam,
where he condemns the independence of the civil
power in its own sphere as Manicheism. He affirms
that the Pope is judge over all secular matters where -
I Comment. in Decretal. Francof. 1570, 555. Innocent wrote
this commentary as Pope. He has openly told us what amount
of Christian culture and knowledge, both for clergy and laity,
suits the Papal system. It is enough, he says, for the laity to
know that there is a God who rewards the good, and, for the
rest, to believe implicitly what the Church believes. Bishops
and pastors must distinctly know the articles of the Apostles'
Creed; the other clergy need not know more than the laity,
and also that the body of Christ is made in the sacrament of
the altar. — Comment. in Decr. 2. Naturally, therefore, the
laity were forbidden to read the Bible in their own tongue,
and, if they conversed publicly or privately on matters of faith,
incurred excommunication by a Bull of Alexander IV., and
after a year became amenable to the Inquisition. - Sext. Dec.
5, 2.
132
Papal Infallibility.
sin is involved, and holds the two swords, one to be
used by himself, and the other by kings and warriors,
but at his beck and by his permission; that he judges
all, but is judged by none, being responsible to God
only; and that whoever denies this subjection of every
human being to the Pope cannot be saved. His vio-
lent perversion of the clearest texts of Scripture in
support of these claims was matter of astonishment
and mockery even at the time.1
i
After the removal of the Papal See to Avignon,
when the Curia had become French both in its per-
sonnel and its political line, the juristic dogmatism of
the Popes was applied principally to the empire, and
for centuries the steady aim of their policy was to
break the imperial power in Germany and Italy and
dissolve its unity. Clement V. declared “by apostolical
authority” that every emperor must take an actual
oath of obedience to the Pope, so that he might form
no alliance with any sovereign suspected by him.2
The Popes even insisted to the Greek' emperors and
patriarchs on the undoubted truth of faith that all ful-
ness of spiritual and secular power, at least in Chris-
tendom, belonged to them. Thus Gregory IX. and
Gregory X. “We know this,” said the latter, “from
reading the Gospel.” Innocent III. wrote to the Pa-
triarch of Constantinople that “ Christ has committed
the whole world to the government of the Popes.”
And he gives, as conclusive evidence of this, that Peter
once walked on the sea, — the sea signifying the na-
I See the writings of contemporary French jurists and theo-
2 Clementin. de Furej. Tit. 9, p. 1058 (ed. Böhmer).
Encroachments on Bishops; Dispensations. 133
tions, - whence it is clear that his successors are enti-
tled to rule the nations."
One of the most far-reaching principles gradually
developed from the Gregorian system was, that every
baptized man becomes thereby a subject of the Pope,
and must remain such all his life, whether he will or
no. Every Christiản, even though baptized outside
the papal communion, is not only therefore subject to
all papal laws (though invincible ignorance may be a
conceivable excuse in particular cases), but the Pope
can call him to account and punish him for every grave
sin, and this may extend to the penalty of death. For,
in the first place, all disobedience to a papal command
is either heresy or proximate heresy; and, moreover,
the Pope can excommunicate him for his offences, and
if he does not submit and receive absolution within a
year, he is declared a heretic, and incurs death and
confiscation of his goods.
$ IX. — Papal Encroachments on Episcopal Rights.
In order completely to subvert the old constitution
of the Church and the regular administration of dio-
ceses by bishops, the institution of Legates was brought
in from Hildebrand's time. Sometimes with a general
commission to visit Churches, sometimes for a special
emergency, but always invested with unlimited pow-
ers, and determined to bring back considerable sums of
money over the Alps, the legates traversed different -
1 Innoc. III. lib. ii. 209, ad Patr. Constantin. "Dominus
Petro non solum universam Ecclesiam, sed totum reliquit
sæculum gubernandum.”
- 134
Papal Infallibility.
od
countries surrounded by a troop of greedy Italians, and
armed against opposition by ban and interdict, and held
forced synods, the decrees of which they themselves
dictated. Contemporaries in their alarm compared
the appearance of these legates to physical calamities,
hail-strokes or pestilence. Complaints and appeals
to Rome availed nothing, for it was a fixed prin-
ciple with the Popes to uphold the authority of their
legate.
· The Pope in the new system is not only the chief,
but is in fact the sole legislator of the Church. He,
as Boniface VIII. expressed it, carries all rights in the
shrine of his breast, and draws out thence from time i
to time what he thinks the needs of the world and
Church require. And so it comes to pass that a single
Pope of the thirteenth or fourteenth century, an Inno-
cent III., Gregory IX., or John XXII., has made more
laws than fifty Popes of an earlier period put together.
The notions about the plenary powers of the Cæsars
prevalent in the latter days of the Roman empire had
their influence here, and the Popes called their acts by
the same name as the Cæsarean laws, Rescripts and
· Decrees. And as the Pope makes laws by his supreme
authority, so too he can wholly or temporarily suspend
laws, whether canons of Councils or decrees of Popes.
The customary limitation—that he cannot dispense with
the law of God — was frequently superseded by the can-
i Cf. e.g., Johann. Sarisb. Opp. (ed. Giles), iii. 331. Poly-
crat. 5, 16: “Ita debacchantur ac si ad Ecclesiam flagellan-
dam egressus sit Satan a facie Domini.” – Petri Blesensis
epist. ap. Baron. a. 1193, 2 ff.
Encroachments on Bishops; Dispensations. 135
onists, especially since Innocent III., by his declaration
about marriage, and the yet holier bond between a
bishop and his diocese, which the Pope can dissolve
at his good pleasure, prepared the way for the belief
that it is not beyond papal power to dispense with
some at least of the laws of God.
Whenever the Pope issued a new law the Curia
reckoned what the necessary dispensations would bring
in, and many laws were unmistakably framed with a
view to the purchase of dispensations. So too with
exemptions from episcopal jurisdiction; every ex-
empted corporation or monastery had to pay a yearly
tribute to the See at Rome, whose interest it was to
thwart and restrain episcopal authority whenever it
tried to act. And thus a bishop who took in hand the
administration of his diocese in good earnest found
himself cramped at every step, surrounded, as it were,
in his own country by hostile fortresses closed against
him, and in perpetual danger of incurring suspension.
or excommunication, or being cited to Rome for violat-
ing some papal privilege ; for every college and con-
vent watched jealously over its own privileges and
exemptions, and regarded the bishops as its natural:
enemies. And as bishops and corporations were in
mutual hostility, so the parochial clergy found oppo-
nents and dangerous rivals in the richly privileged
Mendicant Orders, who were indefatigable in their
attempts to appropriate the lucrative functions of the
priesthood, and to decoy the people from the parish
churches into their own. The members of the Curia,
as John of Salisbury remarks, had one common view :
whoever did not agree to their doctrines was either a
136
Papal Infallibility.
heretic or a schismatic. The Curia wanted to be in-
fallible even before the Popes made that claim. They
thought this shield indispensable for carrying on their
business.
The Popes made their first experience with the Pal-
lium of the irresistible charm, which signs of honor,
decorations, titles, distinctions in the color and cut of
a garment, have for ordinary men, and especially clerics,
and thus learned what effective instruments of power
they might become. From the fifth century the Popes
had bestowed the pall on archbishops named as vicars
of their patriarchal rights, and in the eighth it began
also to be given to metropolitans, although these last
hesitated to receive it on the conditions offered by
Rome, as was proved by the attitude of the Frankish
archbishops towards the thoroughly Romanizing Boni-
face. On the strength of the pseudo-Isidorian fabri-
cations, which exercised a most destructive influence
on metropolitan rights, the Popes who became found-
ers of the new system - Nicolas I., John VIII., Greg-
ory VII. — insisted that a metropolitan could perform
no ecclesiastical function before receiving this orna-
ment. The next step was to ascribe a secret and
mystical power to it, and when Paschal II., and all the
Popes after him, and the Decretals maintained that
the fulness of high priestly office was attached to it, it.
inevitably followed that this office is an outflow of the
papal plenary power, so far as it extends. Meanwhile
this notion of metropolitan jurisdiction being delegated
1 Polycrat. 6, 24. Opp. (ed. Giles), iv. 61. “Qui a doctri-
nå vestrå dissentit, aut hæreticus aut schismaticus est."
2 Bonif. Epist. (ed. Serarius); Ep. 141, 142, pp. 211, 212.
:
Encroachments; Plenitudo Potestatis. 137
from the Pope was developed in contradiction to facts ;
for the Popes had appropriated to themselves the
weightiest and most valuable rights of metropolitans,
and did this still more after the beginning of the thir-
teenth century; and next they began to give the pall to
some bishops avowedly as a mere ornament, and with-
out any single right being attached to it. But as a
means for reducing metropolitans to complete depend-
ence on Rome, sealed moreover by an oath of obedi-
ence, it quite answered its end. Gregory VII. altered
the previous form into a regular oath of vassalage, so
that the relation was one of personal loyalty, and the
terms of the oath were borrowed from oaths of civil
fealty.1
The next thing was to mould the bishops by a vow
of obedience into pliant tools of the Roman sover-
eignty, and guard against any danger of opposition on
their part to the expanding schemes and claims of the
Curia. For a long time bishops were much better
off than metropolitans, for in the thirteenth century
they still received their confirmation — which in the
ancient Church was not separated from ordination
from the metropolitan, while the latter had to buy the
pall and the accompanying license to exercise this
office at a high price from Rome.2
Innocent III. grounded on a misrepresentation of a
passage of Leo I.'s letter to the Bishop of Thessalo-
1 The “Regulæ Patrum,” which the metropolitan pre-
viously swore to observe, was changed into “Regalia S. Pe-
tri."
? In the fifteenth century, German archbishops had to pay
20,000 florins [£1600], equivalent to ten times that sum now,
for the pallium.
138
Papal Infallibility.
nica, whom he had made his vicar, saying, that he had
committed to him part of his responsibility, and on
one of the Isidorian fabrications, the principle that the
Pope alone has plenary jurisdiction in the Church,
while all bishops are merely his assistants for such
portions of his duty as he pleases to intrust to them.
This may be said to be the completion of the papal
system. It reduces all bishops to mere helpers, to
whom the Pope assigns such share of his rights as he
finds good, whence he can also assume to himself at
his arbitrary will such of their ancient rights as he
pleases.
And now the term “ Universal Bishop,” used by the
Pope, gained its true significance. Though rejected
even by Leo IX., it described quite correctly the Pope's
position as understood at Rome since the beginning of
the thirteenth century. In the ancient sense of the
word there were no more any bishops, but only dele-
gates and vicars of the Pope,
A number of rights never thought of by the ancient
Popes followed as a matter of course. There was no
need of particular laws or papal reservations in many
cases; it was enough to draw the necessary conse-
quences from the Isidorian or Gregorian fabrications
and interpolations. It seemed self-evident that the
Pope alone could appoint and depose bishops, could
interfere always and directly in their dioceses by the
exercise of a concurrent jurisdiction, and bring any
cases before his own Court. Innocent III., as we have
seen, claimed a special Divine revelation for the Pope's
right of deposing bishops. It has been charged against
1 Innoc. III. Ep. i. 350; Decret. Greg. 3. 8.
Encroachments; Plenitudo Potestatis.
139
him as a wicked error and capricious invention ; but
we must remember that, when he had persuaded him-
self and others that every Pope possesses the fulness
of jurisdiction, and is absolute ruler of the whole
Church, not by concession of the Church, but by Di-
vine appointment, he might fairly assume a Divine
right to dispose of his bishops as an absolute monarch
disposes of his officials. And, in fact, some bishops
soon began to subscribe themselves as such “by the
favor of the Papal See.”
Whatever relics of freedom had hitherto been pre-
served from the ancient Church were now trampled
· and rooted out. No one had doubted before that a
bishop could resign his office when he felt unequal to
its duties. This was usually done at Provincial Synods.
But from the time of Gratian and Innocent III., the
new principle, that only the Pope can dissolve the
bond between a bishop and his Church, was extended
to the case of resignation also. And then came
the further requirement, made into a rule by John
XXII., that sees vacated by resignation lapsed to the
Pope.
Again, the appeals encouraged in every way by the
Popes, and the ready grants of dispensations, paved
the way for their acquiring one of the most important
rights, in the appointment of bishops. As the pseudo-
Isidore had given an unprecedented extension and im-
petus to appeals to Rome, the new Decretal legislation
since Alexander III. was specially adapted for multiply-
ing and encouraging appeals to the Curia. Alexander
knew well what he was about when he declared ap-
1 D. de Translat. c. 2 (1, 7).
140
Papál Infallibility.
peals, which hung like a Damocles' sword over the
head of every bishop, to be the most important of his
rights. Some thirteen new articles in the Decretals?
provided for the Curia being occupied annually with
thousands of processes, which often extended over.
many years, bringing in a rich harvest to the officials,
and filling the streets and also the churchyards of
Rome. And a further point was secured by this, for
the bishops and arch-deacons, impeded and disabled
by the endless number of Papal exemptions and priv-
ileges, lost all desire to take Church discipline in hand,
and thereby involve themselves in tedious and costly
processes at Rome. And thus the anarchy in dioceses
and wild demoralization of the clergy reached a point
one cannot read of without horror in contemporary
writers. When appeals came to Rome on disputed
presentations to benefices or episcopal elections, the
Popes often took occasion to oust both the rival claim-
ants, and appoint a third person. Abbot Conrad of
Lichtenau says, — “ There is no bishopric or spiritual
dignity or parish that is not made the subject of a pro-
cess at Rome, and woe to him who comes empty-
handed ! Rejoice, mother Rome, at the crimes of thy
sons, for they are thy gain; to thee flows all the gold
and silver; thou art become mistress of the world
through the badness, not the piety, of mankind.” 2
No people suffered more from these appeals and
processes than the Gerżnans. After the Concordat of
Worms (1122), the Popes had gradually managed to
1 They are quoted in Die Geschichte der Appcl. von Geistl.
Gerichtshof. Frankfort, 1788, p. 127 sqq.
2 Chron. p. 321.
+
Encroachments on Bishops; Appeals. 141
exclude the German emperors from all share in episco-
pal appointments, and practically to nullify the Con-
cordat. And then, partly from the circumstances of
the German dioceses, partly from the new Papal enact-
ments, most elections came to be disputed, and a han-
dle was given to one party or the other for an appeal
· to Rome, which was taken full advantage of. The
... candidates or their proctors had to waste years in
Rome, and either died there or carried home with
them nothing but debts, disease, and a vivid impression
of the dominant corruption there. The Popes could
now dispose as they liked of the German archbishops
and their votes for the empire ; for besides the pallium,
the heavy tax, and the oath of obedience, they had the
Roman debts and censures to fear, in case of insolven-
cy, and this constrained them to follow the Pope's
guidance even in secular matters, supposing the oath
they had sworn was not sufficient to make them into
mere machines of the will of the Curia. These facts
alone explain the elections of Henry Raspo in 1246,
William of Holland in 1247, Richard and Alphonsus
in 1257, and the miserable interregnum from 1256 to
1273. Only in this way could the ruin of the Hohen-
staufen House have been accomplished, and Germany
have been kept in the state of weakness and division
required for the French and Angiovine interest, and
the policy of the French Popes, Urban IV., Clement
IV., and Martin IV.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
Popes made gigantic strides in the acquisition of new
rights and the suppression of other peoples'. Innocent
III. had recognized the right of archbishops to confirm
142
Papal Infallibility.
and ordain their suffragans, but Nicolas III. (1280)
reserved their confirmation to the Pope. In the ancient
Church it was held uncanonical for a Pope or Patriarch
to make appointments or bestow benefices out of his
own district. The Popes began their meddling in the
matter only by begging recommendations of favorites
of their own, and without specifying any particular
benefice. So was it still in the twelfth century. But
soon these recommendations took the form of man-
dates. Italians, nephews and favorites of the Popes,
persons who had aided them in the controversies of
the day, or suffered in their interest, were to be pro-
vided for, enriched, and indemnified in foreign coun-
tries. Rights of patronage were not respected if they
stood in the way; the Papal lawyer knew how to
manage that, often through means of Papal executors
appointed for the purpose. This caused loud discon-
tent in national Churches; protests were made even at
the Synod of Lyons in 1245. Meanwhile the Popes
had another gate open for attaining rights of patron-
age. A great number of bishops and prelates were
drawn to Rome and detained there by processes spun
out interminably. They died off by shoals in that un-
healthy city, the home of fevers, as Peter Damiani calls
it, and now suddenly a new Papal right was devised,
of giving away all benefices vacated by the death or
resignation of their occupants at Rome. Clement IV.
announced it to the world in 1266, while at the same
time broadly affirming the right of the Pope to give .
away all Church offices without distinction.2
Then came the reservations of the French Popes at
1 D. De Elect. C. II, 20, 28 (1,6). 2 Sext. Decr. 3, 4. 2.
Y
Encroachments on Bishops.
143
Avignon. They reserved to themselves a certain num-
ber of bishoprics, which, however, in France they
often had to bestow according to the pleasure of the
king. At the same time commendams were intro-
duced, whereby they sometimes gave abbacies to sec-
The oath of obedience or vassalage the bishops had
now to take to the Pope was understood as binding
them to unconditional subjection in political as well
as ecclesiastical matters, whence Innocent III. declared
the German bishops perjured who acknowledged any
other emperor than Otho whom he had chosen. It
was by means of this oath that the Popes carried the
exclusion of the Hohenstaufen from the throne.2 AC-
cording to Pius II., a bishop broke his oath who uttered
any truth inconvenient for the Pope, and he required
the Archbishop of Mayence by virtue of it to convoke
no imperial parliament without the Pope's consent.3
Thus the Roman Court became the universal heir
of all former authorities and institutions in the Church.
It had appropriated the rights of metropolitans, synods,
bishops, national Churches, and besides that, the pow-
ers formerly exercised by the emperors and Frankish
kings, in ecclesiastical matters. The inevitable con-
sequence was to cripple the pastoral, whether parochial
or diocesan administration throughout the Church, and
introduce a general state of religious disease and decay,
bishops and parish priests withdrawing more and more
•
1 Registr. de Neg. Imp. Ep. 68.
2 Raynald. Annal. a. 1206, 13; Leibnit. Prodr. Cod. Fur.
Gent. i. II, 12.
3 Gobellin, Comin. Pii II., 65, 143.
144
from their pastoral charges. This gave an immense
lift to monasticism, with its strongly organized central-
ization, and the great religious communities became
the centres of all active Church life. The exemptions'.
and other privileges, only to be obtained at Rome,
bound them closely to the Papacy, whose great sup-
port they were well known to be against the bishops.
Leo X. assembled a commission, composed of mem-
bers of the Religious Orders in Rome, to consult on
the means for forwarding papal interests and their
own against their common enemies, the bishops.
“For,” says Pallavicini, "every monarchical Govern-
ment must have a select body of subalterns in every
province of the kingdom not subject to the immediate
local authorities; hence exemptions.”2 The monks
were the willing and devoted servants and agents of
the Roman Court against the bishops, who were
looked upon and treated as its born enemies.
At no time or place has the contradiction been so
glaring between theory and practice, principles and
proceedings, as during those centuries at Rome and
Avignon. The Popes condemned all taking of inter-
est, but the most elaborate banking business was car-
ried on under their very eyes, and in close connection
with the Curia, who would have lost the breath of
life, if the Florentine and Siennese capitalists and
1 Bzovius, Annal. Eccl. xix. a. 1516.
2 Storia del Concil. di Trento, 12, 13. 8.
Bossuet says, “la cour de Rome regardant les évêques
comme ses ennemis, n'a plus mis sa confiance et ses espé-
rances que dans cette multitude d'exempts.” Euvres, xxi.
461. Ed. de Liége, 1768.
.
Encroachments on Bishops.
145
brokers had not advanced the required sums at usu-
rious interest to the prelates, place-hunters, and num-
berless litigants. The Papal bankers were a protected
and privileged class, while everywhere else their fel-
lows were under the ban, and collected their debts
and interest without mercy under shelter of Papal cen-
sures. As early as the twelfth century the Curia had
made the discovery, which they were already reaping
the fruits of in the thirteenth, that it was greatly for
their interest to have a number of bishops, dioceses,
and beneficiaries in their debt all over Europe, who
were all the more pliant the more easily they could be
held to payment by excommunication, and by putting
on the screw of interest, at a time when ready money
could generally be procured with difficulty only, and
at an enormous interest. Thus Cardinal Nicolas Tu-
deschi, the first canonist of his day, observes that the
Church dignities were so loaded with excessive im-
posts and extortions that they were always subject to
debts, and nothing of their revenues was available for
religious purposes. Cardinal Zabarella saw clearly
enough that the root of the ecclesiastical corruption
was the doctrine of legal sycophants about the papal
omnipotence, whereby they had persuaded the Popes
that they could do whatever they liked. “So com-
i Cf. Biblioth. de l'Ecole de Chartres 19e année (Paris, 1858),
p. 118, and Peter Dubois' account, about 1306 (“De Recup.
Terræ Sanctæ,” Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, ii. 315), of
how one had to borrow many thousands “sub gravibus usu-
ris ab illis qui publicè Papæ mercatores vocantur” to spend
on the Pope and Cardinals.
2 Tract. de Concil. Basil. in Pragmatica Sanctio (ed. Paris,
1666), p. 913.
IO
146
Papal Infallibility.
.
.
pletely has the Pope destroyed all rights of all lesser
Churches that their bishops are as good as non-exist-
ent.”I Chancellor Gerson says, still more emphat-
ically, “In consequence of clerical avarice, simony,
and the greed and lust of power of the Popes, the
authority of bishops and inferior Church officers is
completely done away with, so that they look like
mere pictures in the Church, and are almost super-
fluous."2 The Bishop of Lisieux observes later how
the whole constitution of the Church is in a state of
dissolution, and everything has long been full of quar-
And the Church, torn to pieces with discontents and
dissensions, made the impression on thinking men like
Gerson, Pelayo, d’Ailly, Zabarella, and others, of hav-
ing become “brutal,” a hard prison-house, where only
dungeon-air could be breathed, and therefore full of
hypocrisy and pretence. The Venetian Sanuto, in
1327, reckoned that half the Christian world was under
excommunication, including the most devoted servants
of the Popes, so lavish had they been in the use of ban
and interdict since 1071.4 Episcopal officials, arch-
deacons, and all who could then exco:nmunicate, fol- '
lowed the papal example in this respect. They con-
sidered the Roman Church their model, and inferred
that they should not be niggardly in the use of such
weapons. And if, as often happened, bishops them-
1 De Schismatibus (ed. Schardius), pp. 560, 561.
2 Opp. (ed. Dupin), ii. p. I, 174.
3 In a letter to Louis XI. See Durand de Maillane, Liber-
tés de l'Eglise Gallicane, iii. 6, 61, 599.
4 Epist. ap. Bongars. Gesta Dei per Francos, ii. 310.
Personal Attitude of Popes.
147
selves were suspended or excommunicated, simply for
being unwilling or unable to pay the legates their
journey money, why should laymen fare better? Thus
it came to pass, as Dubois said in 1300, that at every
10,000 souls were thrust out of the way of salvation
into the hands of Satan;1 and in every parish, thirty,
forty, or even seventy persons were excommunicated
on the slenderest pretexts. Absolution from censures
could indeed be purchased, but an exorbitant price was
often demanded.?
$ X.- The Personal Attitude of the Popes.
The means used by the Popes to secure obedience,
and break the force of opposition among people,
princes, or clergy, were always violent. The interdict
which suddenly robbed millions, the whole population
of a country, - often for trifling causes which they had
nothing to do with themselves, — of Divine worship
and sacraments, was no longer sufficient. The Popes
declared families, cities, and states outlawed, and
gave them up to plunder and slavery, as, for instance,
Clement V. did with Venice, or excommunicated them,
like Gregory XI., to the seventh generation, or they
had whole cities destroyed from the face of the earth,
and the inhabitants transported, --- the fate Boniface
VIII. determined on for Palestrina.
2 See the episcopal memorial drawn up for the General
Council of 1311, Bzovius, Annal. Eccl. ann. 1311, p. 163 (ed.
Colon.).
148
Papal Infallibility:
It is a psychological marvel how this unnatural
theory of a priestly domination, embracing the whole
world, controlling and subjugating the whole of life,
could ever have become established. It would have
required superhuman capacities and Divine attributes
to wield such a power even in the most imperfect way
with some regard to equity and justice, and consci-
entious and really religious men would have been
tormented, nay, utterly crushed, under the sense of
its rightfulness and the corresponding obligations it
involved. There was indeed no want of modest phra-
seology; every Pope asserts in the customary language
that his merit and capacities are unequal to the dignity
and burden, but for all that, their constant endeavor
for centuries to increase their already excessive power
is a proof that no need for restricting themselves was
usually realized. There have been kings who said
they would not be absolute rulers if they could. So
the Popes of the first centuries could say, We desire
not to rule over canons and councils, but to be ruled
by them. But since Nicolas I., and especially since
Gregory VII., the principle was avowed that the Pope
is lord of canons and councils; the law is not his will,
but his will is law. In numberless cases, of course,
his will was simply the custom and practical tradition
of the Curia, and the Pope, the mightiest ruler in the
world, was in one sense the most limited since the
eleventh century, for he could only act as the tempo-
rary depositary of this capital of power, a steward
who ought to increase, but must never suffer it to be
i Verci, Storia della Marca Trivig. iii. 87.
2 Opere di S. Cat. de Siena, ii. 160.
Personal Attitude of Popes. .
149
diminished. The strongest will must succumb before
the quiet, passive, but energetic resistance of a corpo-
ration bound together by common interests, working
by a common rule, and striving for a common end;
how much more the good intentions of individual
Popes, generally of great age when elected, who saw
but a few years of work before them, and knew by
long experience the firmness of that serried phalanx
of officials surrounding them, whose opposition soon
reduced them to a mere trunk without arms or feet.
And thus it came to pass that, while those at a dis-
tance felt and said that the proverbial shortness of
Popes' lives was a providential dispensation to save
the Church from utter ruin, the Popes admitted that
they felt themselves the most unfortunate of men.
Thus Adrian IV. was driven to the melancholy avowal
that no condition is so pitiable as a Pope's, whose
throne is planted thick with thorns, and his destiny
only bitterness, with a heavy weight pressing on his
shoulders.
It was this consciousness of supreme power in
theory, and of lamentable slavery and dependence on
a purely selfish Court in practice, combined with a
trative machine, composed of clerical parasites and
vampires, which extorted the complaint uttered by
Nicolas V. before two Carthusian monks, that no man
in the world was more wretched and unhappy than
he was, that nobody who came near him told him the
truth, and that his Italians were insatiable,2 etc. Still
1 Joh. Sarisb. Polyc. 6. 24; Opp. iv. 60 (ed. Giles).
XXV. 286.
150
Papal Infallibility.
later, Marcellus-II. exclaimed, under a similar feeling
of anguish, that he did not see how a Pope could be
saved.1
One may say without exaggeration, that the indivi-
dual Popes did not know the whole extent of their
power, it was so immense. More than a century's
legislation, steadily directed to the one end of self-
aggrandizement, from the Dictatus of Gregory to the
latest articles of the Extravagantes, had so well pro-
vided for every contingency, that a Pope could never
be at a loss for some legitimate plea for interference,
however purely secular the point at issue might be.
By the formula, “non obstante,” etc., the Pope's right
was secured of suspending for that particular case any
papal law which chanced to conflict with the interests
of the Curia. The whole legislation of the ancient
Church was gradually abrogated, or sometimes changed
into the precise opposite. The papal decretals had
devoured the decisions of councils, like Pharaoh's seven
lean kine. What had become of the Nicene, Chalce-
donian, and African canons? Like half-buried tomb-
stones in a deserted churchyard, scattered fragments of
this older order cropped up here and there. “It is
clear as the noonday sun," said Chancellor Gerson, the
most learned theologian and warmest friend of the
Church in that age, “ that the ordinances of the four first
and subsequent General Councils have been metamor-
phosed and exposed to mockery and oblivion through
the ever-increasing avarice of Popes, Cardinals, and
Prelates, through the unjust constitutions of the papal
Court, the rules of the Chancery, and the dispensations,
,
1 Pollidor. Vit. Marc. II., 132 (Roma, 1744).
Personal Attitude of Popes.
151
absolutions, and indulgences granted from lust of
--domination.” 1
To the Popes, not to the German emperors, belongs
the title 6 semper Augustus” as formerly understood.
They are “always aggrandizers of the kingdom," i.e.,
of their own. They became such under the sincere
conviction, cherished from earliest youth, that the wel-
fare of the whole Church and Christian world depended
on their power being great and irresistible; that their
right and power, and theirs alone, was truly divine, and
therefore unlimited, because no mere earthly right could
limit an authority given from heaven. And we must
recognize the sincerity of this conviction, by which the
Popes were thoroughly possessed, even when it drove
them to the use of crooked means, to falsification, for-
gery, and misrepresentation.
Everything which Popes had formerly shrunk from
or avoided, or been cautioned against, they now eagerly
seized upon. Gregory the Great had complained that,
under the pressure of business, his mind could not rise
to higher things. Even Alexander II., in 1966, when
the great centralization movement was just beginning,
said that for five years he had scarcely been able to pay
any attention to the internal affairs of his own special
flock, the Church of the city of Rome, still less of
foreign Churches. Early Church history was one long
warning for the Popės not to mix themselves up with
the affairs of foreign Churches, and want to decide
from a distance on one-sided and partial information.
1 Tract. de Ref. Eccl. in Conc. Univ. c. 17.
2 Greg. M. Ep. i. 1; vii. 25. 5.
3 Bouquet, Script. Rer. Gall. xiv. 543,
152
Papal Infallibility.
Every one in the ancient Church, the Popes included,
was persuaded that nothing is more injurious in Church
matters than decisions made at a distance, in ignorance
of local circumstances. As a rule they made mistakes,
and involved themselves in humiliations and contradic-
tory judgments. So it was with Basilides in Spain,
Hilary of Arles in Gaul, Marcellus of Ancyra, Eusta-
thius of Sebaste, Meletius at Antioch, with Eros and
Lazarus, and with Apiarius in Africa ; constantly the
Popes made rash mistakes, and were deceived, imposed
upon, and misled through their hurried or importunate
action. And constantly had the wisdom of the Nicene
decision been commended, that everything should be
examined and decided on the spot. The Popes and
Gregorians were ready enough, indeed, to appeal to the
Nicene canon, but they appealed to the spurious one.
And if, in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Popes
only interfered with the concerns of foreign Churches
now and then at long intervals, and in the same way as
the bishops of other apostolical sees, such cases oc-
curred now by thousands in one year, and every new
reservation was a copious source of emolument, so that
Bishop Alvaro Pelayo tells us that whenever he entered
the apartments of the Roman Court clergy, he found
them occupied in counting up the gold coin which lay
there in heaps.
Every opportunity of extending the jurisdiction of
the Curia was welcome. Nothing was too insignifi-
cant. Exemptions and privileges were so managed
that fresh grants became constantly necessary. Thus,
e.g., the immunity from episcopal censures granted
i De Planctu Eccl. ii. 29.
Relation of Popes to Councils.
. 153
beforehand to individuals and whole colleges was an
inexhaustible source of revenue. And the bishops on
their side were compelled to procure papal privileges,
at least to enable them to guard their property with cen-
sures against holders of Roman privileges; the Bishop
of Laon obtained such a privilege from Urban IV.1 So
far was the principle, “ divide et impera,” carried at
Rome, that even cathedral chapters, who are supposed
to be the immediate counsellors and presbytery of the
bishop, were armed with privileges and exemptions
against him, and he against them. If we look at the
huge number of Papal privileges conferred in the thir-
teenth century on one national Church only, the French,
we cannot but marvel at the slavish spirit of the bishops,
who dared not move an inch without sanction from
Rome, as well as at the utter insignificance of the objects
for which special authorization or dispensation from
Rome was thought necessary. If a monastery wanted
leave for the sick to eat meat, or the inmates to talk at
dinner, a permission from the Pope was required.
Above all, bishops, convents, and individuals needed to
protect themselves by Papal privileges against the cen-
sures and spiritual methods of extortion employed so
prodigally by the Legates.
1
§ XI. — The Relation of Popes to Councils.
Hitherto the Church had known but one means of
protection against internal corruption, that of Councils.
But the attitude towards Councils taken up by the
i Gallia Christ. vi. instr. 308.
2 A clear idea of these may be formed from inspecting
Brequigny's and Pardessus' Tables Chronologiques, 1230-
1300, A.D.
154
· Papal Infallibility.
Popes since Gregory VII. made this too unavailing.
Councils were perverted, as we shall see, into mere
tools of Papal domination, and reduced to a condition
of undignified servitude, which made them mere
shadows of the Councils of the ancient Church.
All synods counted as ecumenical, and whose
decrees had force throughout the universal Church,
were held during the first nine centuries in the East,
at Nicæa, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople.
During that period the Popes had never once made the
attempt to gather about them a great synod of bishops
from different countries. Two centuries followed, the
tenth and eleventh, without any great synod. In 1123,
immediately after the close of the Investiture contro-
versy, and to confirm and seal the great victory won
through the Gregorian system, Calixtus II. assembled
a numerous synod, afterwards called Ecumenical (the
first Lateran) at which, very significantly, twice as
many abbots as bishops (600 to 300) were present.
No contemporary tells us anything of this first general
assembly of the West; it passed unnoticed, and left no
trace behind. The Pope promulgated at it certain
laws on subordinate points --- simony, clerical mar-
riages, and the Truce of God. There is no sign of
any action on the part of the bishops; they seem to
have been summoned merely as a foil to the Papacy,
for this was the first example of a council professing
to be ecumenical, where not the Council, as for a
thousand years, but the Pope published the decrees in
his own name.
Sixteen years later, in 1139, Innocent II. assembled
1 "Auctoritate sedis apostolicæ prohibemus” in first canon.
Harduin, Concil. vi. ii. IIII.
Relation of Popes to Councils
155
a second Ecumenical Synod, again at Rome (the
second Lateran). Once more the bishops appeared as
mere passive witnesses to hear the Pope's lofty com-
mands, and to see him tear, with words of abuse, the
pastoral staff from the hand and the pallium from the.
shoulders of prelates ordained by his rival, Pierleone.)
More serious and eventful was the third of these
Roman Church assemblies, held in 1179 by Alexander
III. (the third Lateran). There were but three ses-
sions, and the Pope published the twenty-seven canons
he had put before them as enacted “ with the consent
of the Synod.” So completely did the world regard
these assemblies as mere arrangements for the solemn
promulgation of papal, commands, that the Emperor
described the third Lateran Synod in a document as
66 the Council of the Supreme Pontiff.” 2 .
Any free deliberation in presence of an Innocent III.,
when in 1215 he summoned 453 bishops to the fourth
Lateran Council, was not to be thought of. From the
standpoint of the Popes at that time, the only business
of bishops at a Council must be to inform the Pope of
the condition of their dioceses, to give him their advice,
and form a picturesque background for the solemn pro-
mulgation of his decrees. Perhaps the greatest num-
ber of bishops ever seen at a Western Council were
present, besides ambassadors of sovereigns. Innocent
had his decrees read to them, and after listening in
1 Harduin, i. c. 1214. [Pierleone was the anti-pope Ana-
cletus II. — Tr.]
2 See Trouillart, Docum. de Bale, i. 389, — "In generali
Concilio summi Pontificis ... judicatum est."
3 See Matt. Paris, Hist. Angl. ann. 1215. “Recitata sunt
in pleno Concilio, capitula 70."
156
Papal Infallibility.
silence they were allowed to give their assent. When -
they wished to return home, the Pope forbade them
until they had paid him large suins of money, which
they had to borrow at high interest from the brokers
of the papal Court.2
The one act of the first Council of Lyons in 1245
worthy of record, was the deposition of Frederick II.
by Innocent IV. with 144 bishops, chiefly Spanish and
French. In this affair of such high importance to
Italy and Germany, these two nations were either not
at all, or very inadequately, represented; it was an
assembly chiefly composed of prelates from foreign
nations which supported the Pope in his procedure,
and allowed itself thus to help him in meddling with
the concerns of Italy and Germany. The right of de-
posing the Emperor, and thereby plunging Germany
1 We know the decisions only from their appearing in differ-
ent parts of Gregory IX.'s decretal book under the heading,
" Innocentius III. in Concil. Lat.”
2 Matt. Paris, Hist. Minor, Lond. 1866, ii. 176.
3 We learn from Raynaldus (Annal. ann. 1245, i.) that Inno-
cent only summoned the Archbishop of Sens with his suffra-
gans, the King of France, and a number of English bishops. .
Raynaldus, who had the papal Register, with all the docu-
ments before him, could not disclose more. The German
prelates, who had come to Lyons, departed shortly before the
opening of the Council. Innocent therefore avoided calling
it a General Council; and it is a proof of the unhistorical
and unscientific character of so many theological manuals,
that they usually cite this as an Ecumenical Council, though
it has no claim on the conditions they themselves give to
being such. Still more glaringly is this true of the Council
. of Vienne in 1311, to which Clement V. himself said, that he
had only summoned certain selected bishops. See his Letter
'to the Emperor Henry III. in Raynald. Annal. ann. 1311.
- Relation of Popes to Councils. 157
and Italy into confusion and a long civil war, was
again proved by the fables to which Gregory VII. had
before appealed, viz., that Pope Innocent had excom-
municated the Emperor Arcadius, and Pope Anastasius
had not only excommunicated the Emperor Anastasius,
but deprived him of his empire. The natural infer-
ence was, that the Popes could do to a German
Emperor what they had done to the Greek Emperor
at Constantinople. This time again the bishops and
abbots had to pay or promise the Pope large sums for
carrying on his war against the Emperor, and thus to
burden their churches and convents with heavy debts.?
The second Synod of Lyons, counted as the sixth
Ecumenical Council of the West, at which 500 bishops
and twice as many abbots assembled in 1274, was con-
voked by the best Pope of that age, who, had it only
been possible, would gladly have repaired the mischief
done by the policy of his predecessors — Gregory X.
But even he did not venture to restore the old forms of
Councils, necessary and helpful as they would have
- been for effecting a reformation of the desolated and
disjointed Church. The union with the Greek Church
was a mere formal act concluded without any delibera-
tion, and broke up again in a few years. For the rest, :
it is impossible to say what decrees the Pope had
published at the Council, for the thirty-one articles
found in the papal Decretals, under the title, “Gregory
X. at the Synod of Lyons," were partly promulgated
1 See the official historian of the Curia, Nicolas of Curbio,
Vita Innoc. IV. in Baluze, Miscell. i. 198, ed. Mansi.
2 For fuller particulars, cf. Tillemont, Vie de S. Louis,
iii. 83.
8 Sextus Decretal.
158
... Papal Infallibility.'
a
during the Council, and partly afterwards, as the Pope
himself declares. Of the intended reform of the
Church nothing was effected.
As the deposition of the Emperor Frederick was the
one event of the first Synod of Lyons, so the suppres-
sion of the Templars was the one result of the Synod
of Vienne in 1311. When at that Synod, to which he
only admitted bishops previously selected by himself,
Clement V. observed that a majority was favorably
disposed towards the Order of Templars, he ordered
. a cleric to proclaim, that any bishop who spoke a
word without being first asked for his opinion by the
Pope, would incur the greater excommunication. And
thereupon he announced that, “ by the plenitude of his
power,” he annihilated the Order, although he could
not abolish it on the strength of the criminal charges
brought against it. But Clement himself was a mere
tool of the French King; to accommodate him he had
ordered his inquisitors everywhere to extort confessions
from the ill-fated Knights-Templars by torture. And
yet he must have known before the Council met, that
the result of the investigation did not justify the penal
abolition of the Order. . All he gained by it was, that
the King allowed him to put a stop to the process
against his predecessor Boniface VIII., which was a
source of pain, anxiety, shame, and humiliation for
Clement and the Papacy generally; for if Boniface had
been condemned on the charge of heresy and unbelief
brought against him by King Philip, all his acts would
have become null and void, and a terrible confusion in
the Church must have followed.' “ This assemblage,"
| Harduin, Concil. vii. 705.
Relation of Popes to Councils.
159
.
says the contemporary writer, Walter of Hemingburgh,
6 cannot be called a Council, for the Pope did every-
thing out of his own head, so that the Council neither
answered nor assented.”] The servitude of bishops
and degradation of Councils could go no further. And
now came a change for which the Great Schism pre-
pared the way.
After the deposition of the last German Emperor
who deserved the name, July 17, 1245, the Papacy be-
came the prey for French and Italians to quarrel over.
In the long contest of Popes and anti-popes, the old
weapons by which the Papacy had acquired its gigantic
power became somewhat blunted; the nations rebelled.
A different spirit and different principles prevailed at
the fifteenth century Councils of Pisa, Constance, and
Basle, and the preponderance of Italian bishops was
broken by new regulations. Even at the Synod of
Florence in 1439, the forms of the ancient Councils
and free discussion had to be allowed on account of
the Greeks, and the mere dictation and promulgation
of decrees previously prepared in the papal Curia had
to be abandoned.
Soon, however, better days for the Curia returned.
Julius II. inaugurated, and Leo X. concluded, the fifth
Lateran Synod with about fifty-three Italian bishops
and a number of Cardinals (1512–17).. That such an
assemblage is no representation of the whole Church,
that it sounds like a mockery to put it on a par with
the Synods of Nicæa, Chalcedon, and Constantinople
at a time when, by the admission of a bishop who was
present, there were not four capable men among the
1. Chron. Walt. de Hemingb. Lond. 1849, ii. 293.
160
,
· Papal Infallibility.
0
200 bishops of Italy, is evident to the blindest eye.
Julius showed his appreciation of it, when he had a
decree laid before it at the third session forbidding the
annual market hitherto held at Lyons, and transferring
it to Geneva. Prior Kilian Leib of Rebdorf expresses
wonder in his annals at this being called a General
Council, at which hardly any one was present besides
the usual attendants of the Court, and nothing of im-
portance was done. The papal decrees "published.
there were, however, far from unimportant. On the
contrary, a decree was issued exceeding in weight and
significance any published in former Roman Councils,
- viz., Leo X.’s Bull, Pastor Æternus, in which, while
abolishing the Pragmatic Sanction in France, he de-
clares as a dogma that “the Pope has full and unlimited
authority over Councils; he can at his good pleasure
summon, remove, or dissolve them.” The proofs for
this cited in the Bull are all spurious or irrelevant.
Earlier and later fictions, partly borrowed from the
pseudo-Isidore, are quoted to show that the ancient
Councils were under the absolute authority of the
Pope, that even the Nicene Council supplicated him
for the confirmation of its decrees, etc. The long de-
duction, in which every statement would be a lie, if.
the compiler could be credited with any knowledge of
Church history, closes with the renewal of Boniface
VIII.’s Bull, Unam Sanctam.
1 Concil. ed. Labbé, xiv. 82.
? See Aretin's Beiträge, vii. 624.
Theological Study at Rome.
161
§ XII. - Theological Study at Rome.
It may seem strange that since the new system of
Church government centralized at Rome had come into
vogue, and the Councils had pretty well lost their
importance, the Popes should not have thought of
establishing a theological school in Rome at the seat
of the Curia. The profound ignorance of the Roman
clergy, and their incapacity for judging theological
questions, was proverbial. As early as the end of the
seventh century, Pope Agatho had to make the humil-
iating confession to the Greeks, that the right interpre-
tation of Holy Scripture could not be found with the
Roman clergy, who had to work with their hands for
their support. They could do no more than preserve
the traditions handed down from the ancient Councils
and Popes. The Greeks, who were better versed in
Biblical studies, might well ascribe to this ignorance,
admitted by the Popes, the interpreting the prayer of
Christ for St. Peter (Luke xxii. 32) in a sense which
had never occurred to any one before, and which clearly
had but one object, viz., to secure authority in doctrinal
matters to the Roman Church, in spite of the undeni-
able rudeness and ignorance of its clergy. Their de-
fects in learning and knowledge had to be supplied by
special Divine inspiration. Gregory II. speaks, fifty
years later, as modestly as Pope Agatho. Otho of
· Vercelli, in the tenth century, and Gerbert in the
eleventh, expressed themselves strongly about this
theological ignorance of the Roman clergy. But since
1 Harduin, Concil. iii. 1078. ? Pertz, Monum. iii. 675.
3 Maii, Nova Coll. vi. ii. 60. "In tantâ Ecclesiâ vix unus
II
162
.
Patal to
Papal Infallibility. .
Gratian's time jurisprudence became the queen of
sciences; exegesis of Holy Scripture, and study of tra-
dition and the Fathers were dropped, for they would
have led to suspicious results and dangerous disclosures,
and would eventually have exposed the evil contradic-
tions between the old and new law of the Church.
The new codes of canon law, Gratian, the decretals,
and the Roman imperial law, were studied; and, ac-
cordingly, Innocent IV. established a school of law in
Rome, leaving theology to the distant Paris. Theol-
ogy was never extensively prosecuted at Rome, or with
any result, nor did those who wished to study it go.
there during the Middle Ages. Among the cardinals
there were always twenty jurists to one theologian;
and herein the Curia was genuinely Italian, or Italy
genuinely Roman; for though from the beginning of
the thirteenth century there had been an emulation in
establishing universities, it was never theology, but :
jurisprudence and medicine, that was thought of. Al-
though they had some great theologians to show, as
Aquinas, Bonaventure, Ægidius Colonna, the Italians
gladly left the care of theology to the French, Eng-
lish, and Germans, and such of them as desired to
become theologians, like those just named, had to seek
their education and sphere of work abroad. Dante
says of his countrymen that they only study the Decre-
tals, and neglect the Gospels and the Fathers. And
among Italians the Roman clergy did least for the cul-
tivation of theological science.1
posset reperiri, quin vel illiteratus, vel simoniacus, vel esset
concubinarius."
1 Reumont observes (Geschichte der Stadt Rom, ii. 678) :
Theological Study at Rome,
163
The Popes were the more ready to abdicate all influ-
ence through the cultivation of science, since so many
other means of action were open to them, and such as
could not in the long-run bear scientific examination.
Moreover, they had the new Religious Orders of Domi-
nicans and Minorites for that work, who, acting under
the most stringent censure and discipline of Rome, ex-
ercised through their own Generals, and being accuis-
tomed to identify the interests of their own Order with
those of the Curia, had given every guarantee that
they would repudiate. whatever did not subserve the
- new Roman system. It was from the bosom of these
Orders, especially the Dominicans, that the Curia
selected its official court theologian — for one at least
it was obliged to have — the Master of the Sacred
Palace.
And thus, as Roger Bacon and contemporary writers
generally state, juristic science, and not theology, was.
the sure road to Church dignities and preferment. For
theology, as conducted by the school of St. Anselm of
Canterbury, Abailard, Bernard, Robert Pullus, Hugh
and Richard of St. Victor, and the other scholastics
before Aquinas, had done nothing directly for strength-
ening the papal dominion over the world and establish-
ing the Gregorian system. Nowhere in the writings
of these theologians is there any exposition of the doc-
trine of Church authority on the basis of the papal
system. The dealings with the Greeks, before and
after the Synod of Lyons in 1274, and the newly dis-
covered spurious testimonies of Greek Fathers and
that the intellectual productiveness of Rome was at best very
slight.
164
Papal Infallibility.
:
Councils, as well as Gregory IX.'s collection of Decre-
tals, first introduced it into theology. The jurists were
the first to prostitute their science to an instrument of
flattery, and it was not till after the end of the thir-
teenth century that the theologians followed them in
the same path. Those who took that line belonged
mostly to the great Mendicant Orders, who had the
most urgent reasons for advancing rather than depre-
ciating the plenary papal jurisdiction, to which they
owed the privileges and exemptions so lavishly be-
stowed on them; and if any of their members had
written in an opposite sense, they would have been
sure soon to find themselves in the convent prison.
Only men in so extraordinary and abnormal a position
as Occam and other " Spirituals,” could be influenced
in a contrary direction ; and such writers, as we see in
the case of the acute Marsilio of Padua, could find no
certain track in the maze of forgeries and fictions,
though they saw through some of them."
To this jurisprudence, viz., the corrupt system of
canon law perverted into an instrument of despotism,
and to the Papacy, the wretched state of moral and
religious degradation throughout Western Christendom
was generally ascribed. By the united streams flowing
from these two fountains - both, up to 1305, Italian-
1 [Marsilio of Padua, a famous jurist, wrote a book called
“Defence of the Faith against the Usurped Jurisdiction of the
Roman Pontiff,” which had the distinction of being the first.
work condemned in a papal Bull, issued by John XXII. in
1327. It was answered in the Summa of Agostino Trionfo
of Ancona (dedicated to John XXII.), an Augustinian friar,
who maintained the Pope's absolute jurisdiction over the
whole world, Christian or Pagan, and over Purgatory. - Tr.]
Theological Study. at Rome. 165
the Bolognese School of Law and the Curia - men
said the whole world was poisoned. “It is the jurists,"
according to Roger Bacon, “who now rule the Church,
and torment and perplex Christians with processes
endlessly spun out."1 And, in fact, the most powerful
Popes, such as Innocent III. and Innocent IV., Clem-
ent IV. and Boniface VIII., attained as jurists the high-
est dignity and sovereignty over the world. Bacon
thought the only remedy was for canon law to become
more theological or Biblical. He saw a source of cor-
ruption, just as Dante did, in the papal Decretals,
and the precedence over Holy Scripture assigned to
them.2
We see how deep that remarkable man, Roger Ba-
con, saw into the causes of corruption which were
hidden from most of his contemporaries, although he,
like all the rest, could only form conjectures, and could
not gain that clear insight which was impossible with-
out historical and critical information unattainable in
his day. But he believed, and many for forty years
(since 1225) had been hoping with him, that a purifi-
cation of the Church was approaching, through the
means of a God-fearing Pope, and, perhaps, with the
co-operation of a good emperor, consisting essentially
in a thorough reform of the system of Church law.3
i Opus Tert. ed. Brewer, 1859, p. 84. 2 Paradiso ix. 136–8.
3 Rog, Bacon, Compend. Stud. ed. Brewer, pp. 339-403.
“Totus clerus vacat superbiæ, luxuriæ, avaritiæ," etc. Here,
too, he dwells on the decay of all learning for forty years
past, attributing it principally to the corruption of Church
law.
166
Papal Infallibility.
. § XIII. - The College of Cardinals.
The two main pillars of the new Papacy, and, at the -
same time, the two institutions which knew how to
fetter the Popes themselves, and make them subservi-
ent to their own interests, were the College of Cardi-
nals and the Curia. In proportion as the rupture, -
partly conscious, partly unconscious, between the
Papacy and the old Church order and legislation was
consummated, the College or Senate of Cardinals took
shape, and in 1059, when the right of papal election
was transferred to it, became a body of electors.1
Through the Legations, and their share in the admin-
istration of what had become an unlimited sovereignty,
the cardinals rapidly rose to a height from which they
looked down on the bishops, who, as late as the elev-
enth century, took precedence of them in Councils.
While the new system of Papalism was yet in its birth-
throes, in 1054, the cardinal bishops claimed prece-
1 [Before 1059, the right of election resided in the whole
body of Roman clergy, down to the acolytes, with the con-
currence of the magistrates and the citizens. Nicolas II., act-
ing under Hildebrand's advice, issued a Bull conferring the
elective franchise exclusively on the College of Cardinals,
reserving, however, to the German Emperor the right of con-
firmation. By a Bull of Alexander III., in the third Lateran
Council (1179), two-thirds of the votes were required for a
valid election, and this regulation is still in force. See Cart-
wright's Papal Conclaves, pp. II-16, and cf. Hemans's Mediæ-
val Christianity, pp. 73, 101, where the Bull of Nicolas is.
quoted at length. The forms to be observed in Conclave,
still in force, were fixed by a constitution of Gregory X. in
the Second Council of Lyons, 1272.- Cartwright, pp. 20 seq.;
Hemans, pp. 362-3. — Tr.]
The College of Cardinals,
167
dence of archbishops ; but in 1196 the archbishops
still always took precedence of them. At the Synod
of Lyons, in 1245, the precedence of all cardinals, even
presbyters and deacons, to all the bishops of the Chris-
tian world was first fixed, and never afterwards dis-
puted. By degrees it came to this, that bishops could
only venture to speak to cardinals on their knees, and
were treated by them as servants.
It was not without set purpose that the Gregorians,
Anselm and Gregory of Padua, and Gratian after them,
had incorporated into their codes those passages of St.
Jerome which affirm the original equality of bishops
and presbyters, and reduce the superiority of bishops
to mere customary law. These short-sighted architects
of the papal system did not perceive that they were
thereby laying the axe to the root of the Roman
Primacy; all they wanted was to pave the way for
the superiority of cardinals, and with it the domination
of the Curia, and to build up the papal system on the
ruins of the ancient episcopal system. As their views
of the Church and the hierarchy were drawn exclusive-
ly from Gratian, bishops towards the end of the thir-
teenth century were brought to allow themselves to be
made cardinal-presbyters, and even to regard as a pro-
motion this degradation of the Episcopate to the Pres-
byterate, which in the first centuries of the Church
would have been thought a monstrosity. In the palmy
days of exemptions, of the overthrow of all ancient
Church laws, and the loosening of the diocesan tie, at
1 See an anonymous French writing of the end of the four-
teenth century, given in Paulin Paris, Manuscr. Franc. vi.
265.
168
Papal Infallibility.
a time when the parochial system was torn to pieces
by the strolling mendicant monks, this too became part
of the system.
The rival principles of a cardinal oligarchy and of
the Roman Church. There were Popes like Martin
IV. and Clement V. who carried out their French
policy against the resistance of the Italian cardinals ;
Popes before whom the cardinals scarcely dlared to lift
their eyes or utter a word, like Boniface VIII. and
Paul IV.; Popes who put to death their cardinals, like
Urban VI., Alexander VI., and Leo X. But, as a rule,
the College of Cardinals, to which the Pope owed his
election, and which preserved the interests and tradi-
tions of the papal system, took the lead. They took
care that the Popes should give up nothing of the ac-
cepted principles or let drop any particle of the plenary
authority Rome had gained, and took in fact, as well
as in theory, their full part in the government of the
Church. They contrived to make the Popes in many
cases the mere executive of their will. The later and
still prevalent device, of carrying out plans the major-
ity are opposed to with the aid of two or three cardi-
nals like-minded with the Pope, and without consulting
the College, was hardly adopted in the thirteenth cen-
tury, or only under Martin IV. But Boniface VIII.,
Clement V., and John XXII., and the Popes after the
middle of the fifteenth century, nearly all understood
and adopted it energetically, and the more securely as
through the dispensation of benefices and emoluments.
The struggle between absolute monarchy and oli-
The College of Cardinals.'
169
garchy lasted really for two centuries. The cardinals
wanted the Pope to be absolute and omnipotent in his
external rule over national Churches, but they sought
to bind him by conditions at the time of election, and
by a recognized share in the government in the name
of the Curia. Innocent VI., in 1353, had repudiated
any such conditions, on the ground that the papal
power bestowed by God in all its plenitude could not
be limited. But the attempt was constantly renewed.
A series of articles was put forward in conclave,
which the new Pope, immediately after his election,
and before consecration, swore to observe, partly drawn
up in the interests of the cardinals, as, e.g., for a parti-
cipation of revenues between the Pope and cardinals,
and their being irremovable, partly with a view of
restricting the worst acts of extravagance and arbitrary
power on the part of the Popes, by requiring the as-
sent of the cardinals. Eugenius IV. confirmed these
articles without thereby really binding himself.1 Pius
II. took a similar oath, and swore to reform the Roman
Curia. It was an urgent necessity to keep secret these
capitulations, which in themselves presented a gloomy
picture of the misgovernment of the Church, as the
Popes of that age, in addition to all the other bitter
complaints against them, would have been charged on
all sides with perjury. Pius II., in spite of the articles
he had sworn to, acted just as arbitrarily as his prede-
cessors. Nevertheless the oath imposed on Paul II. in
conclave in 1464 included still more articles. He was
to have them read in public once a month, and to allow
the cardinals to assemble twice a year to discuss how
1 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1431.
170
Papal Infallibility.
the Pope had kept his oath.' Paul soon discovered,
and was told by his flatterers, that his papal freedom
was too much limited, and accordingly broke his oath,
and compelled or induced the cardinals to subscribe a
new and entirely changed capitulation, without reading
it. He dragged back Bessarion, who was escaping
from the room, and enforced his signature by the threat
of excommunication. He rewarded the cardinals with
a new head-dress, a silk cap, besides a scarlet cape,
hitherto only worn by the Popes. This occurrence
did not prevent them from again devising a capitula-
tion, on the death of Sixtus IV. (1484), for the new
Pope to swear to; it provided afresh for the advantage
and enrichment of the cardinals at the expense of
Church discipline and order. Innocent VIII. took-
· and broke it.
The same farce was enacted with Julius II. in 1503.
The Popes swore to summon an (Ecumenical Council
at the earliest opportunity, and so the controversy went
on repeating itself for nearly a century, the cardinals
wanting a larger share in Church government and
emoluments, the Popes refusing to stint themselves in
the full enjoyment of their despotic power. The vic-
tory at last, as was inevitable, remained with the Popes,
and in the course of the sixteenth century the cardinals
lost again the rights they had hitherto maintained, and
were reduced simply to advisers, whom the Pope might
consult or not as he pleased, but whose opinions could
not bind him.
It seemed like a Nemesis, that the Popes, who since.
i Card. Jacobi Papiens. Comment. Francof. 1614, p. 372.
2 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1484, 28.
The College of Cardinals.
171
Gregory VII.'s time were so ingenious in inventing
oaths to entangle men's consciences and bring every- .
thing under their own power, now themselves took
oaths, which they regularly broke. On the other hand,
it is a riddle how the very cardinals who elected a Six-
tus IV., an Innocent VIII., and an Alexander VI., one
after the other, and thereby broke their own oaths,
could suppose a Pope would be really withheld, by
swearing to certain conditions at his election, from the
seductions of absolute power. It was perhaps the
· lesser évil that the Popes eventually triumphed, for the
despotism of an oligarchy is apt to be more oppressive
than that of a single individual..
· Unquestionably the influence over Church life exer-
cised by the cardinals was mainly an injurious one.
The institution was a later artificial creation, a foreign
and disturbing element newly interpolated, a thousand
years after the foundation of the Church, into the origi-
nal hierarchy based on the ordinance of Christ and the
Apostles. The cardinals wanted to excel the wealthiest
bishops in expenditure, pomp, and number of servants,
and Rome and the environs did not supply means for
this. They wanted to provide their nephews and
friends with benefices, and to enrich their families. In
their interest, and to satisfy their wants, the order of
the Church had to be disintegrated, heaping incompat-
ible offices on one person to be allowed, and the system
of increasing the revenues of the Curia by simony to
be constantly extended. It was they who lived and
1 This was carried so far in the fourteenth century that one
cardin'al held five hundred benefices. Cf. “De corrupto Eccles.
statu,” Lydius' edition of Werke Clemang. 1614, p. 15.
172
Papal Infallibility. .
battened on the grasping corruption of the Church.? ,
Before the thirteenth century there were only two ex-
amples of the union of the cardinalate with foreign
bishoprics, but under Innocent IV. (1250) it became
common, and thus the Roman Church supplied the
precedent of the contempt and neglect of official duties.
Jacob of Vitry thought, even in his day, the revenues
diture of the cardinals. The great Schism, from 1378
to 1429, was ascribed by Western Christendom solely
to their greed and lust of power.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the car-
dinals sometimes elected Popes not of their own body,
but this never occurred after the middle of the fifteenth.
During all the twelfth and the first half of the thir-
teenth century papal elections took place within a few
days of the decease of the last Pope, but after the
Papacy had reached the summit of its power, and the
Pope was regarded as the spouse of the Church,
widowed by his death, long vacancies, sometimes of
years, became common. It seemed as if the cardinals
wanted to show the world by a rare irony how easily
the Church could get on without him from whom, in
the new theory, all her authority was derived. Thus
Celestine IV. was elected after a vacancy of two years,
Gregory X. after three, Nicolas IV. after one. Two
years and three months elapsed between his death and
the election of Celestine V. There was a vacancy of
two years and four months after Clement V., and the
1 Alv. Pelag. De Planct. Eccl. ii. 16, f. 52.,
2 Acta Sanct. Bolland, 23 Jun. p. 675.
:
i
. :
The Curia
.
1173
Christian world had to get accustomed to every con-
clave being the theatre of intrigues and quarrels be-
tween the French and Italian nations, which fought
for the possession of the Papacy, till at last the French
acquired exclusive possession of it.
The German nation was practically excluded from
the College of Cardinals at that time. The German
Popes, from 1046 to 1059, made no German cardinals.
During the contest of the Papacy against the Salic and
Hohenstaufen emperors, some Germans who declared
themselves against the Emperor were made cardinals ;
as Cuno; Cardinal-bishop of Præneste in 1114, who,
more papal than the Popes, filled all Germany with
excommunications in his office of Legate. After him
there is the Cluniac, Gerhard, and Ditwein in 1134.
Then Conrad of Wittelsbach, and Siegfried of Eppen-
stein, were appointed on account of their hostility to
the Hohenstaufen, and Conrad of Urach by Honorius
III. After him, the only German cardinal in the thir-
teenth century is Oliverius of Paderborn, and then,
for above a century and a half, no German enjoyed the
dignity. We must remeinber that every German would
lean to the imperial side, and this, especially after
French policy became dominant in the Curia, would
secure their exclusion. Urban VI., in 1379, when re-
pudiated by the French and in the extremest distress,
was the next to name some German cardinals.
$ XIV. - The Curia.
If we describe the great change which took place be-
tween the end of the eleventh century and about 1130,
174
Papal Infallibility.
LI
in the space of some forty years, by saying that the
Roman Church became the Roman Court, this indi-
cates a phenomenon of world-wide historical interest
in its enormous consequences. The distinction between
a Church and a Court is in truth a very great one. By
the Church of Jerusalem, or Alexandria, or Ephesus,
or Rome, or Carthage, had always been understood a
Christian people united with their bishop and presby-
ters, a community of clergy and laity bound together
by the ties of brotherhood. Ordinary matters were
settled in the permanent synod of the bishop and his
clergy; weightier and extraordinary inatters in a coun-
cil composed of the neighboring bishops. In such a
Church there were laymen bishops and priests teach-
ing and dispensing sacraments, but no legal function-
aries. Such a Church could never become a court as
long as the ecclesiastical spirit and usage prevailed.
But now what used to be called the Roman Church
had become a Court, that is to say, an arena of rival
litigants; a chancery of writers, notaries, and tax-
gatherers, where transactions about privileges, dispensa-
tions, exemptions, etc., were carried on, and suitors
went with petitions from door to door; a rallying-point
for clerical place-hunters from every nation of Europe.
In earlier days those who were ordained for the divine
service in Rome, and the Roman Church had managed
the business which its superior rank rendered neces-
sary. Weightier matters were settled at synods com-
prising the bishops of the province, and a few persons
1 Thus in the well-known definition of St. Cyprian (Ep.
69); “Ecclesia est sacerdoti plebs adunata et pastori grex
adhærens.”
The. Curia.
175
sufficed for so limited a circle of affairs as is indicated
by the official collection of formularies, the Liber
Diurnus, so late as the beginning of the eighth cen-
tury. What a complete difference after the Worms
Concordat of 1122, and still more after Gratian! In
comparison with the enormous mass of business, pro-
:cesses, graces, indulgences, absolutions, commands, and
decisions addressed to the remotest countries of Europe,
and even to Asia, the functions of the local Church
service sunk into insignificance, and a troop of some
hundreds of persons was required whose home was the
Curia, and their ambition to rise in it, and whose con-
stant aim was to contrive fresh financial transactions,
to multiply taxes, and enlarge the profits that accrued
to them and the papal treasury, which was always in
want. Secure and unassailable in the service of such
a power, the officials of the Curia did not trouble
themselves about the hatred and contempt of the world
which had been made tributary to them. “Oderint, dum
metuant.”1 The warnings of the most enlightened
men were vain. Early in the twelfth century, the great
danger this change of the Roman Church into a Court
must bring upon the Christian world had been seen
1. What giant strides centralization had made, and the con-
sequent increase of the business of the Curia, may be illus-
trated from the case of a single official. About the middle of
the thirteenth century there was but one “Auditor Cameræ.”
· About 1370, twenty auditors were hardly enough for the Pope
alone, and every cardinal had several besides. Cf. Baluze
and Mansi, Miscel. i. 479. It is mentioned here that under
Gregory XI. seven bishops were at one time under excom-
munication, simply for not having paid the “servitia” for the
decree of provisions.
176
Papal Infallibility.
through by men like Gerhoch of Reigersberg, St. Ber-
nard, John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, and almost all
in that age whose mind we are still acquainted with.1
Jacob of Vitry, who subsequently became a cardinal,
after making some stay at the Court, perceived, as he
writes to his friend (1216), that it had lost every vestige
of real Church spirit, and its members busied them-
selves solely with politics, litigation, and processes, and
never breathed a syllable about spiritual concerns.2
Among the bishops of Innocent IV.'s time there was
not one more highly honored and admired than Gros-
tête, Bishop of Lincoln, nor one for a long time more
devoted to the Pope. Dominated by Gratian and the
Gregorian system, he supposed his episcopal jurisdic-
tion was simply intrusted to him as a derivation from
the papal. But the corruptions, which like a poison-
ous miasma penetrated from the Curia into every por-
tion of the Church, the groșs hypocrisy exhibited in
1 Gerhoch observes in his letter to Eugenius III., about
1150, “De corrupto Ecclesie statu" (Baluz. Miscel. v. 63), as
something new and deplorable, “ quod nunc dicitur Curia
Romana quod antea dicebatur Ecclesia Romana.” In his
work, written some fifteen years later, De Investigatione Anti-
christi, he painted in darker colors the disintegration of the
Church through exemptions bought at Rome, and the greed
of the Romans. Cf. Archiv. für österreich. Geschichtsquellen,
XX. 140 seg. He variously supplements and confirms St. Ber-
nard's complaints about the disorder at Rome.
2 Saint Genois, Sur les Lettres inédites de Facques de Vitry,
Bruxelles, 1846, p. 31. “ Cum autem aliquanto tempore fuis-
sem in curiâ, multa inveni spiritui meo contraria, adeo enim
circa sæcularia et temporalia, circa reges et regna, circa lites
et jurgia occupati erant, quod vix de spiritualibus aliquid
loqui permittebant."
The Curia.
177
.
declaring the taking of interest a mortal sin, while the
papal usurers and brokers exhausted the churches and
corporations in all countries with usurious imposts,
and, beginning from London, had made every English
bishopric tributary to them ; this and a great deal more
led him shortly before his death to reproach the Pope
with his tyrannical conduct in a letter sharply warning
him to repent; and he still prophesied, when on his
death-bed, that the Egyptian bondage, to which the
whole Church had been degraded by the Roman Curia,
would become yet worse.1
Somewhat later, when Pope Nicolas III. wanted to
make John of Parma, General of the Minorites, whom
Pius IV. beatified in 1777, a cardinal, he declined, say-.
1 Epist. Roberti G., ed. Luard, p. 432, Lond. 1861; Matt.
Par. Hist. Angl. p. 586, Paris, 1644.— [There is a curious
story told in the Liber Monasterii de Melsa (ed. E. A. Bond,
vol. ii. London, 1867, in the Master of the Rolls' Series)
· which illustrates, the contemporary view of the subject in
England, as to why "St. Robert Grostête,” as the monastic
chronicler calls him, was not canonized. It is said that,
being summoned to Rome by Innocent IV. and excommuni-
cated, he appealed from the judgment of the Pope to the
.tribunal of Christ, and two years after his death appeared by
- night to Innocent, in full pontificals, saying, "Arise, wretched
man, and come to judgment," and struck him with his pastoral
staff. In the morning the bed was found covered with blood
and the Pope dead. “And therefore," adds the chronicler,
6 the Curia would not let him be canonized, although he was
honored by illustrious miracles.” Cf. for another version of
the story, Milman's Lat. Christ. vi. 293. It is true that Gros-
tête excited the Pope's anger by refusing to confer a rich
canonry at Lincoln on his nephew, a young boy (puerulus),
but not true that he was excommunicated. — Tr.] . .
12
178
Papal Infallibility.
ing: 56 The Roman Church hardly concerns itself.
with anything but wars and juggleries (truffæ'); for
the salvation of souls it takes no care.” The Pope an-
swered, sighing, “We are so accustomed to these
things that we think everything we say and do is really
beneficial.” 1
From the middle of the twelfth century the whole
· secular and religious literature of Europe grew more
and more hostile to the Papacy and the Curia. Ger-
man as well as Provençal poetry, historians as well as
theologians — none of them as a rule attack the author-
ity or rights of the Pope, but they all abound in sharp
denunciations and bitter complaints of the decay of the
Church occasioned by Rome, the demoralization of
the clergy corrupted by the Curia, the simony of an
ecclesiastical court where every stroke of a pen, and
every transaction, has its price, where benefices, dis-
pensations, licenses, absolutions, indulgences, and priv-
ileges are bought like so much merchandise. St. Hil-
degard, that famous prophetess on the Rhine, highly
honored by Popes and Emperors, predicted of the
Popes, as early as 1170, ---- They seize upon us, like
ravening beasts, with their power of binding and loos-
ing and through them the whole Church is withered.
They desire to subjugate the kingdoms of the world,
but the nations will rise against them and the too rich
and haughty clergy, whose property they will reduce
to its right limits. The pride of the Popes, who no
longer observe any religion, will be brought low;
i Salimbene, in Affo's Vit. del B. Giov. di Parma, 1777,
p. 169.
· The Curia.
179
Rome and its immediate neighborhood will alone be
left to them, partly in consequence of wars, partly by
the common agreement of the States.” 1
More .cutting and more terrible sound the words of
the northern prophetess, St. Bridget, who lived in
Rome some two centuries later. It has not prejudiced
the high reverence felt for her visions, universally re-
garded as inspired, and defended in an express treatise
by Cardinal Torquemada, that they contain the most
vivid pictures of the corruption of the Papal See and
its Court, and their mischievous influence on the
Church. She calls the Pope worse than Lucifer, a
murderer of the souls intruſted to him, who condemns
the innocent and sells the elect for filthy lucre.
Every one told the same tale. Bishops and abbots
had to exhaust and denude their churches and estab-
lishments to satisfy the greed of the court officials and -
get their causes settled. They bid against each other
in bribery. Every one, from doorkeeper to Pope, had
to be paid and fee'd, or the case was lost. It may be
seen from the accounts of ambassadors, e.g., of the
deputies sent in 1292 from the Commune of Bruges,
that giving once was not enough, but the fee had to
be constantly repeated as long as the process lasted.4
1 This remarkable prophecy, with many more of St. Hil-
degard's, is in the collections of Baluze and Mansi, Miscel.
ii. 444-447.
2 Revel. i. C. 41, p. 49, cf. iv. C. 49, p. 211.
3 Bishop Stephen of Tournay, in 1192, said, “Romano
plumbo nudantur ecclesiæ.”—Ep. 16.
4 They may be found in Kervyn of Lettenhove, Hist. de
Flandre, ii. 589. Again Herculano (Hist. de Portugal) cites
from the Codex Vatican. 34:57, a bill of the Archbishop of
180
Papal Infallibility.
The cardinals' and Popes' nephews were quite inordi-
nately insatiable. The jurist, Peter Dubois, thought it
a misfortune for the whole of Christendom that the
cardinals found themselves compelled to live by rob-
bery, as their benefices were not productive enough.
The upshot was, that poor men could neither hope to
gain preferment nor could keep it, and bishops entered
on their office already loaded with heavy debts, which
were further augmented by the annates introduced in
the fourteenth century.
* In the eleventh century there was an energetic move-
ment throughout the whole Church with a view to
putting an end to the sale of benefices at royal courts,
but now the Roman Court had made simony the su-
preme power everywhere. The little finger of the
Curia pressed more heavily on the churches than ever
the arm of kings. No one knew what remedy to sug-
gest; complaints and reproaches were disregarded,
and synods were powerless, and condemned to silence
in the absence of the Pope or his legates. Every
cleric excused his simoniacal conduct by the example
of the Roman Church. It was the common saying,
that every one was taught from youth upwards to look
on the Roman Church as the mistress of doctrine and
the bright example for all other Churches; that what
she approved and openly practised others must also
approve and copy, and that they might on their side
make their profits out of spiritual ministries and
sacraments who had dearly bought the right to do
so at Rome with their benefices, and who, indeed,
Bruges, showing that he paid through the Roman bankers
'the sum of 3000 florins to nineteen cardinals in 1226.
· Contemporary Judgments.
:181
could in no other way pay of the debts incurred
there.
$ XV.—The Fudgments of Contemporaries.
Bishop Durandus of Mende contemplates the Church
of his age from many points of view, especially its
condition in 1310 in Italy and the south of France, but
he is always brought back to the one crying evil, and
source of so many corruptions, the papal Court. “It
is that Court, he says, " which has drawn all things
to itself, and is in danger of losing all. It is always
sending out into the various dioceses immoral clerks,
provided with benefices, whom the bishops are obliged
obediently to receive, while they have no persons fit,
for the work of the Church. It is continually extort-
ing large sums from prelates, to be shared between the
Pope and his cardinals, and by this simony is corrupt-
sing the Universal Church to the utmost of its power.
While the Curia goes on in this way, all remedies for
· the Church are vain."1 He then enumerates the most
i Durandus says the Roman Church is reviled in every
country. Every one is ashamed of her, and charges her with
corrupting the whole clergy, whose immorality has exposed
them to universal hatred. It is the fault of the Curia, he says,
sut.. inde tota Ecclesia vilipendatur et quasi contemptui.
habeatur.” Tract. de modo Gen. Concil. celeb. (Paris, 1761),
p. 300. He, at the same time, differs widely in his devotion
to the Pope from his contemporaries Pelayo and Trionfo.
He maintains the Pope's absolute dominion over monarchs,
and insists on the Donation of Constantine, and the rights
that flow from it. But he desiderates a certain decentraliza-
tion. He wants' the Curia, which has absorbed all Church
rights and jurisdiction, to give back some of them, and re-
182
„Papal Infallibility.
necessary reforms, without which the Church must
sink deeper and deeper in corruption, but they cut, in
fact, at the roots of the whole papal system as it had
existed for 200 years, and therefore his book produced
no effect worth mentioning, though the Pope asked for
it, and it was laid before the Council of Vienne.
One of the French Popes, Urban V., who had some
good instincts, acknowledged the misery and corrup-
tion of the Church, and thought (in 1368) the cessation
of Councils was the main cause of the mischief.1 But
he did not perceive, or at least did not say, that this
was the fault of his predecessors, whose systematic
policy had brought matters to such a pass that it was
partly impossible and partly useless to hold Councils.
This state of things led theologians, who wished to use
Biblical language, to appropriate involuntarily the say-
ings of Old Testament prophets on the corruptions of
their people, and to describe the Church of the day as
the venal harlot whose shame God would shortly un-
cover in sight of all men. Nicolas Oresme, Bishop of
Lisieux, for instance, does so in an address before
Urban V. and the cardinals at Avignon in 1363.2
Great, indeed, must have been the evil, when even
store to national Churches and bishops some freedom of
action. See Tract. (ut sup.), p. 294, where he says the Ro-
man Court understands "omnia traham ad Me Ipsum” as
authorizing its appropriating the rights of all others exclu-
sively to itself. One would like to know whether this book,
which holds up to the Pope and cardinals, as in a mirror, so
terrible a reflection of their misdeeds and iniquitous acts
against the Church, was ever read in Avignon.
1 Concil. (ed. Labbé), xi. 1958.
2 Brown, Fasc. Rer. Expet. ii. 487.
Contemporary Judgments..
183
bishops applied such expressions and metaphors to the
Church and the Papal See; which coincided with
those used by the sectaries of the time, and bor-
dered closely on suspicious inferences as to their
right of separating from so terribly corrupt an insti-
tution.
When we read all these accusations and these
descriptions, agreeing in the main, of the Curia and
the Papal administration -- and the strongest things are
invariably said by eye-witnesses, -- and observe how
the impressions and experiences of all classes are the
same, we can understand how the Apocalyptic images
and their fulfilment in Rome and in the Curia oc-
curred to every mind. The transference of power
from Italians to Frenchmen, through the removal of
the Curia to Avignon, and the succession of French
Popes who appointed for the most part cardinals of
their own nation only, led to no important change.
- Only the Italians then became as keen-sighted as others
in detecting the corruption of the Church, for the
Papacy, with all its endless resources for the enrich-
ment of so many Italian families, had slipped out of
their grasp. They felt what Italy, or rather what the
Latin race," had thereby lost, for as yet there was no
Italian. but only a Latin national sentiment. Lom-
bardy was half German. The inhabitants of Tuscany
and the States of the Church believed themselves the
genuine and only rightful descendants of the old
Romans, and entitled, as such, to rule the world
through the Papacy, which was their appanage ; and
thus Dante urges them in his letters not to endure any
longer that the fame and honor of the Latin name
184
Papal Infallibility.
should be disgraced by the avarice of the Gascons 1
(Clement V. and John XXII.). Even a man like St.
Bonaventure, whom the Popes had loaded with honors,
and who was bound by the closest ties to Rome as a
cardinal and General of his Order, did not hesitate in
his Commentary on the Apocalypse to declare Rome
to be the harlot who makes kings and nations drunk
with the wine of her whoredoms. For in Rome, he
said, Church dignities were bought and sold, there did ·
the princes and rulers of the Church assemble, dis-
honoring God by their incontinence, adherents of
Satan, and plunderers of the flock of Christ. He
adds that the prelates, corrupted by Rome, infect the
clergy with their vices; and the clergy, by their evil
example of avarice and profligacy, poison and lead to
perdition the whole Christian people. If the General
of the Order spoke thus of the Roman Court, we may
easily comprehend how its stricter members, the
6 Spirituals," went further still, and called the Curia
the utterly corrupt “ carnal Church," and predicted å
great renewal and purification through a holy Pope,
the Papa Angelicus, long looked for, but never willing
to appear.
It was not, therefore, as was commonly said, from
the blindness of Ghibelline party spirit that Dante too
applied to the Popes the Apocalyptic prophecy of the
harlot on the seven hills who is drunk with the blood
of men, and seduces princes and peoples; he had read
1 Epist. ed. Torsi, Livorno, 1843, p. 90.
2 Oper. Omn. Supplem. sub ausp. Clem. XIV. Trid. 1773,
ii. 729, 755, 815. Cf. Apol. contra eos qui Ord. Min. aversan-
tur, Q.1.
Contemporary Fudgments.: 185
St. Bonaventure, and puts directly into his mouth in
Paradise the denunciation on the covetous policy of the
Court of Rome. It had occurred to him, as to others,
that the Papacy was in fact the hostile power which
weakened and unsettled the Empire, and was promot-
ing its fall, and was thus furthering and hastening the
appearance of Antichrist, who was held in check by
the continuance of the Empire. And why should
Dante scruple to speak out, when almost at the same
time a bishop and official of the Papal Court, Alvaro
Pelayo, pointed, from long personal experience and
observation, to the very details which showed the
fulfilment of St. John's prophecy of the harlot in the
then condition of the Papacy?? Yet the whole of his
great work is devoted to proving that the Papacy is the
power ordained by God to rule absolutely the world
and the Church. It is very instructive to obserye how
this man, while examining the condition of the Church
from every side, and painting it in lively colors, is
obliged again and again to confess that it is the Papal
See itself, and that alone, which has infected the whole
Church with the poison of its avarice, its ambition, and
its pride ; that the clergy had become bitterly hated
for their vices by the whole lay world, and that the
Roman Court was mainly responsible for their corrup-.
i Parad. xii. 91-94.
2 Pelayo says (De Planct. Eccl. ii. 28, “Ecclesia," but the
context shows that the Court of Avignon is meant; and he
says afterwards (37), “Considering the Papal Court has filled
the whole Church with simony, and the consequent corrup-
tion of religion, it is natural enough the heretics should call
the Church the whore.".
186
Papal Infallibility.
tion. All this is conspicuous on almost every page of
his work. He observes that the bad example given by
the Popes is universally followed, and the prelates say,
“The Pope does so, and why not we ?" Thus the
whole Church is turned, as it were, into blood, and
there is an universal darkening of head and members.?
But if the reader expects Pelayo to come to the con-
clusion that the old order in the Church should be
restored as far as possible, and a limit be set to this
unlimited despotism, he will find himself greatly mis-
taken. He holds to the principle that the Pope is,
God's representative on earth, and that one can no
more dream of setting limits to his power, than any.
body, or the whole Christian world, would undertake
to limit the omnipotence of God.
His contemporary, Agostino Trionfo of Ancona, an
Augustinian monk, who wrote his Summa on the
Church by command of John XXII., had already dis-
covered a new kingdom for the Pope to rule over. It
had been said before that the power of God's vicar
extended over two realms, the earthly and the heavenly,
meaning by the latter that the Pope could open or close
heaven at his pleasure. From the end of the thirteenth
century a third realm was added, the empire over
which was assigned to the Pope by the theologians of
the Curia - Purgatory. Trionfo, commissioned by
John XXII. to expound the rights of the Pope, showed
that, as the dispenser of the merits of Christ, he could
1 De Planct. Eccl. ii. 48, 49. The work was written in
1329. The author says that even right-minded people no
longer dare to utter the truth because of the persecution it
would entail. Yet he became Bishop of Silva.
Contemporary Judgments. . 187
empty Purgatory at one stroke, by his Indulgences, of
all the souls detained there, on the sole condition that
somebody fulfilled the rules laid down for gaining
those indulgences; he advises the Pope, however, not
to do this. Only those of the unbaptized, whom God
by His extraordinary mercy placed in purgatory, were
not amenable there to the Pope's jurisdiction. Trionfo
observes rightly enough that he believes the Pope's
power is so immeasurably great, that no Pope can ever
know the full extent of it.
Petrarch, who for years had closely observed the
Curia, saw and felt, somewhat later (1350), like St.
Bonaventure, Dante, and Pelayo. In his eyes, too, it
is the Apocalyptic woman drunken with blood, the
seducer of Christians, and plague of the human race.
His descriptions are so frightful, that one would sup-
pose them the exaggerations of hatred, were they not
confirmed by all his contemporaries. The letter of
the Augustinian monk of Florence, Luigi Marsigli,
Petrarch's friend and pupil, is quite as outspoken about
the Papal Court, which no longer ruled through hypoc-
risy - so openly did it flaunt its vices — but only
through the dread inspired by its interdicts and ex-
communications.
1 Summa de Pot. Eccl., Romæ, 1584, p. 193.
2 “Nec credo quod Papa possit scire totum quod potest
facere per potentiam suam.” Such things were written in
1320 at the Pope's command, and in 1584, when this work,
which exhibits the Church as a dwarf with a giant's head,
was republished by the Papal sacristan Fivizani, Gregory
XIII. accepted the dedication.
3 Epist. sine Titulo. Opp. ii. 719.
. 4 Lettera del Ven. Maestro L. M. contro i vizi della Corte
188
.
:
Papal Infallibility.
For four centuries, from all nations and in all tongues,
were thousandfold accusations raised against the ambi- .
tion, tyranny, and greed of the Popes, their profanation
of holy things, and their making all the nations of
Christendom the prey of their rapacity; and, what is
still more surprising, in all this long period no one
attempted to refute these charges, or to represent them
as calumnies or even exaggerations. The Roman
Court, indeed, always found champions of its rights,
knowing, as it did so well, how to reward them for
their services. The later scholasticism moulded on
St. Thomas, the copious literature of canon law, and
the host of decretalists on the side of the Curia, -
Italians first, and then from 1305 to 1375 from the
south of France, - who fought and wrote for the Papacy
as their special and eminently profitable subject, never
yielded an inch of the enormous jurisdiction it had
already acquired, but were always spinning out fresh
corollaries of its previously acknowledged rights.
During the long period from 1230 to 1520 the para-
sites of the Roman Court ruled and cultivated the
domain of canon law as interpreters of the new codes;
or, in the scriptural language of the cardinals who
composed the Opinion of 1538, the Popes heaped up
for themselves teachers after their lusts, having itching
ears, to invent cunning devices for building up a sys-
tem which made it lawful for the Pope to do exactly
what he pleased.
del Papa, Genova, 1859. He calls the cardinals “avari, dis-
soluti, importuni, e sfacciati Limogini,” most of them being
of the province of Limousin, and the Curia at this time en-
tirely in their hands.
1 Consil. Delect. Card. p. 106, in Durandus, Tract. de Modo
Contemporary Fudgments.
189
Nevertheless, not one of all this multitude undertook
the defence of the Popes and their government against
the flood of reproaches and accusations which rolled
up from all sides upon them, nor one of the theologians
and practical Church writers; all confined themselves
to the question of legitimate right. They insist con-
tinually that the first See can be judged by no man,
that none may dare say to the most reprobate and mis-
chievous of Popes, “Why dost thou do so?” One
must endure anything silently and patiently, bending
humbly beneath the rod. That is all they have to say;
only now and then the indignation of the secular and
married jurists, who could not hold benefices, broke
out against the clergy, who reserved all the good things
of this world to themselves. Or they intimated the
ground of their silence and connivance, like Bartolo,
who said, “ As we live in the territory of the (Roman)
Church, we affirm the Donation of Constantine to be
valid."
But the strength of a power like the papal must rest
ultimately on public opinion; only while contempo-
raries are convinced of its legitimacy, and believe that
its use really rests on a higher will, can it maintain
itself. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, no
one in Europe knew or even suspected the true state
Concil. Paris, 1671; "ut eorum studio et calliditate invenire-
tur ratio, quâ liceret id quod liberet.” The Opinion was
drawn up by Cardinal Caraffa, with the assistance of the
most respected men in Italy, but when he became Pope Paul
IV. he had the Consilium put on the Index. There have not
been wanting persons who regarded it as an act of heroism
for a Pope to put himself on the Index.
190
Papal Infallibility.
of the case; no one was able to distinguish between
the original germ of the primacy in the apostolic age
and that colossal monarchy which presented itself be-
fore the deluded eyes of men as a work that came
ready-made from the hand of God. The notion that
manifold forgeries and inventions had co-operated with
favorable circumstances to foster its growth, would
have been generally rejected as blasphemy. They
grumbled at the use the Popes made of their power,
but did not question their right to it, and the obedience
paid was more willing than enforced. At the beginning
of the fifteenth century, and after the commencement
of the Great Schism, a few men, like Gerson, D'Ailly,
and Zabarella, began to open their eyes gradually to
the truth, as they compared the existing state of the
law with the ancient canons. They saw there must
have been a portentous revolution somewhere, but how
or when it happened they were still ignorant.
§ XVI.-- The Inquisition.
A wholly new institution and mighty organization
had been introduced to make the papal systein irre-
sistible, to impede any disclosure of its rotten foun-.
dations, and to bring the infallibility theory into full
possession : it was the Inquisition.
Through the influence of Gratian, who chiefly fol-
lowed Ivo of Chartres, and through the legislation and
unwearied activity of the Popes and their legates since
1183, the view of the ancient Church on the treatment
of the heterodox had been for a long period completely
superseded, and the principle made dominant that
· The Inquisition. .
191
:
every departure from the teaching of the Church, and
every important opposition to any ecclesiastical ordi-
nances, must be punished with death, and the most
cruel of deaths, by fire.
: The earlier laws of the Roman Emperors had dis-
tinguished between heresies, and only imposed severe
penalties on some on account of their moral enormity,
but this distinction was given up after the time of
Lucius III., in 1184. Complete apostasy from the
Christian faith, or a difference on some minor point,
was all the same. Either was heresy, and to be pun-
ished with death. The Waldenses, the Poor Men of
Lyons, who at first did but claim the right of preach-
ing, although laymen, and who with more gentle treat-
ment would never have formed themselves into a
hostile sect, were dealt with just like the Cathari, who
were separated by a broad gulf from Catholics. Inno-
"cent III. declared the mere refusal to swear, and the
opinion that oaths were unlawful, a heresy worthy of
death, and directed that whoever differed in any re-
spect from the common way of life of the multitude, .
should be treated as a heretic.
· Both the initiation and carrying out of this new
... principle must be ascribed to the Popes alone. There
was nothing in the literature of the time to pave the
way for it. It was not till the practice had been sys-
tematized and carried out in many places, that scho-
- lastic theology undertook its justification. In the
i Concil. (ed. Labbé) xi. 152.
2 Thus St. Thomas (Summa. ii. 9, II, art. 3, 4) tries to
prove from the symbolic names given them in Scripture, that
heretics should be put to death. Thus, e.g., heretics are
192
Papal Infallibility.
ancient Church, when a bishop had become implicated
in the capital punishment of a heretic, only as accuser,
he was separated from the communion of his brethren, :
as Idacius and Ithacius were by St. Martin and St.
Ambrose in 385. It was the Popes who compelled
bishops and priests to condemn the heterodox to tor-
ture, confiscation of their goods, imprisonment, and
death, and to enforce the execution of this sentence on
the civil authorities, under pain of excommunication.
From 1200 to 1500 the long series of Papal ordinances
on the Inquisition, ever increasing in severity and
cruelty, and their whole policy towards heresy, runs
on without a break. It is a rigidly consistent system
of legislation ; every Pope confirms and improves upon
the devices of his predecessor. All is directed to the
one end, of completely uprooting every difference of
belief, and very soon the principle came to be openly
asserted that the mere thought, without having be-
trayed itself by outward sign, was penal. It was only
the absolute dictation of the Popes, and the notion
of their infallibility in all questions of Evangelical
morality, that made the Christian world, silently and
without reclamation, admit the code of the Inqui-
sition, which contradicted the simplest principles of
Christian justice and love to our neighbor, and would
called " thieves " and " wolves,” but we hang thieves and kill
wolves. Again, he calls heretics sons of Satan, and thinks
they should share even on earth the fate of their father, i.e.,
be burnt. He observes, on the apostle's saying that a heretic
is to be avoided after two admonitions, that this avoidance is
best accomplished by executing him. For the Relapsed he
thinks all instruction is useless, and they should be at once
burnt.
The Inquisition.
193
have been rejected with universal horror in the ancient
Church. As late as the eleventh, and first half of
the twelfth century, the most influential voices in the
Church were raised to protest against the execution of
heretics. Men, like Bishop Wazo of Liege, Bishop
Hildebert of Le Mans, Rupert of Deutz, and St.
Bernard, pointed out that Christ had expressly forbid-
den the line of conduct afterwards prescribed by the
Popes, and that it could only multiply hypocrites and
confirm and increase the hatred of mankind against a
bloodthirsty and persecuting Church and clergy.
It is only the resolve to foster and develop the Infal-
libility theory at any cost that can explain the fact of
not one Pope in the long line from Lucius III. down-
wards having swerved from this policy. Men of
gentler views and milder character, like Honorius III., .
Gregory X., and Celestine V., would else certainly
have mitigated the severity of the maxims of their
predecessors, and put some restraint on the unlimited
and arbitrary power the Popes had placed in the hands
of fanatical and greedy inquisitors; for there was no
want of complaints against the inquisitors, who often
used their office for extorting money, and made the
tribunal of the faith into a finance establishment.
The Popes were overwhelmed with complaints and
petitions for redress — Clement V. mentions them ; 2
but neither he nor a single Pope before or after him
1 See Martene and Durandus, Ampliss. Coll. iv. 898 sqq.
2 Constit. Clementin. Tit. 3. De Hæret.; "Multorum que-
rela Sedis Apostolicæ probavit auditum,” etc. Yet all pre-
vious and subsequent Bulls of the Popes only urged the
inquisitors to a “justa severitas.”
S
13
194
Papal Infallibility.
S
substantially diminished the.power of the Inquisition,
or in any way softened its Draconian code ; on the
contrary, the Curia was always requiring greater
strictness and energy, and the Popes suffered the in-
quisitors, without a word of opposition, to formulize
their cunning in bringing their victims to the stake,
into the regular system of deceit and treacherous out-
witting of the accused, that may be seen in the work
of Eymerich the Dominican, adopted and dissemi-
nated by the Curia.]
It was Papal legates who induced Louis IX., when
barely fourteen years old, to make the cruel law which
punished all heterodoxy with death. The Emperor
Frederick II., busied in crushing the Guelphs in Italy,
had, during the period when everything depended on
his securing the good-will or the neutrality of the Popes,
who were threatening and pressing on him, issued
those barbarous laws against heretics in 1224, 1238,
and 1239, punishing them with burning and confisca-
tion of goods, depriving them of every legal remedy,
and imposing severe penalties even on their friends
and patrons. Innocent IV. repeatedly confirmed these
1 Direct. Inquis. (composed at Avignon in 1376). Venet.
1607. [Several extracts from Eymerich may be found in the
Appendix to Dr. Harris Rule's History of the Inquisition.]
2 On April 12, 1229, the treaty was concluded at Paris,
with the concurrence of two Papal legates, which robbed
Count Raymond of Toulouse of the greater part of his pos-
sessions; and on April 14 appeared the law, enacted imme-
diately for these territories of Languedoc and Provence,
which Papal policy had torn from their possessor, and given
to the Crown of France. - Vaissette, Hist. Gen. de Langued.
(Paris, 1737), iii. 374 seq. .
The Inquisition.
195
I
: laws also, and herein the later Popes followed him,
who constantly referred to them, and inculcated their
fulfilment, pointing out that Frederick II., that great
enemy of the Church, was under her obedience when
he issued them. A Papal vice-legate, Peter of Colle-
medio, was the first to promulgate Louis's law in
Languedoc; and it was again the Papal legate, the
Cardinal of St. Angelo, who, on entering Toulouse
that year, at the head of an army, introduced the
Inquisition there.? In 1231, and the following years,
inquisitors, delegated by the Pope, Conrad of Marburg
and the Dominican Dorso, were raging in Gerinany,
Robert, surnamed le Bougre, in France. And now
Gregory IX., in 1233, handed over the office in perma-
nence to the Dominicans, but always to be exercised in
the name, and by authority of, the Pope.?
The binding force of the laws against heretics lay not
in the authority of secular princes, but in the sovereign
dominion of life and death over all Christians, claimed
by the Popes as God's representatives on earth. Every
prince or civil magistrate, according to the constant
doctrine of the Court of Rome, was to be compelled
simply to carry out the sentence of the inquisitors, by
the following process: first, the magistrates were them-
selves excommunicated on their refusal, and then all
who 'held intercourse with them. If this was not
i Vaissette, iii. 382.
. ? No bishop, observes the Jesuit Salelles, has named even
one inquisitor, only the Pope does that. — De Mat. Tribunal.
S. Inquis. (Romæ, 1651), i. 81. .
3 As Innocent III. expressly states it, "non puri hominis
sed veri Dei vicemgerens.”
196
Papal Infallibility.
enough, the city was laid under interdict. If resist-
ance was still prolonged, the officials were deprived
of their posts, and, when all these means were ex-
hausted, the city was deprived of intercourse with
other cities, and its bishop's see removed. Thus
Eymerich in the fourteenth, and Cardinal Albizzi in
the seventeenth century, describe the process as drawn
out by the Popes for the judges in questions of faith.
Only the latter measure, Eymerich thinks, ought to be
left to the Pope himself.?
The practice of the Inquisition, as time went on,
became further and further removed from all principles
of justice and equity. Innocent IV. especially occu-
pied himself (1243–1254) in increasing its power and
severity; he directed the application of the torture,
which Alexander IV., Clement IV., and Calixtus III.
approved. The tribunal, as carried on in all important
points down to the fourteenth century, and described
in Eymerich's classical work, presents a phenomenon
singular in human history. Here mere suspicion suf-
ficed for the application of torture; it was by an act
of grace that you were imprisoned for life between
four narrow walls, and fed on bread and water, and it
was a conscientious obligation for a son to give up his
own father to torture, perpetual imprisonment, or the
stake. Here the accused was not allowed to know the
i Director. p. 432; Risposto all Hist. del Inquis. Romæ, p.
104. In this one case the Papal legislation was really soft-
ened, for Boniface VIII. had ordered that magistrates who
refused to execute the condemned should, if they remained a
year under excommunication, then be themselves treated as
heretics, and burnt.
The Inquisition.
197
11
names of his accusers, and all means of legal protec-
tion were withheld from him; there was no right of
appeal, and no aid of legal adviser allowed him. Any
lawyer who undertook his cause would have incurred
excommunication. Two witnesses were enough to
secure conviction, and even the depositions of those
refused a hearing in all other trials, either from per-
sonal enmity to the accused, or on account of public
infamy, such as perjurers, panders, and malefactors,
were admitted. The inquisitor was forbidden to show
any pity; torture in its severest form was the usual
mcans of extorting confessions. No recantation or
assurance of orthodoxy could save the accused; he
was allowed confession, absolution, and communion,
and his profession of repentance and change of mind
was accepted in foro sacramenti, but he was told at
the same time that it would not be accepted judicially,
and he must die if he were a rclapsed heretic. Lastly,
to fill up the measure, his innocent family was de-
prived of its property by legal confiscation, half of it
passing into the Papal treasury, the other half into the
hands of the inquisitors.1 • Life only, said Innocent III.,
was to be left to the sons of misbelievers, and that as
an act of mercy. They were therefore made incapable
of civil offices and dignities.
i Calderini (De Hæret., Venet. 1571, p. 98), writing in
1330, appeals to the directions of Benedict XI. that all the
confiscated property should go into the Papal treasury. The
manual of the Inquisition, composed later, at the beginning of
the sixteenth century (ed. Venet. 1588, p. 270), says, “Inqui-
sitores ... dicunt quod Romana Ecclesia vult, quod dimidia
dictorum bonorum assignetur suæ cameræ.” And the famous
jurist, Felino Sandei, bishop of Lucca in 1499, says, in his
198
Papal Infallibility.
The civil authorities had to build and keep up the
prisons, to provide wood for the burnings, and to carry
out the sentences of the Holy Office. If they refused
these menial services, or wanted to take cognizance
first of the grounds of the sentence, they incurred ex-
communication, and if they did not repent and submit
within a year, they fell themselves under the jurisdic-
lion of the Inquisition on suspicion of heresy. But the
inquisitors derived their whole power from the Pope ; 1
they were his delegates, and no one was ever con-
demned to torture or the stake but in his name and
by his general or special order. This began in. 1183
with Lucius III. directing a number of heretics to be
burnt in Flanders by his legate, the Archbishop of
Rheims, and was continued for centuries afterwards
with terrible consistency. And thus it came to pass
that perhaps more executions took place in the name
and by command of the Popes of that period than in
the name of any civil ruler.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the num-
ber of decisions on points of faith received throughout
the Church was small as compared with the period
after the Council of Trent, and the inquisitors had
therefore full scope for the exercise of their own judg-
ment as to what was heretical, and used the frightful
Commentar. in Decret. (De Ork. Ord. in cap. irref.), "Per
Extravagantes pontificios bona hæreticorum dividuntur inter
Romanam Ecclesiam, episcopum et inquisitorein.”
1 The constitution of Benedict XI., quoted by Calderini,
assures the inquisitors they are "absoluti a pænâ et a culpâ ”
by Papal favor, through the privilege of Clement IV., and
enjoy all the same rights as the Crusaders.
2 Pagi, Critic. in Baron. a. 1183.
Lili
The Inquisition.
199
power left to them over the life and death of men
simply according to their pleasure, for from their sen-
tence there was no appeal. And as they almost always
belonged to one or other of the two Mendicant Orders,
whose great object was the furthering of the Papal
system, they took the teaching of the Pope, so far as
they knew it, as the safest and simplest criterion of the
true faith. And as the great majority of the inquisitors
were Dominicans, it is self-evident that, as Thomists,
they would adopt this convenient and easy test. Who-
ever contradicted a Papal decision, or knowingly dis-
obeyed a Papal command, thereby incurred the guilt
of heresy, and was handed over to the secular power
to be put to death. The Popes themselves had long
since laid down this principle. “Whoever does not
agree with the Apostolic See,” says Paschal II., mak-
ing a (spurious) citation from St. Ambrose, “is without
any doubt a heretic."i And when the Archbishop of
Mayence complained of the Concordat being violated
by the Pope, Calixtus III. answered him, in 1457, that
he must know this was an attack on the authority of
the Pope, and that he thereby committed a flagrant
crime of heresy, and incurred the penalties prescribed
for it by divine and human laws.?
That contradicting the Pope was treated and pun-
ished as heresy was shown in the most pointed way,
when the Minorites, who, as genuine disciples of St.
Francis, wished to observe the rule of poverty in all
its strictness, were condemned. John of Belna, the
inquisitor at Carcassonne, appealed to the most famous
1 Martene, Thesaur. Anecdot. i. 338.
2 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1457, p. 49.
200
200
Papal Infallibility.
canonist of that time, Henry of Segusio, who had
declared that he is a heretic who does not receive Papal
decrees, and that he lapses into heathenism who refuses
to obey the Papal See. As we said before, a number
of the “ Spirituals” paid with their lives for disputing
the right of John XXII. to upset their rule and the
Bull of his predecessor, Nicolas III.2 No Council had
condemned their opinion; it was only Papal authority,
and in this case the authority of the reigning Pope, on
the strength of which they were sentenced to the stake,
and it went against all natural feeling to ascribe pos-
sibility of error to an authority which it was a capital
offence to reject. Jurists and theologians who 'were
building up the rights of the Inquisition went further
still. Ambrose of Vignate (who wrote about 1460)
declares him to be a heretic who thinks of the sacra-
ments otherwise than the Roman Church, so that if a
theologian had then raised his voice against the recent
decree of Eugenius IV. to the Armenians, and the
errors contained in it, he would have incurred sentence
of death.
As in the thirteenth century, so it was still in the
sixteenth. Cornelius Agrippa describes the conduct
of the inquisitors in his time, about 1530, as follows:
“ The inquisitors act entirely by the rule of the canon
law and the Papal decretals, as if it was impossible for
a Pope to err. They neither go by Scripture nor the
tradition of the Fathers. The Fathers, they say, can
err and mislead, but the Roman Church, whose head
2
1 "Peccatum Paganitatis incurrit.” — Baluze and Mansi,
Miscell. ii. 275.
2 Tract. de Hær. (Roma, 1581), f. II.
The Inquisition.
201
the Pope is, cannot err. They accept as a rule of faith
the teaching of the Curia, and the only question they
ask the accused is, whether he believes in the Roman
Church. If he says Yes, they say, 'The Church con-
demns this proposition — recant it. If he refuses, he
is handed over to the secular power to be burnt."] ,
In the long strife of Guelphs and Ghibellines, inquisi-
tors and trials for heresy were among the means con-
stantly employed by the Popes to crush the opponents
of their policy and of the Angiovine preponderance.
The Bolognese jurist, Calderini, maintains that who-
by seems to contemn the power of the keys. That
might be applied to every Ghibelline. Thus Innocent
IV., in 1248, declared his great Guelphic enemy,
Ezzelino, a heretic. In vain did he give assurance,
through an ambassador, of the purity of his faith, and
offer to swcar to it; Innocent stuck to his point, that
Ezzelino was one of the Paterines (a new Gnostic
sect), without being able to bring forward even any
plausible ground for the charge.: John XXII. made
carrying out his own territorial claims, partly in sup-
port of the rule of King Robert in Italy. On this
ground the Margraves Rinaldo and Obizzo of Este,
zealous Catholics, and never Ghibellines, but Guelphs,
found themselves suddenly declared heretics by the
1 De Vanit. Scient. c. 96. -- Hagæcomit. 1662, f. 444.
2 Tractat. Novus Aureus et Solemn. de Hæret. (Venet.
1571), f. 5. Calderini, adopted son of the famous Giovanni
d'Andrea, wrote about 1330.
3 Verçi, Storia degli Ecelini, ii. 258.
202
Papal Infallibility.
Pope in 1320, and subjected to a process of the Inquisi-
tion. Two years afterwards the same thing happened
to the whole of the stanchly Ghibelline house of the
Visconti at Milan; a Papal Bull announced to them
that they were heretics, and condemned all their ad-
herents and subjects to slavery. Similar cases oc-
curred repeatedly.
When the Popes themselves made such a use of
their judicial power in matters of faith, when Nicolas
III. is reproached by his contemporaries with enrich-
ing his family through the plunder extorted by means
of the Inquisition, one cannot be much surprised to
find the inquisitors so habitually using their office for
purposes of extortion, as Alvaro Pelayo complains.
Clement V., however, declared that an inquisitor,
“ simply following his conscience,” has full power to
imprison, and even put into irons, any one he pleases.8
§ XVII. - Trials for Witchcraft.
When we affirm that the whole treatment of witch-
craft, as it existed from the thirteenth to the sixteenth
century, was partly the direct, partly the indirect,
result of the belief in the irrefragable authority of the
Pope, this will perhaps sound like a paradox, and yet
it is not difficult to show that such is certainly the case.
For many centuries the relics of heatlien misbelief,
and the popular notions about diabolical agency, noc-
turnal meetings with demons, enchantments, and witch-
1 Muratori, Annali, xii. 138 (Milano, 1819).
2 Muratori, op. cit. 150.
3 Clement de Hæret. c. “Multorum."
Trials for Witchcraft.
203
craft, were viewed and treated as a folly inconsistent with
Christian belief. Many Councils directed that penance
should be imposed on women addicted to this delusion.
A canon, adopted into the collections of Regino, Burk-
ard, Ivo, and Gratian, and always appealed to, ordered
the people to be instructed on the nonentity of witch-
craft, and its incompatibility with the Christian faith.1
It was long looked upon as a wicked and unchristian
error, as something heretical, to attribute superhuman
powers and effects to the aid of demons. In the
eleventh century it was still considered a heinous sin
merely to believe in enchantments and the tricks of
professors of witchcraft, as may be seen from Burkard
and the penitentiaries. No one could then anticipate
a time when the Popes would acknowledge this belief
in their Bulls, and direct their subordinates to condemn
thousands of men to death on the strength of it.
There is no trace of any belief in diabolical sorcery
to be found throughout the liturgical literature of the
ancient Roman Church. Even in the twelfth century
John of Salisbury reckons the various kinds of belief
in magic among fables and illusions. But at that time
the writings of the Cistercians and Dominicans, filled
with visions, legends, and miracles, began to spread
in the Church, — writings such as the compilations
1 This canon got into Gratian's Decretum as a canon of
Ancyra, through a mistake of Burkard's, who took it from
Regino, but misinterpreted the reference, as though this
passage also came from the Ancyran canon. See Berardi,
Gratian. Can. i. 40; Regino (ed. Wassersahleben), p. 354.
Regino has compiled his chapter 371 from passages in the
pseudo-Augustinian writing, De Spiritu et Anima, with some
additions.
204
.
· Papal Infallibility.
of Cæsarius of Heisterbach, Thomas of Cantimpré,
Stephen of Bourbon, and the like. At the same time,
the principle became more and more definitely laid
down that there were miracles among the numerous
heretical sects, which could only be Satanic. And to
this was added a notion wholly unknown in earlier
times. As the legend of Theophilus spread in the
West, the notion got into vogue that men could make
a compact with Satan, securing them many enjoyments
and the possession of preternatural powers.1 Cæsarius
and Vincent of Beauvais brought the first reports of
such compacts being actually made, and soon the
official Papal historians themselves, Martin the Pole
and others, related that a Pope, Silvester II., had really
attained the highest dignity in the Church through a
compact with Satan.
Hardly was the Inquisition established by the Popes,
and the first inquisitors, acting under Papal commis-
sion, in full work in Germany and France, than heresy
came to be mixed up with sorcery or Satan-worship.
The Dominican theologians seized on an incidental
expression of St. Augustine, used in mere blind credu-
lity, in order to spin out a theory of impure commerce
between human beings and demons, and children born
of the incubus.Aquinas became the master and
1 The story of the sorcerer Theophilus, “qui diabolo ho-
magium fecit et per diabolum ad quod volebat promotus
erat," appeared so important, that Martin the Pole and Leo
of Orvieto einbodied it in their abridgments of Papal and
Imperial history. And from the end of the thirteenth cen-
tury there are constant charges of persons, as, e.g., the Bishop
of Coventry in 1301, doing homage to the devil.
2 De Civ. Dei, xv. 23. He afterwards confessed himself, in
Trials for Witchcraft.
205
oracle of this new doctrine ;1 and soon it was not safe
even to dispute the dark delusion. :
In a Bull of 1231 Gregory IX. ordered the secular
sword to be unsheathed in Germany against the newly
discovered heretical abomination of which his inquis-
itors had informed him. He related with full belief
nocturnal meetings, where the devil appeared in the
form of a toad, a pale spectre, and a black tom-cat,
and wicked abominations were practised. The Pope
owed this information principally to Conrad of Mar-
burg, who had every one burnt who did not admit that
he had touched the toad, and kissed the lean white
man and the tom-cat. In the south of France, the
inquisitors, somewhat later, made similar discoveries ;
in 1275 a woman of sixty was burnt there for sexual
intercourse with Satan.
It was chiefly the introduction of torture by Inno-
cent IV. into trials for heresy, which helped to estab-
reference to a similar statement (Retract. ii. 30), “se rem
dixisse occultissimam audaciori asseveratione quam debu-
erit."
1 Summa, Pars. i. Q. 51, art. 3, 6.
2 Cf. Mansi, Concil. xxiii. 323; Ripoll. Bullar. Ord. Præd.
i. 52. The Bull was wrongly referred to the Stedinger, as
Schumacher shows, Die Stedinger, pp. 225 sqq.
3 So says Archbishop Siegfried of Mayence, in his letter to
the Pope (Albericus, ann. 1233, p. 544, ed. Leibnit.). The
Jesuit Spee, in his well-known Cautio Crimin. dub. 23, n. 5,
has rightly observed that it was the Papal inquisitors who
naturalized the notion in Germany: “Vereri incipio, imo
sæpe ante sum veritus, ne prædicti inquisitores omnem hanc
sagarum multitudinem primum in Germaniam importârint
torturis suis tam indiscretis, imo, inquam verissime, discretis
et diyisis."
206
Papal 112 fallibility.
lish this idea by procuring all the requisite confessions.
When Cleinent V. named inquisitors for the trial of
the Knights Templars, they soon extorted confessions
at Nîmes by torture, that the devil had appeared as a
black tom-cat in their nightly meetings, and demons
in the form of women had committed fornication with.
them after the lights were extinguished. About 1330,
John XXII. ordered in a Bull, couched in general
terms, that all who meddled with sorcery (the enumer-
ation of such acts is very comprehensive) should be
punished, like heretics, with the exception of confisca-
tion of their goods.2
From the middle of the fifteenth century, and par-
ticularly after Innocent VIII. had issued his Bull on
witchcraft, the trials, which had before been compar-
atively few, began to be much more numerous. At
first the inquisitors, who had had their hands quite
free since the Bull of Pope John, took the opinion of
jurists. The most renowned jurist of his age, Bartolo,
about 1350, decided for death by fire. This decision,
which inaugurated the regular burning of witches, is
very remarkable. Here we plainly see the mischief
done by the crude, materialistic, hierarchical interpre-
tation of the Bible by the Popes and their juristic and
theological parasites. It lay in applying what Christ
and the Apostles had spoken, in Oriental imagery,
describing the spiritual by sensible figures, to worldly
dominion and compulsory power over the lives and .
1 Ménard, Hist. de Nîmes, Preuves (Paris, 1750), i. 211.
2 Cf. Binsfield, Tract. de Confess. Malef. (Trevir. 1596),
p. 760.
3 Ziletti, Consil. Select. 1577, i. 8.
Trials for Witchcraft.
207
property of men. St. Paul's statement that “the
spiritual man judges all things," was understood, and
explained in the Bull Unam Sanctam, to mean that
the Pope is the supreme judge of nations and kings.
When Jeremiah describes his prophetic office of de-
nounciag the judgments of God, in Oriental language,
as a commission to destroy and lay waste, the Pope
interprets this of the power conferred on him by God
to destroy and uproot what and whom he will. When
it is said in the Psalms, of the future Messianic King,
that he shall rule the heathen with a rod of iron, this
was taken to prove the right and duty of the Popes
to introduce the Inquisition with its capital penalties.
Thus the Papal jurists corrupted theology, and the
Papal theologians jurisprudence. And in the same
spirit altogether the jurists declared, like Bartolo in
his decision, that a witch must be burnt, because Christ
says that he that abideth not in communion with Him
is cast out as a rotten branch to be burnt. . .
In the work of Eymerich sorcery and witchcraft is
treated as an undoubted reality, coming under the juris-
diction of the Inquisition. Thie limits between the
lawful use of pretended magical powers, and the magic
forbidden under penalty of death, long remained mu-
table and uncertain. In a Bull of 1471, Sixtus IV.
reserved to himself, as an exclusive prerogative of the
Pope, the fabrication and engraving of the waxen lambs
used as a preservative against enchantments. Accord-
ing to him, their touch bestowed, besides remission of
sin, security against fire, shipwreck, lightning, and
hail-stones. And soon after the Pope had thus him-
self encouraged the crude superstition of the people,
208
Papal Infallibility.,
Innocent VIII. in 1484 issued his Bull on witchcraft,
in consequence of the laity and clergy in some German
dioceses having opposed and endeavored to thwart the
inquisitors appointed for the prosecution of sorcerers.
In this Bull the Pope repeatedly expresses his belief
in the possibility of sexual intercourse with demons as
6 incubi” and “succubi," of women and animals when
pregnant, fruits, vineyards, storehouses, and fields being
injured through sorcery, of men and beasts being tor-
mented, and men and women rendered impotent. He
then complains of the hindrances thrown in the way
of the inquisitors he had sent to put down such wick-
edness, by these prying clerics and laymen, who want
to know more than is necessary,' and arms them with
fresh powers. The inquisitors were Sprenger, the
author of the notorious Witches' Hammer, and Insti-
toris. In like manner, Alexander VI., Leo X., Julius
II., Adrian VI., and other Popes, for more than a
century after Innocent VIII., gave an ecclesiastical
sanction to this delusion by their directions for the
prosecution of magic.
Theology held itself bound to follow the precedent
of its great master, St. Thomas, by indorsing the
greatest absurdities of this belief in witchcraft. The
rain difficulty was only how to evade the force of
the canon Gratian had cited from Regino, which every
one took for an ordinance of the Council of Ancyra,
whereby the Church had, as early as 314, declared the
new doctrine about the works of Satan and his wor-
shippers to be an error and denial of Christian truth,
and had thus by anticipation described Popes and in-
1 “Quærentes plura sapere quam oporteat.
Trials for Witchcraft.
209
quisitors as heretics. Most persons consoled them-
selves with the consideration that anyhow the Pope's
authority stood higher, or that a different kind of
witches was intended. “So many have been exe-
cuted already,” says the Dominican inquisitor, Bernard
Rategno, about 1510, “and the Popes have allowed
it.”. Some Minorites, however, maintained belief in
the reality of witchcraft to be a folly and a heresy, as,
for instance, did Samuel Cassini and Alfonso Spina,
and the latter thought the inquisitors had witches burnt
simply on account of that belief. But the Popes and
the Dominicans maintained the reality of the diaboli-
cal agency, and thus the two views stood out in sharp
contrast in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A
man might at the same time be condemned as a here-
tic in Spain for affirming, and in Italy for denying, the
reality of the witches' nightly rides. But by degrees
the three-fold authority of the Popes, of Aquinas, and
of the powerful Dominican Order, prevailed, and all
conti adiction was put to silence. The teaching of
the Dominicans, Nider, Jacquier, Dodo, and the two
leading Papal theologians, Bartholomew Spina and
Silvester Mazzolini (Prierias), on sorcery and witch-
craft, had all the weight of Papal approbation. Spina
expressly stated that the truth and reality of the
Witches' Sabbath, with its horrors and wonders, rested
on the authority of the infallible Pope, in whose name
and by whose commission the inquisitors tried the
accused. And as some jurists appealed to the pre-
tended canon of the Council of Ancyra, in Gratian's
1 Bern. Comensis, Lucern. Inquis. (Romæ, 1584), p. 144.
; ? Fortalit. Fidei (Paris, 1511), f. 365.
14
2IO
Papal Infallibility.
Decretum, on behalf of the victims sacrificed in shoals
to this fanatical folly in Italy, Spina did not hesitate to
declare that the authority of the Council, which had
pronounced all this to be a pure delusion, must suc-
cumb to the authority of the Pope. So, too, the
Jesuit Delrio appealed, in vindication of this whole
system of superstition, to the sentences of the Popes
on sorcerers and witches, which proved that they did
not regard their wild vagaries as illusions, but as sober
realities. "This,” he continues, “is the opinion of
all ecclesiastical tribunals in Italy, Spain, Germany,
and France, and all inquisitors have followed it in
practice. This therefore is the opinion and sentence
of the Church, and to dissent from it is a sign of a
heart not sincerely Catholic, and savors of heresy." 2
Every literary attempt of physicians, jurists, natural-
ists, and theologians, to throw any light on the matter,
and explain the natural causes of the supposed diaboli-
cal phenomena, was put down by the Roman censure,
so far as its power reached. For a century, all works
written in this sense were placed on the Index, as hap-
pened in the case of the works of Weier, Godelmann,
Wolfhart or Lycosthenes, Agrippa, Servin, Della
Porta, and others. On the other hand, all attempts
were vain to get the Jesuit Delrio's most pernicious
handbook of sorcery, which served as a guide for the
judges, censured. Whoever dared to express doubts
on the subject, or to expose the delusion, had to recant
and admit that he had spoken under the inspiration of
the Evil Spirit, and was either imprisoned for life or
1 Malleus Malefic. Apol. Prima (Francof. 1588), ii. 652-653.
2 Disquis. Mag. i. 16.
Trials for Witchcraft.
2II
burnt. Such a recantation the theologian De Lure or
Edeline was compelled to make about 1460; but it did
not save him. When the priest Cornelius Loos Calli-
dius affirmed, a century later, that the unhappy women
only confessed under torture what they had never done,
and that thus gold and silver was obtained by a new
sort of alchemy out of men's blood, the Papal Nuncio
imprisoned him. He had to recant, but relapsed, and
after a long imprisonment only escaped by his death
the fate of his contemporary Flade, the Trèves coun-
sellor, who was burnt for assailing the trials of witches
on the strength of the so-called canon of Ancyra. As
late as 1623, Gregory XV. ordered that any one who
made a pact with Satan, producing impotence in ani-
mals, or injuring the fruits of the earth, should be im-
prisoned for life by the Inquisition. At last, when these
mischievous practices of the Inquisition had been car-
ried on for 170 years, and countless victims had been
sacrificed to the fancies of the Popes and monks, an
instruction of the Roman Inquisition appeared in 1657,
containing the shameful admission that for a long tinie
not a single process had been rightly conducted by the
inquisitors, that they had wickedly erred through their
reckless application of torture and other irregularities,
and that most dangerous mistakes were still made
daily by them, as by the other spiritual tribunals,
and thus unrighteous sentences of death were passed,
whereupon certain mitigations and precautions were
enjoined. It is even now ordered in the Roman
1 Disquis. Mag. iii. 58, 227 seq.
2 It may be found in Pignatelli, Consultat. Noviss. i. 123;
and without any alterations in Carena, De Ofic. Inquis., in
the Appendix.
212
Papal Infallibility.
ritual, which, according to Papal injunction, is to be
inviolably observed and exclusively used by every
priest, that any one who has swallowed charmed arti-
cles (malefica signa vel instrumenta) must drive out
Satan, who has thereby gained possession of him, by
an emetic. 1
§ XVIII. -- Dominican Forgeries and their Conse-
quences.
How far the principle that Roman decisions are iin-
mutable and infallible, had been already introduced,
by means of the forgeries and fictions before referred
to, at the beginning of the twelfth century, inay be per-
ceived froin the French Bishop Ivo, who has adopted
into his Decretum a copious store of such spurious
pieces. His logic — and it has been repeated countless
times since — comes simply to this: the Popes have
asserted that this or that prerogative belongs to them,
we must therefore believe that they really possess it.
He observes, naïvely enough, “We are taught by the
Roman Church that no one may call in question its
decisions, therefore we must flee to it for refuge from
itself, z.e., simply submit;” 2 and accordingly it is clear
to him that to contradict a Papal ordinance is, heresy.
This implies that a bishop is orthodox who submits to
a Papal injunction, though convinced that it is pre-
judicial to his Church; a heretic, if he opposes the
incipient abuse or usurpation. This view involved
momentous results : it has disarmed the Church ; it
has caused the neglect of that first principle of moral
and political prudence, that an abuse should be resisted
1 Rit. Rom. (ed. Antwerp, 1669), p. 167. 2 Epist. 159.
Dominican Forgeries: Results.
• 213
at the beginning, and thus made the corruption in the
Church incurable, and the attempted reformation too
late when it was at last undertaken.
About the middle of the thirteenth century a new
and comprehensive fabrication was effected, which was
not less eventful in its results than the pseudo-Isido-
rian, though in a different way. As the one served to
transform the constitution and canon law of the Church,
the other penetrated her dogmatic theology and ruled
the schools.
In the twelfth and first half of the thirteenth century,
theologians had not occupied themselves with the doc-
trine of Church authority, and, in some cases, had
quite remarkably avoided pronouncing on the position
of the Pope in the Church. Hugo and Richard of
St. Victor, the compilers of “Sentences," Robert Pul-
leyn, Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, and after them
Rupert of Deutz, William of Paris, and Vincent of
Beauvais, refrained from entering at all on the subject.
The true fathers of scholasticismy-- Alexander of Hales,
Alanus of Ryssel, and even Albertus Magnus, the most
fertile of all theologians of that period --- have equally
abstained from investigating it. Only in one passage,
when explaining the well-known prayer of Christ for
Peter in St. Luke's Gospel, Albert observes that it im-
plies that a successor of Peter cannot wholly and finally
(finaliter) lose the faith.
The controversy with the Greeks, which the presence
of Dominicans in the East had again brought to the
surface, gave occasion for new inventions. To the
Greeks, the Isidorio-Gregorian Papacy, which the Dom-
inicans put before them as the sole genuine and saving
214
Papal Infallibility.
form of Church government, was utterly unknown and
incomprehensible. No attention had been paid at
Constantinople to such claims when urged by Nicolas
I., and in a more developed form by Leo IX. and Gre-
gory IX. in their letters to emperors and patriarchs,
nor does any reply seem to have been sent. In Eastern
estimation, “the Patriarch of old Rome” was indeed
the first of the patriarchs, to whom belonged the pri-
macy in the Church, provided he did not render him-
self unworthy of it through heterodoxy; but the absolute
monarchy which the emissaries of Rome preached was
something wholly different. The Orientals held the
Pope's action to be limited by the consent of the other
patriarchs, in all important concerns affecting the
whole Church; they could not conceive any arbitrary
and autocratic power existing in the Church. Some
special means therefore had to be found for getting
at them.
A Latin theologian, probably a Dominican, who had
resided among the Greeks, composed a catena of spu-
rious passages of Greek Councils and Fathers, St.
Chrysostom, the two Cyrils, and a pretended Maximus,
containing a dogmatic basis for these novel Papal
claims. In 1261 it was laid before Urban IV., who at
once availed himself of the fabrication in his letter to
the Emperor, Michael Palæologus, discreetly concealing
the names of the witnesses. He wanted to prove from
these newly invented texts, professedly eight hundred
years old, that “the Apostolic throne" is the sole au-
thority in doctrinal matters. There was this inisfor-
tune attending the intercourse of the Popes after
i Raynald. Annal. ann. 1263, 61.
Page Missing
in Original
Page Missing
in Original
Volume
Donzinican Forgeries: Results.
217
Church. The spurious Cyril of Alexandria is his
favorite author on this subject, and he constantly quotes
him.
At Rome it was perceived at once how great was
the gain of what had hitherto been taught only by
jurists and codes of canon law becoming an integral
part of dogmatic theology. John XXII., in his delight,
uttered his famous saying, that Thomas had worked
as many miracles as he had written articles, and could
be canonized without any other miracles, and in his
Bull he affirmed that Thomas had not written without
a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Innocent VI.
said that whoever assailed his teaching incurred sus-
picion of heresy.
In fact, the new Greek tradition was more necessary
and more prized in the West than the East at the time
of its appearance. The Church had just been flooded
by the stream of new Orders, who were supported
entirely on begging, the confessional, and the use of
Papal privileges, i.e., preaching indulgences, and
absolving from sins reserved to the Pope. In 1215, at
his great Roman synod, Innocent III. had for the first
time ordered that every Christian should confess once
a year to his own parish priest, without whose permis-
sion nobody could give absolution. Soon afterwards
the Papal See decided to place the new monks every-
| The portion of his work against the Greeks on the Pri-
macy is derived entirely from these fictions. In the Paris
Dominican edition of 1660, t. XX., the parallel passages from
his other works are marked in the margin. '
2 Cf. Touron Vie de S. Thomas, p. 590 seq.
3 [The Fourth Lateran Council. — Tr.]
218
Papal Infallibility.
where at the side of the bishops and parish priests, as
instruments wholly devoted to it, and bearing its direct
commission; and thus the law of 1215 about one's
sown parish priest” was made inoperative through -
privileges accorded to these new wandering confessors,
who gained their livelihood chiefly by the confessional.
But this required the theory of a universal bishop, act-
ing by his own right throughout the whole Church,
and holding concurrent jurisdiction with the diocesan
bishops. The title Gregory the Great had rejected
with horror was now interpreted in its fullest sense,
and St. Thomas asserted, on the strength of his new
apocryphal documents, that the Council of Chalcedon
had given it to the Pope. The dispute about the privi-
leges accorded to the new Orders raged violently on
many points.
Innocent IV. tried, in 1254, to protect the parish
priests against this invasion of itinerant monks, who
were always, ready to absolve. It had been repre-
sented to him that the penitential discipline, sufficiently
weakened already by the religious wars and the indul-
gences, would be utterly destroyed in this way. The
Pope says it has been proved that the action of the
parish priests is thoroughly crippled, and all cure of
souls unsettled, that the people learn to despise their
priests, and shameful consequences ensue, for men are
absolved by a monk who speedily disappears, and per-
haps is never seen in the place again, and go on con-
tentedly in their sins. But his ordinance that the
monks should not enter the confessional without per-
I See the Bull “ Etsi animarum,” in Raynald. Annal. ann.
1254, p. 70.
Dominican Forgeries: Results.
219
mission from the parish priest was 'revoked by his
successor, Alexander IV. St. Thomas wrote against
the Paris theologians who defended the parish priests
and the previously existing order and discipline of the
Church; he deduced from his spurious testimonies of
St. Cyril, that, as regards obedience, there is no differ-
ence between Christ and the Pope, and made the.
Fathers say that in fact the rulers of the world (pri-
mates inundi) obey the Pope as though he were
Christ. He can therefore annul the ancient order of
the Church established by Councils, for all Councils
derive their authority solely from him. And, on the
faith of the fabrications supplied to him, St. Thomas
appeals directly to the Council of Chalcedon for the
truth of his Papal absolutism.
The victory of the two Mendicant Orders was com-
plete, and with it prevailed the view of the Pope being
the real bishop in every diocese, the ordinary of the
ordinary, as was said. But every parish priest found
himself powerless in his own village in presence of a
begging monk, dependent on the produce of his privi-
leges, and could not guard against the injury and
destruction of his pastoral work, resulting from Papal
absolutism. The bishops, whose diocesan administra-
tion was already complicated by the number of exemp-
tions, were obliged to give free course to troops of new
religions, with still larger exemptions, and owning no
obedience but to their distant superiors. The result
was such that even a cardinal, Simon of Beaulieu, said
in France, in 1283, that all ecclesiastical discipline was
1 Raynald. ib.; Bulæi Hist. Univ. Paris, ii. pp. 315-350.
2 Opusc. xxxiv. (ed. Paris), xx. 549, 580.
220
Papal Infallibility disputed:
ruined by the privileges of the Begging Orders, and
that one might well call the Church a monster. The
parish priests were then the most powerless and un-
protected of all classes of the clergy; they had no
organ and no representation for making their com-
plaints heard. The bishops complained frequently,
and the University of Paris made a long resistance; but
all had to bow to the united power of the Popes and
the Mendicants. The only effect was to convince the
monks more clearly that the Papal system, with its
theory of Infallibility, was as indispensable and valuable
to them as to the Curia itself.
§ XIX. Infallibility Disputed.
All the alleged grounds for Papal Infallibility through
the older Roman fabrications, the pseudo-Isidore, the
Gregorians, and Gratian, and, finally, the Dominican
forgeries and the theological authority of St. Thomas,
were now admitted almost without contradiction. Yet
it was not generally acknowledged that a Pope was
actually infallible in his pronouncements on matters of
faith. In countries where the Inquisition was not per-
manently established, the contrary might be taught,
and for centuries opposite views on this point prevailed.
That the Roman Church was divinely guaranteed by a
special Providence against entire apostasy from the
faith was affirmed by Guibert of Tournay about 1250,
and Nicolas of Lyra, and was pretty generally believed.
1 Hist. Lit. de France, xxi. 24.
2 De Offic. Episc. c. 35, in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, t. xxy.
3 Ad Lucam, xxii. 31.
Re-ordination.
221
But then it was always assumed that a Pope could fall
into heresy, and give a wrong decision in weighty
questions of faith, and that he might in that case be
sentenced and deposed by the Church. Besides the
history of Liberius, it was mainly the oft-quoted canon
of Gratian, ascribed to St. Boniface, that supplied the
rule of judgment here. Even the boldest champions
of Papal absolutism, men like Agostino Trionfo and
Alvaro Pelayo, assumed that the Popes could err, and
that their decisions were no certain criterion. But they
also held that an heretical Pope ipso facto ceased to be
Pope, without or before any judicial sentence, so that
Councils, which are the Church's judicature, only
attested the vacancy of the Papal throne as an accom-
plished fact. In that case, according to Trionfo, the
Papal authority resides in the Church, as at a Pope's
death.2 So too, Cardinal Jacob Fournier, afterwards
Pope, thought that Papal decisions were by no means
final, but might be overruled by another Pope, and that
John XXII. had done well in annulling the offensive
and doctrinally erroneous decision of Nicolas III. on
the poverty of Christ, and the distinction of use and
possession. And Innocent III. had said before, —
“For other sins I acknowledge no judge but God, but
I can be judged by the Church for a sin concerning
matters of faith.” 4 And Innocent IV. allowed that a
Papal command containing anything heretical,or threat-
ening destruction to the whole Church system, was not
i Si Papa, Dist. vi. 50. 2 Summa, v. 6.
3 See Eyneric. Director. Inquis. p. 295.
4 De Consec. Pontif. Serm. 3. Opp. (ed. Venet. 1578), p. 194.
But he thinks God would hardly suffer a Pope to err against
the faith.
222
Papal Infallibility disputed:
PO
to be obeyed, and that a Pope might err in matters of
mortification, that his authority was of little weight
when opposed to the dominant belief, and that a simple
recantation was his only resource. When he preached
at Avignon the doctrine that the blessed do not enjoy
the Beatific Vision before the general resurrection, a
universal outcry was raised in Paris. The theologians
drew up propositions declaring the doctrine to be
ew
Paris with sound of trumpets, and commanded the
Pope to accept the judgment of the Paris doctors, who
must know what was the true faith better than the
spiritual jurists, who understood little or nothing of
theology. That was the estimate long entertained of
the Curia. No confidence was felt in their judgment
on questions of dogma and theology.
The inseparable connection between Aquinas and
Papal Infallibility was shown in the contest already
mentioned between the University of Paris and the
Dominican Order, in the person of Montson. The Do-
minicans said that St. Thomas's doctrine was in all
1 Comment. in Dec. v. 39, f. 595. “Papa etiam potest errare
in fide et ideo non debet quis dicere, credo id quod credit Papa,
sed illud quod credit Ecclesia, et sic dicendo non errabit.”
The passage is left in the repertory of his work, but has been
expunged from the text of the later editions.
2 As Cardinal D'Ailly stated it to the Assembly of the
French clergy in 1406, the King's message to the Pope was
still ruder and inore peremptory, “ qu'il se revoquait ou qu'il
se ferait ardre.” Cf. Du Chastenet, Nouv. Hist. du Conc. de
Constance (Paris, 1718), Preuves, p. 153. Villani, whose
brother was then in Avignon, does not mention this.
1
Re-ordination.
223
points sanctioned by the Popes, among others by Urban
V. in his Bull, addressed to the High School of Tou-
louse; and thus the Popes bear witness to St. Thomas,
and he to the Popes. But St. Thomas teaches, on the
authority of his spurious Cyril, that it is enough for the
Pope alone to declare what is matter of faith, and to
sanction or condemn any doctrine. On the other hand,
the Faculty enumerated a whole series of errors in St.
Thomas, and classed among them this very doctrine
of Papal Infallibility. They distinctly call it heresy, it
being notoriously the doctrine of the Church that there
is an appeal from a Pope to a General Council, and
that every bishop, by divine and human right, is quali-
fied to pronounce sentence on points of faith. Thus in
1388 the dogmatic infallibility of the Popes was repu-
diated by the first and most influential theological
corporation in the Church, and the superiority of Coun-
cils in matters of faith expressly affirmed, though cer-
tainly no Paris theologian doubted the genuineness of
the imposing testimonies cited by St. Thomas.
The Popes themselves were constantly bringing their
dogmatic authority afresh into suspicion. The most
thorough-going and credulous devotee of Roman su-
premacy could not help feeling uneasy when he found
defined principles, on one of the gravest and most prac-
tically important questions, involving all certainty of
individual and corporate religious life — the doctrine
of ordination; that the Curia was constantly fluctuat-
with the same uncertainty since the middle of the
1 D'Argentré, Collect. Fudic. i. 2, 84.
.224
Papal Infallibility disputed:
twelfth century, as may be seen from Peter Lombard.
We mean that since the eighth century, as was before
said, ordinations which were valid according to immut-
able laws, grounded in the very nature of the Church
and the Sacraments, had been declared null at Rome,
and re-ordinations performed, which had thrown the
Italian Church into the most vexatious confusion by
the end of the ninth century. And again the increase
of simony had given occasion to Popes, as, e.g., Leo X.,
to annul a number of ordinations at a Roman Synod,
and either to solemnize or order regular re-ordinations.1
This was based on the double error of supposing that
simony, or procuring ordination for money, was heresy,
and that heresy inade the ordination invalid. The
mischief done by the Popes in this way was immeas-
urable, for there were but few priests and bishops then
millions of the laity became perplexed about the sacra-
ments they had received from clergy said to be inval-
idly ordained, and hatred and feuds between the peo-
TY
it easy to find any way out of this labyrinth of universal
religious doubt and interruption or destruction of the
succession. Nor was this all. The same confusion
was imported into Germany too, and the ordinations
of those bishops were declared to be invalid whom the
Popes had excommunicated for their loyalty to the
Emperor Henry IV. Thus, at the Synod of Quedlin-
burg in 1085, the Papal legate Otho annulled the ordi-
nations of the bishops of Mayence, Augsburg, and
1 Petri Damiani, Opusc. v. p. 419. “Leo IX. plerosque
Simoniacos et male promotos tanquam noviter ordinavit."
Re-ordination.
225
Coire, although Peter Damiani had long since raised
his voice against this capricious annulling of ordina-
tions and re-ordaining.1 Otho, afterwards Pope Urban
II., declared that even when there was no simony in
the actual ordination, it was rendered invalid if per-
formed by a simoniacal bishop.2
At a Synod at Piacenza he annulled the ordinations
of his rival, Achbishop Guibert of Ravenna, cele-
brated after his excommunication by Gregory VII.,
and thereby gave public evidence of another gross
error, that the validity of sacraments is affected by
Church censures. Even Innocent II. made a great
Synod, the second council of Lateran, an accomplice
in his error of declaring invalid the ordinations of
“schismatics," i.e., of the episcopal adherents of Pope
Anacletus, who had been elected by a majority of the
cardinals, but was then dead, — an act of arbitrary
caprice and notorious heresy, which cannot be excused,
like earlier re-ordinations, by the horror professedly
felt for simony. Hence it was the Roman Church
itself which, notwithstanding the protests raised from
time to time within its bosom against the terrible, dis-
order caused by these ordinations, was again and again
falling into the same error, and disturbing the con-
i Bernold in Pertz, Monum. vii. 442; Harduin, Concil. vi.
I. 614.
2 This letter of Urban II. has puzzled theologians who dis-
like seeing a Pope openly teach heresy. Thus, e.g., Witasse
(Tract. Theol. ed. Venet. vi. 81) says it is “intricatissimus et
difficillimus locus.” Wecilo is the bishop referred to.
3 [The Antipope Clement III., elected at Brixen in 1080. —
Tr.]
4 Concil. (ed, Labbé), x. 504.
5 Ib. p. 1009.
226
Papal Infallibility.
sciences and belief of the faithful in a way that in the
ancient Church would have been found intolerable,
and against which a remedy would soon have been
discovered.
$ XX. - Fresh Forgeries.
Soon after St. Thomas's time, towards the end of
the thirteenth century, there arose a need for further
inventions, this time in the domain of history, to sus-
tain and further the system. As the contradictions
between the older historical authorities and the recent
codes of canon law, Gratian and the Decretals, were
obvious to every one who looked beneath the surface,
it seemed desirable to represent the history of the
Popes and Emperors in such a way as to get rid of
those contradictions, and give an historical sanction to
the new canon law. This task was undertaken, at the
command of Clement V., by Martin of Troppau,
called the Pole, owing to Nicolas III. having made
him Archbishop of Gnesen in 1275. He was peniten-
tiary and chaplain to the Pope; all jurists and canonists
were said to bind up his book with Gratian and the
Decretals, and all theologians with the Bible history
of Peter Comestor. And this book is, of all historical
works of the middle ages, at once the most popular
and the most utterly fabulous. Many of its fictions
simply evidence the want of any historical sense and
1 [Peter Comestor, Chancellor of Paris at the end of the
twelfth century, wrote a history extending from the Creation
to the birth of Christ. This work, with the Sentences of Peter
Lombard and Gratian's Decretum, is said to have made up
the average reading of mediæval divines. - Tr.]
Fresh Forgeries: Historical.
227
the miracle-mongering credulity which had been the
rage since the rise of the Mendicant Orders; but many
also were invented with deliberate intention. The
Popes were to be exhibited, as in the Liber Pontifi-
calis, but still more conspicuously, as the rulers and
legislators of the whole Church, the pseudo-Isidorian
fabrications and Gratian were to be confirmed, and
history made to reflect the supremacy of Popes over
Emperors. The book indicates a great falling off in
historical composition ; and this is to be accounted for
by the general influence of the Begging Monks, espe-
cially the Dominicans, with their insatiable hankering
after miracles, and their constant endeavor to trace the
Papal system to the earliest ages, in materially obscur-
ing historical knowledge, and degrading it below the
level it had attained in the twelfth century. The mere
fact of so miserable and thoroughly mendacious a book
as Martin's gaining such universal currency and influ-
ence is an eloquent proof of this decline.
The same object, of adapting the history both of the
Empire and the Church to the Gregorian system, was
followed by the Dominican Tolomeo of Lucca, Papal
librarian, whom John XXII. appointed in 1318 to the
see of Torcello. His Church History, up to 1313, is
much fuller than Martin's dry compendium, and a far
more spirited and artistic composition. This is true
also of his continuation of the Political Treatise com-
menced by Aquinas, and his Annals from the year
1 St. Thomas only wrote the first book of the De Regimine
Principum, and two chapters of the second. Tolomeo com-
pleted the second, and wrote the third and fourth books. Cf.
Quétif-Echard, i. 543.
228
Papal Infallibility.
1062. His principal work often reads like a commen-
tary on Gratian or the pseudo-Isidore, whom, however,
he only knew through Gratian. The purport of his
work for the first twelve centuries is to mould the
fabrications of these two writers and the Decretals into
a coherent history. It may suffice for an illustration
of his treatment of ancient Church history, to say that
he describes Pope Vigilius as holding the fifth Ecu-
menical Council at Constantinople in sovereign majesty,
with the hearty co-operation of the Emperor Justinian,
who manifested an entire devotion to him.So was
history written at the Papal Court. One of its main
objects was to supply an historical basis for the prin-
ciples of Rome, and her claims to jurisdiction over
the German empire, the elections to the throne, and
the emperors.
At that time the Papacy was gradually passing into
French hands. The institutions of Legates, unknown
in the ancient Church, but imported into the ecclesias-
tical system by means of a spurious canon, and ac-
counted necessary by Gratian, had enabled the Popes
to dominate and tax the various National Churches,
and was now in full bloom. The Popes had over-
thrown the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and transplanted a
French dynasty and French influence into Italy for the
sake of the South Italian kingdom. The feudal claim
1 Ptol. Luc. 895-899.
2 Dist. 94, c. 2, with the title "Excommunicetur qui legatum
Sedis Apostolicæ impedire tentaverit.” The passage is from
pseudo-Isidorc, but speaks in very general terms of the episco-
pal office, which was not to be impeded. By omitting the
word "vestram," and with the help of Gratian's title, the Leg-
ates are represented as competent to excommunicate any one.
· Fresh Forgeries: Historical.
229
of the Normans was not enough to legitimatize this
procedure, and some other title had to be discovered.
Tolomeo accordingly related that the Emperor Con-
stantine had presented this kingdom to the Pope as a
“ manuale,” which he could dispose of as he pleased.1
Thus his whole History is thrown into the shape requi-
site for the Curia and the Dominicans in 1313. He
begins by saying that Christ was the first Pope, and
keeps to that programme throughout. The second
Pope was Peter, who founded, by his disciples, all the
principal churches in Italy and Gaul.
Tolomeo was also the first to disseminate, in the
Papal interest, the fable about the appointment of the
Electors by Gregory V. in 995. This was the com-
plement of the theory of translations invented by Alex-
ander III. and Innocent III. It was the Popes, accord-
ing to Innocent, who took the Empire from the Greeks
and gave it to the Franks, and they did this for their
own better protection. Charlemagne, by command
of the Church, put an end to the empire of the Greeks,
says Tolomeo.4 Boniface VIII. brought the German
1 Ptol. Luc. 1066.
2 Not Trionfo, as Friedburg maintains (De Fin. inter Eccl.
et Civit. regund. Fudicio, 1861, p. 25). Nor was the passage
interpolated into St. Thomas, as he thinks, and the book does
not belong to Ægidius of Columna, as Wattenbach thinks
(Deutschlands Geschichtsquel. 519), but the passage is in
Tolomeo's continuation. Quétif and Echard have already
pointed out this addition of Tolomeo's to St. Thomas's work,
and shown that he was the first to disseminate the fable, and
probably himself invented it.
3 Registr. Epp. 29, 62; Decret. c 34, De Elect. i. 6.
4 Ptol. Luc. 974.
230
Papal Infallibility.
emperor Albert to acknowledge formally that the Popes
had transferred the Empire; that it was they who had
conferred the right of election on certain princes, and
given to kings and emperors the power of the civil
sword. And to this were added the new claims, first
put in force by Clement V., that the Pope succeeds
during a vacancy to the Imperial power, and that
every Emperor is bound to take an oath of fealty to
him, — claims which John XXII. acted upon in his
contest with the Emperor Louis, and from whence he
drew the further corollary, which he at once put into
practice against Louis, that he, as Pope, was adminis-
trator of the Empire during a vacancy. The Curia
found Gratian and the Decretals insufficient for these
purposes, and so to the numerous class of Papal Court
jurists and Court theologians, like Trionfo and Ægidius
Columna, must be added the Court historians Martin
and Tolomeo.
Besides these, special fictions were wanted to meet
the circumstances of particular countries and National
Churches, so as to adapt their history to the require-
ments of the Papal system. This was eminently true
of Spain. The business of cooking history was carried
on in her case more systematically than anywhere else.
The ancient Spanish Church, without ignoring the
i Raynald. Annal. ann. 1303, 8.
2 Cf. “Processus in Ludovic. Bav.” in Martene, Thes. Anecd.
ii. 710, seq., where a whole series of fables and falsifications,
like Martin's and Tolomeo's, are produced as weapons against
the Emperors and their adherents, as, e.g., Pope Innocents
excommunication of the Emperor Arcadius, the legends of
Constantine and Theodosius, and many more.
Fresh Forgeries: Historical.
231
Roman primacy, had yet maintained an independent
attitude towards it. Her Synods, regularly held, exer-
cised judicial power over bishops and metropolitans,
and sometimes opposed even Popes in questions of
faith, as, e.g., the Synod of Toledo in 688 subjected
Pope Benedict's letter to severe criticism, and did not
scruple to charge him with “barefaced contradiction
of the Fathers.” At the time of the Arabian invasion,
and till towards the end of the eleventh century, the
Spanish Church preserved her independent life. Ro-
man influences were seldom felt, and only at long inter-
vals. Archbishop Diego Gelmirez, a zealous advocate
of the Gregorian system, testifies, at the beginning of
the twelfth century, that no Spanish bishop then in
the previous century) paid to the Roman Church trib-
ute or obedience, and that the Spanish Church fol-
lowed the laws of Toledo, not of Rome.3
A change in the interests of Rome was effected
through the influence of the monks of Clugny, who
received abbeys and bishoprics, through the action of
French queens, and the policy of some kings who were
1 Thus the most influential of Spanish prelates and theo-
logians, Isidore of Seville, in his letter to the Duke Claudius,
asserts his subjection to the Roman See more emphatically
than was usual with bishops of that age.
2 Masdeu, Hist. Critic. de España, xiii. 258 sqq. Here it is
observed that, according to a letter issued by Adrian I. about
790, denouncing certain abuses, there had for two centuries
been no correspondence of the Popes with Spain. Nor was
there any even in the eleventh century, before Gregory VII.'s
time, except on a few unimportant points.
3 Hist. Compost. 253, in vol. xx. of Florez' España Sag-
rada.
232
Papal Infallibility.
that all Spain had from ancient times been the property
of the Popes, as he expected also to be able to demand
Hungary, Russia, Provence, and Saxony. And this
claim had one result, in the suppression of the Mozara-
bic and substitution of the Roman rite in 1085. A
French Cluniac monk became Archbishop of Toledo,
and for 150 years, up to the middle of the thirteenth
century, a constant struggle went on for the subjuga-
tion of the Spanish Church. This was the aim of the
historical fictions first perpetrated by Bishop Pelayo of
Oviedo, and then by Bishop Lucas of Tuy. The
former adulterated Sampiro's Chronicle by inventing
an embassy of the Spanish Church to John VIII.,
some decrees of that Pope, and a Synod held by his
order at Oviedo, besides other things. More compre-
hensive and still more influential were the inventions
of Lucas, who thoroughly corrupted the ancient histo-
and complete dependence on Rome to the Spanish
Church, he represented Archbishop Leander as a legate
of the Pope, and falsified the whole history of Isidore,
whom he converts into a vicar of Pope Gregory. The
misfortunes of Spain and the overthrow of the Gothic
kingdom are explained by a purely fabulous history he
invented of King Witiza, who is said to have forbidden
the Spaniards, on pain of death, to obey the Pope.3
i Florez' España Sagrada, xiv. 440.
? Ib. ix. 203–204.
3 - Chronicon Mundi” in Schotti Hisp. Illustrat. iv. 69.
"Istud quidem causa pereundi Hispania fuit,” says Lucas.
The moral to be drawn was that the prosperity of Spain
Fresh Forgeries: St. Cyril.
233
In theology, from the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the spurious passages of St. Cyril and forged
canons of Councils maintained their ground, being
guaranteed against all suspicion by the authority of St.
Thomas. Since the work of Trionfo in 1320, up to
1450, it is remarkable that no single new work ap-
peared in the interests of the Papal system. But then
the contest between the Council of Basle and Pope
mada, besides some others of less importance. Tor-
quemada’s argument, which was held up to the time
of Bellarmine to be the most conclusive apology of the
Papal systein, rests entirely on fabrications later than
of St. Cyril. To ignore the authority of St. Thomas
is, according to the Cardinal, bad enough, but to slight
the testimony of St. Cyril is intolerable. The Pope is
infallible; all authority of the other bishops is bor-
rowed or derived from his. Decisions of Councils
without his assent are null and void. These funda-
mental principles of Torquemada are proved by the
spurious passages of Anacletus, Clement, the Council
of Chalcedon, St. Cyril, and a mass of forged or
adulterated testimonies. In the times of Leo X. and
Clement III., the Cardinals Thomas of Vio, or Cajetan,
depended on obedience to the Pope. The whole Chronicle,
written about 1236, is a tissue of lies, exceeding any thing pre-
viously known, or at least published, in Spain.
1 Du Pontif. M. et Gen. Concil. Auctorit. (Venet. 1583),
p. 17; Summa de Eccl. (Venet. 1561), p. 171; Apparat. super
Decr. Union. Græc. (Venet. 1561), p. 366, and in many other
places.
234
Papal Infallibility.
and Jacobazzi, followed closely in his footsteps.1
Melchior Canus built firmly on the authority of Cyril,
attested by St. Thomas, and so did Bellarmine and
the Jesuits who followed him. The Dominicans,
Nicolai, Le Quien, Quétif, and Echard, were the first
to avow openly that their master, St. Thomas, had
been deceived by an impostor, and had in his turn
misled the whole tribe of theologians and canonists
who followed him. On the other hand, the Jesuits,
including even such a scholar as Labbé, while giving
solve still to cling to Cyril. In Italy, as late as 1713,
Professor Andruzzi of Bologna cited the most im-
portant of the interpolations in St. Cyril as a conclu-
i Opera (ed. Serry), Patav. 734, p. 194, “Cyrillus ...
multo evidentius quam cæteri auctores huic veritati testi-
monium perhibet,” viz., that the Pope is the infallible judge
of doctrine. Those who wish to get a bird's-eye view of the
extent to which the genuine tradition of Church authority
was still overlaid and obliterated by the rubbish of later in-
ventions and forgeries about 1563, when the Loci of Canus
appeared, must read the fifth book of his work. It is indeed
still worse fifty years later in this part of Bellarmine's work.
The difference is that Canus was honest in his belief, which
cannot be said of Bellarmine.
2 Le Quien speaks out with peculiar distinctness on the
point in the Preface to his Panoplia contra Schisma Græcorum,
published at Paris in 1718 under the name of Steph. de Alti-
mura, pp. xv.-xvii.
3 Cf. Labbé, De Script. Eccles. (Paris, 1660), i. 244. He
and Bellarmine sheltered themselves under the pretext that
the Thesaurus of Cyril has come to us in a mutilated con-
dition; Dupin, Ceillier, Oudin, and others, have long since
shown the falsehood of this assertion.
Interdicts.
235
sive argument in his controversial treatise against the
patriarch Dositheus.
§ XXI. — Interdicts.
To all these means for supporting the universal
supremacy of the Popes, and bringing the belief of
their infallibility into more general acceptance, were
added the Interdiets to which whole countries were
frequently subjected. God's Vicar upon earth, it was
said, acts like God, who often includes many innocent
persons in the punishment of the guilty few; who shall
dáre to contradict him? He acts under Divine guid-
ance, and his acts cannot be measured by the rules of
human justice. And thus from the Divine inspiration
which guided their action was inferred the doctrinal
iufallibility of the Popes, and vice versa, just as is the
case now with the people, and even the clergy, espe-
cially in countries of the Latin race. The Popes had
indeed themselves declared, in their new code, in the
sixth book of the Decretals, that interdicts produced
the most injurious effects on the religion of the people,
strengthening their impiety, eliciting heresies, originat-
ing numberless dangers to souls, and depriving the
Church of her rightful dues. But notwithstanding
this confession, they made more copious use of inter-
dicts than ever; their proceedings against Germany
during the long struggle against the Emperor Louis
the Bavarian exceeded, through the long duration of
i Vetus Græcia de Rom. Sede præclare sentiens, Venet. 713,
p. 219.
2 Cap. ult. de Excom. in Sexto Decr.
236
Papal Infallibility.
the interdict, anything that had happened there before.
It really seemed as if they wished to root out from the
minds of men the gospel teaching about the rights of
baptized Christians, and teach them instead to regard
themselves as mere herds of cattle belonging to the
Pope, with no will of their own, or, as Alvaro Pelayo
said, teach them to fly from his wrath to his mercy,
which, however, had been refused to them. The
results of this conduct varied greatly according to
differences of national character. While it led some
nations to question more and more the Divine right of
an authority so horribly abused, and thus scattered
seeds which bore fruit a century and a half later ;
others were confirmed in the notion that the Papacy is
a mysterious power like the Godhead, whose ways are
unsearchable, and which must not be too closely
scrutinized, but must always be blindly trusted as being
enlightened from on high, and acting under Divine in-
spiration.
Paradoxical as it may sound, it is an historical fact
that the more suspicious and scandalous the conduct
of the Popes—with their exemptions, privileges, indul-
gences, and the like, and the consequent confusion in
the Church — appeared to pious men, the more in-
clined they felt to take refuge from their own doubts
and suspicions in the bosom of Papal infallibility.
Tested by simple Christian feeling, they would have
been obliged to condemn this, and much else, as an
abuse and heinous sin against the Church. But that
feeling had to contend with the notion, instilled into
them from youth, that the Pope is the lord and master
of the Church, whom none may contradict or call to
The Great Schism.
237
account. This may be illustrated by the language of
Peter Cantor, as early as the end of the twelfth century.
He says there would indeed be just reason to appre-
hend that the Papal corruptions might produce a gen-
eral separation from the spiritual empire of Rome, for
there is no scriptural justification for them; but then it
would be sacrilegious to find fault with what the Pope
does. God suffers not the Roman Church to fall into
any error, and we must assume that the Pope does
these things under inspiration of the Holy Ghost, by
virtue of which he is in the last instance the sole ruler
of the Church, to the exclusion of all others.1
$ XXII. - The Schism of the Antipopes.
In the fourteenth century, the Church was brought
into a condition which forced doubts upon the minds of
even the most zealous votaries of the Papal system.
The long schism which for above forty years pre-
sented to the world the novel spectacle of rival Popes
mutually anathematizing one another, and two Curias,
—a French one at Avignon, and an Italian, — shook
an authority still commonly regarded as invincible
under the last Popes before 1376. For the discomfit-
ure suffered by the Papacy at the beginning of the
century, in the person of Boniface VIII., was soon
blotted out of men's remembrance by the complete
victory it gained soon afterwards over Germany and
the Emperor Louis; and the practical effects of that
first humiliation were inconsiderable, -it left its mark
rather on the Schola and the writings of the French
i Verbum Abbrev. (ed. Galopin), p. 114.
LE
238
Papal Infallibility.
jurists. The wounds inflicted by the persistent policy
of the Popes for centuries on the Empire and the
national unity of Germany long continued to bleed.
The German Church had lost the very idea of regard-
ing itself as an organic whole ; that there had ever
been such a thing as German National Synods was
utterly forgotten. The experiment of " divide et
impera” had been first tried upon the German Church,
and had proved a complete success.
The Schism arose from the struggle between two
nations for the possession of the Papacy: the Italians
wanted to regain and the French to keep it. And
thus it came to pass that from 1378 to 1409 Western
Christendom was divided into two, from 1409 to 1415,
into three, Obediences. A Neapolitani, Urban VI.,
had been elected, and his first slight attempt at a reform
gave immediate occasion to the outbreak of the schism.
Soon aſter entering on his pontificate, he excommuni-
cated the Cardinals who were guilty of simony. But
simony had long been the daily bread of the Roman
Curia and the breath of its life; without simony the
machine must come to a stand-still and instantly fall to
pieces. The Cardinals had, from their own point of
view, ample ground for insisting on the impossibility
of subsisting without it. They accordingly revolted
from Urban and elected Clement VII., a man after
their own heart. Nobody knew at the time whose
election was the most regular, Urban's or Clements.
Things had in fact occurred in both elections which
made them legally invalid. The attorneys on both
1 Thom. de Acern. De Creat. Urbani. See Muratori, iii. .
2, 721.
The Great Schisan.
239
sides urged irrefutable arguments to show that the
Pope of the opposite party had no claim to their recog-
nition. There were persons on both sides, since ac-
counted as Saints throughout the whole Church, but
who then anathematized one another: on the French
side, Peter of Luxemburg and Vincent Ferrer, on the
Italian, Catherine of Sienna and Catherine the Swede.
Meanwhile there were two Papal Courts and two
Colleges of Cardinals, each Court with diminished
revenues, and determined to put on the screw of extor-
tion to the utmost, —- each inexhaustible in the dis-
covery of new methods of making gain of spiritual
things, and the increased application of those already
in use.
The situation was a painful one for all adherents of
Papal infallibility, who found themselves in an inextri-
cable labyrinth. Their belief necessarily implied that
the particular individual who is in sole possession of all
truth, and bestows on the whole Church the certainty
of its faith, must be always and undoubtingly acknowl-
edged as such. There can as little be any uncertainty
allowed about the person of the right Pope as about
the books of Scripture. Yet every one at that period
must at bottom have been aware that the mere accident
of what country he lived in determined which Pope he
adhered to, and that all he knew of his Pope's legiti-
macy was that half Christendom rejected it. Spaniards
and Frenchmen believed in Clement VII. or Benedict
XIII., Englishmen and Italians in Urban VI. or Boni-
far e IX. What was still worse, the old notion, which
for centuries had been fostered by the Popes, and often
confirmed by them, of the invalidity of ordinations and
240
Papal Infallibility.
sacraments administered outside the Papal communion,
still widely prevailed, especially in Italy. The Papal
secretary Coluccio Salutato paints in strong colors the
universal uncertainty and anguish of conscience pro-
duced by the schism, and his own conclusion as a
Papalist is, that as all ecclesiastical jurisdiction is de-
rived from the Pope, and as a Pope invalidly elected
cannot give what he does not himself possess, no
bishops or priests ordained since the death of Gregory
XI. could guarantee the validity of the sacraments they
administered. It followed, according to him, that any-
one who adored the Eucharist consecrated by a priest
ordained in schism worshipped an idol. Such was
the condition of Western Christendom. A happier
view prevailed in France, England, Germany, and
Spain, than in Italy and at the Papal Court, about the
conditions of valid ordination and administration of
sacraments.
Those who had any knowledge of the constitution
of the ancient Church perceived now that the confu-
sion for which no remedy had been discovered for
thirty years, could only be traced ultimately to the
development of the Gregorian system. A strong and
earnest desire was aroused for the restoration of the
episcopal system, so far as it could then be distin-
guished through the accumulated rubbish of fabrica-
tions it was overlaid with, and the distortions and
obscuring of Church history. It was felt that the old
1 See his letter to the Count Jost of Moravia, in Martene,
Thes. Anecd. ii. 1159, “ Quis nescit ex vitiosâ parte veros
episcopos esse non posse?” And the point is then further
worked out.
The Great Schism.
241
system would have made such a degradation and dev-
astation as the Church had now experienced impos-
sible. The conviction grew stronger and stronger
that a General Council was the only effectual means
for the restoration of harmony in the Church, as also
for limiting Papal despotism. Germans, like Henry
of Langenstein and Nicholas Cusa ; Frenchmen, like
D'Ailly, Gerson, and Clemange; Italians, like Zaba-
rella ; Spaniards, like Escobar and John of Segovia,
came, in the end of the fourteenth and beginning of
the fifteenth century, to substantially similar conclu-
sions, — that the Church must recover herself, break
the chains the Curialistic system had fastened upon
her, and reform herself in her head and her members.
And indeed for some time, all who were eininent in
the Church for intelligence and knowledge had de-
clared themselves in favor of her rights, and the rights
of free Councils, against the Papacy. Even the voices
of those who thought so terribly degenerate and mis-
used an institution as the Roman See had now become
was nevertheless indispensable, were loudly raised,
but without producing any result. Public opinion
still recognized the necessity of its existence, but also
the urgent need for its limitation and purification.
The first attempt to bring about the assembling of a
real, free, and independent Council succeeded. In-
stead of the mock Synods which had been customary
for the last 300 years, when the bishops only came to
hear the Pope's decrees read and go home again, a
Synod from all Europe was assembled at Pisa in 1409,
at which men could dare to speak openly and vote
freely. It seemed a great point to contemporaries
16
242
Papal Infallibility.
that two Popes, Gregory XII. and Benedict XIII.,
were deposed, and a third, Alexander III., was elected.
But these proceedings exhausted the strength of the
Synod ; the mere presence of a Pope, with the Car-
dinals now again adhering to him, though he was the
creation of the Synod, prevented even the attempt oi
beginning of a reformation of the Church. The re-
forms conceded by Alexander were insignificant. As
the other two Popes did not submit to the decision of
the Synod, there were now three heads of the Church,
as before in 1048, but the Pope elected by the Council
received far the most general recognition.
§ XXIII. - The Council of Constance.
To bring about the actual downfall of the system, it
was necessary that it should be represented in the per-
son of a Pope who was the most worthless and infa-
mous man to be found anywhere, according to the
testimony of a contemporary. This Pope, recognized
up to the day of his deposition by the great majority
of Western Christendom, was Balthasar Cossa, John
XXIII. Now was the first real victory won, not only
over persons, but over the Papacy, and for this was
required such an assembly as was the Council of Con-
stance (1414-1418), the most numerous ever seen in
the West, at which, besides 300 bishops, there were
present the deputies of fifteen universities, and 300
doctors, men who were not in the ambiguous position
1 Justinger, Berner-Chronic. p. 276. “The worst and most
abused man to be found, when his badness had been thor-
oughly exposed in the Council at Constance.”
Council of Constance.
243.
of having to reform abuses to which they owed their
own dignities and emoluments. And this assembly
had to introduce the new plan of voting by nations in
place of the old one of voting by individuals, or all
would have been wrecked through the great number
of Italian bishops, the majority of whom considered it
their natural duty to uphold the Papal system, the
Curia, and the means of revenue thence accruing to
the Italians. The corruption of the Church, and the
demoralization which was its result, had penetrated
deeper in Italy than elsewhere, and then, as after-
wards, it was remarked, that the Italian bishops were
the most steady opponents of every remedy and refor-
mation.
With the Council of Constance arose a star of hope
for the German Church. Well were it if she had pos-
sessed men capable of taking permanent advantage of
so favorable a situation. The new Emperor, Sigis-
mund, full of earnest zeal to help the Church in her
sore distress, managed so skilfully to persuade and
press Pope John, who was threatened in Italy, that
he chose the German city of Constance for the Coun-
cil, and came there himself, though not by his own
good will. For three centuries the Germans had been
thrust out by the Italians and French from all active
part in the general affairs of the Church. They were
the nation least responsible, next to the English, for
the evils of the schism, — for the Curia had always
been purely French and Italian, and had contained no
single element of German representation. The Ger-
man clergy were more sinned against than sinning.,
It is true that even in Germany the corruption of the
244
, Papal Infallibility.
Church had become intolerable, and cried to Heaven,
but it was no native product of the German people;
it had been imported from the south, like a foreign
pestilence, and become permanent through the de-
struction of the organic life of the national Church.
In the famous decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions,
the Council of Constance declared that every law-
fully convoked (Ecumenical Council representing the
Church derives its authority immediately from Christ,
and every one, the Pope included, is subject to it in
matters of faith, in the healing of schism, and the
reformation of the Church.” The decree was passed
without a single dissentient voice, –a decision more
eventful and pregnant in future consequences than had
been arrived at by any previous Council, and accord-
ant in principle with primitive antiquity, —- for so the
Church held before the appearance of the pseudo-
Isidore. But at the time it must have looked like a
bold innovation; so strongly had the current set in the
opposite direction for a lengthened period, and so lof-
tily had the Popes towered above the humble attitude
of the silent and submissive Synods from the third
Lateran to the Council of Vienne. That the Council
had a full right to call itself CEcumenical was obvious.
The small and divided fractions of the other two
Obediences could not prejudice its claims. Gregory
XII. and Benedict XIII. had been deserted by their
Cardinals, and all that could be held to constitute the
Roman Church took part in the Council.
If a Pope is subject to a Council in matters of faith
he is not infallible; the Church, and the Council which
represents it, inherit the promises of Christ, and not
Council of Constance.
245
the Pope, who may err apart from a Council, and can
be judged by it for his error. This inference was clear
and indisputable. But it was not the article in the
decrees concerning faith, but that concerning refor-
mation, which excited the suspicion of the Cardinals.
That a Pope who became heretical fell under the judg-
ment of the Church, and therefore of a Council, was
the commonly accepted and admitted theory since the
so-called canon of St. Boniface had been received into
the codes, though it could not really be reconciled with
the doctrine of infallibility assumed in the same codes
of canon law, and disseminated by Aquinas. Yet the
Cardinals dared not refuse their assent to the decrees
which were so menacing to the interests of the Curia.
Thesc decisions of Constance are perhaps the most
extraordinary event in the whole dogmatic history of
the Christian Church. Their language leaves no doubt
that they were understood to be articles of faith, dog-
matic definitions of the doctrine of Church authority.
And they deny the fundamental position of the Papal
system, which is thereby tacitly but very eloquently
signalized as an error and abuse. Yet that system had
prevailed in the administration of the Church for cen-
turies, had been taught in the canon law books and
the schools of the Religious Orders, especially by
Thomist divines, and assumed or expressly affirmed
in all pronouncements and decisions of the Popes, the
new authorities for the laws of the Church. And now
not a voice was raised in its favor; no one opposed
the doctrines of Constance, no one protested !
But the state of the Church had become so un-
natural and monstrous, - the measure of human
246
Papal Infallibility.
infirmity and sinfulness which must be reckoned upon
in every, even the best, community was so largely ex-
ceeded, --- and the habitual transgression of the laws
of God and the ordinances of the ancient Church was
so open and universal, that every one could perceive
that the whole dominant system, rather than particu-
lar individuals, was responsible for this perversion of
Church-government into a vast engine of finance and
money-getting, - this transformation of a free Church
arranging its affairs by common consultation into a
subject empire under absolutist rule, and made the
prey of an oligarchy. When the Cardinals said, in
the letter they addressed to their Pope, Gregory XII.,
in 1408, that there was no soundness in the Church
from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head,
they should have added, if they wished to tell the
whole truth, “ It is we and our colleagues, and your
predecessors, it is the Curia, who have gone on satu-
rating the body of the Church with moral poison, and
therefore is it now so sorely diseased.”
There were certainly but few who clearly under-
stood all the real causes as well as the greatness of
the evil, but those few spoke out distinctly what every
one dimly felt. Reform in the head and the members
was the universal watchword throughout Europe, and
was understood by every one to mean that the head,
the Papal Sce, needed reform first of all, and that only
then and thus would a reform of the members be pos-
sible. It was notorious to all that the good dispo-
sitions of this or that individual Pope, even if they
continued, were utterly powerless, and that refor-
1 Raynald. Annal. 1408.
247
mation in the present case meant an entire change of
system. In face of this evidence all the wisdom of
both schools — of the canonists and the monkish theo-
logians — was dumb, built, as it was, on rotten foun-
dations. They were reduced to silence, or had, like
Tudeschi and many Dominicans, to assent to the de-
.crees of Constance. The public opinion of the whole
Christian world, directed and matured by the discus-
sions carried on for the last forty years at Paris, Avig-
non, Rome, Pisa, and the German universities, was too
strong for them.
Even the new Pope elected at the Council of Con-
stance was obliged to declare himself in accord with
of John XXIII., and had only at the last moment de-
serted him, and given in his adhesion to the Council.
But he was now Pope by virtue of this deposition of
his predecessor, which depended entirely on the decree
passed at the Council, and therefore on the Episcopal
system. John had not been deposed on account of
his opposition to the Council, but only on account
of his breaking his oath of obedience to it, and his
crimes, after a formal investigation. An express con-
firmation of this decree by Martin V. seemed at the
time not only superfluous, but objectionable. It would
have been like a son wanting to attest the genuine
paternity of his own father, for this decree had made
him Pope. Had he wished to assail its validity in any
way he would have been bound at once to resign, and
let the deposed Pope again take his place. It was
clear to him that he could no longer act upon the right,
claimed and exercised by his predecessors for 200 years,
248
Papal Infallibility.
to be the ruler of the whole Church assembled and
represented at the Council, and he distinctly said this
in his Bull against the doctrine of Wicliffe, where he
asserted the proposition that the supremacy of the
Roman Church over the rest is no part of necessary
doctrine, to be an error, because Wicliffe understood
by the Roman the universal Church, or a Council, or
at least denied the primacy of the Pope over the other
particular Churches. He took occasion to declare,
towards the end of the Council of Constance, that he
confirmed all its “conciliar” decrees, meaning by this
phraseology to withhold his approval from two de-
crees, on Annates, and on a book by the Dominican
Falkenberg, not passed by the Council in full session,
but in the congregations of certain nations. The two
other Obediences also, in giving in their adherence to
the Council aiterwards, assented to its decrees, as is
clearly shown by the Concordat of Narbonne, in the
twentieth session, which enumerated the subjects com-
ing within the competence of the Council in accord-
ance with the decrees of the fourth and fifth sessions.
1 “Super alias ecclesias particulares,” i.e., no primacy over
the universal Church or a general Council, in strict accord-
ance with the decrees of Constance. So, again, in the ques-
tions addressed by Martin's direction to the Wicliffites or
Hussites, they were asked whether they believed the Pope to
be Peter's successor, “habens supremam auctoritatem in
Ecclesić (not Ecclesiam) Dei," and that every General Coun-
cil, including that of Constance, represents the universal
Church.
26 Conciliariter" is opposed to "nationaliter."
3 [The adherents of Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII. -
Tr.]
Council of Constance,
249
After the deposition of John XXIII., and the resigna-
tion of Gregory XII., there occurred a significant division
and struggle between the Latins and Germans. The
Germans and English wanted the reformation of the
Church, which was the most important and difficult
task of the Council, to be undertaken before proceeding
to the election of a new Pope. The experience of the
Council of Pisa had proved that the election of a new
Pope at once put an end to every scheme of reformation.
But the Cardinals, and'with them the Italians and French
- the latter from jealousy of the lofty position held by
the German King Sigismund, — pressed for the elec-
tion taking precedence of the reformation. Sigismund
contended skilfully, bravely, and perseveringly for the
interests of the Church, the Empire, and the German
people, who then with good reason called themselves
6 the godly, patient, humble, and yet not feeble nation.”1
Had they been somewhat less patient and humble, and
had something more of that strength which union be-
stows, the ecclesiastical and national discomfiture of
1417 would not have been followed by the revolt of
1517, the religious division of the nation, the Thirty
Years' War, and many other disastrous consequences.
But the Cardinals and Latins carried the day by gain-
ing over the English, and corrupting some German
prelates, as, for instance, the Archbishop of Riga, and
the Bishops of Coire and Leutomischl. And before
the new Pope, Martin V., had been elected above a few
weeks, the Curia and “curialism” were again in the
ascendent. The new rules of the Chancery, at once
2 10. iv. 1427.
250
· Papal Infallibility.
published by Martin, must have opened the eyes of the
short-sighted French, and have shown them that in the
disposal of benefices the whole network of abuses and
corrupt trading upon patronage was to be maintained.1
Only a few reforming ordinances came into force ;
the worst wounds and sores of the ecclesiastical body
remained for the most part untouched. Martin under-
stood how to divide the nations by pursuing a different
policy towards each. His two. Concordats, with the
German States and the Latin nations, chiefly related
to the possession of offices, and expressly reserved to
the Pope whať a long and universal experience had
proved to be hateful abuses, as, e.g., the annates, which
were so demoralizing to the character of the clergy, and
compelled them to incur heavy debts. And most of
the articles were so drawn as to leave open a door for
the renewal of the abuse. In the life and practice of the
Church, the Papal system, with all its attendant evils,
was restored.
§ XXIV.-- The Council of Basle.
The Episcopal system, which was the true principle
of reform, still survived in the decrees of the fourth
and fifth sessions of Constance, and for a long time no
one dared to meddle with them. One other hope re-
mained: the Synod had decided that another should be
held after five years, and that for the future there should
be an Ecumenical Council every ten years. Here
again Martin V. showed that he felt bound to observe
the decrees of Constance, for he actually summoned the
i See De Hardt, Acta Conc. Const. i. 965 seq.
· The Council of Basle. .
251
Council, in 1423, to meet, first at Pavia, and then at
Sienna. But the moment any signs of an attempt at
reform manifested themselves, he dissolved it, “on
account of the fewness of those present.” However,
shortly before his death, he summoned the new Council
to meet at Basle. Eugenius IV. could not avoid carry-
ing out the duty he had inherited from his predecessor,
to which he was already pledged in conclave. When the
earliest arrivals at Basle took place at the appointed
time, the citizen laughed at the new-comers as dream-
ers, so little could.they now conceive the Pope's being
in earnest in convoking the Council after the course
events had taken since 1417.1 In fact, Eugenius
ordered the dissolution of the still scanty assembly im-
mediately after its first proceedings, December 18, 1431,
on the most transparently frivolous pretexts, with a view
to its resuming its sittings a year and a half later at
Bologna, under his own presidency. And yet the need
for-a Council had never seemed more urgent than at
that moment, on account of the triumphs of the Hussites.
The assembly, relying on the decrees of Constance,
which had been repeatedly promulgated, remained
united, and profited by the warning of the evil conse-
quences resulting at Constance from the sharp division
of nations to frame a better organization for itself, by
forming four deputations, in which different nations
and orders were represented. And thus the contest
with the Pope began, at first under favorable circum-
stances, for public opinion throughout Europe was
already enlisted on the side of the Council. Moreover,
1 Æn. Silv. Commentar. de Rebus Basil. Gestis (ed. Fea.
Rom. 1823), p. 39.
252
Papal Infallibility.
it received strong support from King Sigismund, and
Eugenius found himself hard pressed in Italy, and de-
serted by many Cardinals, and even by the Court offi-
cials, hundreds of whom had run away from him. In
vain he pronounced excommunication against the pre-
lates who were on their way to Basle. Letters of ad-
hesion poured into Basle from kings, princes, and
prelates, from bishops and universities; it seemed as if
once again the spell was broken whereby the Papal
system had held men's minds enthralled. Eugenius
saw that he must give in, and he signified his assent
to the continuance of the Council in his Bull of Feb-
ruary 4, 1433, and named four cardinals to preside
over it.
But this Bull, again, did not satisfy the Council,
though Eugenius expressly declared that he regarded it
as having never been interrupted, and thereby abso-
There was a design of suspending him, when Sigis-
mund, now become Emperor, arrived unexpectedly,
and, through his exertions, effected a reconciliation
between the Pope and the Council. Eugenius tran-
scribed word for word the form of approval drawn up
by the Council in his Bull of December 15, 1433, and
recalled his three former Bulls; he was now ashamed
of the third, in which he had most vigorously assailed
the authority of the Council, and on the principles of
the Papal system, and affirmed that he had not sanc-
tioned its publication. He admitted that the Council
1 The style and tone of this Bull, Deus novit, betray un-
mistakably the hand of the Papal Court theologian, and
Master of the Palace, Torquemada, who was in Basle in 1433,
The Council of Basle.
253
had been fully justified in continuing in session, and
passing decrees, in spite of his Bull of dissolution, and
promised to adhere to it " with all zeal and devotion.”1
66 We recall the three Bulls," he said, “ to show clearly
to the world the purity of our intentions and sincerity
of our devotion to the universal Church and the holy
Ecumenical Council of Basle.” The humiliation of
the man and the discomfiture of the system were com-
plete. It was no isolated act of condescension for the
sake of peace, but the most definite and indubitable
acknowledgment of the superior authority of the Coun-
cil, and his own subjection to it.
The Synod had from the first taken the decrees of
Constance on the supreme authority of Councils as its
basis, and expressly published them anew as articles
of faith, which in fact they were expressly declared to
be by the Council of Constance. Pope and Council in
common enjoined Western Christendom to believe these
doctrines, and it certainly appeared incredible to every
one then that a time could ever come when the attempt
would be made to overthrow them.2
.
by commission of the Pope, but seems soon afterwards to
have returned to him.
1 Mansi, Concil. xxix. 78.
2 Ultramontanes, from Torquemada and Bellarmine to
Orsi, have discovered but one escape from this dilemma, by
saying that Eugenius's concessions were made under sheer
pressure of fear. But he was perfectly free personally. Sigis-
mund was at Basle, Eugenius in Italy, and they corresponded
by letter. If Eugenius was afraid, it was simply the convic-
tion of the whole Church, the public opinion of princes,
clergy, and nations, he was afraid of. And if this feeling is
to be called fear, then every Pope lives in a chronic state of
254
.
Papal Irifallibility.
Even in his former Bulls, condemning and annulling
the decisions of the Fathers at Basle, Eugenius. had not
ventured to touch the decrees of Constance on which
they were based, and he had, moreover, recognized the
second session, in which those decrees were renewed ;
he had only attacked what was done after the issue of
his decree for the dissolution of the Council. So com-
pletely and irrevocably was the Papal See bound, as
we must believe, to the decisions of Constance on
Church authority, — for if Eugenius erred in confirm-
ing them he was not infallible, and the gift must rest
with the Council, while, on the other hand, if he was
right, his subjection in matters of faith to the Coun-
cil, and therefore his fallibility, was again affirmed.
Moreover, Eugenius had maintained his right, as Pope,
to dissolve or suspend any Council at his pleasure;
this he now retracted, and acknowledged the legiti-
macy of a General Council carried on in defiance of a
Papal decree for its dissolution.
For three years and a half, from the fourteenth ses-
sion of November 7, 1433, to the twenty-fifth-of May
7, 1437, an external harmony at least was maintained
between the Council and the Pope, as represented by
his legates and by Cardinal Cæsarini. The decrees of
fear. Eugenius had indeed first sent about his ainbassadors
to investigate the state of opinion. But even the Religious
Orders, always devoted to Rome, refused their services then.
Gonzalez, General of the Jesuits, who thought the argument
from fear too absurd, took refuge in the pretext that Eugenius
sought to deceive the Council by the ambiguous language of
his Bull (De Infallib. Rom. Pontif. Romæ, 1689, p. 695), -
an unjust imputation on the Pope, for the Bull is clear and
unambiguous from beginning to end.
The Council of Basle. : 255
S
reform only included matters long since universally
recognized as necessary, and forbade nothing which
had not been regarded as a public scandal for the
Church. The regular method of conferring spiritual
offices was restored, reservations of elective benefices
and reversionary rights in them were abolished, simony
and pluralities were forbidden, some regulation and
limitation of appeals was introduced, and the frequency
and severity of interdicts diminished. All this was so
reasonable, so just, and so ecclesiastical, that it was
received with general applause. The Synod acted so
considerately, that of the numerous rights claimed by
the Popes in the Decretals of the Corpus Juris, no
single one was abrogated. And besides, by adding
the exception, “ for weighty and prudent reasons," the
Synod had left open a wide door for the Pope, not-
withstanding its prohibitions, which gave occasion to
the University of Paris to blame them sharply.1
· Eugenius himself had declared his entire agreement
with the decrees of reformation, even after the twentieth
session of January 23, 1435,and he repeated this on
June 15 of the same year to the deputy of the Synod,
John of Brekenstein. Yet he had a grudge against
the Council for not giving him the means of obtaining
money, which he asserted his need of, for abolishing
annates, and for disputing his right to the patronage
of benefices reserved by the last Popes. Before finally
1 Bulæi, Hist. Univ. Paris, v. 246.
2 - Se Concilii decreta semper suscepisse et observâsse."
Aug. Patric. Hist. Concil. Basil. C. 46, in Labbé, Concil. xiii.
1533.
3 Labbé, ut supra, p. 866.
256..
Papal Infallibility.
breaking with them, he had a charge brought against
the Council, through his agents, who travelled about to
the different Courts furnished with secret instructions,
that they had appointed a President, and given far too
sweeping an interpretation to the decrees of Constance,
which, however, he had himself three years before ac-
knowledged as the true one. The payment of annates,
he said, was an immemorial usage — the fact being
that the Popes had introduced it about forty years
before, during the schism. His nuncios were further
instructed that, as the abuses of the Court of Rome
were constantly cast in his teeth, and this produced a
great impression, they should carry with them a scheme
of reformation of a certain sort, in the shape of a Bull,
to be produced for the edification of the sovereigns,
and to shut the mouths of accusers. They were at
the same time furnished with special powers, in foro
1 The annates amounted to half, and often more than half,
the annual income of a see or. a benefice, which every fresh
occupant had to pay once, and to pay in advance, to the
Papal treasury. This excluded all poorer men, unless their
families could raise the money, from the higher dignities in
the Church, and placed the clergy generally in the position
of having to enter on their posts under pressure of heavy
debts. In some German bishoprics the annates amounted to
25,000 florins (£2000).
2 “Per hanc reformationem, etiamsi usquequaque plena non
foret, modo esset aliqua, eorum ora obstruerentur, qui con-
tinue lacerant et carpunt Romanæ Curiæ famam — redderen-
turque tunc reges et principes melius ædificati et magis proni
ad condescendendum petitionibus Papæ et Cardinalium,” etc.
Raynald. Annal. ann. 1436, 15. Had the Roman encomiast,
who has been so discreetly reticent elsewhere, gone to sleep
when he let this passage get into print?
The Council of Basle.
. 257
conscientiæ (dispensations and absolutions), by the
uise of which they might gain over the sovereigns to
the Pope.
The Council, on the other hand, had some weak
points. Carried on and encouraged by the general
confidence and assent accorded to it, it was under the
temptation of entering upon a mass of details, pro-
cesses, and local concerns, which were brought before
it chiefly from France and Germany; it got involved
as umpire in political intrigues, and made enemies
here and there even among the sovereigns. And the
final decision naturally rested with them, when the
struggles.between the Council and the Pope broke out
afresh.
The negotiations with the Greek Emperor about the
reunion of the Churches gave the Pope the desired
pretext for setting up a rival Synod in Italy. He had
already obtained a decision from the minority friendly
to him at Basle in favor of removing into Italy, when,
at the end of 1437, he proclaimed the adjournment of
the Council, or rather, as the event showed, the open-
ing of a new one at Ferrara. As the Greeks took his ·
side, and the Emperor, the Patriarch, and the Bishops
| The Bull does not specify the extent of graces of this
kind, such as were used for detaching the princes from the
side of the Council; but they must have been very large, for
a century earlier, e.g., Clement V. had granted to King John
of France and his wife the privilege of being absolved by
their confessor, retrospectively and prospectively, from all
obligations, engagements, and oaths, which they could not
conveniently keep. “Sacramenta per vos præstita et per vos
et eos præstanda in posterum, quæ vos et illi servare commo-
de non possetis." — D'Achery, Spicil. (Paris, 1661), iv. 275.
258
Papal Infallibility.
of the Eastern Church, really came to Ferrara (as
afterwards to Florence), his design succeeded.
It was well known at Basle that the Synod opened
on Italian soil would at once be flooded by the local
bishops, the officials of the Curia, and the clerical
vagrants and place-hunters, and all hopes of reforming
the Church would be lost. In fact, during the two
years the Council sat at Ferrara and Florence, which
the Pope prolonged to two years more, until 1442,
after the departure of the Greeks, not a single genuine
decree of reform was framed or promulgated.
. Meanwhile the breach between the Fathers of Basle
and the Pope was not obvious on the surface from the
beginning, for Eugenius worded his original Bull as
though it were based on that decree of the minority
which professed to emanate from the whole Council,
and thus the Synod of Ferrara at first appeared to be
simply a continuation of that at Basle, and its decrees
were supposed to form one body with those enacted
there up to the time of the adjournment of the Synod
after the twenty-fifth session. Both parties in the
meantime adopted the extremest measures. The Synod
of Basle, on the strength of the canon of Constance,
declared it an article of faith that the authority of a
General Council is higher than the Pope's, that none
can dissolve or remove it against its will, and that
to deny this is heresy. Thereupon Eugenius IV. was
deposed, against the advice of the Emperor, and a new
Pope, Duke Amadeus of Savoy, chosen, who took the
name of Felix V.,a grievous mistake and presump-
tion, for the horror of a two or three headed Papacy
and an European schism were still only too fresh in
The Union with the Greek Church.
259
- men's memory. Moreover, when the Synod ventured
on these steps, at the instigation of its leader, Cardinal
Allemand of Arles, it had already become insignificant
in numbers and personal weight. It was too like a
tumultuous multitude composed partly of impure and
incongruous elements, though it manifested good dis-
cipline and steady perseverance under the leadership
of the presiding Cardinal, whom it implicitly obeyed.
$ XXV. - The Union with the Greek Church.
Eugenius had to give up all hopes of the non-Italian
bishops attending his Italian Council ; not one of them
came, except that the Duke of Burgundy compelled
two of his Bishops to appear. But at Ferrara and
Florence he at last induced the Greeks, after long re-
sistance, to accept — to be sure only for the moment-
those conditions of reconciliation which he insisted
upon, and to subscribe the act of union. The Em-
peror, in presence of the threatened destruction of his
capital and the last remaining fragments of his empire,
yielded at last. One of the main difficulties concerned
the question of the primacy, and that at the moment
was the most important point for the Pope, for if he
could meet the efforts of the Synod of Basle by pro-
ducing the testimony of the re-united Eastern Church
1 To the constantly repeated charge that the few bishops
had been outvoted by the numerous presbyters, D'Allemand
might have well replied, that had bishops only voted, the will
of the Italian nation must have always prevailed, for their
bishops outnumbered or equalled those of all other nations.
—(Æn. Silv. De Conc. Basil. 1791, p. 87).
260
· Papal Infallibility.
on his side, it would greatly strengthen his case in the
public opinion of the whole West. A general recog-
nition of the Roman primacy was a matter of course
for the Greeks, according to their own tradition, as
soon as the charge against the Holy See of having
become heretical or schismatical was disposed of. The
Easterns had been familiar for nearly, a thousand years
five Patriarchs, among whom the Patriarch of old
Rome was the first and chief in rank, stood at the
head of the whole Church, so that nothing could be
separately decided on questions of doctrine and the
common interests of the Church without the consent
of all five of them. But this view of the precedence
of the Roman “ Pope” (the Patriarch of Alexandria
had the same title with them) had at bottom as little
in common with that universal Papal monarchy in-
vented in the West in 845, and carried out in practice
since 1073, as the position of a Venetian Doge has
with that of a Persian Shah. To the Greeks, at all
events, the notion of such theocratic sovereignty, inter-
fering forcibly in all the details of the Church's life,
and systematically ignoring all legal limitations, such
as existed in the West, was strange and incomprehen-
sible. Their Patriarchs moved within a far narrower
sphere, and acted by fixed rules. The whole Papal
- system of indulgences was entirely unknown to them.
Many rights and means of power gradually acquired
by the Popes could never have come into use in their
simple system of Church-government. And it was
just these very claims of the. Papal system which for
centuries had been their main ground for resisting any
The Union with the Greek Church.
261
overtures for reunion. As early as 1232 the Patriarch
Germanus had written to the Cardinals, -"Your ty-
rannical oppression and the extortions of the Roman
Church are the cause of our disunion." Humbert,
General of the Dominicans, made the same statement
in the memorial he drew up for the Council of Lyons
in 1274: “ The Roman Church knows only how to
make the yoke she has laid on men's shoulders press
heavily; her extortions, her numberless legates and
nuncios, and the multitude of her statutes and punish-
ments, have deterred the Greeks from reunion."2 And
this was the universal opinion in the West. The
French clergy appealed to it in their representation to
Clement IV. in 1266 ;4 and Bishop Durandus of Mende
urged it upon Clement V.5 The English Sir John
Mandeville related, after his return from the East, that
the Greeks had answered laconically to John XXII.'s
demand for their submission, “ Thy plenary power
over thy subjects we firmly believe; thine immeasur-
able pride we cannot endure, and thy greed we cannot
satisfy. With thee is Satan, with us the Lord.” 6 In
1339, the Minorite John of Florence, sent to the East
of Constantinople and his Synod, and it was again said
1 Matt. Par. Hist. Angl. p. 461. 2 Brown, Fascic. ii. 215.
3 So Gerhoch (De Invest. Antichr. p. 171) said about 1150,
“Græci a Romanis propter avaritiam, ut dicunt, se alienave-
runt.”
4 Marlot, Metrop. Rhemens, ii. 557, “Quod propter ejus-
modi exactiones Orientalis Ecclesia ab obedientiâ Romanæ
Ecclesiæ recesserit, patet omnibus."
5 Tractat. de Conc. p. 69. 6 Itinerar. Zwollis, 1487, i. 7.
262
.
Papal Infallibility: .
that the cause of the disunion was the insatiable pride
of the Bishop of Rome.
That notion of the Papacy according to which all
Church authority is exercised by the Pope, and belongs
by inherent right to him alone, in whom are centred all
the rights of the episcopate, was a special stumbling-
block to the Greeks ;2 and if they regarded the number
of oaths in use among the Latins as unchristian, the
demand that they should take an oath of obedience to
the Pope was doubly hateful to them. But the hope-
lessness of their situation had broken their spirit; they
were living during the Council on the alms of the Pope,
and could not return home with their work unaccom-
plished. Eugenius wanted them to acknowledge his
monarchical power over the whole Church in the form
usual in the West, and, when the Papal theologians
overwhelmed them with a mass of forged or corrupted
passages derived from the pseudo-Isidore and Gratian,
they answered shortly and dryly, “ All these canons are
apocryphal.” 3 The Emperor said that if the Pope in-
sisted on this point, he would depart with his bishops.
At last a compromise was effected; the Pope waived
his demand for a recognition of his supremacy over the
Church “according to Scripture and the sayings of the
saints.” 4 The Emperor had observed on that point,
1 Joh. Marignol. Chronic. in Dobner's Script. Ter. Bohem.
ii. 85.
2 Thus in the Crimen contra Eccl. Lat., written about 1200,
and found in Coteler, Monum. Eccl. Græc. iii. 502, we read,
Éva OUVEKTIKÒV Tūv årúvtwv ủpxcépɛa Tòv IIúnav. That they could
not comprehend.
3 Harduin, Concil. ix. 968-974.
4 This meant, as the acts show, the strongest of the spu-
rious passages in pseudo-Isidore and St. Thomas.
The Union with the Greek Church.
263
that the courtly rhetoric to be found in the letters of
ancient bishops and emperors could not be transmuted
into the logic of strict law, and that the canons of
Cuuncils should rather be taken as the rule. The
article was accordingly worded to this effect, that “ the
Pope is the vicar of Christ, the head of the whole
Church, the Father and teacher of all Christians, and
has full authority from Christ to rule and feed the
Church in the imanner contained in the acts of the
Ecumenical Councils and in the Canons.” This lan-.
guage defined the limits of the Papal authority, and the
rules for its exercise, and moreover reduced it within
such narrow and moderate boundaries that Eugenius
and his theologians would never have agreed to it had
they known the true state of the case, and not been
misled by the old and new forgeries into a very mis-
taken estimate of the ancient Councils, and the position
the Pope occupied in them. The Greeks understood
by the Ecumenical Councils those only which were
lield in the East during the first eight centuries, and
before the division of the two halves of the Church,
the Eastern and Western, and this was recognized at
Rome as self-evident, so that in the first edition printed
there, as well as in the Privilegium of Clement VII.,
and even in the Roman edition of 1626, the Council of
Florence is called the eighth Ecumenical.But in
the first seven Councils nothing was said of any spe-
cial rights of superiority in the Pope; only his prece-
dence over all other patriarchs was recognized in the
twenty-eighth canon of Chalcedon. The appeals,
1 [It is also quoted as the eighth in Cardinal Pole's Ref-
ormation of England, dated Lambeth, 1556. — Tr.]
264
Papal Infallibility.
which Eugenius wanted, were expressly forbidden by
the ancient Councils. But the Latins, to whose minds
the mention of the ancient Councils only suggested the
legends of Silvester, Julius, and Virgilius, etc., and
the spurious canons, thought they had provided suf-
ficiently for the interests of the Pope by this formula.
The original Latin translation rendered the Greek
text faithfully, for after the long controversy with the
Greeks over every word, it had been necessary to draw
up the decrees first in Greek. Flavio Biondo, the
Pope's secretary, gives a correct version. But in the
Roman edition of Abraham Cretensis, by the unob-
trusive change of a single word, what the Greeks in-
tended to have expressed by it had disappeared, viz.,
that the prerogatives attributed to the Pope are to be
11 understood and exercised according to the rule of the
ancient Councils.2 By this change the rule was trans-
1 The Greek version runs, “kúO' öv Tpórov kaì £v Tolç Tapalttikios
των οικουμενικών συνόδων και εν τοις ιερούς κάνοσι διαλαμβάνεται.”
This is honestly rendered in the original Latin text, “ quem-
admodum (better "juxta eum modum qui') et in gestis
Ecum. Concil. et in sacris canonibus continetur." So Bion-
do quotes it in his History (1. x. Dec. 3), and so Cardinal
Marcus Vigerius, Bishop Fisher of Rochester, Eck, and Pig-
hius have quoted it after him. But the Dominican Antoninus
had already substituted “etiam.” [“ Continetur" is, how-
ever, an inadequate rendering, to say the least, of daraußávetal,
which rather means is determined” than “is contained."
See an article on the Council of Florence in the Union Re-
view, vol. iv. pp. 190 sqq. and cf. vol.* iii. pp. 686, 687. - Tr.]
2“ Quemadmodum etiam," instead of "et-et.” It is one
of the many disingenuous statements Orsi has made himself
responsible for, when he says (De Rom. Pont. Auctor. vi. II),
in the teeth of the facts as evidenced by the record of pro-
:
265
The Union with the Greek Church.
formed into a mere confirmatory reference, and the
sense of the passage became, that the prerogatives
enumerated there belonged to the Pope, and were also
contained in the ancient Councils. And the decree of
Union has since been printed in this corrupted form in
the collections of canons, and elsewhere.
After the departure of the Greeks, Eugenius severely,
denounced the Synod of Basle in his Bull issued from
Florence, but this censure only touched the sessions
held after its prorogation, and the “ false interpretation
put upon the decrees of Constance." 2 In this reserved
and tortuous document he did not venture to make any
direct attack on the decrees of Constance, then so
highly reverenced throughout the Christian world, but
he tried to damage their credit by observing that they
ceedings, that the Greek text was translated from the Latin,
which, however, had not "etiam" originally. His ignorance
of Greek may excuse him for saying, on the authority of a
young man, that kai-kal may be translated by "etiam."
Launoy, Bossuet, Natalis Alexander, De Marca, the Jesuit.
Maimbourg, and Duguet, have long since exposed the fraud.
But in the Greek version, sent directly from Florence by the
Pope to the King of England, all the words after “primacy
over the whole Church” are inissing, so that there is reason
to suspect an interpolation even in the Greek text. Brequigny
has shown (Mémoires de l'Académ. des Inscr. t. 43, p. 306 sqq.)
how suspicious are all the copies of the decree of Union, nine
in number, now extant, except the British. None of them
are original documents. The five original copies have dis-.
appeared.
í (It is also printed in some theological manuals, and often
quoted for controversial purposes, with the words about the
canons of Councils suppressed altogether. — Tr.]
2 In the Decretal “Moyses Vir Dei.” Cf. Concil. (ed. Lab-
be), xiii. 1030.
266
Papal Infallibility.
had been passed during the time of the schism by one
Obedience only, and after the departure of Pope John.
Yet it was not the loss of his infallibility through these
decrees that so deeply grieved him. That he had
already recognized. Torquemada had made him say
in the former Bull (Deus novit) that the Pope's
sentence must always take precedence of that of a
Council, except in what concerned questions of faith,
or rules necessary for the good of the whole Church,
and in that case the decision of the Council must be
preferred.
§ XXVI. — The Papal Reaction.
The French nation assumed the most dignified and
consistent attitude in view of the altered condition of
the Church and the renewal of the schism. In 1438
the King opened a mixed assembly of ecclesiastics and
laymen at Bourges. The deputies both of the Pope
and the Council of Basle were heard, and it was de-
cided to receive the decrees of the Council, with certain
modifications required by the circumstances of France.
Thus originated the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges,
which included the freedom of Church elections, the
principle of the superior authority of General Councils,
and the rejection of the disorderly proceedings of the
Curia, with its expectancies, reservations, appeals,
and manifold devices for extorting money. It was the
first comprehensive codification of what have since
been called the Gallican Liberties. Detested at Rome,
it became the butt for the attacks of every Pope after
I See Concil. (ed. Labbé), xii. 537.
The Papal Reaction.
267
Eugenius IV., until at last Leo X. succeeded in abol-
ishing it by the Concordat of 1517, in which the Pope
and the King shared the spoils of the French Church;
the lion's share falling, however, to the King.
England, involved at the time in political troubles,
neglected to take a side. Few only would acknowl-
edge the Savoyard Pope, even if they would not resolve
on giving up the Council. Alfonso, King of Aragon
and Naples, hitherto the main support of the Council
of Basle, but who had now been won over by the large
offers of the Pope, recalled his bishops, and together
with the Venetians, who were the countrymen of
Eugenius, was his great support in Italy. The German
nation, under the lead of the Electors, maintained
neutrality between the Synod of Basle and the Pope,
but in a sense practically favorable to the Council ;
and they solemnly accepted its decrees of reformation,
in 1439 at the imperial Diet of Mayence, whereby
Germany bound itself, like France, to the recognition
of the doctrine of Church authority laid down in the
canons of Constance.1 There was no man of mark in
all Germany at that time who expected any good from
the Court of Rome for the Church or for his country.
Most of the clergy, the Universities of Vienna, Erfurt,
Cologne, Louvain, and Cracow, besides Paris, the
sovereigns and their counsellors, and all the people,
were for the Council and its doctrine against the Papal
system.
1 See, for the document of acceptance, Koch, Sanctio Prage
mat. Germ. p. 93.
2 Launoy (Opp. vi. 521 seq.) has had their judgments
printed from Parisian manuscripts.
268
Papal Infallibility.
But Eugenius understood well how to gain over
converts to his side, by bestowing privileges and grants
of all kinds, and for this he was much more favorably
situated than the Council, which was bound by its own
principles, and the decrees it had published, and had
little or nothing to give in the way of dispensations,
privileges, and exemptions, but was obliged to confine
itself within the limits of the ancient Church, while
Eugenius, according to the traditions of the Curia,
was not bound to the laws of the Church. To the
Duke of Cleves he gave such important ecclesiastical
rights, at the expense of the bishops, that he made him
master of the Church and the clergy of his country, so
that it became a proverb, “ The Duke of Cleves is Pope
in his own land.”1 As early as 1438, Eugenius had
not only deposed and anathematized the members of
the Council, but laid Basle under interdict, excommuni-
cated the municipal council, and required every one to
plunder the merchants who were bringing their wares
to the city, because it is written, " The righteous hath
spoiled the ungodly."? For a long time, indeed, his acts
produced no results; there was too strong a feeling in
favoi of the Council, which had shown so sincere a
desire to benefit the Church. For some years the Elec-
tors vacillated in their policy between Rome and Basle.
At last their decision came, in 1446. King Frederick,
acting under the advice of his secretary, the accom-
plished rhetorician Æneas Silvio Piccolomini, sold
himself to Pope Eugenius, who could offer him more
than Felix, since the latter was bound to the decisions
1 Teschenmacher, Annal. Cliviæ (Francof. 1729), p. 294.
2 Raynald. Annal. anno 1438, 5.
1
The Papal Reaction.
269
of the Council. The generous Eugenius pledged him-
self to pay the King 100,000 florins for his journey,
together with the imperial crown, assigned tithes to
him from all the German benefices, the patronage for
one vacancy of 100 benefices in his hereditary territo-
ries, and the appointment of bishops to six dioceses,
and, finally, gave full powers to his confessor to give
him twice a plenary absolution from all sins. There-
by the cause of the Council and of Church reformation
was lost in Germany, and the German Church sank
back, step by step, into its former bondage. Æneas
Silvius, who had meanwhile entered the Papal service,
bribed two ministers of the Elector of Mayonce, who
won over their master to the side of the Pope. Thus
the body of German princes was divided, and the
previous demand for a new Council was reduced to a
mere petition, which people did not trouble themselves
about at Rome. The victory of Eugenius was com-
plete. When on his death-bed he received the homage
of the German ambassadors, the event was celebrated
(Feb. 7, 1447) in Rome with ringing of bells and bon-
fires. Even the slight concessions the Pope had made
to the Germans he thereupon at once recalled in secret
Bulls, “so far as they contained anything prejudicial
to the Papal See.” A fortnight later he died, after
triumphing over the Council and over Germany; but
the means he had employed wrung from him in his
agony of conscience the words, “ O Gabriel, how much
better were it for thy soul's salvation hadst thou never
become Cardinal and Pope!” Meanwhile, however,
i Chmel, Geschicht. Friedr. IV. (Hamburg, 1839), ii. 385;
Material, ii. 195 599.
270
Papal Infallibility.
he had acknowledged in his public Bull the decrees of
Constance on the superiority and periodical convoca-
tion of Councils.?
When Frederick III., in 1452, received the imperial
crown from the hands of the Pope, Æneas Silvius was
able to declare in his name and his presence that an-
other Emperor would, no doubt, have desired a Coun-
cil, but the Pope and the Cardinals were the best
Council.
The new Pope, Nicolas V.- that same Thomas of
Bologna who had been so successful in his dealings
with King Frederick — added a fresh conquest to the
hard-won victory of his predecessor in the Concordat
of Vienna (of Feb. 17, 1448), restoring to the Pope
the right of appointing to a great number of German
benefices—a compact concluded with King Frederick,
as plenipotentiary of the German princes, who came
into his portion of the gains and influence shared be-
tween them and the Papal Court. The princes had
been the more readily won over at an earlier period
by various privileges, because the observance of the
reforming decrees of Basle would have considerably
diminished their power over the churches in their do-
minions. Not long after the compact had been agreed
upon, Pope Calixtus III., in 1457, declared to the
Emperor that it was obvious the Pope was not bound
by the Concordat, for no agreement could bind or limit
in any way the full and free authority of the Papal See,
1 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1447, 4; Müller, Reichstags-Thea-
trum, pp. 347 seq.; Koch, Sanctio Pragın. pp. 81 seq.
2 Æneæ Silvii Hist. Fred. III. in Kollar's Analecta, ii.
- 317.
The Papal Reaction.
and if he paid regard to it, that was only out of favor,
friendliness, and tender affection for the German na-
tion. And this has been a Roman maxim from that
day forward. It was taught that an authority like the
Papal cannot bind itself, for that would be inconsistent
with its plenary power; least of all can it lay an obli-
gation on future Popes, since all have equal rights, and
an equal has no power over his equal. The nation
therefore is bound by the Concordat, but not the Pope.
And thus the Bolognese jurist, Cataldino de Buon-
campagni, who wrote for the Pope against the Synod
of Basle, had already determined that whatever promi-
ses the Pope might make, he was never bound by them
in the fulness of his power, for as every one is his sub-
ject, every compact or engagement bears the character
of a gracious condescension only, and can, as such, be
at any moment retracted,' and therefore the Pope, in
spite of his promises, was not bound to the decrees of
the Council. It was roundly affirmed in the Roman
Court of the Rota in 1610, in reference to the German
Concordat, that for the Pope and the Curia its only
16Quamvis liberrima sit Apostolicæ Sedis auctoritas nul-
lisque debeat pactionum vinculis coerceri," etc. -Æneæ Silvii
Epist. 371, Opp. (ed. Basil. 1551), 840.
2 Thus, e.g., says the Roman canonist and assessor of the
Inquisition, Pirro Corrado, Praxis Dispens. Apost. de Con-
cord. Quæst. 8.
3 De Translat. Concil. in Roccaberti's Biblioth. Max. vi.
27. That was allowed to be again printed in 1697, notwith-
standing the Roman censorship. It was maintained still
later by the famous canonist, Felino Sandei, whom the Pope
rewarded with bishoprics for his commentary on the Decre-
tals, “ad cap. xiii. de Judiciis."
272
Papál Infallibility.
validity was as a privilege graciously bestowed, and
that it had no binding force.
But the hatred and contempt of both Pope and
Emperor, which had become deeply fixed in the
minds of the Germans, broke out at the Imperial Diet
at Frankfort in 1454, and later, when the question of
contributions for the war against the Turks was raised.
Nobody was willing to trust a word said by them or
their ambassadors, since the extortion of money was
the only thing aimed at. “All,” says Æneas Silvius,
who was soon as Pope to experience similar treatment,
6 cursed the Emperor and the Pope, and treated the
legates with contempt.” 2 But the summoning of a
General Council was still sometimes talked of at these
Diets, and the very notion had become such a bugbear
of the Popes, that they made it a primary condition
in their dealings with some German princes, as, e.g.,
1 Nicolarts, Ad Concord. Germ. Tit. 3. dub. 3, § 6. It was
the received doctrine of the Curia, that Concordats could not
bind the Pope. Thus the Benedictine Zallwein (Princip. Fur.
Eccl. iv. 300) says, “Passim docent assentatores Romani
Pontificis et curiales Romani apud quos ipsum nomen Con-
cordatorum pessimè audit.” Hence all German canonists,
with the exception of course of the Jesuits, have felt it neces-
sary to prove, from the laws of nations and of the ancient
Church, that a Pope is bound to keep his word and the en-
gagements of his predecessors. Thus Barthel, Schramm,
Schrodt, Dürr, Schmidt, Schlör, Oberhauser, Zallwein, etc.
Benedict XIV. himself alone declared, Dec. 14, 1740, in a Brief
to the Chapter of Liége, that he did not hold himself bound
by the Concordat. Cf. Endres, De Libert. Eccl. Germ. 1774,
p. 60; Theod. a Palude (Hontheim) Flores Sparsi, 1770, p. 452;
Barthel, Opusc. Furid. 1756, ii. 373 seq.
2 Pii Commentar. a Joh. Gobellin (Fef. 1614), p. 22.
The Papal Reaction.
273
with Dietlier of Isenberg, that they should never moot
the question. Meanwhile every appeal to a General
Council was promptly visited with excommunication
in the most decisive manner by Pius II.
At the close of his life, the Emperor Frederick seems
to have repented of his share in this work of destruction.
The instructions he gave his ambassador for the Diet
at Frankfort, in 1486, contain words to the effect that
he knew what immense sums passed to Rome in the
shape of annates, indulgences, and the like, and what
abject obedience and subjection to the Papal See the
German nation had exhibited, above all others. These
services were received thanklessly and haughtily by
the Pope, Cardinals, and Court officials, and the Ger-
man nation was contumeliously treated in all dealings,
from the highest to the lowest, so that it would be
against the common nature and reason of mankind
to endure such piteous treatment any longer. It was
therefore to be impressed on the princes that they
should no longer show obedience and submission to the
Pope, in order that the German nation might no more
be despised and humbled beyond all others.1
Felix (the Antipope) was now induced by the
French King to resign, and was made the chief Cardi-
nal, with extensive jurisdiction over several dioceses.
The remnant of the Synod of Basle, which had at
last been driven to Lausanne, dissolved itself, and the
* Cardinal of Arles, that “ adept in iniquity and son of
perdition,” as Eugenius had termed him, was restored
· without ever retracting any of his principles. This
did not prevent Clement VII. from canonizing him
1 Schlözer, Briefwechsel, x. 269.
-
18
274 -
Papal Infallibility.
after his death, “ since his sanctity had been proved by
miracles, and he had always led a heavenly, chaste,
and blameless life.”
§ XXVII. — Temper and Circumstances of the Fif-
teenth Century.
Some time had elapsed after the disastrous year
1446, before it was understood in Germany that all
hope of reforming the Church by means of Councils
was at an end. Even so late as 1459, men could not
and would not believe in this utter wreck of all schemes
of reformation. The Carthusian Prior, Vincent of
Axpach, thought that if but one king would issue safe-
conducts for the assemblage of a Council in his do-
minions, and but one bishop were to summon it, it
would meet in spite of the reclamations or anathemas
of the Court of Rome; and that was the last remaining
hope, for the experience of the last fifty years proved
that no help could be looked for from the See of Rome.
It was a far worse error than the Hussite heresy, to de-
prive the Church of General Councils, which are its
best possession. And Vincent then relates how Euge-
nius succeeded in alluring over nearly all the educated
to his side by the offer of benefices. An anonymous
German writer, as early as 1443, had also lamented
this falling away of the learned, such as Nicolas Cusa
and Archbishop Tudeschi. «The Roman harlot has
so inany paramours drunk with the wine of her forni-
cations, that the Bride of Christ, the Church, and the
Council representing her, scarcely receive the loyal
1 Pez, Codex Epistol. iii. 335.
Temper and Circumstances of 15th Century. 275
devotion of one among a thousand. And yet Ger-
many, in the person of its Emperor, has been worse
used by the Popes than any other kingdom ; the Ger-
man Emperor alone was compelled, in accordance
with “legendary and forged decretals,' to swear obe-
dience to the Pope.”1
At last, at the very moment of its dissolution, the
much-abused Synod of Basle had obtained a conspic-
uous satisfaction ; Councils were still held in such high
esteem in Rome, even after the death of Eugenius,
that the new Pope, Nicolas V., by advice of the Car-
dinals, issued a Bull, declaring all documents, processes,
decrees, and censures of his predecessor against the
Council void and of no effect, even though issued with
the approval of the Council of Ferrara or Florence, or
any other. They were to be regarded as having never
existed, and were expunged from the writings of Eu-
genius as completely as the Bulls of Boniface VIII.
against France and the French king had been expunged
on a former occasion by command of Clement V.8 And
thus the principles of the two reforming Councils, on the
superiority of General Councils to Popes, completely
triumphed after all; the attempts of Eugenius, acting
under inspiration of Cardinal Torquemada, to bring
1 Tractat. missus March. Brandenburg. 1443. See MSS. of
vol. 31 of Hardtisch collection in the library of Stuttgart.
What is said of the decretals is surprising at that early date.
Yet Nicolas of Cusa also had just then for the first time re-
cognized the spurious character of certain Isidorian decretals.
2 See Bull Tanto Nos, in the Jesuit Monod's Amadeus Pa-
cif. (Paris, 1626), p. 272.
8 The Bull says, “Tollimus, cassamus, irritamus et can-
cellamus."
276
Papal Infallibility.
.
the Synod of Constance into bad odor, were entirely
foiled, and the Curia itself bowed to the superior
claims of a General Council. As regards the reform-
ing decrees of the Fathers of Basle, so far as they pre-
judiced the power and finances of the Curia, they
were surrendered to destruction, but the dogmatic de-
cisions of the Pope's inferiority to a Council, on which
they were based, remained untouched.
Pius II., indeed, who in his former position of rhe-
torician and scholar had defended the interests of the
Synod of Basle, made the most desperate attempt to
directly condemn the decisions of Constance, which
hung like a Damocles-sword over the uneasy heads of
the Court officials, and disturbed their enjoyment of
Papal autocracy. But public opinion was too emphat-
ically on the side of the Council, and he not only did
not dare to go against it, but on the contrary found it
prudent, in his Bull of retractation in 1463, to add ex-
pressly that he acknowledged the authority and power
of an (Ecumenical Council, as defined by the Council
of Constance, which he reverenced.
But the race of Torquemadas was not yet extinct.
By degrees works appeared from the pens of monks
and cardinals, or those who hoped to become such,
designed to raise the Papal system from the humiliation
it had suffered through the Councils. This was not
difficult, for they had merely to arrange and systema-
tize, in the form of axioms and deductions, the rich
materials provided by the forgeries of Isidore, Gratian,
and St. Thomas, in order to prove the groundlessness
of the two closely connected doctrines, of the authority
1 Concil. (ed. Labbé), xiii. 1410.
Temper and Circumstances of 15th Century. 277
of the episcopate and of Councils. In this way origi-
nated the writings of Capistrano, Albanus, Campeggi,
Elisius, Marcellus, and Lælius Jordanus, between 1460
and 1525. The character of the whole series may be
judged from any one of them, for one is copied from
another, and the same falsified or spurious testimonies,
canons, and statements of fact, are reproduced in all
of them.
When that holy and highly favored soul, St. Cathe-
rine of Sienna, came to Gregory XI., she told him that
she found in the Court of Rome the stench of infernal
vices, and on his replying that she had only been there
a few days, the virgin, humble as she was, rose majes-
tically, uttering these words, “I dare to say that in my
native city I have found the stench of the sins com-
mitted in the Curia more oppressive than it is to those
who daily commit them.”1
It was the same everywhere; it seemed as though,
through the state of things gradually brought about,
and the dominant system in Rome, a new art had been
discovered among men, of making. corruption and vice
omnipresent, and diffusing it like some subtle poison
from one centre and workshop, throughout every pore
of the vast organization of the Church. Every one
· who looked over the Christian world for advice and
aid against the general corruption, or who only tried
to effect an improvement within his own immediate
sphere, found himself hampered at once by a Papal
ordinance, and gave up the attempt as hopeless. Papal
bulls, fulminations, begging monks, clerical place-
1 Acta Sanct. Bolland. 30 April, p. 891.
278
Papal Infallibility.
hunters, and inquisitors, were everywhere. Even
Erasmus could say, in his letter to Bishop Fisher of
Rochester, “If Christ does not deliver His people
from this multiform ecclesiastical tyranny, the tyranny
of the Turks will at last become less intolerable:" 2
And thus from the middle of the fifteenth century
every accent of hope disappears from the literature of
the Church, clearly as these accents had again rung
out at the beginning of the century, and about the time
of the Synods of Constance and Basil, both in speech
and writing. Men's thoughts could only revolve within
the same narrow circle — a reformation of the Church
is impossible as long as the Court of Rome remains
what it is; there every mischief is fostered and pro-
tected, and thence it spreads, but there, unless by a
miracle, there is no hope of reformation. So says the
Abbot Jacob of Junterberg, “A reformation of the
Church is to me almost incredible, for first the Court
of Rome must be reformed, and the course things are
taking shows how difficult that is. Yet no nation so
vehemently opposes reform as the Italian, and to them
all who have cause to fear it attach themselves.”3
The most highly reverenced theologian of the Nether-
lands, “the ecstatic doctor," as he was called, the Car-
thusian Prior Dionysius Ryckel, related how it was
revealed to him in a vision, which he communicated
1 "Curtisanen,” a name given to clerical vagrants who
came to Rome to barter or beg for benefices. Wimpheling
has accurately described them.
2 Erasm. Epp. vi. 8, p. 353 (ed. Londin. 1642). .
3 De Sept. Stat. Eccl. about 1450, in Walch, Monum. ii. 2,
42.
· Temper and Circumstances of 15th Century. 279
to the Pope himself, that the whole choir of the blessed
in heaven had offered intercessions for the Church on
earth, which was threatened with the severest judg-
'ments, but had received answer that even if the Pope,
the cardinals, and the prelates, with the rest, swore in
God's name, that they wished to reform themselves,
they would be perjured; from head to foot there was
no soundness in the Church,1
It was pretty generally felt that it was with the ref-
ormation of the Church às with the Roman king and
the Sibylline books; since the seed of corruption sown
everywhere by the Curia had so plentifully sprung up
during the last fifty years, while the Church made no
efforts for her deliverance, reform could only be pur-
chased at a much dearer price, and with far less hope
of satisfactory results. Many thought, like the Domin-
ican Institoris, about 1484, “The world cries for a
Council, but how can one be obtained in the present
condition of the heads of the Church? No human
power avails any longer to reform the Church through
a Council and God himself must come to our aid in
some way unknown to us." 2
The Germans at that period looked with great envy
on the French, English, Scotch, and other nations, who
were not so shamefully abused and recklessly plundered
as the barbarous but “humble and patient” Germans,
who were sacrificed by their own princes. Æneas
Silvius, or Pius II., had reminded them before, that,
considering their barbarism, they must account it
properly an honor they had to be thankful for, that
i Petri Dorland. Chron. Cartus. (Colon. 1608), pp. 394-9.
2 Cf. Hottinger, Hist. Eccl. Sæc. xv. p. 413.
280
Papal Infallibility.
:
the Court of Rome, in virtue of its long attested civil-
izing mission for Germany, was undertaking their
affairs, and indemnifying itself richly for the trouble.1
When the Elector, Jacob of Trèves, advised King
Frederick to gain the favor of the German nation by
urging the new Pope, Calixtus III., to remedy their
grievances, Æneas Silvius persuaded him rather to
unite himself with the Pope than with the German
people for a common object, for, said the Italian, be-
tween king and people there is an inextinguishable
hatred, and it is therefore wiser to secure the favor of
the new Pope by rendering services to liim.
Rome thus became the great school of iniquity,
where a large part of the German and Italian clergy
went through their apprenticeship as place-hunters,
and returned home loaded with benefices and sins, as
also with absolutions and indulgences.
There is something almost enigmatical about the
universal profligacy of that age. In whole dioceses
and countries of Christian Europe clerical concubin-
age was so general that it no longer excited any sur-
prise; and it might be said of certain provinces that
hardly one clergyman in thirty was chaste, while in
our own day there are countries where the great major-. -
ity of the clergy are free even from the suspicion of
incontinence. This distinction is to be explained by
1 Respons. et Repl. Wimphel. ad Æneam Silvium, in Fre-
her, Script. Rer. Germ. (ed. Struv.). ii. 686-98. As late as
1516 the patriotic Wimpheling thought it necessary to defend
his country and its spokesman, Chancellor Martin Maier of..
Mayence, against the Siennese Pope.
2 Gobellin. Comment. Pii II. p. 25.
The Opening of the 16th Century: 281
the universally corrupt state of the ecclesiastical ad-
ministration. There could be no thought of any selec-
tion or careful training for the ministry where every-
thing was matter of sale, where both ordination and
preferment were bought and begged in Rome, where
the conscientious, who would not be tainted with
simony, had to stand aside, while the men of no con-
science prospered, and rapidly attained the higher
positions, and the clerical profession was that of all
others which offered the easiest and idlest life, with
the largest privileges and the least of corporate obliga-
tions. The Curia had abundantly provided for the
universal security and impunity of the clergy. Where
the heads themselves gave the example of contempt
for all laws, human and divine, it could not be expected
that their subordinates would submit to the oppressive
yoke of continence, and so the contagion was sure to
spread. Every one who came from Rome brought
back word that in the metropolis of Christendom, and
in the bosom of the great mother and mistress of all
Churches, the clergy, with scarcely an exception, kept
concubines.?
§ XXVIII. -- The Opening of the Sixteenth Century.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, under
Julius II., events took a turn which suggested an op-
i When the vicar of Innocent VIII. wanted to forbid this,
the Pope made him withdraw his edict, “propter quod talis
effecta est vita sacerdotum et curialium ut vix reperiatur qui
concubinam non retineat vel saltem meretricem.” So too the
Roman annalist, Infessura, in his diary, given in Eccard:
Corp. Hist. ii. 1997.
282
Papal Infallibility.
portunity to the Curia for recovering the ground they
had in theory lost. Louis XII. of France, and the
German emperor Maximilian, who were at political
enmity with the Popes, had recourse to the plan of
holding ecclesiastical assemblies. First, a French
National Synod was assembled at Tours, and then a
General Council summoned to Pisa, which being
almost entirely composed of French prelates, imitated
the conduct of the Council of Basle towards the Pope. .
The quarrel, as all the world knew, was purely polit-
ical, regarding the sovereignty in Italy, and thus the
scheme of the Council came to nothing. Julius II., .
and Leo X. after him, assembled their Lateran Couns
cil with about sixty-five bishops, in opposition to it.
The utter failure of the attempt made at Pisa encour-
aged the Curia in its turn to strike a blow at Councils,
since during the period of increased confusion and
uncertainty, from 1460 to 1515, the names of Constance
and Basle were become obsolete. Francis I. surren-
dered the Pragmatic Sanction in return for the Church
patronage bestowed upon him, whereby elections were
abolished, and the fortunes of the superior clergy, who
aimed at dignities and benefices, were placed absolutely
in the hands of the King. Thus fell the main support
of the authority of the Council of Basle in France, as,
it had already fallen in Germany through the Concor-
dat of Vienna. Maximilian, herein a worthy son of his .
father, had shortly before sacrificed the Council of
Pisa, and given in his adherence to Julius II. and the
Lateran Synod. But in Rome the Curia seized the
opportunity to raise the clergy, who in France had
just been so completely made dependent on the favor
The Opening of the 16th Century." 283
of the Court, from all subjection to civil ties, and ac-
cordingly, in the ninth session of the Lateran Council,
it was ruled by the Pope and bishops that “ by divine
as well as human law the laity have no jurisdiction
over ecclesiastical persons.” This was a confirmation
of the former decree issued by Innocent III. at the
Synod of 1215 (the fourth Lateran), that no cleric
should take an oath of fealty to the princes of whom
he held his temporalities. It was next declared to be
an obvious and notorious truth, attested by Scripture,
Fathers, Popes, and Councils, that the Pope has full
authority over Councils, and can summon, suspend, or
dissolve them at his pleasure.
We must presume that at a period when the most
complete theological barbarism prevailed in Rome
itself, and there was nothing but scholasticism as repre-
sented by some Dominicans like Prierio and Cajetan,
the cardinals and bishops of the day did not even know
what Eugenius IV., Nicolas V.,. and Pius II. had so
often declared. For they could hardly have expected
the authority of a Leo X., with his hole-and-corner
Council of sixty-five Italians, to outweigh the Councils
of Constance and Basle, and the Popes above named,
in the public opinion of Europe. The Curia, how-
ever, were further encouraged by their feeling of com-
plete security, their consciousness that whatever they
undertook, and however threatening or complicated
might be the political situation in Italy, they had noth-
ing to fear in Church matters. Nor was this confidence
disturbed by reproaches and accusations, however
loud; and however often the cry for a Council was
raised, which always and chiefly meant only a limita-
-
284
Papal Infallibility.
tion of the Papacy, the Curia took it quietly. So
much stronger had the tie become during the last hun--.
dred years which bound the clergy to Rome; every
cleric who showed signs of rebelling was crushed at -
once, and even the laity could not escape excommuni-
cation and its consequences. Even the bold Gregory
of Heimburg only found a refuge with the Hussite
King in Bohemia, and was at last obliged, even there, .
to supplicate for absolution at Rome, when a sick and :
broken-down old man, in 1472.1
Yet the Christian world had endured, without any
revolt worth noting, or even the remonstrance of a
Synod being raised, the rule of such Popes as Paul II., .
Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., and Alexander VI., each
of whom had striven to exceed the vices of his pre-
decessor. Paul II., according to the expression of a
contemporary, made the Papal Chair into a sewer by
his debaucheries. The same witness observes that he
had gone to Rome and visited the various ecclesiastical
communities, but had nowhere found a man of really
religious life. What he says of the lives of the Popes,
cardinals, and prelates, is stronger still.
Under Paul II., and still more under Sixtus V., the
great clerical market was further extended, and princi-
palities had to be found for nephews, and fortunes for
natural sons and daughters. New offices were estab-
lished in order to sell them, and the cardinalitial
dignity was highly priced. Leo X. and Clement VII.
sold a number of cardinal's hats, as the unbounded
1 Brockhaus, Gregor. von Heimburg (Leipzig, 1861), p.
383.
2 Attilio Alessio of Arezzo in Baluze and Mansi, iv. 519. .
The Opening of the 16th Century.
285
extravagance of the Medici had emptied even the Papal
treasury, which before was held to be inexhaustible.
From one end of Europe to the other it was again the
cry, “ Everything is made merchandise of at Rome.”
That had been said and written, indeed, in and out of
Italy, for four centuries, but now, at the beginning of
the sixteenth, it was the universal conviction that the
venality could not before have been carried on in so
gross, open, and shameless a manner as it now was
before the eyes of the whole world; the art of turning
everything into money could not have been worked
up to such perfection.' Count John Francis Pico of
Mirandola, who wrote a treatise on the misfortunes of
Italy as caused by Leo X., mentions, as, a symptom
of the extent of national demoralization and godless-
ness, that now ecclesiastical and religious offices were
put up to formal and public auction to the highest
bidder.1
Since 1512 a fresh source of information had been
added, in the shape of an official edition, printed in
Rome, of the customary taxes in the Roman Chancery,
and Penitentiary. It was based throughout on the
older arrangement of taxes, dating from the time of
John XXII., but it was then kept secret, whereas it
was now publicly exposed for sale. This publication,
1 De Veris Calamitatum Causis nostrorum Temporum (ed. -
Colorius Cesius Mutinæ, 1860), p. 24.
2 The composition of the Curia at the opening of the six-
teenth century was very different from what it is now. A
Provinciale of 1518, printed in Rome, contains, somewhere
near the end, a list of the “ officia Curiæ.” Most of them
are marked "venduntur.” The purchase of such an office
was the most profitable investment of capital, which, of
286
Papal Infallibility.
which was soon disseminated in every country, opened
men's eyes everywhere to the huge mass of Roman
reservations and prohibitions, as also to the price fixed
for every transgression, and for absolution from the
worst sins - murder, incest, and the like. This tariff
of the Chancery was afterwards supposed to be an
invention of the enemies of the Papacy, but the re-
peated editions prepared under Papal sanction leave
no doubt about the matter. They show the complete
feeling of security in Rome, and what the Curia be-
course, produced the richest interest. We learn from this
Provinciale that the referendaries “non habent numerum,"
that there were lor sollicitatores, for masters of the archives,
8 writers of supplications, 12 registrars, 27 clerks of the Pen-
itentiary, Si writers of briefs, 104 collectores plumbi, IOI
apostolical clerks. All these offices were sold. There were
besides 13 proctors in the “ Audientia Contradictorum,” 60
abbreviators "de minori," 12 de parco majori. Most of these
also could be bought. We must add 12 Consistorial advo-
cates, 12 auditors of the Rota, who are said to be. dependent
on gratuities, io notaries under the Auditor Camere, 29 sec-
retaries and 7 clerics of the Camera, with 9 notaries. Think
of a well-meaning Pope like Adrian VI. finding himself sud-
denly, in his old age, with the prospect of only a few years'
reign, placed at the head of this gigantic machine, con-
structed in every part for money-getting; some 800 persons
all bent on making the most out of the capital they had
bought their places with, and all together forming a serried
phalanx united by a common interest! A feeling of hopeless
impotence to grapple with such a condition of things must
steal over the very boldest heart.
1 They were afterwards put on the Index, with the com-
ment, "ab hæreticis depravata,” but the editions, often in-
deed provided by Protestants, do not differ from the authentic
Roman issues under Leo X. and Julius II.
The Opening of the 16th Century.
287
lieved it could safely offer to the gaze of the world.
For the bitterest enemy of Rome could have invented
nothing worse than this exposure of a mechanism
systematically developed for centuries, wherein laws
seemed to be made only for the purpose of selling
the right to break them, and both individuals and
communities were only allowed the exercise of their
natural rights when they had paid for it.
The Curia cared nothing for being described by
writers as the source of all the corruption in Christen-
dom, the poisoner and plague-spot of the nations.
There were indeed outbreaks of indignation here and
there, especially when the Curia attacked some favorite
popular orator. When the Carmelite Thomas Conecte,
who had long been laboring in France, Flanders, and
Italy, as a travelling missionary, had wroughtnumberless
conversions, and had distinguished himself by the saint-
liness of his life, at last lashed the vices of the Court of
Rome, Eugenius IV. had him tortured by the Inquisi-
tion, and burnt alive. And as Eugenius treated him,
Alexander VI. treated Savonarola. That famous orator
and theologian had called aloud for a reformation of
1 Thus, e.g., cities had to pay a license at Rome for erecting
a primary school, and if a school was to be removed, a sum
of money had again to be paid for it. Nuns had to buy per-
mission for having two maid-servants for the sick. Cf. Tax®
Cancellar. Apost. (Romæ, 1514), f. 10 seq.
? “ Adversus vitia Curiæ Romanæ emergentia nimio quia
zelo declamabat, captus pro hæretico habitus est et ut talis
combustus.” Cosmas de Villiers, Biblioth. Carmel. Aurelianis
1752, ii. 814. His brother monk, Baptista Mantuanus (De
Vitâ Beatli) pronounces Thomas a martyr, and compares his
death with St. Laurence's. Eugenius is said afterwards on
his death-bed to have bitterly repented his share in this deed.
288
Papal Infallibility.
the polluted Church, and had urged the sovereigns to
lend their aid to the assembling of an Ecumenical
Council. For that the Pope excommunicated him,
and threatened Florence with an interdict. Papal Com-
missaries were sent there, and Savonarola, with two
brethren of his Order, was executed for heresy, and
their bodies burnt. Thus did the crowned theologian
overcome the simple preaching monk, — the theologian,
for Julius was that, in spite of his children and his
“handmaidens."1 He had done, as Rodrigo Borgia,
a gloss on the rules of the Chancery, composed a really
learned work in defence of the universal monarchy and
infallibility of the Popes. But Savonarola, as even his
enemies must admit, was not only one of the most
gifted men and best theologians of his day; he also
belonged to the most powerful of the Religious Orders,
and had many adherents among its members. And
thus he came to be honored as a saint and martyr for
the truth, and other saints, like Philip Neri and Cathe-
rine Ricci, bore witness to his holiness, and even a later - ,
Pope, Benedict XIV., declared him worthy of canon-
ization,
$ XXIX. — The State of Contemporary Opinion.
Italy was still more thoroughly victimized to the Curia
than Germany, but the Italians bore the burden more
1 The expression is borrowed from Macchiavelli, “Tre
sue famigliari e care anzelle, lussuria, simonia, e crudeltade,"
J. Decennal. Opere (ed. Fiorent. 1843), p. 682.
3 De Serv. Dei Canonis, iii, 25. 17.
Contemporary Testimonies.
289
easily, because the sums which flowed in from all parts
of tributary Europe to the Court of Rome, through a
hundred different channels, were again diffused from
Rome, by means of nepotism, throughout the Peninsula,
and most of the cardinals and prelates were flesh of
their flesh, and bone of their bone. But the very fact
of this close neighborhood and kinship made its moral
effects more mischievous. All thoughtful Italians of
that age who could make comparisons, regarded their
nation as surpassing those of Northern Europe in corrup-
tion and irreligion. Macchiavelli says, -— “ The Italians
are indebted to the Roman Church and its priests for
our having lost all religion and devotion through their
bad examples, and having become an unbelieving and
evil people.” He adds, — " The nearer a people
dwells to the Roman Court the less religion it has.
Were that Court set down among the Swiss, who still
remain more pious, they too would soon be corrupted
by its vices.” Nor was a more favorable judgment given
by Macchiavelli's fellow-citizen, Guicciardini, who for
many years served the Medicean Popes in high offices,
administering their provinces and commanding their
army; he observes, on Macchiavelli's words, that what-
ever evil may be said of the Roman Court must fall short
of its deserts. What these statesmen say of the moral
1 Discorsi, i. 12, p. 273, ed. 1843.
2 Opere Inedite, i. 27 (Firenze, 1857): “Non si può dire
tanto malle della corte Romana che non meriti se ne dica piu,
perchè è una infainia, uno esemplo di tutti e vituperii e obbro-
brii del mondo.” In his Ricordi Autobiografici, he says again,
"A Roma, dove le cose vanno alla grossa, ove si corrompe
ognuno," etc. - Opere, X. 166.
19
290
Papal Infallibility.
corruption introduced into Italy by the Curia is con-
firmed in their way by the prelates. Isidore Chiari,
Bishop of Foligno, who had opportunities at Trent of
becoming thoroughly acquainted with his episcopal
colleagues, says that, in all Italy, among 250 bishops,
one could scarcely find four who even deserved the
name of spiritual shepherds, and really exercised their
pastoral office. “If the Italians are so alienated from
Christianity that its profession may almost be said to
have died out among us, the fault lies with the bishops
and parish priests, for our whole life is a continuous
preaching of unbelief.” 1
It is worth showing, that then, in spite of the Inquisi-
tion, much could be said in Italy, and many an avowal
made, which would not have been tolerated at a later
period, when the Jesuits had got the upper hand, with
their system of reticence, hushing up, and excuses.
The Popes themselves did not shrink from making con-
fessions which must have offended the majority of the
cardinals and prelates of their Court as highly indis-
creet. Adrian VI. told the Germans, by the mouth of
his legate, Chieregati, that for years many abominations
had disgraced the See of Rome, and everything had -
been perverted to evil; from the head corruption had
spread to the members, from the Pope to the prelates."
If there was a well-meaning bishop here and there in
Italy, he felt himself powerless the moment he tried
in good earnest to undertake the administration of his
diocese. When Matteo Giberto, the confidant and
1 The passage is cited by Bishop Lindanus in his Apologet.
and German. (Antwerp, 1568), p. 19.
? Raynald. Annal. ann. 1522, p. 66.
Contemporary Testimonies.
291
datary of C!ement VII., at last sought out his diocese
of Verona, he found the city itself divided into six dif-
ferent spiritual jurisdictions, and his schemes of reform
hopelessly baffled in presence of so many exemptions.1
His biographer, in describing the state of Lombardy,
alleges that the people knew neither the Lord's Prayer
nor the Apostles' Creed, and a great part of them did
not go once a year even to confession and communion,
the best of them not oftener, as a rule.
One evidence of the state of clergy and people in
Papal dioceses may be gathered from the writings of
Bishop Isidore Chiari, already mentioned. He found,
in 1550, that not above one or two priests in his dio-
cese even knew the words of the sacramental absolu-
tion, and all the rest confused the form of absolving
from excommunication with it. He had to send teach-
ers to instruct them how to say mass properly. And
they had incurred public contempt by their vices as
much as by their ignorance. Most of the beneficed
clergy could not even read. In comparison with this
state of things, which the Curia had produced in its
own immediate neighborhood, the condition of re-
moter countries was less disheartening. The great
diocese of Milan, with 2500 priests, was for sixty
years without a bishop. There was nothing in the
houses of the clergy but arms, concubines, and chil-
dren, and it had passed into a common proverb among
the people that the priestly profession was the surest
1 “Giberti Vita,” prefixed to his Opera (ed. Veron. 1733),
p. xi.
2 Isidor. Clar. Episc. Fulgent. In Serm. Domini (Venet.
1566), f. 101–125.
292
Papal Infallibility.
road to hell. Here, too, the use of the sacraments
had almost disappeared. These are some features of
the terrible picture sketched, a few years later, by the
Milanese priest, Giussano, of the condition of things
there.1
When Leo X. was elected, in 1513, he had a terrible
inheritance to enter upon, which might have made
even the boldest shudder. His predecessors, since
Paul II., had done their utmost to cover the Papal See
with infamy, and give up Italy to all the horrors of
endless wars. But his first thought was that, now he
was Pope, a life of unmixed enjoyment had begun for
him.?
.
The Roman prelates bore with great equanimity the
knowledge that Rome and the Curia were hated all
the world over. Giberto, whom we mentioned be-
fore, foresaw that, in the event of war, the Germans
“would hasten hither in troops, to glut their natural
hatred against us.". Erasmus had repeatedly told
them, from the first, that this hatred supplied its
1 De Vit. et Rebus. Gestis Car. Borrom. (ed. Oltrocchi, Me-
diol. 1757), p. 69.
2 “Primo Pontificatûs die maximam voluptatem et cupidi-
tatem expressit, dum Florentinâ linguâ palam hoc enuntiavit:
biographer adds that this could only be understood of physical.
enjoyments by any one who knew him. The passage is miss-
ing in Roscoe Rossi's impression of Vita di Leone x. t. xii.,
but occurs in Cod. Vat. 3920, whence a friend copied it for us,
with the following, which is also omitted in Rossi, “ Eâ tem-
religionis aut integræ famæ ratione palam ad Pontificatum
suffragia vendebantur, omniaque ambitione corrupta erant.”
Contemporary Testimonies.
293
chief nourishment to the schism, daily increasing in
strength. And the facts spoke loudly enough for
themselves. Even so thorough-going a partisan as
Cornelio Musso, Bishop of Bitonto, one of the chosen
· speakers at Trent, did not shrink from saying that the
name of Rome was hated by all nations, and its
friends could only sigh over the shame and contempt
of the Roman Church. And if, at the eleventh hour,
as might happen, the bishops of a country took coun-
sel, with a view to stemming the double tide of cor-
ruption and secession from the Church, they found
again that the Curia had cut through the nerves and
sinews of their episcopal power. At the Synod, held
at Paris in 1528, by the French bishops of the prov-
ince of Sens, it had to be actually inserted in the
canons, that the bishops could not so much as keep
out the incompetent and unworthy by refusing them
ordination, for the rejected candidate would at once
go to Rome, and get ordained there. Twenty years
later, the French prelates had again to protest, at an
assembly held at Melun, against the fatal encroach-
ments of the Curia, which had suddenly put in a
claim to dispose of the benefices in Brittany and Prov-
ence, and to transplant into France the whole simon-
iacal abomination of reservations, expectatives, and
reversionary rights, with the endless processes they led
to, in the teeth of the Concordat of 1517, whereby, as
the bishops told the Pope, bitterly enough, all hope of
reformation was cut off.8
| Sermones, ii. Dom. v. Serm. 2.
2 Harduin, Conc. ix. 1953.
8 Baluze and Mansi, Miscell. ii. 297–300.
294
Papal Infallibility.
When in 1527 that judgment broke upon Rome
which, like Rome itself, stands alone in history, —
when the city which time out of mind had been absorb-
ing countless 'sums of money from the whole West,
Spaniards, and wrung dry like a sopping sponge, then
at last the eyes of many were opened. That very
Cajetan or De Vio, who had been Leo Xo's Court
theologian and factotum, who had been his instigator
in the disgrace of the Lateran Synod, in his decisions
against Constance and Basle, in his proclamation of
the divine right of every cleric to disobey his sovereign,
and had lent his pen to these objects — that same man
who, as legate in Germany, had embittered the Luth-
eran business by his insolence, and who again had in-
duced the Pope to declare it a heresy to disapprove of
burning heretics? - now in 1527 wrote, after the
capture of Rome, “Justly is the life of the pastors of
the Church the object of contempt, and their word
neglected. We, the Roman prelates, now experience
this, who by the righteous judgment of God have been
given up as a prey, not to unbelievers, but to Christians,
to be robbed and imprisoned. We are become useless
for anything but external ceremonies and the enjoy-
ment of this world's goods, and therefore are we
trodden under foot and reduced to bondage.”2
Whenever the influence of the Papacy on the Church
and the religious administration of Rome was discussed
in colloquies and conferences between Catholics and
1 [One of Luther's propositions, condemned by Leo X., is,
“ Hæreticos comburi est contra charitatem Spiritûs.” - TR]
2 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1527, p. 2.
Contemporary Testimonies.
295
Protestants of that period, the Catholic spokesmen
were obliged to declare : “Here our apology ceases ;
we are conquered here, and can neither deny nor ex-
cuse.” So spoke in 1519 Bishop Berthold of Chiemsee,
Cardinal Contarini, the author of the Roman memorial
of 1538, the Abbot Blosius, the French and Belgian
theologians, Claudius d’Espense, Ruard Tapper, Gen-
tian Hervet, Bishop Lindanus, and John Hoffmeister.
There were moments when even the Popes were
obliged to let their most approved servants say what
in ordinary times would have led to a process of the
Inquisition. Gaspar Contarini, whom Paul III. in his
need suddenly transformed from a secular statesman
into a Cardinal, ventured in substance to tell the Pope
that the whole Papal system was wrong and un-
christian. He said that Luther had good reason for
writing his book on the Babylonish Captivity. “Noth-
ing can be devised more opposed to the law of Christ,
which is a law of freedom, thần this system,, which
subjects Christians to the Pope, who can make, un-
make, and dispense laws at his mere caprice. No
greater slavery than this could be imposed on the
Christian people.” 1 Such utterances indeed produced
no effect. Paul III. was not minded to swerve a hair's-
breadth from his claim of absolute power, and for one
Contarini there were always in Rome hundreds of
Torquemadas, Cajetans, Jacobazzis, and Bellarmines.
The two Councils, the Lateran in 1516, and the Tri-
dentine in its earlier period, had this point in common,
that the speakers made avowals and charges so out-
1 Epist. Duæ ad Paulum IV. (Colon. 1538), pp. 62 sqq. Cf.
the Collection of Le Plat, ii. 605.
296
Papal Infallibility.
spoken and of such overwhelming force that they can-
not but amaze us. These speeches and descriptions
reproduce in various forms the same idea : “We Car-
dinals, Italian bishops, and officials of the Curia are a
tribe of worthless men, who have neglected our duties.
We have let numberless souls perish through our ne-
glect, we disgrace our episcopal office, we are not
shepherds but wolves, we are the authors of the cor-
ruption prevalent throughout the whole Church, and
are in a special sense responsible for the decay of re- ;
ligion in Italy.”
Cardinal Antonio Pucci said publicly before the
assembly of 1516, “Rome, the Roman prelates, and
the bishops daily sent forth from Rome are the joint
causes of the manifold errors and corruptions in the
Church ;' unless we recover our good fame, which is
almost wholly lost, it is all up with us." And Mat-
thias Ugoni, Bishop of Famagusta, who also took part
in the Lateran Synod, describes in his work the con-
tempt the Italian bishops had sunk into, so that there
was no infamy men did not attribute to them, while
they repelled with scorn any one who so much as
hinted at the need of reform and of a true Council, as
disturbers of peace, and hypocrites. And the worst
that had been said before of the Italian prelacy was
confirmed in 1546 hy the Papal legates at Trent. The
German Reformers, when they wished to paint for
public view the heinous guilt of the Popes and Italian
bishops, had no need to do more than transcribe the
words of the legates, and many similar statements and
avowals let fall at the Council. For no words could
say more plainly that the ruinous condition of the
.
The Council of Trent.
297
whole Church, the dominant profligacy, the applause
with which the neglected and dissatisfied people, in
utter perplexity about their clergy and their Church,
universally hailed every new doctrine or scheme of
Church-government, was ultimately due to the Italian
prelacy, concentrated in the Curia, and thence ap-
pointed over the dioceses. They said that all which
they suffered at the hands .of the heretics was only a
just retribution on their vices and crimes, their be-
stowal of Church offices on the unworthy, and the like.
§ XXX. - The Council of Trent, and its Results.
The very first speech made at the opening of the
Council by Bishop Coriolano Martorano, of San Marco,
created astonishment. The picture he drew of the
Italian cardinals and bishops, their bloodthirsty cruelty,
I See Admonit. ad Synodum. 1546, in Le Plat, Monum. Coll.
i. 40. “Horum malorum magnâ ex parte nos causa sumus.
Quod lapsam morum disciplinam et abusus complectitur, hic
nihil attinet diu investigare, quinam tantorum malorum auc-
tores fuerint, cum præter nos ipsos ne nominare quidem ullum
alium auctorem possimus." Cf. Girolamo Muzzio's Lettre
catoliche (Venez. 1571), p. 27, written in 1557, on the abomi-
nazione introdotta nella Chiesa.” The bishops, themselves
bad and incompetent, “ danno la cura dell' anima alla feccia
degli uomini." Guicciardini describes in his Ricordi how a
bishopric was bought at Rome for a fixed sum, and this was
the usual provision for the younger son of an aristocratic
family. His relative, Rinieri Guicciardini, a bastard, but
richly beneficed, bought the See of Cortona of the Pope for
4000 ducats, and with it a dispensation for retaining his bene-
fices. — Opere, x. 59.
2 See Le Plat, i. 20 ff.
298
Papal Infallibility.
their avarice, their pride, and the devastation they had
wrought of the Church, was perfectly shocking. An
unknown writer, who has described this first sitting in
a letter to a friend, thinks Luther himself never spoke
more severely.1 What he then heard at Trent gave
him the notion that the Council would not indeed
accept Protestant doctrine, but would assail the Papal
tyranny more energetically, even than the Lutherans.
How utterly was he deceived in his ignorance of the.
Italian prelacy! But what was then said in Trent left
no doubt that the general absence of the Italian bishops
from their dioceses, most of which had never even seen
their chief pastor, must be regarded as fortunate,
strongly as the Roman compilers of the memorial of
1538, designed for Paul III., insisted on this state of
things being intolerable. There is a letter extant
of the famous Antonio Flaminio, of 1545, referring to
the beginnings of the Council while in process of for-
mation. What, he asked, will a Council, composed
of such monstrous bishops, do for the Church? There
is nothing episcopal about them except their long robe.
He knew of but one worthy bishop in Italy, who was
hoped from the existing body, who had become bishops
i Fortgesetzte Saminlung von Theol. Sachen. 1747, p. 335.
2 “Omnes fere pastores recesserunt a suis gregibus, com-
missi sunt omnes fere mercenariis” (ed. 1671), p. 114. It was
just the same sixty years later, in spite of the pretended
reformation of Trent. Bellarmine says, in his memorial to
Clement VIII., “ Video in Ecclesiis Italiæ desolationem tan-
tam quanta ante multos annos fortasse non fuit ut jam neque
divini juris neque humani residentia esse videatur." ~ Baron.
Ep. et Opusc. (Romæ, 1770), iii. 9.
The Council of Trent.
299
through royal favor, through solicitation, through pur-
chase in Rome, through criminal arts, or after long
years spent in the Curia. If any improvement was to
be effected, they must all be deposed."
The appearance of some French and Spaniards at
Trent was enough at once to convert the Italian bishops
into a herd of slavish sycophants of Rome, acting simply
at the beck of the legates. They quietly let themselves
be described as wretched, unprincipled hirelings, rude
and ignorant men, without a murmur or contradiction
interrupting the speaker. An Italian even ventured to
say — what would not have been endured from a Cis-
montane — that all the evils and abuses of the Church
came from the Church of Rome. But when they had
to testify their devotion to the Curia, they rivalled
each other in their fervid zeal. 66 The Italian bishops,"
says Pallavicini, “knew of no other aim than the up-
holding of the Apostolic See and its greatness. They
thought that in working for its interests they showed
themselves at once good Italians and good Christians." :
When, on one occasion, a foreign bishop mentioned an
historical fact which would not fit in with the Papal
1 See Quatro Lettere di Gasparo Contarini (Firenze, 1558).
Cardinal Quirini ascribes this letter to Flaminio.
2 Thus, e.g., Antonio Pucci, afterwards Cardinal Arch-
bishop of Albano, at the Lateran Synod, called “Rome or
Babylon, ejusque incolas pastores, qui quotidie per universum
terrarum orbem animarum saluti præficiuntur, tantorum cau-
sam errorum." — Conc. (ed. Labbé), xiv. 240.
3 “Non tendevono al altro oggetto che al sostentamento ed
alla grandezza della Sede Apostolica. - Storia del Conc. di
Trento, v. 425 (ed. Milan, 1844).
me far moet op
mo, los versi
over time
on,
***"
...
.
300
.
Papal Infallibility.
system, the storm broke out. Vosmediano, Bishop of
Cadiz, had observed that formerly metropolitans used
to ordain the bishops of their provinces by virtue of
their own authority. Cardinal Simonetta promptly
contradicted him, and then the Italian bishops raised a
wild cry, and put him down by stamping and scraping
with their feet. They cried out that this accursed
wretch must not speak; he should at once be brought
to trial.1 That was the Conciliar freedom of speech
at Trent!
In Italy, where matters did not come, as elsewhere,
to an open breach of communion, and where the great
mass of the lower orders remained Catholic, the better-
minded were seized with a despondency bordering on
despair. In their speeches and writings about the
time of the opening of the Tridentine Council, they
spoke of the decay of all religion, the last agony, or the
actual burial of the Church, which the bishops were
to be present at. They call the Church a corpse in
process of corruption, or a house on fire and almost
reduced to ashes. So spoke Lorenzo Giustiniani,
Patriarch of Venice, the Cardinals Ægidius of Viterbo,
and Antonio Pucci, and several of the bishops at Trent.
That was the impression made on them by the state
of things in Italy, where the nation seemed to be divid-
ed between unbelief and rude superstition, whereas
the nations north of the Alps were still, on the whole,
believing, though deeply shaken in their allegiance to
the Church, which presented itself to them as a tyran-
nical mistress, and so terribly disfigured and distorted
| Psalmæi, Coll. Actor., in Le Plat, vii. ii. 92.
The Council of Trent.
301
that it could hardly be recognized. Socinianism was
a national product of Italy; in Germany and England
it found no placė.
In Germany, and generally on this side the Alps, it
was long before men grasped the idea of the breach of
Church communion becoming permanent. The gen-
eral feeling was still so far Church-like, that a really
free Council, independent of Papal control, was confi-
dently looked to for at once purifying and uniting the
Church, though of course views differed as to the con-
ditions of re-union, according to personal position and
national sentiment. Here, as well as in the Scandi-
navian countries, in England and in the Netherlands, a
bond fide reformation, by making some concessions
about the use of the chalice and clerical marriage,
above all, by abolishing the Papal system, might have
saved or restored religious unity. If the more moder-
ate Reformers, like Melanchthon, would only recognize
the primacy of the Pope-as matter of human ordinance,
and an institution beneficial to the Church, this was
chiefly, as one sees from Luther's statements, because
in their minds the notion of the primacy had become
inseparably identified with its caricature in the form
of an absolute monarchy, which was always held up
before their eyes. Just as they could not or would not
comprehend the idea of the New Testament priesthood
and Eucharistic Sacrifice, because both to their minds
assumed only the shape to which they had been per-
verted and degraded, of a domination over the laity,
and a systematic traffic in masses, so was it with the
primacy. It could not but be doubly hateful and intol-
erable to them, both on account of the then occupants
302
Papal Infallibility
of the office, and of the element of tyranny it contained,
and the perception that it was precisely the Curia
which was the source and origin of corruption in the
Church.
§ XXXI. - The Theory of Infallibility formulized
into a Doctrine.
It was above all owing to the Italian devotion to
Rome that homage was paid not only to the Papal
system, but to the theory of Papal Infallibility which
is its consequence. From the time of Leo X. this
doctrine entered on a fresh phase of development.
On the whole, during the long controversy between
the Council and the Popes from 1431 till about 1450,
as to their right of superiority, the question of Papal
authority in matters of faith had retired into the back-
ground. At the Council of Florence, after the Greeks
had summarily rejected the spurious passages of St.
Cyril, the subject was not inooted again by the Papal
theologians; it was understood that there was no hope
of getting that claim acknowledged by the Greeks. At .
the Council of Basle it was openly said, as a matter
of public notoriety, that the Popes, like other people,
were liable to error" in matters of faith. The theo-
logians of the Papal system, like Torquemada, the
Minoritic Capistrano, and the Dominican archbishop
Antoninus, who defended the pet doctrine of the Curia
about the superiority of Popes to Councils, between
1440 and 1470, devised another method for exempting
the Pope from subjection to a Council in matters of
faith, which was afterwards adopted by Cardinal Jaco-
formulized into a Doctrine.
303
bazzi also. They maintained, as Torquemada ex-
presses it, that the Pope can indeed lapse into heresy
and propound false doctrine, but then he is ipso facto
deposed by God himself before any sentence of the
Church has been passed, so that the Church or Coun-
cil cannot judge him, but can only announce the judg-
ment of God; and thus one cannot properly say that
a Pope can become heretical, since he ceases to be
Pope at the moment of passing from orthodoxy to
heterodoxy.
On this principle they should have said that a bishop
or priest never becomes heretical, and cannot be de-
posed for heresy, because God has already deposed
him at the moment of his internal acquiescence in a
false doctrine; for if once such a Divine act of depo-
sition were to be assumed before any human inter-
vention, it is impossible to limit it to the case of the
Pope, and to say that God is only so severe against
heretical Popes, and milder towards heretical bishops
and priests. A theory so obviously devised to meet a
particular difficulty could satisfy nobody. Meanwhile
Torquemada clung to this discovery of his. He re-
pudiates the notion that God would not allow a Pope
to define anything false. What he knew from Gra-
tian only was enough to exclude this pretext, but then
his opinion was that when the Pope acts thus he has
ceased de jure to be Pope; he is therefore but the
corpse of a Pope, and the Church can execute justice
upon him at her good pleasure. The contemporaries
of Torquemada,. St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Flor-
ence, and the canonist, Antonius de Rosellis, highly as
1 Summa, iv. 2, c. 16 f. 388.
304
Papal Infallibility
they exalted Papal authority, ascribed infallibility only
to the whole Church and its representative Councils.
Only in union with the Church, and when advised by
it-- by a Council — is the Pope, according to the
former, secured from error. And thus there was still
no Papal Infallibility. The principle was too firmly
rooted that the Pope may become heretical, and then
the Church or the Council must first tell him to abdi-
cate, and, if he refuses, proceed to depose him. So
Cardinal Jacobazzi has laid down. And he also
applies the prayer of Christ to the Church, and not to
the successor of Peter, as Thomas Netter or Walden-
sis had done before him. Silvester de Prierio, who
was then Master of the Palace, did not go beyond
him.5 « The Pope does not err," he says, “when
advised by a Council.” Thomas of Vio or Cajetan
was the first to maintain Papal Infallibility in its ful-
ness. It was he who first got the authority of the
decisions of Constance and Basle on the rights. of
Councils, which had been so solemnly acknowledged
and attested by former Popes, assailed by Leo X.,
although the Council of Constance was not once
named, even in the Pope's decree on the subject pro-
mulgated at his Italian Synod.
It was now time to crown the edifice of the Papal
system by putting into shape the principle of Infalli-
bility, first sketched out by St. Thomas in reliance on
forged testimonies, which is its natural consummation.
.
ح
1 Summa, Theol. P. iii. p. 416.
2 Dc Concilio (ed. Paris), p. 390.
), p. 390. 8 1b. p. 421.
4 Doctrinæ, ii. 19.
5 Summa Silvestr. (Romæ, 1516), verbo “Concilium."
م
formulized into a Doctrine.
305
To the decrees of the two Councils were opposed the
well-known forgeries, the spurious passages and canons
of Eastern Fathers and Councils. The coarsest and
most palpable of these forgeries, where St. Augustine
is made to identify the letters of the Popes with canoni-
cal Scripture, was utilized by Cajetan for his doctrine.
To the fictions he had borrowed from St. Thomas,
he added a new fraud of his own, by mutilating the
famous censure of Wicliffe's teaching at the Council
of Constance, which was very inconvenient for him.2
Cajetan was a type of that class of sycophantic Court
divines afterwards stigmatized by Caraffa and the other
compilers of the memorial of 1538, as deceivers of the
Pope through their doctrine of absolute supremacy,
and authors of the corruption and dissolution of the
Church. He was the inventor of that saying, which
found its practical comment in the policy of the Medi-
cean Popes and their immediate successors, “The
Catholic Church is the born handmaid of the Pope," 3
- he who had seen a Sixtus IV., an Innocent VIII., -
an Alexander VI.
One cannot say that Cajetan's new doctrine became
dominant at Rome. It must have seemed suspicious to
many, if at the same time Papal Infallibility had been
affirmed, and the long series of Papal Bulls confirming
and fixing the chief dogmatic decisions of Constance
1 Ad Leon. X. De Div. Inst. Pont. (Romæ, 1521), C. 14.
2 He suppressed the crucial words “(error est) si per Ro-
manam Ecclesiam intelligat Universalem aut Concilium Gen-
erale."
3 Apol. Tractat. de Comparat. Auctorit. Papæ et Concil.
(Romæ, 1512), C. I.
20
306
Papal Infallibility
had been declared erroneous. Innocent VIII. had al-
ready, in 1486, acknowledged the orthodoxy of the
Paris University, at a time when the theologians Al-
main and Johannes Major declared in its name that it
branded as heresy the doctrine of the superiority of
the Pope to a Council, and this was universally taught
in France and Germany. The Cardinal of Lorraine
made a similar statement at the Council of Trent,
without its provoking any contradiction. Adrian VI.
was elected Pope, although it was notorious that, as
professor of theology at Louvain, he had maintained
in his principal work that several Popes had been
heretical, and that it was certainly possible for a Pope
to establish a heresy by his decisions or decretals.
The phenomenon of a Pope so wholly destitute of
any consciousness of infallibility that as Pope he had
his work denying it reprinted in Rome, was not
without its effect. Men could still venture in Italy to
defend the authority and decrees of the two Councils,
and reject the Papal system as untenable on historical
and canonical grounds. This was proved by the work
of Bishop Ugoni of Famagusta, which received the
commendation and assent of Paul III., in spite of his
contradicting Torquemada, and maintaining the judi-
cial authority of Councils over Popes. And again, it
is clear from the whole contents of the famous and out-
spoken memorial on the state of the Church in Rome
Y
1 Comment, in iv. Sent. Q. de Confirin. "Certum est quod
possit errare, hæresim per suam determinationem aut Decre-
talem asserendo.” And he says expressly, “Evacuare intendo
impossibilitatem errandi, quam alii asserunt."
2 De Concil. M. Ugonii Synodia (Venet. 1568). The Pope's
letter is prefixed to it.
5
formulized into a Doctrine.
307
and Italy, drawn up by the Cardinals Caraffa, Pole,
Sadolet, and Contarini, with the assistance of Fregoso,
Giberto, Aleandro, Badia, and Cortese, that they had
very distinctly realized the ecclesiastical errors, mis-
takes, and false principles of the Popes, and were by
no means addicted to the hypothesis of Papal Infalli-
bility. When they describe the misery brought upon
the whole Church through the blindness of the Popes,
its desolation, nay downfall,+ caused by the false doc-
trine's of Papal omnipotence and absolutism, they were
certainly far from supposing that Christ has bestowed
on every Pope the privilege of strengthening his breth
ren by his dogmatic infallibility, while he is weakening
and dismembering the whole Church by his perverse
ordinances.
The very men who were most active in disseminat-
ing the doctrine of the personal infallibility of the
Popes, could not help perceiving that the corruptions
and abuses in the Church, which had been introduced
and confirmed by the “infallible” Popes theinselves,
were still further strengthened by this doctrine, and
every attempt at improvement made more hopeless.
Cajetan, after he had been rewarded with a cardinal's
hat for his services at the Lateran Council, afterwards,
under Adrian VI.,— who was open to such representa-
tions, — becoming suspicious of the simony of the
Curia, ventured to complain of the sale of bishoprics
and benefices, dispensations and indulgences, which
would at last lose all value. Thereupon a general
feeling of indignation was kindled against him. What
folly! it was said, — did he want to turn Rome into
16 Collapsam in præceps Ecclesiam Christi.”
308.
Papal Infallibility
.
an uninhabited desert, to reduce the Papacy to impo-
tence, and deprive the Pope, who was so heavily
involved in debt, of the pecuniary resources indis-
pensable for the discharge of his office? What the
Pope had a right to give he had a right to sell. To
protect Cajetan, he was sent as legate to Hungary.
The other patron of the Infallibility theory, who
labored hard to naturalize it in Belgium, was the Lou-
vain theologian, Ruard Tapper. He returned from
Trent in 1552 cruelly disillusionized. He had had a
near view -- as his friend Bishop Lindanus tells us —
of the manners of the Romans, and the working of
the Curia, exclusively directed to fill up an ever hun-
gry and yawning chasm, of the hypocrisy of the heads
of the Church, and the venality of ecclesiastical trans-
actions. He now thought this deep-seated corruption
and decay of the Church no matter to be disputed
about with Protestants, but to be deplored.
The third of the theological fathers of Papal Infalli-
bility was Tapper's contemporary, the Spanish Mel-
chior Canus, who, like him, was at the Council of
Trent. His work on theological principles and evi-
dences was, up to Bellarmine's time, the great authority
used by all infallibilists. But his experience of the
effects of that system on the Popes and the Curia
themselves is thus summed up in a later judgment,
composed by command of the King of Spain, “ He
I« Quid enim aliud essset quam vastam in Urbe facere
solitudinem? Pontificatum ad nihilum redigere? ... Ridicu-
lum est quod gratis donare possis, id ipsum vendere non
posse.” – Joh. B. Flavii, De Vitâ Th. de Vio Cajetani, pre-
fixed to Commentar. Cajetan in S. Script. (Lugd. 1639), t. i.
formulized into a Doctrine.
309
few oe began to excufa Pope to avand Basle,
who thinks Rome can be healed, knows little of her;
the whole administration of the Church is there con-
verted into a great trading business, a traffic forbidden
by all laws, human, natural, and divine.” 1
Out of Italy, the hypothesis of Infallibility had but
few adherents even in the sixteenth century, till the
Jesuits began to exercise a powerful influence. In
Spain, the subjection of a Pope to a Council in accord-
ance with the decrees of Constance and Basle, had
been maintained, as late as the fifteenth century, by the
most distinguished theologian of his country, Alfonso
Madrigal named Tostado. The Spanish bishop, An-
drew Escobar, went further in the same direction. It
was the Inquisition which first brought the doctrine of
the Roman Jesuits into universal prevalence there, by
making all contradiction impossible.
In Germany, before the Jesuits had gained the con-
trol of the Universities and Courts, the theologians,
who were contending against Protestantism, stood en-
tirely on the side of the Councils. They saw with
what terrible weapons the adoption of Papal Infalli-
bility armed Protestantism against the Catholic Church,
and how it robbed her of her prerogative of dogmatic
immutability. Cochlæus, Witzel, and Bishop Nausea
of Vienna rejected it. “It would be too perilous,'
says the latter, “to make our faith dependent on the
judgment of a single individual; the whole earth is
greater than the city.” 2
1 This opinion, which had previously been published in
French by Campomanes, may be seen in Spanish, in the new
edition of 1855, of Enzinas, Dos Informaciones, Appendix,
p. 35.
2 Rerum Conciliar. v. 3.
310
Papal Infallibility
In France, under the powerful influence of the Uni-
versity of Paris, the belief in the superiority of Councils
had been universal, nor was it changed by the aboli-
tion, against the popular will, of the Pragmatic Sanc-
tion. So much the more devotedly did the Italian
prelates proclaim their subservience about the time
of the Council of Trent. Bishop Cornelio Musso of
Bitonto preached in Rome on the Epistle to the Ro-
mans, — “What the Pope says we must receive as
though spoken by God himself. In Divine things we
hold him to be God; in matters of faith I had rather
believe one Pope than a thousand Augustines, Jeromes,
or Gregories.” 1
When Bellarmine undertook to provide a new basis
for the pet doctrine of Rome, the violence of the intel-
lectual tempest had driven theology into new-made
paths, and compelled theologians to adopt a different
method. The Roman Curia, encouraged by the success
of the Jesuits, the powerful European position of the
Spanish Court, which was thoroughly devoted to it,
and the submission of Henry IV., believed at that time
that it could recover its dominion, at least over the
West. The interdict launched against Venice showed
what it was thought safe to venture upon. The favor-
ite institution of Rome was then again the Inquisition,
in its new and enlarged form, with the Congregation
of the Index affiliated to it. To be an active inquisitor
was the best recommendation and surest road to attain-
ing the cardinalate, or even the Papal throne. Paul IV.
had declared the Inquisition to be the one support of
the Papacy in Italy. Two remarkable and important
1 Conciones in Ep. ad Rom. p. 606.
formulized into a Doctrine.
311
documents show what was now aimed at, and how the
Gregorian ideas were intended to be adapted to the cir-
cumstances of Europe in the sixteenth century.
Paul IV. issued, with peculiar solemnity and directly
ex cathedrd, his Bull, Cum ex Apostolatús officio. He
had consulted his cardinals, and obtained their signa-
tures to it, and then defined, “out of the plenitude of
his apostolic power," the following propositions:-
(I.) The Pope, who as “Pontifex Maximus” is God's
representative on earth,' has full authority and power
over nations and kingdoms; he judges all, and can in
this world be judged by none.
(2.) All princes and monarchs, as well as bishops,
as soon as they fall into heresy or schism, without the
need of any legal formality, are irrevocably deposed,
deprived for ever of all rights of government, and incur
sentence of death. In case of repentance, they are to
be imprisoned in a monastery, and to do penance on
bread and water for the remainder of their life.
(3.) Nòne may venture to give any aid to an hereti-
cal or schismatical prince, not even the mere services
of common humanity; any monarch who does so for-
feits his dominions and property, which lapse to princes
obedient to the Pope, on their gaining possession of
them.
(4.) When it is discovered that a Pope has at any
previous time been heretically or schismatically minded,
all his subsequent acts are null and void.
late as 1558, subscribed by the cardinals, and after-
1“Qui Dei et Domini nostri Jesu Christi vices gerit in
terris."
312
Papal Infallibility formulized:
wards expressly confirmed and renewed by Pius V., that
the Pope, by virtue of his absolute authority, can de-
pose every monarch, hand over every country to foreign
invasion, deprive every one of his property, and that
without any legal formality, and not only on account
of dissent from the doctrines approved at Rome, or
separation from the Church, but for merely offering an
asylum to such dissidents, so that no rights of dynasty
or nation are respected, but nations are to be given up
to all the horrors of a war of conquest. And to all
this is finally subjoined the doctrine, that all official
and sacramental acts of a Pope or Bishop, who has
ever— say twenty or thirty years before — been hereti-
cally minded on any single point of doctrine, are null
and void! This last definition contains so emphatic
and flat a contradiction of the principles on the validity
of sacraments universally received in the Church,
although mistakes have sometimes been made about it
at Rome, that they must have seemed to theologians
utterly incomprehensible. The serious inconveniences
which at former periods such doctrines had led to in
the Church would have been reproduced now, had
not even the most decided adherents of the infalli-
bility theory, the Jesuit divines, shrunk from adopting
the principle laid down by this Pope and his cardinals,
though Paul IV. threatened all who resisted his decrees
with the wrath of God. Bellarmine himself, forty
years later, said in Rome itself that a bishop or Pope
did not lose his power by becoming or by having been
a concealed heretic, or everything would be reduced
to uncertainty, and the whole Church thrown into con-
fusion.
Bull - In Cona Domini,"
313 -
:
Fargraver and more permanent consequences resulted
* from the other document, the Bull In Cond Domini,
which the Popes had labored at for centuries, and
which was finally brought out in the pontificate of
Urban VIII. in 1627. It had appeared first in its
broader outlines under Gregory XI. in 1372. Gregory
XII., in 1411, renewed it, and under Pius V., in 1568,
it preserved its substantial identity with certain addi-
tions. According to his decision it was to remain as
an eternal law in Christendom, and above all to be
imposed on bishops, penitentiaries, and confessors, as
a rule they were to impress in the confessional on the
consciences of the faithful. If ever any document bore
the stamp of an ex cathedrd decision, it is this, which
has been over and over again confirmed by so many
Popes.
This Bull excommunicates and curses all heretics
and schismatics, as well as all who favor or defend
them — all princes and magistrates, therefore, who
allow the residence of heterodox persons in their
country. It excommunicates and curses all who keep
or print the books of heretics without Papal permis-
sion, all – whether private individuals or universities,
or other corporations — who appeal from a Papal de-
cree to a future General Council. It encroaches on the
independence and sovereign rights of States in the im-
position of taxes, the exercise of judicial authority, and
the punishment of the crimes of clerics, by threatening
with excommunication and anathema those who per-
form such acts without special Papal permission; and
these penalties fall not only on the supreme authorities
of the State, but on the whole body of civil function-
314
Papal Infallibility formulized:
aries, down to scribes, jailers, and executioners. The
Pope alone can absolve from these censures, except in
articulo inortis.
No wonder that Sovereigns and States resisted such
a manifesto, forbade its publication, and declared it
null and void. The French Parliament ordered, in
1580, that all bishops and archbishops who promul-
gated the Bull should have their goods confiscated, and
be pronounced guilty of high treason. The bishops
themselves opposed it in the Netherlands. Nor was
the King of Spain, who saw in it an encroachment on
his rights, any readier to allow its introduction into his
territories, nor the Viceroy of Naples. Rudolph II.
protested solemnly against its publication in Germany,
and especially in Bohemia. Nor could the Archbishop
of Mayence be induced to admit it, nor Venice. But
the theologians and canonists, above all the Jesuits,
inserted the Bull in their doctrinal treatises, and wrote
commentaries on it; many confessors went so far as to
make it a ground for refusing absolution. Even in
1707, Clement XI. ventured to excommunicate Joseph
II. and all his adherents on the strength of this Bull,
for his proceedings about Parma and Piacenza, over
which Rome claimed rights of suzerainty; but the
Emperor strenuously resisted, and the Pope had to
yield. When, still later, in 1768, Clement XIII. once
again invaded the sovereign rights of the Duke of
Parma by excommunication, it caused a general com-
motion in the Catholic States. Even so rigid a Cath-
olic as Maria Theresa energetically repulsed the Papal
encroachments from Austrian Lombardy, and forbade
the Bull being acted upon, remarking in her edict that
Bull « In Cæna Domini."
315
it contained decisions unsuited to the priestly character,
wholly incapable of justification, and very prejudicial
to the royal power. As this Bull was annually pub-
lished in Rome on Maundy-Thursday for 200 years,
the ambassadors of the Catholic Powers who were
present could each time report that their Sovereigns
and Governments, who did not allow the Papal claims
to be carried out in practice, had been excommunicated
on that day. And if it has ceased to be read out on
Holy Thursday, as before, since Clement XIV.'s time,
still it is always treated, as Cretineau-Joly states, in the.
Roman tribunals and congregations, as having legal
force.
It was wholly inconsistent with the character and
objects of the Jesuit Order to acquiesce in any half-
and-half views on the question of Papal infallibility,
or, like the older infallibilists from St. Thomas to Ca-
jetan, to oscillate between the possibility of an heretical
Pope and the duty of unconditional submission to his
decisions. The Jesuit sees the perfection of piety in
the renunciation of one's own judgment, the passive
surrender of intelligence and will alike to those whom
he recognizes as his rulers. The sacrifice of one's own
understanding to that of another man is, according to
the teaching of the Order, the noblest and most accept-
able sacrifice a Christian can offer to God. The
1“ Obedientia tum in executione, tum in voluntate, tum in
intellectu sit in nobis semper omni ex parte perfecta omnia
justa esse nobis persuadendo, omnem sententiam ac judicium
nostrum contrarium cæcâ quâdam obedientiâ abnegando.” —
· Instit. Soc. Jesu (Pragæ, 1757), i. 408. Here come the well-
known comparisons of a corpse and of a staff.
316
Papal Infallibility formulized:
Jesuit who is entering upon his novitiate is at once
admonished to quench the light of his understanding
so far as it may interfere with blind obedience. He is
therefore to be tempted by the novice-master as God
tempted Abraham. In the Exercises it is inculcated
that if the Church decides anything to be black which
to our eyes looks white, we must say that it is black.2
The Order considers itself the most exact copy of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy, the General being for it what
the Pope is for the whole Church. As the Jesuit
obeys his General, every Christian should obey the
Pope — as blindly, and with as complete a sacrifice of
his own judgment.
Every Jesuit, therefore, must be the advocate of the
extremest absolutism in the Church. In his eyes every
restriction is an abomination, every legal ordinance
attempting to maintain itself against any one arbitrary
act of the one Almighty Lord and Master is an assault
on him, and a matter of high treason. When the
Pope speaks on a doctrinal question, every one must
sacrifice his understanding and submit blindly, and,
first of all, the bishops, singly or in union, as patterns
to their flocks. And yet this is but little; the Jesuit,
as the most perfect being, makes the offering twice.
He first sacrifices his judgment to the Pope, and
secondly to his General. For, according to the no-
tion which had haunted some minds previously, but
was first reduced to consistency by the Jesuits, and
1 Instit. i. 376.
2 Exercit. Spirit. (ed. Reg. 1644), pp. 290, 291.
3 “In hâc religione quæ hierarchiam ecclesiasticam maxime,
imitatur.” — Suarez, De Rel. Soc. Fesu, pp. 629, 725.
Bellarmine.
317
expressed by Cardinal Pallavicini, the collective
Church is a body, inanimate when alone and with-
out the Pope, but informed by the Pope with a soul.1
To this soul, therefore, i.e., to the Pope, belongs
dominion over the whole Christian world ; he is its
monarch and lord, and his authority is the foundation,
the uniting bund, and moving intelligence of all ec-
clesiastical government.? And Gregory XIV., in his
Bull of 1591, recognized the pre-eminence of the Jesuit
Order as an excellent instrument, which, from the des-
potic power of its General, can the more easily be
applied to various purposes by the Pope.
The Papal system, when raised to this level, dis-
plays itself with a perfection and consistency even
Trionfo and Pelayo had not conceived of. The abso-
lutists of the fourteenth century had not yet risen to
the idea of the whole Christian world having but one
thinking, knowing, and willing soul, and that soul the
Pope. Such a notion could only be formed in the
minds of men who had grown up under the discipline
of the Holy Office.
Bellarmine further developed the ideas of Cajetan,
in which he generally concurs, but he rejects deci-
sively Cajetan's hypothesis of an heretical Pope being
deposed ipso facto by the judgment of God. An
heretical Pope is legitimate so long as the Church
has not deposed him. If Cajetan said the Church was
1 “Non meriterebbe più la Chiesa nome di Chiesa, cioè di
Congregazione, mentre fosse disgregata per tante membra
senza aver l'unità da un anima che le informasse e le re-
gesse.” — Storia del Con. di Tr. i. 103 (ed. 1843).
2 Ib. i. 107.
318
Papal Infallibility formulized:
the handmaid of the Pope, Bellarmine adds that
whatever doctrine it pleases the Pope to prescribe,
the Church must receive; there can be no question
raised about proving it; she must blindly renounce all
judgment of her own, and firmly believe that all the
Pope teaches is absolutely true, all he commands abso-
lutely good, and all he forbids simply evil and noxious.
For the Pope can as little err in moral as in dogmatic
questions. Nay, he goes so far as to maintain that if
the Pope were to err by prescribing sins and forbid-
ding virtues, the Church would be bound to consider
sins good and virtues evil, unless she chose to sin
against conscience; 1 so that if the Pope absolve the
subjects of a prince from their oath of allegiance,
which, according to Bellarmine, he has a full right
to do, the Church must believe that what he has done
is good, and every Christian must hold it a sin to re-
main any longer loyal and obedient to his sovereign.
In Bellarmine's eyes it must have been a perverse act
of presumption in Councils to submit Papal declara-
tions on matters of faith to their own examination.?
After Cajetan and. Canus, Bellarmine so widely ex-
tended the range of Papal Infallibility, and so com- .
pletely subordinated Councils, and indeed the whole
Church to the Pope, that only one method of con-
1 "Si autem Papa erraret præcipiendo vitia vel prohibendo
virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere vitia esse bona et virtutes
mala, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare.” — De Rom.
Pont. iv. 5 (ed. Paris, 1643), p. 456.
% [As, e.g., St. Leo's Tome on the Incarnation was exam-
ined in detail, and finally approved by the Council of Chalce-
don. Cf. supr. p. 72. — TR.]
Bellarmine.
319
ceiving the relations between them was possible.
God does nothing superfluous. He does not give the
Christian world the infallible . authority it requires
twice over, once to the whole body of the Church,
and again specifically to the Pope. And as it is cer-
tain that it belongs to the Pope, it follows that the
Church has not received it for herself, but only through
the Pope, as an illumination proceeding from him and
residing in his person, - in other words, that active
infallibility belongs to the Pope, and only passive in-
fallibility to the Church. Hence, according to the
teaching of this party, every decision of a Council is
doubtful till it has received the Papal confirmation,
which first imparts to it complete certainty. On the
other hand, a Papal utterance cannot be confirmed by
any earthly power or community, — it is in itself of
binding force and Divine certainty.
The spurious character of the Isidorian decretals
had been exposed by the Magdeburg Centuriators,
and no one with any knowledge of Christian antiquity
could retain a doubt of their being a later fabrication.
But the growth of the Papal system had been so insep-
arably associated with these forgeries, that the theolo-
gians of the Curia and the Jesuit Order were resolved
to defend them and make further use of them for prov-
ing the infallibility and monarchy of the Popes. The
Jesuit Turrianus composed an elaborate apology for
the decretals. Bellarmine acknowledged that without
the forgeries of the pseudo-Isidore, and of the later
anonymous Dominican writers, it would be impossible,
to make out even a semblance of traditional evidence;
the three leading authors of the new doctrine — St.
320
Papal Infallibility forinulized :
Thomas, Cajetan, and Melchior Canus — had ground-
ed it exclusively on these fictions. Moreover, the new
and extremely vigilant censorship had now been estab-
lished, and hopes were entertained in Rome that by
its aid in suppressing and condemning every work
which pointed out or admitted that these testimonies
were spurious, their authority and influence might be
upheld.
Bellarmine then made copious use of the Isidorian
fictions. To his mind, enlightened by these letters of
the earliest Popes, it is abundantly clear that all the
principles of the Papal system were in full bloom in
the first and second centuries of the Church, that
Christendom already formed an absolute monarchy,
and that even then the Popes had exempted the clergy
from the jurisdiction of civil courts.) St. Thomas's
favorite witness, the spurious Cyril, is also an inval-
uable authority with Bellarmine, and he thinks the
Greek text exists, only it has not yet been discovered
and printed. What Greek testimonies for Papal mon-
archy and infallibility could have been cited from the
first thousand years of Church history if all the forged
or corrupted passages had been set aside ?
It is impossible to maintain the entire good faith and
sincerity of Bellarmine, for such blind credulity would
be inconceivable in a man like him, the more so as
Rishton states that he is reported to have said in his
lectures at Rome that he considered the Isidorian
decretals spurious in spite of Turrianus's defence;?
and in fact, in a moment of forgetfulness, he has dis-
1 Cf. especially De Rom. Pont. i. 2. C. 14.
2 Colloq. Rainold. cum Harto. p. 94.
Bellarmine.
321
.
7
tinctly hinted, in his great work on the Pope, his dis-
belief in their genuineness. But of course the most
transparent fictions were welcome to him if they served
the great end of supporting the universal monarchy of
the Pope. Even Pope Innocent's letter excommuni-
cating the Emperor Arcadius was accredited, and the
legend of the Popes appointing the German Electors
was expressly vindicated. This dishonesty is shown
again in his attempts to get rid of the fact he was per-
fectly acquainted with, that the whole Church, with
all universities and theologians of any weight in the
sixteenth century, had rejected the Papal system in its
two leading principles of absolute monarchy and infal-
libility. He knew from the writings of Pius II. (Æneas
Silvius) that in his time the superiority of Councils
was the dominant view ;2 yet he spares no pains to
make his readers believe that this doctrine was repre-
sented only by two isolated theologians, who were
universally condemned.
It seems to have been really believed in Rome that
the Curia, with the help of the Inquisition, which had
been more effectively organized since Paul V.'s time,
and the Index prohibitorum Librorum, could again
suppress criticism and Church history, or at least keep
the mass of the clergy in ignorance of them. The
i De Rom. Pont. ii. 14, in speaking of the second epistle of
Calixtus and Pius. He says he dares not affirm that they are
undoubtedly genuine.
2 Hist. Conc. Basil. p. 773: “Illud imprimis cupio, notum,
quod Romanum Papam omnes, qui aliquo numero sunt, Con-
cilio subjiciunt.” Only some, “sive avidi gloriæ, sive quod
adulando præmia expectant," then defended the opposite
opinion, according to Æneas Silvius.
21
322
Papal Infallibility formulized:
Index was just then so rigorously worked that scholars
were reduced to despair, and many had to abandon
their theological studies. In Germany, matters had
come to such a pass, under the influence of the Jesuits
in 1599, that Catholics had to give up studying alto-
gether, for they could no longer venture to use.lexicons,
compendiums, or indexes. Even the bishops were
forbidden to read any book condemned at Rome; they
too were to be kept in ignorance of the true state of
things on so many points which had been now cleared.
up. The publication of works revealing the very dif- .
ferent condition of the Church and the Roman See in
earlier days, like the Liber Diurnus and Agnellus’
History of the Bishops of Ravenna, was forbidden
under the severest penalties, and impressions of them
already in print were destroyed.
This explains how it was that in the new edition of
the Breviary a whole series of Popes of the first three
centuries was introduced, with proper offices and lec-
tions, of whom no one knew anything, and who have
left no trace behind them, who are found in none of
the ancient martyrologies, and were taken no partic-
ular notice of in Rome for 1500 years. The only ante-
Nicene Popes in the ancient unreformed Breviaries
were Clement, Urban, Marcus, and Marcellus. But
Bellarmine and Baronius introduced into the new
Breviary, under Clement VIII., Popes Zephyrinus,
Soter, *Caius, Pius, Calixtus, Anacletus, Pontianus,
1 Jodocus Græs wrote to Baronius, “Præter infinitos alios
libros neque Lexico aut Thesauro aut Indice aliquo tute licet
uti.” — See Briefe des Cardinals, i. 474 (ed. Alberic. Rom.
1759).
Corruptions of Breviary.
323
and Evaristus, with lections taken from the pseudo-
Isidorian decretals. The older lections, taken from
the legends, were even turned out to make room for
the pseudo-Isidorian, and the clergy were obliged to
nourish their devotion on the reading of such fables as
that without the Pope no Councilould be held, that
he is the sole judge of all bishops, that no clergyman
can be cited before a civil court, and the like. And
Cardinal Baronius, the author of the Annals, co-ope-
rated in this work, although he had there spoken with
indignation of the fraud of the pseudo-Isidore.
The new Breviary, moreover, was mutilated as well
as interpolated. The name of Pope Honorius was
struck out of the lection for Leo II.'s feast, in the pas-
sage where his condemnation by the sixth Ecumenical
Council had been related, for since the Popes wanted
to be infallible, this inconvenient fact ought at least to
be obliterated from the memory of the clergy. Even
the fable of the apostasy of Pope Marcellinus and the
Synod of Sinuessa was now for the first time incor-
porated in full into the Breviary, in order to keep con-
stantly before the eyes of bishops and priests that
darling maxim, in support of which so many fictions
had already been invented at Rome, that no Council
can judge a Pope. Then the word “souls” had to be
expunged from the Missal and Breviary in the collect
for the feast of St. Peter's Chair. It was now held scan-
dalous at Rome, that the ancient Roman Church
1 The Breviaries we have compared are a Roman edition
printed at Venice in 1489, the Augsburg Breviary printed in
Venice in 1519, and the new reformed edition printed at
Antwerp in 1719.
324
Papal Infallibility formulized :
should have restricted Peter's power of binding to souls
only, whereas the full right was claimed for the Pope
to bind bodies also, and to put them to death. One
of these enrichments of the Breviary was the putting
Satan's words to our Lord in the Temptation, “ I will
give thee all the kingdoms of the world,” into the
mouth of Christ, who is made to address them to
Peter. These forgeries and mutilations in the interest
of the Papal system were so astonishing, that the Vene-
tian Marsiglio thought in course of time no faith would
be reposed in any documents at all, and so the Church
would be undermined.
Thus Baronius and Bellarmine worked together to
pour out a new strea of inventions and corruptions
of history, in the interest of the Papal system, from
Rome, over the countries and Churches of the West
which had retained their allegiance to her, or had been
forcibly reclaimed. Besides his Annals, which con-
tain a vast repertory of spurious passages and fictions,
Baronius availed himself for this purpose of his com-
mission to re-edit the Roman martyrology. His object
here was to attest the fables that Peter, as bishop of
Rome, had sent out bishops to the cities of the West,
and that thus Rome was strictly the Mother Church of
1“ Deus qui B. Petro ... animas ligandi et solvendi ponti-
ficium tradidisti” (Jan. 18, Fest. Cath. S. Petr.) “Animas"
is now struck out. In the old Roman missal of the eleventh
century, edited by Azavedo in 1754, it occurs at p. 188. Bel-
larmine maintained that the reformers of the Breviary had
mutilated this collect under Divine inspiration. Resp. ad Ep.
de Monit. contr. Venet. resp. ad 3. prop.
2 Brev. Rom. Fest. Petr. et.Pauli resp. ad lect. 5.
8 Defens. contr. Bellarm. c. 6.
Martyrology corrupted.
325
all the rest. It was merely stated, for instance, in the
older editions of the Roman martyrology, for August
Baronius made him into a Roman citizen whom St.
Peter had himself consecrated for that See. So again
with Julian of Le Mans, on January 27. Baronius
knew what the ancient Roman martyrology was igno-
rant of, that St. Peter had consecrated him to that See.
His treatment of Bishop Dionysius of Paris is still
more audacious. The oldest accounts, which were
well known to him, represented Dionysius as first
preaching in Gaul after the middle of the third cen-
tury, but Baronius relates that he was first consecrated
bishop of Athens by the Apostle Paul, and afterwards
sent from Rome by Pope Clement as bishop to Gaul.
And thus two points were gained for Rome: first, it
was proved that the Pope could remove a bishop
appointed even by the apostle Paul; and, secondly,
that Paris was the immediate spiritual daughter of
Rome. And as with interpolations and inventions, so
mine pronounced all documents concerning the sixth
Council fabricated or falsified which mentioned the
condemnation of Pope Honorius.
It is clear that within a few decades after the spread
of the Jesuit Order, the Infallibility hypothesis had made
immense strides. The Jesuits had from the first made
it their special business to suppress the spirit of his-
torical criticism, and the investigation of Church history.
They had rivalled one another in taking under their
charge the pseudo-Isidorian decretals, as well as both
the earlier and later Roman fabrications. Thus Mal-
326
Papal Infallibility foruulized:
donatus, Suarez, Gretser, Possevin, Valentia, and others.
That same Turrianus, who expressly defended the de-
cretals, had come to the aid of the Roman system with
fresh patristic forgeries, for which he appealed to man-
uscripts no human eye had seen. At the same time
the Jesuit Alfonsus Pisanus composed a purely apocry-
phal history of the Nicene Council, adapted simply to
the exaltation of Papal authority. Others, like Bellar-
mine, Delrio, and Halloix, defended the writings of
the pseudo-Dionysius as genuine ; Peter Canisius pro-
duced forged letters of the Virgin Mary.
But the chief affair was the maintenance of the au-
thority of the Isidorian decretals, Gratian, and the
forgeries accepted by St. Thomas. For a long while
no one in the Catholic Church dared to expose the lat-
ter. French scholars were the first, about 1660, to tell
the truth about them. Gratian's Decretum had gained
new authority through the revision and correction
ordered by the Popes, in the course of.which many for-
geries must doubtless have been detected. The pseudo-
Isidore was still for a long time protected by the
Index. When the famous canonist, Contius, brought
forward the evidence of its spuriousness, the Preface in
which this is contained was suppressed by the censor-
ship. On the appearance of the famous work of
Blondel, which completely dissected the pseudo-Isi-
dore, the last doubts about the true nature of the fraud
were exploded. But it too was placed on the Index.
About the time of the Declaration of 1682,1 the Span-
ish Benedictine, Aguirre, made the last attempt worth
i [The Declaration of the French clergy containing the
Four Gallican Articles. — TR.]
Martyrology corrupted.
327
mentioning to rehabilitate the pseudo-Isidore. It could
now no longer be denied that with this forgery disap-
peared the whole historical foundation of the Papal
system for any one acquainted with history. Aguirre
was rewarded with a cardinal's hat. But in the course
of the eighteenth century it came to be perceived at
Rome that it was impossible to maintain any longer
the genuineness of this compilation, and thus at last
the fraud was admitted in the answer given by Pius
VI., in 1789, to the demands of the German arch-
bishops. In recent times the Jesuits in Paris have
gone still further. Father Regnon now confesses that
6 the impostor really gained his end, and altered the
whole discipline of the Church as he desired, but did
not hinder the universal decay. God blesses no fraud;
the false decretals have done nothing but mischief.” 1
The crucial importance of this admission does not
seem to have been understood in the Order.
One difficulty resulted from the formulization of the
doctrine of Infallibility, for the solution of which a
variety of hypotheses have been invented, without any
unanimity among theologians in accepting some one
of them being secured. Every theologian, on closer
inspection, found Papal decisions which contradicted
other doctrines laid down by Popes or generally re-
ceived in the Church, or which appeared to him doubt-
ful; and it seemed impossible to declare all these to be
products of an infallible authority. It became neces-
sary, therefore, to specify some distinctive marks by
which a really infallible decision of a Pope might be
recognized, or to fix certain conditions in the absence
1 Etudes de Théol., par les PP. Fésuites à Paris, Nov. 1866.
328
Papal Infallibility formulized :
of which the pronouncement is not to be regarded as
. infallible. And thus, since the sixteenth century, there
grew up the famous distinction of Papal decisions pro-
mulgated ex cathedrd, and therefore dogmatically, and
without any possibility of error.
The distinction between a judgment pronounced ex
cathedrd and a merely occasional or casual utterance
is, indeed, a perfectly reasonable one, not only in the
case of the Pope, but of any bishop or professor. In
other words, every one whose office it is to teach can,
and will at times, speak off-hand and loosely on dog-
matic and ethical questions, whereas, in his capacity
of a public and official teacher, he pronounces deliber-
ately, and with serious regard to the consequences of
his teaching. No reasonable man will pretend that the
remarks made by a Pope in conversation are definitions
of faith. But beyond this the distinction has no mean-
ing. When a Pope speaks publicly on a point of
doctrine, either of his own accord, or in answer to
questions addressed to him, he has spoken ex cathe-
drd, for he was questioned as Pope, and successor of
other Popes, and the mere fact that he has made his
declaration publicly and in writing makes it an ex
cathedrå judgment. This holds good equally of every
bishop. The moment any accidental or arbitrary con-
dition is fixed on which the ex cathedrá nature of a
Papal decision is to depend, we enter the sphere of
the private crotchets of theologians, such as are wont
to be devised simply to meet the difficulties of the
system. Of such notions, one is as good as another; ..
they come and go, and are afterwards noted down. It
is just as if one chose to say afterwards of a physician
O
Decisions " ex cathedra."
329
who had been consulted, and had given his opinion
on a disease, that he had formed his diagnosis or pre-
scribed his remedies as a private person and not as a
physician. As soon, therefore, as limitations are intro-
duced, and the dogmatic judgments of the Popes are
divided into two classes, the ex cathedrd and the
personal ones, it is obvious that the sole ground for
this arbitrary distinction lies in the fact that there are
sure to be some inconvenient decisions of Popes which
it is desirable to except from the privilege of infalli-
bility generally asserted in other cases. Thus, for
instance, Orsi maintains that Honorius composed the
dogmatic letter he issued in reply to the Eastern Patri-
archs, and which was afterwards condemned as hereti-
cal by the sixth Ecumenical Council, only as “a
private teacher,” but the expression doctor privatus,
when used of a Pope, is like talking of wooden iron.
Others, like Gonet, have pronounced the decision ad-
dressed by Nicolas I. to the Bulgarian Church, that
baptism administered simply in the name of Jesus is
valid, to be a judgment given by him as a private
person only.?
Several theologians said that for the Pope to be in-
fallible, he must understand something of the things
he is to pronounce sentence upon infallibly, and it must
therefore be made a condition of his infallibility that
· he should first have been duly informed about the
matter in hand, and should have consulted bishops and
theologians. “For it is notorious," said the Spaniard
Alphonsus de Castro, “that many of the Popes knew
1 [Cf. supr. p. 60.] .
2 Cursus Theol. Disput. I. No. 105.
330
Papal Infallibility formulized:
nothing of grammar, not to speak of the Bible. But
one cannot decide on dogma without a knowledge of
the Bible.”1 That is to say, the Pope is infallible
when he decides ex cathedrå, but that implies that he
should first have made careful inquiry, and have in-
formed himself, and acquired certainty by his own
study, and by consulting others.
Others, especially Jesuits, replied that the Church
would be ill served with such an infallibility as this.
Most of the Popes have attained this supreme dignity
as jurists or administrators, or sons of distinguished
families, and would no longer be able, even if they
wished it, to prosecute theological studies at so advanced
an age. Most of them do not even know how to set
about it. The spiritual gift of infallibility must be so
regulated as to enlighten for the moment even the most
ignorant Pope, and secure him from any error. When
a Pope proclaims a doctrine, when he decides on
dogmatic and moral questions, his decision is final,
whether it be the result of lengthened deliberation or
pronounced at once. The seat of infallibility is only
in the innermost workshop of his mind. Why consult
others, who are liable to error, while he is not? Why
bring in the feeble light of a few oil-lamps, when he
himself possesses the full radiance of the spiritual sun-
light streaming from the Holy Ghost?
Bellarmine most strictly limited the Papal preroga-
tive of dogmatic infallibility. He would know nothing
indeed of the concurrence of a Council, or of consult-
16 Constat plures eorum adeo illiteratos esse ut grammati-
cam penitus ignorent. Qui fit, ut Sacras literas interpretari
possent?” — Adversus Hereses (ed. 1539); f. Sb.
Decisions lex cathedrâ."
331
ing the episcopate ; only when the Pope issues a decree
addressed to the whole Catholic Church, or when he
proclaims a moral law to the whole Church, is he to
be held infallible. This limitation seemed rather to
be framed with a view to the future than the past, for
no single decree of a Pope addressed to the whole
Church is known for the first thousand years of Chris-
tian history, and even after the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries the Popes usually decided at Councils on
doctrinal questions. Boniface VIII.'s Bull Unam
Sanctam, in 1303, is the first addressed to the whole
: Church. Why the Pope should be held fallible when
addressing himself to a part of the Church, but infal-
lible when he addresses himself to the whole, the
Cardinal has omitted to state. His opinion therefore
has been almost suffered to drop.
Other theologians of his Order, like Tanner and
Compton, assumed that a Papal decree was to be con-
sidered ex cathedra and infallible only when certain
formalities had been complied with, when it had been
affixed for some time to the door of St. Peter's, and in
the Campofiore. But most were not satisfied with this.
Some, like Duval and Cellot, maintained that the Pope
was only infallible when he anathematized all who
rejected his teaching.2
The general opinion was that very little depended
on such points, but yet they could not make up their
- minds to affirm an absolute and simply unconditional
1 De Rom. Pont. iv. 3, 5. So his fellow-Jesuit, Eudæmon
Johannes.
2 Duval, De Supr. R. P. in Eccl. Potest. (Paris, 1614), Q.5;
Cellot, De Hierarch. (Rothom. 1641), iv. 10.
332
Papal Infallibility formulized :
S
infallibility. The Jesuits Francis Torrensis and Bagot
thought the infallibility of a Papal decree could not be
reckoned on without a Council, including at least the
cardinals, prelates, and theologians resident at Rome.
So, again, Driedo, Lupus, and Hosius wanted to make
infallibility dependent at least on a Council being pre-
viously consulted. And hence arose a fresh contro-
versy, as to whether the assent of the Council were
required for a decision ex cathedrd, or whether it were
enough for the Pope to hear the assembly, and then
decide according to his own good pleasure. To make
the assent of the Council a condition were in fact to
overthrow the principle of Papal infallibility. Why
call an assembly of bishops, said others, when the car-
dinals are there for that very purpose, who, as belong-
ing to the Curia, outweigh a whole host of bishops?
But then a new difficulty came in,-is it of the essence
of an ex cathedrd judgment that the Pope should first
take the opinions of the whole college of cardinals? or
does it suffice, as Gravina and Cherubini maintain, if
he consults two cardinals only, and leaves the rest un-
noticed, among whom he presumes a contrary opinion
to prevail ? This question has become a crucial one
since 1713, when Clement XI. issued his famous Bull
Unigenitus, which he had drawn up with the assist-
ance of two cardinals only, like-minded with himself.
This gave the Jesuits a new light on the knotty point
of how to differentiate a definition of faith ex cathedrd.
They seem to have perceived that it was better to set
aside altogether the conditions of a previous consulta-
tion and questioning of others, and to make the Pope
alone the immediate organ of the Divine Spirit; but
Infallibility of the Church.
333
to introduce two other limitations, viz., Bellarmine's,
that his decree must be addressed to the whole Church,
and Cellot's, that he must anathematize all who dissent
from his teaching. According to this doctrine, which
is taught by Perrone, and received by pretty well the
whole Order, the Pope is liable to err when he ad-
dresses an instruction to the French or German Church
only, and, moreover, his infallibility becomes very
questionable whenever he omits to denounce an ana-
thiema on all dissentients. Meanwhile, as Perrone's
theology has not obtained the character of a confession
of faith in the Church, nor even attained equal author-
ity with the Summa of St. Thomas, there is no hope
of his exposition of the term ex cathedra forming a
common point of agreement. And thus, notwith-
standing the immense importance ascribed to it, the
meaning of the term is still among the dark and inex-
plicable problems of dogmatic theology. It remains
open to every infallibilist to make his own definition
of an ex cathedrd decision for his own private use.
$ XXXII. --Infallibility of the Church and the Popes
compared.
A personal infallibility evidently extends far beyond
the inerrancy of a great corporation, like the Catholic
Church, or of a Council representing it. The Church
in its totality is secured against false doctrine; it will
not fall away from Christ and the Apostles, and will
not repudiate the doctrine it has once received, and
which has been handed down within it. When a
1 Prælect. Theol. (Lov. 1843), viii. 497.
334
Papal Infallibility
Council passes sentence on doctrine, it thereby gives
testimony to its truth. The bishops attest, each for his
own portion of the Church, that a certain defined doc-
trine has hitherto been taught and believed there; or
they bear witness that the doctrines hitherto believed
involve, as their logical and necessary consequence,
some truth which may not yet have been expressly
ness have prevailed among the assembled bishops, -
on that point the Church herself is the ultimate judge,
by her acceptance or rejection of the Council or its
decision.
Here, therefore, the certainty and infallibility rest
entirely on the solid ground of facts. The Church does
not go on to disclose new doctrines, -- she does not
want to create anything, but only to protect and keep
the deposit she has inherited. The meaning of a judg-
ment passed by the assembled bishops is simply this, ---
thus have our predecessors believed, thus do we believe,
and thus will they that come after us believe. A great
community, a whole Church, is not exposed to the
danger of self-exaltation and presumptuous pretensions
to special Divine illumination. It makes no attempt
to establish some particular subjective view or opinion
of its own. Being left to itself, it naturally keeps
within the limits of the traditional faith which has been
constantly and everywhere received. But matters
assume a very different shape when a single individual
is made the organ of infallibility. The whole Church,
as long as its representatives at a Council preserve
their apostolic independence, cannot be forced or
in its Influence on the Popes.
:
335
cajoled into giving a wrong testimony, or proclaiming
the view or doctrine of a particular school or party
as the constant and universal belief of all Catholic
Christendom; but an individual Pope is always exposed
to the danger of falling under the influence of sycophants
and intriguers, and thus being forced into giving dog-
matic decisions. Advantage is taken of his predilection
for some theological opinion, or for some Religious
Order and its favorite doctrines, or of his ignorance of
the history of dogma, or of his vanity and ambition,
for signalizing his pontificate by a memorable decision,
and one supposed to be in the interest of the Roman
See, and thus associating his name with a great dog-
matic event which may constitute an epoch in the
Church. Nor is anything easier for a Pope than to
keep all contradiction at arm's length ; as a rule, no
one who is not expressly consulted ventures even to
make any representation or suggest any doubts to him.
The flattering conviction, so welcome to the old Adam,
grows up easily within his soul, that his wishes and
thoughts are Divine inspirations, that he is under the
special grace and guidance of Heaven, and that by
virtue of his office the fulness of truth and knowledge,
as of power, is his, without effort of his own. He
will the more believe, and the more quickly catch at
this idea, the smaller is his information and the less
suspicion or knowledge he has of the doubts and diffi-
culties which restrain learned theologians from adopt-
ing a particular doctrinal opinion. And thus even a
well-meaning Pope may come to imagine that he is far
removed from all self-exaltation, and is simply the
humble organ of the Holy Ghost, who speaks through
him.
336
Papal Infallibility
One of the Popes whose government is of most
inauspicious memory, Innocent X., himself confessed
that, having been all his life engaged in legal affairs
and processes, he understood nothing of theology. But
that did not hinder him from originating, by his con-
demnation of the Five Propositions on grace, a contro-
versy which lasted above a century, and has never
found a solution. He told the Bishop of Montpellier
that he had received so great an enlightenment of soul
from God, that the sense of Holy Writ had become
clear to him, and he had suddenly attained a compre-
hension of the intricate subtleties of scholasticism.
another clergyman (Aubigni), had become palpable to
him. He needed no Synod, nor even any advice of
the cardinals, but only the opinion of some regular
clergy selected by himself. “ All this depends on the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost,” he said to the theolo-
gians who had come to him from Paris.2
To speak of a Pope of very recent date, a statesman
resident in Rome related “ that Gregory XVI., in his
naïve manner, enjoyed his high position on the express
gound that he believed by virtue of it he must always
be in the right. When Capaccini discoursed with him
on financial affairs, and neither the refined and in-
i [The Five Propositions, said to be extracted from Jansen's
cessor, Alexander VII., pronounced further, that they were
condemned "in sensu auctoris," which gave rise to a fresh
dispute about infallibility extending to “dogmatic facts.”
Clement IX. somewhat modified the sentence. - TR.]
2. Tutto questo dipende della inspirazione dello Spirito
Santo." — Arnauld, Euvres, xxii. p. 210.
in its Influence on the Popes.
337
genious statesman could convince his master, nor he
with his home-baked arguments convince his minister,
Gregory used to exclaim from time to time that he
was Pope, and could not err, and must know every-
thing best.” 1
All absolute power demoralizes its possessor. To
that all history bears witness. And if it be a spiritual
power, which rules men's consciences, the danger of
self-exaltation is only so much the greater, for the pos-
session of such a power exercises a specially treach-
erous fascination, while it is peculiarly conducive to
self-deceit, —- because the lust of dominion, when it
has become a passion, is only too easily in this case
excused under the plea of zeal for the salvation of
others. And if the man into whose hands this abso-
lute power has fallen cherishes the further opinion that
he is infallible, and an organ of the Holy Ghost, - if
he knows that a decision of his on moral and religious
questions will be received with the general, and, what
is more, ex animo submission of millions, - it seems
almost impossible that his sobriety of mind should al-
ways be proof against so intoxicating a sense of power.
To this must be added the notion, sedulously fostered
by Rome for centuries, that every conclave is the scene
of the eventual triumph of the Holy Ghost, who guides
the election in spite of the artifices of rival parties,
and that the newly elected Pope is the special and
chosen instrument of Divine grace for carrying out
the purposes of God towards the Church and the
world. The whole life of such a man, from the mo-
1
i Politische Briefe und Charakt. (Berlin, 1849), p. 248.
22
338
Papal Infallibility
ment when he is placed on the altar to receive the
first homage by the kissing of his feet, will be an un-
broken chain of adorations. Everything is expressly
calculated for strengthening him in the belief that be-
tween himself and other mortals there is an impassa-
ble gulf; and when involved in the cloud and fumes
of a perpetual incense, the firmest character must
yield at last to a temptation beyond human strength
to resist.
It is related of Marcellus II. that at his election he
was full of alarm, lest that should also happen in his
case, which had been observed in most of his prede-
cessors, who had been completely changed after their
accession, and had carried out nothing of their previous
good intentions. So injurious, he thought, was the in-
fluence on a Pope's character of the change of position,
the swarm of sycophants, and the spirit of partisan-
ship. Even the Jesuit General Oliva, about 1670,
observes that the character of the newly elected Pope
is generally so deteriorated by his elevation, that no
one desires such an elevation for a good man, and no
one expects that the very best cardinal will retain as
Pope the good and holy resolutions he cherished at
the time of his accession.?
Cardinal Sadolet, who was his intimate friend, said
of Clement VII., that he had the Bible constantly in
his hands, and thus entertained good resolutions, yet
his pontificate was but a series of mistakes, a per-
petual dodging to evade the Council which he hated
1 Pollidor. De Vit. Marcell. II. (Rom. 1744), p. 132.
2 Lettere (Bologna, 1705), ii. 214. -
in its Influence on the Popes. 339
and feared. Sadolet is obliged to admit that Clement,
6 misled by his minister," departed widely from his
former character, and the goodness of his nature.
Paul IV. (Caraffa) before his election was a warm
friend of Church reformation, and left the Papal Court
because there was no hope of obtaining any help to-
wards it under Clement VII. When he became Pope
himself nothing was to be seen of his former zeal for
reforming the Church. At a time when almost every
post brought fresh news of the advance of Protestant-
ism, he left the Church in its helpless condition; he
did not so much as think of continuing the Council
which had for some years been suspended. His chief
concerns were the advancement and enrichment of his
nephews; his favorite institution, the Inquisition ; and
the quarrel with the two only champions the Papal
system then had, Charles V. and Philip II., for it is
the office of the Papacy to tread under foot kings and
emperors.?
His contemporary, Onufrio Panvinio, paints in the
most glaring colors the complete transformation which
took place in Pius IV. (John Angelo de Medici, Pope
from 1559 to 1565). Before his elevation he had
shown himself humane, tolerant, beneficent, gentle,
and unselfish; but as Pope he was just the reverse —
passionate, covetous, and jealous. Especially after he
had freed himself from the hated Council of Trent,
he abandoned himself to vulgar sensuality and lusts,
1 Epistolæ Sadoleti, Omphalii et Sturmii (Argentorati,
1539), p. 9.
2 Relaz. di Bernardo Navagero, in Relazioni degli Ambas-
ciadori Veneti, vii. 380.
340
Papal Infallibility.
ate and drank immoderately, became imperious and
crafty, and withdrew himself from Divine service in
the chapel.1
So was it afterwards with Innocent X. (Pamfili),
who had previously passed for a blameless and honest
man, but who as Pope gave the world the spectacle of
an administration guided and made pecuniary capital
out of by an imperious and covetous woman, his sister.
So again with Alexander VII. (Flavio Chigi), who
as Cardinal was an able and gifted man of business,
but as Pope soon let himself be readily persuaded by
the fawning Jesuit Olivia that it was a mortal sin not
to bring his nephews to Rome and make them rich
and great. His chief care was to get rid of all busi-
ness, and lead an easy and quiet life. Of later Popes
we say nothing here.
$ XXXIII. - What is meant by a Free Council.
The experiences of the non-Italian bishops at the
Council of Trent, its results, which fell so far short
of the reforms desired and expected, the conduct of
Rome in strictly prohibiting any explanations or com-
1 Panvin. Vit. Pontif. post Platinam (Colon. 1593), pp. 463,
477. With this agrees the statement of the Venetian ambas-
sador Tiepolo, Relazioni, x. 171.
? What has so often been observed of the Popes, that in
audiences and official intercourse they had behaved without
any scruple, and with habitual dissimulation, the Florentine
ambassador expresses shortly in these words, in his report
about Alexander VII.: “We have a Pope who never speaks a:
word of truth.” — See the Chronol. Hist. des Papes of the
Benedictines of St. Maur (Paris, 1783), p. 344:
Freedom in Council.
341
mentaries on the decrees of the Council being written,
and reserving to herself the interpretation of them,
while she quietly shelved many of its most important
decisions (e.g., on indulgences, and many others),
without even any semblance of carrying them out-
all this led to the call for a new Council, so often re-
peated previously, being silenced from that time for-
ward. In countries subjected to the Inquisition, the
mere wish for another Council would have been de-
clared penal, and have exposed to danger those who
uttered it. The Roman See had no doubt suffered
considerable losses of privilege and income in conse-
quence of the Tridentine decrees, and still more from
the opposition of the different Governments ; but, on
the other hand, those decrees, the activity of the Jesuits,
and the establishment of standing congregations and
of the nunciatures, which had been previously un-
known, had very materially increased the power and
influence of Rome. But at Rome Councils were al-
ways held in abomination ; the very name was strictly
forbidden under penalties there. When in the contro-
versy about grace in 1602 the Molinists spoke of its
being decided by a Council, the Dominican Peña wrote
that in Rome the word Council, at least in matters of
dogma, was regarded as sacrilegious, and excommuni-
cated."
And thus it has come to pass that three centuries
have elapsed without any earnest desire for a Council
making itself heard anywhere - a thing whollly unpre-
cedented in the past history of the Church. It is com-
1 In the letter in Serry, Hist. Cong. de Grat. (Antwerp,
1709), p. 270.
342
Papal Infallibility.
monly taught in theological manuals, schools, and sys-
tems, that the Councils of the Church are not only
useful but necessary. But this, like so much else in
the ordinary teaching, was held only in the abstract.
It was at bottom universally felt that Councils as little
fitted into a Church organized under an absolute Papal
monarchy, as the States-General into the monarchy of
Louis XIV. The most faithful interpreter of the
Roman view of things, Cardinal Pallavicini, put this
feeling into words, when he said, “ To hold another
Council would be to tempt God, so extremely danger-
ous and so threatening to the very existence of the
Church would such an assembly be.” In that point,
he thinks his History of the Council of Trent will
make the same impression on the reader as Sarpi’s.1
Even National Synods, he says, the Popes have always
detested.
But the chief reason why nobody any longer desired
a Council, lay in the conviction that, if it met, the first
and most essential condition, freedom of deliberation
and voting, would be wanting. The latest history
showed this as much as the theory. In the Papal sys-
tem, which knows nothing of true bishops ruling inde-
pendently by virtue of the Divine institution, but only
recognizes subjects and vicars or officials of the Pope,
who exercise a power lent them merely during his
pleasure, there is no room for an assembly which
would be called a Council in the sense of the ancient
Church. If the bishops knew the view and will of
i Storia del Conc. di Tr. iv. p. 331, ed. 1843. 2 Ib. p: 74.
3 Cardinal de Luca says (Relat. Curiæ Rom. Diss. iv. n. 10),
it is the opinio in hàc Curià recepta” that the Pope is
Freedom in Council.
343
the Pope on any question, it would be presumptuous
and idle to vote against it; and if they do not, their
first duty at the Council would be to ascertain it and
vote accordingly. An æcumenical assembly of the
Church can have no existence, properly speaking, in
presence of an ordinarius ordinariorum and infallible
teacher of faith, though, of course, the pomp, cere-
monial, speeches, and votings of a Council may be
displayed to the gaze of the world. And therefore the
Papal legates at Trent used at once to rebuke bishops
as heretics and rebels who ever dared to express any
view of their own." Bishops who have been obliged
to swear “ to maintain, defend, increase, and advance
the rights, honors, privileges, and authority of their
lord the Pope" – and every bishop takes this oath -
cannot regard themselves, or be regarded by the
Christian world, as free members of a free Council ;
natural justice and equity requires that. These men
neither will nor can be held responsible for decisions
"Ordinarius Ordinariorum, habens universum mundum pro
diæcesi," so that bishops and archbishops are only his
“officiales," or, as Benedict XIV. observes (De Synod. Dioces.
X. 14; v. 7), the Pope is "in totâ Ecclesiâ proprius sacerdos
- potest ab omni jurisdictione episcopi subtrahere quam-.
libet Ecclesiam." - In Merlini's Decis. Rot. Rom. ed. 1660
(Dec. 830), we read, “Papa est dominus omnium benefici-
orum.” In a word, this system leaves nothing which can be
said to belong to bishops of right. The Roman theory allows
the Curia to rob them, wholly or in part, of their rights, to
hand over their rights to others, etc.
1 Numberless instances of this may be found in the letters
of the Spanish ambassador Vargas, and the autobiography of
Bishop Martin Perez de Ayalas, in the appendix to Villanueva,
Vida Liter. ii. 420.
344
Papal Infallibility.
or omissions which do not depend on them. There
have certainly been the weightiest reasons for holding
no Council for three hundred years, and avoiding such a
"useless hubbub," as the infallibilist Cardinal Orsi
calls Councils."
Complete and real freedom for every one, freedom
from moral constraint, from fear and intimidation, and
from corruption, belongs to the essence of a Council.
An assembly of men bound in conscience by tlieir oaths ;
to consider the maintenance and increase of Papal
power their main object,2 — men living in fear of in-
curring the displeasure of the Curia, and with it the
charge of perjury, and the most burdensome hindrances
in the discharge of their office – cannot certainly be
called free in all those questions which concern the
1 Bossuet has brought forward the question, so often asked
and never answered: to what purpose were so many Councils
held in the Church, with so much trouble and expense, if the
infallible Popes could have finally settled every doctrinal con-
troversy by a single utterance of their own? To this Orsi
answers, and we have his reply in Count de Maistre's trans-
lation, “Ne le demandez point aux Papes qui n'ont jamais
imaginé qu'il fût besoin de conciles æcuméniques pour re-
primer (les hérésies d'Arius, etc.). Demandez le aux empe-
reurs qui ont absolument voulu les conciles, qui les ont
convoqués, qui ont exigé l'assentiment des Papes, qui ont excité.
inutilement tout ce fracas dans l'église."
2 The more important passages of the oath are: 6 Jura,
honores, privilegia et auctoritatem S. Rom. Ecclesiæ Domini
nostri Papæ et successorum prædictorum conservare, defen-
dere, augere et promovere curabo. . . . Regulas sanctorum
Patrum, decreta, ordinationes seu dispositiones, reservationes,
provisiones et mandata apostolica totis viribus observabo et
faciam ab aliis observari.”
Freedom in Council.
345 -
authority and claims of the See of Rome, and very few
at most of the questions that would have to be dis-
cussed at a Council do not come under this category.
None of our bishops have sworn to make the good of
the Church and of religion the supreme object of their
actions and endeavors; the terms of the oath provide
only for the advantage of the Curia. How the oath is
understood at Rome, and to what reproaches a bishop
exposes himself who once chooses to follow his own
· conviction against the tradition of the Curia, there are
plenty of examples to show.
In Rimini and Seleucia (359), at Ephesus (449) and
at Vienne (1312), and at many other times, even at
Trent, the results of a want of real freedom have been
displayed. In early times, when the Popes were as
yet in no position to exercise compulsion or intimida-
tion upon Synods, it was the Emperors who sometimes
trenched too closely on this. freedom. But from Gre-
gory VII.'s time the weight of Papal power has
pressed ten times more heavily upon them than ever
did the Imperial authority. With abundant reason
were the two demands urged throughout half Europe
in the sixteenth century, in the negotiations about the
Council, — first, that it should not be held in Rome, or
even in Italy, and secondly, that the bishops should be
absolved from their oath of obedience. The recently
proclaimed Council is to be held not only in Italy, but
in Rome itself, and already it has been announced
that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere
faithfully to the fifth." That is quite enough -- it means
this, that whatever course the Synod may take, one
1. [Cf. supr. pp. 159, 160, 283.]
1
346
Papal Infallibility.
quality can never be predicated of it, namely, that it has
been a really free Council.
Theologians and canonists declare that without com-
plete freedoin the decisions of a Council are not bind-
ing, and the assembly is only a pseudo-Synod. Its
decrees may have to be corrected.
Cambridge: Stereotyped and Printed by John Wilson and Son.
· Leigh Hunt's Writings.
THE SEER; OR, COMMONPLACES REFRESHED.
"Love adds a precious seeing to the eye.” — Shake-
speare. In two volumes. 16mo. Cloth, gilt top.
Price, $3.00.
Contents of 66 The Seer."
Pleasure; On a Pebble; Spring; 1 Cat by the Fire; Put up a Picture in
Color; Windows; Windows, con your Room; A Gentleman-Saint;
sidered from inside; A Flower for The Eve of St. Agnes; A “Now,"
your Window; A Word on Early descriptive of a cold day; Ice, with
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reon; The Wrong Sides of Scholar Why Sweet Music produces Sadness;
ship and No Scholarship; Cricket; Dancing and Dancers ; Twelftli
A Dusty Day; Bricklayers, and An | Night; Rules in Making Presents;
Old Book; A Rainy Day; The East | Romance of Commonplace; Amiable-
ness Superior to Common Intellect;
The Butcher; A Pinch of Snuff; Life After Death, - Belief in Spirits;
Wordsworth and Milton ; Specimens 1. On Death and Burial; On Washer-
of Chaucer; Peter Wilkins and the | women ; The Nightmare; The Flor-
Flying Woman; English and French entine Lovers; Rhyme and Reason;
Females; English Male Costume; Vicissitudes of a Lecture; The For-
English Women Vindicated; Sunday tunes of Genius; Poets' Houses;
in London ; Sunday in the Suburbs; A Journey by Coach; Inexhaustibility
A Human Being and a Crowd; The 1 of the Subject of Christmas.
" The Seer' is a capital companion in the traveller's pocket, and by the
bachelor's coffee-cup, and whenever one wishes a nibble at the good things of
the library at home. No one can behold the face of Nature without finding a
smile upon it, if he looks there through the eyes of 'The Seer.'” - Boston
Daily Advertiser.
"A collection of delicious essays, thoroughly imbued with the characteristics
of the writer's genius and manner, and on topics especially calculated to bring
out all the charins of his genial spirit and develop all the niceties of his fluent
diction, and worthy of being domesticated among those choice family books
E. P. Whipple.
“The Seer' is one of the best specimens of the modern essayist's dealing
with the minor pleasures and domestic philosophy of life, and is a capital anti-
dote for the too exciting books of the hour; it lures us to musing, and what
Hazlitt calls reposing on our sensations.'» - H. T. Tuckerman.
Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers.
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
Boston.
Leigh Hunt's Writings.
THE BOOK OF THE SONNET. Compris-
ing an Essay on the Cultivation, History, and Varieties
of the species of poem called the Sonnet, with a Selec-
tion of English Sonnets, now first published from the
original MSS. of Leigh Hunt. An Essay on American
· Sonnets and Sonneteers, with a Selection of Sonnets,
by S. Adams Lee. In two volumes. 16mo. Cloth,
gilt top. Price, $3.00.
“The genuine aroma of literature abounds in every page of Leigh Hunt's
delicious Essay on the Sonnet. His mind shows itself imbued with a rich
knowledge of his subject, and this, illumined by the evidence of a thorough and
unaffected liking for it, makes him irresistible.' - London Saturday Review.
"As a collection of Sonnets, it is not only the fullest ever made, but by far
the best, even excelling the dainty little collection by Dyce, ... and Hunt's
exliaustive and every way admirable introductory essay is, after all, much the
best part of the work. Its pages are steeped in thoughtſul scholarship on this
special theme, and sparkle with genial and veracious criticism." —R. H. Stod-
dard.
“A greater verbal epicurean than Leigh Hunt never lived. He luxuriated
over niceties of expression and revelled in a delicious image or apt phrases; he
was always seeking the beautiful in neglected fields of literature, and to renew
his acquaintance with the memorable sonnets of Italian and English poets was
simply a labor of love. He therefore wrote an essay giving the history of the
sonnet, and defining its conditions and possibilities, expatiated on the special
merits of each renowned writer in this sphere, and indicated the most striking
examples of success in artistic and effective construction or eloquent feeling as
thus embodied and expressed." —H. T. Tuckerman.
“Whether Leigh Hunt was a man of genius, or only of surpassing talent,
is a question which we willingly leave to the critics who find tweedledee differ-
ent from tweedledum iu kind as well as degree. We are content with the fact
that he has some virtue which makes us read every book of his we open, and
which leaves us more his friend at the end than we were before. Indeed, it
would be hard not to love so cheerful and kindly a soul, even if his art were
ever less than charming. But literature seems to have always been a gay sci-
ence with him. We never see his Muse as the harsh step-mother she really
was: we are made to think her a gentle liege-lady, served in the airiest spirit of
chivalric devotion; and in the Essay in this 'Book of the Sonnet' her aspect
is as sunny as any the poet has ever shown us.
"The Essay is printed for the first time, and it was written in Hunt's old
age; but it is full of light-heartedness, and belongs in feeling to a period at
least as early as that which produced the 'Stories from the Italian Poets.' It
is one of those studies in which he was always happy, for it keeps him chiefly
in Italy; and when it takes him from Italy, it only brings him into the Italian
air of Englisli sonnetry, -a sort of soft Devonshire coast, bordering the rug-
geder native poetry on the south." —W. D. Howells, in Atlantic Monthly.
Sold everywhere. Mailed, postpaid, by the Publishers.
ROBERTS BROTHERS,
Boston.
Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
THE GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS OF THE DAY.
ECCE HOM O.
ECCE DE U S.
Although it is now two years since the publication of " Ecce Homo," and one
year since " Ecce Deus" appeared, the sale of these extraordinary and remarkable
books continues quite as large as ever. Some of the ablest and most cultivated
minds in the world have been devoted to a critical analysis of them.
The foremost man in England, the Right IIonorable W. E. Gladstone, bas just
published a book devoted entirely to a review of " Ecce Homo," in which he uses
the following language:-
"To me it appears that each page of the book breathes out, as it proceeds, what
we may call an air, which grows musical by degrees, and which, becoming more
distinct even as it swells, takes form, as in due time we find, in the articulate con-
clusion, Surely, this is the Son of God; surely, this is the King of Heaven.'»
Of “Ecce Deus," which may be considered the complement of " Ecce Homo,"
there are almost as many admirers, the sale of both books being nearly alike.
Both volumes bound uniformly Sold separately. Price of each, $1.50.
Prof. Ingraham's Works.
THE PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID; or, Thres
Years in the Holy City.
THE PILLAR OF FIRE; or, Israel in Bondage.
THE THRONE OF DAVID; from the Consecration of the Shepherd
of Bethlehem to the Rebellion of Prince Absalom.
The extraordinary interest evinced in these books, from the date of their pub-
lication to the present time, has in no wise abated. The demand for them is still
as large as ever.
In three volumes, 12mo, cloth, gilt, with illustrations. Sold separately. Price
of each, $2.00.
The Heaven Series.
HEAVEN OUR HOME. We have no Saviour but Jesus, and no Homo
but leaven.
MEET FOR HEAVEN. A State of Grace upon Earth the only Prepa-
ration for a State of Glory in Heaven.
LIFE IN HEAVEN. There Faith is changed into Sight, and Lope is
passed into Blissful Fruition.
From Rev. Samuel L. Tuttle, Assistant Secretary of the American Bible Society.
"I wish that every Christian person could have tho perusal of these writings.
I can never be sufficiently thankful to hidi who wrote them for the service that he
has rendered to me and all others. They have given form and substance to ezery
thing revealed in the Scriptures respecting our hearenly home of love, and they
have done not a little to invest it with the most powerful attractions to my heart.
Since I have enjoyed the privilege of following the thought of their author, I have
felt that there was a reality in all these things which I have never felt before, and
I find myself often thanking God for putting it into the heart of a poor worm of
tho dust to spread such glorious representations before our race, all of whom
stand in need of such a rest.")
In tlıree puiumes, 16mo. Sold separately. Price of each, $1.25.
Mailed, post-paid, to any address, on receipt of the price by the publishers.
10
THE HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
MESSRS. ROBERTS BROTHERS propose to issue, under the
above heading, a Series of Handy Volumes, which shall be at
once various, valuable, and popular, - their size a most conven-
ient one, their typography of the very best, and their price ex-
tremely low. They will entertain the reader with poetry as well
as with prose ; now with fiction, then with fact; here with narra-
tion, there with inquiry; in some cases with the works of living
authors, in others with the works of those long since dead. It is
hoped that they will prove to be either amusing or instructive,
sometimes curious, often valuable, always handy. Each Volume
will, as a rule, form a work complete in itself.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
PALL MALL Gazette. -- "The size and shape of this volume justifies the
name given to the series, and it is as well and as clearly printed as many a
book of double the price."
ATHENAEUM. — “The size is handy, the type neat, the paper good, and the
price moderate."
pleasure, and shall be careful to add each work as it appears to our own rivate
library; and would advise all who value good, substantial, interesting reading
to go and do likewise."
LONDON News. “The handy volume, the pretty volume, - the volume
of good reading, is a cheap volume."
The Handy Volume Series will be neatly bound in cloth,
Rexible covers, and also in illuminated paper covers.
HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
I.
HAPPY THOUGHTS. By F. C. BURNAND. Price in
cloth, $1.00; paper covers, 75 cents.
2.
DOCTOR JACOB. A Novel. By Miss M. BETHAM ED-
WARDS. Price in cloth, 1.00; paper covers, 75 cents.
3.
PLANCHETTE; or, The Despair of Science. Being a full
account of Modern Spiritualism. Price in cloth, $1.25;
paper covers, $1.00.
Other volumes will follow the above at convenient intervals
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, Boston.
14
HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
1.
HAPPY THOUGHTS. BY F. C. BURNAND. Price, in Cloth,
From the London A thenæum.
"Of the many 'Happy Thoughts' which have occurred either to Mr. Bur-
nand or his hero, the thought of having such thoughts is the happiest. As we
read, we laugh and we admire. Mr. Burnand is so fertile in extravagant com-
edy, that we have no other resource ; but, at least, our laughter is genuine.
We do not feel ashamed of having been amused. There is no painful feeling
of humiliation afterwards, like the next morning' which follows a revel. We
may say of Mr. Burnand's fun, that there is not a headache in a hogshead of
it. Utterly ludicrous as his characters are, they are neither monstrosities nor
abortions. They are exaggerations of what is perfectly real, living 'humors,'
combined too copiously, but not invented. But then he overlays them with
ourselves up to the most uncritical enjoyment. ....We cannot decide wheth-
er we ought to quote or not; we find ourselves again reading and laughing :
and, after all, we resolve upon sending our readers to the book itself, that they
may read and laugh with us."
From the London Spectator.
“Happy Thought !' (Mr. Burnand must have said to himself when he re-
printed these papers) --' puzzle the critics,' The present critic confesses him-
self puzzled. There is such a fund of humor in every page of the book that
calm analysis is out of the question. Mr. Burnand is not only comic, but he
knows it and he means it. He contrives the most ludicrous situations and
thrusts his man into them simply to see what he will say. It is not enough
that his man should drink too much at a club dinner, and take short-hand notes
of his inarticulate phrases, but he must go and have a serious interview with
his 's'lic'tor,' merely in order that his note-book may record all the stages in
the typical development of drunkenness. This interview with the solicitor is,
perhaps, the most characteristic part of the book. It is marked by more than
Mr. Burnand's usual daring. The idea of a man writing down in a note-book,
'Hapo Thight. - Go to bed in my boots,' is not comic if you try to analyze
it. But then you don't analyze it. You accept it without scrutiny. You
know the whole thing is a caricature, and so long as you laugh heartily you
don't ask whether this or that detail is out of drawing. If you did, the absurd-
ity of a man who can't speak plainly writing down his words exactly as he
pronounces them would of course shock your nice sense of proportion. Some-
how or other, it does not shock ours. We are in Mr. Burnand's hands, He
may do what he likes with us."
From the Pall Mall Gazette.
“It is a handsome little book, and as good as it is good-looking. We do not
know when we have seen more fun, or a trucr or better kind of fun, than that
which sparkles from end to end of Mr. Burnand's brochure."
From The London Review.
"Mr. Burnand is a skilled inventor of clever nonsense, and there is this
peculiarity about his fooling which distinguishes it from funny writing in
general, he is never vulgar. A more idle book could not, perhaps, be bought,
or one which a reader would sooner buy when he or she wanted to feel idle.
It needs no more effort to take in what Mr. Burnand wishes to say than it
does to smoke a cigar. . . . . He only aims to amuse, and he succeeds
am
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised
price.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, Boston.
HANDY VOLUME TIN
SERIES.
II. .
DOCTOR JACOB. A Novel. By Miss M. BETHAM ED.
WARDS. Price, in Cloth, $ 1.00; in Illuminated Paper Cov-
ers, 75 cents.
From The Round Table.
" This is a story which partakes somewhat of the domestic style of the
German novelists without their extreme tediousness. It represents certain
phases of life which afford but little scope for novelty or adventure, but which
nevertheless call out whatever there is of good or bad, of passionate or enthu-
siastic, in the nature of each individual. ... Doctor Jacob is the centre
figure, to which all the others are subordinate ; one of the inost skilfully drawn,
original, and unsatisfactory characters we have ever met with. A man of
brilliant attainments, not bad at heart, but seemingly devoid of principle, with
a profound appreciation of all that is good in others, and trusting to his intel-
lectual strength to keep him from the consequences of his errors. Though
sixty years of age, his attractions are so great that he wins the love of a very
young girl, whose affection is displayed with such artless simplicity, and yet
with such earnestness that we can scarcely blame the doctor for lacking courage
to resist the temptation of loving in return."
From The Nation.
“Her hero, Doctor Jacob, strikes us as a new acquaintance in fiction. He is
a clergyman of the English Church, who comes to Frankfort for the purpose
of raising funds to aid him in ſulfilling his duties as a self-appointed missionary
to the Jews. He is sixty years old, but handsomer than most handsome men
of thirty. He has also a 'vast and well-stored mind,' great knowledge of hu-
man nature, manners which fascinate everybody, and a 'giſt' in preaching
which charms money out of all pockets. The actions of this aged Adonis do
not in all respects conform to the received codes of either clerical or lay moral-
ity. In the first place, the reader is left until nearly the close of the book in
suspense, which, considering that it is intentional on the author's part, is not
too harrowing, as to the nature of his relations with Miss Macartney, the Eng-
lish governess in a school superintended by the Fräulein Fink. Miss Macart-
ney is evidently greatly troubled by Doctor Jacob's advent in Frankfort; she
has a horror of meeting him, and yet she loves him tenderly.”
From The Commonwealth.
“This is a novel of the higher order, -a German story told in that smooth,
graceful, leisurely style that contrasts so strongly with the crispness and sparkle
of soine of our most acceptable American novels, an admirable style for
certain purposes, and perfectly adapted to a minute and subtle analysis of
character like this. Dr. Jacob, the hero, is a nobler sort of Harold Skiinpole,
with none of the childish inconsequence of that exasperating innocent. This
is a generous-gifted, high-toned, and powerful nature, marred by one fatal
flaw, – a tendency to profuseness and improvidence. The reader feels through-
out all the charm and attractiveness of the winsome and benignant old man
who, all his life, had 'plucked down hearts to pleasure him, as you would roses
from a bough. Yet his career is carried out unflinchingly to its logical se-
quence, and we see the gray-haired Sybarite sitting solitary and repentant
among the ruins of a mistaken life, yet we view the wreck with compassion,
and not without respect for the inherent nobleness visible through all. Only
a profound student of human nature could have drawn such a portrait."
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised
price.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, Boston.
20
HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
III.
PLANCHETTE; or, the Despair of Science. Being a full Ac:
count of Modern Spiritualisin, its Phenomena, and the various
theories regarding it. With a Survey of French Spiritism.
Price, in Cloth, $1.25; in Illuminated Paper Covers, $1.00.
From the Boston Sunday Times.
" Roberts Brothers have added to their "Handy Volume Scries' this new
work, which has alrcady excited unusual comment among the established criti.
cal authorities of the country. It is from the pen of a gentleman whose name
is familiar to the literary world. Planchette scems to have been selected so as
to give the voluine a definite name. It represents, in fact, in this work, the
whole world of spiritualism. It is affirmed to be the 'Despair of Science, also,
and the volume is crowded with statements which, unless contradicted or dis-
proved, will certainly be the means of converting thousands to the belief in
spiritual manifestations. Enough has been proved to convince us that there is
an undiscovered law of nature, - call it spiritualism or what you will, -- which
has thus far defied the investigations of scicnce. This law, too, is more potent,
more wonderful, and more fascinating than any of the great discoveries of
ancient or modern science. We are no believer in spiritualisin, and are not pre-
pared to accept ony of the marvellous manifestations chronicled in this book as
procccding from the spirit world: But the various evidences are so peculiarly
impressive in thuir character that they must command more attention than has
hitherto bcen devoted to thein. It is not commendable in persons to decline,
like Hcrbert Spencer, to look into the subject on a priori grounds,' for which
declination Mr. S. is severely criticised by E. S. The time has come when
every subject of this nature should receive the careful and candid study of en-
lightened minds. Many impostors have doubtless taken advantage of the pre-
vailing interest in spiritualism to huinbug the public; but, on the other hand, it
should be remcınbered that some of the most eminent men of Europe and
America have witnessed performances which converted them to the doctrine.”
From the Philadelphia Press.
“It stands so much alone in its superiority, that we do not hesitate to charac-
terize it as the only honest history of spiritualism. A surprising history it is,
and well told."
From the New York Tribune.
“The most decided opponents of the new spiritualistic movement may read it
with satisfaction, for its copious and lucid statement of facts, the force of its
reasonings, and the moderation and truthfulness of its spirit.”
From the Chicago Tribune.
"At last we have a thoroughly good book about spiritualisın, - the best at-
tested and most striking facts, the most interesting arguments, theories, and
opinions. The writer is concisc and rapid, carrying us forward from point to
point without wearying us anywhere."
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised
price.
. ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, Boston.
21
HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
IV.
EDELWEISS: A Story. By BERTHOLD AUERBACH, author of
66 On the Heights," i Villa Eden: The Country-House on the
Rhine," “ Village Tales.” Price, in Cloth, $1.00; in Illu-
minated Paper Covers, 75 cents.
"There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our sum.
mer plant, called 'Life-Everlasting,' a Gnaphalium like that which grows on,
the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese mountains, where the chamois dare
hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty and by his love (for
it is immensely valued by the Swiss maidens), climbs the cliffs to gather, and is
sometimes found dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by
botanists the Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss EDELWEISSE, whicb
signifies NOBLE PURITY." - RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
From the Salem Gazette.
« The German novelist is becoming a great favorite with American readers,
chiefly through the enterprise of Messrs. ROBERTS BROTHERS in issuing an
English version of his productions in such desirable editions."
From the Worcester Palladium.
“Berthold Auerbach is a genius. He treads in no beaten path; he cсhoes
no man's thoughts. He can be compared with no other writer, for there is none
like him. He has the rare power of grasping the salient points of his time, and
writing a story of to-day which has all the poetic haze which hangs over the
past. In this he is an artist, and one, too, whose work is almost faultless in
construction. He knows the value of form and harmonious proportion, and
pretty details of color and ornament do not lead him from the controlling idea
and plan of his work. Then he is a reformer, in the best and highest sense.
cratic idea of the sovereignty of the people. Not that he writes political novels.
They are tales of real life, unfolding the good and the evil there is in man,
but showing always how virtue is its own reward, and that naught but ill can
come of evil.” .
“I know of no writer of fiction of the present day equal to Auerbach.”-
JOHN G. WIIITTIER.
From the New Bedford Mercury.
“The story, a German one, is a gem. It is told quietly, smoothly, gracefully,
and naturally. There is nothing to excite, but everything about it interests the
reader. It is one of the books, and such novels are very rare, that one lays by
for a second perusal; and that made, is reserved for another and another. It is a
book we can commend heartily to all classes of readers.”
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertised
price.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
22
HANDY VOLUME SERIES.
V.
REALITIES OF IRISH LIFE. By W. STEUART TRENCH.
Price in Cloth, $1.00; in Illuminated Paper Covers, 75 cents.
From the Author's Preface.
“Extraordinary as the incidents recorded in this volume may be, the author
can vouch for their truth as facts. His reasons for publishing them are mainly
threefold:-
"First, his tales are of real life. Many of the incidents described therein
have been told in various forms, often very incorrectly, in the newspapers and
journals of the day. The writer's desire has been to give a clear and truthful
account of occurrences which virulent party spirit or local prejudices have placed
before the public, distorted through a false medium. He has endeavored calmly
and dispassionately to relate the facts as he believes them to have occurred, and
in most cases as he knows them to have happened to himself in person.
"His second reason for publishing these tales is to give the English public
some idea of the difficulties which occasionally beset the path of an Irish land.
lord or agent who may wish to improve the district in which he is interested.
"Th ly, he wishes to add his testimony to the fact that Ireland, -notwith-
standing the many difficulties which may beset the path of those who earnestly
desire to improve her condition,- is nevertheless not altogether unmanageable,
and that though we may meet with many disappointments, many acts of appar-
ent and some of real ingratitude, yet justice fully and firmly administered is
always appreciated in the end."
From the Edinburgh Review.
“We question whether any book has ever issued from the press, of more deep
and thrilling interest on the well-worn subject of Irish passions and Irish wrongs.
These scenes are related with the popular force, humor, and pathos of Dickens
in his best and earliest works. They describe events within the personal expe-
rience of the author; but events so strange, wild, and terrible, that if they were
not attested by an indisputable authority, it would seem incredible that such things have
been and are of frequent occurrence in our times. We hope this book will be
read not only throughout Britain, but throughout Europe and America; for we
know of nothi hich conveys so forcible and impressive a description of that
extraordinary people. Our object, we avow it, is to make this book known as
far as our influence extends, and we are much mistaken if our readers do not
turn with avidity to the original volume, where they will find a series of narra-
tives only to be matched in the pages of romance. Mary Shea and Alice
McMahon are heroines as tender and true as ever were feigned by a poet, and
we fancy that Mr. Trench describes with peculiar zest his interviews with these
adventurous maidcns. The seal-hunt he witnessed by night in the dark caverns
of Derrynane, is an exploit without a parallel in the annals of sporting.”
From the London Quarterly Review.
" This book is different from any other book on Ireland we have met with.
Its title, — Realities of Irish Life, faithfully describes its contents.
"The whole volume is occupied with the great question and the great difficulty
of Ireland, namely, the peculiar character of the people, and their ideas and
feelings in reference to land.
“ Perhaps no book has ever appeared throwing so strong a light on the most
salient peculiarities of the Irish character, - probably the most peculiar and
contradictory national character in the world, depicted as it is, by a countryman
and a friend.
“Mr. Trench's work is at once the most deeply interesting and the most in.
structive we have read for many years."
ROBERTS BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, BOSTON.
23
HANDY VOLUME SERIES,
VI.
POEMS OF RURAL LIFE IN COMMON ENGLISH.
By WILLIAM BARNES. Price, in green cloth, $1.25.
Notices from the English Press.
From the Saturday Review.
. “One of the most original, and, within his own range, one of the most faultless of
Englisli poets. :)
From the London Review.
“They breathe the spirit of true poetry, and are invested with a simple beauty,
which is their greatest charm."
From the Pall-Mall Gazette.
The vale and the village are his world, and he makes us fainiliar with every lane
and copse and hill; he laughs with the beauty in every farm-house, and knows the
story of every cottager's family. His language, direct and simple, aided by the in-
genious structure of the verse, lends itself admirably to the scenes which he delineates.
It is the homely, healthy language of his native country-side, only purified and clarified
by good taste and feeling; like brook-water coming to one over beds of golden grave!."
From the Spectator.
“There can be no readers, we should imagine, whose good opinion will not be won
by poems so fresh, tender, and pure . . . not unworthy to be ranked with the best
national poets ... the exquisite melody of his verse... his country men and
women have all the look of reality... he paints to the life; and, in this respect, he
· seems to us to excel all the poets of rural life."
Notices from the American Press.
From the Galaxy.
"A precious contribution to the poetic literature of the year. They are full of
tenderness, of homely grace, of simple pathos, the poetry of the home, the hearth,
the field, the daily round of rustic life. They ne to American readers in an ex-
quisitely tasteful garb of print and illustration.'
From the Boston Transcript.
“These 'Rural Poenis' do, indeed, sinack of the soil, and smell of honeysuckles
pictures of rustic life, of charming little idyls, which are almost worthy of Theocritus
himself. Mr. Barnes can not only paint a tree or a flower or —
" A trottin' birnie wimplin' through the ground,
Its channel peebles shining smooth and round,'
but he succeeds admirably as a poetic delineator of rural life and manners. His pic-
tures of the doings and wooings' of rustic beaux and belles are touched off with the
akill of a master."
From the New-York Evening Post.
"The poems in this little volume are another illustration of the great truth that
poetry is to be found in the obscurest scenes ; that it exists in the lives of the most
humble and simple-hearted. As soon as a poet appears sensitive enough to catch the
inward music by which the life of a single human being is modulated, the world
hearkens to his songs with wonder and delight. The sorrows and joys of village
youths and maidens; the tenderness of husband and wife walking hand-in-hand
ihrough the shadow and sunshine of their existence; the talk of friendly neighbors;
the varying aspects of nature, these are the themes that the author writes about,
with so much sweetness and simplicity that every scene that he describes becomes a
true poem. They liave the vigor, purity, and reality that belongs to every work of art
born of the ideal, and strengthened and vivified by a faithful study of pature."
Mailed to any address, post-paid, on receipt of the advertisci
price.
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston,

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