question fully and precisely, it would not be enough to declare simply the Pope to be infallible; but it would be necessary, at the same time, to declare, and that by a dogmatic decree, the form and the mode in which the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff is to be manifested: which would be a difficult question, and would involve the authority of the Holy See in many new and grave complications.
4. That the making of such a definition would be exposed to this intrinsic difficulty. Suppose the bishops not to be unanimous, what course should then be taken? Suppose, again, that they were unanimous in declaring the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff to be a doctrine revealed by Jesus Christ, and always and in all churches traditionally taught and believed, would they not, in the very act of defining the dogma, seem to profess that there is no authority in defining the faith inherent in the Episcopate?
5. That such a definition would be of doubtful utility, and would rather hinder the hope of re-uniting the Eastern Churches to the Holy See, for the genius of the Greek and Oriental mind is such as to recoil from every new word. It is well known what serious and endless controversies the single phrase 'Filioque' has stirred up. For which reason, in the profession of faith enjoined by Gregory XIII. for the Greeks, and by Urban VIII. and Benedict XIV. for the other Orientals, the very words of the Florentine Decree, without any change or addition, were retained.
6. That such a definition would retard also the return which we so much desire of Protestants to the unity of the Church; inasmuch as the new dogma
