CHAPTER II.
THE TWO CONSTITUTIONS.
Having so far spoken on the less pleasing and less vital part of this subject, I gladly turn to the authoritative acts of the Council.
The subject matter of its deliberations was divided into four parts, and for each part a Deputation of twenty-four Fathers was elected by the Council. The four divisions were, on Faith, Discipline, Religious Orders, and on Rites, including the Missions of the Church.
Hitherto, the subjects of Faith and Discipline alone have come before the Council; and of these two chiefly the first has been treated, as being the basis of all, and in its nature the most important. In what I have to add, I shall confine myself to the two Dogmatic Constitutions, De Fide and De Ecclesia Christi.[1]
The history of the Faith cannot be adequately written without writing both the history of heresy and the history of definitions; for heresies are partial aberrations from the truth, and definitions are rectifications of those partial errors. But the Faith is coextensive with the whole Revelation of Truth; and
- ↑ See Appendix, p. 182, etc.
