VI.
THE CASE OF HONORIUS.
I have intentionally refrained from treating the historical evidence in the case of Honorius in the text of the fourth chapter, for the following reasons:
1. Because it is sufficient to the argument of that chapter to affirm that the case of Honorius is doubtful. It is in vain for the antagonists of Papal Infallibility to quote this case as if it were certain. Centuries of controversy have established, beyond contradiction, that the accusation against Honorius cannot be raised by his most ardent antagonists to more than a probability. And this probability, at its maximum, is less than that of his defence. I therefore affirm the question to be doubtful; which is abundantly sufficient against the private judgment of his accusers. The cumulus of evidence for the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff outweighs all such doubts.
2. Because the argument of the fourth chapter necessarily excludes all discussion of detailed facts. Had they been introduced into the text, our antagonists would have evaded the point, and confused the argument by a discussion of details. I will, nevertheless, here affirm, that the following points in the case of Honorius can be abundantly proved from documents:
(1) That Honorius defined no doctrine whatsoever. (2) That he forbade the making of any new definition. (3) That his fault was precisely in this omission of Apostolic authority, for which he was justly censured. (4) That his two epistles are entirely orthodox; though, in the use of language, he wrote as was usual before the condemnation of Monothelitism, and not as it became necessary afterwards. It is an anachronism and an injustice to censure his language, used before that condemnation, as it might be just to censure it after the condemnation had been made.
To this I add the following excellent passage from the recent Pastoral of the Archbishop of Baltimore:
