CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH.
The additional chapter on the Infallibility of the Head of the Church was distributed, as we have seen, on the 7th of March, and in the last days of April the amendments of the bishops on the schema on the Primacy and the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff were printed and distributed to the Council. The schema consisted of an introduction and four chapters, of which the first related to the institution of the primacy in the person of S. Peter, the second to its perpetuity in his successors, the third to the nature and character of the primacy, and the fourth to the infallibility attached to the primacy.
The general discussion on the schema opened on the 13th of May by a report of the Commission on Faith. It lasted through fourteen sessions—that is, from the 14th of May to the 3d of June. By that time it had become evident that the general discussion of the subject was exhausted. Not a new argument was to be heard; the old were endlessly repeated. The general discussion had anticipated even the special discussions on the chapters. Sixty-four had spoken. A hundred
