ture of life if he cannot discern between what is food and what is poison—if instead of bread he be liable to give not only a stone, but the virus of falsehood? The Council of Florence, in using these terms, is reciting the words of our Lord to Peter, "Feed my sheep;" and in declaring the successor of Peter, as Vicar of our Lord, to be the teacher of all Christians, the Council did not so much as conceive the thought that he could mislead them from truth to falsehood, from life to death.
3. And here, in quoting the text of the Council of Florence, it may be well to anticipate the cavils of adversaries against the Vatican Council. It has been the practice of controversialists to charge Catholic theologians with truncating the decree, because in quoting it they commonly omit its last words, which run as follows: "Quemadmodum etiam in actis Conciliorum et sacris canonibus continetur" (as is also contained in the Acts of Councils and in the Sacred Canons). Anti-Catholic writers contend that the true reading of the decree is "quemadmodum et," in that manner in which it is contained in the Acts of Councils and in the Sacred Canons—intending thereby to prove, first, that the authority of the Roman Pontiff was created by Canons and Councils, and, secondly, that it is limited by them. To this it may be well to answer in two words.
