Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/69

during which the doctrine of the Immaculate Nativity was seen to be less and less adequate to explain the absolute sinlessness of the mother of our Redeemer, and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was seen to be more and more in conformity with the analogy of faith. These same three periods are traceable in the doctrine of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff. Down to the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century, the stability of the faith of Peter, and the immutability of the Roman Church or of the see of Peter, were the universal belief of the Church. This belief was not speculative only. It was exhibited in the public practice of the Church. Every public act of Rome was declared to rest on the stability of faith in the see of Peter, or of the Apostolic See, or of the successor of the apostle, or of the voice of Peter still teaching by his successor in his see. This praxis of the Church was immemorial, universal, and invariable in the declaration of faith and the condemnation of error. The amplest proof of this truth is to be seen in the relation of the Pontiffs to general councils, as in that of S. Leo to the Council of Chalcedon, which he guided in faith, confirmed, and in part annulled; in that of Celestine to the Council of Ephesus, which he also directed and confirmed; of Agatho to the third Council of Constantinople; and in the acts of S. Innocent the First and of S. Gelasius, upon whose