The True Story of the Vatican Council/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
THE DEFINITION OF INFALLIBILITY.
Having thus far completed our brief Story of the Vatican Council, we have only to examine the Definition of the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff.
I. We will therefore first take the text of the fourth chapter of the first Constitution on the Church of Christ, in which is contained the infallibility of the head of the Church; and next we will examine its meaning.
Concerning the Infallible Teaching of the Roman Pontiff.
Moreover, that the supreme power of teaching is also included in the Apostolic Primacy, which the Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, Prince of the Apostles, possesses over the whole Church, this Holy See has always held, the perpetual practice of the Church confirms, and Œcumenical Councils also have declared, especially those in which the East with the West met in the union of faith and charity. For the Fathers of the Fourth Council of Constantinople, following in the footsteps of their predecessors, gave forth this solemn profession: The first condition of salvation is to keep the rule of the true faith. And because the sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed by, who said: Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church,[1] these things which have been said are approved by events, because in the Apostolic See the Catholic Religion has always been kept undefiled and her holy doctrine proclaimed. Desiring, therefore, not to be in the least degree separated from the faith and doctrine of that See, we hope that we may deserve to be in the one communion, which the Apostolic See preaches, in which is the entire and true solidity of the Christian religion.[2] And, with the approval of the second Council of Lyons, the Greeks professed that the Holy Roman Church enjoys supreme and full Primacy and pre-eminence over the whole Catholic Church, which it truly and humbly acknowledges that it has received with the plenitude of power from our Lord Himself in the Person of blessed Peter, Prince or Head of the Apostles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is; and as the Apostolic See is bound before all others to defend the truth of faith, so also if any questions regarding faith shall arise, they must be defined by its judgment.[3] Finally, the Council of Florence defined:[4] That the Roman Pontiff is the true Vicar of Christ, and the Head of the whole Church, and the Father and Teacher of all Christians; and that to him in blessed Peter was delivered by our Lord Jesus Christ the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing the whole Church.[5]
To satisfy this pastoral duty our predecessors ever made unwearied efforts that the salutary doctrine of Christ might be propagated among all the nations of the earth, and with equal care watched that it might be preserved genuine and pure where it had been received. Therefore the Bishops of the whole world, now singly, now assembled in Synod, following the long-established custom of Churches,[6] and the form of the ancient rule,[7] sent word to this Apostolic See of those dangers especially which sprang up in matters of faith, that there the losses of faith might be most effectually repaired where the faith cannot fail.[8] And the Roman Pontiffs, according to the exigencies of times and circumstances, sometimes assembling Œcumenical Councils, or asking for the mind of the Church scattered throughout the world, sometimes by particular Synods, sometimes using other helps which Divine Providence supplied, defined as to be held those things which with the help of God they had recognised as conformable with the Sacred Scriptures and Apostolic Traditions. For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles. And indeed all the venerable Fathers have embraced and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed their Apostolic doctrine; knowing most fully that this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error according to the Divine promise of the Lord our Saviour made to the Prince of His disciples: I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and, when thou art converted, confirm thy brethren.[9]
This gift, then, of truth and never-failing faith was conferred by heaven upon Peter and his successors in this Chair, that they might perform their high office for the salvation of all; that the whole flock of Christ, kept away by them from the poisonous food of error, might be nourished with the pasture of heavenly doctrine; that the occasion of schism being removed the whole Church might be kept one, and, resting on its foundation, might stand firm against the gates of hell.
But since in this very age, in which the salutary efficacy of the Apostolic office is most of all required, not a few are found who take away from its authority, we judge it altogether necessary solemnly to assert the prerogative which the only-begotten Son of God vouchsafed to join with the supreme pastoral office.2. Such is the text of the decree about which before it came, and around which after it had been introduced into the Council, so vivid a conflict was waged. Let us quietly examine its meaning. We have seen that its title was changed from De Romani Pontificis Infallibilitate (On the Infallibility of the Roman Pontiff) to De Romani Pontificis Infallibili Magisterio (On the Infallible Teaching Office of the Roman Pontiff). The reason of this change was not only for greater accuracy, but because even the title of the decree excludes at once the figment of a personal infallibility. This, as it is imputed to the supporters of the definition, is a fable. The meaning of the title is explained in the first words of the decree. The magisterium, or teaching office, or doctrinal authority, is contained in the primacy. The supreme ruler is also supreme teacher. The primacy contains two things, the fulness of jurisdiction, and a special assistance in the exercise of it. Now, under jurisdiction is contained the office of teaching. To deliver the law is to teach. The assistance of infallible guidance is attached to the magisterium or teaching office, and the magisterium is contained in the primacy. The infallibility is therefore attached to the primacy. It is not a quality inherent in the person, but an assistance inseparable from the office. It is therefore not personal, but official. It is personal only so far as the primacy is borne by a person. The primacy is not held in commission, as the office of Lord Treasurer or of Lord High Admiral. It is personal, therefore, only in the sense that the successor of S. Peter is a man and not a body of men—he is one and not many.
The Introduction then affirms that this doctrine has always been held by the Holy See, confirmed by the perpetual usage of the Church and of the Œcumenical Councils, especially in those by which the reunion of the East and West was for a moment effected.
In the fourth Council of Constantinople, which is the eighth of the Church, Pope Hadrian required the Eastern bishops to subscribe the creed of Pope Hormisdas, in which it is declared that the promise of indefectibility made to Peter is fulfilled in the fact that the Catholic religion has ever been preserved spotless in the Apostolic See.
In the second Council of Lyons the Greeks confessed that the Holy Roman Church had supreme and full primacy and principality over the whole Catholic Church, received from our Lord himself in Peter, prince and head of the Apostles, whose successor the Roman Pontiff is. The Profession of Faith then adds that the Roman Church "is bound above all Churches to defend the truth; and if any questions arise about the faith, they ought to be defined (or finally determined) by its judgment."
The Council of Florence is still more explicit, as we have already seen; but the words may be repeated in full because they are an implicit assertion of the doctrine of infallibility. The Vatican Council only defined explicitly what the Council of Florence had implicitly affirmed. From the acts of the Council of Trent it is evident that the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff would have been defined but for the state of the Council and the dangers of the times. The Florentine Council in 1439 says that "the Roman Pontiff is the true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church, and is the father and teacher of all Christians; and to him in blessed Peter the full power was given by our Lord of feeding, ruling, and governing the Universal Church."
The word "to feed" obviously means to feed with the Word of God, which is the food of the soul. But how shall he feed the Universal Church with this pasture 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.
First, supposing the true reading to be "in that manner in which it is contained," &c., this would not prove what they desire. The decree had already declared that the full power of feeding and governing was given to Peter, and in Peter to his successors, by our Lord himself. How then was it given by Canons or Councils? It was given before a Canon was made or a Council held. It is here declared to be of divine not of ecclesiastical institution, and it was given in full by our Lord in person. How can it be limited by Canons and Councils? It is itself the limit of Councils and of Canons, being limited only by its own Divine Author and by his continual assistance.
But next it is put beyond all doubt that the "quemadmodum et" is a corruption of "quemadmodum etiam," and that the meaning of the words is "as also is contained in the Sacred Œcumenical Councils and Canons;" that is to say, the statutes at large of the Catholic Church prove by record and testimony that the Roman Pontiff is vicar, and head, and pastor, and doctor of all Christians in the plenitude of power given to him in Peter by our Lord himself. It is a further corroboration of the doctrine declared in the decree. The whole history of the Councils and a series of Canons prove the fact. Now that this is the true reading is manifest from the following evidence. In the Vatican library there are three manuscripts of the Council of Florence. Every one reads not "et," but "etiam." One of them has a contraction of "etiam" which might easily be mistaken for "et;" but the others are written in full, and are clear beyond possibility of mistake. Again, in the Archive of the Vatican there is one of the originals of the Decree of Union. It has in parallel columns both the Latin and Greek text. It is signed by Eugenius IV. and by the Emperor Palæologus, and has the bulls or seals attached to it. In this "etiam" stands in full. Finally, at Florence is preserved the first of the four originals with the signatures of Eugenius and of the emperor, with the bulls of lead and of gold, and with the signatures of all the fathers of the Council of Florence. In this also the "etiam" stands in full, and the Greek text is identical in meaning. If then the clause is often omitted by Catholic writers, it is omitted as needless. After saying, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," why should we add, "According as is contained in the history of the world?"
4. The decree then recites the action of the Pontiffs in all ages for the propagation of the faith among all nations, and for the preservation of its purity. It recounts the various ways in which this supreme oversight of the teacher of all Christians has been exercised. It declares that sometimes the bishops in Synod, or singly one by one, following the immemorial custom of the Churches of the Catholic unity—for, as Tertullian says, "what is found in all places is not error, but tradition"—have faithfully guarded the form of primitive order, especially when any new peril threatened the dogma of faith, by bringing their causes or controversies to the Apostolic See. This they did "that the breaches of the faith might be repaired," as St. Bernard said, "by the authority in which faith cannot fail." These are the words of St. Bernard, but they ought not to be new to Englishmen, for they are almost the words of two Archbishops of Canterbury. St. Thomas, in a letter to the Bishop of Hereford, asks:—
Who doubts that the Church of Rome is the head of all the Churches and the fountain of Catholic truth? Who is ignorant that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were entrusted to Peter? Does not the structure of the whole Church rise from the faith and doctrine of Peter?
St. Anselm almost anticipates the decree of the Council of Florence. He writes as follows:—
Forasmuch as the providence of God has chosen your Holiness to commit to your custody the [guidance of the] life and faith of Christians and the government of the Church, to no other can reference be more rightly made, if so be anything contrary to the Catholic faith arise in the Church, in order that it may be corrected by his authority.
Sometimes the Pontiffs have proceeded by consultation with the bishops dispersed throughout the world, of which we have a recent example in the definition of the Immaculate Conception and in the preparation for the Council of the Vatican. In the former case, which related to a question of faith, every bishop throughout the world was required to send his judgment in writing on two points—first, whether the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was definable, and, secondly, whether it ought to be defined. In the latter case, which was a question of opportuneness or of prudence, a certain number only were at first consulted. Sometimes again, the decree says, the Pontiffs have called all the pastors of the world to meet and to consult, as in Œcumenical Councils. Sometimes, it adds, the Pontiffs have proceeded to declare the faith by the Councils of particular Churches or provinces, as when St. Innocent the First, in the fifth century, confirmed the decrees of the Councils of Milevis and of Carthage on Original Sin. No other definition of this doctrine was made until the sixteenth century by the decrees of the Council of Trent. Again, St. Gelasius, in the year 494, by his supreme authority declared the number of the Canonical Books. The Canon of Holy Scripture rested on that pontifical act without any decree of an Œcumenical Council until the definition of the Council of Trent in the year 1546.
5. The Introduction further goes on to preclude by anticipation many misconceptions of the doctrine of infallibility. It is hard to believe that some who have written on this subject really meant what they said. Some have called it the "apotheosis"[10] of the Pope. Possibly they did not know Greek. Some have said that he was deified—that is, made to be God. Probably they did not know what they said. Some have said that the decree made the Pontiff to be a Vice-God. If they meant Dei or Christi vicarius, many generations of Christians have said so before them, and we feel it no reproach; if they mean a substitute for God, or an idol, we may charitably doubt their sanity, or not unjustly suspect their truthfulness. Others again have said that to declare the Pontiff to be infallible is to invest him with divine attributes. The Jews said truly, "Who can forgive sins but God only?" And yet our Lord breathed upon his apostles and said, "Whosoever sins you forgive they shall be forgiven unto them." Did He invest them with divine attributes? If they say yes, then the infallibility, though it be a divine attribute, may be communicated. If they say no, they may be left to the care of friends, Anglican and Greek; or if indeed they believe with neither, why should they busy themselves about the Catholic faith? A man must be a Christian at least to be heard on the subject of the Catholic religion, or, to be just, he ought to believe at least in the infallibility of the Church before he contends about the infallibility of its head. Such controversy is like a Deist objecting to the inspiration of the Bible. But leaving all these extravagances, which belong properly to the region of newspaper correspondents, we will come to the difficulties of candid and Christian minds. Some have thought that by the privilege of infallibility was intended a quality inherent in the person whereby, as an inspired man, he could at any time and on any subject declare the truth. Infallibility is not a quality inherent in any person, but an assistance attached to an office, and its operation is not to give out answers as may be required by an interrogator, nor to know or to make known new truths, or to communicate new revelations. It is an assistance of the Holy Ghost whereby Peter's faith was kept from failing either in the act of believing or in the object of his belief, and through Peter the same assistance attaches to the office he bore, so that his successor in like manner shall be kept from departing from the traditions of faith committed to his custody. Its operation is therefore not the discovery of new truths, but the guardianship of old. It is simply an assistance of the Spirit of Truth, by whom Christianity was revealed, whereby the head of the Church is enabled to guard the original deposit of revelation, and faithfully declare it in all ages. All Christians profess to believe in the advent and presence of the Spirit of Truth, and in the promise that He shall abide with us for ever. Infallibility is the result of that presence. He preserves for ever His own revelation, not as a disembodied theory of disconnected doctrines, but as a whole in the visible witness and audible voice of the Church and of its head.
The Council of Trent has declared that the faith is the doctrine which our Lord delivered by word of mouth, and the Holy Ghost revealed to the apostles. Whatsoever, therefore, is not contained in this revelation cannot be matter of divine faith. It further declares that this revelation has been preserved by the continual succession of the Catholic Church.[11] The office of the Church, therefore, is to declare what was contained in that original revelation, and infallibility is the result of a divine assistance whereby what was divinely revealed in the beginning is divinely preserved to the end. Of two things one at least: either Christianity is divinely preserved, or it is not. If it be divinely preserved, we have a divine certainty of faith. If it be not divinely preserved, its custody and its certainty now are alike human, and we have no divine certainty that what we believe was divinely revealed. This is the issue to which men must come at last The definition of the infallibility of the head of the Christian Church means this, and no more than this; that God, who revealed His truth, has founded His Church for the custody and perpetuity of His truth, and that He has made provision that His Church shall never fail in its custody, nor by error in its declaration cause the perpetuity of faith to fail. The visible Church is the highest witness among men for the original revelation of Christianity, both by its historical testimony and by its divine office. Reject this, and where is there divine certainty left on earth? But for the present we are engaged with the literal meaning of the decree.
6. The Introduction proceeds to describe infallibility to be "a charisma of indefectible faith and truth." By this again the notion of a "personal" infallibility is excluded. The word charisma is used to express not a gratia gratum faciens, as theologians say—that is, a grace which makes the person acceptable in God's sight—but a gratia gratis data, or a grace the benefit of which is for others, such as prophecy or healing, and the like. Now these gifts, as may be seen in Balaam, Caiaphas, and Judas, were not graces of sanctification, nor gifts that sanctified the possessor. They were exercised by men whose sin is recorded for our warning. By this also is excluded another misconception, if indeed any sincere mind ever entertained it namely, that if Popes are infallible they are therefore impeccable; that if they cannot err in faith, they cannot sin in morals; that if their intelligence be guided by divine light, their will must be necessarily conformed to divine grace. But it is to be doubted whether any man in good faith was ever so confused in mind. To be impeccable is to be confirmed in the sanctifying grace which makes men acceptable before God. To be illuminated or guarded from error may co-exist with the sin of Caiaphas, who was a prophet, and crucified the Redeemer of the world. The decree says that this charisma was given by God to Peter and his successors that in the discharge of their office they might not err. It does not even say that it is an abiding assistance present always, but only never absent in the discharge of their supreme office. And it further declares the ends for which this assistance is given—the one that the whole flock of Christ on earth may never be misled, the other that the unity of the Church may always be preserved. Unity of faith generates unity of mind, unity of heart, unity of will. Truth goes before unity. Where truth is divided unity cannot be. Unity before truth is deception. Unity without truth is indifference or unbelief. Truth before unity is the law, and principle, and safeguard of unity. Unity of communion is the effect of unity of faith. The decree then assigns the reason of the definition. It says: "In these days, when the effectual authority of the apostolic office is especially needed, there are not a few who diminish it and speak against it. Therefore, because it is a divine truth, and because it has been contradicted and denied, we judge it to be altogether necessary to declare with all solemnity the prerogative which the Divine Founder of the Church has seen fit to unite with the supreme pastoral office." It seems hardly credible that men with these words before their eyes should impute to the Vatican Council the doctrine of personal infallibility, that is, of infallibility inhering in the person.
7. Thus far we have spoken of the introduction of the decree. We now come to the definition itself, which runs in these words:—
The definition declares that the doctrine of the infallibility of the successor of Peter is a tradition from the beginning of the Christian faith; it then declares that doctrine to be contained in the divine revelation. Let it be noted that the definition rests itself not upon any inspiration, or consciousness, or conviction of any person, even of the head of the Church. It affirms a given doctrine to be a tradition from the beginning, and therefore to be revealed. But an objector may say, "How can that be known? who can tell what tradition is from the beginning?" Certainly no individual, nor any aggregate of individuals, can tell us this; they cannot exhaust the evidence of the Christian Church. But the Church itself can, and does, know its own evidence and its own tradition. It knows its own present and its own past with a living consciousness like that by which we know our own personal identity. No one outside us knows us as we know ourselves within. S. Paul asks, "What man knoweth the things of man but the spirit of man that is in him?" This is a simple fact of nature and of common sense. The attempt to dispute us out of a belief of our personal identity would consign our adversary to the Commissioners of Lunacy. How is it, then, that men can dispute with the Catholic Church as to its lineal traditions, which are recorded in its living consciousness? And yet it is not on this merely natural reason that the definition is founded; it rests upon the faith that the Divine Founder of the Church has promised to its head that he shall never err in declaring what is divine tradition, and therein what is divine revelation. And so S. Paul continues after the words already quoted, "What man knoweth the things of man save the spirit of man that is in him? Even so the things of the Spirit of God no man knoweth but the Spirit of God." It is by a divine promise and by a divine assistance that the Church never departs from the truth of revelation; and that promise was made to Peter not for his own sake alone, but for the sake of his brethren; and the promise made to Peter was made in him to all his successors in the headship of the Church, for the sake of the successors of the apostles and of the whole Church of which he is the chief pastor and teacher.
It is to be now further observed that the Council of the Vatican expressly quotes the decree of the Council of Florence, and as we have seen that the early Councils unfolded in succession that which was in germ before, making implicit truth explicit, so does this definition. It explains and defines what the Council of Florence meant by saying that the Roman Pontiff is "the pastor and teacher of all Christians." The definition says that he is so when he speaks ex cathedrâ, and he speaks ex cathedrâ when he defines anything of faith and morals to be held by the Universal Church. The phrase ex cathedrâ, though long used in theological schools, was for the first time here inserted in a decree of an Œcumenical Council. Its meaning is plain. "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat," in cathedrâ Moysis; they spoke in his place and with his authority. The cathedra Petri is the place and the authority of Peter, but the place and the authority mean the office. All other acts of the head of the Church outside of his office are personal, and to them the promise is not attached. All acts, therefore, of the Pontiff as a private person, or as a private theologian, or as a local bishop, or as sovereign of a State, and the like, are excluded. They are not acts of the primacy.[12]
The primacy is in exercise when the teaching of the Universal Church is the motive and the end, and then only when the matter of the teaching is of faith and morals. In such acts the promise made to Peter is fulfilled, and a divine assistance guides and guards the head of the Church from error. The definition declares that he then is possessed of the infallibility with which our Saviour willed to endow his Church.
8. Now it is to be here remembered that all Catholics believe the Church to be infallible in faith and morals—that is, that the Church is so divinely guarded that it never departs from the divine tradition of revealed truth. This all Catholics believe; no one who denies it is a Catholic. Whosoever doubts it ceases to be a Catholic. But this doctrine has never been defined. It needs no definition. No definition could make it more certain or more universal in its reception. Why then was the infallibility of the head of the Church defined? Simply because it had been denied by some; and, lest it should be denied by more, through the apparent impunity granted to the denial, the definition has put it beyond doubt. No one who denies it now is a Catholic; they who doubted it before were in an error which was at least proximate to heresy. They who doubt it now cannot be cleared of formal resistance to the divine authority of the Church. Such is the meaning of the words, "If any contradict this our definition, which God forbid, let him be anathema."
9. In this definition it is explicitly defined that the head of the Church is infallible, and it is assumed as certain that the Church also is infallible.
It is declared that this infallibility extends to all matters of faith and morals, but it is not defined where the limits of faith and morals are to be fixed. It is defined that the acts of the head ex cathedrâ are infallible, but cases may perhaps arise in which doubts may be made as to whether this or that act be ex cathedrâ or no. In these cases of doubt no one can decide but the head of the Church. Cujus est condere, ejus est interpretari. The legislator alone is interpreter of the law. It was for this reason that Pius the Fourth, by a bull after the Council of Trent, first reserved to himself the interpretation of the decrees of the Council: secondly, prohibited all private persons to undertake to fix the meaning of them; and thirdly, excommunicated all persons who should appeal from the Council of Trent to a future General Council. If, therefore, any doubt be ever mooted as to whether an act be or be not an act ex cathedrâ, no one need be scared by those who, either to ventilate their learning or to alarm the simple, pretend that there are thirty theories as to what is or is not an act ex cathedrâ. The answer is simple. Ask no one but the author of the act. Half the controversies and nearly all the pretentious censures of the Vatican Council, if men would take this course, would die of inanition.
10. There are only two other points to be touched upon in this narrative. But they are too important to be passed over in silence.
The one is that in the end of the definition it is affirmed that the doctrinal declarations of the Pontiff are infallible in and of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church. That is to say, they are infallible by divine assistance, and not by the assent or acceptance of the Church to which they are addressed. Or, more simply, the teacher is not infallible because the taught believe his teaching. They believe his teaching to be true because they believe their teacher to be infallible. The motive for these words is obvious. They were the critical difference between what must be called once more by names which now have lost both meaning and reality, the Ultramontane and the Gallican doctrines. They are taken textually from the Four Articles of 1682.
A moment's reflection will justify the definition.
If the certainty of the teaching depends upon the assent of the taught, what becomes of the teacher?
If the consent of the Universal Church is to be obtained before a doctrine is certain, how is it to be done? Is it to be the consent of the bishops only, or of the priests also, or of theologians, or of the faithful, or of all together? And from what age? If the ecclesia discens is to confirm the ecclesia docens, no member of it ought to be disfranchised. Manhood suffrage is too narrow. Woman suffrage is not enough. All above the age of reason might fairly claim a vote. But as reading and writing have been proposed as qualifications for electoral suffrage, perhaps the Catechism might be required as a qualification. If the consent of the Church is to be obtained, it must be waited for. And how long? Who shall fix the days, weeks, months, or years, and what if there be no unanimity, mathematical or moral, after all? And how long is it to be waited for, and in the meanwhile in what state are the doctrines defined? Are they of faith or not of faith? is anybody bound to believe them, or nobody? are they the means of salvation or not? Can any surer way be taken to render all doctrine doubtful at least, if not odious to reasonable men? Open questions are bad enough, but suspended questions are worse.
The other point to be noted is the fact that this schema on the Roman Pontiff was originally the tenth and eleventh chapters of the schema on the Church of Christ. It was, as we have seen, taken out of the general schema on the Church, and, with the addition of the chapter on the infallibility, it was made into a schema by itself. But further it was decided that the schema on the Roman Pontiff should be brought on before the other. It may be asked, Why was this change of order made? In answer we may call to mind that in like manner the first schema on Catholic faith had been set aside, and out of eighteen chapters four only had been cast into a new schema by itself. It was found that the prolixity and vastness of the original schema gave no hope of its being discussed, unless everything else should be made to give way. Therefore such points as had never been hitherto defined, and such truths as at this time are both especially contradicted and vitally necessary to the very foundations of the faith, were selected for immediate treatment. We have already seen this in the last chapter. These topics, therefore, could not, without grave danger, be postponed. The rest might well be deferred. For instance, the fall of man, original sin, grace, the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity, have all been defined, but the religion of nature, revelation, faith, the relation of faith to reason, have never been defined; and they are the truths on which the Gnosticism, illuminism, and intellectual aberrations of the nineteenth century have especially fastened.
It was therefore most wisely decided to do first what was most wanted, and to do it speedily and surely.
11. The same is precisely true of the first schema on the Church of Christ. It was prolix and multifarious. It contained fifteen chapters. Much of its contents had been already implicitly or even explicitly defined. Its chief points, as, for instance, the infallibility of the Church, have never been denied or even doubted by any Catholic.
But as to the Roman Pontiff, the discussions on the third and fourth chapters, the number of the speakers, the multitude of amendments will show what was the mental anxiety even among the pastors of the Church. Certainly, then, it was wisely determined to define first the truths which had been denied, to declare that which had been contradicted, to settle that which had been in controversy, before treating of those things in which all men were agreed.
Besides, to treat of the whole schema of fifteen or (as it became) sixteen chapters, in the time still remaining to the Council, was impossible. It was foreseen that the summer heats would cut short the work of the Council before August. We have already said that many were ill; many more were only able by an effort to bear the strain of the Council. The rumours of impending war were continually becoming louder and nearer. It was therefore decided, at the petition of a large number of the bishops, which number might without trouble have been doubled, to bring into immediate discussion the subject by which for centuries the Church had been disquieted. We have seen how the minds of the bishops since the Centenary of St. Peter had been fixed upon it. From the outset of the Council it had been the motive of an open, legitimate, and honourable contention of two opposing sides. It was evident that the subject of the infallibility was always on the horizon. Every discussion was troubled by its shadow; time was wasted; discussions were prolonged beyond need or reason. A general secret uneasiness, such as is sometimes seen to prevail in legislatures where everybody is thinking of the same subject, which some hope for and others fear, and nobody dares to utter first, but of which everybody betrays a consciousness, kept the two sides in the Council in a state of mutual suspicion and needless antagonism. For the sake of truth and peace and charity, it was therefore determined to bring the subject into the light of day, and to sift and bolt it to the bran. If those who thought the defining of the infallibility to be inopportune could justify their judgment, then let it be adopted. If the contrary counsel should prevail, then it was to be hoped that it would be accepted. At all events, the only way to weigh, sift, and decide was to discuss openly and deliberately the contending reasons of this great debate.
But there was yet another motive of singular force urging the speedy commencement of this discussion. Seven hundred bishops of the Catholic Church assembled when the Council met; 667 had voted in the second Public Session; the number had been somewhat lessened by death and by departures; but more than half the Catholic episcopate was still in Rome. If the subject of the primacy and of the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff was ever to be discussed, it ought to be discussed in the fullest assembly of the episcopate. In no council before had so many bishops met together; in no future Council, it might be, would such a multitude ever meet again. Let the discussion then be taken not by surprise, not after the Council had been diminished in numbers, but when it was at its fullest strength. If the subject had been postponed till the numbers were reduced, adverse historians might have said that the bishops did not venture to bring on the debate while the Council was full; that they waited till it had dwindled to a manageable number who could be manipulated or overawed into a servile submission, and that then they defined the infallibility of the Pope. The higher and more manly course was chosen. It was resolved to bring on the trial of debate at once, and, as the event proved, the discussion was not begun a day too soon. It was only by a pressure which fell heavily upon every member of the Council, and with double weight upon the members of the Commission on Faith, who were compelled to meet after every congregation of the Council which multiplied its fresh amendments, that the Constitution on the Roman Pontiff was completed. It was confirmed and promulgated twenty-four hours before the breaking out of the Franco-German war.
12. Having now come to the end of this brief story of the Vatican Council, it may not be out of place to add a few words on the consequences which have either followed or have been supposed to follow from it.
Six years are now past since the 18th of July, 1870, and certain effects of the Council are already manifest, and many are imputed to it.
We will take first certain supposed consequences which the Post hoc propter hoc school affirm to be effects of the Vatican Council. For example, we have been told by a cloud of newspaper articles, and lately by a laborious German writer, that the Franco-German war was caused by the Vatican Council. If we were not aware that the Goodwin Sands were caused by Tenterden Steeple, that assertion would be at least improbable, if not incredible. But no one who had watched the attitude of France and Prussia for many years had any need of the Vatican Council to explain the causes of that lamentable conflict. It is only a wonder that it did not happen before. To ascribe to Ultramontanes or to Jesuits the origin of that rivalry must be seen to be absurd by any one who reflects that the first effect of such a war must be the withdrawal of the French troops from the Roman State, and that the withdrawal of those troops was the instant cause of the seizure of Rome by the Italian armies. Jesuits and Ultramontanes are usually thought to be far-sighted in matters of this world; but if with their eyes open they did not foresee these consequences they would be unjustly credited with common sense. France and Germany went to war because the animosities of generations, the memories of wrongs endured and inflicted, the jealousy of rivals, and the covetous desire of territorial annexation common to both had stimulated the war spirit to an uncontrollable intensity. No Vatican Council was needed to drive them together, because no power on earth could have averted their murderous collision. But sometimes these events are paraded as the Nemesis on Papal pride.[13] The history of the Pontiffs, then, has been one long Nemesis, for none have ever suffered so often or so much; but their history runs up into a divine event in which the suffering for truth and justice became the law of the Church and of its head for ever.
13. It is not, however, to be denied that since the Vatican Council there has been an almost universal rising against the Catholic Church. It began with the Liberal party in Germany, and with the Liberals of Berne and Geneva, and with the Liberal party in Belgium, in Spain, in France, in Italy, in Brazil, and with some who call themselves Liberals in England. Catholics were told that they were denationalised, that they could be loyal only at the expense of their religion, that their allegiance was divided, and that they depended on a foreign head. All this was said by Liberals, and to the modern Liberal party are due the Falck laws and the fining, imprisoning, deposing, exiling of bishops in Germany and in Switzerland and in South America. To the Liberal Government of Italy is now due the Clerical Abuses Bill, or the Italian translation of the Falck laws. Herr Lasker is reported to have said that in Berlin he was the only Liberal left. The Vatican Council seems to have laid a Circean spell upon the Liberal party. They have put off their former nature, and have changed places with persecutors. The Chiesa libera nello State libero needs, as Liberals say, a supplement in the Codice Penale. Modern Liberalism is the Cæsarism of the State. Liberalism seems to believe that "all power in heaven and on earth" was given to it—that the State has power to define the limits of its own jurisdiction and also those of the Church. All sin and blasphemy against God is forgiven to men. There is only one unpardonable sin. Any one who speaks a word against the omnipotence of the State is disloyal, and shall never be forgiven. We were told in the Italian Chamber that the law against the abuses of the clergy was provoked by the Vatican Council. In the same breath the author of the bill and the members of the commission tell us that the same laws existed in the Penal Code of Sardinia before the Vatican Council was convened.
Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?
M. Gambetta, the other day, made a funeral oration over the Gallican liberties. He told the Assembly that the National Church of France existed no longer—that the Vatican Council had denationalised it. These gentlemen, who receive the name of the Redeemer of the world with roars of laughter, are of such delicate theological perception as to be offended by the Vatican Council. If things are to be called by their Christian names, this is hypocrisy. There can indeed be little doubt that the Vatican Council has so drawn together the array of the Catholic Church as to make the anti-christian revolutions of the Continent feel the pressure of the great moral power which sustains the order of the world. Hence come not tears, but ravings.
14. Another supposed consequence of the Vatican Council was the "Old Catholic Schism." And here in justice it must be said that the opposition of governments and political parties was not spontaneous or without instigation. We have seen with what perseverance the fears of statesmen and cabinets were worked upon, and we know how ubiquitous and how subtil has been the activity of the international Revolution. But another cause was open and palpable. The "Old Catholic" schism in Germany appealed to the civil power, and the civil power promptly recognized and copiously paid its ministers. It seemed to bring the promise of a German National Church, representing the mind of the nation and without dependence, as Dr Friedbergh has it, on "the man outside of Germany." But the "Old Catholic" schism was not the consequence of the Vatican Council any more than was Arianism the consequence of the Council of Nicæa. The definitions of the Council were indeed the occasion of the separation of a small number of professors and others from the unity of the Church, whose antecedents had for years visibly prepared for this final separation. The strange medley which met at Augsburg and Bonn and Cologne, of Rationalists and Protestants, and Orientals and Jansenists and Anglicans, was not the consequence of the Vatican Council. Every sect there represented had been for generations or for centuries in separation and in antagonism to the Catholic Church. The Vatican Council may have awakened a sharper consciousness of the cause of their separation, and a handful of such Catholics as composed Janus and Quirinus invoked their help to give the appearance of numbers. Even Pomponio Leto had too much wit to be there.
Before and during and after the Council formidable prophecies of separations to come, sometimes in tones of compassion, sometimes in tones of menace, were heard. And those who were most firm in urging onward the definition of the infallibility were not unconscious of the danger. They remembered that after the Council of Nicæa eighty bishops separated from the unity of the faith, and carried multitudes with them. Nevertheless the fathers of the Nicene Council did not forsake or compromise the truth, nor think it inopportune to declare it. S. Athanasius was reproached for dividing the Christian world for an iota. But that iota has, under God, saved the faith of the ever-blessed Trinity. The faith of the Christian world rests at this day upon the definition of Nicæa.
So again, after the Council of Ephesus, thirty bishops followed the Nestorian heresy. The fathers of that Council foresaw the danger, but they knew that no danger was to be compared with the danger of betraying the truth. They defined the doctrine of faith as to the unity of the One Person in two natures, and on that definition the doctrine of the incarnation has rested immutably to this day.
After the Council of Chalcedon the Monophysites separated themselves from Catholic unity.
Will any reasonable man say that the Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite heresies were the consequence of the Councils of Nicæa, Ephesus, and Chalcedon?
But lastly, at the Council of Trent, the motives of human prudence and the pleadings of natural charity must have been very powerful on the side of endeavouring to win and to conciliate. Whole nations were on the brink of separation. But an Œcumenical Council is not like a human legislature. It cannot suppress, or soften, or vary, or withhold the truth on calculations of expediency, or with a view to consequences. Necessity is laid upon it. As it has received, so it must declare. Deviation from the truth would be apostacy; silence when truth is denied is betrayal. This is what, it seems, Honorius did, and what some would have had Pius the Ninth do. Truth is not ours, it is of God. We have no jurisdiction against it or over it. Our sole office to truth is to guard it and to declare it. "That which ye have heard in the ear, preach ye on the house tops." For this cause the Council of Trent defined every doctrine which had been unhappily denied or distorted in controversy from the year 1517. It ranged its decrees along the whole line of the Lutheran aberration. Was the Lutheran separation the consequence of the Council of Trent?
15. After the close of the Council of Trent, the separations which were foreseen became complete. Whole kingdoms fell from the unity of the faith. But from that hour the Council of Trent has renewed and governed the Catholic Church. It may be said with truth that as the Council of Nicæa has guarded the faith of the Holy Trinity to this hour, so the Council of Trent has guarded both the doctrines assailed in the sixteenth century, and the discipline of the Church in its manifold contacts with the world. The Church has been reproached as Tridentine. No greater honour could be paid to the Council of Trent. The Church is Tridentine in the sense in which it is Nicene, and in which it will henceforward bear the stamp of the Vatican Council. Every Œcumenical Council leaves its impress upon it, and all these impressions are clear and harmonious. The Church is not like a codex rescriptus in which the later writings obliterate or confuse the former, but like the exquisite operations of art in which the manifold lines and colours and tints are laid on in succession, each filling up what the other begins, and combining all into one perfect whole. But it is certain that after the Councils of Nicæa and of Trent the Arian and the Lutheran separations made many to fear lest evil had been done, and to doubt the prudence of the Council. They who had been brought up before the new definitions probably died in the belief that they could have gone on safely without them. And they who measured all things only by their own needs thought them to be unnecessary, and gave at most a cold submission to what had been decreed; so it might be now. But we must not measure all events by ourselves, nor must we make our own times so much the centre of all things as to think what is needless to us cannot be needed by others now and hereafter. Œcumenical Councils look not at individuals only, but at the whole Church, and not at what may be needed by any one so much as what the truth demands. Men who speak in this way forget, or do not believe, that the Church is a witness and teacher. They look, too, only at the moment. But when the generation of to-day is past, and they who may have opposed or reluctantly acquiesced in what was not familiar to their youth are passed away, when the definitions of the Vatican shall have pervaded the living world-wide faith of the Church like the definitions of Nicæa and of Trent, then it will be seen what was needed in the nineteenth century, and what the Vatican Council has accomplished. Then in due time it will be perceived that never was any council so numerous, nor was ever the dissentient voices relatively so few; that never was any council so truly œcumenical both in its representation and in its acceptance; that never were the separations after it fewer, feebler, or more transient; and that never did the Church come out from a great conflict more confirmed in its solidity, or more tranquil in its internal peace. Those who love to declaim that the Council of the Vatican has divided the Church will no doubt go to the grave with the same illusions on their brain and the same assertions in their mouth. But they will have no succession. Facts win at last. The prophecies of separations which were to follow have come to nought, and the prophets are silent in the presence of visible unity. The Church is "unresting, unhasting." It hears calmly the counsels of its adversaries and the compassion of those who wish it no good; but it holds its peace. Time works for it. If science can say, "Hominum commenta delet dies, naturæ judicia confirmat," the Church can say, "Cælum et terra transibunt, verba autem mea non præteribunt."[14]
When the passions of men are laid by the silent lapse of time which stills all conflicts, noble and ignoble, history will reject as a fable, and censure as an indignity, the suspicion that the Council of the Vatican was convoked by Pius the Ninth chiefly if not altogether to define the infallibility of the Pope, and that they who promoted that definition were impelled by any motive but fidelity to truth. But, whatsoever may be their lot, they will count it to be one of the greatest benedictions of their life that they were called to help in the least measure to vindicate the divine authority of the head of the Church from the petulant controversies which had in these last centuries clouded with the doubts of men the steadfast light of divine faith. The definition of the infallibility of the head of the Church has put beyond controversy that the Church speaks for ever by a divine voice, not intermittently by General Councils, but always by the voice of its head. It has met the unbelief of the nineteenth century by the declaration that the prophecy of Isaias and the promise of God to the Divine Head of the Church are for ever fulfilled in his vicar upon earth. "My Spirit which is upon Thee, and my word which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed or of thy seed's seed from henceforth and for ever."[15]
- ↑ S. Matthew xvi. 18.
- ↑ From the Formula of S. Hormisdas, subscribed by the Fathers of the Eighth General Council (Fourth of Constantinople), a.d. 869. Labbé's 'Councils,' vol v. pp. 583, 622.
- ↑ From the Acts of the Fourteenth General Council (Second of Lyons), a.d. 1274. Labbé, vol. xiv. p. 512.
- ↑ From the Acts of the Seventeenth General Council of Florence, a.d. 1438. Labbé, vol. xviii. p. 526.
- ↑ ii John xxi. 15-17.
- ↑ From a letter of S. Cyril of Alexandria to Pope S. Celestine I., a.d. 422, vol. vi. part ii. p. 36, Paris edition of 1638.
- ↑ From a Rescript of S. Innocent I. to the Council of Milevis, a.d. 402. Labbe, vol. iii. p. 47.
- ↑ From a letter of S. Bernard to Pope Innocent II., a.d. 1130. Epist. 191, vol. iv. p. 433, Paris edition of 1742.
- ↑ S. Luke xxii. 32. See also the Acts of the Sixth General Council, a.d. 680. Labbé, vol. vii. p. 659.
- ↑ The use of the word deification in this controversy may be said to have come from a source which is not Christian. It first appeared in the correspondence from Berlin in one of our chief journals. The name of the correspondent was no secret; and he must have enjoyed the irony of using a Christian newspaper in England to assail the vicar of the Nazarene. From this beginning it was soon spread. One of the most recent and most flagrant instances is the following:—"The Vatican Council was so far the culminating yet utterly incomplete act, in a drama elaborately arranged, step by step, to finish with the deification of the occupant of the See of Rome." (Times, February 17, 1877.) It is to be feared that this writer did know Latin; and it would be well if editors knew the ridicule cast upon them on the Continent for these malevolent absurdities.
- ↑ Sess. iv.
- ↑ The Centenary of S. Peter and the Œcumenical Council, p. 59. (Longmans.) Petri Privilegium P. iii. 103.
- ↑ "The same year which saw the overthrow of Cæsarism immediately after the plebiscite witnessed also the Nemesis which overtook the spiritual pride of the Pontiff, now exalted to its highest pinnacle, and showed to him who arrogated to himself a divine nature, that God is a jealous God, who will allow to none other the honour due to Himself."—Geffken, Church and State, vol. ii. p. 334. Does this learned author know what a "divine nature" is? or does he believe that the Vatican Council declared Pius the Ninth to be uncreated?
- ↑ St. Matt. xxiv. 35.
- ↑ Isaias lix. 21.