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DIVINITY SCHOOL
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THE

INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH
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DELIVERED IN THE

DIVINITY SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

THE

INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH

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DELIVERED IN THE

DIVINITY SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN

BY
GEORGE SALMON, D. D.
PROVOST OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN
SOMETIME REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN
gutter of
A Historical Introduction to the Study of the Books of the New Testament

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
ii

DUBLIN :
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS,
BY PONSONBY AND WELDRICK.

PREFACE.
T^HIS volume, like that already published under the
title of ' An Introduction to the New Testament,'
contains lectures delivered in the ordinary course of
instruction to my class in the Divinity School of the
Dublin University. The character of the audience
addressed in such lectures renders necessary a mode
of treatment different from that which would be suitable
in a work originally intended for publication. A lec
turer does not aim at that completeness which is
demanded by the purchaser of a book, who expects to
find in it all the information he needs on the subject
with which it deals, and who objects to be sent to look
for it elsewhere. The teacher of a class of intelli
gent young men cannot but feel that the knowledge
which he can hope to communicate to them directly is
insignificant in comparison with what they will acquire
^j»y their own reading, if he can only interest them in
!°the study. He has no wish to save them the trouble of
^ reading books, and thinks it would be waste of time to
3 spend much in telling them what they are likely to read
£for themselves elsewhere. It is not his duty to write a
-new book for their use if he can refer them to sources

vi PREFACE.
whence the same information can be satisfactorily ob
tained. And he naturally adopts a colloquial style as
best adapted for retaining the attention of the hearers
of a long viva voce lecture.
On account of the differences I have indicated, I had
not thought my lectures suitable for publication in their
actual form, though I at times entertained intentions
of writing theological works for which these lectures
might supply materials. But time went on without
my finding or making leisure to carry any of my con
templated projects into execution ; until, three or four
years ago, I was led to consider the possibility that if
I were to die leaving lectures behind me, the pious zeal
of some of my friends might cause them to be published
posthumously. I felt that if any of my lectures were
to be printed, I should much prefer that it were done
before they were quite out of date, and while they could
have the benefit of my own revision. So I determined
to try the experiment of printing some of them ; and I
selected those on the New Testament, as being on the
subject most likely to be generally interesting. Having
found by experience that there was no likelihood of my
casting my lectures into any different form, I sent them
to be printed just as they were, though in the course of
their passing through the press I found so many points
omitted, or imperfectly treated, that I was led to make
additions which considerably increased the bulk of the
volume. The favourable reception which that volume has
met with has encouraged me to print another series
of lectures. For the reasons stated in the Introductory

PREFACE. vii
Lecture, I do not expect the subject to be so generally
interesting as that of the former volume ; and yet I
have in the same lecture given reasons for considering
the investigation to be one that ought not to be neg
lected. But I frankly confess that I have had more
pleasure in that part of my professorial work which
engaged me in the defence of truths held in common
by all who love our Blessed Lord, than when it was my
duty to discuss points on which Christians differ among
themselves. It has, however, been a pleasant thought
to me, that in the present series of lectures I was doing
what in me lay to remove what is now the greatest
obstacle to the union of Christians. There is, I think,
abundant evidence that at the present day the pres
sure of the conflict with unbelief is drawing Christians
closer together. When we regard the state of mutual
feeling between members of the Anglican Church on
the one hand, and on the other the Greek Church,
or the German Old Catholics, or the Scotch Pres
byterians, or the Scandinavian Churches, I think we
can discern in all cases a growing sense that there
are things in which we all agree, more important
than the things on which we differ. And the prospect
is not altogether unhopeful that, by further discus
sions and mutual explanations, such an approxima
tion of opinion might be arrived at that there would
be at least no bar to intercommunion. But as the
Roman Church is at present disposed, there can be no
union with her except on the terms of absolute sub
mission ; that submission, moreover, involving an ac
knowledgment that we from our hearts believe things

viii PREFACE.
to be true, which we have good reasons for knowing
to be false. The nature of the claims of Rome clearly
shuts out that possibility of reconciliation in her case,
which may be hoped for in other cases from retracta
tions or mutual explanations ; so that, by every effort
to bring about the withdrawal of these claims, we
are doing something to remove the main obstacle to
the reunion of Christendom.
I am not so silly as to imagine that any perceptible
effect can follow from adding one to the many demon
strations that have been given that the claims of which
I speak are unfounded. But no false opinion can resist
for ever the continual dropping of repeated disproofs.
We may point out instance after instance in which
papal authority has been given to decisions now known
to be erroneous, and in each case some ingenious
attempt may be made to show that the attribute of in
fallibility did not attach to the erroneous decision ; but
sooner or later men must awake to see that the result
of all this special pleading is that, whereas they ex
pected to find a guide who would always lead them
right, they have got instead a guide who can find some
plausible excuse to make every time he leads them
wrong. I do not think it absolutely impossible that,
under the pressure of historical disproof, some such
modification of the theory of Roman Infallibility may
eventually be made as will amount to a practical with
drawal of it. The theory of Development, which has
now found extensive acceptance in the Roman Com
munion, involves the belief that the Church of the
present day is, in some respects, wiser than the Church

PREFACE. ix
of earlier times. When that theory has been itself a
little further developed, it may be found to give the
Church the right to review the decisions of earlier
times, and to abandon claims formerly made, but which
experience has shown to be untenable.
In the present series of lectures I have not entered
into the details of the controversy with Roman Ca
tholics. I was able to refer my class to many good
books which have been written on the subject. But
arguments are useless if addressed to those who pro
fess to be above argument. As the controversy is
conducted at the present day, everything turns on the
power claimed for the Pope of determining and de
claring, without any attempt to produce evidence,
what are or are not Apostolic traditions. There really
is but one question to be settled : Are we bound
to receive undoubtingly the Pope's unproved asser
tions, without any attempt to test by argument
whether they are true or not ? He may declare in
words that he has no commission to make revelation
of new doctrine, but only to hand down faithfully the
revelation made through the Apostles ; but what does
that avail if we are bound to take his word whether
a doctrine be new or not ? He may propound a doc
trine such as that of the Immaculate Conception of
the Blessed Virgin, which it is certain that the Church
for centuries never regarded as part of the revelation
made through the Apostles, and it is held that we
are bound not only to believe that doctrine to be
true, but also to believe, on the Pope's authority, that
it is old.

x PREFACE.
These lectures were not written for Roman Catho
lics ; and I do not expect them to fall into the hands of
any, except of those who deal in controversy, and who,
perhaps, may take up the volume in order to see if it
contains anything that needs to be answered. If any
such there should be, I beg of them to remember that
they are overhearing what members of another commu
nion say when they are quite by themselves, and, there
fore, that they must not be offended if they meet the
proverbial fate of listeners in hearing some things not
complimentary. If they should think that I have not
done justice to their side of the question in the view I
have presented of it, I earnestly request them to believe
that my error has been involuntary; that it has been
my desire to know and to report fairly, the strongest
arguments that can be used in defence of the Roman
claims ; and that if there be stronger than those which
I have attempted to answer, my omission arises either
from ignorance of them, or because the constitution of
my intellect is such that I could see no force in them.
With regard to the manner in which I have ex
pressed myself, it is possible they may object to my
habitual use of the term Romanists to denote the mem
bers of their Church. In the older Church of England
books of controversy the word commonly used was
' Papists,' and the religion was called ' Popery.' In
modern times the word Papist is supposed to be offen
sive, though I do not know why men should be
ashamed of being called after the Pope, who give him
now even a more prominent place in their religious
system than he held three hundred years ago. I have,

PREFACE. xi
however, avoided using a term which, whether rightly
or wrongly, is imagined to be offensive, though I sus
pect, that the real reason for objecting to it is a desire
to be known by no other name than 'Catholics.' Pro
testants who know nothing of theology are apt freely
to concede the appellation, having no other idea con
nected with it than that it is the name of a sect ; but those
who know better feel that it is a degradation of a noble
word to limit it in such a way. And, in truth, if it
is possible to convey insult by a title, what is really
insulting is that one section of Christians should ap
propriate to themselves the title ' Catholic ' as their ex
clusive right, and thus, by implication, deny it to others.
This is so obvious that they do not now insist on being
called Catholics pure and simple, and are satisfied if
other people will speak of them as Roman Catholics. It
is a compromise which I am willing to accept in my
intercourse with persons of that religion ; but I observe
that when they are by themselves they always drop the
' Roman,' and call themselves ' Catholics.' So they
have no cause to be offended if, when we are by our
selves, we drop the ' Catholic ' and call them ' Roman.'
We may fairly object to an inconvenient periphrasis.
If we must not speak of members of the Roman Church
without tacking Catholic to their name, must we not also,
if we claim an equal right in the title, add it to our own
name ? While, however, we could describe our brethren
in England as Anglo-Catholic, how are those of us who
live in Ireland or Scotland or America to call ourselves?
If any sect — say the Unitarian — were to claim the exclu
sive title of Christians, and when this were refused them,

xii PREFACE.
should insist, at least, in being known, not as Unita
rians, but as Unitarian Christians, would not that be
felt to be the old claim in disguise, since it would be
inconvenient to us to be obliged to make a similar addi
tion to our own name ? What I should understand by a
Roman Catholic would be a member of the Catholic
Church whose home was Rome. A member of the
Catholic Church who lived in England would, of neces
sity, be an Anglo-Catholic. If he wanted there to be a
Roman Catholic, he would be no Catholic at all, but a
schismatic. To speak honestly, of all the sects into
which Christendom is divided, none appears to me less
entitled to the name Catholic than the Roman. Fir-
milian, long ago, thus addressed a former bishop of
Rome (and this great bishop Firmilian must be re
garded as expressing the sentiments not only of the
Eastern Church of the third century, but also of St.
Cyprian, to whose translation, no doubt, we owe our
knowledge of his letter) : ' How great is the sin of
which you have incurred the guilt in cutting yourself
off from so many Christian flocks. For, do not deceive
yourself, it is yourself you have cut off : since he is the
real schismatic who makes himself an apostate from the
communion of ecclesiastical unity. While you think that
you can cut off all from your communion, it is yourself
whom you cut off from communion with all.' At the
present day the bishop of Rome has broken communion
with more than half of Christendom, merely because
it will not yield him an obedience to which he has no
just right. To me he appears to have as little claim
to the title Catholic as had the Donatists of old, who,

PREFACE. xiii
no matter how many bishops they had in their ad
herence, were rightly deemed schismatics, because they
had unjustly broken communion with the rest of the
Christian world.
I might, however, have conquered my objection to
the name Roman Catholic, if it were not that it seems to
draw with it the word Roman-catholicism, one of some
abominable words that have been introduced in our
generation. To me, ' Catholic' and ' -ism' repre
sent ideas which absolutely refuse to coalesce. Roman
Catholics hold many doctrines which I believe to be true
and Catholic ; but what is meant by Roman-catholicism
is that part of the belief of Roman Catholics which
is not Catholic, and is not true.
The majority of the lectures in this volume were
written about the year 1870; and as they were not
intended for publication, they contained no references
to authorities. This has caused me some inconvenience,
as, since the time these lectures were written, my read
ing has taken other directions. I have, however, been
able to supply references to the ancient authorities
cited ; but I have not thought it worth while to give the
labour necessary to note what use I have made of the
literature current at the time the lectures were written.
I have to acknowledge the assistance given me
by my friends, Dr. Gwynn and Dr. Quarry, who have
been kind enough to read the proofs of this volume ;
and I have to thank the Rev. W. K. Ormsby for help
given me in the preparation of the Index.

ERRATA.
Page 183, line 2, for 1854 read 1852.
» 200, „ 8, ,, a reads..
" 222> >> 3^> ,, in read on.
" 2S6, „ 13, „ Protestant read Protestantism.

CONTENTS. LECTURE I.
INTRODUCTORY. Page
The Controversy with Rome  i
Reasons for the recent decline of interest in the controversy, pp. 2 — 5.
(a) Disestablishment, p. 2 ; (b) reaction against anti-Romanist over-state
ments, pp. 2, 3 ; (c) increased circulation of Roman Catholic books of
devotion, p. 4 ; (d) the struggle with unbelief, p. 4 ; [e) the growth of
scepticism, p. 5. The study, nevertheless, profitable, p. 6. Controversy,
though not always expedient, p. 6, sometimes necessary in self-
defence, p. 7. The examination of the Roman claims, a duty, p. 8.
The use of the word Protestant, p. 9. What must be proved to clear us
from the guilt of schism, p. 10. Apparent antagonism to Scripture of
Roman Catholic doctrines, p. n ; yet discussion, on Scripture grounds,
often, in practice, ineffective, p. 12. The danger of using weak argu
ments, p. 13. The untrustworthiness of controversial quotations, p. 15.
The spirit in which controversy ought to be engaged in, p. 16.

LECTURE II.
The Cardinal Importance of the Question of Infal
libility  17
Evident from a priori considerations, p. 17 ; from the history of the
controversy in recent times, p. 18. Disproof of Romish doctrines in the
Tracts for the Times, p. 19 ; by men who afterwards became Romanists
themselves, p. 19. What is really meant by acceptance of the Roman
claim to Infallibility, p. 19. Modern changes in Romish teaching, p. 20.
Definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, p. 20. The
Pope's personal infallibility, p. 20. The Vatican Council, p. 21. Origin
of the Old Catholics, p. 22 ; their inconsistency, p. 23. Changes in
Roman Catholic text-books made necessary by Vatican Council, p. 24.
Bailly's Theology, p. 24. Keenan's Catechism, p. 25. Roman Catholics
acknowledge that the Bible alone furnishes no sufficient basis for their
system, p. 27 ; in this they differ from early Fathers, p. 27. Bellarmine's
rule respecting tradition, p. 28. Jewel's challenge, p. 28.

CONTENTS.

Newman's Essay on Development, pp. 29 — 41 ; anticipations of the
theory, p. 30; applications of it, p. 31 ; it completely abandons the old
defence made by R. C advocates, p. 32. The Council of Trent — Milner,
Wiseman, p. 32. Veneration for the Fathers traditional in Roman Church,
p. 33 ; this veneration not consistent with theory of Development, p. 33.
The controversy between Bossuet and Jurieu, p. 34. The theory of
Development then maintained by the Calvinist, p. 34 ; and also by Petau,
p. 34. Bossuet's opposition to the theory, p. 35. Bishop Bull's great
work, p. 35. Newman's Essay doubtfully received at first, p. 36. A
Romanist advocate strongly tempted to accept it, p. 37. Newman on
Invocation of the Virgin, p. 37. The doctrine of Development concedes
all that the opponents of Romanism require, p. 38 ; useless to Romanists
if not supplemented by doctrine of Infallibility, p. 38. The doctrine of
Development would equally serve to justify Protestantism, p. 39. Great
historic difficulty in the way of the doctrine, p. 39. Local limitation of
alleged developments, p. 40. Superiority of Protestant developments,
p. 40. Manning and Spurgeon, p. 42. Infidel tendency of Roman
Catholic line of argument, p. 43.
Particular topics of controversy cannot be safely neglected, p. 44.
Ordinary history of conversions from Romanism, p. 45.

Page

LECTURE III.
The Argument in a Circle  4.6
Private Judgment, pp. 46—52. Source of the craving for an infallible
guide, p. 46. Private judgment and infallibility not Opposed, p. 46.
Necessity of private judgment, p. 47. Proof that submission to Rome
rests on an act of private judgment, p. 47. How to use private judg
ment, p. 49. On what grounds deference is claimed for the authority
of the Pope, p. 50. The deference which a learned divine may claim is
not rightly compared to that which - physician may demand from his
patients, p. 51. Basis of a Roman Catholic's faith, p. 51. No proof of
infallibility possible without arguing in a circle, p. 52. Bishop Clifford's
attempt to escape this difficulty, p. 55. Newman's method, p. 57. In
Church of Rome, no subsequent verification of her teaching possible
p. 58. Mallock's revival of Newman's argument, p. 59. Infidel tendency
of his position, p. 59.

LECTURE IV.
The Grammar of Assent  5j
Mr. Capes' reasons for returning to the Church of England, p. 61. To
what kind of certainty Roman Catholics lay claim, p. 61. The theory
of the Vatican Council, p. 61. How to escape detection in arguing from
a false principle, p. 62.

CONTENTS. xvii
Page
Newman's Grammar of Assent, pp. 63 — 77. How we get beliefs,
p. 63. Locke's dictum as to the assent with which we ought to
entertain beliefs, p. 65. Clifford's Ethics of Belief, p. 65. On what
depends our confidence in traditional belief, p. 66 ; on what our con
fidence in the Church's teaching, p. 67. Newman's theory of an
'illative sense,' p. 68. Can a man be certair^of anything without being
infallible? p. 71. About what things may we be thus certain? p. 72.
The authority of the Pope not one of them, p. 72. No sharp line to be
drawn between certainty and high probability, p. 73. Indefectibility,
whether an attribute of certainty, p. 74. The more we talk of certainty
the less we have, p. 76.

LECTURE V.
Milner's Axioms. — Part 1  78
Milner's three axioms, p. 78. The two rules of faith which he pronounces
fallacious, p. 79. The insecurity of reliance on a supposed immediate
personal revelation, p. 79. The doctrine about Faith laid down by the
Vatican Council, p. 80. The foundation of a Roman Catholic's confi
dence proved by Milner to be fallacious, p. 81. Milner's second fallacious
rule, p. 81. Roman Catholic controversialists inconsistent in refusing to
admit the inerrancy of Scripture, p. 82. The argument, ' If our Lord
had intended His people to learn His religion from a book, He would
have written it Himself,' p. 82. The Bible as a guide does not satisfy
the conditions imposed by Milner's axioms, p. 84. Milner's alleged true
rule, p. 84. This rule not secure or never-failing, p. 84. Bossuet's
Variations, p. 85. A Protestant not much affected by the argument from
variations, p. 85. What is really proved by the existence of variations,
p. 86. Bossuet has been treated by the predominant Roman Catholic
school of the present day as no better than a Protestant, p. 87. Examina
tion of Milner's axioms, p. 88. Monstrous character of the claim made in
them, p. 88. His maxim, when amended, may be used against the Church
of Rome, p. 89. Patristic authority for asserting that the obscurities of
Scripture do not affect essential matters, p. 89. The decrees of Councils
not even intelligible to the unlearned, p. 90. Explicit and implicit belief,
p. 91. Fides Carionarii, p. 92. Material and formal heresy, p. 93.
This theory represents the Church as making the way of salvation more
difficult, p. 93. Of what things Roman Catholics are now required to
have explicit knowledge, p. 94. The teaching on this subject of Inno
cent IV., p. 95. Later editions of Fumiss's What every Christian must
know, p. 95. Necessity for an infallible guide only arises where explicit
knowledge is required, p. 96. An act of faith, p. 97. A Protestant
safe, even if Roman Infallibility is a revealed doctrine, p. 97.
b

xviii CONTENTS.
LECTURE VI. Page
Milner's Axioms. — Part II.  98
Falsity of Milner's axiom if asserted of truths important, but not neces
sary to salvation, pp. 98-107. No infaUible means provided for finding
the true Church, p. 98; none for obtaining secular knowledge, p. 99.
The analogy of disease and its remedies, p. 100. The analogy of the
case of sin and holiness, p. ioo. The Church not secured against the
temporary prevalence of great moral corruption, p. 101. Testimony of
Baronius, p. 101. Like safeguards vouchsafed by God against sin and
against error, p. 102. Same considerations available for mitigating the
difficulty of the existence of evil and of error, p. 103. Physical evil, p. 103.
Defects of knowledge, p. 104. The prevalence of sin, p. 105. Benumb
ing effect of the doctrine of infallibility, p. 106. Testimony of Mr.
Maskell, p. 106. The unreality of unintelligent faith, p. 107.

LECTURE VII.
The Church's Office of Teaching  108
In no subject can we dispense with teachers, p. 108 ; but our teachers are
not infallible, p. 109. What is really meant by an infallible Church,
p. no. The analogy of University teaching, p. no. The conditions of
progress for the human race, p. in. Mutual concessions on this subject
have now left little room for controversy, p. 112. How Christ intended
us to learn His religion, p. 113. The service actually rendered by the
Church, p. 115; may be fully admitted without owning her infaUibility,
p. 115. True analogy to the relation between a Christian teacher and
his pupils, p. 115. If the Church be infallible, the Bible is useless and
mischievous, p. 116. The early Church encouraged Bible-reading, p. 116.
St. Chrysostom on the study of Scripture, pp. 118-121. What Roman
Catholics say in reply, p. 121. Discouragement of Bible-reading by
modern Church of Rome, p. 123.

LECTURE VIII.
The Church's Sources of Proof  ,24
Dr. Hawkins' formula, p. 124. The method of the Church of England,
p. 124. The method of the Council of Trent, p. 125. The rule of faith,
as laid down by Bellarmine, p. 125. Fallacy in the argument that the
Word of God has equal claims to acceptance whether it comes to you by
writing or orally, p, 125. The question about the rule of faith a subordi-

CONTENTS. xix
Page
nate one in this controversy, p. 126. The meaning of the Roman appeal
to tradition, p. 127. Canon of the Council of Trent concerning the inter
pretation of Scripture, p. 127 ; embodied with a variation in the Creed
of Pope Pius IV., p. 128. Romish rule of faith complicated, p. 128 ; and
modem, p. 129. Tradition, as a rule of faith, needs the supplement of
the doctrine of Infallibility, p. 130. Uncertainty of tradition, p. 131.
A priori arguments for sufficiency of Scripture dismissed, p. 131. Suf
ficiency of Scripture cannot be proved by Scripture itself, p. 132. What is
meant by Roman Catholic appeal to tradition, p. 132. Whether there
can be new traditions, p. 133. The objection that the N. T. itself rests
on the authority of tradition, p. 134. Absence of trustworthy traditions
concerning the Apostolic age, p. 134; examples, p. 134. Why we do not
use traditions independent of Scripture as proof of Christian doctrine,
P- 137-

LECTURE IX.
The Rule of Faith  138
Ambiguity in the phrase ' rule of faith,' p. 138. The authority of the
Creeds, p. 138. Ambiguity of word ' tradition,' p. 139. Bellarmine's
threefold division of traditions, p. 139. The use of the word ' tradition' in
the Thirty-nine Articles, p. 140. Tertullian's list of Church customs un
authorized by Scripture, p. 141. 'Tradition,' as signifying the 'res tradita'
and the ' modus tradendi,' p. 141. Proof by tradition that the Scriptures
are a full and perfect rule of faith, p. 142. St. Basil, p. 142. St. Cyprian,
p. 143. St. Augustine, p. 145. St. Jerome, p. 146. Tertullian's trea
tise on Prescription, pp. 146-150. Tradition and the Gnostics, p. 148.
The argument from the unity of different Churches loses its force in the
hands of Roman Catholics, p. 150.

LECTURE X.
Hermeneutical Tradition  152
The claims of tradition to interpret Scripture may be used so as to super
sede Scripture, p. 152. Newman's attempt to reconcile the Sixth Article
with Roman teaching, p. 152. The doctrine and practice of Athanasius,
p. 153. The use of tradition in excluding new-fangled interpretations,
p. 154 ; for instance, of the text ' Thou art Peter,' p. 154. Use of tradi
tion in matters of ritual, p. 155. Washing of feet, p. 155. Baptism by
affusion, Extreme Unction, p. 156. Use of tradition in proof of abstract
doctrine, p. 157. Patristical Messianic interpretations, St. Barnabas,
p. 158. Cardinal Newman's examples, p. 159. General principle of

CONTENTS.

early Patristical interpretation of O. T., p. 159 ; Patristical interpretation
and the Blessed Virgin, p. 161.
The two great schools of interpretation, p. 161. Allegorical inter
pretation of the Alexandrian school, p. 162; its spread to the West, p.
163. The method used in answering heathen objections, p. 164. The
Syrian School — its founders, p. 165. Origen's three senses of Scripture,
p. 166. The mediaeval division, p. 166. Dangers of the allegorical
method, p. 167.

Page

LECTURE XL
Does the Church 'of Rome believe in her own Infal
libility  i6q
The existence somewhere of an infallible guide usually taken for granted
by Romanists without proof, p. 170. The notes of the Church, p. 170.
Timidity of the Church of Rome in exercising her supposed gift of infal
libility, p. 172. Seymour's Mornings with the Jesuits, p. 173. Has the
Church of Rome formally claimed infallibility, p. 173. The lateness of
the claim disproves its validity, p. 175. Disputes as to the organ of
infallibility, p. 175. Ambiguity of word ' authority,' p. 177. The inter
ference of the one kind of authority always welcomed, that of the other
deprecated, p. 177. The history of the doctrine of the Immaculate Con
ception, p. 179. Sixtus IV. ; the Council of Trent, p. 180. Bishop
Milner's view, p. 182. Pius IX., p. 183. The controversy about oppor
tunism, p. 184. The congregations de auxiliis, p. 185. Bellarmine's
share in the controversy, p. 185. Fear of secession shows want of faith
in Roman claims, p. 186.

LECTURE XII.
The Hesitations of the Infallible Guide
Roman teaching has a double face, p. 188 : — (1) No authorized commen
tary on Scripture, p. 189 ; Macnamara's Bible and the Rhemish notes,
p. 189 ; the Romish doctrine concerning the punishment of heretics,
p. 190. Why heretics, who did not recant, were burnt alive, p. 192 ;
Leo X. on the burning of heretics, p. 192. (2) Catechisms not secured
from error, p. 191 ; (3) nor is the teaching of ordinary priests, p. 193 ;
nor even of canonized saints ; Liguori, p. 195 ; his Mariolatry ; his moral
theology, p. 195; Newman's defence, p. 196. (4) No guarantee of the
truth of the miracles related in the Breviary or in Bulls of canonization,
p. 197; the holy house at Loretto, p. 197. (5) Alleged divine revela
tions : their truth not guaranteed, p. 198 ; St. Philumena, p. 198.

CONTENTS. xxi

LECTURE XIII. Page
Modern Revelations  201
Popular Romanism and the Romanism of Trent, p. 201 ; the former has
better claims than the latter to represent the true teaching of the Church,
p. 202. The idea of Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 202. The two forms of
Romanism rest on different rules of faith, p. 204. Imagined recipients
of Divine revelations, p. 204 ; their acceptance by Roman Catholics, p. 205.
Revelations about Purgatory : Faber, Louvet, p. 206. The Dialogues of
Gregory the Great, p. 207. The map of Purgatory, p. 208 ; the ordinary
time of stay in Purgatory, p. 210. Atrocity of the sufferings there, p. 211.
St. Patrick's Purgatory, p. 212. Silence of the infallible guide as to the
truth of these stories, p. 214. Growth of belief in the Roman Church,
p. 215 ; the Pope's neglect to direct that growth, p. 215. Father Ryder's
reply, p. 216. The Montanists and private revelations, p. 217 ; such reve
lations encroach on the supreme authority of Scripture, p. 218. The
miracle of La Salette, p. 219. No real faith in easy acceptance of alleged
revelations, p. 220. The miracle of Lourdes, p. 221. Pilgrimages made
easy, p. 221. The Pope's infallibity does not extend to matters of fact,
p. 222. Use made of this principle in the Jansenist controversy, p. 222.
Modern miracles the foundation of doctrines, p. 223. Marguerite Marie
Alacoque ; the devotion to the Sacred Heart, p. 224.

LECTURE XIV.
The Blunders of the Infallible Guide . . . .226
Biblical criticism, pp. 226-229. The edition of the Vulgate prepared by
Sixtus V., p. 226. Bellarmine's way of accounting for its errors, p. 228.
The Clementine edition, p. 229.
The case of Galileo, pp. 229-254. Galileo's discoveries, p. 230 ;
his views as to the interpretation of Scripture, p. 232; in expressing
these views he did not travel out of his province, p. 233. How earlier
Copemicans had avoided collision with the Church, p. 234. How
Galileo escaped condemnation in 1616, p. 235. The report of the
'qualifiers' in Galileo's case, p. 236. The decree of the Congregation
of the Index, p. 237. Prohibitory and expurgatory indexes, p. 237.
The Jesuits' 'Newton,' p. 238. Roman despotism leads to scepticism,
p. 238. Abandonment of the attempt to insist on the immobility of the
earth, p. 239. The Abbe Cloquet and Father Ryder, p. 240. Galileo's
Dialogue, p. 241 ; his summons before the Inquisition and his condemna
tion, p. 242 ; how treated after his abjuration, p. 243 ; can his treatment
be described as lenient, p. 244 ; had he been tortured, p. 246. The apology
that the scientific arguments used by Galileo were not conclusive, p. 247.
It is not merely the doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility that is

xxii CONTENTS.
affected by the case of Galileo, p. 248. The apology that the question at
issue did not concern faith or morals, p. 248. How far the Pope was per
sonally responsible for Galileo's condemnation, p. 249. Modern parallel
cases, p. 250. The apology that the Pope exercised only his disciplinary,
not his teaching power, p. 251. The apology that the condemnation wants
the customary clause of Papal confirmation, p. 252. Papal measures for
the publication of the sentence on Galileo, p. 253. Mr. St. George Mivart
on Galileo's case, p. 254.

Page

LECTURE XV.
The Gallican Theory of Infallibility .... 257
The Gallican Theory, p. 257. Louis XIV. and his disputes with the
Pope, p. 258. The four Gallican Propositions of 1682, p. 259. The
Council of Constance, p. 260. Whether the French bishops were unani
mous on this occasion, p. 261. Cause of the want of permanence of Gal
licanism, p. 261 ; Gallicanism after the death of Louis XIV., p. 262.
Causes of reaction in France in favour of Ultramontanism, p. 263. Preva
lence until lately of Gallican principles in Ireland, p. 263 ; practical inu
tility of the Gallican rules, p. 265. The phrase of Vincentius Lirinensis,
p. 265. ' Secures judicat orbis terrarum,' p. 266. The Donatists the true
antitype of the Romanists, p. 267. Numbers no test of truth, p. 267.
Christ's promises to His Church, p. 268. Protestant views on Infalli
bility, p. 269. Causes tending to produce a corruption of Christian Doc
trine, p. 270. The theory of development inconsistent with respect for
the Fathers, p. 270; or with respect for Scripture, p. 271. There is a
true development of Christian doctrine, p. 271. The doctrine of develop
ment fatal to the Gallican theory, p. 272. Dr. Pusey's theory of infalli
bility and Harper's criticism on it, p. 273.

LECTURE XVI.
General Councils. — Part I. 
The claim of Councils to be regarded as the mam organ of the Church's
Infallibility is no longer upheld, p. 274. Local Councils, the need for
them, p. 275. The Quartodeciman controversy, p. 276. The real services
rendered by Councils may be acknowledged without overlooking their im
perfections, p. 277. In what consists the real value of their decisions, p. 279.
The badness of the arguments used at Councils, p. 280. The dictum of
St. Francis de Sales, p. 280. Constantine's attempt to silence the Arian
disputes, p. 280. The idea of the infallibility of the Roman bishops could
not then have arisen, p. 281. Councils unnecessaay if the Pope be infal
lible, p. 282. The Nicene Council, p. 283. Scantiness of original materials
of knowledge of its proceedings, p. 283. Athanasius, p. 284. The term

274.

CONTENTS. xxiii Page
' Homoousios,' p. 285 ; objections to its introduction, p. 286. Proofs of
the veneration in which the decrees of the General Councils have been
held, p. 287 ; yet they did not possess this authority from the first, p. 287 ;
it was no point of faith to receive them as infallible, p. 288. What recep
tion is given to Councils by our Church, p. 289. What General Councils
acknowledged by the Church of England, p. 289. The Council of Con
stantinople, pp. 290 — 295. Gregory Nazianzen, p. 290. The schism at
Antioch ; Meletius, p. 291. Gregory's treatment by the Council, p. 292 ;
his resentment, p. 293.

LECTURE XVII.
General Councils. — Part II  296
Why the decision of the Nicene Council was not regarded as final,
p. 296 ; the third and fourth General Councils, p. 297. Cyril of Alex
andria, pp. 298 — 303. Newman's defence of Cyril's character, p. 301.
The unfairness of the proceedings at Ephesus, p. 304. By what
kind of majority must the acts of a Council be carried, p. 304. How
unanimity is at present obtained, p. 305. The condemnation of
Nestorius really obtained not at Ephesus but at Constantinople, p. 305 ;
and by what means, p. 306. The presidency of Councils did not belong
to the Roman representative, p. 307. Opposite parties victorious at third
and at fourth Council, p. 307. Theological violence at Alexandria, p. 308.
The Robber Synod, p. 309. Acclamations at Councils, p. 310. Disorder
at Council of Trent, p. 312. The ill success of Chalcedon, p. 313.
Badness of arguments used at Councils, p. 314. The second Council of
Nicsea, p. 314. The Council of Constance, p. 315. The Council of
Florence, p. 316. The Vatican Council, p. 317; the unfairness of the
representation there, 318 ; and of the manner of conducting business, p.
319. How a vote was arrived at, p. 321. How the chance of arriving at
truth is prejudiced by the claim to infallibility, p. 322.

LECTURE XVIII.
The Prerogatives of Peter  323
The theory which makes the Pope the organ of infallibility is that which
the a priori arguments require, p. 323. This theory, however, condemned
by its novelty, p. 324. To establish the Pope's supremacy would not be
enough to prove his infallibility, p. 325.
The Scripture Argument : Four things to be proved, p. 325. Ro
manists dispense with proof of two of them, p. 326. The three texts,

v CONTENTS.
p. 326. General presumption against the Roman Catholic theory, p. 326.
No hint in the New Testament that Peter was to have a successor, p. 327.
The text from St. Matthew, Dr. Murray's exposition of, p. 327 ;
disagreement of the Fathers about this text, p. 328. Launoy : Mal-
donatus, p. 329. St. Augustine's exposition, p. 330. The mere fact of
diversity of interpretation is decisive against the Romanist theory, p. 331.
Whether the same metaphor may be used with different applications,
p. 332. To interpret the 'Rock' of St. Peter, need not conflict with the
general doctrine of Scripture, p. 332. This interpretation required by
the context, p. 333. Consideration of the occasion on which the words
were spoken, p. 334. In what sense the Church was founded on Peter,
P- 335- The text from St. Luke, p. 336. The words personal to St. Peter,
p. 337 ; and conferred on him no exclusive privilege, p. 337. Paul un
conscious of Peter's privileges, p. 337. St. Chrysostom's commentary,
P- 338- The text in St. John, p. 339. This also conferred no exclusive pri
vilege, p. 339. How the passage is explained by Cyril of Alexandria,
p. 340. The Clementines make James, not Peter, the head of the Church,
P- 340-

Page

LECTURE XIX.
Peter's alleged Roman Episcopate . . -34'
Traditional account of Peter's Episcopate, p. 341. Peter not at Rome
during any of the time on which the Canonical Scriptures throw much
light, p. 341. Whether Peter was ever at Rome, p. 342. The ' immortal
discussion at Rome,' p. 342. Reasons for believing in Peter's Roman
martyrdom, p. 343. Peter the first absentee bishop, p. 344; and the
first to give up a poorer see for a richer, p. 344. The story of the An-
tiochene Episcopate, p. 345. The Roman Episcopate, p. 346. The
account of Irenaeus, p. 346. The Gospel preached at Rome before
the arrival of any Apostle, p. 348. Dbllinger on the origin of Episco
pacy, p. 350. How he explains away the story of Peter's twenty-five
years' Episcopate, p. 351. The list of Hegesippus, p. 352. The list of
Epiphanius, p. 353. Reasons for thinking that Epiphanius used Hege
sippus, p. 354. The real inventor of the story of Peter's Roman
Episcopate, p. 355. Consequent perplexity of the chronology, p. 355.
The true order of the first three bishops, p. 355. Inconvenience of too
early a date for the commencement of the Roman Episcopate, p. 356.
The chronology of Hippolytus, p. 357. Paul as much bishop of Rome
as St. Peter, p. 358. Whether one Church could have two bishops at
the same time, p. 359. How Epiphanius was led to his peculiar notions
on this subject, p. 359.

CONTENTS. xxv

LECTURE XX. Page
The Infancy of Roman Supremacy . ... 360
The historical test of interpretations of Scripture, p. 360. The oath
taken by Roman Catholic bishops, p. 361. Newman abandons tradition
as a basis for the doctrine of Papal Supremacy, p. 361. The basis of
Development is insufficient, p. 362. Natural causes of Roman primacy,
p. 364. Connexion between the ecclesiastical and the civil precedence
of cities, p. 365. The claims of Jerusalem, p. 366. The munificence of
the Roman Church, p. 368. The weakness of Constantinople in historical
associations, p. 370. The Epistle of Clement of Rome, p. 371 ; this
letter contains no attempt to domineer over provincial Churches, p. 373.
The primacy resided, not in the bishop, but in the Church of Rome,
p. 374. The Ignatian Epistles, p. 374. The testimony of Irenaeus,
p. 375. Victor and the Quartodecimans, p. 377. The Quartodeciman
usage, why disliked in the West, p. 378. What was meant by excom
munication in the second century, p. 379. Victor's failure a disproof of
Roman supremacy, p. 381. The Montanist controversy, p. 381. Ter
tullian's resistance to the absolutions given by the Roman bishop, p. 383.
Hippolytus and Callistus, pp. 383 — 388.

LECTURE XXI.
The Progress of Roman Supremacy  389
The difficulty at times of ascertaining who the bishop of Rome was,
p. 389. The great Western schism, pp. 390—394. The appointment of
the Roman bishop regarded as a matter of mere local concern, p. 395.
The necessity of discriminating authorities geographically, p. 396. The
notion of Roman supremacy took its origin from Rome, and is found
nowhere except as propagated from Rome, p. 397. The cause of Rome
helped by Eastern divisions, p. 398. What bishop of Rome first claimed
privileges as Peter's successor, p. 399. Firmilian and Stephen, p. 400.
Cyprian's earlier refusal to accept Stephen's authority, p. 401. The
Donatist controversy, p. 403. The Council of Sardica, p. 405. The
Semi-Arian Council of Antioch, p. 407. The case of Apiarius, p. 408.
Apology for the Roman misquotation, p. 409. The Pope's liability to
error with regard to matters of fact, p. 410. The Jansenist controversy,
p. 410. Western interference resisted at the time of the second General
Council, p. 412. St. Jerome and the claims of Rome, p. 413. The
Nicene sixth Canon, p. 414. The Roman patriarchate, p. 415. The
Council of Constantinople, p. 416. The Council of Chalcedon, p. 416.
The title of Universal bishop, p. 417. C

CONTENTS.

LECTURE XXII. Page
The Infallibility of the Pope  4'9
The claim to infallibility, how suggested, p. 419. The fall of Liberius,
420—423. Felix IL, 423. Zosimus and the Pelagian controversy,
p. 424. Leo and the Eutychian controversy, p. 426. Vigilius and the
fifth Council, p. 427. The case of Honorius, pp. 427—437. When the
Pope speaks ex cathedra, pp. 429—433. ' Obiter dicta ' : Pope Nicolas
I. and the Bulgarians, p. 431. The condition approved by the Vatican
Council, p. 432 ; Eugenius IV. and his instruction to the Armenians,
p. 432. The Monothelite heresy, p. 434. If the Pope be infallible, he
is still not an infallible guide, p. 436.

LECTURE XXIII.
The Pope's Temporal Power ... - 438
The maximizers and the minimizers, p. 438. How to sum up the Roman
Catholic doctrine about Papal Infallibility, p. 439. The Encyclical
'quanta cura' and the Syllabus, pp. 439 — 442. The Roman claims have
taken their growth out of two forgeries, p. 443.
The Decretal Epistles, pp. 443—449. It was natural that Western
bishops should seek advice from Rome, p. 443. The earliest genuine
Decretal Epistle, p. 444. The use made of the forged decretals by
Pope Nicolas I., p. 445 ; and by Gregory VII., p. 445. The evi
dence of the spuriousness of the forged decretals, p. 447. The time
and probable place of the forgery, p. 447. The excuse that this
forgery did not originate at Rome, p. 449. Other Roman forgeries,
p. 450. Modern defence of the exercise of the deposing power by the
mediaeval Popes, pp. 451 — 455 ; this defence puts the Papal claims
on different grounds from that on which the Pope himself rested it,
p. 455. The deposition of the Emperor Henry by Gregory VII., p. 456.
Innocent III. on the papal power, p. 456. Boniface VIII. and the Bull
' Unam sanctam,' p. 457. The claim to the deposing power a stumbling-
block in the way of any theory of Infallibility, p. 458. The Pope's
temporal power shown by Bellarmine to result necessarily when his
infallibility is admitted, p. 459 ; the doctrine of Infallibility thus brought
to an experimental test, p. 461. Manning's apology for the case of
King John, p. 462. The Popes as temporal princes, p. 463; how they
acquired their Italian States, p. 465 ; how they governed them, p. 465.
Conclusion of the argument, pp. 467 — 469.

CONTENTS. xxvii

APPENDIX. Page
Decrees of the Vatican Council  47 1
Constitutio Dogmatica de Fide Catholica, cc. I.-IV., 471. Canones,
l.-iv., 477. Constitutio Dogmatica Prima de Ecclesia Christi, cc. I. -VI.,
479. Suspensio Concilii, 484.

Index  ... 485

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME.
WHEN I attended the Lectures of the Regius Professor
of Divinity, now more than forty years ago, the pre
scribed division of his year's work was, that in one Term he
gave a course of lectures on the Bible ; in another, on the
Articles ; in the third, on the Liturgy. When I succeeded to
the Chair myself, I found that, for several years previously,
the subject of this Term's lectures, as set down in the Uni
versity Calendar, had been, not the Articles, but the Roman
Catholic Controversy. It is easy to understand how the change
took place. It was, of course, impossible in the Lectures of
one Term to treat of all the Articles ; and, some selection
being necessary, it was natural that the Professor, on whom
the duty is imposed by statute of giving instruction on the
controversies which our Church has to carry on with her
adversaries, whether within or without the pale of Chris
tianity, should select for consideration the Articles bearing
on the controversy which in this country is most pressing,
and in which the members of our Church took the deepest
interest — the controversy with Rome. This limitation of my
subject being only suggested by precedent, not imposed on
me by authority, I was free to disregard it. As I have not
done so, I think I ought to begin by telling you my reasons
for agreeing with my predecessors in regarding the study of
this controversy as profitable employment for the Lectures of
this Term.
I readily own, indeed, that I have found, both inside and
outside the University, that this controversy does not excite
B

2 INTRODUCTORY. [i-
the same interest now that it did even a dozen years ago.
In your voluntary Society, in which the members read theo
logical essays on subjects of their own selection, I notice that
topics bearing on this controversy are now but rarely chosen ;
whereas I can remember when they predominated, almost to
the exclusion of other subjects. There are many reasons for
this decline of interest.
One effect of Disestablishment, in not merely reviving the
synodical action of the Church, but widely extending it, intro
ducing the laity into Church councils, and entrusting to them
a share in the determination of most important questions, has
been to concentrate the interest of our people on the subjects
discussed in such assemblies ; and in this way our little
disputes with each other have left us no time to think of the
far wider differences that separate us from Rome on the one
hand, and from various dissenting sects on the other. But
besides this cause, special to ourselves, of decline of interest
in the Roman Catholic controversy, there are others which
have operated in England as well as here.
First, I may mention a reaction against certain extreme
anti-Romanist over-statements. It was only to be expected
that, at the time of the Reformation, men who had with a vio
lent effort wrenched themselves away from beliefs in which
they had been brought up, and who, for the exercise of this
freedom of thought, were being persecuted to the death, should
think far more of their points of difference from their perse
cutors than of the points on which they agreed with them.
A considerable section of the men who had witnessed the
bloody scenes of Queen Mary's reign scarcely thought of their
adversaries as worshippers of the same God as themselves.
The form in which one of the opponents of Queen Elizabeth's
marriage with a French prince put the question as to the
lawfulness of marriage with a Roman Catholic was, whether
it was lawful for a child of God to wed with a son of the
devil. When Fox, the Martyrologist, has to speak of the
religious services, not merely of the Roman Catholics of his
own day, but of the Church in the days before any reforma-
tioa had been attempted, he s.eems to regard them as. fit

i.] THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. 3
subjects for ridicule and insult. It would be easy to quote
specimens that would grate on the feelings of those of us
who have least sympathy with Rome. When Fox has to
tell of what he could well remember — the prayers which the
Romanists offered up on the occasion of the supposed preg
nancy of Queen Mary — he mocks them with the taunt of
Elijah, ' Cry up louder, you priests, peradventure your god is
asleep.' He does not seem to have reflected that the prayers
in question were addressed, not to Baal, but to the same God
whom he worshipped himself.
But modern conceptions of the proper attitude of mind
of a historian require him to strive to enter impartially
into the feelings of all his characters. We can now find
apologies even for the magistrates who shed the blood
of the first Christians, and whom their victims regarded
in no other light than as the instruments of Satan. We
can now recognize that many of them were grave magis
trates, simply anxious to do their duty in carrying out
the law ; some of them humane men, who were sincerely
grieved by what they regarded as the unreasonable obsti
nacy of those who left them no option but to proceed to
the last extremities. One of the most harrowing and most
authentic tales now extant of Christian heroism and heathen
cruelty relates things done with the express sanction of
Marcus Aurelius, the man who, of all the heathen of whom
we have knowledge, approached nearest to Christian excel
lence ; nay, who surpassed many professors of a better creed
in purity of life, in meekness, gentleness, unselfish anxiety at
any cost to do his duty. No wonder, then, that we can find apo
logies, too, for Roman Catholic persecutors, and believe that
many a judge who sent a heretic to the stake may have been
a conscientious, good man, fulfilling what he regarded as an
unpleasant duty, and no more a monster of inhumanity than
one of the hanging judges of George the Third's reign, who
at one assizes sent scores of criminals to the gallows. If we
can judge less harshly of Roman Catholic persecutors, it is
still easier to judge mildly of ordinary Roman Catholics.
With some of them we may perhaps be personally acquainted,
b 2

4 INTRODUCTORY. [i.
and may know them to be not only just and honourable in
the ordinary affairs of life, but, according to their lights, sin
cerely pious, living in the devout belief of the cardinal truths
of our faith.
The feeling that there are many things in which we agree
with Roman Catholics has been helped by the increased cir
culation among members of the Anglican Church of pre-
Reformation, or distinctly Roman Catholic, books of devotion.
In England especially, where Roman Catholics are few, and
where the controversy with dissent has been the most urgent,
members of the Established Church, besides the natural dis
position to indulgence towards the less formidable enemy,
sympathize the more with those who share with them not
only their common Christianity, but also attachment to Epis
copacy and to an ancient liturgy. And I must not omit to
mention that, with regard to Eucharistic doctrine, a great
change has taken place during the last quarter of a century
in the feelings of the English clergy. Views are held by men
who pass as moderate which, when I was young, a man would
be accounted violently extreme for maintaining ; while the
opinions put forward by men who now rank as extreme would,
in days that I can remember, have been considered absolutely
outside the limits imposed by our Church's teaching. Hence
has naturally sprung an inclination to sympathize with those
with whom unity exists on this important subject, to the dis-
regardjof differences perhaps in real truth more vital.
In addition to the causes I have mentioned, the struggle
with unbelief has benefited the cause of Romanism. In the
first place, some of the minds less docile to authority, less
inclined to mysticism, who, had they remained among us,
would have been ranged strongly on the anti-Romanist side,
have been lost to Christianity altogether ; and this fact has
increased the proportion of sympathizers with Romanism
among those who still remain. Again, there are many
whose temptations are altogether on the side of scepticism,
and who, feeling themselves in danger of being worsted in
the cruel conflict with doubt, have recoiled towards Rome,
under the idea that there they would be safer. Distressed at

i.J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. 5
results to which free inquiry seemed to lead them, they have
determined to attempt no more to think for themselves, but
submit themselves resignedly to the yoke of authority ; and
where can authority be found which gives more promise of
relieving men of the responsibility of self- direction than that
of a Church which claims to be infallible ? In point of fact, a
majority of the perverts which Rome has made in later years
have been made through the road of scepticism ; and I have
known Romish advocates unscrupulously use sceptical argu
ments, in order that their victims, despairing of finding
elsewhere a solution of their doubts, might be so glad to
welcome a Church which offered them certainty, as to be
disinclined to make too minute an examination of her power
to fulfil her promises.
Once more, the growth of scepticism has produced in
another way disinclination to the Roman controversy. There
are many nominal members of our Church who adhere to the
profession of a creed which was that of their fathers, but who
have little concern for religious truth ; who are apt to think
that a man's religion is his own affair, with which other peo
ple have no business to concern themselves ; and that whether
his belief be true or false does not really much matter.
Such persons are apt to regard any attempt to show that
Roman teaching is false as a wanton attack on poor, harmless
Roman Catholics, and as little different from personal abuse
of unoffending people. I fear it will be a long time before
men are so philosophic as to understand that a man is not
your enemy because he tries to correct errors in your opinions,
and that the more important the subject the greater the ser
vice he will render you if he makes you change your false
opinion for a true one.
I have enumerated causes enough (and more might be
added, if I were to speak of the influence of political changes)
to explain the undoubted fact, that less interest is generally
felt in the Roman Catholic controversy now than was felt
twenty or thirty years ago. Yet I have no hesitation in
presenting it to you as a subject, in acquiring a knowledge
of which your time will be well spent. What use you are

6 INTRODUCTORY. [i.
hereafter to make of your knowledge will depend upon cir
cumstances in which you must be guided by considerations
of expediency. In different times, and in different circumstances, different
dangers are formidable, and a man exercises a wise discre
tion in devoting his chief energies to combating the dangers
which are most threatening at the time. Both in politics and
in religion parties are apt to make the mistake of carrying on
traditional warfare with enemies whose power has now de
cayed, and neglecting the silent growth of foes now far more
formidable : in politics, for instance, delighting to weaken
the executive government on account of instances of royal
tyranny two hundred years ago, and taking no account of the
opposite danger of anarchy : in religion, fearing only lest
men should believe too much, and not noticing that in many
places now the danger is lest they should not believe at all.
I had occasion last Term to remark, that at different periods
of St. Paul's life different controversies engaged him ; and I
pointed out that to overlook this was the fundamental error
of Baur, who denied the genuineness of all Paul's letters
which did not give prominence to that controversy which is
the main subject of the four letters that Baur admitted.
Thus, I can quite acknowledge that different circumstances
may make it wise to insist on different topics, and that it
is not judicious to make the Roman controversy the main
object at all times and in all places. But a man must be
blind, indeed, if he imagines that there is no danger from
Romanism. Even in England it is often formidable. In
Ireland there is no place where it is not pressing.
I am not in the least ashamed of the object aimed at in
the Roman Catholic controversy. I believe that the Church
of Rome teaches false doctrine on many points which must
be called important, if anything in religion can be called
important; and it is not merely that on some particular
points the teaching of that Church is erroneous, but they
who submit to her are obliged to surrender their under
standing to her, and submit to be led blindfold they know
not whither. I count it, then, a very good work to release a

i.J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. 7
man from Roman bondage — a release of which I think he
will be the better, both as regards the things of eternity
and those of time. The only question, then, that I should be
disposed to entertain as to the expediency of direct contro
versy with Roman Catholics is, whether or not such contro
versy may be expected to eventuate in their conversion. It
is notorious that many controversial efforts have been made
with no other result than that of embittering those to whom
they were addressed. We are not commanded to cast our
pearls before animals who are likely to turn again and rend
us ; and if the state of men's feelings is such|as to indispose
them for a candid consideration of the truths set before them,
then prudence may forbid the attempt. Of course, what I
am saying would apply to the use of prudence in preaching
Christianity just as much as in preaching Protestantism. In
either case we are blameworthy if we preach the truth to
others in such a way as to make them less likely to accept it.
But, fully granting all this, I hold that it is unworthy of any
man who possesses knowledge to keep his knowledge to him
self, and rejoice in his own enlightenment, without making
any effort to bring others to share in his privileges. Justly
did the four lepers at the gate of Samaria feel their con
science smite them : ' We do not well ; this is a day of good
tidings, and we hold our peace.' Had those to whom the
light of Christianity was first given dealt so with our an
cestors, we should still be lying in heathen darkness.
But, even if it should not be your duty hereafter to make
any aggressive efforts for the dissemination of the truth, you
may still be forced to take up the Roman Catholic contro
versy for the safety of the people committed to your own
care. The most ardent admirer of peace societies may be
forced to own that muskets and cannon have some use if an
invasion be made on our own shores. And certainly our
Roman Catholic countrymen have not that aversion to pro-
selytism (at least when it is made in what they account the"
right direction) that some among ourselves recommend as a
virtue. The poorer members of our Church especially are
under constant pressure from the eagerness of their neigh-

8 INTRODUCTORY. La
bours to win them over to the faith of 'the true Church'—
pressure which it would often much advance their worldly
interests to give way to. Why should they not give way, if
you, who are their spiritual guides, can give them no reason
for refusing to submit to the Roman claims ?
And setting aside the consideration of our duty to others,
our duty to ourselves requires us not to shrink from a full
and candid examination of the validity of the Roman claims.
Can we believe in our Lord's Divinity — believe that He
founded a Church, and not care to inquire whether or not it
is true that He appointed a vicegerent upon earth to govern
that Church, from whom His people are bound submissively
to learn the truths of His religion, and apart from whom
there can be no salvation ? Again, if anyone acknowledges
that Christ intended His people to be one, and that anyone
commits a sin who makes causeless schisms and divisions in
His body, he cannot justify his remaining separated in com
munion from the large numerical majority of the Christians
of this country, if he thinks that his differences with them all
relate to subordinate and trifling matters. For a man to say
that he feels no interest in the Roman Catholic controversy,
is to say that he thinks some of the most important religious
questions that can be raised quite undeserving his atten
tion ; that he does not care to know what are the conditions
which Christ has appointed for his salvation, and whether
union with the Church of Rome be not one of them. I
am persuaded that, if Romanism were true, it would be
more tolerable in the Day of Judgment for a Protestant like
myself, who has done his best to examine into the subject,
and, however mistakenly, yet honestly, arrived at the convic
tion that the claims of Rome are unfounded, than for one
who conceives himself entitled to indulge an eclectic sym
pathy with everything Roman that he, in his wisdom, may be
pleased to call Catholic, but who disdains to inquire into the
truth of other points of Roman teaching, and makes himself
sure that he must be equally acceptable to God whether he
be in the true Church or not.
I have just called myself a Protestant ; and, in saying

i.J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. 9
this, I use the word in its popular sense, in which it is equi
valent to non-Romanist. It is true that there are non-Ro
manists — for example, members of the Greek Church — to
whom this name is not commonly applied ; but this is be
cause we come so little in contact with Eastern Christians, that
popular usage takes no account of them. I am aware that
there are several who dislike to be called Protestant, because
the title is one which can be equally claimed by men differing
widely in opinion, and with some of whom we have little in
common but opposition to Rome. But a man must be a
poor logician if he does not know that objects may agree in
a common attribute, and with respect to that attribute may
be called by a common name, though differing widely in
other points. The controversy with Rome is so important,
that it is highly convenient to have a word expressing what
side a man takes on it : that is to say, whether he accepts or
rejects the Roman claims. Indeed, in these Lectures, it is
impossible for me to dispense with the use of some word of
the kind. Finding the word Protestant* in common use for
this purpose, I do not trouble myself to look for any other,
but frankly describe myself as a Protestant. And if a con
troversial attempt is made to hold me responsible for the
opinions of everyone else described under the same name, I
do not expect to be more embarrassed than were the men of
the early Church when their heathen opponents attempted to
* I consider that we are not concerned with the history of the word, which in its
origin had nothing to do with protesting against the errors of Popery, but with pro
testing against the decrees of a Diet of the German Empire, viz. that of Spires, in
1529. At that Diet the liberty was taken away from the sovereign princes of the
German Empire of regulating religious affairs each in his own territory, according to
his discretion. Against that decree of the majority certain princes protested, and
appealed to the Emperor, on the ground that the decree was ultra vires, for that a
majority of votes in the Diet could regulate a secular question, but not a spiritual or
religious one. But the decree being made in the interests of those who wished to
keep everything as it had been, and the protest against it by those who were desirous
of reformation, it naturally happened that the party of the protectant princes and that
of the Reformation should be synonymous. The word, however, has now come into
popular use as denoting the non-Romanist members of the Western Church; and this
use of the word is too convenient to be let drop. We are no more concerned with
the history of its origin than we are with the Athenian laws about the exportation of
figs when we use the word ' sycophant.'

IO

INTRODUCTORY. [r.

hold them responsible for the opinions and practices of here
tics who had in common with them the title of Christian.
By a Protestant, then, as I use the word, I mean one
who has examined into the Roman claims, and has found
reason to think them groundless ; one who knows that
there are not only great and precious truths on which we
agree with the Church of Rome, but also points of differ
ence so grave and fundamental as to justify our remaining
in separate communion. If the Church of England or of
Ireland be not, in this sense of the word, Protestant, her
position cannot be defended at all. For her justification it
is necessary to show not only that she is not bound to render
any obedience to the Church of Rome, but also that the things
demanded by that Church as conditions of union go beyond
what one Church is bound to yield to another for the sake of
godly union and concord among Christians, members of that
one great Church of Christ, whose influence and extension
through the world have notoriously been sadly impeded by
internal dissensions and schisms.
Thus, from a Roman Catholic point of view, the more our
Church purged herself from the sin of heresy, the greater
would be the guilt of her schism ; for the smaller the doc
trinal differences, the less justifiable pretext there would be
for separation. And I think a Roman Catholic must hold
that the more a member of our Church approximates to the
doctrine of Rome, the worse he makes his spiritual condition, if
that approximation does not bring him to the bosom of the
true Church. For such a man can no longer plead the ex
cuse which an ultra- Protestant might urge, invincible igno
rance incapacitating him for receiving the Church's teaching,
which, in his sincere belief, is deeply tainted with peril
of idolatry.* I need say no more, then, to convince you
that our time this Term will not be ill spent in studying this
* See Newman's Anglican Difficulties , Lecture xi., where, having enlarged on the
reasons which may excuse the unbelief of other persons outside the fold of his Church,
he goes on to say that there is but one set of persons who inspire the Catholic with
special anxiety, for whom he must feel the most intense interest, but about whom
the gravest apprehensions, viz. those who have some rays of light vouchsafed them
as to their heresy and as to their schism, and who seem to be closing their eyes upon it.

i.J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. t t
controversy, inasmuch as on the successful maintenance of
it by our Church depends her right to be accounted part of
the true Church of Christ, and since a wrong decision on it,
it is alleged, hazards our eternal salvation.
Possibly there may be some here who have not needed
argument to convince them of the importance of the contro
versy which I propose to discuss with you, but who may be
disposed to imagine that no laborious study of it can be
necessary. It is always irksome to be offered proof of what
it has never occurred to us to doubt. The first impression of
one who has been brought up from childhood to know and
value his Bible is, that there is no room for discussion as to
the truth of the Roman Catholic doctrines, and that a few
Scripture texts make an end of the whole controversy. He
cannot conceive what ingenuity can reconcile prayers in an
unknown tongue with the fourteenth chapter of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians ; or the worship of the Virgin Mary
with the text, * There is one God, and one mediator between
God and men, the man Christ Jesus.' And assuredly, if we
desire to preserve our people from defection to Romanism,
there is no better safeguard than familiarity with Holy
Scripture. For example, the mere study of the character of
our Blessed Lord, as recorded in the Gospel, is enough to
dissipate the idea that there can be others more loving and
compassionate, or more ready to hear our prayers, than He.
And the whole mental attitude of one who comes direct tc*
the Bible for guidance, praying that God's Holy Spirit will
enable him to understand it, is opposed to the Romish
system, which renders difficult all real direct access between
the soul and God, through the interposition of countless
mediators both in interpreting God's will to us and in
making known our desires to Him. Thus, believing as I
do that the Bible, not merely in single texts, but in its whole
spirit, is antagonistic to the Romish system, I feel that it
would be time ill spent if I were to spend much, in these
Lectures, on the development of the argument from Scrip
ture. I should be well pleased if our adversaries were
content to fight the battle on that ground; but the dis-

12

INTRODUCTORY. [i.

couragement which the Church of Rome has always offered
to the study of the Bible by her people affords a presumption
that she is against the Scriptures, because she feels the
Scriptures are against her.
But you would be greatly disappointed if you entered into
controversial discussion with a Roman Catholic, expecting
that by a few texts you could make an end of the whole
matter. No one is much influenced by an authority with
which he is not familiar. Roman Catholics generally are
not familiar with the Bible ; and if they hear passages
¦quoted from it in apparent contradiction with the doctrines
in which they have been brought up, they are satisfied to
believe, in a general way, that you must be quoting unfairly,
and that the contradiction can only be apparent. With the
Roman Catholic the authority of the Bible rests on the
authority of the Church, and he receives with equal reve
rence and affection whatever else is communicated to him on
the same authority. In arguing with a Protestant, he chal
lenges him to say on what grounds he can justify his submis
sion to the Bible if the authority of his Church be set aside ;
and he is quite ready to assail with infidel arguments the
independent authority of the Bible. For Rome's maxim has
been, 'All or none'; and, like the false mother before King
Solomon, she has been ready to slay the souls whom she is
unable to keep. Thus the inexperienced Protestant, engaging
in this discussion, is likely to find the arguments on which he
liad placed most confidence set aside altogether, or the texts
which had seemed to him conclusive disposed of by evasions
quite new to him ; while, on the other hand, he is plied with
citations from ancient Fathers, purporting to show that his
interpretations of Scripture are modern, and opposed to the
judgment of all antiquity. Thus it frequently happens that
an attack, begun with all the confidence of victory, ends in
disappointment, and there is danger lest the disorder of
failure should degenerate into total rout.
What I am insisting on, then, is that, in this controversy,
it would be a fatal error to despise your antagonists. Very
often has it happened that untrained bands, full of high

i. J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. I5
spirits, and confident in the goodness of their cause, have
found that their undisciplined courage was no match for the
superior science of their opponents, or have advanced into
false positions, whence no courage could avail to extricate
them. And so, unwary controversialists are apt to damage
their cause by over-statements, to rest the success of their
cause on the truth of assertions which cannot be proved, or
on the validity of general principles which can be shown by
cases of manifest exception not to be universally true. Now,.
the effect of a bad argument is always to damage the party
who brings it forward ; for, when that is refuted, it is not
merely that the argument goes for nothing, but a general dis
trust is produced in the other arguments which are brought
forward on the same side. If a book were written containing
a hundred reasons for not admitting the claims of the Roman
Church, and if ninety of them were thoroughly conclusive, a
Roman Catholic advocate who could show that the other ten
were weak would be regarded by his own party as having
given a triumphant reply, and as having entirely demolished
his opponent's case. And I believe that many a perversion
to Romanism has resulted from the discovery by a member of
our Church that some of the arguments on which he had been
accustomed to rely were bad, and from his then rashly jump
ing to the conclusion that no better arguments were to be had.
For these reasons, if it should ever be your lot hereafter to
engage in controversy, it will be essential to your success
that you should have learned beforehand the strongest case
that can be made by your opponents, in order that you may
not be taken by surprise by anything likely to be advanced
in the course of the discussion. You must be careful, also, to
distinguish the authorized teaching of the Roman Catholic
Church from the unguarded statements of particular divines,
and not to charge the system as a whole with any con
sequences which Roman Catholics themselves repudiate.
And, generally, you must beware of bad arguments, the
fallacy of which, sooner or later, is sure to be exposed, when,
like a gun bursting in the hand, they disable him who uses
them. But there is a better reason for taking this course

14

INTRODUCTORY. [i.

than that it is the more prudent one. Our object is not vic
tory, but truth ; for the subject is one of such importance,
that a victory gained at the expense of truth would be one in
which we should ourselves be the chief sufferers — left blindly
to wander from the truth, wilfully rejecting guidance which
had been offered to us.
With regard to myself, I feel that the strength of my con
viction of the baselessness of the case made by the Romish
advocates removes any temptation to be niggardly in making
any acknowledgment they can at all fairly claim. If you play
chess with one to whom you know you can give the odds of a
queen, you are not very solicitous to play the strict game.
You allow your antagonist to take back moves if he will, and
you are not much distressed in mind should he succeed in
making some unimportant capture on which he has set his
heart. I know that it is impossible to prove that the Pope
can never go wrong, and quite possible to prove that in many
cases he has gone wrong, and very seriously wrong; so it
costs my liberality absolutely nothing to acknowledge that
on many occasions he has gone right. If the dispute is con
cerning some Roman Catholic doctrine which I know to be
no part of primitive Christianity, it costs me no effort of
candour if I see reason to acknowledge that the date of its
introduction was a century earlier than some Protestant
controversialists had asserted.
On the other hand, the strength of my convictions may
operate disadvantageously by rendering me unable to see
any force in some Romish arguments, which, to other minds,
seem very effective. When I take up some popular Roman
Catholic books of controversy, although I am told they have
been used with success in making perversions from our
Church, they appear to me so feeble, that I feel little incli
nation to take the trouble of answering them.
But I own that, if it were not that the office which I hold
imposes on me the disagreeable necessity, controversy is not
to my taste, and I engage in it reluctantly. I read the writ
ings of the Christian Fathers with a purely historical object,
anxious to know how the men of former days believed and

i.J THE CONTROVERSY WITH ROME. I5
taught, and quite prepared to find that on many points their
way of looking at things is not the same as mine. I take up
then books of controversy, and both on one side and on the
other I find that those who originally made extracts from
the writings of the Fathers were more anxious to pick out
some sentence in apparent contradiction with the views
of their opponents, than to weigh dispassionately whether
the question at issue in the modern controversy were at all
present to the mind of the author whom they quote, or to
search whether elsewhere in his writings passages might not
be found bearing a different aspect. The extracts thus picked
outjare copied, without verification, by one writer after an
other, so that, to one familiar with the controversy, books on
it are apt to seem monotonous. And it constantly happens
that at the present day controversial writers continue to em
ploy quotations from writings once supposed to be genuine,
but which all learned critics now know to be spurious. I feel
little inclination to enter into a detailed exposure of errors of
this kind. I have said already that, to an unlearned Chris
tian, familiarity with the Bible affords the best safeguard
against Romanism, and I will add now that a learned Chris
tian, who makes himself familiar, by uncontroversial reading,
with the thoughts of the men of the ancient Church, finds
that he is breathing a different atmosphere from that of
modern Romanism, and that he cannot accept many things
now propounded as articles of faith, unless he is prepared
to say that on many important questions we are wiser than
the Fathers. That is what Roman Catholic advocates now
actually say : but then they have no right to quarrel with
Protestants who^ say the same.
In one respect I have an advantage in addressing an
audience all of one way of thinking, that I am not bound to
measure my words through fear of giving offence, and that
when I think opinions false and absurd, I can plainly say so.
Yet I should be sorry so to use this liberty of mine that my
example should mislead you afterwards. In every contro
versy the Christian teacher should put away all bitterness,
' in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.' In

1 6 INTRODUCTORY. [i.
this controversy we have to deal with those whose feelings
of piety and reverence have in part fastened themselves on
unworthy objects ; and it requires a skilful hand gently to dis
engage these feelings, and give them a better training — not
tear them up and kill them. We assail credulity, not faith ;
and we cannot use the weapons of those who deny the super
natural, and refuse to lift their thoughts above material things.
Your future success in controversy, should it be your lot
to engage in it, may depend much on the strength of your
faith in truths not controverted. For no one is much infra-
enced by those with whom he has no sympathies ; and your
influence on those whom you would most wish to gain, and
whom there is most hope of gaining — those, I mean, who
truly love our Lord, and whose will to do His will has the
promise of being blessed by the guidance of His Spirit into
truth — must depend on yourselves being animated by the
same love, and seeking for the guidance of the same Spirit.
In the interests, then, of controversy itself, I might give
the concluding caution, which I should in any case have
added for the sake of your own spiritual health, namely,
that you should not allow the pleasure which intellectual
combat has for many minds to detain you too long in the
thorny paths of controversy, and out of those pastures where
your soul must find its nourishment. ' I love not,' says
Taylor, ' to be one of the disputers of this world. For I
suppose skill in controversies to be the worst part of learn
ing, and time is the worst spent in them, and men the least
benefited by them.' When we must engage in controversy,
it is not that we love contention, but that we love the truth
which is at stake. Seek, then, in study of the Scriptures to
know the truth, and pray that God will inspire you with a
sincere love of it— of the whole truth, and not merely of that
portion of it which it may be your duty to defend— and ask
Him also to inspire you with a sincere love of your brethren :
so that the end of all your controversy may be, not the dis
play of your own skill in arguing, not the obtaining of victory
for yourself or for your party, but the mutual edification of all
who take part in it, and their growth in likeness to Christ.

II.

THE CARDINAL IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION OF
INFALLIBILITY.
YOU will easily understand that it would be absolutely
impossible for me, in the course of these Lectures, to go
through all the details of the Roman Catholic controversy.
You have in your hands text-books which will give you
information on all the most important points. But the
truth is, that the issues of the controversy mainly turn
on one great question, which is the only one that I ex
pect to be able to discuss with you — I mean the ques
tion of the Infallibility of the Church. If that be decided
against us, our whole case is gone, and victories on
the details of the controversy would profit us as little as,
to use a favourite illustration of Archbishop Whately's, it
profits a chess-player to win some pieces and pawns if he
gets his king checkmated. In fact, suppose we make what
seems to ourselves a quite convincing proof that some doc
trine of the Roman Church is not contained in Scripture,
what does that avail if we are forced to own that that Church
has access to other sources of information besides Scripture
as to the doctrine taught by our Lord and His Apostles ?
Suppose we even consider that we have proved a Roman
doctrine to be contrary to Scripture, what does that avail if
we are compelled to acknowledge that we are quite incom
petent to decide what is Scripture or what is the meaning of
it, and if it belongs to the Church of Rome alone to give us
the book and to teach us its true interpretation ? In like
manner, if our study of history should lead us to the conclu
sion that the teaching of the present Church is at variance
C

THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.

with the teaching of the Church of former days, we are forced
to surrender this ill-grounded suspicion of ours if we are
made to believe that the Church cannot err, and, as a neces
sary consequence, that her teaching must be at all times the
same. One can scarcely open any book that attempts to deal
with controversy by such a Roman Catholic as, for instance,
Cardinal Manning, without being forced to observe how his
faith in the infallibility of the present Church makes him
impenetrable to all arguments. Suppose, for example, the
question in dispute is the Pope's personal infallibility, and
that you object to him the case of Honorius : he replies, At
most you could make out that it is doubtful whether Ho
norius was orthodox ; but it is certain that a Pope could not
be a heretic. Well, you reply, at least the case of Honorius
shows that the Church of the time supposed that a Pope
could be a heretic. Not so, he answers, for the Church now
holds that a Pope speaking ex cathedra cannot err, and the
Church could not have taught differently at any other time.
Thus, as long as anyone really believes in the infallibility
of his Church, he is proof against any argument you can ply
him with. Conversely, when faith in this principle is shaken,
belief in some other Roman Catholic doctrine is sure also to
be disturbed ; for there are some of these doctrines in respect
of which nothing but a very strong belief that the Roman
Church cannot decide wrongly will prevent a candid inquirer
from coming to the conclusion that she has decided wrongly.
This simplification, then, of the controversy realizes for us
the wish of the Roman tyrant that all his enemies had but
one neck. If we can but strike one blow, the whole battle is
won. If the vital importance of this question of Infallibility
had not been sufficiently evident from a priori considera
tions, I should have been convinced of it from the history
of the Roman Catholic controversy as it has been conducted
in my own lifetime. When I first came to an age to take
lively interest in the subject, Dr. Newman and his coadjutors
were publishing, in the Tracts for the Times, excellent refuta-

n.J RECENT CHANGES IN ROMISH DOCTRINE. Ig
tions of the Roman doctrine on Purgatory and some other
important points. A very few years afterwards, without
making the smallest attempt to answer their own arguments,
these men went over to Rome, and bound themselves to
believe and teach as true things which they had themselves
proved to be false. The accounts which those who went
over in that movement gave of their reasons for the change
show surprising indifference to the ordinary topics of the
controversy, and in some cases leave us only obscurely to
discern why they went at all. It was natural that many who
witnessed the sudden collapse of the resistance which had
been offered to Roman Catholic teaching should conclude
that it had been a sham fight all along ; but this was unjust.
It rather resembled what not unfrequently occurs in the
annals of warfare when, after entrenchments have been long
and obstinately assaulted without success, some great general
has taken up a position which has caused them to be eva
cuated without a struggle.
While the writers of the Tracts were assailing with suc
cess different points of Roman teaching, they allowed them
selves to be persuaded that Christ must have provided His
people with some infallible guide to truth ; and they accepted
the Church of Rome as that guide, with scarcely an attempt
to make a careful scrutiny of the grounds of her pretensions,
and merely because, if she were not that guide, they knew
not where else to find it. Thus, when they were beaten on
the one question of Infallibility, their victories on other
points availed them nothing.
Perhaps those who then submitted to the Church of Rome
scarcely realized all that was meant in their profession of
faith in their new guide. They may have thought it meant
no more than belief that everything the Church of Rome
then taught was infallibly^ true. Events soon taught them
that it meant besides that they must believe everything that
that Church might afterwards teach; and her subsequent
teaching put so great a strain on the faith of the new con
verts, that in a few cases it was more than it could bear.
The idea that the doctrine of the Church of Rome is
C 2

20 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
always the same is one which no one of the present day can
hold without putting an enormous strain on his understand
ing. It used to be the boast of Romish advocates that the
teaching of their Church was unchangeable. Heretics, they
used to say, show by their perpetual alterations that they
never have had hold of the truth. They move the ancient
landmarks without themselves foreseeing whither their new,
principles will lead them ; and so after a while, discovering
their position to be untenable, they vainly try by constant
changes to reduce their system to some semblance of con
sistency. Our Church, on the contrary, they said, ever
teaches the same doctrine which has been handed down
from the Apostles, and has since been taught ' everywhere,
always, and by all.' Divines of our Church used to expose
the falsity of this boast by comparing the doctrine now taught
in the Church of Rome with that taught in the Church of
early times, and thus established by historical proof that a
change had occurred. But now the matter has been much
simplified ; for no laborious proof is necessary to show that
that is not unchangeable which has changed under our very
eyes. The rate of change is not like that of the hour-hand
of a watch, which you must note at some considerable in
tervals of time in order to see that there has been a move
ment, but rather like that of the second-hand, which you
can actually see moving.
The first trial of the faith of the new converts was the
definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, in
1852, when a doctrine was declared to be the universal
ancient tradition of the Church, on which eminent divines
had notoriously held different opinions, so much so, that
this diversity had been accounted for by Bishop Milner and
other controversialists by the assertion that neither Scripture
nor tradition contained anything on the subject.
The manner of that decree, intended to bind the universal
Church, was remarkable. It was not a vote of a council.
Bishops, indeed, had been previously consulted, and bishops
were assembled to hear the decision ; but the decision rested
on the authority of the Pope alone. It was correctly foreseen

n.J RECENT CHANGES IN ROMISH DOCTRINE. 2I
that what was then done was intended to establish a prece
dent. I remember then how the news came that the Pope
proposed to assemble a council, and how those who had the
best right to know predicted that this council was to ter
minate the long controversy as to the relative superiority of
popes and councils, by owning the personal infallibility of
the Pope, and so making it unnecessary that any future
council should be held. This announcement created the
greatest ferment in the Roman Catholic Church ; and those
who passed for the men of highest learning in that commu
nion, and who had been wont to be most relied on, when
learned Protestants were to be combated, opposed with all
their might the contemplated definition, as an entire innova
tion on the traditional teaching of the Church, and as abso
lutely contradicted by the facts of history. These views were
shared by Dr. Newman. His own inclinations had not fa
voured any extravagant cult of the Virgin Mary, and he was
too well acquainted with Church History not to know that
the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception was a complete
novelty, unknown to early times, and, when first put for
ward, condemned by some of the most esteemed teachers of
the Church. But when the Pope formally promulgated that
doctrine as part of the essential faith of the Church, he had
submitted in silence. When, however, it was proposed to de
clare the Pope's personal infallibility, this was a doctrine so
directly in the teeth of history, that Newman made no secret,
not only of his own disbelief of the doctrine, but also of his
persuasion that the authoritative adoption of it would be at
tended with ruinous consequences to his Church, by placing
what seemed an insuperable obstacle to any man of learning
entering her fold. He wrote in passionate alarm to an Eng
lish Roman Catholic bishop : ' Why,' he said, ' should an
insolent aggressive faction be allowed to make the heart of
the just sad, whom the Lord hath not made sorrowful? I
pray those early doctors of the Church, whose intercession
would decide the matter (Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome,
Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Basil), to avert this great ca
lamity. If it is God's will that the Pope's infallibility be

22 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
defined, then it is God's will to throw back the times and
moments of the triumph which He has destined for His king
dom ; and I shall feel that I have but to bow my head to His
inscrutable Providence.'*
Abundant proof that the new dogma had, until then, been
no part of the faith of the Church, was furnished by von
Dollinger, at the time deservedly reputed to be the most
learned man in the Roman communion, and amongst others
by two Munich professors, who, under the name of Janus,
published a work containing a mass of historical proofs of
the novelty of the proposed decree. These arguments were
urged by able bishops at the Vatican Council itself. But the
Pope carried out his project in the teeth of historical demon
stration. A few of the most learned of the protesters against
the new dogma refused to recognize the'doctrine thus defined
as that of the Catholic Church, and formed a schism, calling
themselves ' Old Catholics.' But the bulk of the people had
no inclination to trouble themselves with historical investiga
tions, and accepted, without inquiry, what their rulers were
pleased to offer them ; and a number of the eminent men,
who had not only denied the truth of the new dogma, but
had proved its falsity to the satisfaction of every reasoning
man, finding no other choice open to them, unless they aban
doned every theory as to the infallibility of the Church which
they had previously maintained, and unless they joined a
schism which, as was foreseen at the time, and as the event
proved, would be insignificant in numbers, preferred to eat
their words, and to profess faith^ in what it is difficult to
think they could in their hearts have believed to be true.
I own, the first impression produced by this history is one
of discouragement. It seems hopeless to waste research or
argument on men who have shown themselves determined
not to be convinced. What hope is there that argument of
mine can convince men who are not convinced by their own
arguments ? As long as there was a chance of saving their
Church from committing herself to a decision in the teeth of
* Letter published in the Standard, April 7, 1870. See Edinburgh Review,
cxxxiv. 145.

n.J THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 23
history, they struggled to avert the calamity ; showing by
irrefragable arguments that the early Church never regarded
the Pope to be infallible, and that different Popes had made
decisions glaringly false. But having clearly shown that
black was not white, no sooner had authority declared that it
was than they professed themselves ready to believe it.
But though it is, on the first view, disappointing that
our adversaries should withdraw themselves into a position
seemingly inaccessible to argument, it is really, as I shall
presently show, a mark of our success that they have been
driven from the open field, and forced to betake themselves
into this fortress. And we have every encouragement to
follow them, and assault their citadel, which is now their
last refuge.
In other words, it has now become more clear than ever
that the whole Roman Catholic controversy turns on the de
cision of the one question — the Infallibility of the Church.
We have just seen how the admission of this principle can
force men to surrender their most deep-rooted beliefs, which
they had maintained with the greatest heat, and to the asser
tion of which they had committed themselves most strongly.
They surrendered these beliefs solely in deference to external
authority, though themselves unable to see any flaw in the
arguments which had persuaded them of the truth of them.
And I must say that, in making this surrender, they were
better and more consistent Roman Catholics than von D61-
linger and his friends, who refused to eat their words and
turn their back on their own arguments. For all their lives
long they had condemned the exercise of private judgment,
and had insisted on the necessity of submitting to the au
thority of the Church. Now, if you accept the Church's teach
ing just so long as it agrees with what you, on other grounds,
persuade yourselves to be true, and reject it as soon as it
differs from your own judgment, that is not real submission
to the authority of the Church. You do not take a man as
a guide, though you may be travelling along a road in his
company, if you are willing to part company if he should
make a turn of which you disapprove. It matters not what

24 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
Romish doctrines the German Old Catholic party may
continue to hold. They may believe Transubstantiation,
Purgatory, Invocation of Saints, and more. But from the
moment they ventured to use their reason, and reject a
dogma propounded to them by their Church, they were really
Protestants ; they had adopted the great principle of Protes
tantism. And so, at the time of the formation of the Old
Catholic party, I expressed my fears in a lecture here that
its members would be able to find no home in the Roman
Church. My fears, I say, for I count it a thing to be re
gretted that that Church, by casting out her most learned
and most enlightened members, should lose all chance of
recovering the truth by reform from within.
If, however, there could ever be a case where men should
be constrained by a reductio ad absurdum to abandon a prin
ciple they had held, but which had been shown to lead to
consequences certainly false, it was when the men of the
Old Catholic party found that if they were to go on main
taining the infallibility of their Church, they must also assert
that she never had changed her doctrine. If, previous to the
Vatican Council, the Church of Rome had known the doc
trine of the Pope's personal infallibility to be true, she had,
somehow or another, so neglected to teach it, that though it
is a doctrine relating to the very foundation of her religious
system, her priests and bishops had been ignorant that it
was any part of her teaching. The Infallibilist party at
Rome had been obliged, at an early stage of their exertions,
to get placed on the Prohibitory Index, Bailly's work on
Theology, which had been used as a text-book at Maynooth.
Would not any Roman Catholic say that the Church of Ire
land had changed her doctrine if the text-books which you
use here were not only removed from your course, but if the
Irish bishops published a declaration that these books, in
which their predecessors had been wont to examine candi
dates for orders, contained erroneous doctrine, and were on
that account unfit to be read by our people ?
Again, the effect of the Vatican Council was to neces
sitate great changes in controversial catechisms. One might

ii. J CHANGES IN ROMISH CATECHISMS. 25
think that the clergymen who might be supposed best
acquainted with the doctrines of their Church are those
who are selected to conduct controversy with opponents.
In our Church, indeed, anyone may engage in controversy
at his own discretion, and need not necessarily be the
most learned or wisest of our body; but the controversial
catechisms of the Roman Church are only issued with the
permission of the writer's superiors, and therefore their
statements as to Roman Catholic doctrine may be supposed
to tell what the best informed members of the communion
believe that she teaches. Now, it had been a common
practice with Roman Catholic controversial writers, when
pressed with objections against the doctrine of the personal
infallibility of the Pope, to repudiate that doctrine alto
gether, and to declare it to be a Protestant misrepresen
tation to assert that it was taught by their Church.
I may afterwards have occasion to say something about
books which circulated in America, but will now mention one
to which my own attention happened to be specially drawn.
The controversial book which, thirty years ago, was most
relied on in this country was ' Keenan's Catechism,' a book
published with the imprimatur of Scotch Roman Catholic
bishops, and recommended also by Irish prelates. This
book contained the following question and answer : —
' Q. Must not Catholics believe the Pope in himself to be infallible ?
'A. This is a Protestant invention: it is no article of the Catholic faith: no
decision of his can oblige, under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by
the teaching body; that is, by the bishops of the Church.'
About 1869 or 1870 I had a visit from an English clergy
man, who, for reasons of health, resided chiefly on the Con
tinent, and, mixing much with Roman Catholics, took great
interest in the controversy which was then agitating their
Church. I showed him the question and answer in ' Keenan's
Catechism ' ; and he was so much interested by them, that he
bought some copies of the book to present to his friends
abroad. A couple of years later he visited Ireland again,
and purchased some more copies of ' Keenan ' ; but this

26 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
question and answer had then disappeared. He presented
me then with the two copies I have here. To all appearance ,
they are identical in their contents. From the title-page, as
it appears on the paper cover of each, the two books appear
to be both of the twenty-first thousand ; but when we open
the books, we find them further agreeing in the singular
feature, that there is another title-page which describes each
as of the twenty-fourth thousand. But at page 1 1 2 the ques
tion and answer which I have quoted are to be found in the
one book, and are absent from the other. It is, therefore,
impossible now to maintain that the faith of the Church of
Rome never changes, when it is notorious that there is
something which is now part of her faith which those who
had a good right to know declared was no part of her faith
twenty years ago.
I will not delay to speak of many changes in Roman
teaching consequent on the definition of Papal Infallibility ;
but you can easily understand that there are a great many
statements officially made by several Popes which, inasmuch
as they rested on papal authority alone, learned Roman
Catholics had formerly thought themselves at liberty to re
ject, but which must now be accepted as articles of faith.
But what I wish now to speak of is, that the forced confes
sion of change, at least by way of addition, in Roman teach
ing has necessitated a surrender of the principles on which
her system had formerly been defended ; and this was what
I had specially in mind when I spoke of the fortress of Infal
libility as the last refuge of a beaten army, who, when driven
from this, must fall into total rout.
The first revolt against Romanism took place when the
Bible was made easily accessible. When, by means of trans
lations printed in the vulgar languages of Europe, a know
ledge of the New Testament became general, men could not
help taking notice that the Christianity then taught by the
Church was a very different thing from that which was
preached by the Apostles, and that a host of doctrines were
taught as necessary to salvation by the modern Church, of
which, as far as we could learn from the Bible, the early

n.J THE ROMISH CHURCH AND THE BIBLE. 2J
Church knew nothing. Whether the doctrines of Romanism
can be proved from the Bible is a matter which you can
judge for yourselves ; but if there is any doubt about it, that
doubt is removed by watching the next stage of the contro
versy. The Roman Catholic advocates ceased to insist that
the doctrines of the Church could be deduced from Scripture;
but the theory of some early heretics, refuted by Irenseus, was
revived, namely, that the Bible does not contain the whole
of God's revelation, and that a body of traditional doctrine
existed in the Church equally deserving of veneration.
At this time, however, all parties were agreed that through
our Lord and His Apostles a revelation unique in the his
tory of the world had been made to mankind. All parties
imagined that it was the truths then made known, neither
more nor less, that the Church was to preserve and teach.
All parties agreed that the Holy Scriptures might be im
plicitly depended on as an inspired record of these truths.
The main difference was as to how far the Bible record of
them could be regarded as complete. Things were taught
and practised in the Roman Church for which the Bible fur
nished no adequate justification ; and the Roman advocates
insisted that, though the Bible contained truth, it did not
contain the whole truth, and that the Church was able, by
her traditions, to supplement the deficiencies of Scripture,
having in those traditions a secure record of apostolic teach
ing on many points on which the Bible contained only
obscure indications, or even gave no information at all.
This Roman assertion might be met in two ways. Many,.
probably the majority, of the Protestants refused to listen at
all to doctrines said to be binding on their faith, and not
asserted to be taught in Scripture ; and we shall afterwards
see that they had the sanction of several of the most eminent
Fathers for thinking that what was asserted without the
authority of Holy Scripture might be ' despised as freely as
approved.'* But there were champions of our Church who
met the Roman case in another way. They declared that, as
they had been convinced by historical proof that the books
* Hieron. in Matt, xxiii.

28 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [ii.
of the New Testament were written by Apostles or apos
tolical men, so they had no objection to examine whether
similar historic proof could be given of the apostolic origin
of any of the peculiar doctrines of Romanism.
Bellarmine, indeed, had given as one of his rules for
knowing whether or not the proof of a Church doctrine
rested on tradition,* that if a doctrine taught by the Church
could not be proved by Scripture, it must be proved by tra
dition ; for the Church could not teach wrong ; and so the
¦doctrine must be proved either in the one way or the other.
But it would be too much to expect from us that we should
admit a failure of Scripture proof in itself to constitute a
proof by tradition. We have a right to ask, If the Church
learned that doctrine by tradition, where has that tradition
been recorded ? Who are the ancient authors that mention
it ? If the thing has been handed down from the Apostles,
the Church of the first centuries must have believed or prac
tised it : let us inquire, as we should in the case of any other
historical question, whether she did or not.
Bishop Jewel, in his celebrated challenge, enumerated
twenty-seven points of the Roman Catholic teaching of his
day, and declared that if any learned man of our adversaries,
or all the learned men that be alive, were able to bring any one
sufficient sentence out of any old Catholic Doctor or Father,
or General Council, or Holy Scripture, or any one example
in the Primitive Church, whereby it might be clearly and
plainly proved that any of them was taught for the first 600
years, then he would be content to yield and subscribe. Not,
of course, that Jewel meant that a single instance of a doc
trine being taught during the first six centuries was enough
to establish its truth, but he meant to express his strong con
viction that in the case of the twenty-seven doctrines he
enumerated no such instance could be produced.
I do not wonder that many Protestants looked on this
historic method as a very perilous way of meeting the claims
of Romanism. In the first place, it deserted the ground of
Scripture, on which they felt sure of victory, for that of his-
* De verbo Dei, iv. 9.

ii. J THE ROMISH CHURCH AND THE FATHERS. 29.
tory, on which success might be doubtful ; and, in the second
place, it needed no learned apparatus to embark on the Scrip
ture controversy. Any intelligent layman might satisfy him
self what amount of recognition was given to a doctrine in
the Bible ; but the battle on the field of history could only be-
fought by learned men, and would go on out of sight of or
dinary members of the Church, who would be quite incom
petent to tell which way the victory had gone.
When two opposing generals meet in battle, and both send
home bulletins of victory, and Te Deums are sung in churches-
on both sides, we, who sit at home, may find it hard to un
derstand which way the battle has gone. But if we look at
the map, and see where the next battle is fought, and if we
find that one general is making ' for strategic reasons ' a con
stant succession of movements towards the rear, and that he
¦ ends by completely evacuating the country he at first un
dertook to defend, then we may suspect that his glorious-
victories were perhaps not quite so brilliant as he had repre
sented them to be. And so, when the Church of England.
champions left the plain ground of Scripture, and proceeded
to interchange quotations from the Fathers, plain men, out
of whose sight the battle now went, might be excused for
apprehension as to the results, themselves being scarcely
competent to judge of the force of the passages quoted on
each side. But when they find that the heads of the Roman
Catholic Church now think it as great a heresy to appeal to
antiquity, as to appeal to Scripture, they have cause for sur
mising which way the victory has gone.
The first strategic movement towards the rear was the-
doctrine of development, which has seriously modified the
old theory of tradition. When Dr. Newman became a Roman
Catholic, it was necessary for him in some way to reconcile
this step with the proofs he had previously given that cer
tain distinctive Romish doctrines were unknown to the early
Church. The historical arguments he had advanced in his
Anglican days were incapable of refutation even by himself.
But it being hopeless to maintain that the present teaching-
of Roman Catholics is identical with the doctrine held in the

3o THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
primitive Church, he set himself to show that though not the
same, it was a great deal better. This is the object of the cele
brated Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which
lie published simultaneously with his submission to the Ro
man Church. The theory expounded in it in substance is,
that Christ had but committed to His Church certain seeds
and germs of truth, destined afterwards to expand to definite
forms : consequently, that our Lord did not intend that the
teaching of His Church should be always the same ; but or
dained that it should go on continually improving under the
guidance of His Holy Spirit. This theory was not altogether
new. Not to speak of earlier anticipations of it, it had been
maintained, not many years previously, by the German di
vine, Mohler, in his work called Symbolik ; and this mode of
-defending the Roman system had been adopted in the theo
logical lectures of Perrone, Professor in the Jesuit College at
Rome. But Newman's book had the effect of making the
theory popular to an extent it had never been before, and of
causing its general adoption by Romish advocates, who are
now content to exchange tradition, which their predecessors
had made the basis of their system, for this new foundation
of development. You will find them now making shameless
confession of the novelty of articles of their creed, and even
taunting us Anglicans with the unprogressive character of
our faith, because we are content to believe as the early
Church believed, and as our fathers believed before us.
In a subsequent lecture I mean to discuss this theory of
development : I only mention it now because the starting of
this theory exhibits plainly the total rout which the cham
pions of the Roman Church experienced in the battle they
attempted to fight on the field of history. The theory of
development is, in short, an attempt to enable men, beaten
off the platform of history, to hang on to it by the eyelids.
Suppose, for instance, we have made a strong proof that some
doctrine or practice of modern Romanism was unknown to
the primitive Church, we might still find it difficult to show
that this general proposition of ours admitted of absolutely
110 exception. Did no one ever in the first centuries teach or

n. j THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 3 T
practise the thing in dispute ? or, if not absolutely the same
thing, something like it ? something only to be defended on
the same principles, or which, if pushed to its logical conse
quences, might justify the present state of things ? Then the
argument is applied, Any practice which was tolerated in the
first age of the Church cannot be absolutely wrong, and
though it may have been in those days exceptional, still the
Church may, for reason that seems to her good, make it her
general rule now. And a doctrinal principle once acknow
ledged, though it may be without its full import being known,
must now be accepted with all the logical consequences that
can be shown to be involved in it.
Thus, to take an example of a practice : it is not denied
that the refusal of the cup to the laity is absolutely opposed
to the custom of the Church for centuries ; but it is thought to
be sufficient justification of Roman usage if we are unable to
prove that in the early ages absolutely no such thing ever
occurred as communion in one element without the other.
Or, to take an example of a doctrine, we inquire whether the
Church of the first three centuries thought it necessary to
seek for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, or thought it
right to pay her the extravagant honours which Roman
Catholics now have no scruple in bestowing on her. There
is no pretence of answering these questions in the affirma
tive. It is thought reply enough to ask in return, Did not
the ancient Church teach the fact of the intimate relation
that existed between the blessed Virgin and the human
nature of our Lord ? Surely yes, we confess, we acknow
ledge that ourselves. Then, it is urged, the later Church is
entitled to draw out by legitimate inference all that it can
discover as to the privileges which that intimate relation
must needs have conferred, even though the earlier Church
had been blind to them.
When Dr. Newman's book appeared, I looked with much
curiosity to see whether the heads of the Church to which he
was joining himself would accept the defence made by their
new convert, the book having been written before he had
yet joined them. For, however great the ingenuity of this

32 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
defence, and whatever important elements of truth it might
contain, it seemed to be plainly a complete abandonment of
the old traditional theory of the advocates of Rome.
The old theory was that the teaching of the Church had
never varied. Scripture proof of the identity of her teaching
in all ages might fail ; but tradition could not fail to prove
that what the Church teaches now she had also taught from
the beginning. Thus, for example, the Council of Trent,
in the celebrated decree passed in its fourth Session, in
which it laid the foundation of its whole method of pro
ceeding, clearly taught that all saving truth and moral
discipline had been delivered either by the mouth of Christ
Himself, or by His inspired Apostles, and had since been
handed down either in the Scriptures, or in continuous
unwritten tradition ; and the Council, in particular decrees
passed subsequently, claimed for its teaching to have been
what the Church had always taught.* No phrase has been
more often on the lips of Roman controversialists than that
which described the faith of the Church as what was held
' everywhere, always, and by all.'f Bishop Milner, in his
well-known work, of which I shall have more to say in an
other lecture, The End of Religious Controversy, writes : ' It is
a fundamental maxim never to admit any tenet but such as
is believed by all the bishops, and was believed by their
predecessors up to the Apostles themselves.' ' The constant
language of the Church is nil innovetur, nil nisi quod tra-
ditum est. Such and such is the"sense of |Scripture, such and
such is the doctrine of her predecessors, the Pastors of the
Church, since the time of the Apostles.' Dr. Wiseman said :
' We believe that no new doctrine [can be introduced into the
Church, but that every doctrine which we hold has existed
and been taught in it ever since the time of the Apostles,
having been handed down by them to their successors.^
It is worth while to call attention to another point in the
* So for example in the decree concerning matrimony (Sess. xxiv.), ' Sancti patres-
nostri, et concilia, et universalis ecclesise traditio semper docuerunt.'
t Vincent. Lirin. Commonitorium, c. 3.
% Wiseman, Moorfield Lectures, i. 60. London : 1847.

n. J ROME AND THE FATHERS. 33
decree of the Council of Trent to which I referred just now 
namely, the value it attached to the consent of the Fathers as
a decisive authority in the interpretation of Scripture. The
veneration for the Fathers so solemnly expressed at Trent
has been handed down as an essential part of popular Ro
manism. Let the most unlearned Romanist and an equally
unlearned Protestant get into a discussion, and let the
Fathers be mentioned, and you may probably hear their
authority treated with contempt by the Protestant, but as
suredly it will be treated as decisive by the Romanist. Now,
this making the authority of the Fathers the rule and mea
sure of our judgment is absolutely inconsistent with the
theory of Development. In every progressive science the
latest authority is the best. Take mathematics, which is in
its nature as immutable as any theory can represent theology
to be, and in which what has once been proved to be true
can never afterwards come into question ; yet even there the
older authors are only looked into as a matter of curiosity, to
illustrate the history of the progress of the science, but have
no weight as authorities. We study the science from modern
books, which contain everything of value that the older
writers discovered — possibly may correct some mistakes of
theirs, but certainly will contain much of which they were
ignorant. And, in like manner, anyone who holds the theory
of Development ought, in consistency, to put the writings of
the Fathers on the shelf as antiquated and obsolete. Their
teaching, judged by the standard of the present day, must
certainly be defective, and might even be erroneous. In
point of fact, there is scarcely one of the Fathers whQ does
not occasionally come into collision with modern Roman
teaching, and for whom it is not necessary to find apologies.
A good deal of controversial triumph took place when, by
the publication of certain expurgatorial indices, it was brought
to light that the Roman authorities regarded certain genuine
dicta of early Fathers as erroneous, and as needing correction.
But if the Development theory be true, it is only proper that
the inaccuracies of the time when Church teaching was imma
ture should be corrected by the light of fuller know^e^^^^
D

34 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [ii.
follows that the traditional veneration of the Fathers in the
Roman Church is a witness of the novelty of the theory of
Development. But, more than a century before Dr. Newman's time, the
theory of Development had played its part in the Roman
Catholic controversy ; only then it was the Protestant com
batant who brought that theory forward, and the Roman,
Catholic who repudiated it. I shall have occasion in another
lecture to speak of the controversial work published by
Bossuet, who was accounted the most formidable champion
of the Church of Rome towards the end of the seventeenth
century. The thesis of his book called History of the Varia
tions of the Protestant Churches was that the doctrine of the
true Church is always the same, whereas Protestants are at
variance with each other and with themselves. Bossuet was
replied to by a Calvinist minister named Jurieu. The line
Jurieu took was to dispute the assertion that the doctrine of
the true Church is always the same. He maintained the
doctrine of Development in its full extent, asserting that the
truth of God was only known by instalments [par parcelles),
that the theology of the Fathers was imperfect and fluc
tuating, and that Christian theology has been constantly
going on towards perfection. He illustrated his theory by
examples of important doctrines, concerning which he al
leged the teaching of the early Church to have been defective
or uncertain, of which it is enough here to quote that he
declared that the mystery of the Trinity, though of the last
importance, and essential to Christianity, remained, ' as
everyone knows,' undeveloped [informe) down to the first
Council of Nicaea, and even down to that of Constantinople.
Bossuet, in replying, had the embarrassment, if he felt it as
such, that a learned divine of his own Church and nation— the
Jesuit Petau, whose name is better known under its Latinized
form, Petavius— had, in his zeal to make Church authority the
basis of all religious knowledge, made very similar assertions
concerning the immaturity of the teaching of the early
Fathers. Plainly, if Jurieu could establish his case, the
whole foundation of Bossuet's great controversial work would

ii. J BOSSUET AND JURIEU.

35

be swept away. It would be impossible to taunt Protestants
because their teaching had not been always the same, if it
must be confessed that the same thing must be said of the
Church in every age. But it would be unjust to imagine that
Bossuet was actuated merely by controversial ardour in the
indignant and passionate outcry which he raised against
Jurieu's theory, or to doubt that that theory was deeply
painful and shocking to him on account of its aspersion on
the faith of the early Church. He declared the statement
that the mystery of the Trinity remained undeveloped down
to the Council of Nicaea to be a horrible libel {fletrissure) on
Christianity, to be language which could only have been
expected from the mouth of a Socinian. He appealed to the
contemporary work of our own divine, Bishop Bull {Defensio
Fidei Nicenae), in which the doctrine of Nicaea was estab
lished by the testimony of ante-Nicene Fathers, a work for
which Bossuet had communicated the thanks of himself and
his clergy. He declared it to be the greatest of errors to
imagine that the faith of the Church only developed itself as
heresies arose, and as she made explicit decisions concerning
them. And he reiterated his own thesis, that the faith of the
Church, as being a Divine work, had its perfection from the
first, and had never varied ; and that the Church never pro
nounced any judgments, except by way of propounding the
faith of the past.* The name of Bossuet is, for reasons of
which I shall speak on another day, not popular with the
Ultramontane party now dominant in the Roman Church ;
but there is no doubt that, in his day, he was not only the
accredited champion of that Church, but the most successful
in gaining converts from Protestantism. It seems, then, a very
serious matter if the leading authorities in the Roman Church
have now to own that, in the main point at issue between
Bossuet and Jurieu, the Calvinist minister was in the right,
and their own champion in the wrong.
Now, in Newman's Essay on Development, everything that
had been said by Jurieu or by Petavius as to the immaturity
* The statements in the text are taken from Bossuet's Premier avertissement aux
Protestants.
D 2

36 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
of the teaching of the early. Fathers is said again, and said
more strongly. He begins by owning the unserviceableness
of St. Vincent's maxim: 'Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
omnibus.' He confesses that it is impossible by means of
that maxim (unless, indeed, a very forced interpretation be
put upon it) to establish the articles of Pope Pius's creed ; in
other words, impossible to show that these articles were any
part of the faith of the early Church. But he urges that the
same thing may be said of the Athanasian Creed, and he
proceeds to try to pick holes in the proofs Bishop Bull had
given of the orthodoxy of the ante-Nicene Fathers. So he
declares that we need some new hypothesis for the defence of
the Athanasian Creed, for which purpose he offers his theory
of Development ; and then he says that we must not com
plain if the same defence proves to be equally good for the
creed of Pope Pius.
I can remember my own astonishment at this line of de
fence, and my wonder how it would be accepted by Roman
Catholic authorities. There appeared to be signs that' it
would be received with disfavour ; for Brownson's Quarterly
Review, the leading organ of American Romanism, published
a series of articles severely criticizing the book, as abandon
ing the ground on which Roman doctrine had previously
been defended, giving up, as it did, the principles that the
Church taught nothing but what had been revealed, and that
the revelation committed to the Church had been perfect
from the first.
But when I was simple enough to expect that Roman
Catholic divines generally would thus repudiate a work in
consistent with what their teachers had constantly main
tained, I failed to notice what a temptation Newman offered
by freeing the defenders of Romanism at once from a multi
tude of controversies in which they felt they were getting the
worst. He evacuated all the difficult posts which they had
been struggling to maintain, and promised that the captors
should gain nothing by taking them, for that he had built
inside them an impregnable wall of defence. Just imagine
what a comfort it must have been to a poor Roman Catholic

n. J THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT. 37
divine who had been making a despairing struggle to refute,
let us say, the Protestant assertion that the Church of the
first three centuries knew nothing of the Invocation of the
Blessed Virgin, to be told that he need have no scruple in
granting all that his opponents had asserted. Dr. Newman
himself, disclaiming the doctrine that the Invocation of the
Virgin is necessary to salvation, says [Letter to Pusey, p. 1 1 1) :
' If it were so, there would be grave reasons for doubting of
the salvation of St. Chrysostom or St. Athanasius, or of the
primitive martyrs. Nay, I should like to know whether St.
Augustine, in all his voluminous writings, invokes her once.'
But he holds (p. 63) that, though ' we have no proof that
Athanasius himself had any special devotion to the Blessed
Virgin,' yet, by teaching the doctrine of our Lord's Incarna
tion, ' he laid the foundations on which that devotion was to
rest.' Similarly, if perplexed by troublesome proofs that early
Fathers were ignorant of the doctrine of purgatorial fire, or of
the religious use of images, or of the supremacy of the Pope,
what a comfort to be told, You may safely answer, ' Quite
true : these doctrines had not been revealed to the conscious
ness of the Church of that age' ; — nay, to be told that he need
not quarrel with Arian representations of the doctrine of the
ante-Nicene Fathers, but might say, ' Quite true : the Church
did not learn to speak accurately on this subject until after
the Council of Nicaea.' The enlightened Roman Catholic of
the new school may take the same view that a dispassionate
infidel might have taken about the controversy which An
glicans and old-school Roman Catholics had been waging as
to which of them held the doctrines originally revealed by
Christ and taught by His Apostles. An infidel might say,
' Neither of you. The doctrines taught by Jesus of Nazareth
have been since incorporated with a number of elements
derived from different sources, and the Christianity of the
first century is not like what is taught by anyone in the
nineteenth.' Thus, you will see that the doctrine of Development con
cedes not only all that a Protestant, but even all that an

38 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
infidel might ask. I purpose, in a subsequent lecture, to say
something more in reference to this doctrine. At present
my main object has been to show the primary importance of
the question of Infallibility, which has really swallowed up
all other controversies. It is inevitable, indeed, that other
branches of the controversy should have a tendency to die
out when a candid Roman Catholic is forced to concede
what his opponents assert. An unlearned Protestant per
ceives that the doctrine of Rome is not the doctrine of the
Bible. A learned Protestant adds that neither is it the doc
trine of the primitive Church. These assertions are no longer
denied, as in former days. Putting the concessions made us
at the lowest, it is at least owned that the doctrine of Rome
is as unlike that of early times as an oak is unlike an acorn,
or a [butterfly unlike a caterpillar. The unlikeness is ad
mitted : and the only question remaining is whether that
unlikeness is absolutely inconsistent with substantial iden
tity. In other words, it is owned that there has been a
change, and the question is whether we are to call it develop
ment or corruption.
But you must carefully observe that the doctrine of Deve
lopment would be fatal to the Roman Catholic cause if sepa
rated from the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Church.
Without the latter doctrine the former, as I have already
pointed out, leads to Protestantism or to infidelity rather than
Romanism. In fact, the motto of the doctrine of Development
is traripiDv fxif afidvovtg tvxofitO' sivai — 'We are much wiser
men than our fathers.' Well, surely, in many respects that is
the case. Why, then, may not Protestants claim a right to
revise erroneous decisions made in days when learning was
asleep and science did not exist ? Submission to the supre
macy of Rome in Europe was mainly brought about by the
circulation of documents which no one now pretends to be
genuine. Why should not an age learned enough to detect
these forgeries reject also the doctrine which was founded on
them ? Or, take another Roman doctrine, that of Transub-
stantiation. It was built up in the middle ages, and founded
on a scholastic theory of substance and accidents which

ii.] PROTESTANT AND ROMAN DEVELOPMENTS. 39
modern philosophy rejects. Why is the building to remain,
when its foundation is discovered to be rotten ? So much
for the doctrine of Development in Protestant hands ; while,
in infidel, it leads to the improving away of religion alto
gether. We, being wiser men than our fathers, can dispense
with superstitions that amused them.
And against Protestants, at least, Romanists gain nothing
by appealing to God's promises to be ever with His Church,
and to give His Spirit to guide it into truth, and thence
inferring that such as His Church is, such her Founder in
tended it to become. But this principle, ' Whatever is is
right,' has to encounter the difficulty that Protestantism is :
Why should not it be right ? Was it only in Rome that
Christianity was to develop itself? Was it not also to do so
in Germany and England ? Has God's Holy Spirit only a
local operation, and is it to be supposed that He had no
influence in bringing about the form in which Christ's re
ligion has shaped itself here ? May it not be supposed, for
example, that He wisely ordained that the constitution of
His Church should receive modifications to adapt it to the
changing exigencies of society ; that, in times when no
form of government but monarchy was to be seen anywhere,
it was necessary, if His Church was to make head success
fully against the prevalent reign of brute force, that all its
powers should be concentrated in a single hand; but that
when, with the general spread of knowledge, men refused to
give unreasoning submission to authority, and claimed the
right to exercise some judgment of their own in the conduct
of their affairs, the constitution of the Church needed to be
altered in order to bring it into harmony with the political
structure of modern society ?
The fact is, that the doctrine of Development has to en
counter a great historical difficulty, which it can only remove
by an enormous assumption. The doctrine is, that Christ's
original revelation contained seeds and germs of truths
destined, under the Divine guidance, to expand to a cer
tain definite form. If this be true, that expansion would
take place wherever these germs were planted. It does not

40

THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.

depend on where a tree is planted, whether it springs up a
cedar or a bramble-bush, or whether it brings forth figs or
grapes. How is it, then, that all over the East that doctrine
which is the cardinal one of modern Romanism — the neces
sity of union with the Chair of Peter — never made its appear
ance ; nay, that the direct opposite was held ? And what
reason can be given for excluding from the list of divinely-
intended developments those which we Protestants have
made — as, for instance, the importance which we attach to
the exercise of private judgment, to the individual study of
Holy Scripture, to the right of each to approach the Throne
of Grace without any human mediator ? May it not be said
that it was the vitality which the teaching of the Holy Spirit
gave to the last doctrine, which has rescued Christianity from
assuming the form of some heathen superstitions, in which a
certain caste of men was imagined to understand the art of
conciliating the favour of the gods ; to] whose mediation,
therefore, the ordinary worshipper was to address himself,
religion being a matter which only his priests understood,
and which required no intellectual co-operation of his own ?
If we compare Protestant with Roman Catholic develop
ments, we find, further, that Protestant developments are of
such a nature as to be made only in the fulness of time,
as the human intellect developed itself, and as science and
learning grew. There is no shame in a Church acknowledg
ing herself to grow wiser with years, in such matters as these.
If the Church of Rome, for instance, were now wise enough
to expel the text of the Three heavenly Witnesses from her
Vulgate, she could say in her defence that the science of
Biblical criticism was more advanced now than in the days
when this text was admitted. But, by what means are we to
suppose that the Roman Church acquired a knowledge of
historical facts concerning which there is no historical tradi
tion ? How has she come to be wiser now than the Church
of former ages, concerning the way in which the Blessed
Virgin was conceived 1 900 years ago, or concerning the re
moval of her body to heaven ? If there had been any histori
cal tradition on these subjects, the Church would always

ii. J THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT SUPERSEDED. 41
have known it. And is it likely that God has interfered to
make any special revelation on these subjects now, if He
saw there was no inconvenience in leaving His Church for
so many centuries without authentic information on such
points ?
However, without further arguing the point whether Pro
testant or Roman developments are the best, it is evident
that the doctrine of Development is a many-edged weapon.
There are Eastern developments and Western ones, Protestant
and Romish, even infidel developments : which is the right
one ? The Romanist answers, The Church of Rome is infal
lible; she alone has been commissioned to develop doctrine
the right way ; all other developments are wrong. Let the
Romanist prove that, and he may use the doctrine of De
velopment, if he then cares to do so ; but it is quite plain
that without the doctrine of Roman , Infallibility, the doc
trine of Development is perfectly useless to a Romish
advocate. But with the doctrine of Infallibility once proved, or
supposed to be so, the doctrine of Development becomes
needless ; and Cardinal Manning, in particular, has quite
got beyond it. In my own time the aspect of Romanism
has changed so rapidly that this theory of Development, so
fashionable thirty years ago, has now dropped into the back
ground. It was wanted while the Roman Catholic divines
were attempting to make some kind of battle on the field of
history. In those days it was still attempted to be maintained
that the teaching of the Church of the present day agrees with
that of the Church of early times : not indeed in form, but at
least in suchwise that the former contains the germ of the
latter. Now, the idea of testing the teaching of the Church of
the present day, by comparison either with Scripture or an
tiquity, is completely abandoned. Cardinal Manning has
profited by Plutarch's story, that when Pericles was puzzling
himself what account of his expenditure he should give the
Athenian people, he got the advice from Alcibiades that it
would be wiser of him to study how he could avoid giving any
account at all. The most thoroughgoing and most ignorant

42 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
Protestant cannot show greater indifference to the opinions
of the Fathers than does Cardinal Manning. If Dr. Manning
were asked whether St. Cyprian held the doctrine of the
Pope's Supremacy, he might answer much in the same way
that, as the story goes, Mr. Spurgeon answered, when asked
whetherJSt. Cyprian held the doctrine of Justification by
Faith. Either might say, ' I don't know, and I don't much
care ; but, for his own sake, I hope he did ; for if he didn't,
so much the worse for him.' According to Manning, it is a
matter of unimportance how the Church is to be reconciled
with Scripture or antiquity, when once you understand that
the Church is the living voice of the same Being who in
spired Scripture, and who taught the ancient Church. To
look for one's creed in Scripture and antiquity is, to Manning,
as great a heresy as to look for it in Scripture alone. Either
course makes the individual the judge or critic of Revelation.
The appeal to antiquity, says Manning, is both a treason and
a heresy. It is a treason, because it rejects the Divine voice
of the Church at this hour; and a heresy, because it denies
that voice to be divine.* According to Manning's theory, it
is our duty to accept implicitly whatever the present Church
teaches, and to be sure that, however opposed this may seem
to what we find in Scripture or antiquity, we need not trouble
ourselves about the matter, and that the opposition can only
be apparent. According to this theory, then, all the prero
gatives of Scripture are annulled : the dicta of Pius IX. and
Leo XIII. are as truly inspired by God's Spirit, and are to
be received with as much reverence, as the utterances of
Peter and Paul. Thus the function of the Church, in the
latest form of Romanism, is made to be not so much to guard
and hand down securely an original revelation as to be a
perpetual organ for making new revelations. Whenever a
new controversy arises, the Pope is divinely inspired to dis
cern its true solution, and to pronounce which of the parties
is in the right, and how far. In this way Manning's party
have now got beyond the old Ultramontane doctrine of the
* Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, p. 226 : see also pp. 28, 203.

INFIDEL TENDENCY OF INFALLIBILIST ARGUMENTS. 4*
inerrancy of the Pope. This doctrine has been changed into
that of his divine perpetual inspiration, giving him a power
of disclosing new truths as infallibly as Peter and Paul.
Dr. Pusey called this theory a kind of Llamaism, implying,.
as it does, a kind of hypostatic union of the Holy Ghost with
each successive Pope.
I think I have made good my assertion, that the present
Roman Catholic position is one taken up in desperation by
men who have been driven from every other. And I will
add that they have taken it up with immense loss ; for the
few whom they have gained from us do not make up for
the larger numbers, both in our communion and their own,
whom they have driven into infidelity. In their assaults on
Protestantism they have freely made use of infidel arguments.
Their method has been that of some so-called Professors of
biology : first to bewilder and stupefy their patients, that they
may be ready to believe anything, and do anything, their
mesmerizer tells them. And it has happened that men who-
have been thus driven to the verge of infidelity, when they
saw that abyss yawning before them, have eagerly clutched
at the only hand which they believed had power to save them
from it. But for one convert made in this way, many have
been spoiled in the making; many, when offered the choice —
Ultramontanism or Infidelity — have taken the latter alterna
tive. It is a very short way from the doctrine that Pius IX.
and Leo XIII. were as much inspired as Peter and Paul, tc-
the doctrine that Peter and Paul were no more inspired than.
Pius or Leo.
According to the theory of our Church, the appearance of
Christ, and the founding of His Church, of which He made
the Apostles the first earthly heads, were unique events in
the world's history. No argument can be drawn from the
uniformity of nature against the possibility that miracles-
may have attended these events, because the uniformity of
nature only assures us that in like circumstances like results
will take place; and here the circumstances are asserted to be
wholly unlike what has occurred at any other time. But the
case is otherwise if it is implicitly denied that there was-

44 THE QUESTION A VITAL ONE. [n.
anything exceptional in the mission of the Apostles. If their
divine commission was the same in kind as that which the
Pope enjoys now, we must measure what is told of them by
what our experience tells us of the Pope now. And, con
versely, if we believe that they really did authenticate the
message which they delivered, by exhibitions of miraculous
power, we have a right to demand that the Pope, if he claims
to be the organ of divine revelations, as they were, should
heal the sick, and raise the dead, as they did.
It would be too late to-day to commence the discussion
of the question of the Infallibility of the Church. I content
myself for to-day with having shown that this is, in fact, the
pivot of the whole controversy, on which everything turns,
defeat on which would make all other victories useless ; and,
conversely, that a man who ceases to hold it ceases to be
really a Roman Catholic.
In conclusion, I have to warn you that, although the
reasons I have given justify me in devoting this Term's
Lectures to the question of Infallibility, to the exclusion
of several important subjects, yet you cannot safely neglect
these other subjects ; for, though the controversy has been
simplified for the Roman Catholic, it is not so for you. The
Romish champions, beaten out of the open field, have shut
themselves up in this fortress of Infallibility, where, as long
as their citadel remains untaken, they can defy all assaults.
Confute them by any arguments you please, and they can
still reply, ' The Church has said otherwise,' and there is an
end of the matter. But, though the Roman Catholic has
thus shut himself up in a fortress, he can at any moment
sally out on you, if he thinks he can do it with success. He
will for the moment waive the question whether the Pope
xould decide wrongly, and will undertake to show that deci
sions of his which had been controverted were, in point of
fact, right. Every victory a Roman Catholic can gain over
you on particular points of controversy strengthens his faith
in the attribute of Infallibility, his Church's claim to which
.seems to be verified by fact. On the other hand, if he is
beaten back into his fortress every sally he makes, if he

n. J PARTICULAR POINTS OF CONTROVERSY. 45.
finds it a task of ever-increasing difficulty to reconcile with
Scripture and with history the actual decisions of this guide
who is warranted never to go wrong, so heavy a strain is
put on his faith in the reality of this gift, that this faith is
not unlikely to give way. The almost invariable history of
conversions or re-conversions from Romanism is that doubt
has arisen as to the truth of some particular point of Roman
Catholic doctrine (very often not by any means the most im
portant point), and then, as the evidence of the falsity of this
particular doctrine becomes more and more clear, the inquirer
goes on to examine whether the arguments for Infallibility
are strong enough to bear the strain laid on them. In fact,,
a tract on any point of Roman teaching may be regarded as
an argument on the question of Infallibility. Clearly, there
could be no more decisive proof that the Church of Rome can
err, than if you could show that she has erred. If a Roman
Catholic will discuss any point of doctrine with you, he is
really putting the Infallibility of his Church on its trial.
And, consequently, a thoroughgoing Infallibilist, like Man
ning, is consistently a foe to all candid historical investiga
tion, as being really irreconcileable with faith in the Church's
authority.

III.

THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE.
ON the last day I dwelt sufficiently on the vital importance
in the Roman Catholic controversy of the question of
the Infallibility of the Church. To-day it is our business to
examine what proof of that doctrine can be offered. But
there is a preliminary question whether it is in the nature of
things possible that any proof can be given.
The craving for an infallible guide arises from men's
consciousness of the weakness of their understanding-. In
temporal matters we are constrained to act on our own judg
ment. When we have important decisions to make, we often
feel ourselves in great doubt and perplexity, and sometimes
the decision we ultimately make turns out to be wrong, and
we have to pay the penalty in loss or other suffering. A loss,
however, affecting only our temporal interests maybe borne;
but it seems intolerable to men that, when their eternal in
terests are at stake, any doubt or uncertainty should attend
their decisions, and they look out for some guide who may
be able to tell them, with infallible certainty, which is the
right way. And yet it is easy to show that it is in the nature
of things impossible to give men absolute security against
error in any other way than by their being themselves made
infallible ; and I shall hereafter show you that when men
profess faith in the Church's infallibility, they are, in real
truth, professing faith in their own.
It is common with Roman Catholics to speak as if the
use of private judgment and the infallibility of the Church
were things opposed to each other. They are fond of con
trasting the peace, and certainty, and assurance of him whose

BELIEF MUST REST ON AN ACT OF OUR JUDGMENT. 47
faith rests on the rock of an infallible Church, with the un
certainty of him whose belief rests only on the shifting sands
of his own fallible judgment. But it must be remembered
that our belief must, in the end, rest on an act of our own
judgment, and can never attain any higher certainty than
whatever that may be able to give us. We may talk about
the right of private judgment, or the duty of private judg
ment, but a more important thing to insist on is the necessity
of private judgment. We have the choice whether we shall
exercise our private judgment in one act or in a great many ;
but exercise it in one way or another we must. We may
either apply our private judgment separately to the different
¦questions in controversy — Purgatory, Transubstantiation, In
vocation of Saints, and so forth — and come to /our own con
clusion on each ; or we may apply our private judgment to
the question whether the Church of Rome is infallible, and,
if we decide that it is, take all our religious opinions thence
forward on trust from her. But it is clear that our certainty
that any of the things she teaches us is right cannot be
greater than whatever certainty we have that our private
judgment has decided the question rightly whether we ought
to submit unreservedly to her teaching ; and it will appear,
before we have done, that this is at least as difficult a
question as any in the controversy.
That submission to the Church of Rome rests ultimately
on an act of private judgment is unmistakeably evident,
when a Romanist tries (as he has no scruple in doing) to make
a convert of you or any other member of our Church. What
does he then ask you to do but to decide that the religion of
your fathers is wrong; that the teachers and instructors of
your childhood were all wrong ; that the clergy to whom you
have looked up as best able to guide you are all mistaken,
and have been leading you in a way which must end in your
•eternal destruction ? Well, if you come to the conclusion to
reject all the authority which you have reverenced from your
childhood, is not that a most audacious exercise of private
judgment ? But suppose you come to the opposite conclu
sion, and decide on staying where you were, would not a

48 THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
Romanist have a right to laugh at you, if you said that you
were not using your private judgment then ; that to change
one's religion indeed is an act of private judgment, but that
one who continues in his father's religion is subject to none
of the risks to which every exercise of private judgment is
liable ? Well, it is absurd to imagine that logic has one rule
for Roman Catholics and another for us ; that it would be
an exercise of private judgment in them to change their
religion, but none if they continue in what their religious
teachers have told them. An act of our judgment must be
the ultimate foundation of all our beliefs.
The case is the same as if an inexperienced woman now
finds herself the inheritor of a landed estate. She may feel
herself quite incompetent to decide on all the questions of deal
ing with tenants that must now arise, and she may very wisely
entrust the management of her affairs to an agent or attorney.
But it would be a delusion to imagine that she thereby es
capes risk or responsibility. She has to exercise her judg
ment in the choice of an agent, and according as she has
made that decision wisely or not, her affairs prosper, or the
reverse. A blind man does well in getting someone to lead
him ; but if he chooses a blind man to lead him, both fall
into the ditch. And so in matters of religion. The most
irreligious man, who resolves to neglect the whole subject,
and never trouble his head about any religious question,
surely by that resolve, whether formally or informally made,
incurs a most serious responsibility. In like manner, neither
does the man escape responsibility who equally puts the con
sideration of religious problems from his mind, because he is
content to surrender his judgment to the guidance of some
one else whom he believes to be wiser than himself. I do
not see how a Roman Catholic advocate can help yielding
the point that a member of his Church does, in truth, exer
cise private judgment, once for all, in his decision to submit
to the teaching of the Church.
But he might probably argue that the illustration I have
used shows that this is the very wisest way to exercise pri
vate judgment. The lady of my illustration surely does the

m.J HOW TO USE PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 4g
wisest thing, if she attempts no other way of dealing with
her estate, than, after taking the best advice she can get, en
trusting herself to a good agent. Do we not in every depart
ment of conduct submit our own judgment to that of skilled
persons ? If we are sick, or if a member of our family is so,
we do not try to study the case out of medical books ; we
call in a physician of repute, and submit implicitly to his
directions. If we go to sea, we leave the navigation of the
vessel in the hands of the captain. If we have a difficult
lawsuit, we do not try to conduct it ourselves ; we take legal
advice, and permit our adviser to determine our course of
action. Why should we think that the problems of religion
are so simple, that skilled and unskilled persons are on a
par, and that this is the only subject in the world in which
a man is to be ashamed to submit his judgment to that of
those who are wiser than himself?
This is by no means an uncommon line of argument
for a Roman Catholic advocate to use ; but if he does, it
shows that he does not at all understand the nature of the
claim to infallibility made on behalf of his Church, of which
claim this argument is, in real truth, entirely subversive.
For it would be absurd misrepresentation to suggest that
any of us who insists on the necessity of private judgment
thinks it a matter of indifference whether a man uses his
judgment rightly. On the contrary, we think it every man's
duty, who has to make a decision, to use every means in his
power to guide his judgment rightly. Not the least of these
means is the instruction and advice of people better informed
than ourselves. I do not suppose that any different rule in
this respect prevails in matters of religion and in other
matters ; or that theology is the only science in the world
that can be known by the light of nature, and in which a
man, who has given no thought to the subject, stands on a
level with one who has. The illustrations we have used, then,
justify a clergyman in claiming deference for his opinion on
theological subjects from a layman, just so far, and no more,
as he has given more and more prayerful study to those
subjects than the layman has. It is just so in other cases.
E

5°

THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [m.

Why do we defer to the opinion of a barrister in matters of
law, and to that of a physician in questions of medicine ?
Not because of their official position, but because of their
superior acquaintance with the subject. We do not imagine
that an idle young man, who has eaten his dinners, and got
called to the Bar, becomes, by reason of his new dignity,
qualified to conduct an important lawsuit, or that we may
not, without breach of modesty, prefer our own interpreta
tion of an Act of Parliament to his. And so if you give no
heed to theological study, the mere fact of your ordination
will not entitle you to claim deference for your opinion from
members of your congregation, among whom you may easily
find some better informed than yourself.
On what grounds, then, do those who insist on the in
fallibility of the Church of Rome claim deference for the
authority of the Pope ? Is it on the ground on which the
illustrations we have used show that deference may rightly
be claimed, namely, that superior knowledge which is the
natural result of greater learning and deeper study ? Clearly
no such thing. The deference claimed is alleged to be due
to the Pope's official position solely, and is demanded from
the most learned and the most ignorant of his subjects
equally. Now, on the principle that a man is likely to know
more of a subject the more he has studied it, which of the
two had a right to claim that his judgment deserved to be
received with respect — von Dollinger, when he said that
the doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility was a mere
novelty, unknown to the Church of former times ; or Pius IX.,
when he declared that the Church had always held it ?
The one might be considered as entitled to speak on Church
history with the authority of an expert ; the other was an
Italian ecclesiastic, of no reputation for learning, to whose
opinion, on a question of Church history, if it were not
for his official position, no one would dream of paying the
slightest attention. You see, then, that the illustrations
which have been appealed to are utterly destructive of the
Papal claims. In truth, the ultra-Protestants and the ultra-
Papists are in complete agreement in their contempt for

in.] WHAT KIND OF DEFERENCE DUE TO AUTHORITY. 5 t
theological and ecclesiastical learning, and in their re
sistance to that claim to deference for the opinion of the
clergy, which is made precisely so far, and no more, as by
diligent and prayerful study the clergy have learned to know
more than those who are asked to defer to them. In the
Roman Catholic Church, as much as in the wildest] Protes
tant sect, learning must give way to ignorance and prejudice.
Let a theological opinion commend itself to the superstitious
and ignorant of the people ; let the practices founded on it
become prevalent ; then let the Pope, who may be quite as
superstitious and ignorant himself, give formal expression to
it, and the learned have only the humiliating choice whether
they will be turned out like von Dollinger, or give an amazed
and reluctant assent, like Cardinal Newman.
I must not part with this illustration without pointing out
that the kind of deference to his authority which the most
learned divine may claim is of a different nature from that
which the captain of a ship may demand from his passengers,
or a physician from his patients. The passengers do not go
into a ship to learn navigation, but to be carried to their
journey's end the quickest way : a physician's patients want
to be cured of their disease, and not to be taught medical
science. If in the Christian, as in many heathen systems,
the art of propitiating the divinities was a special craft known
to the priesthood alone, then the analogy would subsist, and
we ought to trouble ourselves no more about the secrets of
the art by which the priesthood gain for us the Divine favour,
than a passenger on shipboard troubles himself about lunar
observations and the nautical almanac. But the promise to
Christ's Church was, 'A 11 thy people shall be taught of God.'
In the Christian system religious knowledge is not the secret
of one profession, but the privilege and the duty of all the
people ; and the duty of the clergy is to teach those com
mitted to their care. It follows at once that the relation
between them and their flocks is not that between a phy
sician and his patients, but rather that between the phy
sician and the class of students to whom he is teaching
medical science. From the members of such a class he is
E 2

52 THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
entitled to the deference to which his superior knowledge
gives him a right. His students would make no progress
if they were indocile to their instructor, if they were captious
and conceited ; full of the belief that they had already know
ledge enough, and that the old woman's remedies which their
grandmothers or aunts had taught them could not be im
proved on by the highest medical science. And yet the in
structor must be a bad one, or his pupils of mean capacity,
if they do not arrive at a point when their beliefs rest on a
better foundation than their teacher's word ; when they are
able to verify for themselves the things which they at first
accepted from him with meekness and docility ; when they
feel that they may, without breach of modesty, criticize what
he has told them, and perhaps improve on it.
I have thought it important, when speaking about private
judgment, to make it plain that we do not recommend rash
judgment, or independence of the teaching of others, or ex
clude deference to the authority of persons better informed
than ourselves, or the use of any of the means which prudent
persons employ in order to guide their judgment rightly.
But I must bring you back to the point with which I com
menced, namely, that it is absurd for Roman Catholics to
disparage private judgment, or make light of the kind of
certainty we can obtain by its means, since their belief, as
well as ours, must ultimately rest on an act of their private
judgment, and can have no higher certainty than whatever
that is capable of yielding. If they use their private judg
ment on no other question, they must use it on the question,
Are we bound to submit implicitly to the authority of the
Church of Rome ? The result is, that absolute certainty can
only be had on the terms of being infallible one's self. A man
may say, ' I am absolutely certain that I am right in my re
ligious opinions, because I believe what the Pope believes,
and he is absolutely certain not to believe wrong.' But then
comes the question, ' How come you to be absolutely certain
that the Pope is absolutely certain not to believe wrong ? '
It is not possible to answer this question without being
guilty of the logical fallacy of arguing in a circle. For ex-

hi. J THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE.

53

ample, a common way of answering is by producing texts of
Scripture such as 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will
build my Church,' and such like. Now before we can use
these texts to prove the Church's infallibility, private judg
ment must decide that the books cited are the Word of God,
and private judgment must interpret the texts brought for
ward ; and if private judgment can be trusted to do this, it
would seem that it might be trusted to decide other questions
too. But there is no point on which Roman advocates are
fonder of insisting than that it is from the Church that we
receive the Bible ; that without her guidance we could have
no certainty about the canon of Scripture; and still more,
that without the Church's guidance we are incompetent to
find the true meaning of Scripture. Now, certainly, those
texts which are alleged to prove the Church's infallibility
are not so plain and clear that no rational man can doubt
their meaning. On the contrary, there are no texts in the
Sacred Volume about which controversy has raged more
fiercely. I suppose there is no text on which the Fathers
have given greater variety of interpretation than that which
I just mentioned, ' Thou art Peter ' : and we have to go down
far, indeed, before we find one who discovered the Bishop of
Rome in it. As a matter of fact, it is certain that more than
half of those who profess to acknowledge the authority of
the Bible are unable to find in it any proof of Roman in
fallibility. It remains, then, for a Roman Catholic to say,
' I know that I understand these texts rightly, because the
Church, which cannot err, has taught me that this is their true
meaning,' and then they are clearly in a vicious circle. They
say, ' The Church is infallible, because the Scriptures testify
that she is so, and the Scriptures testify this because the
Church infallibly declares that such is their meaning.'
We find ourselves in the same circle if we try to prove
the Church's infallibility by antiquity, sayings of the Fathers,
by reason, or in any other way. For the advocates of the
Church of Rome have constantly maintained that, on religious
questions, nothing but the Church's authority can give us cer
tainty. Well, when we are trying to prove the Church's

54 THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
authority, we shall be guilty of a logical fallacy if we assume
the thing to be proved. Unless, then, we are building a
fabric in the air, our proof of the Church's infallibility must
rest on something else ; and if we arrive at a certain result,
it follows that without the Church's help it is possible for us
to arrive at not only true, but absolutely certain, results in
our investigation of one of the most difficult of religious
questions. All the attempts of Roman Catholic controver
sialists to show the helplessness of men without the Church
make it impossible to have any confidence in their success in
finding the Church.
Great efforts have been made by Roman Catholic divines
to clear their mode of procedure from the charge of logical
fallacy, but in the nature of things such efforts jnust be hope
less. A clever mathematician described the problem of per
petual motion, about which so many crazy speculators have
busied themselves, as the problem to enable a man to lift him
self from the ground by the waistband ot his own breeches.
And this is precisely the kind of problem which men set
themselves when they hope to discover some absolute se
curity against the possibility of going wrong in their judg
ments. Unless God directly bestows miraculously this privilege
on themselves, they must be exposed to risk of error in their
judgment that somebody else possesses this privilege. In
point of fact, I believe that in the Roman Church, when
ever faith in her is more than that indolent uninquiring
assent which men give to the opinions in which they were
brought Up, and which it has not occurred to them to doubt,
it rests on an implied persuasion that God has miraculously
bestowed on them the privilege of knowing that the Church
is infallible. Whether such a persuasion is an adequate
foundation of faith will be considered afterwards, when I
come to discuss the value of faith resting on a supposed
motion of God's Spirit communicated to the individual.
Since this lecture was delivered, a Roman Catholic bishop
(Clifford) has attempted, in an article in the Fortnightly Re
view (January, 1887), to meet the difficulty here raised. The
statement which he professes to answer is : ' The Church

in.] BISHOP CLIFFORD'S DEFENCE. 55
bases its authority on the remarkable words, "Thou art
Peter," &c. The authority of the words, " Thou art Peter,"
rests on the Divine authority of the New Testament. But
the authority of the New Testament, in turn, rests on the
authority of the Church, which derives its authority from the
book. . . . We call this process, in other matters, arguing
in a circle.' Bishop Clifford replies : The argument here
set forth is an argument in a circle, no doubt ; but it is not
the line of argument which the Church adopts in proving
against unbelievers her Divine origin and mission. He then
proceeds to state the latter line of argument in a form, of
which what follows is a summary : —
(a) She appeals, in the first instance, to the writings of
the New Testament, using them, not as inspired books, but
as the genuine works of contemporary writers, in the same
way as she appeals to Tacitus, Seneca, or other trustworthy
authorities. In this way it is established, by purely historical
evidence, that there was such a person as Christ ; that He
founded a Society, which received the names of the Christian
and the Catholic Church ; that that Society has continued to
exist through successive generations to the present day, and
that the Church is that Society.
(b) Still using the New Testament writings only as his
torical records, she establishes the fact of the miracles of
Christ, and especially the fact of the Resurrection. Thence
she infers that Christ is God. In confirmation of His Di
vinity, and of the truth of His mission, she appeals to the
manner in which His prophecies concerning the Church and
the Jewish nation have been fulfilled; to the wonderful
spread of the Gospel; to the constancy of the martyrs; to
the great change for good that the preaching of the Gospel
has wrought among men ; and to the testimony which the
Church herself has borne, through so many generations, to
the belief which has been held in the truth of His miracles.
(c) Christ having been proved to be God, His words must
be Divine, and therefore infallibly true. But it is on record
that He spoke the words, 'Thou art Peter,' &c. ; 'As the
Father has sent me, I also send you' (John xx. 21) ; ' Going,

56 THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
teach all nations : . . . behold, I am with you all days, everi
to the consummation of the world' (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20).
These being God's words, the Church, to which they relate,
is a Divine institution, and has authority from God.
(d) This Church, founded by God, with a mission from
God to teach all nations, and armed with a Divine promise
that God will be with her to the consummation of the world,
cannot err in her teaching ; she is, by God's appointment,
infallible. Such, in substance, is Bishop Clifford's reply ; but, in
offering it, he wholly misconceives the exigencies of his
position. He brings out the infallibility of the Church as
the result of a long line of argument. This doctrine, which
is wanted for the foundation of the building, is with him the
coping-stone of the structure; or, to state the matter more
correctly, it is the last storey of a house of cards. For the
whole argument is full of disputable points. Thus, in the
last clause of paragraph (a), ' and the Church is that society,'
he, no doubt, by 'the Church' means the Church of Rome, to
the exclusion, for example, of the Anglican Church and of
the Eastern ; but it need not be said what room for contro
versy there is on that point. In paragraph [d) there is a
tremendous jump in the assumption that to prove the Divine
institution of the Church is enough to prove its infallibility.
For with regard to the State, we are told ' the powers that be
are ordained of God,' yet it does not follow that ' the powers
that be' can never issue unjust commands.
But this is not the time to examine the goodness of
Bishop Clifford's arguments ; that will come under discus
sion at a later stage : what we are now concerned with is
whether such a proof as is here offered us makes any pre
tence of being adequate to the necessities of the case. What
is wanted is a proof which will induce us to accept without
doubting the teaching of the Church. Now, you cannot
submit without doubting to a doubtful authority. It would
be ridiculous, for instance, to say, You must accept without
the least doubt the assertions of the Church of Rome, because
it is an even chance that she may be infallible. What degree

iii. J NO CERTAINTY ATTAINABLE BY THIS PROCESS. 57
of assurance, then, is such an argument as Bishop Clifford's
calculated to afford ? You cannot have more assurance of
the truth of the conclusion of a long line of argument than
whatever assurance you have of the truth of every premiss,
and of the correctness of every inference, used in the argu
ment. If doubt attaches to any one step in the argument,
that doubt will attach to the conclusion : if doubt attaches to
more steps than one, the conclusion is affected by multiplied
doubt. Now, Bishop Clifford cannot possibly imagine that the
steps of his argument are free from doubt. The line of argu
ment is, in its general features, the same as that employed
by Protestants, which Roman Catholic advocates are fond of
saying is not sufficient to warrant certainty of belief without
the testimony of an infallible Church. But if Bishop Clifford's
account of the matter is right, Protestants have ten times as
much certainty as Roman Catholics. For the arguments by
which the former establish their faith are accepted as good
and valid by the Tatter, to the foundation of whose system
they are indispensable. But the arguments necessary to
establish the points in the system of Roman Catholics which
are peculiar to them, are such that nobody but themselves
can see any cogency in them.
Bishop Clifford was probably aware of the weakness of
the proof he offers ; for he is careful to say that this is only
the line of argument which the Church offers to unbelievers.
But Logic has not one rule for believers, another for unbe
lievers. If the proof which the Church tenders to unbelievers
is not satisfactory, she does not mend matters by saying,
Oh, you will be fully satisfied if you will only take my word
for everything. This is much the same as if one, seeking a
place with you as a servant, brought you a recommendation
which you did not think satisfactory, and then thought to
make it all right by writing his own name on the back of it.
However, I remember that this line of defence was taken up
long ago by Dr. Newman, and I believe it is as plausible as
any that can be adopted. He frankly owned the impossi
bility of making out any proof of her claims which will be

5 8 THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
felt as demonstratively convincing by one who has not
already submitted to her. He taught that one must not ex
pect certainty in the highest sense before conversion. ' Faith
must make a venture, and is rewarded by sight.'* The claims
of the Church shine, as it were, by their own light. She comes
and calls on you, in the name of God, to bow down before her.
And though, perhaps, you can give no reason logically unas
sailable for submitting to her, yet, after you have submitted,
you find that you have done well. You find in her bosom
rest, peace, freedom from doubt ; and you are sure that she
who has bestowed these gifts upon you must be divine.
Now, assuredly we do not deny that an alleged revelation
may powerfully commend itself by internal evidence. He
who has received such a revelation on its external proofs
may find additional reason for trusting it in the consistency
of its doctrines with each other, their reasonableness, their
holiness, their adaptation to the wants of his nature. Such
arguments as these go to make up great part of the grounds
of the conviction we all feel that the Bible comes .from God.
But this rational conviction can be felt by no member of a
Church claiming to be infallible. For her first principle is,
that her teaching shall be subjected to no criticism. A
disciple of the Church of Rome is bound to crush down
every doubt as sinful — must reject every attempt to test the
teaching of his Church by reason or Scripture or antiquity.
Consequently, her teaching can never receive any subsequent
verification. The certainty of her disciples can never rise
higher than it was the first moment they submitted to her.
The pretence of subsequent verification really presents us
with a petitio principii in the most outrageous form. ' You
must believe everything I say,' demands the Pope. 'Why
should we ?' we inquire. ' Well, perhaps I cannot give any
quite convincing reason ; but just try it. If you trust me
with doubt or hesitation, I make no promise ; but if you
really believe everything I say, you will find, — that you will
believe everything I say.' It follows, then, that all the Church
* See Loss and Gain, pp. 284, 318.

4
m.J EXAMINE ROMAN CLAIMS BEFORE SUBMISSION. 59,
of Rome can promise is what any guide can promise who
insists on blindfolding his passengers. 'Trust yourselves
implicitly to me, and you shall thenceforward feel no doubt
or perplexity ; you shall never see any reason to make you-
think that I am leading you wrong. Whatever may be the
difficulties or dangers in the path, you shall never perceive
any of them.' It requires no Divine commission to be able
to promise freedom from doubt on such terms as these. I
could promise as much to any of you. I could tell you all :
' If you never use your understanding, it will never lead you
wrong. If you never inquire, you will never be perplexed.
If you take all your opinions on trust from others, you will
be free from all the painful uncertainty that attends the task
of forming opinions for yourselves.' No ; if you wish to-
make sure that the Church of Rome is a trustworthy guide,.
you must examine her claims before you submit to her. For,
as her present rulers teach, he who once puts himself under
her guidance abandons all means of verification of her doc
trines, and has no power of detecting error, should any exist.
This argument of Dr. Newman's was revived some little
time ago by Mr. Mallock. He had been in the habit of
publishing articles in magazines, in which he criticized other
people's beliefs and disbeliefs so freely, that it was hard to
know what he believed or did not believe himself. At last
he published an essay, of which the gist was that Romanism
alone could make head against infidelity ; that all attempts
to defend Christianity by argument must end in failure ; but
that a religion which demands submission without proof may
hold its ground for ever. For a time, I grant ; but certainly
only for a time. Was ever the cause of Christianity so
treacherously defended ? If infamous charges were made
against my character, perhaps there are some of you who-
might think well enough of me to disbelieve them without
examination. But suppose anyone were to defend me after
this fashion : ' Dr. Salmon says he is a good man, and I
earnestly pray you to take his own word for it ; for if you
permit yourself to inquire into the charges against him, you
will be forced to come to an unfavourable conclusion about

•6o THE ARGUMENT IN A CIRCLE. [in.
him, which would be so very uncomfortable for you to hold,
that it will be a great deal wiser for you to make no inquiry.'
Do you think I should be grateful for such a defence as that ?
or that I could regard the maker of it as other than an enemy
who scarcely took the trouble to disguise his malignity ? If
this be the best that can be said for the Church of Rome, the
peace of mind which she offers is just that which might be
offered by the directors of some Glasgow Bank, who had
made away with their customers' money, but hoped that by
bold speaking they might carry on their business prospe
rously, and prevent their accounts being looked into.
Recently an attempt has been made to place the system
of Roman Catholic belief on a more scientific foundation.
¦Of this I shall speak in the next lecture.

IV.

THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT.
BEFORE coming to the immediate subject of this lecture,,
I find it convenient to mention a very interesting book,
published several years ago by Mr. Capes, one of those who
went over to Rome about the same time as Dr. Newman, but
who, unlike him, did not submit to having his eyes quite
blindfolded, and consequently saw reason to distrust the
guide whom he had chosen, and therefore returned to the
Church of England. His reasons were given in the book of
which I speak. In this he tells* that he had been about five-
years a Roman Catholic before he fully understood the nature
of the claim made by members of that communion. About
that time he was taken to task by one of the leading divines
in that Church for having spoken of the certainty which they
had of the truths of their religion, as in its nature moral, not
absolute ; that is to say, as amounting to a very high kind of
probability, and nothing more. He was informed that a Ca
tholic possesses absolute certainty as to the truths of revealed.
religion, which are taught him by an infallible Church, in
whose statements he believes with an undoubting faith, which
faith is the supernatural gift of God. His knowledge, then,
of the supernatural truths of Christianity is alleged to be
absolute, and to admit of neither criticism nor doubt. In the
next lecture I mean to say something about the theory of
the supernatural gift of faith as laid down at the Vatican,
Council, merely remarking now that the theory of a super
natural endowment superseding in matters of religion the
* Reasons for Returning to the Church of England : 2nd edition, 1871, p. 56.

,62 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
ordinary laws of reasoning, an endowment to question the
validity of which involves deadly peril, deters Roman Ca
tholics from all straightforward seeking for truth ; for they
fear lest they should trifle with that supernatural gift by seek
ing for that which they claim to have already.
Now observe that the evidence which proves the truth of
¦Christianity is in its nature historical, not demonstrative.
That Jesus Christ lived more than eighteen centuries ago ;
that He died, rose again, and taught such and such doctrines,
are things proved by the same kind of argument as that by
which we know that Augustus was Emperor of Rome, and
that there is such a country as China. Whether or not Christ
founded a Church ; whether He bestowed the gift of infalli
bility upon it ; and whether He fixed the seat of that infalli
bility at Rome, are things to be proved, if proved at all, by
arguments which a logician would class as probable, not
demonstrative. It is true that Roman Catholics maintain
that when a Divine revelation has been given, our assent
is not a matter of opinion, but of certainty. We must re
ceive without doubt what God has revealed. In a popular
lecture, there is room for abundant declamation on the topic
that whatever God has revealed must be absolutely true. It
is a common rhetorical artifice with a man who has to com
mend a false conclusion deduced from a syllogism, of which
one premiss is true, and the other false, to spend an immensity
of time in proving the premiss which nobody denies. If he
devotes a sufficient amount of argument and declamation to
this topic, the chances are that his hearers will never ask for
the proof of the other premiss. Thus it is really amusing in
Roman Catholic popular books of controversial teaching to
.see how much labour is expended on the proof that God is
true ; that He cannot deceive ; that nothing which He has
revealed can be false ; and that therefore those who accept
His statements without doubting cannot possibly be in error,
and have infallible certainty that they are in the right. But
all the time it is tried to make us forget to ask for proof of
what is the real point at issue, namely, that God has revealed
the doctrines which their Church teaches. It is certain enough

iv. 1 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. 63
that what God has revealed is true ; but if it is not certain
that He has revealed the infallibility of the Roman Church,
then we cannot have certain assurance of the truth of that
¦doctrine, or of anything that is founded on it.
But it is unavoidable that the proofs that God has re
vealed the infallibility of the Church should be, in their
nature, historical; that is to say, probable, not demonstrative.
The great crux, then, with Roman Catholic divines is to ex
plain how, from probable premisses, we arrive at absolutely
certain conclusions ; how we can have a stronger assurance
of what the infallible Church teaches than we can have of
the fact of her infallibility.
Dr. Newman had the merit of seeing more clearly than
other champions of his Church that a solution of this prob
lem was impossible, if the infallibility of the Church was to
be proved by any logical process of reasoning, the (neces
sary law of which is, that we cannot have greater certainty of
any conclusion than we have of the premisses from which it
is derived. He saw, therefore, that the thing to be done was
to remove the process of finding the infallible Church into
some province outside logic, in which it shall not be amen
able to logical laws. And this is what he tried to do in the
last of his works, called an Essay on the Grammar of Assent.
The professed object of it is, leaving to works on logic the
•discussion of the theory of Inference to give a theory of the
process by which men arrive at their beliefs. Perhaps the
•chief fault in the book is that Newman has not, even in his
own mind, sufficiently distinguished two very different things.
He has given a most interesting history of the process by
which men actually arrive at beliefs ; and he gives this in
substitution for the answer to the question, How shall men
secure that their beliefs shall be correct ?
Perhaps you might suppose that a sound theory of the
reasoning process would give a sufficient account of all our
correct beliefs. The great merit of Newman's book is, that
it brings out very clearly that this is as far as possible from
being the case. A moment's reflection will convince you
that the majority of our beliefs, true or false, have not been

64 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
arrived at by any process of reasoning, but have been handed
to us by authority, or caught up from sympathy. In child
hood, on the authority of our elders, we accept a mass of
beliefs which long govern our practical conduct. As we
grow up, experience verifies the soundness of much that we
have been taught ; some things, however, we examine and
reject. But no subsequent reasoning adds anything to the
strength of our earlier faith. The belief of him to whom it
has never occurred to doubt, though certainly less secure, is
commonly stronger than that of him who has doubted, and
has by his own investigation verified the correctness of what
he had been taught.
So, again, we naturally believe what our neighbours be
lieve, and what commends itself to our feelings. It is the
most difficult thing in the world to help believing what all
about you believe. There is an interesting account in a book,
not so much read now as it was once on a time [Eothen), of
the process by which a hard-headed Englishman going out
to live in the East, and at first laughing at the people's su
perstition about witchcraft and ghosts, and such like, becomes
gradually infected by the beliefs which form the atmosphere
in which he lives, and ends by becoming a slave to supersti
tions he had once despised. How little evidence is necessary
to get a popular rumour to be accepted as fact ? Take, for
example, the generation of panics. With scarcely any ground
to justify alarm, a whole army has been seized with appre
hension of imminent danger, and in that belief has turned
to flight. It requires great training and discipline to make a
force proof against such alarms. I need hardly remind you
how terribly dangerous it is for anyone to raise a cry of fire
in a crowded theatre or concert-room. Often has a whole
audience rushed to the doors, trampling each other to death
in their eagerness to escape, fully believing in the presence
of danger of which there was no evidence whatever. At the
time of the Indian mutiny, I remember that stories were cur
rent, and were generally believed, of atrocities perpetrated on
our countrymen and countrywomen, which we now know to
have been gross exaggerations ; but at the time to hint a

iv.J CLIFFORD'S' ETHICS OF BELIEF: 65
suspicion of exaggeration would have been regarded as a
mark of sympathy with the rebels.
Dr. Newman quarrels with Locke's dictum, that we ought
not to entertain any belief with assent greater than is pro
portioned to the grounds on which it rests. He shows that
nobody does carry out this rule in practice ; and that Locke
himself confesses that there is a number of things not demon
strable, which we hold with as full belief as we give to any
proposition in Euclid. It would be mad to doubt that you
will one day die ; yet the thing is not demonstrably certain.
I repeat this from Newman ; but I may remark that it is a
weakness of his logic that, though quite familiar with the
theory of the deductive process, he seems quite unacquainted
with the logic of induction. It is more to the point when he
says that a man may be content to trust all he has in the
world to the faith he has in the truth of his wife, or his friend ;
he may be most wise in refusing to listen to any question on
the matter, yet other people have been deceived in such con
fidence, and he would be unable to give any logical proof
that it was impossible for himself to make a mistake such as
theirs. With this part of Newman's book I have not much to dis
pute, unless it be the supposition that it gains anything for
the Church of Rome. Nay, I found it very useful when an
Essay was published a few years ago on The Ethics of Belief,
by the late Professor Clifford. Clifford, whose great fear came
to be lest men should believe too much, tried to make out
that it is a highly immoral thing to believe anything the
proofs of which we have not fully investigated. Newman's
book, if he had read it, might have taught him that what he
condemned was really a necessity of our life.
The simple truth is, that as all our action must be guided
and stimulated by beliefs of some kind, our Creator has not
left us dependent for such beliefs on the slow process of argu
mentation. Instead of the tedious and laborious process of
forming conclusions for ourselves, by weighing arguments
pro and con, we take ready-made the conclusions of others ;
and it is in this way that the best results one generation is
F

66 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
able to arrive at are handed over as the starting-point for
the next. To this is due that the world makes any progress
in knowledge, for if each generation had to start afresh, there
would be no reason why one should be more successful or
wiser than another.
But it is important to remark, that though our beliefs are
not, in the first instance, generated by reasoning, they are
bound to justify themselves by reason. There is nothing
more rational than that children should accept what is taught
them by their instructors, even though those instructors may
be in error on some points ; and generally that, on subjects
which we have not leisure or capacity to investigate for our
selves, we should receive the conclusions come to by those
who have, and who have the highest reputation for know
ledge and ability.
But all this investigation as to the manner in which we
get beliefs is seen to be utterly worthless as a basis for the
doctrine of Church infallibility, if we observe that though we
get beliefs originally, as a general rule, without much per
sonal investigation, every belief has to submit to a constant
process of testing and verification, either by ourselves indivi
dually, or by general experience ; and the confidence we have
in traditional belief mainly depends on the constant exami
nation to which it is subjected. Thus you have a general
knowledge that the theory of gravitation will account for all
the movements of the heavenly bodies. You might count on
your fingers the number of persons in the three kingdoms
who could say this from their personal knowledge ; but you
know that if anyone of them discovered any case of failure or
exception, it would immediately become a subject of scientific
controversy, and we should soon hear of it in every news
paper. How do you know that we are living in an island ?
You firmly believe that we are, and yet did )'ou ever sail
round Ireland yourself? Have you even spoken to anyone
who had ? The history of your belief is simply that you were
told it when you were a child, and have never heard it con
tradicted since. But what makes your firm belief rational is
that you know that if it had not been true, you would be quite

iv.J HUMAN TEACHING WHEN TRUSTWORTHY. 67
sure to have heard it contradicted. If a single ship had sailed
out of Dublin, either to the north or south, and had found its
way stopped by land ; if a single person had made his way out
of Ireland by land, you could not help hearing of it. And so,
generally, about geographical propositions of this kind, which
are favourite examples with Dr. Newman, we know that the
maps published by a number of independent publishers, all
substantially agree in the geographical facts which they as
sert. We know that a multitude of persons are acting every
day on the faith that these facts have been correctly stated ;
and we know that if any one of these persons had found that
this faith had misled him, he would have been sure to make
his disappointment known. In this way we all feel undoubt-
ing certainty about a multitude of geographical facts that it
would be quite impossible for us to investigate for ourselves.
And that, though maps are not absolutely infallible, and
though we sometimes hear of navigators making rectification
of the charts, sometimes even of shipwrecks caused by too
implicit dependence on them.
I have already said that, in claiming the right of private
judgment, we acknowledge the need of human teaching to
inform our judgment. In particular, we own that the teach
ing of the Church is God's appointed means for the religious
instruction of mankind. But the confidence with which we
can trust such teaching is altogether proportionate to its
willingness to submit to correction. The teaching of the
primitive Church, or of our own, may be as safely trusted as
the uncontradicted statements of the newspaper press in a
free country, where we know that anything erroneous that
may be published is liable to be met by an immediate
counter-statement. The teaching of a Church which claims
infallibility is as little worthy of confidence as what is pub
lished in the newspapers of a despotic country, where nobody
is permitted to deny whatever it is the wish of the Govern
ment that the people should believe.
A few words will suffice as to a second point on which
Dr. Newman lays stress ; namely, that we give to things for
which the evidence is only probable in its nature as strong a
F 2

68 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
practical assent as to truths which are actually demonstrated.
This is no more than what is laid down in the Introduction
to Butler's Analogy : probability is the very guide of life.
Evidence which a logician would refuse to class as demon
stration suffices to give us practical certainty. Even when
there is but a strong probability one way, with a small
opposing probability the other way, the small probability is,
in practice, completely neglected. For instance, when the
life of a fellow-creature is at stake (as when a criminal is
tried on circumstantial evidence), the judge tells the jury to
find him guilty if they have no 'rational doubt' of his guilt;
that is to say, that even though one can imagine an expla
nation of the facts consistent with his innocence, still they
are to find him guilty if the probability of this explanation is
smaller than that which reasonable men ordinarily allow to
influence their conduct. It will presently be part of my own
case that it is impossible to draw a sharp line of distinction
between things of which we may describe ourselves as prac
tically certain and things which can only be said to be in the
highest degree probable.
But what I take to be the specialty of Dr. Newman's
book was his imagined discovery of a supposed 'illative
sense.' It has already been made evident that logic will
not provide any means of freeing us absolutely from risk of
error in our religious opinions. If we take our opinions on
trust from a guide supposed to be infallible, we are still
liable to have erred in the process by which we persuaded
ourselves that he is infallible. It would be a ' petitio prin-
cipii' if we employed the infallible authority in proving his
own infallibility : and if we recognize it without his help,
we are liable to all the risk of error with which our unas
sisted religious speculation is said to be attended. Dr.
Newman hoped to get over this difficulty by showing that
the process of arriving at beliefs was not the work of logic,
but of a special sense.
Some persons, he remarks, have an intuitive perception
of character, and yet would be unable to assign reasons for
the distrust which certain persons inspire in them. A weather-

iv. J THE ILLATIVE SENSE. 69
wise peasant can predict the weather, without being able to
give his reasons for saying it will rain to-morrow. Savages
have been able to track their way over an unknown country
with a sagacity which seems more like instinct than reason.
All these sagacious inferences, of which logic seemed unable
to give an account, Newman imagined to be the work of a
special illative sense, and to this he trusted to give him some
higher certainty than reason was capable of yielding, so that
he might be rightly as sure that the Pope would not deceive
him as a child is that his mother will not deceive him ; and
might trust the indications which manifest the existence of
an infallible Church as safely as a practised physician trusts
those by which he makes a diagnosis of a disease, arriving
at a right conclusion, which he would not always find easy
to justify by argument.
It certainly is true that right conclusions sometimes are
arrived at by what looks like a process of divination ; but I
do not in the least believe that we are entitled to assume a
special sense to account for them, or that they are obtained
in any other way than as the results of rapid inference from
minute facts unnoticed by any but very careful observers. It
is no objection to this account of the matter that the parties
themselves are unable to explain the steps by which they
arrive at their conclusions ; for it requires a high state of
culture to be able to analyse mental processes. Reasoning
came first ; logic afterwards. Men reasoned correctly for
many generations before Aristotle or anyone else undertook
to give an account of the laws which govern all correct
inference. To take Newman's own example, it is true that an
experienced physician may be able at a glance to detect
the real nature of the disease under which a patient is
labouring ; but, if he can give no account of his reasons, I
should not place him in the first rank of educated physicians ;
for such a one would be able to teach his class what were the
symptoms which had guided his diagnosis. Just in the same
way, any of us, meeting a man Whom we had never seen
before, might be struck by his likeness to a brother or parent

jo THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
whom we had known, and might yet be quite unable to tell
in what the likeness consisted ; while a portrait painter, who
had made it his business to observe features, might be able
not only to detect the likeness, but also to tell in what it con
sisted. Or, to take another example of the same kind, we all
can recognize the handwriting of a friend, and yet might be
embarrassed if we had to give evidence on a case of disputed
signature in a court of justice. But a few years ago, an inte
resting book was published by an expert on the handwriting
of Junius, showing that those who make the discrimination
of handwriting their profession employ no inarticulate process,
but reason by arguments of which they are well able to give
an account. Once more, take the case of some parts of plays
ascribed to Shakespeare, his authorship of which has been
disputed. There are parts which some critics, on general
considerations of style, had pronounced not to be his, but
their grounds of judgment were unappreciable by others of
less fine ear or less familiarity with the poet. Recently the
metrical peculiarities of these parts have been studied, and
have been found to differ from those of Shakespeare's certain
works. This is an argument which anyone can test who is
able to count. But, no doubt, the metrical peculiarities in
question were among the things that were felt by the earlier
critics, though they had not so analysed their feelings as to
be able to make others understand the grounds of their
judgments. On the whole, I do not think that there is the slightest
ground for thinking that we have any special sense to guide us
to correct beliefs, though I readily concede that many a man
arrives at correct beliefs, not without reasoning, but without
being able to state to others the reasons which have influ
enced his judgment. The sum of the matter is, then, that
there is not the smallest pretence for the assertion that the
process by which Newman or anyone else arrived at belief in
an infallible Church was the business of a special sense, or
lies in a province above logic, or is not amenable to the
necessary law of reasoning that we have no stronger reason
for holding the conclusion than we have for holding the

iv.J OF WHAT THINGS MAY WE BE CERTAIN. 7 1
premisses from which it was obtained. Belief in an infallible
Church, when not merely traditional, is the result of a process
of reasoning ; and, when we come to analyse that process, we
shall find it to be a very unsound one. At any rate, if there
be any uncertainty about this process, this uncertainty must
attach to all its results, and there can be no success in a
search for infallibility unless we are infallible ourselves.
Dr. Newman is obliged, in substance, to accept this con
clusion, though he objects to the form of expression. To say
we are infallible would imply that we were sure of being
always in the right; but you must own that there are some
cases in which we may be absolutely certain that we are in
the right. Who can refuse to own that there are some things
about which we may be perfectly certain ? Are you not cer
tain that two and two are four ? Are you not certain that
Great Britain is an island ? that the reigning sovereign is
Queen Victoria, and not William the Fourth ? Are you not
certain that I am now addressing you ? And we may be
equally certain of the falsity of some other things. Would
you condescend to discuss the truth of the heathen fancy
that Enceladus lies under Etna, or the notion that Johanna
Southcote was a divinely-inspired prophet, or that the Em
peror Napoleon had, as he fancied, a star ? Why may we
not, then, without being infallible, have the same kind of
certainty that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ ?
Well, we may reasonably ask of the advocates of the
Church of Rome that they shall not blow hot and blow cold
on the question what kind of certainty is attainable by man's
unassisted powers. When they try to prove our need of an
infallible guide, they would make you think that, without
such help, man's attainment of religious truth is impossible.
Now, when the question is whether such a guide has been
found, we are told that the answer to this, which is certainly
not the easiest of religious problems, can be known as cer
tainly as that two and two are four. If this be so, surely we
are safe in asserting our power, without any help from the
Church of Rome, to arrive at certain knowledge of all the
truths which we hold in common with her. Is not the

72 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
evidence for the statement, 'Jesus Christ came into the world
to save sinners,' quite as clear and convincing as that for the
proposition, ' the Pope is Christ's vicar' ?
The simple answer to Newman's talk about certainty is
got by observing what is the kind of things about which we
can have practical certainty. They are the things about
which our own judgments agree with those of all other men.
The truths which we have the highest confidence in accept
ing are those which commend themselves as plain and self-
evident to everyone else as well as to ourselves. Is the
infallibility of the Roman Church a truth of this class ? We
know, as a matter of fact, that it is not. We need not now
determine whether we heretics are right or not. Our very
existence proves that, if Christ saw fit to found an infallible
Church, He did not see fit to give her unmistakeable creden
tials. He might, if He had chosen, have made her Divine
commission as plain as that the sun is in heaven ; but,
instead of that, He has left the matter, to say the least, so
doubtful, that more than half of those who own Christ as
their Lord reject the authority of him who pretends to be the
Saviour's mouthpiece ; and of those who in name acknow
ledge that authority, it is safe to say that more than half give
only nominal submission. It is safe to say it, because it has
been the theme of constant lamentations, in the encyclicals of
the late Pope and the present, how his authority is resisted
in Italy itself and in other countries professedly Roman
Catholic. Cardinal Newman cannot be more certain that
the Pope is Christ's vicar than I am that he is not. I do not
say it for the purpose of talking big, but state a simple fact,
that to my mind this proposition stands on exactly a level
with the examples given by Newman, ' that Enceladus lies
under Etna, and that Johanna Southcote was inspired,' as a
thing that I not only do not believe to be true, but cannot
conceive it possible that I should ever be made to believe it
to be true. Now, when that is the honest expression of the
feelings of a person who has given much study to the subject,
and has done his best to be candid, it is absurd to talk as if
the proposition were of the same class as that two and two
make four.

iv'.] WHAT CERTAINTY SUFFICES FOR PRACTICE. 73
When I deny the possibility of Roman Catholics having
any success in their search for an infallible Church, I hope
you will not think that I hold any Pyrrhonic system of scep
tical philosophy, or that I disparage the amount of certainty
which the human mind is capable of arriving at. It is, in
truth, Roman Catholics who get into difficulties from dis
paraging that homely kind of certainty which suffices to
govern our practical decisions in all the most important
affairs of life. This seems to them a poor thing, because
logicians will only class this practical certainty as high pro
bability, and because it shades off into probability by grada
tions impossible to be measured. We are certain, for instance,
that there was such a man as Julius Caesar. We may call
ourselves certain about the principal events of his life ; but
when you go into details, and inquire, for instance, what
knowledge he had of Catiline's conspiracy, you soon come to
questions to which you can give only probable or doubtful
answers. And it is just the same as to the facts of Chris
tianity ; for ours is a historical religion, and our knowledge
of it has to follow the same laws as our knowledge of other
history. About the great facts (including all the knowledge of
which we count necessary to salvation) we may fairly call
ourselves certain. When we descend to details, questions
may be proposed, our answers to which can only be said to
be probable, and others which we answer with hesitation, or
declare ourselves unable to answer at all. This seems to
Roman Catholics an unsatisfactory state of things, and they
look about for some tribunal which shall give to any question
that may be proposed answers absolutely free from risk of
error. But how can we eliminate risk of error from the
process of finding this tribunal, or, indeed, of determining
whether it exists at all ? And if we cannot, what have we
gained ? Archbishop Whately used to tell a story of a bridge
at Bath which was so crazy that an old lady was afraid to
walk across ; so she got herself carried over in a sedan chair.
What she gained by that was just not seeing the danger;
but the bridge had to bear her own weight and that of the
chair and bearers into the bargain. And so those who,

74 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
through fear of making wrong decisions, trust themselves to
adopt blindfold the decisions of a supposed infallible autho
rity gain nothing but not seeing the risk of error. But, in
real truth, their risk of going wrong in each of the decisions
adopted blindfold is fully as great as before, and, in addition,
they make one judgment which we may confidently pro
nounce to be wrong — namely, the judgment that the Church
of Rome is infallible.
The certainty to which Roman Catholics aspire is a thing
different altogether in kind from what we commonly call
practical certainty. Newman claims for his certainty the
attribute of indefectibility, and he plainly shows that it is his
theory on this point which has kept him a Roman Catholic,
notwithstanding several shocks his faith has met with since
he joined that communion. Newman's idea is this : if you
only think a thing to be true, you may to-morrow find reason
to think it not to be true ; but if you certainly know a thing
to be true, truth cannot change — that will be true to-morrow
which is true to-day ; so that, if we once certainly apprehend
a truth, we must hold it fast, convinced that any other truth
we may discover can only contradict it in appearance. Thus,
he holds that a man can never lose his certitude, and, if he
appears to do so, it only proves that he never had had it. For
example, if a man believes himself to have become certain of
the infallibility of the Roman Church, and, after joining her,
becomes disgusted at the definition of the Immaculate Con
ception or the Pope's personal infallibility, and says, This is
more than I bargained for, and quits her communion, this
does not show that he has lost his certainty of the Church's
infallibility, but that he never had had it. He might have
believed all the doctrines which the Church had propounded
at the time he joined her, but he did not understand that
faith in her inerrancy required him equally to believe all that
she might at any time teach.
By way, I suppose, of making his theory more acceptable
to a Bible Protestant, Newman puts the following case : —
' Suppose,' he says, ' I have a certainty that the Bible is in
spired, and that it teaches that Adam was the first man ; and

NEWMAN'S THEORY OF INDEFECTIBLE CERTAINTY. 75
suppose that all ethnologists, philologists, anatomists, and
antiquarians, led by a multitude of independent proofs, agreed
in holding that there were different races of men, and that
Adam had only made his appearance at a definite point of
time, in a comparatively modern world : then, if I had be
lieved with an assent short of certainty, this new evidence
might make me lose my faith ; but otherwise I should still
firmly hold what I believed to come from Heaven. I should
not argue or defend myself, but only wait for better times.
Philosophers might take their course for me ; I should con
sider that they and I thought in different mediums, and that.
their certitude could not be in antagonism with mine.' I re
collect hearing, when I was young, that there were then still
surviving Roman Catholic ecclesiastics who, in reference to
the Copernican theory of astronomy, took the course here
described. They looked upon it as a scientific craze, which
had become so epidemic, that direct struggle with it was time
wasted. They must only wait until it would blow over.
Dr. Newman owns that he is making an impossible sup
position in putting the case that a philosophic discovery might
contradict Revelation. But in such a case I am sure that
the course which he recommends is an irrational one. No-
one can rationally maintain the same thing to be theologi
cally true and philosophically false. Men may resolutely
look at a question only from one side. A philosopher may
shut his eyes to the facts with which theologians are con
versant, or vice versa. In the case supposed, clearly, Newman
would simply refuse to examine the evidence tendered him
by the philosophers. But if he did examine, and found it
convincing, he would be obliged to revise his former opinion ;
and either own that what he had taken for a revelation was
not one, or, more probably, that he had misunderstood it. Dr.
Newman's fallacy is simply this — he knows that what is true
must always remain true, and he infers that what men are
fully persuaded is true must always remain true. This would
be the case if men were infallible, and if their undoubting
persuasion always corresponded with the reality of things ;
but, alas, this is by no means the case. A single example

76 THE GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. [iv.
suffices. For how many ages must all men have believed
with undoubting persuasion in the immoveability of the earth
we stand on, and yet the opposite doctrine is now taught as
part of a child's elementary education ?
Indeed, with respect to this word certainty, I may remark,
that the more people talk about their certainty the less they
really have. If one of you came in and told me, ' I saw the
Prince of Wales just now walking down Sackville-street,' I
might be a good deal surprised at your news, but there would
be nothing in your language to make me think you were say
ing anything about which you had not full knowledge. But
if you said, ' I am certain I saw the Prince of Wales just
now,' I should conclude you were by no means assured your
self of the truth of what you said.
But to return. There cannot be a plainer proof that men's
so-called certainty does not always correspond with the re
ality of things, than the fact that there may be opposing cer
tainties. Dr. Newman, for instance, is certain the Pope is
infallible, and I am certain he is not. Dr. Newman would
get over this by calling his strong conviction certainty, and
giving to mine some weaker name. But what is this but as
suming that he is infallible, and I am not ? And when he
refuses to revise his former judgment that the Church of
Rome is infallible, notwithstanding that since he came to
it the Pope has made two decisions which, if Newman were
free to exercise his own judgment, he would pronounce to be
wrong, what is this but assuming that he was infallible at the
time of his former judgment ?
On the contrary, no wise man holds any conclusion of his
to be absolutely irreversible. There are some things which
we may firmly believe with a full persuasion that no new
evidence will turn up to contradict them. In that persuasion
we may legitimately refuse to attend to opposing evidence
that is manifestly not of the first class. Thus, I have a firm
belief in the universality of the law of gravitation. I do not
give myself the trouble to examine into stories of contrary
facts alleged to take place in darkened rooms, because I
know that while the working of the law of gravity is just the

iv.J WHEN MAY WE REFUSE NEW INVESTIGATIONS. 77
same in the dark and in the light, the absence of light is
highly convenient when imposture is attempted. In like man
ner, I would not lightly give heed to stories affecting the
character of a person in whom I had full confidence. But if
I made it a canon that on no evidence whatever would I be
lieve anything to that person's disadvantage ; if, in any case,
I maintained that the conclusion I had drawn from my study
of one class of facts must never be abandoned, no matter what
new facts might come to light, then my belief could no longer
be called faith — it would be prejudice.
I have thought that Cardinal Newman's celebrity required
me to give full examination to his attempt to make a philo
sophic basis of Roman belief, founded on a study of the or
dinary laws of human assent ; but I think I may safely say
that that attempt has totally failed, even in the judgment of
his own co-religionists. When Newman's book first came
out, one could constantly see traces of its influence in Roman
Catholic articles in Magazines and Reviews. Now it seems
to have dropped very much out of sight, and the highest
Roman Catholic authorities lay quite a different basis for
their faith. But I will put off speaking of that till the next
Lecture.

V.

MILNER'S AXIOMS.— PART I.
IT follows from the discussions in the last Lectures that we
have a perfect right to put out of court all Roman
•Catholic attempts to prove the infallibility of their Church,
as being attempts to build a fabric without any foundation ;
for it is, in the nature of things, impossible for a fallible man
to have infallible certainty that he has discovered someone
able to guide him without possibility of error. But I should
be sorry to seem to want to get rid of the Roman Catholic
arguments by any logical tour de force, or in any way to evade
meeting them fairly and fully.
I do not think their case can be stated in a more taking
way than it was done in a book now rather old, but which
was at one time relied on as far and away the most effective
book of Roman Catholic controversy, and which has still
much circulation and popularity ; I mean Milner's End of
Religious Controversy. Milner begins by laying down three
maxims, the truth of which, he says, no rational Christian
will dispute. First, our Divine Master Christ, in establishing
a religion here on earth, to which all the nations of the earth
were invited, left some rule or method by which those persons
who sincerely seek for it may certainly find it. Secondly,
this rule or method must be secure and never-failing, so as
not to be ever liable to lead a rational, sincere inquirer into
error, impiety, or immorality of any kind. Thirdly, this rule
or method must be universal, adapted to the abilities and
other circumstances of all those persons for whom the re
ligion itself was intended — namely, the great bulk of man
kind.

v.J IMMEDIATE REVELATION NOT A SAFE RULE. 79
Milner applies these maxims to discover a rule of faith.
He first considers and rejects two fallacious rules, as not
satisfying the prescribed conditions, and then arrives at what
he conceives to be the only satisfactory rule — the teaching of
his Church. The first rule which he pronounces fallacious is
' a supposed private interpretation, or an immediate light or
motion of God's Spirit communicated to the individual.' This
rule he takes to be that of the Quakers, the Moravians, and
some classes of Methodists. Milner has no difficulty in
tracing the working of this rule, and showing that it does
not give the security which his maxims demand. He begins
with the Montanists, who claimed to have been recipients of
a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit ; and, touching briefly on
other heretics who made similar pretensions, gives a long
account of the excesses and impieties committed by John of
Leyden tand his followers, the Anabaptists, all committed
under a full conviction of the uncontrollable inspiration of
their perpetrators. Then he goes on to tell of their imitators
in England, who called themselves the ' Family of Love'; of
the extravagances of the early Quakers ; of the antinomian
doctrines taught by some of the Methodists, who professed to
have received them by immediate inspiration ; and he con
cludes that to make an immediate personal revelation a rule
of faith and conduct is to adopt a rule which has led very
many well-meaning persons into error and impiety.
I do not disagree with this conclusion ; but Milner evidently
had not reflected that this rule, which he so clearly shows to
be fallacious, is the rule on which his own religion depends.
I made it plain on the last day that no external authority can
give us absolute freedom from error, unless we can manage
in some way to secure from risk of error the process which
induces us to rely on that external authority. We examined
Newman's attempt to justify that process by a study of the
laws which govern human assent, and we found it to be a
failure ; and I told you then that this speculation of New
man's appears to be little relied on now by Roman Catholics.
In fact, it is so certain that none of the natural processes of
the human mind is absolutely free from risk of error, that it

g0 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
is plain that no study of these processes can give Roman
Catholics the security which they demand. So they solve
the difficulty by a deus ex machina. They are not naturally
infallible, but God has made them so. It is by a super
natural gift of faith that they accept the Church's teaching,
and have a divinely-inspired certainty that they are in the
right. Well, now, it is evident that if this be the ground of
belief, those who think that they are relying on the Church's
infallibility are in reality relying on their own. The whole
basis of their system crumbles from under them if it is pos
sible that this supposed supernatural gift of faith can deceive
them. At the Vatican Council of 1870, which may be princi
pally known to you by its decree concerning the Infallibility
of the Pope, which will afterwards come under our considera
tion, the more fundamental doctrines concerning God and
Reason and Faith and Revelation had been previously dis
cussed ; and it was decreed that, though the assent of faith is
not a blind motion of the mind, yet that no one can give to
the preaching of the Gospel that assent which is necessary
to salvation without the illumination and inspiration of the
Holy Spirit. The Council proceeds to anathematize the
assertion that it is only living faith that worketh by love
which is the gift of God. In other words, it is not only
what Protestants commonly understand by faith which is the
gift of God ; but mere belief, even though it does not work
by love, is a supernatural gift ; and an act of such faith is
declared to be a work pertaining to salvation, in which man
yields free obedience to God, by consenting to and co-ope
rating with His grace, which it was in man's power to resist.
Finally, those are anathematized who say that Catholics
have any just cause to call in doubt the faith which they have
received under the teaching of the Church, by suspending
their assent until they have got a scientific demonstration of
the credibility and truth of their faith. This is no mere point
of scientific theory. The real check which prevents Roman
Catholics from putting to themselves the question, ' Is there
not a lie in my right hand ?' is the fear lest they should trifle
with a supernaturally-communicated gift of faith.

v.] THE FOUNDATION OF A ROMANIST'S CONFIDENCE. 8 1
It is evident that if a man tells you, ' I know that I am
right, and you are wrong, because I have a divinely-inspired
certainty that I am in the right in my opinion,' such a claim
does not admit of being met with direct disproof, though it has
been sometimes met with the mocking answer, ' Your claim
to a supernatural gift of faith means that your doctrines are
such, that it requires a miracle to make a man believe them.'
We can, however, point out that the claim to have been
taught by God's Spirit is made, and certainly on quite as
good grounds, by others, who say that they have been led by
Him to conclusions quite opposite to the Roman Catholic.
And certainly it is quite superfluous to seek a supernatural
origin for the feelings of rest, peace, freedom from doubt,
which men say they find in the bosom of the Roman Church.
These feelings may be obtained by anyone in a perfectly
natural way, on the easy terms of resolute abstinence from
investigation. But it is, in any case, important to point
out that the whole foundation of a Roman Catholic's con
fidence is just that rule of faith which Milner has taken
such pains to prove to be fallacious. When a Romanist
claims to have been taught by a supernatural gift of faith to
trust his Church, and when a Protestant claims, equally
under the guidance of God's Spirit, to have learned that she
is unworthy of confidence, and when neither can prove, by
miracles or any other decisive test, the superiority of the
spiritual guidance which he professes to have himself re
ceived, what remains but to own that no certainty can be
got from trusting to such supposed supernatural guidance,
unless this illumination at the same time so enlighten the
understanding as to enable it to give reasons for its faith
which other men can perceive to be satisfactory ?
The second rule of faith which Milner undertakes to show
to be fallacious is the Bible : at least if each man is allowed
to interpret it for himself. I think that most of the contro
versial victories that Roman Catholics win are owing to
their being often wrongly met on the point now under dis
cussion. When a Roman Catholic says, 'It is incredible
that Christ should have left His people without an infallible
G

82 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
guide, who shall secure them from all risk of error ; and no
such guide can be found but the Church of Rome,' it is very
common for a Protestant to reply, 'Nay, we have such a
guide in the Bible.' But it is well that you should be pre
pared for the turn the discussion is then likely to take. In
the first place, observe, it is one question whether the Bible is
infallible ; another whether it is, in the sense of Milner's
requirements, an infallible guide. But even the first point
the Roman advocates will not allow you to take for granted.
I own that it is with a very bad grace they here assume the
attitude of unbelievers ; for, whoever denies the infallibility
of Scripture, they have no right to do so. If the Church be
infallible, the Bible is so too ; for there is no article of
Church doctrine held more strongly, or taught with greater
unanimity, by the Church of all times, than the inerrancy of
Scripture. Accordingly, in the discussions of the first Re
formers, the Bible was common ground to both parties, and
the Reformers' proof that part of the teaching of the Church
of Rome was erroneous consisted in showing that it was
opposed to the Bible. But now the line taken by the
Romanist advocate is to say, 'No matter what we believe
about the Bible, what right have you, on your principles, to
believe the same thing ?'
Some of Milner's arguments are weak enough, and
need not detain us long. For instance, he says that,
'If our Lord had intended His people to learn His re
ligion from a book, He would have written it Himself, or,
at least, have commanded His Apostles to write it; and
there is no evidence that He did any such thing'— an argu
ment pointless against us, who believe, as he does himself,
that the Scriptures were written by inspiration of God's Holy
Spirit, and that the Three Persons of the Trinity are One.
And the argument admits of a cruel retort. If Christ in
tended that His people should learn their religion from
the Pope, He would have told them to obey the Pope,
and listen to his instructions, or, at least, He would
have commissioned His Apostles to do so ; but in all the
recorded words of either our Lord or His Apostles, and in all

v.J THE BIBLE NOT INFALLIBLE AS A GUIDE. 83
their surviving letters, there is not a word about the Pope,
from one end to the other. But, dismissing this and some
other manifestly weak arguments, the Romanist advocate
asks the Protestant : ' If the Scriptures are your sole rule of
faith, how do you learn what are the Scriptures ? Where do
you find a text of Scripture to give you information on this
point ? If you say you receive certain books because they
were written by Apostles, is that a ground for accepting
them as infallible ? The Apostles were fallible as men : how
do you know they were infallible as writers ? And, in any
case, you receive the Gospels of Mark and Luke, who were
not Apostles, and you reject the Epistle of Barnabas, who
was. Then, how do you know that the text has been pre
served rightly ?' Even the biblical criticism of Milner's day
afforded him some instances of doubtful readings, as, for
instance, the text of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, and the
fact that, in the Prayer Book version of the fourteenth Psalm,
there are some verses not to be found in the Bible. But if
the Bible is a secure guide to anyone, it is not so to the
unlearned. If they can even read, they only know the Bible
is a translation ; and Milner asks them, ' How do you know
that the English version which you use is a correct transla
tion ?' Of course the recent publication of the Revised New
Testament would supply a Roman Catholic controversialist
with instances enough where he could maintain that it had
been now proved that readings or translations hitherto in use
among us were erroneous. Having in this way tried to show
that there was too much uncertainty about the Bible to allow
it to serve the office of a sure guide, Milner goes on to say, even
if the book itself is infallible, it is not so as a guide : that is
to say, it does not ensure those who follow its guidance from
risk of error. This appears from the great differences of
opinion between persons who all profess to have taken their
religion from the Bible, and whom we cannot in charity be
lieve to have been insincere in their profession of having
honestly tried to follow its guidance. These persons who
disagree among themselves cannot all be right. It is plain,
therefore, that the Bible, if there be no authorized interpreter,
G 2

84 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
does not suffice as a guide, in following which there is no
danger of going wrong. Well, I think that, without dis
cussing the other difficulties raised by Milner, the last argu
ment, founded on the different results arrived at by students
of the Scriptures, is enough to establish his case that the
Bible as a guide does not fulfil the conditions which his
axioms impose.
Having set aside these two fallacious rules, Milner pro
pounds what he asserts to be the true rule, namely : to the
written Word of God to add the unwritten ; that is to say, to
Scripture to add tradition, and to both to add the Church as
an authorized interpreter of the true meaning of the Word of
God. Milner abstains from applying to this rule the same
searching criticism he had applied to the two others, appa
rently satisfied with the argument that as the other two rules
were wrong, this must be the right one ; but if I could go
fully into the discussion, it would easily appear that this rule
fails as completely as the two others to satisfy the prescribed
conditions. One of Milner's conditions, you will remember,
is, ' This rule must be secure, never-failing, by which those
persons who sincerely seek for Christ's religion shall cer
tainly find it.' Well, in the first place, in spite of this rule,
more than half of the seekers (and it would be uncharitable
to think that the bulk of them are not sincere) have not found
it. A guide is useless if those who want his services cannot
make him out. Imagine that a gentleman, who lived in the
country at a distance from a railway station, gave an enter
tainment to his friends. It would be natural that he should
make provision that, on their arrival at the station, they
should be enabled to find his house. But when they arrive
they find a number of competing carmen, all professing to be
able to conduct them safely ; but, as things turn out, half of
them are taken wandering over the country, and never reach
the house at all. The entertainer tells the disappointed
guests, ' It was all your own fault : I had a servant at the
station, and you ought to have known him.' But whosesoever
fault it was, the actual result shows that the measures he took
for their guidance were neither certain nor never-failing.

v.J THE ARGUMENT FROM VARIATIONS. 85
Again, the Bible is said to be inadequate as a rule, because
there are so many differences of opinion between those who
profess to follow its guidance. Are there no differences be
tween those who profess to follow the guidance of the Church
of Rome ? It would lead me too far if I were to speak in
detail of the internal dissensions in the Roman communion.
One case, however, is striking enough to be brought before
you. Bossuet is the writer who may be said to have made
his own the argument against Protestantism derived from the
disagreements of its several sects. His work called The
Variations of the Protestant Churches, published at the end of
the seventeenth century, was the most popular book of con
troversy of his day, and was esteemed by Roman Catholics
as a triumphant success. In this he infers that the Protes
tant Churches have not the guidance of the Holy Spirit, from
the differences that exist between various Churches, or be
tween the teaching of the same Church at one time and
another. Many of the differences which Bossuet enumerates relate
to very minute points which cannot be regarded as essential
to salvation, and on which Christians might be well content
to differ. But, indeed, a Protestant seldom feels himself
much affected by the argument from variations, which he
feels to be equally pointless whether he be disposed to make
common cause with non-Episcopal sects or the reverse. In
the former case he would say, ' My differences with the ortho
dox Protestant sects relate merely to unimportant questions
of discipline, and so forth ; but on all really vital questions
we are thoroughly agreed. And Roman Catholics them
selves admit that union in essential matters is compatible
with difference of opinion on points which superior authority
has left open.' But, on the other hand, there is quite as good
an answer for one who disowns the Dissenting sects alto
gether. He may say, ' What is it to me what is held by
those people whom you class with me under the common
name of Protestant ? I have nothing to say to them any
more than you have. If it is an argument against me that
Baptists and Quakers disagree with me, they do not agree

86 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v,
any more with you.' In fact, there is nothing to prevent any
sect from placing itself on one side, and all the rest of the
world on the other, and contending that those who disagree
with that sect show they are wrong by their disagree
ments among themselves. For instance, I do not see why
this Roman Catholic argument might not be used by a mem
ber of the Established Church of England. He might say,
'Dissenters plainly show that they are wrong by their
differences among themselves. Protestant Dissenters ac
cuse us of believing too much, and Roman Catholic Dis
senters accuse us of believing too little. When such
opposite charges are brought, it is plain we must be just
right.' The fact is, what the existence of variations of belief
among Christians really proves is, that our Master, Christ,
has not done what Roman Catholic theory requires He should
have done, namely, provided His people with means of such
full and certain information on all points on which contro
versy can be raised, that there shall be no room for difference
of opinion among them. But it is ridiculous to build on these
variations an argument for the superiority of one sect over
another. But my purpose in now mentioning the subject is to tell
how Bossuet, whose name is specially connected with the
argument from the variations of Protestantism, has himself
become the most signal instance of the variations of Roman
ism. Bossuet was, in his time, ' the Eagle of Meaux' : the
terror of Protestant sectaries, the most trusted champion of
his Church. But he fought for her not only against the
Protestants, but against the theory of Infallibility, then called
Ultramontane, because held on the other side of the moun
tains, but rejected by the Gallican Church. In another
Lecture I shall speak more at length of the principles of
Gallicanism and of its history. Suffice it here to mention
that one of its fundamental doctrines was, that the doctrinal
decisions of the Pope were not to be regarded as final ; that
they might be reviewed and corrected, or even rejected, by a
General Council or by the Church at large. A formal treatise
of Bossuet in proof of this principle was a storehouse of argu-

v.J BOSSUET HOW THOUGHT OF NOW. 87
ments, largely drawn on in the controversies of the years
1869-70. But this principle of his was condemned with an
anathema at the Vatican Council of the latter year.
Now observe, this was not a difference of opinion on a
minor point — some point on which the guide had given no
instruction, and with respect to which, therefore, his followers
were free to take their own course. The question here at
issue was the vital one — who the guide was that was to be fol
lowed. A man does not follow another as his guide, though
he may be walking along the same road, if he takes that road
only because he himself thinks the road to be the right one.
And so, though on a number of questions Bossuet might side
against the Protestants and with the Pope of his day, it is
plain that he was not, on principle, following the Pope's
guidance : consequently, Bossuet is treated by the predomi
nant Roman Catholic school of the present day as no better
than a Protestant. Just as he himself had argued that outside
the Roman Church there was no truth or consistency, and
that Protestantism was but an inconsistent compromise with
infidelity, so Cardinal Manning says nearly the same things
of that theory of Gallicanism of which Bossuet was the ablest
defender. ' It was exactly the same heresy,' Manning declares,
' which in England took the form of the Reformation, and in
France that of Gallicanism.' Dr. Brownson's Review, the
chief organ of American Romanism, treated Bossuet's opi
nions with even less ceremony. It said, ' Gallicanism was
always a heresy. The Gallicans are as much alien from the
Church or Commonwealth of Christ as are Arians, Lutherans,
Calvinists, Anabaptists, Methodists, Spiritists, or Devil-wor
shippers.' Could the irony of events give a more singular refu
tation than this ? A man writes a book to prove that
Protestantism is false because Protestants disagree among
themselves, and Romanism is true because its doctrines are
always the same, and its children never disagree ; and in a
few years he is himself classed with Devil- worshippers by the
most accredited authorities of the religion which he defends,
and whose doctrines he supposes himself, and is supposed by

88 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
everyone else at the time, most thoroughly to understand.
For all we can tell, the Romanist champions of the present
day may be in no better case. Can Cardinal Manning be
secure that, as the development of Roman doctrine proceeds,
he may not be left stranded outside the limits of orthodoxy,
and be classed with Devil-worshippers by the Romanist
champions of the next century ?
We seem now to have arrived at a most uncomfortable
conclusion. We have agreed that Christ must have given
His people some rule, and we have tried all the rules that
have been proposed, and found that all must be pronounced,
on Milner's principles, fallacious. We are forced, then, to try
back on Milner's axioms, and see whether we were not over
hasty in admitting them. You will find on examination that
Milner's argument, in substance, reduces itself to this : There
is an infallible guide somewhere — no one claims to be that
guide but the Church of Rome, therefore it must be she. When
you ask, How do you know that there is an infallible guide
somewhere ? he answers, That is a proposition of which no
rational Christian can doubt. I have already told you,
whenever you want to make an argument in favour of a false
opinion, to prove laboriously any true propositions it may be
convenient to you to make use of ; but to get quickly over the
false propositions you introduce, treating them as self-evident
principles which no rational person can dispute. I have
already expressed my opinion that if you concede Milner his
axioms, and then try to take your stand on the Bible as a
guide which satisfies the conditions which these axioms im
pose, you will certainly be defeated. But, in real truth, Milner
might have spared himself the trouble of writing the rest of
his book, when he begins by taking for granted that God has
provided us with an infallible guide, or, to use his own words,
with 'a never- failing rule, which is never liable to lead a
sincere inquirer into error of any kind.' Observe the mon
strous character of the claim. We are to be supernaturally
guarded not merely against deadly error, but against error
of any kind. But, in truth, this monstrous claim is absolutely
necessary in order to make out Milner's case ; for we should

v.J NECESSITY OF MENDING MILNER'S AXIOM. 89
not want the help of the Church of Rome if we might be con
tent in matters of religion with that homely kind of certainty
which is all that God gives us for the conduct of the most im
portant affairs of life : an assurance that may well be called
certainty as to substantial matters, shading off to high proba
bility when we descend to the leading details, and leaving
room for doubt and difference of opinion when we come down
to subordinate details. I do not see how any Roman Catholic
can seriously defend Milner's axiom unless he first mend it
by claiming supernatural protection, not against error of any
kind, but error inconsistent with holding the truths necessary
to salvation. I shall not quarrel with anyone for holding that
if God required men to believe certain doctrines on pain of
damnation, He would propound these truths so plainly that
no one should be able to mistake them. This is a maxim of
which I have already taken the benefit against the Church of
Rome. For, while it is said that Christians are bound, under
pain of damnation, to submit to the Church of Rome, that
doctrine has been taught so obscurely that more than half
the Christian world has not been able to find it out. But we
say that the revelation God has given us is, in essential mat
ters, easy to be understood. Roman Catholics dwell much on
the difficulty of understanding the Scriptures, and quote St.
Peter's saying, that the Scriptures contain many things diffi
cult and ' hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned
and unstable wrest to their own destruction.' But we say that
the obscurities of Scripture do not hide those vital points, the
knowledge of which is necessary to salvation ; and we have
the authority of many ancient fathers to support us in so
thinking. Chrysostom, for instance, says ' all things are plain
and simple in the Holy Scriptures ; all things necessary are
evident.'* 'The Apostles and Prophets have made all things
proceeding from them plain and evident to all ; in order that
each person, even by himself, may be able to learn what is
said from the mere reading of it.'t He gives this as a reason
why God chose men in humble station to be the writers of
* In 2 Thess., Horn. III., vol. xi., p. 528.
t Horn. III., de Las., vol. i., p. 379.

go MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
books of Scripture. In like manner, says St. Augustine,
' God hath made the Scriptures to stoop to the capacities of
babes and sucklings.'* ' Scarcely anything is drawn out from
the more obscure places of Scripture which is not most plainly
spoken elsewhere.'t Accordingly, when any of the early
Fathers has occasion to make an enumeration of the truths
which Christians ought to know, he usually contents himself
with a summary of doctrines nearly identical with that con
tained in the Apostles' Creed, all the Articles of which contain
truths that lie on the very surface of Scripture, and do not re
quire any laborious investigation of texts in order to arrive at
them. But, for thus holding that the list of truths necessary to be
known in order to salvation is short and simple, we have the
authority of the Roman Church herself. No one is so unrea
sonable as to expect ordinary members of the Church to be
acquainted with all the decisions of Popes and Councils, in
the correctness of which they are nevertheless obliged to
believe. Take only one Council — the Council of Trent. Has
any Roman Catholic that is not a professed theologian,
studied its decrees r If an unlearned Roman Catholic were
asked to explain the doctrines of Justification and Original
Sin, steering clear of Lutheranism on the one hand and of
Pelagianism on the other, taking care not to give any coun
tenance to the Jansenists, but also taking care not to fall foul
of St. Augustine, we may be sure that if he was mad enough
to undertake the task, he would not go far in his statement
without finding himself involved in some of the anathemas of
which that Council was so liberal. There are, on a rough
calculation, one hundred and fifty doctrines condemned by it,
with a formal anathema. An anathema is, in fact, the way
by which the Council indicates that the doctrine which it
propounds is ldefide.'
But an unlearned person is not expected even to under
stand the terms in which the doctrine is conveyed. Dr.
Newman has been so good as to furnish me with an example,
* Enarr. in Psalm, viii. 8, vol. iv., p. 42.
t De Doct. Chr. ii. 8, vol. iii., p. 22.

v.J EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT BELIEF. 91
What sense, he asks, can a child or a peasant, nay, or any
ordinary Catholic, put upon the Tridentine Canons, even in
translation, such as ' Si quis dixerit homines, sine Christi
justitia per quam nobis meruit justificari, aut per eam ipsam
formaliter justos esse, anathema sit.' Yet these doctrinal
enunciations, he adds, are de fide. Peasants are bound to
believe them as well as controversialists, and to believe them
as truly as they believe our Lord to be God. * I do not know
that the canons of the Council, held since Newman's book
was written, are more intelligible to the unlearned ; for ex
ample, ' Si quis dixerit deum esse ens universale seu indefi-
nitum quod sese determinando constituat rerum universitatem
in genera species et indi vidua distinctam, anathema sit.' Of
these, and such like propositions, which an unlearned Roman
Catholic is bound to believe, he is not in the least expected
to know even the meaning. The decisions of councils are
intended for the instruction of those who make theology their
study, and not for that of ordinary members of the flock.
While the Church does her duty in providing scientific theo
logians with a guide to any of the bye-paths of theology they
may be tempted to explore, she does not invite the unlearned
to enter into these mazes; and the great doctrines of the
Gospel constitute the broad highway of salvation, plain, easy
to be found, and in which the least learned member of the
Church can walk without fear of error. According to Roman
Catholic teaching, an individual member of the Church is for
bidden to reject any doctrine taught by the Church ; but he
is not bound to know all that she teaches. He must believe
that she teaches true doctrines, but he need not know what
these doctrines are. The list of doctrines which he is bound
to know, as well as to believe, is (as we shall presently see) a
very short one.
The distinction which I have just stated is sometimes
expressed as a distinction between explicit and implicit belief.
When you accept any truth, you take it with all its conse
quences, though you may never have drawn them out, and
do not know all that is involved in the assent you have given.
* Grammar of Assent, p. 142.

g2 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
When you believe that the Church cannot err, in that belief
is involved, as a necessary consequence, belief in all that the
Church has taught, or may at any time teach, however igno
rant of her actual teaching you may be. Now though, ac
cording to Roman theory, faith in the Church's teaching is
necessary to salvation, that faith need not be explicit. Im
plicit faith is when a person is persuaded that the teaching
of the Church is all true, though he imperfectly knows what
that teaching is ; explicit faith, when he, besides, has an in
telligent knowledge of the doctrines in which he believes.
The best illustration of implicit faith is afforded by the story
of Fides Carbonarii. The story, in some shape, you have pro
bably heard ; but you may as well hear it in its original form
as told by Cardinal Hosius.* The Cardinal is proving that if
you trust only in Scripture, you must be worsted in every
conflict with the devil, who can argue out of it much better
than you ; and he tells a story of a poor collier who when
asked by a learned man what he believed, repeated the
Creed, and, when asked what more he believed, answered,
' I believe what the Church believes.' ' And what does the
Church believe ? ' ' The Church believes what I believe.'
'And what do the Church and you both believe?' 'The
Church and I believe the same thing.' The learned man was
disposed to smile at the collier's simplicity. But some time
after, when he was on his death-bed, Satan tempted him
with assaults on his faith, to parry which all his learning
was vain, and, every time the Evil One questioned him how
he believed, he was glad to reply, ' ut carbonarius.'
.Such faith as this is held to be sufficient for salvation. It
is enough if the individual humbly receives all that is pro
pounded to him on God's authority, and does not, in the pride
of his reason, reject truths that he knows to be part of Divine
revelation ; and he is not to be blamed if he does not expli
citly hold doctrines which he has never been properly in
formed were part of God's revelation through the Church.
Nay, he may hold two opposite doctrines, the one explicitly,
the other implicitly. He may have formed his own opinion
* Confutatio Brentii, lib. iii., De Auctor. Sac. Scrip.

v.J IMPLICIT FAITH SUFFICES FOR SALVATION. 93
on a point of doctrine, without being aware that his view had
been condemned by the Church, and he may be, at the same
time, fully desirous to believe all that the Church teaches.
In this case, it is held, his implicit true faith will save him,
notwithstanding his explicit false faith ; or, as the distinction
is otherwise expressed, though he hold material heresy, he
is not formally heretical. It is in this way that the early
Fathers are defended when their language is directly opposed
to decisions since made by Rome. Cyprian may oppose the
supremacy of the Roman See ; Chrysostom may use language
directly opposed to Transubstantiation ; elsewhere he may
impute sin to the Virgin Mary; Bernard may vehemently
oppose the doctrine that she was conceived without sin. But
these Fathers are held to be excused, because in their time
the Church had not spoken distinctly. They would, no doubt,
have spoken as she does now, if they had been privileged to
hear her voice expressed on the questions referred to. In
will they agreed with the Church, and would have been
pained to dissent from her, though their actual expressions
be directly opposed to her doctrine.
I cannot help remarking, in passing, how this theory re
presents the Church, not as helping men on their heavenly
way, but as making the way of salvation more difficult.
Every interposition of her authority closes up some way to
heaven which had been open before. A couple of hundred
years ago a Roman Catholic might believe, without hazard of
salvation, that the Virgin Mary either was or was not conceived
without sin. Leading men were arrayed on both sides. But
since Pius IX., in 1852, promulgated the dogma of the Imma
culate Conception, no one can call it in question, on peril of
forfeiting his salvation. So, in like manner, of the dogma of
the Pope's personal infallibility, and a host of other questions.
Now, we could understand the Church's office if the case was
this, that a knowledge of certain doctrines being necessary to
salvation, the Church was appointed to publish these doc
trines so plainly that none could mistake them. But the case
is just the reverse. The guidance of the Church is represented
as needed, not for the publication of truths in themselves

94 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
necessary to be known, but for the solution of problems raised
by speculative theologians, with respect to which it might
have been free to men to hold either view if the Church had
but held her peace. Suppose that we were starting on a
mountain expedition, and that a professed guide beset us with
clamorous representations of the absolute necessity of engag
ing his services. There was a multitude of misleading paths,
there were precipices, snowdrifts, concealed crevasses : it
was certain death to venture over the pass without a guide.
Suppose that when, on these representations, we had engaged
his services, he told us that we had nothing to do but follow
the great, broad path before us ; that there were, indeed, many
intricate side-paths, but that into these we need not enter; the
only essential point being that we should be persuaded that
he could guide us safely through them. In such a case, I
think we should feel that we had been swindled out of our fee
on false pretences, and that, instead of our absolutely wanting
a guide, the truth was that it was the guide who absolutely
wanted us. And our faith in the guide would be a little tried
if, when we came to a place where two paths diverged, and
asked him which we were to follow, he replied, that if he had
not been there to direct us, we might have safely taken either
way, as many had already got safe to their journey's end by
both roads ; but that now we had heard him direct us to take
one path, we should certainly come to grief if we took the
other. You may naturally inquire what is the actual practice of
the Church of Rome, with regard to insisting on an actual
knowledge of certain truths, in addition to the general know
ledge that the Church is able to teach rightly concerning
them. It is clear that lay people are not to be sent off
to explore the huge folios which contain the decrees of
councils. What is it that for their soul's health they are
obliged to know? A popular little manual circulated by
thousands, and called, What every Christian must know,
enables us to answer this question. It tells us that every
Christian must know the four great truths of faith, namely :—
'I. There is one God. II. In that God there are Three Persons.

•v.J LIST OF NECESSARY TRUTHS. 95
III. Jesus became man and died for us. IV. God will reward
the good in heaven, and punish the wicked in hell.' This
list of necessary truths is not long, but some Roman Catho
lics have contended that it might be shortened ; pointing out
that since men were undoubtedly saved before Christ's com
ing without any explicit faith in the Incarnation or in the
doctrine of the Trinity, an explicit faith in these doctrines
cannot be held to be necessary to salvation.* Nor does such
faith seem to be demanded in a certain papal attempt to
define the minimum of necessary knowledge. Pope Innocent
IV., in his Commentary on the Decretals, lays down that it
is enough for the laity to attend to good works ; and, for the
rest, to believe implicitly what the Church believes. Those
who have the cure of souls must distinctly know the articles
of the Creeds. Bishops ought to know more, being bound to
give a reason to everyone who asks it. For the lower clergy,
who have neither leisure for study nor money to bear its
expense, it will be enough if they learn as much as the laity
and a little more. For instance, as being constantly em
ployed in attendance on the altar, they ought to know that
the Body of Christ is made in the Sacrament of the Altar.
And if they have the means of paying teachers, it would be
a sin if they did not acquire more explicit knowledge than
the laity.f
Although, in the first editions of Father Furniss's little
manual, which I have already mentioned, only the four great
truths of faith are declared to be necessary to be known ; the
later editions add the doctrine of the Sacraments, namely —
' Baptism takes away original sin ; Confession takes away
actual sin ; and the Blessed Sacrament is the body and blood
of Christ.' But take this list of necessary truths at the
longest, and it certainly has the merit of brevity. And we
may think it strange that a modern writer has succeeded in
doing what the writers of the New Testament tried to do, and
* This view is taken by Gury, Compendium of Moral Theology, i. 124, quoted
by Littledale, Plain Reasons, p. 75.
t Innocent IV., Comm. in Librum Primum Decretalium, lib. I., cap. i., sects.
2> 3, °-

96 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [v.
are said to have failed in. It was certainly the object of the
New Testament writers to declare the truths necessary to
salvation. St. John (xx. 31) tells us his object in writing —
' These are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life
through His name.' Yet we are required to believe that these
apostles and evangelists, who wrote under the inspiration
of the Holy Ghost, performed their task so badly, that one
who should have recourse to their pages for guidance is more
likely than not to go astray, and is likely to find nothing but
perplexity and error. Strange, indeed, that inspired writers
should fail in their task : stranger still, that writers who claim
no miraculous assistance should be able to accomplish it in half-
a-dozen lines. But the main point is, that if the list of neces
sary truths is so short, the necessity for an infallible guide
disappears. The four great truths of faith, just enumerated,
are held as strongly by Protestants, who dispense with the
guidance of the Church of Rome, as by those who follow it.
The great argument by which men are persuaded to be
lieve that there is at least somewhere or another an infallible
guide is, that it is incredible that God should leave us without
sure guidance when our eternal salvation is at stake. It is
thought that, if it is once conceded that an infallible guide
exists somewhere, the case of Rome will be established by
the absence of competition from anyone making a similar
claim. Now, we saw that Milner's axiom was altogether
extravagant. He demanded that God should miraculously
secure men from error of any kind. Surely, it cannot be
required that we should be given certain knowledge on all
possible subjects ? All that with any plausibility can be de
manded is, that we should be guarded against error destructive
of salvation. But now it is evident that infallible guidance
cannot be asserted to be necessary, except in cases where
explicit knowledge is necessary. If our readiness to believe
all that God has revealed, without knowing it, is enough for
our salvation, there is an end to the pretence that it was
necessary to the salvation of the world that God should pro
vide means to make men infallibly knozv the truth. Here is

v.] NO NEED OF INFALLIBLE GUIDANCE. 97
a specimen of what Roman Catholics call an act of faith :
' O my God, because Thou art true, and hast revealed it, I
believe that Thou art One God ; I believe that in Thy God
head there are Three Persons ; I believe that Thy Son Jesus
became man, and died for us ; I believe that Thou wilt reward
the good in heaven, and punish the wicked in hell ; I believe
all that the Catholic Church teaches ; and in this belief I will
live and die.' In other words, this act of faith is a profession
of explicit belief in the four great truths of faith, and of im
plicit belief in all the teaching of the Church. Now, substi
tute the word ' Bible ' for the word ' Church,' and a Protestant
is ready to make the same profession. He will declare his
belief in the four truths already enumerated, and in all that the
Bible teaches. If a Roman Catholic may be saved who actually
contradicts the teaching of his Church, because he did not in
intention oppose himself to her, why may not a Protestant be
saved, in like manner, who is sincerely and earnestly desirous
to believe all that God has revealed in the Scripture, and
who has learned from the Scripture those four great truths
of faith, and many other truths which make wise unto salva
tion, even if there be some points on which he has wrongly
interpreted the teaching of Scripture ? Have we not as good
a right in this case as in the other to say that his mistaken
belief will not be fatal to one who, notwithstanding his error,
is of an humble, teachable disposition, and who does not
wilfully reject anything that he knows God to have revealed ?
In fact, if it were even true that a belief in Roman Infalli
bility is necessary to salvation, a Protestant would be safe.
For, since he believes implicitly everything that God has
revealed, if God has revealed Roman Infallibility, he believes
that too. Thus the argument for the necessity of an infal
lible guide has no plausibility, unless, with regard to the
absolute necessity to salvation of an explicit belief, we hold
a theory far more rigid than even the Church of Rome has
ventured to propound.
There is, however, something more to be said before we
can part with the discussion of Milner's axiom.
H

VI.

MILNER'S AXIOMS.— PART II.
IN the last Lecture I tried to show that, if Milner's axiom
were limited to an assertion about saving truth — that
is to say, truth an explicit knowledge of which is neces
sary to salvation — it would be perfectly useless to one de
sirous to establish the necessity of an infallible guide. I
wish now to show that, if Milner's axiom be asserted not
only with regard to truths necessary to salvation, but also
to truths highly important and useful, then the axiom is
not true. There is an immense amount of knowledge, both
secular and religious, highly important for man to possess,
"but for which God has not seen fit to provide certain never-
failing means whereby men may attain to it, and conse
quently which, as a matter of fact, many men do fail of
obtaining. I am the more particular in stating this, because
I should be sorry if the previous discussion had led you to
think that I represented the great bulk of God's Revela
tion as useless, and that I taught that, provided a man be
made acquainted with that minimum of knowledge which is
absolutely necessary to salvation, it is a matter of small im
portance whether any further knowledge be communicated to
him. I hold the gaining of such knowledge to be of the very
highest use and importance ; but I say that all we know of
God's dealings forbids us to take for granted that, because
knowledge of any kind is of great value to man, God will
make it impossible for him to fail to acquire it.
There is one piece of vitally important knowledge which
Roman Catholics must own God has not given men never-
failing means for attaining : I mean the knowledge what is the

vi.] DIFFICULTY OF FINDING THE TRUE CHURCH. 99
true Church. They must own that the institution of an infal
lible Church has not prevented the world from being overrun
with heresy. They do not number in their communion half of
those who profess the name of Christ. We need only call to
mind our own Church, with its important ramifications in Scot
land, the Colonies, and America; the dissenting bodies in Eng
land and America ; foreign Protestants in Scandinavia and
Germany; the Greek Church in Russia, and other Eastern
communities. We need not discuss how much of essential
truth is preserved by each of these bodies. Their very exist
ence shows that it is as hard to find the true Church as the
true doctrine; for it would be grossly unfair to deny that
there are among these different bodies many sincere in
quirers after truth. In whatever else these Churches dis
agree, they agree in denying that Rome has made out her
claim to infallibility and supremacy. It is plain, then, that
God has not endowed His Church with credentials so con
vincing as irresistibly to command men's assent ; and, ac
cording to Roman theory, He works a stupendous miracle
in vain. To guard Christians against error, He works a
perpetual miracle in order to provide them with an infallible
guide to truth, and yet He neglects to furnish that guide
with sufficient proof of his infallibility. Nay, He allows
that infallibility to be wielded by men who have made them
selves so distrusted through deceit and imposture and other
evil practices, that a prejudice is excited against their pre
tensions. This one consideration is sufficient to overturn the
a priori proof that there must be an infallible guide, because
we want one, and because it seems incredible that God
should leave us without any means necessary for the attain
ment of religious truth. The proof equally shows that such
a guide ought to be able to produce unmistakeable creden
tials ; and the claims of one who has been rejected by half
the Christian world are by that very rejection disproved.
But we may further show in the case of secular knowledge
how much there is very desirable for us to possess, which God
has given us no certain means of attaining. Man is left in
a variety of cases to act on his own responsibility and to the
K2

loo MILNER'S AXIOMS. [vi.
best of his fallible judgment ; exposed to various dangers, and
called on for the exercise of diligent care, which, in point of
fact, very often is not exercised. No one who has read
Butler's Analogy can be at a loss to expose the fallacy of
inferring that because a thing seems to us desirable, God
must therefore have constituted His world so that we shall
be sure to have it. To quote one of his analogies, take the
case of disease and the remedies for it. If we might have
indulged our conjectures, we should have imagined that
there would have been no such thing as disease in the
world. But, at least, we might argue that, if God did, in His
mercy, provide remedies for disease, these remedies would,
to parody Milner's words, have been ' certain, never- fail ing,
such, in short, as to free those who use them from ill-health
of every kind' ; and if a quack were to present himself, de
claring that such were the remedies he was possessed of, and
that we ought to acknowledge the justice of his pretensions
without examination, because no one else claimed to have
such remedies as we should have expected God to provide
for us, while he alone spoke with confidence, and never
admitted the possibility of his falling into error ; — such a
quack would have all the titles to our obedience that the
Church of Rome has, according to the arguments of many of
its advocates, who seem to think that we are bound to receive
him who talks biggest and brags loudest, and will not own
that he may sometimes make a mistake.
But analogy furnishes us with a still better answer to the
Roman Catholic argument about Infallibility. One simple-
test will expose the fallacy of any of these arguments. Sub
stitute the word ' sin' for the word ' error,' and examine
whether the argument will then lead to true conclusions. It
is not only our own speculations that would lead us to think
God would have provided means to banish sin from the
world. The Scriptures would certainly, at first sight, lead
us to conclude that it would, at least, be banished from the
Church. There is not a single promise to the Church that
does not speak even more distinctly of herjmembers being led
into the ways of holiness than into the way of truth. The
name 'holy' is the distinctive title of the Church, 'saints'

vi.J THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH NOT PERFECT. IOI
that of her members. She is described as ' a glorious Church,
not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.' And it is
true that the Church has done this great work in the world,
that she has made a degree of holiness possible, which was
not so before : and not only possible, but common ; that
being now ordinary among Christians which before had been
only the attainment of some distinguished saints. But it is
not true that this holiness is either perfect or universal.
Roman Catholic historians themselves acknowledge the
moral corruption which at times overspread the highest
places of the Church, not excepting him whom they account
its head. I will quote the well-known words with which
Baronius begins his account of the tenth century : ' A new
age begins, which, from its asperity and barrenness of good
has been wont to be called the Iron Age ; from the deformity
of its overflowing wickedness, the Leaden Age ; and, from
its paucity of writers, the Dark Age. Standing on the
threshold of which, we have thought it necessary to premise
something, lest the weak-minded should be scandalized if he
should happen to behold the abomination of desolation in the
Temple. . . .* The case is plainly such, that scarcely anyone
can believe, nay, scarcely ever shall believe, unless he see it
with his own eyes, and handle it with his own hands, what
unworthy, foul, and deformed, yea, what execrable and abo
minable things the sacred Apostolic See, upon whose hinge
the universal Catholic Church turns, has been compelled to
* In the passage which I here omit, Baronius turns it into an argument in favour
of the Roman Church, that the fact that she survived a period which, according to
all human calculation, ought to have been fatal to her, proves that she must have been
under Divine protection. He borrowed this paradox from Boccaccio, who had pre
sented it in the shape of a tale about a Jew, who, being pressed to embrace Chris
tianity, declared his intention of visiting Rome, and judging of the religion by the
lives of Christ's Vicar, his cardinals and bishops. His Christian friends were horrified,
knowing that the spectacle of the sensuality, avarice, and simony which tainted all at
Rome, from the least to the greatest, was better calculated to make a Christian turn
Jew than a Jew become a Christian. But the Jewish visitor, on his return, presented
himself for baptism, declaring himself convinced of the divinity of a religion which
survived, notwithstanding that its chief ministers were doing their very best to destroy
it. The popularity of this tale in pre-Reformation times shows that, if the Bishop
of Rome was then believed to be a guide to truth, he was not imagined to be an
¦example of moral purity.

102 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [vi„
suffer. O shame! O grief! how many monsters, horrible to-
be seen, were intruded by secular princes into that seat which
is to be reverenced by angels; how many tragedies were
consummated ; with what filth was it her fate to be spat
tered, who was herself without spot or wrinkle ; with what
stench to be infected ; with what loathsome impurities to be
defiled, and by these to be blackened with perpetual infamy !'
And, again, the same historian writes [Ann. 912) : 'What was
then the face of the Holy Roman Church ? How most foul,
when harlots, at once most powerful and most base, ruled at
Rome, at whose will Sees were changed, bishops were pre
sented, and, what is horrible to hear and unutterable, pseudo-
bishops, their paramours, were intruded into the See of St.
Peter, who are enrolled in the catalogue of Roman pontiffs
only for the sake of marking the times ! '
Thus, with respect to Christ's promises that the gates of
hell should not prevail against His Church, that He would
be with it always, even to the end of the world, and so forth,
we see what they do not mean. We see that they contained
no pledge that ungodliness should never assault His Church -y
that overflowing wickedness should not abound in her ; nay,
that monsters of impiety and immorality should not be seen
sitting in her highest places. The question is, therefore,
whether God hates error so very much more than He hates
sin, that He has taken precautions against the entrance of
the one which He has not seen fit to use in order to guard
against the other. We hold that what He has done in both
cases is strikingly parallel. First, His great gift to His people,
that of the Holy Spirit, is equally their safeguard against sin
and against error. He is equally the Spirit of Truth and the
Spirit of Holiness. It is His office to inform our understand
ing, by taking of the things of Christ and showing them
to us ; and to direct our wills, and make them conformed to
that of Christ. And the means He uses for both ends are the
same. The Scriptures are equally guides to truth and to holi
ness. They make us wise unto salvation. They are ' a light
unto our feet, and a lamp unto our paths.' 'Wherewithal
shall a young man cleanse his way ? by taking heed thereto
according to Thy word.' And the Church also is used by

vi.] EQUAL LIABILITY TO ERROR AND TO SIN. 103
the Holy Ghost, both as a witness and guardian of Christian
truth and an instructor in Christian morality. She has been
called (and we shall afterwards see what good claim she has
to the title) the ' pillar and ground of the truth.' And she
has certainly been in the world a preacher of righteousness.
And yet the use of all these means has not banished either
sin or error from the world. Even those ' who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit,' are still not impeccable.
Signs of human frailty betray themselves in the conduct of
men whom we must own to be good men — not merely good
with natural amiability, but really sanctified by the Spirit of
God. And those who have so been guided are no more in
fallible than they are impeccable. In proportion, indeed, as
they live close to God, and seek by prayer for the Spirit's
guidance, so will their spiritual discernment increase. They
whose will it is to do His will are made by Him to know of
the doctrine whether it be of Him. But yet, as their holiness
falls short of perfection, so also does their knowledge. ' If
we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves' ; and if we
say that we have no error, we deceive ourselves no less. And
since not only may individuals fall into sin, but, as is owned
in the extract I have read from Baronius, ungodliness may
overspread the Church widely ; so we see no reason to doubt
that not only individuals may err, but Christians collectively,
or large bodies of them, may make doctrinal mistakes. The
analogy I have been insisting on between the understanding
and the will, and the operations of God's Spirit on both, is of
the utmost importance in this controversy.
One great advantage of considering the difficulty of the
existence of error in the Church in connexion with the great
problem of the existence of evil in the world is that, while
there is no reason in either case for doubting as to the matter
of fact — the existence of the evil complained of — whatever
considerations are available in the one case for mitigating
the difficulty, and reconciling the evil which we see with the
goodness of God, are available also in the other.
Take, first, the physical evil which exists in the world.
Great part of human suffering arises from an insufficient

104 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [vi.
supply of the natural wants of food and warmth. God could,
if He had pleased, have either created us without these wants,
or with a never- failing supply for them. If we ask why He
has not done so, and why He has left it possible that men
should perish of cold and famine, as thousands of our fellow-
creatures have done, though we cannot completely solve the
question, we can, at least, see this, that with God our comfort
is subordinate to our education. It is the struggle to obtain
a supply for these natural wants which has drawn forth the
energies of man's nature. As Virgil tells us, the Father of
all did not wish the way of sustenance to be too easy, ' curis
acuens mortalia corda.' And, in point of fact, the human
race has been singularly unprogressive in those tropical
regions where there is little demand on man's energies ; and
the greatest advances in civilization have been made in the
sterner climates, where the conflict with nature has early
elicited the employment of man's full powers.
So, likewise, with regard to secular knowledge. God might
have provided us from the first with a knowledge of all things
needful ; but actually He has withheld a knowledge of much
that is necessary for the safety and comfort of life. Many of
the most useful parts of our present knowledge were long
unknown to the world, and were reserved to stimulate and
reward the pursuit of the successful inquirer. Our need of
knowledge and our desire for it have been the means which
God has used to develop in us all those faculties which have
the discovery of truth for their object. And, as if to show how
much less important in His eyes it is that we should possess
knowledge than that we should be trained to seek for it, He
has annexed a pleasure to the discovery of truth, distinct
from, and higher than, that which attends its possession. I
fear there is none of you who can have found in his study of
geometry, or hydrostatics, or natural philosophy, such plea
sure as Pythagoras is said to have felt at the discovery of the
forty-seventh proposition of the First Book of Euclid; or
Archimedes, when he rushed from the bath shouting out his
ivpriKa; or Newton, when his trembling hands could scarce
complete the calculation which proved that it was the same

vi.J ERROR AND SIN, WHY PERMITTED. 105
force which keeps the moon in her orbit that draws an apple
to the ground. Thus God, both with regard to body and
mind, has dealt with us in such a way as if it were more
important in His eyes that we should be trained to seek for
the supply of needful wants than that we should actually
obtain it : at least, while He stimulates us to the search, and
rewards us if successful, He has not exempted us from the
risk of failure.
And God has dealt with us in the same way in things that
pertain to the perfection of our moral nature. If we are per
plexed why He should not have excluded from His world the
possibility of sin and vice, at least we can see that the virtue
which has been braced and strengthened by conflict with
temptation, and victory over it, is a thing of much higher
order than the virtue which consists in the absence of temp
tation. And here, too, we perceive that God trains us and
¦disciplines us for the higher excellence, even at the terrible
risk which attends failure. Now, can it be made an objection
to Revelation that it represents the Almighty as pursuing the
same course with respect to religious truth that He has
adopted in every other kind of truth ; or, rather, were it other
wise, would there not be a presumption that such a revelation
did not proceed from the Author of nature ? God has made
the very importance of religious truth, not a reason for releas
ing us from all pains of investigation, but a motive to stimulate
us more intensely to discipline ourselves in that candid, truth-
loving frame of mind in which alone the search for truth is
likely to be successful. How prejudicial an effect a contrary
dispensation might have had on all our mental faculties, we
have a striking proof in the different progress of mind in
Protestant and Roman Catholic countries since the Refor
mation. And there is reason to infer that, when a Church sets
up a claim for infallibility, the mischief done is not merely
that such a Church can teach false doctrine without detection,
but that even if a Church professing itself infallible actually
did not teach a single doctrine that was not perfectly true, the
religious condition of its members might be inferior to that of
the members of our Church as much, and in the same way, as

106 MILNER'S AXIOMS. [vi.
the civilization of a South Sea Islander is inferior to that of a
European. We can see what a benumbing effect the doctrine of
infallibility has on the intellects of Roman Catholics by the
absence of religious disputes in that communion. They
boast of this as a perfection ; but it is, in truth, a sign of
deadness, a sign of the indifference of all to the subjects in
question. Why is it that the question of the Immaculate Con
ception, which convulsed the Christian world four centuries
ago, was disposed of by Pius IX. with scarcely a murmur ? It
was because the people did not care about the matter. The
superstitious were glad to pay a compliment to the great
object of their veneration, but whether what they asserted was
true, I suppose hardly ten lay Roman Catholics in Europe
ever troubled their heads. And if the question brought before
the Vatican Council had been of a purely spiritual nature,
had the bishops been only required to affirm such a doctrine
as the Assumption of the Virgin Mary — that is to say, to assert
a historical fact without a particle of evidence — I do not think
many would have rebelled. It was because the doctrine of
the Pope's personal Infallibility had bearings on the practical
business of this world ; because its assertion was supposed to-
be intended for the preservation or recovery of the Pope's
temporal sovereignty ; because the claim would enable him
to interfere with more effect on questions of toleration, civil
liberty, marriage, and education, that so much difficulty was
made about conceding it.
I cannot help quoting words written by Mr. Maskell, one
of the early Oxford perverts, on the occasion of the decree of
the Vatican Council. They express his natural indignation
at seeing his whole Church rush blindfold into acquiescence
in a decision which he knew to be false ; but he does not seem
to have reflected that the state of mind which can acquiesce
so indifferently in any decision of authority, is the natural
result of that belief in the need of an infallible guide which
led himself astray. He says : ' There are numbers of people
who take on trust, without consideration, what they are asked
to believe in matters of religion ; some from habit and want

vi. J UNREALITY OF UNINTELLIGENT FAITH. 107
of discipline in their education ; some from a dislike of trouble ;
some from what they pretend to be a proper subjection to their
teachers, thus trying to throw upon others a responsibility for
which themselves will have to answer to God hereafter ; some
from sheer carelessness and want of interest ; some, once more,
because they do not comprehend what is involved in their
assent. To call such an assent faith, is utterly to miscall it.
There is very little faith in it. A state of mind which can
admit so readily of additions to its creed would be very likely
not long to withstand a demand to change it altogether.'
This extract truly describes the practical effect of stunting.
men's intelligence, in the hope of making their faith more
lively. The faith generated by such a process is found not
to be worthy of the name. If any human system were to-
propose to keep men virtuous, by keeping them always in the
state of childhood, and never permitting them to govern their
own conduct, such a system would be plainly opposed to the
course which the Author of nature has preferred. Equally
opposed to His method is any system which proposes to pre
serve men from error by keeping them in the state of childhood,.
and by giving them truths to be received on authority without
inquiry. And it is opposed not only to the course of nature, but
to the commands of Scripture, which enjoins us to be ' ready to
give every man a reason of the hope that is in us' : 'in malice,
indeed, to be children, but in understanding to be men.'
A Romanist, as I have said, must acknowledge that the-
existence of an infallible Church does not exclude error from
the world, for more than half of those who call themselves
Christians unfortunately cannot be convinced of the claims of
that Church on their allegiance. But, while the existence of
error remains as distressing a problem to the Romanist as to
us, he is deprived of the compensation which we find in the
improved condition of those who have honestly sought for
truth and been successful. The problem is the same to him
as that of the existence of sin in the world would be to us, if
while all the vice in the world remained the same, we could
find nowhere examples of any higher kind of virtue than that
which consists in the absence of temptation.

VII.

THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING.
ON the last day I sufficiently showed that the foundation
for their system, which Roman Catholics assume as
self-evident, namely, that God has appointed someone on
earth able to give infallible guidance to religious truth,
admits of no proof, and is destitute of all probability. But
when we say that God has not provided us with infallible
guidance, we are very far from saying that He has provided
for us no guidance at all. I do not think a Protestant can
render a greater service to the cause of Romanism than by
depreciating the value of the guidance towards the attain
ment of religious truth given us by the Church which Christ
has founded. ' Hoc Ithacus velit.' This is the alternative
they want to bring us to — either an infallible Church, whose
teaching is to be subject to no criticism and no correction, or
else no Church teaching at all, each individual taking the
Bible, and getting from it, by his own arbitrary interpreta
tion, any system of doctrine he can. Reducing us to this
alternative, they have no difficulty in showing that the latter
method inevitably leads to a variety of discordant error ; and
they conclude we are forced to fall back on the other.
But in what subject in the world is it dreamed that we
have got to choose between having infallible teachers, or else
having no teacher at all ? God has made the world so that
we cannot do without teachers. We come into the world as
ignorant as we are helpless : not only dependent on the care
-of others for food and warmth, without which neglected in
fancy must perish, but dependent on the instruction of others
for our most elementary knowledge. The most original dis-

vii.] NECESSITY OF HUMAN TEACHING. iogf
coverer that ever lived owed the great bulk of his knowledge
to the teaching of others, and the amount of knowledge
which he has added to the common stock bears an infini-
tesimally small proportion to that which he inherited. To
think of being independent of the teaching of others, is as
idle as to think of being independent of the atmosphere
which surrounds us. Roman Catholic advocates can show,
with perfect truth, that anyone who imagines he is drawing
his system of doctrine all by himself from the Bible alone,
really does nothing of the kind. Of course, if a man reads
the Bible in a translation, he cannot imagine that he is inde
pendent of help from others. In any case, the selection of
books that make the volume was made for him by others ;
the reverence that he pays to its contents is due to instruc
tion which he received in his boyhood ; and, besides, it is
undeniable that it is natural to us all to read the Bible in the
light of the previous instruction we received in our youth.
How else is it that the members of so many different sects
each find in the Bible the doctrines they have been trained
to expect to find there ?
Human teaching, then, we cannot possibly do without in
any subject whatever ; but are our teachers infallible ? I
grant that, by children and ignorant persons, it is necessary
that they should practically be regarded so. It is said that,.
when Dr. Busby showed Charles II. over Westminster School,
he kept on his own hat, though the king was bareheaded,
and explained to the monarch afterwards that he should lose
all authority over his boys if they once found out that there
was anyone in the kingdom greater than himself. Certain it
is that boys will not respect a teacher if they find out that he
is capable of making mistakes. And this frame of mind is the
best for the pupil's progress. When our knowledge is scanty,
it is more important that we should be receptive than critical ;
or rather, if we attempt to be critical, we cannot be properly
receptive. In the earliest stages, then, of instruction, a stu
dent makes most progress if he gets a teacher in whom he
can put faith, and accepts from him with docility all the
information he is able to impart to him. But you know that

HO THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vn.
the teacher's infallibility is not real : it is only relative and
temporary ; and an advanced student, instead of respecting a
man more, respects him less if he pretends that he is in
capable of sometimes making a slip. It is a maxim with
chess-players, if you meet a player who says he has never
been beaten, to offer to give him the odds of the rook. And
what is intended plainly is, that the delusion of invincibility
¦can never grow up in the mind of anyone except one who
has never met a strong antagonist. Just in the same way,
the delusion of infallibility can never grow up except in the
mind of one who only mixes with inferiors, and does not
-allow his opinions to be tested by independent criticism.
And we may say the same of Churches as of individuals.
An infallible Church does not mean a Church which makes
no mistakes, but only one which will neither acknowledge its
mistakes nor correct them.
With respect to the teaching of secular knowledge,
Universities have a function in some sort corresponding to
that which the Church has been divinely appointed to fulfil
in the communication of religious knowledge. If I said
that University teaching of the mathematical and physical
sciences was not infallible, you would not suspect me of
being so ungrateful as to wish to disparage that teaching to
which I owe all my own knowledge of these subjects. You
would not suppose that I wished our students to receive
with hesitation and suspicion the lessons of their instruc
tors. You would not suppose that I was myself in the
least sceptical as to the substantial truth of what is taught in
these lessons. And yet I could not help owning that Univer
sity teaching may possibly include errors, and must be willing
to admit correction. Why, I could name one point of astro
nomical science in which it has altered within my own expe
rience. When I was taught the planetary theory, I was given
a demonstration, which I accepted as conclusive, that the
changes in the orbits of the planets caused by their mutual
action were all of a periodic character, and could not over
throw the stability of the system. At present the contrary
opinion prevails, and it is held that the solar system is not

vii.J THE BEST HUMAN TEACHING NOT INFALLIBLE. 1 1 1
constituted for eternal duration. In any case, no one can
imagine that University teaching was infallible in those pre-
Reformation days, when what was taught was the Ptolemaic
system of astronomy. And yet it would be equally false to
say that University teaching was even then of small value ;
for I suppose the great reformer, Newton, could have made
none of his discoveries if it had not been for the knowledge
liis University had taught him.
Now, we have no right to assume as self-evident that the
laws which govern the communication of religious knowledge
must be utterly unlike those which regulate our acquirement
of every other kind of knowledge. In every other department
of knowledge we must assert the necessity of human teaching ;
we must own that one who will not condescend to learn must
be content to be ignorant ; we must hold that the learner
must receive the teaching he gets with deference and sub
mission ; and yet we do not imagine that the teachers are
infallible, and we maintain that the learner ought ultimately
to arrive at a point when he is no longer dependent on the
mere testimony of his instructors, but becomes competent to
pass an independent judgment on the truth of the statements
made to him.
Improvements are made in metaphysics, political economy,
and other sciences, not by persons who have thought out the
whole subject for themselves, without help from others, but
by those who, having been well instructed in what has been
done already, then, by their own thought and study, correct
the mistakes of their predecessors — even of the very teachers
from whom they have themselves learned. In fact, the whole
progress of the human race depends on the two things — human
teaching, and teaching which will submit to correction. If
there was no teaching there would be no progress, for each
generation would start where its predecessor did, and there
would be no reason why one should be more successful than
another; and obviously there would be no progress if one
generation was not permitted to improve on another. What
actually happens is, that the new generation, rapidly learning
from its predecessors, starts where they ended and is enabled

112 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vii.
to advance further and to start the next generation on still
more favourable terms.
There need be no difficulty now in coming to an agreement,.
that the divinely-appointed methods for man's acquirement
of secular and of religious knowledge are not so very dis
similar. On the one hand, the finality and perfection of
Church teaching — which was the doctrine of the older school
of Roman Catholic advocates — is quite abandoned in the
modern theory of development which has now become
fashionable. That theory acknowledges that the teaching of
the Church may be imperfect and incomplete ; and though it
is too polite to call it erroneous, the practical line of distinc
tion between error and imperfection is a fine one and difficult
to draw, as I could easily show by examples, if it were not
that they would lead me too far from my subject. On the
other hand we, for our part, are quite ready to admit that God
did not intend us, in religious matters any more than in any
other, to dispense with the instruction of others. We do not
imagine that God meant each man to learn his religion from
the Bible without getting help from anybody else. We freely
confess that we need not only the Bible, but human instruction
in it. And this need, we hold, was foreseen and provided for
by the founder of our religion. He formed His followers into
a community, each member of which was to be benefited by the
good offices of the rest, and who, in particular, were to build up
one another in their most holy Faith. More than this, He
appointed a special order of men whose special duty it is to
teach and to impress on the minds of the people the great
doctrines of the Faith. In the institution of His Church,
Christ has provided for the instruction of those who, either
from youth or lack of time or of knowledge, might be unable
or unlikely to study His Word for themselves.
Let me just remind you of the stock topics of declamation
of Roman Catholics on the theme that Christ intended us to
learn His religion, not from the Bible but from the Church.
The first Christians, they tell us, did not learn their religion
from books. There were flourishing Churches before any
Book of the New Testament was written. The first Christians

vn.J FEW LEARN RELIGION DIRECTLY FROM BIBLE. 1 1 3
were taught by the living voice of apostles and evangelists
and preachers. Since their time thousands upon thousands
of good men have gone to heaven in ignorance of the Bible ;
for, before printing was discovered, books were scarce and the
power of reading them uncommon. Even in our own time
the illiterate are numerous ; yet who will venture to deny
that many, ignorant of the knowledge of this world, may be
possessed of the knowledge that maketh wise unto salvation ?
All these have learned their religion from the Church, not the
Bible. When those who can read take up the Bible, they find
it is not a book adapted for teaching our religion to those who
do not know it already. The writers of the New Testament
were all addressing men who had been previously instructed
orally : and an acquaintance with the doctrines of the Gospel
on the part of the reader is therefore assumed. The Bible
itself contains no systematic statement of doctrine, no ex
amples of the catechetical instruction given to the early
converts. Of many most important doctrines you do not find
the proof on the very surface of the Bible : you have to study
the Scripture attentively to find it out ; and it may well be
doubted whether, in some cases, you would have ever found
it if the Church had not pointed it out to you.
All this (to which much more of the same kind might be
added) would be very difficult to answer, if we imagined it was
any part of Christ's scheme to make us independent of the
good offices of our fellow-men in learning our religion ; but it
goes idly by us who cheerfully acknowledge that Christ
foresaw our need of human instruction, and provided for it,
not only by the ordinary dispensations of His Providence, but
by the institution of His Church, whose special duty it is to
preserve His truth and proclaim it to the world. I need
scarcely say how well this duty has been performed; how
fully the Church provided, in her formularies and by the
labour of her ministers, for the instruction of those who might
be either unwilling or unable to obtain it otherwise. The
illiterate may, through her, learn those truths which make wise
unto salvation ; the careless may have them forced on their
attention : even the most learned have, by her means, their
I

114 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vn.
study of God's Word aided to a greater degree than they are,
perhaps, themselves aware of. Ever since the Church was
founded, the work she has done in upholding the truth has
been such, that the words 'pillar and ground of the truth' are
not too strong to express the services she has rendered. She
has preserved the Scriptures, and borne witness to their
authority ; she has, by her public reading, forced her members
to become acquainted with them ; she has embodied some of
their most important doctrines in creeds which she has taught
to her members. Even in the times when her teaching was
mixed with most error she preserved the means of its correc
tion. There was no new revelation of Divine truth made at the
Reformation : it was by means of the Bible, which the Church
had never ceased to honour, and through the instrumentality
of regular clergy of the Church, and by reviving the memory
of lessons taught by some of its most eminent teachers in
former days, that the Reformation was brought about.
Nor do I hesitate to acknowledge the services rendered
by the Church in the interpretation of Scripture. We need
not hesitate to grant, in the case of the Bible, what we should
grant in the case of any profane author. Were the object of
our study an ordinary classical writer, an interpreter who,
devoid of all sobriety of judgment, should scorn to study the
opinions of the wise and learned men who had preceded him
would be likely to arrive at conclusions more startling for
their novelty than valuable for their correctness. Again,
if the subject of our study were the opinions of a heathen
philosopher, we should not refuse to consider the question,
what was supposed to be his doctrine by the school which
he founded ? not that we should suppose their tradition to
be more trustworthy authority as to the doctrines of their
master than his own written statements. We might think it
more likely than not, that a succession of ingenious men
would add something of their own to what had been originally
committed to them ; and yet we should not think it right to
refuse to listen to the tradition of the school as to the doctrine
of its founder — to listen with attention, though not with blind
acquiescence.

•vii.] HOW THE CHURCH OUGHT TO TEACH. 115
But, when every concession to the authority of the Church
and to the services she has rendered has been made, we come
very far short of teaching her infallibility. A town clock is
of excellent use in publicly making known with authority the
-correct time — making it known to many who, perhaps, at no
time, and certainly not at all times, would find it convenient
or even possible to verify its correctness for themselves. And
yet it is clear, that one who maintained the great desirability
of having such a clock, and believed it to be of great use to
the neighbourhood, would not be in the least inconsistent if
he also maintained that it was possible for the clock to go
astray, and if, on that account, he inculcated the necessity of
frequently comparing it with, and regulating it by, the dial
which receives its light from heaven. And if we desired to
remove an error which had accumulated during a long season
of neglect, it would be very unfair to represent us as wish
ing to silence the clock, or else as wishing to allow every
townsman to get up and push the hands back or forward as
he pleased.
In sum, then, I maintain that it is the office of the Church
.to teach : but that it is her duty to do so, not by making
assertion merely, but by offering proofs; and, again, that
while it is the duty of the individual Christian to receive with
deference the teaching of the Church, it is his duty also not
listlessly to acquiesce in her statements but to satisfy himself
of the validity of her proofs.
I said, in a former Lecture, that the true analogy to the
relation between a Christian teacher and his pupils is not that
between a physician and his patients, but rather that between
a physician and the class of students whom he is teaching
medical science. A simple test will show that this was the
view practically taken by the early Fathers. We never hear
the captain of a ship going among the passengers and implor
ing them to study the charts, and not take his word that they
are in the right course, but convince themselves of their true
position. A physician does not exhort his patients to study
their own case out of medical books ; on the contrary, he
would be sorry to see them perplexing themselves with a
I 2

116 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vn.
study which could do them no good, but, on the contrary, might
stand in the way of their obediently following his directions.
But exhortation to study, of this kind, you will hear from a
medical lecturer to the students whom he is teaching the
profession. He will frankly tell them the reasons for the
course of treatment which he advises ; he will not ask them
to receive anything merely on his authority; he will give
them references to the best authors who have written on the
same subject. He talks in this way to his class — never to the
patients on whom he practises ; so, in like manner, it would
be the duty of the rulers of an infallible Church to exhort the
people to receive their doctrines without question ; but not to
exhort them to examine the grounds on which the doctrine
was established.
If, in fact, the Church be infallible, it is impossible to under
stand why the Bible was given. It cannot be of much use in
making men wise unto salvation, for that the Church is sup
posed to do already. But it may be used by the ignorant and
unstable to pervert it to their own destruction. If a Christian,,
reading the Bible for himself, puts upon it the'mterpretation
which the Church puts upon it, he is still no better off than
if he had never looked at it, and had contented himself with
the same lessons as taught by the Church ; but if he puts
upon it a different interpretation from that of the Church (and
if the Church be infallible, her interpretation is right and
every other wrong), then he is deeply injured by having been
allowed to examine for himself. Thus, if the Church be infal
lible, Bible reading is all risk and no gain. And so, in
modern times the Church of Rome has always discouraged
the reading of the Scriptures by her people ; and if her theory
be right, she has done so consistently and wisely. And there
fore I say it is a proof that this theory was not held in ancient
times, when we find that the early Fathers had no such
scruples, but incessantly urged on their congregations the
duty of searching the Scriptures for themselves.
I will take one Father as an example — St. Chrysostom ;
and there is no unfairness in my choosing him, for I do so-
only on account of his eloquence and vigour. You will find

vii. J THE EARLY FATHERS AND THE BIBLE. 1 1 7
the same sentiments, though perhaps less forcibly expressed,
in every early Father. My quotations from him will serve a
•double purpose : both to prove the point on which I am im
mediately engaged — that at that time Christian teachers,
instead of asking their people to receive their statements on
the authority of an infallible Church, urged them to consult
for themselves the sources of proof— and also to prepare the
way for the next point in the controversy, namely, that
the sources of proof used were exclusively the Holy Scrip
tures. Now, on the first inspection of Chrysostom's works, you see
that they were composed for people who had the Bible in
their hands. The great bulk of his works consists of reports
of his sermons ; and, as a general rule, these sermons are not
of the kind of which we have so many excellent examples at
the present day : expositions of doctrine, or exhortations to
holy living, with a Scripture text prefixed as a motto ; but
they are systematic expositions of Scripture itself. The
preacher takes a book of the Bible and goes regularly through
it, lecturing on it, verse by verse. Preaching of this kind
would evidently have no interest except for men who had the
Bible in their hands, and wished for a guide to enable them
to understand it better. We have expositions of this kind in
the works of several of the most eminent Fathers, both Greek
and Latin. But indeed, in the case of the Latin Fathers, we
require no elaborate proof that the Church then, so far from
•desiring to check the study of the Scriptures, placed them in
the hands of the people, and encouraged them to read them.
The existence of the Latin translation, dating from an early
part of the second century, is evidence enough of this fact. For
whose benefit can we suppose, that that translation was made ?
The knowledge of Greek was then the accomplishment of
every educated Roman. It would have been far harder then
to find a Roman gentleman who did not understand Greek
than it would be now to find an English gentleman who does
not know either Latin or French. The Bible was translated
into Latin, because the Latin Church, in those days, wished
that not merely the wealthy, and the highly educated, but

118 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vn_
that all her members should have access to the oracles of
truth, and be able to consult them for themselves.
And now I proceed to my proof that the early Church did
not merely permit her people to verify her teaching by the-
Scriptures — did not merely make the Bible accessible to-
them — but urged its use on them as a duty which it was
inexcusable to neglect. One excuse, it may readily occur to
you, the people of that day had which Christians have not
now. Before printing was invented you would think that
manuscripts must have been scarce and expensive, and the
study of the Bible scarce practicable for ordinary Christians.
But when you hear how Chrysostom deals with that excuse,.
you will find that, in this case, as in most others, demand
produced supply, and that, in the ages when the Bible was
valued, copies of it could be obtained without unreasonable
sacrifice, and that it was only when the Scriptures ceased to-
be studied that manuscripts became scarce, and therefore-
costly. Speaking of excuses for not reading the Bible, Chrysostom
says* : ' There is another excuse employed by persons of this
indolent frame of mind, which is utterly devoid of reason,
namely, that they have not a Bible. Now, as far as the
wealthy are concerned, it would be ridiculous to spend words-
on such a pretext. But, as I believe many of our poorer
brethren are in the habit of using it, I should be glad to ask
them this question, Have they not everyone got complete
and perfect the tools of their respective trades ? Though
hunger pinch them, though poverty afflict them, they will
prefer to endure all hardships rather than part with any of
the implements of their trade, and live by the sale of thenn
Many have chosen rather to borrow for the support of their
families than give up the smallest of the tools of their trade.
And very naturally ; for they know that, if these be gone,,
their whole means of livelihood are lost. Now, just as the
implements of their trade are the hammer or anvil or pincers,.
* In the foDowing extract I combine what Chrysostom says in two places where
he goes over nearly the same ground, viz., in St. Joan. Horn. 10, vol. viii. p. 63, and.
De Lazar. Concio 3, vol. i. p. 736.

vii. J ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 119
exactly so the implements of our profession are the books of
the Apostles and prophets and all the Scriptures composed
by Divine inspiration, and very full of profit. As with their
implements they fashion whatever vessels they take in hands,
so we with ours labour at our own souls, and correct what is
injured, and repair what is worn out. Is it not a shame,
then, if, when the tools of this world's trades are concerned,
you make no excuse of poverty, but take care that no impedi
ment shall interfere with your retaining them, here, where
such unspeakable benefits are to be reaped, you whine about
your want of leisure and your poverty ?
' But, at any rate,' he proceeds, ' the very poorest of you,
if he attends to the continual reading of the Scriptures that
takes place here, need not be ignorant of anything that the
Scriptures contain. You will say this is impossible. If it is,
I will tell you why it is impossible. It is because many of
you do not attend to the reading that takes place here ;
you come here for form's sake, and then straightway go
home ; and some who remain are not much the better than
those who go away, being present with us only in the body,
not in the spirit.'
But there is another reason which Roman Catholics give
now for keeping back the Scriptures from common use,
namely, that they are too difficult for the unlearned to under
stand. You shall hear how St. Chrysostom dealt with that
excuse when his people tendered it as a reason why they did
not read the Bible.
' It is impossible for you to be alike ignorant of all ; for it
was for this reason that the grace of the Spirit appointed
that publicans and fishermen, tentmakers and shepherds and
goatherds, and unlearned and ignorant men, should compose
these books, that none of the unlearned might be able to
have recourse to this excuse; that the words then spoken
might be intelligible to all ; that even the mechanic, and the
servant, and the widow-woman, and the most unlearned of all
mankind might receive profit and improvement from what they
should hear. For it was not for vainglory, like the heathen,
but for the salvation of the hearers, that these authors were

120 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vn.
counted worthy of the grace of the Spirit to compose these
writings. For the heathen philosophers, not seeking the
common welfare, but their own glory, if ever they did say
anything useful, concealed it, as it were, in a dark mist.
But the Apostles and prophets did quite the reverse; for
what proceeded from them they set before all men plain and
clear, as being the common teachers of the world, that each
individual might be able, even of himself, to learn the sense of
what they said from the mere reading.
' And who is there that does not understand plainly the
whole of the Gospels ? Who that hears " Blessed are the
meek," " Blessed are the merciful," " Blessed are the pure in
heart," and so forth, needs a teacher in order to comprehend
any of those sayings ? And as for the accounts of miracles
and wonderful works and historical facts, are they not plain
and intelligible to any common person ? This is but pretext
and excuse and a cloke for laziness.
' You do not understand the contents ; and how will you
ever be able to understand them if you do not study them ?
Take the book in your hands ; read the entire history ; and,
when you have secured a knowledge of what is simple, come
to the obscure and hard parts over and over again. And if
you cannot by constant reading make out what is said, go to
some person wiser than yourself : go to a teacher, communi
cate with him about the thing spoken of; show a strong
interest in the matter; and if God see you displaying so
much anxiety, He will not despise your watchfulness and
earnestness ; but if no man teach you what you seek for, He
Himself will surely reveal it.
' Remember the eunuch of the Queen of the Ethiopians,
who, though a barbarian by birth, and pressed by innume
rable cares, and surrounded on all sides by things to occupy
his attention, aye, and unable, moreover, to understand what
he was reading, was reading, nevertheless, as he sat in his
chariot. And if he showed such diligence on the road, con
sider what he must have done when staying at home. If he
could not endure to let the time of his journey pass without
reading, how much more would he attend to it when sitting

vn.l ST. CHRYSOSTOM ON STUDY OF SCRIPTURE. 12 1
in his house ? If, when he understood nothing of what he
was reading, he still could not give up reading, much less
would he after he had learned. For, in proof that he did not
understand what he was reading, hear what Philip saith unto
him : " Understandest thou what thou readest ?" And he,
upon hearing this, did not blush nor feel ashamed, but con
fessed his ignorance, and says : " How can I, unless some
man should 'guide me?" Since, then, when he had not a
guide, he was occupied even so in reading, he therefore
speedily met with one to take him by the hand. God saw
his earnestness, accepted his diligence, and straightway sent
him a teacher.
' But there is no Philip here now. Aye, but the Spirit
that influenced Philip is here. Let us not trifle, beloved,
with our salvation. All these things were written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Great is the security against sin which the reading of the
Scriptures furnishes. Great is the precipice and deep the
gulf that opens before ignorance of the Scriptures. It is
downright abandonment of salvation to be ignorant of the
Divine laws. It is this that has caused heresies : it is this
that has led to profligate living : it is this that has turned
things upside down ; for it is impossible for anyone to come
off without profit who constantly enjoys such reading with
intelligence.' I dare say that will strike you as good Protestant preach
ing, and you will be curious to hear what Roman Catholic
advocates have to say in reply. Well, what they answer is,
that Chrysostom only recommends what they call the ascetic
use of the Scriptures, or, as we should say, their use for
practical edification and instruction of life. I readily grant
that this was the object Chrysostom appears to have had
primarily in view in most of the sermons I have quoted, and
I will, into the bargain, throw in the concession that Chry
sostom would have been very sorry if his hearers had put
any heretical meaning on what they read. But all this is
beside the question we are considering, namely, Was the
ancient Church afraid of their laity reading the Bible, or did

122 THE CHURCH'S OFFICE OF TEACHING. [vii.
they not, on the contrary, recommend and urge them to read
it ? Suppose the question was whether calomel ought to be
prescribed in a certain disease, and that a doctor who thought
its use highly dangerous was pressed with the example of
some great authority who had always prescribed it. Sup
pose, after denying this for some time, he had prescription
after prescription shown to him, in which calomel had been
employed, what would you think of the answer, * Oh, he only
prescribed calomel for its purgative properties ; he did not
intend the drug to operate in any other way ' ? Surely, it is
common sense that, if you administer a drug, you cannot
prevent it from exercising all its properties. If you let
people read the Bible, you cannot prevent them from reflect
ing on what they read. Suppose, for an example, a Roman
Catholic reads the Bible; how can you be sure that he will
not take notice himself, or have it pointed out to him, that,,
whereas Pius IX. could not write a single Encyclical in
which the name of the Virgin Mary did not occupy a pro
minent place, we have in the Bible twenty-one Apostolic
letters, and her name does not occur in one of them ? The
Church of Rome has very good reason to discourage Bible
reading by their people ; for some of them are very likely to-
be struck by the fact that the system of the New Testament
is very unlike that of modern Romanism. The ancient
Church had no such fear. They never desired to teach any
thing that was not in the Bible ; and so they were not afraid
of the people discovering contradictions between the Bible
and their teaching.
Now, I do not want any quotations I may read to you to-
mislead you into thinking that the Fathers of the fourth
century were English Protestants of the nineteenth. I sup
pose there is not one of them to whose opinions on all points
we should like to pledge ourselves. But such quotations as-
I have read show that they thoroughly agree with us on
fundamental principles. Where they differ from us they
differ as men do who, starting from the same principles,
work them out in some respects differently. In such a case
there is hope of agreement, if each revise carefully the pro-

vii.] THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE BIBLE. 1 23.
cess of deduction from the principles held in common. But
our conclusions differ from those of the Church of Rome,
because we start from different principles, and pursue a
different method. The difference will be the subject of the
next Lecture.*

* I did not trouble myself to give formal proof of the discouragement of Bible
reading by the modem Church of Rome, because I considered that, as I have said
above, if her theory be true, her practice is quite right. But as her advocates are
now often apt to be ashamed of this practice, I copy the conditions under which,
according to the fourth Rule of the Congregation of the Index of Prohibited Works,
the exceptional favour of being allowed to read the Bible may be granted : — ' Since it
is manifest by experience that if the Holy Bible in the vulgar tongue be suffered to be
read everywhere without distinction, more evil than good arises, let the judgment of
the bishop or inquisitor be abided by in this respect ; so that, after consulting with
the parish priest or the confessor, they may grant permission to read translations of
the Scriptures made by Catholic writers, to those whom they understand to be able
to receive no harm, but an increase of faith and piety from such reading : which
faculty let them have in writing. But whosoever shall presume to read these Bibles,
or have them in possession without such faculty, shall not be capable of receiving
absolution of their sins, unless they have first given up the Bibles to the ordinary.' — •
See Littledale's Plain Reasons, p. 90. But it is needless to produce documentary
evidence to anyone who knows the small circulation of the Scriptures in Roman
Catholic countries ; and, even in this country, the small knowledge of the Bible;
possessed by Roman Catholics in other respects well educated.

VIII.

THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF.
IF we admit it as established that the Church is bound to give
proofs of her doctrines, the next point in the controversy
is what sources of proof are admissible. I think it was Dr.
Hawkins, the late Provost of Oriel, who summed up our doc
trine on this subject in the formula, The Church to teach, the
Scriptures to prove.
The Church of England, in her Sixth Article, has laid down
the principle of her method in the assertion that ' Holy Scrip
tures contain all things necessary to salvation,' so that what
ever is incapable of Scripture proof, even if it may happen to
be true, is not to be required of any man to be believed as an
article of faith. A profession of belief in this principle of
the sufficiency of Scripture is one of the pledges which our
Church requires of every priest at his ordination. Nor is this
principle merely asserted in one of the Articles; it runs through
them all. Everything else, which might claim an independent
authority, is made in the Articles to derive its authority from
the Bible, and to be authoritative only so far as it agrees with
the Bible. The most venerable of all traditions — the Creeds-
are said (Art. viii.) to be received only because capable of
Scripture proof. Every particular Church, and General Coun
cils of the Church, are said (Arts, xix.-xxi.) to be liable to
error ; and their decisions are said to be binding only when it
can be shown that they are taken out of Holy Scripture.
Then, in the controversial Articles, one Roman doctrine after
another is rejected as a human invention, because grounded
upon no warrant of Holy Scripture. Thus you will see that
the Sixth Article is not an isolated doctrine, but states the

viii.] THE METHOD OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. 1 25
principle of the method which our Church employs in the
establishment of all her doctrines.
Now, the Council of Trent, at the outset of its proceedings,
equally proclaimed the principle of its method, in order (as it
said) ' that all men might understand in what order and
method this Synod is about to proceed, and what testimonies
and authorities it chiefly intends to use for the information of
doctrine and the establishment of morals in the Church.'
The actual words of the decree of the Council of Trent are
easily accessible to you, and I shall expect you to know them ;
suffice it here to remind you that its principle is, that the
saving truth, communicated by Christ and His Apostles, is
contained in the written books and in unwritten traditions,
and that equal piety and reverence is to be given to the books
of the Bible and to those traditions.
As Bellarmine states the matter, the rule of faith is the
Word of God ; but that Word may be either written or unwrit
ten. When we say unwritten, we do not mean that it is nowhere
written, but only that it was not written down by its first
announcers. To the first generation of Christians, the Gospel
revelation was equally authoritative, whether it was announced
to them by the Apostles' spoken words or by their written
letters ; and so to every succeeding generation it makes no
difference whether the Word of God which comes to them be
written or unwritten.
In passing, I may just point out the transparent fallacy in
this oft-repeated argument. Of course, if you certainly know
a communication to be the Word of God, your obligation to
receive it is all the same, no matter how it came to you ; but
the manner in which it comes may make all the difference in
the world, as to your power of knowing whether it be the Word
of God or not. The early Christians, who received letters
bearing the autographs of Peter or Paul, were not a whit more
sure that they had got an apostolic communication than those
who, with their own ears, heard the Apostles speak ; no doubt,
rather less so of the two ; but it is surely perfectly ludicrous
to argue that, because the Apostles' spoken words were as
good a means of knowing their sentiments as their written

126 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [viii.
words, therefore what Leo XIII., after eighteen hundred years,
tells us the Apostles taught is as good evidence to their doc
trine as faithful transcripts of their own letters.
To return, however, the principle of the perfect equality of
Scripture and tradition, as means of proving doctrine, runs
through the decrees of the Council of Trent. Very frequently,
indeed, when Scripture proof can be had, it is gladly cited ;
"but tradition is freely used to supplement the silence of
Scripture, or to interpret its obscurities. And indeed, in
general, it is not easy to distinguish how much of the proof
professes to be Scriptural, and how much traditional. Thus
it was almost inevitable that the doctrine of the Articles of the
Church of England and of the decrees of the Council of Trent
should be different when the mode of judgment adopted by
the two is so different ; the one making Scripture alone its
rule ; the other, Scripture and tradition ; and the latter, also,
placing tradition on a perfect equality with Scripture, as a
completely independent means of conveying a knowledge of
what our Lord and His Apostles taught.
The question at issue is often stated in the form, What is
the rule of faith: Scripture alone, or Scripture and tradition?
On this form of expression I may have a remark to make by-
and-by : what I want now to point out is, that in the Roman
-Catholic controversy this question about the rule of faith is
altogether subordinate to the question as to the judge of
controversies, or, in other words, the question as to the infal
libility of the Church. The Church of England doctrine, as to
the sufficiency of Scripture, has a real positive meaning to
which there is nothing corresponding in the Roman doctrine
about Scripture and tradition. Our Church accepts the ob
ligation to give proof of her assertions, and she declares that
Scripture is the source whence she draws her proofs. She
declares that she does not consider that anything not con
tained in Scripture is necessary for salvation to be believed;
and, accordingly, she does not make it a condition of com
munion with her to believe in any doctrine for which she
cannot give Scripture proof. Now, the belief of a Roman
Catholic does not rest on Scripture and tradition in the same

viii.] MEANING OF ROMISH APPEAL TO TRADITION. 127
way that that of a Protestant does on Scripture : his belief
rests on the authority of the Church ; he does not think about
tradition, except when he wants a well-sounding word in
controversy with a Protestant. His Church expects to be
believed on her bare word ; she does not condescend to offer
proofs. What she says about tradition will be found to have
only a negative meaning, namely, that her doctrines are not
to be rejected because they are not to be found in Scripture,
inasmuch as she has other ways of coming by them ; but
you would be grossly mistaken if you imagined that she meant
to offer you any historical proof by uninspired testimony for
the Apostolic origin of doctrines which are not to be found in
Scripture. If that Church condescends to offer proofs of her
•doctrines, she claims to be the sole judge whether what she
offers are proofs or not. If she presents a Scripture proof,
she claims to be the sole interpreter of Scripture ; and she
requires you to believe, on her word, not only that the doctrine
in question is true, but also that it is taught in the passage
of Scripture which she alleges in support of it. Thus you
see that the so-called Scripture proof is not a foundation on
which your faith is to rest, but a new load to be laid on your
faith. And it is just the same when she alleges tradition. If
she asserts that she has received a doctrine by tradition, you
are bound to believe that the doctrine has been continuously
held in the Church from the first, even though there may not
be a particle of historic evidence to justify the assertion.
In the same session of the Council of Trent in which was
passed the decree setting tradition on a level with Scripture,
it was also ordained that no one, leaning on his own under
standing, shall dare, wresting Scripture to his own sense, to
interpret it contrary to that sense which has been and is held
by the Holy Mother Church, whose province it is to judge
concerning the true sense and interpretation of Scripture, or
even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers. Ac
cordingly, the Creed of Pius IV. requires all who subscribe it
to promise : ' I admit Holy Scripture according to that sense
which has been and is held by Holy Mother Church, whose
province it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of

128 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [viii.
Scripture'; and, further, to say: ' Nor will I ever receive or
interpret it except according to the unanimous consent of the
Fathers.' The latter clause is a monstrous distortion of the
words of the Council of Trent, and, if understood literally,,
amounts to a promise not to interpret Scripture at all, since,
in the vast majority of cases where difference of opinion is
possible, anyone who waits to interpret until he gets a
unanimous consent of the Fathers to guide him may wait till
Doomsday. The Vatican Council, the other day, in order to
prevent misunderstanding of the meaning of this decree of
Trent, renewed it in nearly the same words as those of the
former Council.
If you look through the decrees of the Council of Trent,
you will find illustrations in plenty of the use made of the
Church's power of interpretation in finding Scripture proof
not discoverable by man's unassisted powers. Thus, the
decree concerning Extreme Unction recites the well-known
words from the Epistle of James, and then adds : ' By which
words (as the Church has learned from Apostolic tradition)
the Apostle teaches the matter, the form, the proper minister,
and the effect of the Sacrament. For the Church has under
stood that the matter is oil blessed by the bishop ; that the
form is those words, " per istam unctionem," ' etc. ; and so on.
Here we have a commentary of which there is not a trace in
the text ; and in this way evidently any passage of Scripture
could be made to say anything the Church was pleased it
should say.
I do not think any other proof is necessary of the modern-
ness of the Roman rule of faith than the very complicated
form which it assumes. I quote again from Milner's End of
Controversy what, after rejecting the two fallacious rules of
faith, he puts forward as the true rule, namely, ' the Word
of God at large, whether written in the Bible or handed
down from the Apostles in continual succession by the
Catholic Church, and as it is understood and explained by
the Church' ; or, to speak more accurately, he says : 'Besides
their rule of faith, which is Scripture and tradition, Catholics
acknowledge an unerring judge of controversy, or sure guide

viii.] ROMAN RULE OF FAITH MODERN. 129
in all matters relating to religion, namely, tne Church.' Now,
if Christians had begun with the notion that they had an in
fallible guide in the Church, they never would have said
anything about Scripture or tradition. And this will test
for us a second time whether the relation between the Church
teachers and their flocks is fitly paralleled by that between a
barrister and his clients, or between a physician and his
patients. A sick man, when asked what advice he is using
in order to get well, does not answer : Medical literature, as
contained in such-and-such books, together with the instruc
tions given orally in the Dublin Medical Schools, the whole
as interpreted to me by Dr. So-and-so. A litigant does not
tell us that he trusts for the conduct of his lawsuit to the
statutes at large, together with the common law, as ascer
tained by the decisions of several successive judges, the
whole as interpreted to him by such-and-such a barrister.
In those cases we do not dream of going behind the barrister
or physician to whose skill we commit ourselves, and we do not
bestow a thought on the sources of his information. And so, if
Christians had originally trusted to the Church as an infallible
guide, they would never have talked about Scripture or tra
dition. It would have been enough for them to know that the
Church had told them what to believe : whether she derived her
knowledge from Scripture, or from tradition, or from immediate
inspiration, would not have mattered to them in the slightest
degree. But the true explanation why Roman Catholic con
troversialists state their rule of faith in this complicated form
is, that Christians began by taking Scripture as their guide,
and then, when practices were found current which could not
be defended out of the Bible, tradition was invoked to sup
plement the deficiencies of Scripture. Last of all, when no
proof could be made out either from Scripture or antiquity
for Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, the authority of
the Church was introduced to silence all objections. But
still there was not courage to rest the fabric of belief on this
modern foundation solely, and so the venerable names of
Scripture and antiquity were still appealed to.
But, indeed, the theory that tradition is a rule of faith is
K

130 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [viii.
quite untenable unless it be supplemented by the theory of
the infallibility of the Church ; for tradition is a rule which
it is quite impossible for the individual to apply. There is
no difficulty in an individual using Scripture as his rule of
faith ; for he can learn without much difficulty what the
statements of the Bible on any subject are, and on most
subjects these statements are easy to be understood. But if
it were certain that Apostolic traditions independent of the
Bible existed, it is next to impossible for the individual to
find them with any certainty. If he has to search for them
in the writings of Fathers, the canons of Councils, the decrees
of Popes, the magnitude of the mass in which he has to
search is enough to deter him from making the attempt.
Indeed, until our own time, the task would have been im
possible. The Abbe Migne, in the prospectus to his edition of
the Fathers, tells us, in capital letters, that, out of the innu
merable works which constitute The Catholic Tradition,
he has formed one unique and admirable work, the materials
which he had to gather being often fragments and small
works without number, scattered here and there, and some
of them unedited, drawn from books and manuscripts be
longing to all places, all ages and languages, and now for
the first time united in his library. It is certainly a great
blessing to have the Catholic tradition presented in a com
pact and compendious form. And what is the size of this
convenient compilation ? The Latin Fathers form two hun
dred and twenty-two thick volumes ; the Greek, one hundred
and sixty-seven. But this is only Fathers : if you want
the proceedings of Councils, the decrees of Popes, &c, you
must search for them elsewhere. And then, when we search
for Apostolical traditions in the writings of the Fathers,
there is nothing to mark their Apostolic origin. We have
no certain means, by our own ingenuity, of distinguishing
true from false traditions : not one of the Fathers is recog
nized as singly a trustworthy guide : every one of them is
admitted to have held some views which cannot be safely fol
lowed. Thus, the mere addition of tradition to the rule of
faith makes it impossible for the individual to employ that

viii. J TRADITION AND INFALLIBILITY. 131
•rule ; and the Romish doctrine about the rule of faith would
be unintelligible unless it were supplemented by her doctrine
concerning the infallibility of the Church, which, by her un
erring instinct, is supposed to have the power of distinguishing
true from false traditions, and which reports the results she
arrives at for the instruction of the people. Thus you see it
is quite a delusion to represent the system of the Roman
Church as resting on trustworthy tradition. We are not per
mitted to apply a historical test to her teaching: on the con
trary, the teaching of the Church of the present day is made
the test of traditions. If any sayings of ancient writers are
brought forward, as contravening that teaching, they are set
aside as false traditions.
It would seem, then, that if I have already refuted the
notion that the Church of Rome is infallible, I need hardly
say anything about tradition. There is, however, just this
question of fact to be settled : our Church accepts the con
dition of having to give proof of her doctrines ; it is owned on
all hands that the New Testament is a trustworthy source of
information as to the teaching of our Lord and His Apostles.
The question is, Is there any trustworthy source besides ? Now,
I am willing to dismiss all a priori discussions, whether it
is likely that God would commit the keeping of anything
essential to our salvation to a vehicle so insecure, and so
liable to be corrupted, as tradition ; for it is dangerous to
measure God's acts by our a priori notions what He was
likely to do. And yet, the force of this argument is felt by
Romanists themselves, who would not rely on a source of
information so utterly precarious as tradition, if they did not
suppose that they had a means of removing its insecurity in
the Church, which, by its infallible instinct, discriminates
true from false traditions. So, when the dream of infallibility
is given up, tradition is reduced to its own uncertainty.
But, as I say, I dismiss all a priori arguments, neither
shall I bring forward the statements of Scripture which bear
witness to its own sufficiency, and which give us reason to
believe that he^who studies it in prayer for the Holy Spirit's
guidance will find in its pages all things necessary for his sal-
K2

132 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [viii.
vation. Such texts do not suffice to give us a logical victory
over our opponents. We cannot speak too highly of the excel
lence of any one book of Scripture : I dare say that the Gospel
of St. John alone contains all things needful for salvation ;
yet that does not prove that other inspired books were not
written. Several of the texts that are cited to prove the suf
ficiency of Scripture primarily relate to the Old Testament-
yet, excellent as that was, God gave the New besides ; and, in
like manner, if any New Testament text be cited, it may be
asked, was the Canon closed at the time that text was written ;
if not, such a text does not prove that God may not have
given a further revelation, or that that further revelation may
not have been handed down by tradition.
I think it much better, then, instead of running away from
this ghost of tradition which Roman Catholic controversialists
dress up to frighten us with, to walk up to it, and pull it to-
pieces, when it is found to be a mere bogey. You say that
you have other evidence as to the teaching of our Lord and
His Apostles as trustworthy as the Books of the New Testa
ment. Well, produce your evidence, and let us see what it is-
worth. When the question is looked at in this way it will
be found that the appeal to tradition by Roman Catholics
means no more than this : that there are doctrines taught by
the Church of Rome which, it must be acknowledged, cannot
be found in Scripture, and which she is unwilling to own that
she invented, or to pretend that they were made known to her
by a new revelation. It remains, then, that she must have
received them by tradition. But the baselessness of this pre
tence appears when we come to look into the testimony of
antiquity with respect to each of the peculiar doctrines of Ro
manism. For tradition is a thing which must be the purer the
further we trace it back. The Church may get a new revelation,.
but cannot get a new tradition. We know, from the confession
of Bishop Milner and others, that fifty years ago the Roman
Church knew nothing certain, either by Scripture or tradition,
as to whether or not the Virgin Mary was conceived without
sin. Well, then, it is clear that if that Church has attained
to certainty on this subject since, it was not by tradition she

vm.J A NEW TRADITION IMPOSSIBLE. 133
attained it. In like manner, when Augustine hears the idea
suggested that, as the sins of good men cause them suffering
in this world, so they may also to a certain degree in the
next, he says that he will not venture to say that nothing
of the kind can occur, for perhaps it may.* Well, if the idea
of purgatory had not got beyond a ' perhaps' at the begin
ning of the fifth century, we are safe in saying that it was not
by tradition that the later Church arrived at certainty on the
subject ; for, if the Church had had any tradition in the time
of Augustine, that great Father could not have helped know
ing it. And so I might reason with respect to several other
doctrines. Tradition, as it were, hangs by a chain from the
Apostolic Church, and when one part of the chain snaps, down
comes all that is below it. When once it is proved that the
Church at any period was ignorant of a doctrine, there can be
no pretence that the Church, at any subsequent period derived
its knowledge of that doctrine from Apostolic tradition.
Indeed the Church of Rome finds this word ' tradition ' so
convenient, as accounting for the origin of doctrines, whose
Apostolic descent can be proved in no other way, that she is
unwilling to deprive herself of the power, involving though it
•does a contradiction in terms, of finding out new traditions.
I quoted Bellarmine, as teaching that in calling one part of
the Word of God ' unwritten,' he does not mean that it is
nowhere written, but only that it was not written down by its
first authors. Yet, if you ask how late are we to go down :
when did some one or other of the Fathers complete the task
of committing all these traditions to writing ? you can get no
distinct answer. The Roman authorities will not even pledge
themselves that every tradition of the Church is committed
to writing at this moment ; and with good reason, for if they
•once closed the account it might be an inconvenient check
to new developments.
If I am asked, then, why I do not appeal to traditions,
independent of Scripture, as evidence of the true Christian
•doctrine, I am content to answer, Because I see no historical
evidence that there are any such trustworthy traditions.
* De Civ. Dei, xxi. 26.

134 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [vm.
Roman Catholics say, You receive the New Testament on the
authority of tradition ; why do you not receive other things-
which come to us on the same authority ? I answer, that I
am willing to receive anything else that comes on the same
authority. Produce me as strong testimony in favour of any
doctrine not contained in Scripture, as that which proves the
Books of the New Testament to have been written by the
Apostles or by their contemporary fellow-labourers, and I will
receive it. But, the fact is, the evidence on which we believe
that the Epistle to the Galatians was written by St. Paul is far
stronger than that on which we believe the jSLneid to have
been the work of Virgil ; but, for any saying, or action, or doc
trine of our Lord, not contained in the Bible, there really is
not as much evidence as the editor of a respectable newspaper
requires before he admits an announcement into his columns.
Indeed, when we search for the early history of the Christian-
Church it is remarkable what a break occurs after the New
Testament history, and before we come to other trustworthy
records of much historical value. In the age which imme
diately succeeded the Apostles there were but few writers, and
what remains to us of their compositions adds, I may say,
nothing to what the New Testament has told us. When we
come lower down the remains of antiquity increase, but there
is a singular absence of trustworthy traditional information*.
I am disposed to account for this break by the rapid diffusion
of the Gospel over distant countries ; for distance of place is
as great an obstacle to the propagation of a tradition as
distance of time. But certain it is that the early Christian
writers appear to have drawn their knowledge of the facts of
the Gospel history solely from the New Testament, like our
selves, and to have been as much at a loss as we, when diffi
culties occurred, such as tradition might have been expected
to explain. For instance, as to a fact so little likely to be forgotten
as the number of years our Saviour lived on earth, and the
duration of His ministry, we find very opposite statement*
in early Christian writers, who we should have supposed had
the means of being better informed. Clement of Alexandria.

viii. J SCARCITY OF TRUSTWORTHY TRADITIONS. 135
makes the whole duration of our Lord's ministry but one
year;* and so some early writers understood the words 'the
acceptable year of the Lord'; while Irenseus (ii. xxii.) states,
on the authority not merely of John viii. 57, but of persons
who claimed to have received St. John's oral teaching, that
our Saviour passed through all the stages of human life from
infancy to old age. There is a like discrepancy as to a fact
which one would think tradition might have preserved — the
personal appearance of our Saviour. f Opposite opinions
were held, but plainly, I think, held not on the evidence of
traditional testimony, but on no better grounds than those on
which we might ourselves discuss the question ; the one side
understanding literally the prophetical texts, ' He hath no
form or comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no
beauty that we should desire Him ; His visage was marred
more than any man, and His form more than the sons of
men' ; the other side, yielding to that natural feeling which
still leads painters to give to the features of our Blessed Lord
all of dignity and grace that they are capable of expressing.
There are difficulties in the New Testament on which tradi
tion might be expected to throw light, such as the double
genealogies of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and yet, it gives no
information worthy of reliance.^ Such a question as whether
St. Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Greek appears to be not
absolutely settled by tradition.g Again, some difficulties of
textual criticism would be solved if we could assume that
more editions of the Gospel than one were published. But
no uninspired writer is early enough to know anything about
the first publication of the Gospels.
Many like examples can be given. Hermas appears to
* Strom. 1. 21, p. 407. See also v. 6, p. 658. Clement is followed by Origen
(De Princ. iv. 5).
t On this subject see the interesting essay appended to Rigalt's Cyprian, De
Pulchritudine Corporis D. N. Jesu Christi.
X At the beginning of the third century Africanus endeavoured to coUect in
Palestine traditions on the subject. Few traditions have stronger external claims to
respect than his account of the matter (see Routh, Rell. Sac. 11. 228), but I cannot
feel that any confidence can be placed in it.
§ See my Introduction to the New Testament, Lect. k.

136 THE CHURCH'S SOURCES OF PROOF. [viii.
have been recognized as a prophet at Rome, and his book,
called ' The Shepherd,' was admitted to the public reading
of many Churches. Yet even in Rome itself in less than a
hundred years it was quite forgotten who this Hermas was,
while in foreign Churches the wildest guesses were made
on the subject. The Roman Church does not even give a
unanimous account as to the names and order of its first
bishops. The Epistle of Clement gained much celebrity ; but
what order this Clement held in the series of Roman bishops
is disputed to this day. The subscriptions to St. Paul's
epistles are not earlier than the fourth century ; but we might
naturally think that Euthalius, to whom they are ascribed,
would embody in them all the earlier traditions which he could
collect ; yet these subscriptions are, in one or two cases, quite
erroneous, and are in no case regarded as of any authority.
In the third century learned men appear to have been in the
same position as ourselves when called on to reconcile the
prevalent tradition, that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews
with "the absence of his name and the difference of style
from his acknowledged letters. They appear to have tried
to solve the question by sagacious conjecture, but to have
been quite without historical testimony. The curiosity of
Christians eagerly thirsted for more information about the
deeds and sa3'ings of our Lord than the New Testament sup
plies ; and the want so generally felt compilers of Apocryphal
Gospels tried to satisfy. Some of them are very early, and, if
there had been any additional facts available, they would,
no doubt, have worked them into their productions. But the
fictitious character of these Gospels is betrayed by their entire
unlikeness to the genuine histories of our Saviour ; nor do I
suppose that there is now any learned man who attaches the
least credence to the legends which they contain. There
is no saying of our Lord, outside of the New Testament, for
which there is more respectable testimony, than for that
saying about the Millennium which I quoted from Papias
last Term,* and which is calculated to destroy all faith in
uninspired tradition.
* Irenseus, v. 33. See my Introduction to the New Testament, p. 227.

vm.J WHY NOT APPEAL TO TRADITIONS. 137
The simple answer, then, to the question, why we do not
use traditions as well as Scripture in the proof of Christian
doctrine, is that we do not know of any trustworthy enough ;
and what we have seen of the failure of tradition proves to us
that there were good reasons why God should have granted
us in Scripture a more secure channel for conveying Christian
truth. But if it is alleged that it can be established by unin
spired testimony that any doctrine not contained in Scripture
is part of the Christian scheme, let the evidence be produced,
and we are willing to consider it. I need not discuss the
abstract probability whether it is reasonable to expect that
such testimony can be forthcoming, because I believe, as a
matter of fact, that in no case has any such been produced.

IX.

THE RULE OF FAITH.
THE subject on which I lectured on the last day would
very commonly be stated in the form, What is the
rule of faith ? Scripture alone, or Scripture and tradition ?
There are some ambiguities in the words used in this mode
of statement to which I ought to call your attention. First,
as to the words 'rule of faith,' I ought to mention that
two or three very early Fathers* give the name ' regula fidei'
or 'regula veritatis' to a profession of faith nearly identical
with our Apostles' Creed, as forming the rule according to
which Christians ought to shape their belief. Our Church, in
the Eighth Article, does not ascribe to the Creeds any inde
pendent authority, but receives them merely because they can
be proved from Scripture. Of course that does not mean that
the Bible is our only source of knowledge for the truth of all
the things stated in the Creeds. I suppose that, if a single
book of the New Testament had never been written, it would
still have been possible for us to know that the doctrine in
attestation of which the first preachers of Christianity hazarded
their lives was, that the Founder of their religion had
died and was buried, and rose again the third day. No one
who contends for the sufficiency of Scripture is concerned to
deny that many of the things stated in the Bible are capable
of historical proof independently of the Bible. Nor are we at
all concerned to determine the historical question whether, in
the earliest age of the Church, the doctrines contained in that
profession of faith which converts made at their baptism
* Irenaeus, Haer. I. ix.,xxi.; Tertullian, De Praescrip. 13, De Virgg. veland. 1, &c.

ix.J AMBIGUITY OF WORD ' TRADITION.' 139
might not have been known to many of them independently
of Scripture. Obviously, if it were proved that the great
leading facts of our religion, though contained in the Bible,
might also be handed down independently of the Bible for a
hundred years or two, this would not at all prove that a
number of things for which no Scripture warrant can be
found might also have been handed down for eighteen
hundred years. However, I have thought it the simplest
plan to avoid all cavil as to the use of the phrase, 'rule of
faith,' and merely state the question of fact we have got to
determine : Is there, besides the Scripture, any trustworthy
source of information as to the teaching of our Lord and His-
Apostles ?
It is more important to observe that there is an ambiguity
about the word tradition. Bellarmine divides traditions into
Divine, Apostolical, and Ecclesiastical. Divine traditions are
things ordained by Christ Himself. Such, for example, he
says, are the matter and form of the Sacraments, because
that it is certain that Sacraments could only be instituted by
Christ Himself. Apostolic traditions are things ordained or
taught by the Apostles under the guidance of the Holy Spirit,.
and by them handed down to the Church. It is concerning
these two that we have controversy with the Church of Rome,
Nothing turns on the distinction between the two. We
readily admit ourselves to be bound to receive anything that
can be traced up to the inspired teaching of the Apostles ;.
and we raise no question whether the Apostles were repeat
ing something taught them by our Lord's own lips during*
the period when he walked on earth, or were speaking under
the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost. In both cases
we acknowledge their teaching to be alike binding on us.
Our controversy is whether, if any doctrine not contained in
Scripture be propounded as necessary to salvation, satis
factory proof can be given that it was so propounded by
the Apostles. Of course there is a great deal that is true
of which the Bible does not tell us anything ; but we do not
hold that belief in truth of this kind is necessary to salvation.
The traditions which Bellarmine places in the third class-

140 THE RULE OF FAITH. [ix.
are of quite a different kind. Ecclesiastical traditions are
ancient customs of the Church, which, however instituted at
first, have, by length of custom, the force of laws of the Church.
Such traditions, says Bellarmine, are the observance of Easter
and Whitsuntide, the custom of mixing water with the Eucha-
ristic wine, the habit of making the sign of the Cross. Now, it is
curious that, though in popular controversy tradition is com
monly opposed to Scripture, the word tradition does not
occur in our Sixth Article, which practically excludes Bellar
mine's first two kinds of traditions, Divine and Apostolical,
from holding a place on a level with Scripture in binding
our faith. In the only place in our Articles in which the
word 'tradition' occurs, namely, the Thirty-fourth Article, ' Of
the Traditions of the Church,' it is used in the sense of what
Bellarmine calls Ecclesiastical traditions. Concerning these
last, except on the question of Roman supremacy, we have
no controversy with the Church of Rome. Although we do
not allow doctrines of faith to be taught except on the autho
rity of Scripture, we do not require such authority for the
institution of a rite or ceremony. We do not believe that
the New Testament was intended as a code of ceremonial ;
and we allow each Church to order such matters as she finds
most conducive to the edification of the people ; and, as times
and manners change, to alter such ceremonies again as she
finds expedient, provided only that nothing is ordained con
trary to the Word of God.
On this point there is very little room for controversy
among Christians. No sect could consistently carry out the
principle of having no Church rule without a Scripture text
to authorize it ; and, on the other hand, the Church of Rome
herself most fully acknowledges the power of the Church, for
reason which to her seems good, to alter Church rules of the
most venerable antiquity. I need only remind you of her
rule of withholding the cup from the laity, though she
acknowledges that the Sacrament, on its first institution,
was administered in both kinds, and that this mode of ad
ministration continued in the Church for many ages. It was
necessary to point out to you this ambiguity in the word

ix.J TRADITION OF RITES AND CEREMONIES. 141
' tradition,' because you will constantly find that, when pas
sages of the Fathers are adduced which speak of traditions,
the writers are not dreaming of any rule of faith distinct
from Scripture, but only of ancient customs of the Church, as
to the expedience, or, at any rate, the lawfulness, of retaining
which we have no inclination to enter into dispute.
While speaking on this subject, I may give you a refe
rence to an interesting list of early Church customs for which
no Scripture authority can be given. It is in the beginning
of Tertullian's treatise, De Corona Militis, and the list may be
extended by means of the note to the Oxford translation of
the passage. The occasion of it was that Tertullian — whose
turn of mind led him, whenever a question was raised as to
what was permissible to a Christian, to take what we may
call a puritanically strict view — had pronounced it unlawful
for Christians to wear a flower crown, as the heathens did,
on occasions of rejoicing. It shows the feeling of the Church
of the time on the sufficiency of Scripture that, whenever
Tertullian puts forward any of these severe rules, he has
always to meet the objection, Can you show from Scripture
that what you condemn is wrong ? On other occasions he
makes some attempt to satisfy the demand. Here Scripture
proof fails him, and he has to take his stand on the custom
of the Church, which forbad the wearing of such wreaths ;
and this leads him to instance a number of practices which
have no authority but Church usage. It is an argument
a fortiori in favour of our rule of requiring Scripture proof
for Divine or Apostolic traditions, that in the early Church
such proof was demanded even for Ecclesiastical traditions.
There is another distinction worth bearing in mind when
quotations from the Fathers are produced — that between
tradition as signifying the 'res tradita' and the 'modus
tradendi.' Every belief and custom which the Church of
one age hands down to its successors is in one sense a tra
dition ; and in many places the word ' tradition' is used as it
is by St. Paul, so as not to determine anything as to the way
in which the tradition comes—' Hold fast the traditions which
you have received, whether by word or our epistle.' It is

142 THE RULE OF FAITH. [ix.
evident that any passage of this kind is misapplied if it be
supposed to indicate a preference of oral tradition over the
written Word.
With these cautions we might be well content to allow
the question concerning Scripture and tradition to be deter
mined by tradition alone ; for, if anything can be established
by tradition, there is a clear and full tradition to prove that
the Scriptures are a full and perfect rule of faith ; that they
contain the whole Word of God ; and that what is outside of
them need not be regarded. To go into the details of the
proof would scarcely be suitable to a viva voce lecture ; for
there would be little profit in reading out a string of pas
sages which I could not expect you to remember. I will,
therefore, refer you to the second part of Taylor's Dissuasive
for a complete catena of Fathers establishing by their con
sent this principle, which no Father denies. And I am sure
that there is no Roman Catholic doctrine disputed by us for
which anything like so complete a tradition can be cited. I
merely give you, as a sample, the following from St. Basil*
¦* Without doubt it is a most manifest fall from faith, and
a most certain sign of pride, to introduce anything that
is not written in the Scriptures, our blessed Saviour having
said, " My sheep hear My voice, and the voice of strangers
they will not hear" ; and to detract from Scripture, or to add
anything to the faith that is not there, is most manifestly
forbidden by the Apostle saying, " If it be but a man's testa
ment, no man addeth thereto." ' In the same context St. Basil
¦declares that he will only sparingly employ any words-which,
though they express the doctrine of Scripture, are not found
in Scripture itself. I may remind you, in passing, how the
dislike to employ a non-Scriptural phrase deterred many
who were perfectly orthodox in doctrine from adopting the
bfioovaioQ of the Nicene Creed. In another treatisef on the
duties of different stations of life, having given a section to
the duties of Christian teachers, he comes to the duties of
hearers, and the first duty he names is, ' Those who are in
structed in the Scriptures ought to test the things that are
* De Fide, Garnier's Ed., ii. 313. f Moralia, Reg. 72, vol. ii., p. 428.

ix. J CYPRIAN ON SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE. 1 43
said by their teachers, and to receive what agrees with the
Scriptures, and to reject what disagrees.' He establishes
this caution by the texts, ' If thine eye offend thee,' &c. ; ' A
stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him ; for they
know not the voice of a stranger'; 'Though we or an angel
from heaven preach any Gospel to you besides that ye have
received, let him be anathema' — a text, I may observe, forcibly
used for the same purpose by St. Augustine .* And lastly, St.
Basil uses the text, ' Prove all things ; hold fast that which is
good.' Uneducated persons, who cannot read the Scriptures,
are recommended by St. Basil to trust their teachers according
as they see the fruits of the Spirit manifested in their life.
So much for an Eastern witness. For a Western I cannot
take a better than St. Cyprian, because, as his controversy
was with the Bishop of Rome, the quotation will also serve to
show how little the supremacy or infallibility of the Roman See
was acknowledged in the third century. Cyprian, as you no
doubt know, opposed the then existing custom of the Church
which acknowledged the validity of baptism conferred by
heretics, contending that the claims of custom must give way
to those of truth. He was resisted by Stephen, Bishop of
Rome, who, in the vehemence of his opposition, transgressed
all the bounds of charity, and proceeded so far as to excom
municate those who differed from him. Now, the question is,
not who was right in that particular dispute, but what were
the principles on which the Fathers of the Church then
argued. Cyprian thus writes to another bishop,f ' I have sent
you a copy of the answer which our brother Stephen has sent
to our letter, on reading which you will mark the error of him
who endeavours to maintain the cause of heretics against the
Church of God ; for, among other things, either insolent or
irrelevant, or self-contradictory, which he has rashly and
thoughtlessly written, he has added this : "if anyone come to
us from any heresy whatever, let no innovation be made on
the tradition that hands be laid on him unto repentance." I
may interrupt my quotation to say, that it appears to me
clear, from the other documents of this controversy, that
* Cont. litt. Petiliani, in. 6, vol. ix. 301. t Ep. 74, Ad Pompeium.

144 THE RULE OF FAITH. [ix.
Stephen had put forward his succession from St. Peter, and
had demanded that the traditional practice of the Roman
Church in this matter should be accepted, as having been
delivered to it by St. Peter and St. Paul. 'No innovation
on the tradition,' cries St. Cyprian. 'Whence comes that tradi
tion ? Does it descend from the authority of our Lord and the
Gospels ? Does it come from the commands and Epistles of
the Apostles ? God testifies that we must do the things that
are written, saying to Joshua, " the Book of the law shall not
depart from thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate in it day and
night, that thou mayest observe to do all that is written in it."
Likewise, the Lord, when He sent His Apostles, commanded
them to baptize all nations, and to teach them to observe
whatsoever He commanded. If, therefore, it is commanded,
either in the Gospels, or in the Apostolic Epistles, or in the
Acts, that those coming from any heresy should not be
baptized, but only hands laid on them, then this is a Divine
tradition, and let it be observed ; but if in these books heretics
are called nothing but adversaries and anti-Christs; if we are
told to avoid them as perverse and self-condemned, why
should we not condemn those who, the Apostle witnesses, are
self-condemned ? ' Plainly, Cyprian here maintains that the
way to find out what traditions are genuine is not to
take the word of the Bishop of Rome, but to search the
Scriptures as the only trustworthy record of Apostolic tra
dition. As he says further on in the same letter, ' What do-
you do when the water in a conduit fails ? You go back to the
source.' In this controversy the African bishops had extensive
support in the East; in particular, the Churches of Asia Minor,
who had been alienated from Rome by their quartodeciman
practice, took part strongly against Stephen, and their leading
bishop, Firmilian of Cappadocia, writing to Cyprian, rejects
Stephen's authority in language more angry and contemp
tuous than Cyprian's. Dionysius of Alexandria interfered in
the interests of peace. But what really silenced the contro
versy was the persecution which descended with equal weight
on both parties, and gave alike to Stephen and to Cyprian

ix. J ST. AUGUSTINE AND ST. CYPRIAN. 145
opportunity to witness, that, whatever their differences, the
cause of Christ was dear to both.
On the question of heretical baptism we have, as often
happens, Father opposed to Father, and the views of
Cyprian are refuted by Augustine; but the very disagree
ment brings out the fact, that there is a point on which
all the Fathers are agreed, namely, the infinite superiority
of Scripture to every other source of proof. Cyprian's
doctrine about heretical baptism was an innovation at the
time, as we may easily gather from the stand he takes on
Scripture against tradition ; and, as you know, it was not
ultimately adopted by the Church. But his arguments were
most acceptable to the followers of Donatus, who, in their
controversy with St. Augustine, pressed him continually
with the authority of that martyr saint, whose credit every
where in the Church was so great, but naturally more par
ticularly so in Africa. Now, Augustine differed from Cyprian
in not thinking Scripture proof to be necessary in order to
show a custom to be Apostolical. He thought, on the con
trary, that the existence in the Church, from time immemo
rial, of a custom the origin of which could not be traced to the
decree of a Council, or in any other such way accounted for,
afforded a reasonable presumption that the custom was Apos
tolical. However this may be, I agree with him in thinking
that the usage of the Church was justification enough for not
re-baptizing those who had received heretical baptism. And
when he was pressed by Cyprian's authority he replied, ' You
are ever throwing in our teeth Cyprian's opinions, Cyprian's
letters, Cyprian's Council. Who knows not that the Canonical
Scripture of the Old and New Testament is contained within
certain limits, and that its authority is so' far to be preferred
to all later letters of bishops, that no question can be raised
whether what is found therein be true and right ? Whereas
the letters of bishops written after the settling of the Canon
may be checked by the wiser language of any writer who
happens to have more knowledge of the matter in question, or
by the weightier authority of other bishops, and the skill of
learned men, or by Councils; and particular or provincial
L

146 THE RULE OF FAITH. [ix.
Councils again must yield to the authority of General Councils
gathered from the whole Christian world. Nay, earlier Ge
neral Councils themselves may be corrected by later.' * And
again, in graceful language, which gives due weight to the
authority of Cyprian, while it refuses to set any uninspired
authority on the level of Scripture ; ' but, now, seeing that
which thou recitest is not Canonical, with that liberty to which
the Lord hath called me, I do not receive the opinion different
from Scripture of that man whose praise I cannot reach, to
whose great learning I do not compare my writings, whose
genius I love, in whose spirit I delight, whose charity I admire,
whose martyrdom I reverence.'t
I must not weary you with quotations ; but you may take
it as a general rule that there is not a Father who, if his own
belief is demanded for something not contained in Scripture
which he is not disposed to accept, will not reply in some
such language as St. Jerome : ' This, because it has not
authority from the Scriptures, is with the same easiness
despised as approved.' + ' As we accept those things that are
written, so we reject those things that are not written.' §
' These things which they invent, as if by Apostolic tradition,
without the authority of Scripture, the sword of God smites.' ||
You will see, then, that if we were at the desire of the Romish
advocates to leave the Scriptures and resort to the Fathers
of the early Church for a decision of our controversies, these
very Fathers would send us back to the Scriptures as the
only guide to truth, the only safeguard against heresy.
It is proper to mention the only set-off that I know of that
can be madeto the otherwise unanimous teaching of the Fathers
on this subject — it is Tertullian's treatise on Prescription. And
at first sight it might seem that this is opposed to our views,
for the main point it is intended to establish is, that we ought
not to argue with heretics out of the Scripture, but put them
down by an appeal to antiquity or to the authority of the
Church. And in reading this tract we recognize, with a
little surprise, some of the arguments Roman Catholics are
* De Bapt. Cont. Donatt. n. 4, vol. ix., p. 98. t Cont. Crescon. 11. 40, vol. ix., p. 430.
% In Matth. xxiii. 35. § Adv. Helvid. || In Aggaei Proph. cap. i. n.

jx.J TERTULLIAN ON PRESCRIPTION. 1 47
in the habit of employing against us. Now, in the first place,
I must observe, that it is a misrepresentation of the senti
ments of the Fathers, as it would be of any set of men, when
arguments which they have used in one controversy are
applied to another which was not in their minds when they
were writing. Very few people are such cautious disputants
as not occasionally to use arguments which prove too much ;
which, though jvery effective for the immediate purpose to
which they are applied, might on another occasion prove
very inconvenient. Not unfrequently at the present day
Roman Catholics and Protestants, arguing together, use argu
ments which an infidel might retort with effect against either ;
or, conversely, men arguing against infidels use principles
which a Roman Catholic might be glad to have admitted.
Now, on looking into this treatise on Prescription, you will
find that nothing could be further from the mind of its author
than to inculcate a belief in any doctrine not contained in
Scripture. Neither^here nor elsewhere does Tertullian show
a wish to do so. The doctrines which in this tract Tertullian
desires to defend are the most elementary Articles of the Creed,
and all lie on the very surface of the Bible. You will find
that there was reason in Tertullian's assertion, that it was
not possible to dispose of the heretics with whom he had to
deal by Scripture arguments : for you can only argue with
people on principles which you and they hold in common, and
the Scriptures were not common ground between the Church
and the heretics of the second century. The Gnostic heretics
whom he had in view denied the most fundamental Articles
of the Christian faith. Their theories made matter the root
of all evil : consequently, they could not believe that the
Supreme Being, whom they called the Good God, was the
Creator of the world — a work which they attributed to some
subordinate, or even hostile Being. This Being they took
to be the God of the Jews, who in the Old Testament had
claimed the work of creation as His own ; consequently, they
held that the Old Testament was contrary to the New, and
that Jesus was not the Messiah of the Jewish prophets. They
could not believe that Christ had assumed a material body,
L 2

148 THE RULE OF FAITH. [rx>
that He had been really born, or really died, or that there
would be any future resurrection of the body. Now you can
well believe that it was labour lost to argue out of the
Scriptures with people who held such views as these. You
could tell them nothing as to the difference between their
teaching and that of the Bible that they must not have
known perfectly well before you spoke to them.
They were prepared, however, with different modes of
meeting the difficulty. They generally claimed to be in
the possession of secret traditions of our Lord or His
Apostles ; for it was in the Gnostic sects that the idea of
supplementing or superseding Scripture by tradition first was
conceived. They had a number of Gospels of their own
containing these traditions, while they rejected some of the
most inconvenient parts of our Canonical books. But one
sect, the Valentinians, were content with the Church Canon,
finding that the allegorical method of interpretation which
prevailed in Egypt, the birthplace of that sect, might be
used with as much success in eliciting the Gnostic tenets
from the Bible, as it had been employed by orthodox inter
preters in deriving the doctrines which they believed to be
true. You can easily conceive that men who dealt in such
arbitrary fashion with the Bible had no common ground on
which the orthodox could battle with them by Scripture
arguments. In order to refute the Gnostic pretence of secret
traditions, the Churches took pains to establish their own con
nexion with the Apostles, so as to make it appear that if any
such traditions there were, it must be the Churches which
had the possession of them. It was with this object that we
find pains first taken to trace the successions of bishops ; for
whatever opinion you may entertain as to the form of Church
government in the primitive Church, this, at least, is indisput
able ; that at the beginning of the last quarter of the second
century there were bishops everywhere, and no memory sur
vived that any other form of government had ever existed.
Several of the great Churches claimed to be able to give lists
of their bishops reaching up to the Apostles' times, and so
they conceived that they established their right against the

ix. J TERTULLIAN ON PRESCRIPTION. 1 49
Gnostics to be regarded as the sole possessors of genuine
Apostolic traditions. With this explanation you can better
appreciate the line taken by Tertullian in his treatise on
Prescription, a legal term with which Tertullian, as an advo
cate, was familiar, his object being to bar the right of these
heretics to argue out of Scripture at all.
Tertullian begins by refuting the two principles, on
one or other of which must rest the Gnostic claim to have
a secret tradition unknown to the Church at large. This
would imply either that the Apostles did not know the
whole truth, or that, knowing it, they did not communicate
it to those whom they taught. In disproving these two
suppositions, Tertullian, at the same time, demolishes the
modern theory of Development. Then complaining that
no satisfactory result is arrived at by arguing out of Scrip
ture with heretics, who either did not acknowledge the
Books received by the Church, or who mutilated and
corrupted them, or who distorted their meaning by perverse
interpretation, he proposes a shorter method of dealing with
them, namely, to deny their right to use the Scriptures at all.
The Scriptures had been given, not to them, but to the
Churches who agreed in doctrine with Tertullian. Consult
any of the Churches to which the Apostolic letters had been
written. If you are in Achaia, consult Corinth ; if in Mace
donia, consult the Church of Philippi ; if in Italy, or, like those
whom Tertullian addressed, in Africa, consult the neighbouring
Church of Rome, and you will find all those Churches agree
in maintaining the same doctrine. Now truth is uniform,
but it is the very nature of error to be continually assuming
new shapes. If the Churches had erred they would have
erred after many different fashions. Whence, then, arises this
surprising agreement in error? The single point that the
same doctrine is maintained by so many different Churches,
situate in distant quarters of the globe, affords a strong pre
sumption of its truth. Where one and the same thing is
found among many, this is not error but tradition. And lastly,
truth came first, error afterwards : we cannot believe that the
Gospel was for so many years wrongly preached, so many

150 THE RULE OF FAITH. [ix.
thousands wrongly baptized, so many miracles wrongly
wrought, so many martyrdoms wrongly crowned, and that
all this time truth was waiting for Marcion or Valentinus
to set her free.
Such is the argument of the treatise on Prescription* It is
an argument from tradition independent of Scripture; and if
we had to own it to be a bad one, Tertullian would be neither
the first nor the last who has defended a good cause by weak
arguments. But I will not be deterred from saying, that I
think the argument, on the whole, a good and successful one,
even though Romanists do employ somewhat similar argu
ments against ourselves. For, first, as I said before, we may
believe that tradition could successfully carry the knowledge
of the facts stated in the Apostles' Creed through a century
without believing that it could carry the doctrine of Pope
Pius's Creed through nineteen. Tertullian uses the argu
ment, Where was your religion before Marcion or Valentinus ?
and I think it a good one, even though Roman Catholics
do ask us, Where was your religion before Martin Luther?
If what Luther or Calvin taught was really as great a novelty
in the history of Christianity, and as unlike what had been
taught before as what Valentinus taught was when it ap
peared, we should do well in rejecting it. What we receive
we accept, because we believe it to be, not new error, but
old truth. And, lastly, the argument from the unity of diffe
rent Churches, which Tertullian urged with so much force,
loses all its power in the hands of Roman Catholics. That a
number of different and widely separated Churches, each of
which was, a century ago, in direct and independent com
munication with the Apostles, should now all agree in teaching
the same doctrines, affords a strong presumption that those
doctrines are Apostolic ; but that a number of different
Churches who are all in direct communication with the
Bishop of Rome, and who are taught that they are bound to
submit to him implicitly, and that it is a sin to reject anything
which he teaches to them, that these should all agree in
* In this argument Tertullian is much indebted to Irenaeus. See, in particular,
the beginning of his third book.

ix.J THE ARGUMENT FROM GENERAL AGREEMENT. 15 1
teaching the same doctrine proves no more than that the doc
trine is Roman. In order that an argument from agreement of
witnesses should have any force, it is absolutely necessary
that the witnesses should be independent. If a number of
manuscript copies, written by different persons from the same
original, agree, that agreement furnishes a strong presump
tion of the correctness of their common reading ; but that
several copies of the same edition of a printed book agree
proves nothing at all. Thus the tyranny of Rome cuts her
off from the use of this topic of evidence to the truth of her
teaching. If there are any remedies which are recognized
as effectual by physicians of different countries, brought up
in different schools, it may be presumed that such remedies
really have the merits ascribed to them ; but it proves nothing
in favour of Holloway's pills, that those sold by different ven
dors, in different towns, turn out on analysis to be exactly
the same. In short, the agreement of different Churches,
in teaching the same doctrine, undoubtedly proves that this
teaching must have had a common origin ; but the question
remains, whether that common origin was the teaching of
the Apostles, or whether we can trace this concordant teach
ing to a common origin very much later than the Apostles.
I have spent all this time on Tertullian's treatise, because I
thought that fairness required me to dwell on what seemed to
make against us, even though it be quite an exception to the
general tenor of Patristical language and practice with regard
to the controversial use of Scripture ; while I have passed
over in a summary way all that made for us, because it
seemed superfluous to bring up one witness after another all
to say the same thing.

X.

HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION.
SOMETHING must now be said as to a lower claim that
has been made for tradition ; it has been put forward by
some, not as an independent source of information, but as an
interpreter of Scripture. Modest as that claim sounds, it
might easily be so used as to supersede Scripture altogether.
If we had a guide who could only speak to us in a language
we did not understand, the interpreter who translated for
us his directions would be our real guide. In the reign of
Charles the First there were some who professed readiness to
obey the commands of the king, as notified to them by Parlia
ment; but, practically, it amounted to exactly the same as
refusing to obey the king, if Parliament were recognized as
his only mouthpiece. Accordingly, it was one of Cardinal
Newman's not least surprising feats of ingenuity, and yet in
real truth not the most difficult, to show that, on the subject
of the Sixth Article, the difference between the true meaning
of the Church of England and the Church of Rome was more
apparent than real. Writing to Dr. Pusey, he says: 'The
opposing parties attach different meanings to the word
"proof" in the controversy whether the whole faith is or is
not contained in Scripture. Roman Catholics mean that not
every Article is so contained there, that it may thence be
legally proved, independently of the teaching and authority
of tradition. But Anglicans mean that every Article is
so contained there that it may thence be proved, provided
that there be added the illustrations and compensations of
tradition ; and it is in this latter sense that I conceive that the
Fathers also speak. I am sure, at least, that St. Athanasius

x.J NEWMAN ON THE SIXTH ARTICLE. 153-
frequently adduces passages in proof of points in controversy
which no one could see to be proofs unless Apostolic tra
dition were taken into account, first as suggesting, then as
authoritatively ruling, their meaning. Thus you Anglicans
do not deny that the whole is not in Scripture, in such sense
that pure unaided logic can draw it from the Sacred Text, nor
do Roman Catholics deny that the faith is in Scripture in an
improper sense, that tradition is able to recognize it, and
determine it there.' *
The opinions which Newman ascribes here to Anglicans
may have been those of Dr. Pusey, whom he was address
ing, but I am sure they were not those of the framers of
our Article, nor do I believe they were those of the Fathers
whom I have quoted. It is highly ingenious, but far from
satisfactory, to oppose the practice of Athanasius to his
theory. His theory was expressed in the words, ' The Holy
and Inspired Scriptures are sufficient of themselves for the
preaching of the Truth.' t ' These [canonical booksj are the
fountains of salvation, so that he who thirsts may be satis
fied with the oracles contained in them : in these alone
the school of piety preaches the Gospel : let no man add
to or take from them' [Fest. Ep. 39). Against this we are
asked to set the fact that some of the Scripture proofs
which he himself offers are not what to our minds would
be conclusive ; and thence to infer that when he undertakes
to give Scripture proof, he only means something which, in
his own mind, might pass for proof, but be quite incapable
of standing logical examination. In what a light is this
to represent the venerable Father ! When Abraham refused
to accept land from the Hittite chieftain as a gift, but insisted
on paying its value, we are told that he weighed the price in
silver current money with the merchant ; but if Abraham had
given bad weight in money that would not pass, Ephron
would feel that he had been much worse dealt with than if his
* See also Newman, On the Development of Christian Doctrine, chap. vi. sec. 1.
t Cont. Gentes, i. 1. In this place Athanasius teaches the doctrine we have laid
down, both as to the sufficiency of Scripture and as to the advantage of human
instruction in it.

154 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
land had been taken without payment. And so it would be
much more straightforward dealing for a Church to ask that
we should take her word without any proof, than to offer to
give us proof, and then let us find out that we had got to take
her word what was proof, and what was not. You may be
sure that Athanasius did not offer any Scripture proofs that,
according to his own principles of interpretation, he did not
believe to be good. We are offered every day by Protestants
Scripture proofs, which in our judgments are not good proofs ;
but that gives us no right to suppose that it is only in some
non-natural sense they hold the sufficiency of Scripture. Nay,
rather it is the firmness with which they hold that principle
which urges them, in their deep conviction of the necessity of
offering Scripture proofs for their doctrines, sometimes to
press into their service texts which to a sober judgment do
not seem conclusive.
Is tradition, then, of no use in the interpretation of Scrip
ture ? I believe it has its uses, and important uses, both
positive and negative, though its range is more limited than
its advocates would have us believe. To speak first of its
negative use, we must grant that a new-fangled interpre
tation of Scripture has to encounter a great presumption
against it, arising from the probability that if this were the
true interpretation it would not be left for this generation to
discover it. I don't say that it is more than a presumption,
or that previous students have so sounded all the depths of
Scripture as to make it impossible for a late commentator to
discover anything which his predecessors have overlooked ;
but still it is a presumption, and one which, in some cases,
may rise to something like certainty. Take the text, ' Thou
art Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church.' Accord
ing to modern Romanists this is the charter text of the whole
constitution of the Church. By it Peter and his successors
were made the governors of the Church, to whom it was to
resort for the decision of every dispute, and the solution of
every problem. Well, if that had been the true meaning of
the text, the other Apostles would have so understood it, at
least after their minds had been enlightened by the Holy

x.J ITS USE IN MATTERS OF RITUAL. 155
Spirit on the day of Pentecost ; and they would have taught
its meaning to the Churches which they founded. The whole-
Church would have acted on this rule from the first, and the
true meaning of the text on which the rule was founded could
never have been forgotten. When we find then, on the con
trary, that this is a text on which the greatest diversity of
interpretation prevailed among the early Fathers, that a great
majority of them do not find in the text a bestowal of per
sonal prerogatives even on Peter, and that none of them find
the Bishop of Rome there, then we can confidently say that.
historical tradition excludes the modern Roman interpreta
tion, because it is absolutely incredible that, if this had been-
the right one, it should be entirely lost and forgotten, and
not recovered for four or five centuries.
Then, again, I believe that, in matters of ritual or other
positive institution, tradition can do more useful service
than in matter of abstract doctrine. An illustration or
two will make my meaning plainer. One example is often
brought forward by Roman Catholic writers. When our
Lord washed His disciples' feet He said to them, * If I, then,,
your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought
also to wash one another's feet ; for I have given you an-
example that ye should do as I have done unto you.' We in
terpret this precept in the spirit, not in the letter. We hold
that our Lord, by performing a menial office for His disciples,.
designed to impress on them more forcibly by a visible sign
the precept by which He had before rebuked their ambitious
conflicts, 'The princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion-
over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon
them, but it shall not be so among you, but whosoever will be
great among you, let him be your minister ; and whosoever-
will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as
the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minis
ter, and to give His life a ransom for many.' But we are
asked, how do we know that we are not to interpret this pre
cept literally. May it not be the case that, in omitting
actually to wash one another's feet, we are neglecting a-
Sacramental rite instituted by our Lord Himself ? I think we=

I56 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
must here concede to the Roman Catholic that the usage of
the Church is not without weight in settling this question,
and that we are all affected by it in our judgment on this
matter, even if we are not aware of it. For suppose that the
usage had been different — suppose that from time imme
morial it had been the practice at Christian meetings for wor
ship that this precept of our Lord's had been read out, and
that then some proceeded to wash the feet of others — I do
not think that we should then hesitate to give a literal mean
ing to the words recorded by St. John, and that we should
have scrupled to think it sufficient, as we do now, to comply
with the spirit of the command.
Something of the same kind may be said with reference
to the Sacraments. If we are asked why we think that
sprinkling is sufficient compliance with our Lord's com
mand to baptize, it seems to me that it is practically a
.good answer to say that the Church has always so under
stood it, for the question cannot be determined either way
without an appeal to tradition in some form or another.
For, after all, lexicons are only an embodiment of tradition,
and it is an appeal to tradition which must settle what is the
meaning of the Greek word ficnrTiZio. One example more.
The Council of Trent, as I already told you, informs us that
the Church has learned by tradition, that in the words of St.
James are taught the matter, the form, the proper minister,
and the effect of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Well,
if in place of taking the word of the Council of Trent, we
examine into the tradition for ourselves, we find the facts
quite the opposite to the assertion of the Council. We find
that the anointing of the sick, whose recovery was not aimed
at or expected, was a comparatively modern practice, arising
not out of a traditional, but quite a private, interpretation of
the well-known words of St. James, and that those who first
introduced the practice were quite at sea as to the proper way
of carrying it out, with regard to points on which they
would have needed no instruction if this had been a Sacra
ment of Apostolic institution. I will freely own that my
judgment on this so-called Sacrament would be quite different

x.] ITS USE IN PROOF OF DOCTRINE. 1 57
from what it is now if there had been historic evidence of
the descent of the practice from the Apostolic age. Other
instances of the same kind might be given, but I have said
enough to show that, in rejecting tradition, it is not our wish
arbitrarily to cut ourselves off from using any source of infor
mation that may be accessible to us. We are willing to give
its due weight to anything that can be established on
sufficient evidence, but we will not set aside the obvious
meaning of Scripture, on the mere presumption that the
currency of doctrines opposed to Scripture must have origi
nated in tradition.
It remains for me to speak of the province of hermeneuti-
cal tradition on points, not of ritual, but of abstract doctrine.
And here a very obvious remark may be made — that the use
of a text at any time, to prove a doctrine, if it does not prove
that use of the text to be the right one, at least shows that
those who so employed it believed the doctrine which they
alleged that text to prove. Thus, in modern Roman Catholic
books of devotion, you may find a text from Canticles cited in
the form, ' Thou art all fair, my love, and there is no spot of
original sin in thee,' and used to prove the Immaculate Con
ception of the Virgin Mary. We are not bound to believe
that to be the true meaning of the text ; but we cannot deny
that its being now so used would prove at any future time
that the Church of Rome in the nineteenth century believed
in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. It gains little
for a doctrine to prove that the Church of the nineteenth cen
tury believed it, but it is of great importance to know how the
Church of the first century believed, for it is reasonable to
think that any doctrines in which the Churches that were
taught by the Apostles agreed were part of the Apostles*
teaching. And so at any time the current interpretations of
Scripture are an excellent index to the doctrine of the Church
at the time ; and the nearer the age is to the Apostles, the
more valuable is the knowledge what the doctrine was. I
make this remark with reference to a class of interpretations
which, no doubt, Newman had in his mind when he spoke
of some of the interpretations of Athanasius as not being;
logically defensible.

158 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
There is a class of interpretations with such antiquity
to recommend them, that if any interpretations can make
a claim to have been imposed by tradition, these can. The
doctrine of them is in perfect agreement with our own,
and yet there are many of them to which we should not
now like to pledge ourselves — at least we should not like to
use them in controversy against opponents, as some of the
ancient Fathers did not scruple to do. To the early Fathers
all the Old Testament spoke of Christ. They found Him in a
number of places where, without their help, we should not
discover Him. We have every reason to think that the Book
of Psalms furnished a large part of the Christian service from
the very earliest times. There is no part of the Old Testament
which the early Fathers seem to have so completely at their
fingers' ends, or quote so accurately and so frequently. And
here in particular they recognize our Lord as the subject of
every Psalm. Now, though we may be willing to admit some
of their Messianic interpretations of the Old Testament as
certain, others as probable, it is impossible for a modern mind
to accept them all. Take, for example, this one, which by
reason of its venerable antiquity has as good a right to be
accepted as an interpretation imposed by tradition as any
that can be named. I refer to a discovery made in the Epistle
of Barnabas, which many learned men have accepted as by
the Apostle of that name ; and though I do not myself agree
with their opinion, the work is certainly one of the earliest of
uninspired Christian writings. Finding in his Greek Bible
the number of servants with whom Abraham pursued the
kings to be three hundred and eighteen, or in Greek nume
ral letters nri, Barnabas in the last two letters, 1, r), at once
discovers Jesus. But what, then, is Tau ? Tau is the cross,
which in shape it resembled. Barnabas declares this to be
one of the most valuable pieces of instruction he had ever
communicated, but says that those whom he addressed were
worthy of it. And, accordingly, several who came after him
thought it worth stealing from him. But I need not say that
modern critics are not able to believe in a Messianic prophecy
committed to the Old Testament, but intended to remain an

x.J PATRISTICAL MESSIANIC INTERPRETATIONS. 1 59
impenetrable secret until its Hebrew came to be translated
into Greek.
There are other Patristical Messianic interpretations, the
case for rejecting which is not quite so clear as this one,
yet clear enough to make us absolutely refuse to allow early
tradition to impose on us interpretations of Scripture. In
fact, if a man gives a far-fetched interpretation of Scripture
we are not bound to receive it, because it is a long time
ago since he did it, and because a great many people have
repeated it after him. I am quite satisfied to take as illus
trating my principles the texts which Cardinal Newman
[Development, p. 324) instances as brought forward by Nicene
and ante-Nicene writers as palmary proofs of our Lord's
Divinity. The first is the beginning of the 45th Psalm, of
which the Septuagint translation is 'E^pev^aro 17 Kapdla fxov
Ao'yov ayaOov. If hermeneutic tradition is entitled to impose
an interpretation on us, we are certainly bound to understand
this passage as referring to the Eternal Generation of the
Divine Logos. But I observe that the late revisers of the
Old Testament have not materially altered the old render
ing, 'My heart is inditing a good matter' ; and certainly I
should feel much embarrassed in controversially maintaining
the views I hold concerning our Lord's Divinity if I were
compelled to find them in this passage. Newman's second
example is the passage (Prov. viii. 22) Kvpiog 'iktige ^t ap\nv
oSwv avrov. Orthodox and Arian interpreters agreed that
these words related to our Blessed Lord, their only point of
difference being how the word rendered sktjo-e was to be
understood. But looking on hermeneutic tradition as a
guide, but not as an infallible guide, I feel myself free to
decline to accept some Messianic interpretations which are
supported by a very strong consensus of early opinion.
If, however, without insisting on details, we look to the
general spirit of the early Patristical interpretation of the
Old Testament, we find what I think may be granted to be
an Apostolic tradition ; I mean the principle that the Old
Testament is not contrary to the New — the principle that
it was Jesus of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did

160 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
write — He whom in a thousand types the Mosaic institutions,
nay, the Old Testament history, was in God's providence
ordained to foreshadow. Here it is quite possible for a
Christian reader to recognize types that he could not urge in
controversy against a Jew or a Socinian. In the investiga
tions of last Term I found, in many cases, that there were
verbal coincidences between the language of very early
writers and that of our Gospels, which left no doubt on my own
mind that these writers had used the Gospels ; and yet, it was
not possible to demonstrate that anyone was wrong who
might choose to say that the coincidence was only accidental.
There is nothing illogical in this method of proceeding. If
we have independent evidence that a book was in circulation,
or that a doctrine was current, at the time when a particular
author wrote, then a very slight casual allusion might suffice
to convince us that he had read the book, or that he held
the doctrine, though, without independent confirmation, the
evidence might not be at all conclusive. So, if we have inde
pendent evidence that our Lord was such as no other man
was, and that He came to do a work such as no other man did
or could have done, then it becomes more probable than not
that He did not burst on the world without having His
coming prepared for; and if we believe in the Divine inspira
tion of the Old Testament Prophets, we are at once ready to
believe that they were commissioned to speak of Him. That
this was the attitude of mind in which the Apostles had
trained the Churches which they founded is, I think, demon
strated by the general tone of the Old Testament interpre
tation of the early Church : and in establishing this point
hermeneutic tradition does us valuable service. And if we
are compelled to acknowledge that the disciples often outran
their masters, and pushed their principles to indefensible
extremes, we are not obliged to follow to those extremes
guides whom we do not consider infallible ; yet the evidence
remains unshaken of the Apostolic character of that tradition
of the dignity of Christ's person and work which lies at the
foundation of these interpretations.
We might, indeed, use the early hermeneutical tradition

x.J ALEXANDRIAN AND SYRIAN SCHOOLS. 161
to draw a doctrinal conclusion of a negative character. As
the early Church saw Christ everywhere in the Bible, so the
modern Church of Rome sees the Virgin Mary everywhere.
One example I mentioned incidentally just now. Well, I
think it is a very significant fact that early Patristical inter
pretation is altogether blind to indications of the dignity of
the Blessed Virgin. In the book of Revelation, the woman
•clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and
on her head a crown of twelve stars, who brought forth the man
child, and then was made to flee into the wilderness (chap, xii.),
in which description modern Romanists find a prediction of
the glory of the Virgin, is by the ancient commentators, with
absolute unanimity, understood of the Church.* You know
what meaning the phrase ' the Virgin Mother' would bear in
a modern book : in an ancient writer it would as certainly
mean the Church,f and he would not seem to dream that any
other meaning could be put on his words. We cannot help
inferring that the Virgin Mary did not fill the place in the
thoughts of men of those days that she has come to fill in
recent times. The examples I have given will show that,
while we hold ourselves perfectly free to criticize very ancient
interpretations of Scripture, and so hold what is called her
meneutic tradition to be as far as possible from being an
infallible guide, yet the study of these interpretations may
throw most important light on the doctrinal principles of the
ancient Church.
I must not pass from this subject of Patristical inter
pretation without adding a little to a few words I said last
Term about the two great schools of interpretation, the
Alexandrian and the Syrian. Alexandria was the home of
the allegorical method. It had flourished there from pre-
Christian times. Homer was the Bible of the Greeks ; yet,
as culture advanced, the stories told of the gods, both by the
great poet and by other authorities who had gained popular
belief, were felt to be such as could not be reconciled with
the honour of the divinities. Then apologists invoked the
* See, for example, Hippolytus, On Christ and Antichrist, § 61.
t See the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons (Euseb. H. E. v. I.).
M

162 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
aid of allegory : Jupiter only meant the upper air, Poseidon
was the sea, Apollo the sun. We were not to suppose that
Apollo descended in person to shoot his arrows for seven
days ; what was intended was that the sun beat with his rays
on the damp ground, and so caused a pestilence which was
destructive to the Grecian host ; and in like manner other
myths apparently degrading to the character of the gods
were explained away, as mere modes of expressing certain
physical facts. Thus the Jewish apologists found the method
of allegory ready to their hands when cavils were made by
the heathen philosophers of Alexandria against statements
in the Jewish sacred books. The great Alexandrian Jew,
Philo, whose works largely remain, freely had recourse to
allegorical explanations when objections were made to the
morality of parts of the Mosaic narrative— so freely, that the
historic character of the narrative was in danger of disap
pearing. In this school were brought up some of the greatest
ornaments of the Alexandrian school of Christian philo
sophy. Clement was a careful student and a warm admirer
of Philo. Clement's successor, Origen, carried to still greater
lengths the allegorical method. The spiritual meaning was
the soul ; the literal, only the body ; and in his hands the
literal meaning often ran the risk of being quite evaporated
away. If ever the literal sense presented a difficulty, or what
looked like a contradiction, allegory afforded an immediate
solution of it. If hermeneutic tradition had a right to force
interpretations on our acceptance, it would be in the case of
some of those allegorical interpretations of the Alexandrian
school ; so early was their origin, so wide was the acceptance
they gained, so generally were their principles adopted.
I look upon St. Ambrose as one of the chief agents in natu
ralizing many of these expositions in the West. From being
a heathen magistrate he was made a bishop ; but he was an
able man and a good Greek scholar, and he speedily laid
some of the most celebrated Greek theologians under contri
bution for his sermons and treatises. From Origen he drew
much, both directly and indirectly ; and what he drew he
passed on to his pupil St. Augustine, and through him to the

x.] AMBROSE, AUGUSTINE, AND JEROME. 1 63
Western Church generally. St. Augustine constantly adopts
the principle that an apparent contradiction between two texts
of Scripture is to be regarded as an index pointing out that
allegorical interpretation must be resorted to. If I were to
think of giving you examples of interpretations of this school,
in which all regard to the context or to the circumstances of
the sacred writer is lost sight of, specimens are so abundant,
that there is great difficulty in selection. Here is an expla
nation from St. Jerome of a difficult passage in Ecclesiastes
(xi. 2) of which we should certainly be glad to welcome a good
explanation. The text is : ' Give a portion to seven, and
also to eight ; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon
the earth.' St. Jerome's explanation is : ' The number seven
denotes the Old Testament, because of the Sabbath therein
enjoined to be celebrated on the seventh day ; the number
eight denotes the New Testament, because the Saviour rose
on the eighth day. The text, then, directs us not to restrict
our faith, as the Jews do, to the Old Testament ; nor, as do
the Marcionites, Manichees, and other heretics, to the New.
We must believe both Testaments, for " we know not what
evil shall be upon the earth" ; that is to say, we cannot com
prehend now the merited tortures and punishments reserved
for those who are upon earth, namely, for the Jews and
heretics who deny either Testament.' This book of Eccle
siastes does not strike us as the most Messianic of Old Testa
ment books ; but Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome find Christ
and the Gospel in every line. Thus, ' There is one alone, and
there is not a second ; yea, he hath neither child nor brother :
yet is there no end of all his labour ; neither is his eye satis
fied with riches ; neither saith he, For whom do I labour,
and bereave my soul of good ? This also is vanity' (Eccies.
iv. 8). Here is the commentary : ' This is Christ ; for He
is one, and there is not a second, for He came to save
the world without any companion. He has not a brother ;
for, though many sons of God are by adoption brethren
of Christ, none could be joined with Him in the work
of Redemption. Of His labour and suffering for our sins
there is no end; man cannot comprehend the greatness
M2

1 64 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
thereof.' "The eye is not satisfied" &c, means that Christ is
never weary in seeking our salvation. The text goes on,
" Two are better than one" ; that is to say, it is better to have
Christ with us than to be alone, open to the snares of the
enemy. " If two lie together, they shall have heat ; but how
can one be warm alone?" that is, if any should lie in the
grave, yet, if he have Christ with him, he shall be warmed,
and, being quickened, shall live again. Other passages,
directing to eat bread with a merry heart, &c, plainly refer
to the use of the Sacraments.
I take a few other examples from a collection of an
swers to heathen objections made by a Greek disciple and
admirer of Origen, from whom these answers were derived.*
The objection is : ' No Christian now has faith, even as much
as a grain of mustard seed ; for not one is able to say to a
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea.'
Answer. — 'Mountain here does not mean a literal mountain,
but a devil, as in Jer. Ii. 25 : " Behold, I am against thee,
O destroying mountain, which destroyest all the earth."
He does not say, if thou shalt say to a mountain, but unto
this mountain, namely, the devil, which had been just cast
out.' This was one of the Eastern comments imported by
Ambrose (in Ps. xxxvi. 35). So, again, the heathen ob
jects to the credibility of Paul's statement that we shall be
caught up in the clouds. The apologist explains that 'clouds'
does not mean literal clouds, but angels, as in the texts, ' I
will charge the clouds that they rain no rain upon it,' or
' Clouds and darkness are round about Him.' Once more,
the heathen objects that the agony in the garden shows our
Lord to have been weaker in courage than many men have
proved themselves in like circumstances. The apologist
answers, that our Lord's display of weakness was made only
to lure the devil on to the last assault, in which his power
would be broken for ever. The devil had been holding back,
suspecting our Lord's divinity. Our Lord, therefore, not
really wishing that His cup might pass, but that He might
* Macarius Magnes, Apocritica.

x.J THEODORE OF MOPSUESTIA. 165
drink it as soon as possible, enticed the devil on, and caught
him by baiting the hook of His divinity with the worm of
His humanity ; and this is the meaning of the verse, Psalm
xxii. 6, ' I am a worm, and no man.' This interpretation is
certainly Origen's ; and I need not give other examples to
show why, with every admiration for the ability and inge
nuity of Fathers of this school, we think it better to do
without their help in the interpretation of Scripture, be
lieving that, as Lord Bacon says, ' a lame man on the right
road will come to his journey's end sooner than the fleetest
runner on a wrong one.' Thus, there are thirty-five books
of Gregory the Great's Commentary on Job. They may
be very valuable to anyone who cares to know what were
the opinions of Gregory upon various subjects, but to a
person anxious to know the meaning of the Book of Job they
are absolutely worthless. I own, however, I look with some
envy on those who can adopt these principles of interpreta
tion ; for it is immensely more easy for an ingenious man
to write sermons if he uses a principle of interpretation
which will enable a preacher to get any doctrine out of
any text.
The founder of a healthier system of interpretation is said
to have been Diodorus of Tarsus ; but scarcely anything of
his remains ; and it is Theodore of Mopsuestia whom we
have the means of knowing as the initiator of the literal
school of interpretation. I do not say he had not prede
cessors. Besides his master Diodorus, Lucian the Martyr is
said to have been one. But Theodore wrote a special treatise
against Origen and the Allegorists, and founded a school of
interpretation, to which belonged some of the greatest orna
ments of the Syrian Church. His principle was to look care
fully to the context, and to the circumstances of the sacred
writer ; consequently he interprets passages of David, or
Solomon, or Hezekiah, which his predecessors had understood
of Christ. You may imagine, therefore, that his system had
much violent opposition to encounter ; and it may very pos
sibly be true that Theodore, in his reaction against the
allegorizers, went into the other extreme, and insisted too

1 66 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
mechanically on his rule that, if one part of a passage
related to a contemporary person, a spiritual explanation
must not be given to any other part ; or that, if there was any
one verse in a Psalm which was not applicable to Christ,
none of it could be so. However this may be, it is the com
mentators of this school who have produced the only exe-
getical works which a modern student can read continuously
with pleasure and profit. Great part, for instance, of Chry-
sostom's Homilies have not been superseded as intelligent
and successful attempts to bring out the true meaning of the
author on whom he comments. This is far indeed from
being Cardinal Newman's opinion, and the language in
which he expresses his aversion to the Syrian school of exe
gesis is strong enough to meet the demerits of any heresy.*
He traces Arianism to the influence of the methods of Lucian,
already mentioned, though it is certain that Diodorus was
free from any Arian taint. But it cannot be denied that the
leading Nestorians were disciples of Theodore. It will be
useful for you to bear in memory that Nestorianism is a
Syrian, as Eutychianism is an Alexandrian heresy. The
rationalizing tendencies of the Syrian school harmonize with
the Nestorian accentuation of the human nature of our
Lord. Independently of this, from the nature of the case,
the Syrian interpreters, being obliged to reject a multitude
of explanations that had been long current and had the
support of venerable names, were on the side of human
reason against traditional authority ; and so we can under
stand Newman's antipathy to those who were the Protestants
of their day.
It is not my purpose to trace at length the history of
mediaeval interpretation. Origen had counted three senses of
Scripture — the literal, the moral, and the mystical — which he
compared to the trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit in the
nature of man. In the middle ages these three had increased
to four — the literal, the moral, the allegorical, and the ana-
gogical — this last being appropriated to those allegorical
* See the passage in the essay On Development, already referred to ; and Arians
of the Fourth Century, chap, i., and Appendix.

x.J DANGERS OF ALLEGORICAL METHOD. 1 67
explanations which relate to the future state. Thus, according
to an example commonly given, the Sabbath, according to
the moral sense, would mean a resting from sin ; according
to the allegorical, the rest of our Lord in the grave ; and,
according to the anagogical, the future rest in the kingdom of
God. These were summed up in the memorial lines —

' Littera gesta docet ; quid credas allegoria ;
Moralis quid agas ; quo tendis anagogia.'

In truth, the latter three senses are but subdivisions of what
we should simply describe as allegorical, without feeling any
need of subdivision.
But my main object now is to point out the necessity of
extreme caution in the use of the allegorical method. If this
be relied on as singly sufficient to prove a doctrine of which
no other valid proof can be found, then tradition really be
comes the mistress of Scripture ; for then, though we profess
to deduce our doctrine from Scripture, we really bring it into
it first, according to the lines —
' Hie liber est in quo quserit sua dogmata quisque,
Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua.'
Roman Catholic controversialists have called the Bible a
nose of wax, which any man can twist as he pleases. This
is true if you adopt the allegorical method of interpretation ;
or rather then, if it had been a nose of iron, it would make no
difference, so powerful is the wrenching instrument employed.
Origen's Commentary on St. John contains copious extracts
from the previous commentary by the Valentinian Heracleon ;
for it is curious that the earliest known continuous commen
tary on a New Testament book is by this heretic. And
Heracleon, who was evidently a disciple of the same school
¦of allegorical interpretation, has no difficulty in finding Valen-
tinianism in St. John's Gospel, by interpretations which seem
to me not a whit more forced or unnatural than many which
are used by Origen himself to deduce orthodox doctrine.
I am not now lecturing on the interpretation of Scripture,
and therefore cannot enter into some discussions which would

1 68 HERMENEUTICAL TRADITION. [x.
properly come before us if this were my main subject. But I
have thought it necessary to say something about different
schools of interpretation, because the question we have been
discussing between Scripture and tradition becomes practi
cally unimportant if allegorical interpretation be freely em
ployed. When this method is used, a proof may pretend to
be derived from Scripture alone ; but, in real truth, tradition
is the foundation of the fabric.

XI.

DOES THE CHURCH OF ROME BELIEVE IN HER
OWN INFALLIBILITY?
I HAVE, in previous Lectures, sufficiently discussed the
abstract question, whether God has provided for us any
infallible guidance ; and I consider that I have shown that
there is not the least reason to think that with respect to
religious truth God has dealt with us in a manner contrary
to all His other dealings with us, by giving us such secure,.
never-failing means of arriving at knowledge as shall relieve
us from the trouble of search and inquiry, and shall make-
error impossible. I propose now to lay before you such
evidence as will show that, whether there be anywhere an
infallible Church or not, the Church of Rome certainly is not.
You may, perhaps, think that this is a little waste of time ;
for, if no Church be infallible, it follows at once that the
Church of Rome is not. It is true that, in the present con
troversy, I constantly feel tempted to give points to our
opponents. In the attempt to establish their case, they
make so many false assumptions, that, if we make them a
present of one, they are under no less difficulty when they
come to the next step in the argument. But it is not as a
mere matter of generosity that I refrain from pressing to the
utmost the victory we have gained on the abstract question.
Men are not influenced by mere logic : they will easily be
lieve what they wish to believe, whether there be logical proof
of it or not.
Accordingly, you will seldom find in Romish books of "
controversy any of that discussion which has occupied us so
long, and which really concerns the fundamental point in the

1 70 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xi.
controversy. It would be so very pleasant to have a guide
able to save us all trouble and risk, and to whom we might
implicitly commit ourselves, that Romish advocates generally
spare themselves the pains of proving that such a guide
•exists, and prefer to take that for granted as a thing self-
evident. The older books on controversy, assuming that
there was somewhere an infallible Church, and that the only
question was where she was to be found, occupied much
space in telling of marks or notes by which the true Church
•could be distinguished from false pretenders. On this much
•discussion on the ' notes of the Church' ensued, it being easy
to show that several of the notes enumerated by Bellarmine
are possessed by bodies which no one can imagine to be the
true Church, while it is extremely disputable whether the
Church of Rome possesses those notes to which we should
be willing to attribute most value. But in the actual history
of perversions to Romanism this part of the discussion has
usually been skipped ; and thus the proof has been simplified
into : ' There is an infallible Church somewhere, and no
•Church but that of Rome can claim the attribute.'
Now, although of the two propositions — ' The Church of
Rome is infallible'; ' Other Churches are not' — the former is
the one we deny, while we admit the latter — Romish advo
cates seldom offer any proof of the former, and spend all
their declamation on the latter. They tell of errors com
mitted by other communions, of theological problems wrongly
solved, or of which no certain solution can be given, in the
hope that the hearer, perplexed by so much uncertainty, may
gladly accept offered guidance without scrutinizing its claims
too minutely. It is so natural to wish to have an infallible
guide, that men are found well disposed to give credence to
the agreeable intelligence that such a guide exists.
Now, to persons in this frame of mind it is not enough to
.show that there is no reason to think that God has provided
such a guide. The possibility still remains that He may
-have done so. We all believe in a miraculous revelation,
through which God has done something for His creatures
•over and above His ordinary course of dealing with them.

xi.] THEORIES MUST BE COMPARED WITH FACTS. I ^ I
Shall we put limits on His bounty, or deny the possibility
that He may have made the way to religious truth as secure
as the most exacting can demand ?
It is necessary, therefore, to quit the region of abstract
discussion. But it is always unsafe to neglect to compare
a theory with facts. When we attempt to decide on God's
dealings by our own notions of the fitness of things, and
venture to pronounce beforehand what sort of supernatural
guidance He would provide for us, the most sanguine theorist
has no right to imagine that he can get beyond a probable
conclusion ; and he is bound to examine whether, in point of
fact, God has provided such guidance. The line taken by
Romish advocates reminds me of what Cervantes tells of the
course taken by Don Quixote in the manufacture of his helmet.
The good knight, having constructed one which he thought
admirable, proceeded to test its strength ; and in a mo
ment, by one stroke of his sword, demolished the labour of a
week. So he made a new one ; but as it would be very
unpleasant to have one of not sufficient strength, he this
time satisfied himself by pronouncing his workmanship to be
strong enough, without trying any imprudent experiments
with his sword. I feel it, therefore, to be not enough that
Romish advocates should tell us of the failures of others, if
they do not submit to some examination what they offer as
superior ; and I am persuaded, as I have said, that the true
result of such an examination is that, whether or not there
be anywhere an infallible Church, the Church of Rome cer
tainly is not.
But it may be asked, How is it possible to give proof that
the Church of Rome has erred, as long as the question of her
possible infallibility is left open ? If we pronounce any decision
of hers to be erroneous, we may be told that it is she who is
in the right, and that we are wrong. To recur to an illustra
tion which I formerly employed : we engage a professional
guide to conduct us over a pass we have never crossed before,
and how can we be able before the journey is ended to con
vict him of leading us wrong ? The path he takes may, to
our eyes, be unpromising and quite unlike what we should

172 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xi.
ourselves have chosen ; but if we hesitate, he can smile at
our opposing our ignorance to his superior knowledge,
and can assure us that at our journey's end we shall find
him to have been in the right. Yet it might happen in
such a case that even before the journey was over we
should have good reason to conclude that our guide did
not understand his business. Suppose that whenever we
came to a place where two paths diverged, the guide hung
back, and, as long as we were hesitating, carefully abstained
from giving any hint of his opinion as to which was the right
one ; but when we had made our choice, and had struck into
one of the paths, then overtook us, and assured us we were
all right, should we not have a right to suspect him of igno
rance of his business, and think that but for the honour and
glory of the thing we might as well have had no guide at all ?
Suppose, too, that after we had taken a path under the en
couragement and, as we believed, with the full approbation
of our guide, we found ourselves stopped by an impassable
morass, should we think it a satisfactory explanation to be
told by our guide, as we were retracing our steps, that his
approbation of this unlucky path had been expressed by him
merely conversationally, in his private, not his professional,
capacity ?
I think it admits of historical proof that the Church of
Rome has shrunk with the greatest timidity from exercising
this gift of infallibility on any question which had not already
settled itself without her help, and that on several occasions,
where the Pope has ventured to make decisions, these deci*
sions are now known to have been wrong, and the case has to
be met by pitiable evasions. The Pope was not speaking ex
cathedra; that is to say, he had guided the Church wrong
only in his private, not his professional, capacity.
Let us examine, then, by the evidence of facts, whether
the Church of Rome believes her own claim to infallibility.
Acting is the test of belief. If a quack claimed to have a
universal medicine, warranted to cure all diseases, we should
not need to inquire into the proofs of its virtues if we saw
his own children languishing in sickness, and found that he

xi.] MR. SEYMOUR AND THE JESUITS. 1 73
never tried his medicine on them. If an alchemist asserted
that he possessed the philosopher's stone, and could turn the
baser metals into gold, his pretensions would be disposed of
if we saw his own family starving, and that he made no at
tempt to make any gold to relieve them. So when we find in
the bosom of the Church of Rome disputes and perplexities,
as in other Churches ; that the infallible authority is not in
voked to solve them ; that its interference is late and vacil
lating, and sometimes erroneous, have we not a right to
conclude that the Church of Rome herself does not believe
in the infallibility which she claims ? *
But, really, I must first say a few words on the question,
Does she claim it ? Some of you may chance to have met a
book by a Mr. Seymour, called Mornings with the Jesuits, in
which the author gives his own report of conferences which
he held with the Jesuit Fathers at Rome, who unsuccessfully
attempted his conversion. On one occasion they used the
syllogism, A Church which does not claim infallibility can
not be a true Church : the Church of England does not
claim infallibility, therefore cannot be a true Church. They
expected him, of course, to deny the major, and were pre
pared to carry on the controversy accordingly ; but Mr.
Seymour handed them back their syllogism with the word
'England' erased, and 'Rome' substituted. He asked them
for proof that the Church of Rome ever claimed infallibility.
* Of course I allow,' he said, ' that individual theologians
ascribe to her this attribute, but prove to me that she has
ever ascribed it to herself in any authoritative document.'f
I own I was not without suspicion that Mr. Seymour had
dressed up his tale a little when he described the consterna
tion and perplexity into which the Jesuits were thrown by
his assertion that the Trent decrees contained no claim to
* In this and in the following Lecture I have made considerable use of a tract by
Dr. Maurice, reprinted in 'Gibson's Preservative': Doubts concerning Roman In
fallibility; (i) whether the Church of Rome believe it. In writing the Lecture I used
Dr. Maurice's tract in the form in which it was modernized by the late Dr. Todd.
(Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, December, 185 1.)
t The absence of the claim from the creed of Pope Pius IV. was noticed also by
Dr. Newman. (Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 61.)

174 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xi.
infallibility. But it so happened that in the course of events
the Jesuits were expelled from Rome, and one of Mr. Sey
mour's two antagonists came to England, where Mr. Capes
made his acquaintance. He describes him as a most fair-
minded and honest man, and an excellent specimen of a
well-instructed Jesuit, as might have been expected from his
having been chosen to argue with a controversial English
clergyman on a visit to Rome. And he told Mr. Capes that
it was quite true that he had never taken notice of the ab
sence of the claim from the Trent decrees until it was pointed
out to him in this discussion. Mr. Ffoulkes also, another
who, like Mr. Capes, made the journey to Rome and back,
states that he was never asked to accept this doctrine when
he joined the Church of Rome, and that if he had been asked
he would perhaps not have joined her. All he was required
to admit was the supremacy of the Roman See, ' Sanctam
Catholicam et Apostolicam Romanam ecclesiam omnium
ecclesiarum jmatrem et magistram agnosco.' I will not
anticipate discussions that may hereafter come before us, by
examining what exactly these words mean, or whether any
thing else in a formal document of the Roman Church
amounts to a claim of infallibility. For practically the
Church of Rome at the present day certainly does claim in
fallibility. The arrogance of her language admits of no
other interpretation. And therefore I do not class this ques
tion with the others I am about to bring under your notice,
in which the Roman trumpet gives an uncertain sound. If
the doctrine of Infallibility were much insisted on in sermons
by Roman Catholic preachers, but if their controversialists
shrank from defending it against Protestants ; if they treated
it as one of those things not defide, which were asserted by
vehement and hot-headed theologians, but which the calm
voice of the Church had abstained from pronouncing on, then
we might taunt the professed guide with being unable to tell
us the extent of his powers ; but at present it is quite unjust
to accuse him of any modest reticence as to the extent of his
prerogatives. We must rather make a different use of the
absence of any definition of this cardinal doctrine. It shows

xi.] DOUBTS AS TO ORGAN OF INFALLIBILITY. 175
that the practice came first, the theory came afterwards — if
indeed it can even yet be said to be quite come. Arrogant
Pontiffs presumed to act as if they were infallible, and the
necessity of justifying their conduct demands a theory that
they really are so ; but the lateness of the theory, which even
yet is not included in the formula that converts must sub
scribe, is proof enough that from the beginning it was not so-
I may, however, say a few words now, though I shall have
to speak more fully on the subject by-and-by, about the
disputes which have raged within the Roman communion
for centuries, and which were only in our own time cleared
up, and then only partially, as to the organ of the Church's
infallibility. Does the gift reside in the Church diffusive, or
only in its head, or in a general council, or in Pope and
council together ? The existence of controversy on such a
subject is in itself demonstration of the unreality of the gift.
If Christ had appointed an infallible tribunal, His Church
would have resorted to it from the first; the tradition where it
was to be found could never have been lost, nor could this
have given rise to one of the most angry controversies in the
Church. To recur to our old illustration : suppose we boasted
that Dublin was not as other cities, where the cure of diseases
was precarious; that we had an infallible authority, whence
we could learn, without risk of error, the certain cure of every
disease. Suppose that an invalid stranger, attracted to our
city by our vaunts, inquired on his arrival whom he was to
consult? 'The President of the College of Physicians,' says
one; 'it is he who possesses the wonderful gift.' 'Nay,' says a
second; 'he may make mistakes; it is in the council of the Col
lege that the gift resides.' ' Not so,' says a third ; ' either,
separately, may go wrong; but if you can get both to agree,
you are sure of being rightly advised.' ' No,' cries a fourth ;
president or council may blunder separately or together ; the
gift belongs to the whole medical profession of Dublin : it is
true, they wrangle at times among themselves, but they always
manage to settle their disputes at last, and whatever remedies
they unanimously adopt in the end are certain to be effectual.'
Surely, when the stranger heard this disagreement, he would

176 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xi.
conclude without further inquiry, that he had been taken in by
lying tales ; that we were, in truth, no better off in respect of
medical science than other cities, and that he might just as
well travel back to his own physicians.
Accordingly, it was this disagreement as to the organ
of infallibility which was the last stumbling-block to Dr.
Newman on his journey to Rome. In the last book of his
Anglican days, published not so very long before his formal
surrender, in language which, in spite of its show of hostility,
plainly betrays the attraction that Rome was exercising over
him, he says : ' This inconsistency in the Romish system
one might almost call providential. Nothing could be better
adapted than it is to defeat the devices of human wisdom, and
to show to thoughtful inquirers the hollowness of even the
most specious counterfeit of Divine truth. The theologians
of Rome have been able, dexterously to smoothe over a
thousand inconsistencies, and to array the heterogeneous
precedents of centuries in the semblance of design and har
mony. But they cannot complete the system in its most
important and essential point. They can determine in theory
the nature, degree, extent, and object of the infallibility which
they claim, but they cannot agree among themselves where
it resides. As in the building of Babel, the Lord has
confounded their language, and the structure remains half
finished, a monument at once of human daring and its
failure.' [Prophetical Office of the Church, p. 180.)
But you may ask, Is not the controversy over now ? Did
not the Pope, at the Vatican Council of 1870, bear witness to
himself, and declare that every theory was wrong which made
the organ of infallibility other than himself? But what time
of day is this to find the answer to a question so fundamen
tal ? Can we believe that Christ before He left this earth
provided His Church with an infallible guide to truth, and
that it took her more than 1800 years before she could find out
who that guide was ? It seems almost labour wasted to pro
ceed with the proofs I was about to lay before you, of the
neglect or inability of the infallible judge of controversies to
settle controversies, when it took him so long to settle that

xi.] AMBIGUITY OF WORD ' AUTHORITY.' 1 77
controversy in which his own privileges were so vitally
concerned. Let me trace, however, something of the history of that
other dispute which, after it had raged for centuries, Pius IX.
undertook to settle : the question about the Immaculate Con
ception of the Virgin Mary. In a future Lecture, either this
Term or the next, I mean to give you an explanation of this
doctrine, which will make you acquainted with some of the
most thorny speculations of scholastic theology. What I am
at present concerned with is only the history of the doctrine,
taken as a specimen history of a dispute within the Church of
Rome. The history of a dispute is the best evidence as to
what authority for settling disputes the disputants believe in.
When I speak of authority for settling disputes, it is well
to remind you of a little ambiguity about this word authority.
We might mean the authority of superior knowledge, or
merely of official position. Any judge may have authority to
decide a question of law, in the sense that his decision will
bind the parties, and that they must submit to it ; but there
are some judges who, on account of their knowledge and
ability, rank as legal authorities, and have set precedents from
which their successors differ with reluctance ; while, in this
sense of the word, other judges are of no authority at all. Now
everyone will grant to the Pope the authority of official posi
tion. He has power to declare the doctrine of his Church,
to depose any ecclesiastic who rejects his decision, or even to
excommunicate any lay person who opposes himself to it. But
we might say as much for the Synod of the Church of Ireland.
It, too, can declare the doctrine of that Church, and can make
the acceptance of that doctrine a condition of clerical or lay
communion. But now there is this difference between these
two kinds of authority, that the interference of the authority
of confessed superior knowledge is welcomed and willingly
submitted to, while it is often just the reverse with the other
kind of authority. If two of you were disputing on a subject
of which you had little knowledge ; suppose, for instance, that
you knew nothing of anatomy, and that you had a difference
of opinion how many ribs a man has ; if a skilled anatomist
N

178 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xi.
were present, you would dispute no longer, but ask him ; and
then the dispute would be at an end. There has been long
and warm controversy as to the authorship of the letters of
Junius. Suppose a sealed volume were discovered, to which
the author had committed his secret, people would not refuse
to break the seal because they had misgivings whether their
own theory were the true one. All parties would say, let us
know the truth ; and when the truth was known the controversy
would be at an end.
It is quite the reverse when the interference is on the part
of the authority, not of knowledge, but of official position.
Then those who are likely to get the worst deprecate interfer
ence ; they threaten not to submit to the decision, and the fear
of such a refusal of submission is apt to inspire great caution
in the authority whose interference might be solicited. If it
were proposed that the General Synod should make a new
decision of doctrine condemning the views now held by some
members of the Church, I can tell from experience what
would be likely to occur. Those who felt themselves to be in a
minority would struggle that the Synod should abstain from
making any decision on the question ; they would threaten to
leave the Church if their views were condemned ; and then a
number of cautious moderate men, thinking the evils of a
schism greater than those of the toleration of opinions from
which they themselves dissented, would join the minority in
preventing any decision from being pronounced.
Remember this distinction, for it will serve as a test guide
in your study of history. If you are fully persuaded that a man
on any subject knows a great deal more than yourself, you
do not want to stop his mouth. The more he speaks the
better you are pleased, and you willingly give up your own
previous opinion when he tells you it is wrong. It is quite
different when a man who is your superior in authority wants
to interfere with your opinions on a subject which you believe
he knows no more of than yourself. Then you want him to
hold his tongue. If he does speak, you, perhaps, refuse to
listen to him, and if he sees that you are likely not to be afraid
to make your dissent public, then, if he wants his authority to

xi.] THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 179
be respected, he will probably have the good sense to discover
that to hold his tongue is the most discreet course. You
may test in this way whether the Church of Rome believes in
her own infallibility. Do the members of that Church show
that they believe they have got an infallible guide, who on
things of faith knows much better than themselves ; and do
they accordingly, when they have a theological problem,
meekly come to him to be told the solution of it, or do they
work out the problem for themselves, and merely invoke the
higher authority to reduce their opponents to submission ? And
¦does the higher authority himself speak with the confidence
¦of superior knowledge, or rather, with the caution of one who
knows that his subjects would not believe him if he pro
nounced their opinions to be wrong, and who must take care
not to strain his authority too far, lest he should cause a
revolt ? Examine the history of any dispute in the Roman
communion, and you will find that the heads of the Roman
Church act exactly as the leading members of the Synod of
the Church of Ireland would act in a like case, neither show
ing any belief in their own infallibility themselves, nor any
expectation that their followers would believe it ; proscribing
only such opinions as had become offensive to the great ma
jority of their body, but restrained by a wholesome fear of
schism from straining their authority too far.
I take, as I have said, the history of the doctrine of
the Immaculate Conception as a typical case. From the
beginning of the fourteenth century vehement disputes on
this subject had been carried on, the leading parts being
taken by two powerful Orders ; the Dominicans, following
their great doctor, Thomas Aquinas, holding that, though
cleansed from original sin before her birth, Mary had
been conceived in sin like others ; the Franciscans, after
their great teacher, Scotus, exempting her from the stain by
a special act of God's power. The Dominicans went so far
as to accuse the assertors of the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception of heresy, and even charged with mortal sin
those who attended the Office of the Immaculate Conception,
although that Office had been authorized by papal sanction ;
N2

180 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xi,
and they charged with sin also those who listened to the
sermons in which the doctrine was preached. The annual
recurrence of the Feast of the Conception was a signal for
the renewal of hostilities, and gave birth every year to scenes,
of the most scandalous kind. All this time private Chris
tians, puzzled by the most opposite statements of learned
men on both sides, must have looked eagerly to the infallible
guide, in hopes to learn from him the true doctrine which
they were to believe. But the judge was silent. He trimmed.
and wavered between both parties, and sought to make peace
between them, without giving a triumph to either. The
strongest step was taken by Sixtus IV., who, though himself
a Franciscan, did not venture to declare that the doctrine
taught by his own school was true; but who, in 1483, pub
lished a brief, in which he condemned those who said that it
was a heresy, or that it could not be taught without mortal,
sin. Would the most ignorant layman have acted diffe
rently, if he had the misfortune to be governor of a body
divided into two powerful parties, and were called on to-
pronounce a decision between them on a subject he knew
nothing about ? What better could he do than postpone his
decision sine die1, and meanwhile condemn the extreme of
either party if they used insulting language toward the
other ?
At length came the Council of Trent, in the course of
which it became necessary to draw up an Article on original
sin. It seemed then hardly possible to evade the question ;
for either it must be stated generally that all men are subject
to this infection, and then the matter would be decided in;
favour of the Dominicans ; or else the desire of the Fran
ciscans should be complied with, that special mention should
be made of the Virgin Mary, exempting her from the plague-
spot of the human race. On this, naturally, a violent dispute
arose. When the dispute was made known at Rome, in
stead of embracing the opportunity of declaring by infallible
authority the true doctrine on this subject, orders were given
to the Papal Legates at Trent to reconcile the contending
parties as far as possible, without giving a triumph to either.

xi. J FEARS OF SCHISM AT TRENT. 181
The directions were, not to meddle with this matter, which
might cause a schism among Catholics ; to endeavour to
maintain peace between the opposing parties, and to seek
some means of giving them equal satisfaction ; above all, to
observe strictly the brief of Pope Sixtus IV., which forbad
preachers to charge the doctrine of the Immaculate Concep
tion with heresy. And in accordance with these instructions
the decree of the Council was drawn up. The controversy
was named ; it was declared that the Council left the matter
undetermined, and renewed the brief of Sixtus IV.
This course was, no doubt, under the circumstances, emi
nently wise and prudent ; for it had become plain that, what
ever else the parties disagreed in, they agreed in this, that
each preferred no decision at all rather than a decision
adverse to his own views. But is it not most clearly proved
that the Pope did not believe in his own pretence to infalli
bility, else why not take the opportunity of settling, by the
joint authority of Pope and Council — an authority which, in
theory, all owned to be infallible — a dispute which had so
long convulsed the Church ? But to meddle in the matter —
that is to say, to decide the question one way or other —
' might cause a schism among Catholics' ; in other words,
these 'Catholics,' whatever they might pretend, did not
really believe in the infallibility of the Pope and the Council.
Nay, I am putting the matter too weakly ; for we do not set
up our own opinion against that of an expert on any subject,
even though we know that he is far from claiming infalli
bility; but these 'Catholics' must really have thought that
Pope and Council knew no better than themselves. Why
should there be danger of a schism after the truth had been
ascertained by infallible authority ? Surely, no person could
be mad enough to separate himself from the Church of Christ
in consequence of a decision which he believed to be infallibly
true, and to have emanated from a divinely-promised and
infallible guidance. The only way of accounting for the
conduct of the Pope and of the Council on this occasion is,
that neither one or other believed in the pretence of infalli
bility. For, as I said, acting is the test of faith ; and here

1 82 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xi.
the Pope acts as any prudent, well-advised sovereign would
act under similar circumstances, endeavouring to avoid a
decision that must irritate one party or other, and trying
to conciliate both as well as he could. Although he speaks-
loudly and boldly before the world of his infallible authority,
and of the great blessing of being in a Church which pos
sesses an infallible tribunal for settling all disputes, yet he acts
as one who was fully aware that there was no such tribunal,.
and as knowing also that his ' Catholics' believed nothing of
the sort, and would run into schism rather than submit to the
pretended authority of his infallibility, if it happened to run
counter to their own private opinions. It is impossible to
have clearer proof than this that the Roman communion
does not practically believe in its own claim to infallibility.
The guide will not venture to strike into one of two doubtful
paths until those whom he is conducting have already made
their choice, and that because he knows that, though pro
fessing to believe in his infallible wisdom, they will not
follow him if he should happen not to take the path which
they prefer.
There remained, however, one way of accounting for the
silence of the Pope and the Council which might save their
infallibility ; namely, that this particular subject was one on
which it had pleased God to make no revelation, and there
fore that in the judgment of Pope and Council either view
might be innocently held. This view was naturally taken
by the Roman Catholics of the last generation. Bishop
Milner, for instance, says 'the Church does not decide the
controversy concerning the Conception of the Blessed Virgin,
and several other disputed points, because she sees nothing
clear and certain concerning them either in the written or
unwritten Word, and therefore leaves her children to form
their own opinions concerning them.' But Pius IX. made
it impossible any longer to give this explanation of the
silence of his predecessors.
In process of time the whole controversy died away.
Franciscans and Dominicans ceased to accuse each other of
heresy or mortal sin, and so then was the time that the in-

xi.J THE DOGMA OF 1854. 1 83
fallible tribunal ventured to speak ; and in my own time
(8th December, 1 054J the Pope proclaimed that the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception wTas true, and moreover that
the Church had always held it. Certainly in this case the
Church carried the ' disciplina arcani ' to an immoderate
extreme, since neither Bellarmine or Milner, or many other
Roman Catholic divines whom I could name, were aware
that the Church had any tradition on the subject. But if
she had, how are we to excuse Pope Sixtus, or the Council
of Trent, who, instead of making known the tradition at the
time when the knowledge of it would have done good in
healing the violent dissensions which raged between mem
bers of the Church, kept silence until people had ceased to
feel much interest in the controversy ?
And even then there were those who said it was too
soon for the Pope to speak. The Pope did not make his
decree without first taking advice, and you will find in
the Library the answers he got from the bishops of Christen
dom. Among these, both some of the most eminent of
the French bishops, and our Irish professors at Maynooth,
declared, not by any means their disbelief in the doctrine
of the Immaculate Conception, but their opinion of the in-
expedience of defining it by authority. As I have already
said, when the interference is not that of superior know
ledge, but only that of higher authority, cautious men will
consider not only the truth of what they are asked to affirm,
but also the prudence of enforcing conformity to it ; and so
at our own Synod many have voted against putting forth
as the doctrine of the Church what they themselves believed
to be true. In this case, those who pronounced the decision
of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to be inoppor
tune, did not say in their own names that it was an addition
to the ancient faith of the Church ; but they said that
Anglican divines would be sure to say so, and would ac
cuse the Roman Church of having broken with her ancient
rule, and of now teaching something which had not been
taught, ' semper, ubique et ab omnibus.' Thus an obstacle
would be placed in the way of their conversion, and quite

1 84 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xi.
gratuitously, since there was at the time no controversy on
the subject which there was any need of appeasing.
However much we may believe in the sincerity of those
who on this occasion declared that they did not deny the
truth of the doctrine, but only the opportuneness of declaring
it, it is hard to believe equally in the sincerity of those who
some years later raised the question of opportuneness, when
it was proposed to define the dogma of the Pope's personal
infallibility. Actually to deny a doctrine which an influential
Pontiff showed it was his most anxious desire to have af
firmed would be too invidious, and so the lower ground was
taken by a great majority ; and they fought a half-hearted
battle, disputing not the truth of the doctrine, but only the
expedience of declaring it. I must say that, to my mind, all
this controversy about opportunism shows distrust in the
infallibility of their guide. It is always opportune to learn
something you did not know before, if you have got hold of
a person competent to inform you. What is inopportune is
that a man should propound his views without necessity to
an audience disinclined to receive them ; and the fact that
Pope and Councils very often have found it inopportune to
make dogmatic definitions is proof enough how little their
own Church believed in their power to do so.
I could give other illustrations in plenty of the wise timidity
of the infallible authority in declining to solve disputed ques
tions. For instance, at Trent there was another question left
unsettled besides that about the Immaculate Conception. A
question arose whether bishops have their jurisdiction directly
by Divine right, or whether they only derive it from the Pope;
but after hot disputes it was found expedient to drop the
controversy. You will find in Burnet's Commentary on the
Seventeenth Article a notice of another controversy, in which
the Pope, though asked to determine it, neglected to do so.
I refer to controversies between the Dominicans and the
Jesuits at the very end of the sixteenth century. The matter
in dispute belonged to the class of subjects debated between
Calvinists and Arminians. The Jesuits, who took what we
may call the Arminian side, were accused of Pelagianism by

xi.J THE CONGREGATIONS DE AUXILIIS. 185
the Dominicans, who followed the Augustinian teaching of
their great doctor, Thomas Aquinas. In 1594 the Pope
undertook the decision of the question. Here we have the
very case to meet which one might suppose the gift of
infallibility had been conferred : hot controversy in the
Church terminated by a resort of both parties to the infallible
authority for guidance. Of course it was not to be expected
that the Pope should determine so great a question hastily.
He appointed committees of theologians to examine the ar
guments on both sides, known as the celebrated congrega
tions de auxiliis, the subject of their inquiries being the help
of divine grace bestowed by God on man. I will not weary
you with the history of the delays of the investigation : suffice
it to say, that after going on some twenty years no re
sult was arrived at. And, politically, this was the wisest
course. For if a decision were made, it must of necessity
give offence to one or other of two powerful parties — sup
ported, the one by the King of Spain, the other by the King
of France; and there was quite a possibility that the rejected
party might refuse to submit, and even pronounce the Pope
himself heretical.* But would there be any such danger if
the parties to the dispute believed in the Pope's infallibility,
* It is worth while to add a few words as to the part taken in this controversy by
the great Jesuit, Bellarmine. The controversy arose out of the publication by a
Jesuit Professor, Molina, of a book which the Dominicans accused of semi-Pelagian-
ism, and the authoritative condemnation of which they were anxious to obtain. Now,
though Bellarmine and other leading Jesuits were unwilling to commit themselves to
an approval of all Molina's doctrine, they considered that the condemnation of his
book would be a great slur on their Order ; and though the condemnation appeared
more than once to be on the point of issuing, the Jesuits exercised obstruction so
vigorously, that their opposition was in the end successful. It is amusing to read
in Cardinal Bellarmine's autobiography how he bullied the poor Pope, Clement VIII.,
whose own opinion was adverse to Molina. ' You are no theologian,' he said, ' and
you must not think that by your own study you can come to understand so very ob
scure a question.' 'I mean to decide the question,' said the Pope. 'Your Holi
ness will not decide it,' retorted the Cardinal. There is extant a letter, written after
the Congregation appointed by the Pope to examine the matter had reported ad
versely to Molina, and when he was supposed to be about to act on that report, in
which Bellarmine urges that the Pope should not act without first calling a council
of bishops, or at least summoning learned men from the Universities. If he acted
otherwise, though men would be bound to obey his decree, there would be great
murmuring and complaints on the part of the Church and the Universities that they

1 86 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xi.
or if he believed in it himself? If Christ Himself appeared
upon earth, we should be glad to obtain from Him an autho
ritative solution of any of our religious controversies, and we
should not dream of stopping His mouth lest His decision
should be opposed to our prepossessions. So, though these
men profess to believe that the Pope, as a guide to truth,
fills the place of Christ on earth, their conduct proves that
they do not believe what they say. And the Pope's own
conduct shows that he felt himself not in the position of a
judge authorized to pronounce a decision to which all parties
must submit, but only in that of the common friend of two
angry disputants, in favour of neither of whom he dare plainly
declare himself on pain of losing the friendship of the other.
In other words, every time the Pope hastthought of making
a dogmatic decision, he has had to make a prudential calcu
lation of the danger of provoking a schism ; and on the occa
sion of his last definition a schism, as you know, was actually
made. But fear on his part of secession shows mutual want
of faith in Roman pretensions. For who would punish him
self by seceding from the only authorized channel of divine
communications ? Who would refuse to believe anything if
it was declared to him by God Himself, or by one who, he
had not been properly consulted. That the Pope should attempt to study the ques
tion for himself was a very tedious and unsatisfactory method, aud not that which
had been followed by his predecessors. Did Leo X. trouble himself with study
when he condemned the Lutheran heretics ? He just confirmed the conclusions ar
rived at by the Catholic Universities of Cologne and Louvain. Paul IV., Julius III.,
Pius IV., were no students ; yet, with the help of the Council of Trent, they de
clared most important truths. See, on the other hand, what scrapes John XXII.
got into when he endeavoured to promulgate the views concerning the Beatific
Vision, to which his own study had led him. See into what danger Sixtus V.
brought himself and the whole Church — one of the greatest dangers the Church was
ever in — when he attempted to correct the Bible according to his own knowledge.
And the Pope must be careful not to give occasion to anyone to think that he had
made up his own mind before the question had been scientifically investigated.
Why, he had said things to Bellarmine himself which had made him resolve to with
draw, and treat no more of the question. If such a one as he lost courage, who had
been studying these subjects for thirty years, what would others do ? (Selbstbiogra-
phie des Cardinals Bellartnin. Bonn : 1887, p. 260.) There could not be a better
illustration how ill the authority of official position fares when it comes into collision
with the authority of superior knowledge.

xi.J HOW THE POPE SETTLES CONTROVERSIES. 1 87
was quite sure, had authority to speak in God's name ? Lord
Bacon tells a story of a wise old man who got a great
reputation for his success in settling disputes. When pri
vately asked by a friend to explain the secret of his success,
he told him it was because he made it a rule to himself never
to interfere until the parties had completely talked themselves
out, and were glad to get peace on any terms. That was just
the way in which the Pope settled the controversy about the
Immaculate Conception, by carefully holding his tongue until
the dispute was practically over.

XII.

THE HESITATIONS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE.
DR. GOLDSMITH tells us that the Vicar of Wakefield's
daughters were given by their mother a guinea a-piece,
because the honour of the family required that they should
always have money in their pocket ; but that each was
under strict conditions never to change her guinea. The
Pope seems to possess the gift of infallibility on the same
terms. The 'honour of the family' requires that he should
have it, but obvious considerations of prudence constantly
deter him from using it. The slowness of the Pope to inter
fere in controversies within his own communion is part of a
system. I could give illustrations in abundance of the nervous
fear of the infallible authority to commit itself irrevocably to
any opinion, without leaving always an outlet for retreat in
case of need; but the copiousness of material makes selec
tion difficult.
Romish teaching has constantly a double face. To those
within the communion it is authoritative, positive, stamped
with the seal of infallibility, which none may dispute without
forfeiting his right to be counted a good Catholic. Conse
quently, I have heard Roman Catholic laymen express the
utmost astonishment at hearing their Church charged with
want of positiveness in her utterances, this being, in their
opinion, the last fault that can be charged upon her. But
this is because they only know how she speaks to those who
will not venture to challenge the correctness of her teaching.
She speaks differently to those who have courage to impugn
it and bring it to a test. Then the statements assailed are
said to be but private, unauthorized opinion, to which the
Church is not pledged, and which may be proved to be
absurd without injuring her reputation.

Hi. J MACNAMARA'S NEW TESTAMENT. l8g»
(i). For example, since we are told that private judgment is
insufficient to determine with certainty the meaning of Scrip
ture, it might be expected that the infallible guide would
publish an authorized commentary on Scripture, setting forth
the interpretation guaranteed by that unanimous consent of
the Fathers, according to which the Creed of Pius IV. binds
all to interpret. But nothing of the kind has been done. If
annotated editions are sometimes issued with the approval of
the authorities, the sanction is intended to imply no more
than apparent freedom from grave heresy, and the notes rest
only on the credit of the authors.
Indeed it did at one time seem that the very thing I ask
for was about to be done. In the year 1813, advertisements
were circulated announcing an edition of The Catholic
Bible, ' explained or illustrated with valuable notes or an
notations, according to the interpretation of the Catholic
Church, which is our infallible and unerring guide in read
ing the Holy Scriptures and leading us unto salvation.' The
names of all, or almost all, the Irish Roman Catholic bishops
were printed as patronizing the undertaking ; and, when the
work actually appeared, the title-page professed that the
edition was sanctioned and patronized by the Roman Ca
tholic prelates and clergy of Ireland. What more could any
one wish than this ? But the issue of this attempt to give
' the interpretation of the Catholic Church, which is our in
fallible and unerring guide in reading the Scriptures,' was so
unfortunate that the attempt is not likely to be repeated.
When the promised edition (Macnamara's) appeared,
some copies fell into the hands of Protestants, who called
attention to the doctrine of the Rhemish notes which they
contained. There is no subject to which the annotators so
perpetually recur as the duty of the individual to hold no in
tercourse with heretics that can be avoided, and the duty of
the State to punish heretics, and even put them to death.*
* Here are some of them : —
' The good must tolerate the evil where it is so strong that it cannot be redressed
without danger and disturbance of the whole Church ; and commit the matter to
God's judgment in the latter day. Otherwise, where ill men, be they heretics or

190 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xii.,
The agitation on the subject of the Emancipation Bill was
then going on ; and this publication threatened seriously to
damage the prospects of the Bill, by confirming apprehen
sions then prevalent as to the use Roman Catholics would
be likely to make of any political power they might obtain.
Accordingly, the book was denounced by O'Connell, and
you will find in his published speeches* that he had no
scruple in calling on the Catholic Association to repudiate
these notes, which he stigmatized as ' odious,' ' execrable,'
* abominable,' notwithstanding that they had for two hun
dred years been recognized as approved by high Roman
Catholic authority. These 'odious' doctrines have higher
other malefactors, may be punished or suppressed without disturbance and hazard of
the good, they may and ought, by public authority, either spiritual or temporal, to
be chastised or executed.' — Matt. xiii. 29.
' Not justice nor all rigorous punishment of sinners is here forbidden, nor Elias's
fact reprehended, nor the Church or Christian princes blamed for putting heretics to
death ; but that none of these should be done for desire of our particular revenge,
or without discretion and regard of their amendment and example to others.' — Luke
ix- 55- ' All wise men in a manner see their falsehood, though for fear of troubling the
state of such commonwealths, where unluckily they have been received, they cannot
be suddenly extirpated.' — 2 Tim. iii. 9.
' If St. Paul doubted not to claim the succour of the Roman laws, and to appeal
to Csesar, the prince of the Romans not yet christened, how much more may we
call for the aid of Christian princes and the laws for their punishment of heretics and
for the Church's defence against them ?' — Acts xxv. II.
'St. Augustin referreth this " compelling ' ' to the penal laws, which Catholic'princes
do justly use against heretics and schismatics, proving that they who are by their
former profession in baptism subject to the Catholic Church, and are departed from
the same after sects, may and ought to be compelled into the unity and society of
the universal Church again. And therefore in this sense, by the two former parts of
the parable, the Jews first, and secondly the Gentiles that never before believed in
Christ, were invited by fair sweet means only ; but by the third such are invited as
the Church of God hath power over, because they promised in baptism, and therefore
are to be revoked not only by gentle means, but by just punishment also.' — Luke
xiv. 23. See infra the passage quoted from Thomas Aquinas.
1 The Protestants foolishly expound this of Rome, for that there they put heretics
to death, and allow of their punishment in other countries ; but their blood is not
called the blood of saints, no more than the blood of thieves, man-killers, and other
malefactors, for the shedding of which by order of justice no commonwealth shall
answer.' — Rev. xvii. 6.
* Meeting of Catholic Association, Dec. 4, 1817. (O'Connell's Speeches, edited
by his Son, vol. ii., p. 257.)

xn. J MACNAMARA'S NEW TESTAMENT. 191
authority* in their favour than perhaps Mr. O' Conn ell was
aware of, and I do not think it so easy for the Roman Ca
tholic Church to repudiate them. But Mr. O'Connell was
quite right in considering that he was at liberty to reject
the opinions of any commentator, however respectable.
(2). Perhaps it may be said that it was needless for the
Roman Church to publish commentaries on Scripture, since it
is not to Scripture she sends her people for instruction in the
doctrines of their faith. She has catechisms and other books
of instruction, from which her people may learn. But has she
ventured to put her seal of infallibility to any one of them ?
Not so ; catechisms, sermons, books of devotion, are guarded
* It seems to me that the Rhemish annotators had every reason to believe that
they were only teaching the doctrine approved by the highest authorities in then-
Church — doctrine which the Church had never had any hesitation in following in
practice. It will suffice to quote here the conclusions come to by Thomas Aquinas
(Summa 2da 2dae, Qu. xi., Art. 3) on the question, ' utrum haeretici sint tole-
randi.' He says, ' The question must be considered as regards the heretics them
selves and as regards the Church. On the side of the heretics is sin, for which they
deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but even to
be excluded from the world by death. Now it is a much more grievous thing to
corrupt the faith, through which the soul has its life, than to falsify money, which
serves the needs of temporal life. So if falsifiers of money, or other malefactors,
are at once justly consigned to death by secular princes, far more may heretics, when
once convicted of their heresy, be not only excommunicated, but even justly put to
death. On the side of the Church there is mercy for the conversion of the erring, and
therefore she does not condemn at once, but, as the Apostle says, "after a first
and second admonition." But if after that he still continues obstinate, the Church,
having no hope of his conversion, provides for the safety of others by separating him
from the Church by the sentence of excommunication, and further leaves him to the
judgment of secular princes to be exterminated from the world by death.'
On the previous question (Qu. i., Art. 8), 'utrum infideles compellendi sint ad
fidem,' his ruling is, that Jews or Gentiles, who have never received the faith, ought
not to be compelled to receive it ; but that heretics and apostates should be com
pelled to fulfil what they had promised. On our Lord's words, ' Let both grow
together until the harvest,' he makes a comment for which I am sorry to say he is
able to quote St. Augustine's authority, that since the reason is given, ' Lest haply
while ye gather up the tares ye root up the wheat with them,' it follows that if there
is no danger of rooting up the wheat, it is safe to eradicate the tares.
He goes on to consider Qu. xi., Art. 4, whether relapsed heretics ought to
be received on their repentance. He regards this question as decided by the
Decretal, Ad abolendam, ' Si aliqui post abjurationem erroris deprehensi fuerint
in abjuratam haeresim recidisse, seculari judicio sunt relinquendi.' He defends
this decision as follows : The Church, according to our Lord's precept, extends

192 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xn.
by no such gift. If we detect a catechism in manifest error, if
we find a preacher or a book of devotion guilty of manifest
extravagance, no matter how eminent the man, or how widely
popular the book, the Church always leaves a loophole for
disowning him, and we are at once told that the infallible au
thority has spoken by no such medium. But why has she not ?
Does it not seem strange that a communion possessing the
high attribute of infallibility should make no use of it in the
instruction of her people ? It cannot be said that this neglect
does not lead to ignorance and error on the part of the
people. I need take no other example than the case I have
already mentioned of ' Keenan's Catechism,' where a book
circulated by thousands, with the highest episcopal appro
bation, went on, year after year, teaching doctrine which has
her charity to all, even to her enemies and persecutors. Charity teaches us to
wish and work for our neighbour's good. His chief good is the salvation of
his soul; consequently the Church admits a relapsed heretic to penance, which
opens to him the way of salvation. But it is only in a secondary degree that
charity looks to temporal good, such as life in this world, possession of property,
and so forth. We are not bound in charity to wish these things to others, except in
subordination to the eternal salvation of themselves and others. If one man's pos
session of any of these good things might hinder the eternal salvation of many, we
are not bound to wish it to him, but rather to wish the contrary, both because
etemai salvation is to be preferred to any temporal good, and because the good of
many ought to be preferred to the good of one. Now if relapsed heretics were kept
alive, and allowed to possess property, this might prejudice the salvation of others,
both because there is danger of their relapsing again, and infecting others, and be
cause, if they got off without punishment, others might be careless about falling into
heresy. So in the case of those who for the first time return from heresy, the
Church not only admits them to penance, but keeps them alive, and sometimes,
if she believes them to be truly converted, even restores them to the ecclesiastical
dignities which they had held before. But relapsing is a sign of instability con
cerning the faith ; so that on a subsequent return to the Church they are admitted to
penance, but not freed from the sentence of death.
Accordingly the practice was, that a relapsed heretic who recanted was first
strangled, then burnt. If he did not recant he was burned alive, but Bellarmine's
biographer, Petrasancta, explains that this was not done out of cruelty, but in the
merciful hope that the extremity of bodily suffering might induce the culprit to save
his soul by recanting at the last moment (see the passage cited, Selbstbiographie des
Cardinals Bellarmin, p. 235). In the same place a long list is given of heretics
capitally punished at Rome. See also Gibbings, Were heretics ever burned alive at
Rome? Gibbings remarks, that one of the propositions selected from Luther's writ
ings, and condemned by Pope Leo X. in the Bull ExsurgeQa. 1520, as pestiferous
and destructive, &c, is, ' Haereticos comburi est contra voluntatem Spiritus.'

xn.J CATECHISMS NOT GUARANTEED FROM ERROR. 1 93
now to be withdrawn as false. The consequence of this
neglect is, that those who filled the office of authorized
teachers in the Church of Rome were left in such ignorance
of its doctrines, that it has now got to be owned that we
heretics knew better what were the doctrines of the Roman
Church than did its own priests. One Romish controver
sialist after another, when taken to task about the Roman
theory of the Papal power, repudiated as a gross Protestant
misrepresentation those doctrines which the Pope, with the
assent of the Vatican Council, now tells us are not only true,
but have been held by the Church from the beginning. Thus,
to quote one controversial book extensively circulated in
America : ' Though I have plainly told the Protestant mi
nister that the infallibility of the Pope is no part of the
Catholic creed, a mere opinion of some divines, an article
nowhere to be found in our professions of faith, in our creeds,
and in our catechisms, yet the Protestant minister most un
generously and uncandidly brings it forward again and
again, and takes the opportunity from this forgery of his
own to abuse the Catholic Church.' ' Here,' says an ' Old
Catholic' commentator, 'we have an extraordinary pheno
menon : two Protestant ministers, who understood clearly
what was the teaching of the Catholic Church on the point
in question, and two Catholic priests, writing in defence of
the faith, who yet knew nothing about a fundamental doc
trine of faith, to say nothing of the bishops and priests who
approved of and circulated their works. If this be so,' he
says, 'where is the advantage of an infallible Church?'
Where, indeed, if those who have not the benefit of its
guidance succeed better in arriving at a knowledge of the
Church's doctrines than those who have ?
(3). Well, perhaps it may be said, it is not from books at
all that the Church means her people to learn. To the people
in general the voice of the Church is only the voice of the
priest. Ordinary laymen certainly cannot study decrees of
Popes or Councils, or works on scientific theology. They
must take the doctrines of their Church as their authorized
teachers expound it to them. Well, are those teachers
o

194 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xn.
infallible ? Why, no, is the answer ; but practically the people
have the full benefit of the gift of infallibility. It is true
their priest is not infallible ; but they know that, if he teaches
any heresy, he will be suspended by his bishop : if the bishop
neglect his duty, he will be called to account by the arch
bishop : if the archbishop be heretical, he will be removed by
the Pope. But this statement is only partially true. I be
lieve it is true that any attempt to remove errors from the
teaching of the Church of Rome is likely to be summarily
checked, and therefore that she is greatly debarred from that
best kind of reform — reform from within. But I see no equal
safeguard against adding to and exaggerating errors she
holds already. It is acknowledged that the faith of the
Church may be injured by subtraction. It seems to be prac
tically ignored that the faith may also be injured by addition.
Anything that seems like a move in the direction of Pro
testantism is promptly stopped ; but the most extravagant
statements in the opposite direction, though perhaps pri
vately censured by the discreet, are not interfered with by
authority. On all important subjects the truth is a mean
between opposite errors. How then can those teachers pos
sibly have the truth whose only care is to keep as far as they
can from one particular form of error ?
The most prevalent extravagance of Roman teaching at
the present day is an exaggeration of the honour due to the
Blessed Virgin Mary. She is represented, in many sermons
and popular books of devotion, as almost a fourth Person of
the Blessed Trinity, and as a sharer, on nearly equal terms,
with our Lord in the work of our redemption. These extra
vagances are such as to shock one so little disposed to judge
harshly of Roman doctrine as Dr. Pusey, and they formed
the main subject of his book, The Eirenicon. We ask, Is this
teaching authorized ? and no one can tell us. The infallible
guide will not commit himself.
It might seem, however, that he has committed himself.
One of the most active teachers of these new doctrines is St.
Alphonso dei Liguori, who was canonized by the late Pope.
Liguori's writings have been a mark for Protestant attack,

xn. J SAINT ALPHONSO DEI LIGUORI. 195
not only on account of his Mariolatry, but also on account of
his casuistry. For though in his work on Moral Theology
he professes to hold the mean between extreme laxity and
extreme rigour, his decisions lean so much to the side of
what we count laxity as very much to scandalize weak
minds. Now, our first impression is that the Pope is fairly
responsible for all Liguori's teaching, for before anyone can
be canonized as a saint a most rigorous examination must
be made whether his published writings contain anything
objectionable. This examination was made in Liguori's case
in the year 1803, when he was a candidate for beatification.
All his works then came under the examination of the Sacred
Congregation of Rites, who decreed that in all the writings
of Alphonso dei Liguori, severely examined according to
the discipline of the Apostolic See, there was found nothing
worthy of censure. And there is testimony that this exami
nation was made with particular severity ; that his system of
morality had been more than twenty times rigorously dis
cussed by the Sacred Congregation ; and that in all their
decrees the Cardinals had agreed ' voce concordi, unanimi
consensu, una voce, una mente.' Yet we are told that the
infallible authority is no way committed to the doctrines of
Liguori. Many respectable Roman Catholics do not hesitate
to express their dislike both of his decisions on some ques
tions of morality, and of his language concerning the Virgin
Mary. Dr. Newman is among the number of those. While
professing his incompetence to judge a saint,* seeing that 'the
spiritual man judgeth all things, and is himself judged of
no man,' he gives his opinion that many things may be suit
able for Italy which will not go down in England. The
Saint's practical directions were given for Neapolitans, whom
he knew, and we do not. With respect to the approbation
implied in the decree of the Congregation of Rites, he says,
* Though common sense may determine that the line of pru
dence and propriety has certainly been passed in the instance
of certain statements about the Blessed Virgin, it is often not
easy to prove the point legally, and in such cases authority,
* 'Letter to Dr. Pusey,' p. 103.
O 2

1 96 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xn.
if it attempt to act, would be in the position which so often
happens in our courts of law, where the commission of an
offence is morally certain, but the Government prosecutor
cannot find legal evidence sufficient to ensure conviction. It
is wiser to leave these excesses to the gradual operation of
public opinion, that is, to the opinion of educated and sober
Catholics, and this seems to be the healthiest way of putting
them down' (p. 112). I will postpone, until I have to speak of
saint- worship, the discussion whether this attempt to release
the Church of Rome from the responsibility of approving
Liguori's doctrine is successful : my own opinion is that it
is not. And since Dr. Newman wrote, a new difficulty has
arisen in the way of relieving Roman Catholics from the re
sponsibility of Liguori's extravagances; for Pius IX., who
was himself a thorough Italian, and who did not understand
how what is good for Italy should not be good for all the
world, elevated Liguori to the rank of Doctor of the Church,
that is to say, one of the great divines whose dicta have the
highest authority. But for the present purpose we may
accept Dr. Newman's account of the matter. If Dr. Newman
misunderstands the teaching of the infallible guide whom he
has accepted, it is only a stronger proof of what I am assert
ing, that that guide has an obstinate objection to speaking
plainly. It appears, then, from Dr. Newman, that not only
is the stamp of infallibility not put on the teaching of ordi
nary priests, but not even on that of canonized saints. It
appears that there are current among Roman Catholics books
of devotion which, in the opinion of many, are superstitious
and scandalous, not to say blasphemous and idolatrous, and
yet the infallible authority refuses to speak a word in con
demnation ; nay, gives what to most persons would seem
approbation of the devotions in question.
(4). I have just alluded to the process of the canoniza
tion of saints. A necessary step in that process is, that proof
should be given of miracles wrought by the person to be ca
nonized. We are assured that the evidence for such miracles
is subjected to the most rigorous examination, and that none
are admitted without convincing proof. When such miracles

xn.J THE HOLY HOUSE AT LORETTO. 1 97
have passed this test, when they are recited in the Pope's
Bull of canonization, as the ground for the honour conferred,
when they are inserted in the Breviary, by authority, for the
devotional reading of priests, you might suppose then that
the infallible authority was pledged to their truth as much
as the credit of the New Testament is pledged to the miracles
•of the Gospels. Not in the least ; Roman Catholics are free
to accept or reject them as they please. We are told that
the historical facts contained in the Breviary, though they
merit more than ordinary credence, may be subjected to fresh
examination, and may be criticized by private scholars, pro
vided it be done with moderation and respectfulness. In like
manner the miracles recited in Bulls of canonization, though
they may not be publicly impugned without indecency, yet
do not bind a Roman Catholic to actual belief; and if a Pro
testant, hesitating to become a convert to Popery, should
allege, as the ground of his hesitation, the number of lying
legends proposed by the Church for his acceptance, he would
be told that this is no obstacle at all, and that, as a Roman
Catholic, he need not believe any of them.
I am not supposing an imaginary case. Something of the
kind occurred in the case of Mr. Ffoulkes, whose name is, no
doubt, familiar to you. He tells us of one miraculous story in
particular, which we are so uncandid as to reject without ex
amination, and which he subjected to careful investigation.
You have all, I dare say, heard the story of the holy house at
Loretto. The Virgin Mary's house at Nazareth, when the land
fell into the possession of unbelievers, and worshippers could
no longer resort to it, was carried by the angels across the seas
on the 9th May, 1291 (for I like to be exact), and after taking
three temporary resting-places, finally settled down at Lo
retto in the year 1295. There, on the credit of so great a
miracle, it attracted many pilgrims, and was by them en
riched with abundant gifts. Several Popes pledged their
¦credit to the truth of the story, and rewarded pious visitors
with indulgences. I possess a history of the holy house,
written by Tursellinus, a Jesuit, and printed at Loretto itself

198 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY, [xn.
in 1837, from which I find that the story is proved by such
irrefragable evidence that ' de ea ambigere aut dubitare sit
nefas,' and that no one can doubt it who is not prepared to
deny the power and providence of God, and to remove all
faith in the testimony of man. Mr. Ffoulkes, whose turn of
mind was such that he seemed to find it as hard as the holy
house itself to find a resting-place, either among Protestants
or Roman Catholics, neither accepted this story without
inquiry, as might a thorough-going Roman Catholic, nor
rejected it without inquiry, as might a thorough-going Pro
testant. He took the trouble of going both to Loretto and
to Nazareth, and making laborious investigations on the
spot ; and the result of his inquiry was, that he came back
thoroughly convinced of the fictitious character of the Santa
Casa, notwithstanding the privileges bestowed by so many
Popes. On stating this conviction to the excellent French
priest who had received him into the Roman communion, his
only reply was, ' there are many things in the Breviary which
I do not believe myself.'
(5). There is one particular class of miraculous story,
however, which deserves special attention, on account of the
uses that are made of it — I mean alleged divine revelations.
On this authority rest a number of new facts and new doc
trines. As an example of new facts, I cannot give you a
better instance than the history of one of the most popular
saints on the Continent at the present day, Saint Philumena.
This saint suffered martyrdom, in the Diocletian persecution,
on the 10th August, 286 — a date on which I might comment,
if the story deserved comment. For excellent reasons this
saint was unheard of until quite lately. We learn from the
authorized history of her life, that a good Neapolitan priest
had carried home some bones out of the Roman catacombs,
and was much distressed that his valuable relics should be
anonymous. He was relieved from his embarrassment by a
pious nun in his congregation, who in a dream had revealed
to her the name of the saint and her whole history. I am
sorry that I have not time to repeat the story to you ; but it

xii. J SAINT PHILUMENA. 1 99
is a tissue of such ludicrous absurdities and impossibilities,
that it would be breaking a butterfly on the wheel to prove
its falsity ; and one would think it could not deceive any
one that was not absolutely a child in respect of critical per
ception.* Yet this history has been circulated by thousands
on the Continent ;f and a few years ago, Mr. Duffy, on the
quays, published an edition for the instruction of Irish
Roman Catholics. This history ascribes the wonderful po
pularity which St. Philumena undoubtedly obtained, to the
number of miracles which she works, and in which she out
does the oldest saint in the calendar. Yet you will take
notice that the evidence for her existence is, that some six
teen centuries after her supposed date a nun dreamed about
her a story quite irreconcilable with historic possibilities.
This one example will enable you to judge whether it is true
that if a priest teaches his people falsehood, his bishop will
call him to account, and that if the bishop neglect his duty,
the Pope will interfere. This romance of Philumena has
been circulated as truth, with the approbation of the highest
ecclesiastical authorities. J The subject of modern revelations,
* The scholarship of the narrator of the story may be judged of from the fact that
the word ' Philumena' is interpreted to mean ' Friend of Light.'
t My authority is a French life of the saint : La vie et les miracles de Sainte
Philomene, surnommee la thaumaturge du xixe siecle. Ouvrage traduit de Vltalien.
The preface states that the work was made on the invitation of a venerable prelate,
and it bears the imprimatur of the Bishop of Lausanne, who, ' after the example of
a great number of his colleagues in the Episcopate, thinks fit to second the designs
of Divine Providence by recommending to his flock the devotion to the holy miracle-
worker, Philumena, virgin and martyr, persuaded that it will produce in his diocese,
as elsewhere, abundant fruits of sanctification.' The preface claims that the devo
tion has the sanction of two Popes— Leo XII., who proclaimed the great saint, and
Gregory XVI., who blessed one of her images.
X In obedience to a decree of Pope Urban VIII., these authorities express them
selves with a certain reserve; but they give their approbation to the circulation
among their people of works teaching them to act as if the whole story contained
nothing but undoubted facts. Here is a specimen of the prayers they are taught to
address to a being as imaginary as Desdemona or Ophelia : ' Vierge fidele et glo-
rieuse Martyre, ayez piti6 de moi; exercez et sur mon sime et sur mon corps le
ministere de salut dont Dieu vous a jugee digne ; mieux de moi vous connaissez la
multitude et la diversite de mes besoins : me voici a vos pieds, plein de misere et
d'esperance, je sollicite votre charite : 6 grande Sainte ! exaucez-moi, benissez-moi,

200 ROMAN WANT OF FAITH IN INFALLIBILITY. [xn.
as a foundation for new doctrines, is so important, that I will
pot enter on it now, but keep it for the next day.
daignez faire agreer a mon Dieu l'humble supplique que je vous presente. Oui j'en
ai la ferme confiance, par vos merites, par vos ignominies, par vos douleurs, par votre
mort, unies aux merites de la mort et de la passion de Jesus-Christ, j'obtiendraice
que je vous demande,' &c. The work from which I cite gives in conclusion the
music of a hymn, the chorus of which is, A Philomene onions nos voeux ; tout est
sounds a sa puissance.
Since the above was in type, passing through Reims, I saw a notice in the Ca
thedral that a novena in honour of St. Philumena was to commence j)n the Sunday
after my visit.

xm.

MODERN REVELATIONS.
ON the last day I spoke of one use made of modern reve
lations in the Church of Rome, and gave a specimen
how, on the authority of what is there called a revelation, but
we should call a dream, a tissue of historical facts is as
serted without a particle of historical evidence, or rather in
the teeth of historical probability. I told how bishops en
courage their flocks to invoke in their prayers the intercession
of a person who never had any existence, and even propa
gate tales of miracles worked by the power of this imaginary
personage. It is impossible to doubt that there must be many
a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic in high position who does not
believe in St. Philumena any more than we do ; but it is very
common with such persons to regard the excitement of
devotional feeling as more important than the truth of the
alleged facts which excite it ; and so they see no necessity to
interfere with the practice of a devotion which appears to
fhem conducive to pious feelings, and to be at least harmless.
But these alleged revelations are also the foundation of
new doctrines, and the Pope's silence concerning them affects
the whole question of the rule of faith. I do not think that
in the Roman Catholic pontroversy sufficient attention has
been given to the place which modern revelations have now
taken as part of the foundation of their system. No one can
take up modern popular books of Roman Catholic devotion
without seeing that their teaching differs as much from that
of the Council of Trent, as the teaching of that Council differs
from that of the Church of England. Taking notice of this
difference was the fundamental idea of Dr. Pusey's bpok,

202 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
The Eirenicon, to which I referred in a former Lecture. He
observed how far popular Roman doctrine had got beyond
anything that the Council of Trent had authorized, and more
particularly so in the place assigned to the Blessed Virgin.
Pusey's idea then was to make the Trent decrees a basis of
reconciliation : if the Romanists would only confine them
selves within Tridentine limits, he hoped to screw up An
glican teaching so far. Whether he would have succeeded
in the latter part of his task we need not speculate ; for the
doctrine of development has now gained too firm a hold of
the Roman Church to permit her people to be content to
believe now as she believed three hundred years ago. One
of the ablest of the Roman Catholic replies to Dr. Pusey was
by a Father Harper, originally, I believe, a pervert, now a
Jesuit. Pusey had said, ' I doubt not that the Roman Church
and ourselves are kept apart much more by that vast prac
tical system which lies beyond the letter of the Council of
Trent — things which are taught with a quasi-authority in the
Roman Church — than by what is actually defined.' Harper
replies (I. lxxvii.), ' It is precisely this practical system, this
development of the Tridentine Canons, as Dr. Pusey means it,
which is the expression, or rather actuation, of the Church's
present indwelling vitality. Dead ideas alone can be hidden
up in manuscript ; living ideas grow and show fruit. It is pre
cisely in and through this vast practical system, in proportion
as it is universal, that the Holy Ghost is working, directing,
leading the mind of the Church by degrees into all the truth.
Mere formulas, mere written definitions, by themselves are
bodies that either have lost animation, or are waiting for it.
In the Church they are the expression of her perfected con
sciousness, on the particular subject of that revealed dogma
about which they treat. They live in her spirit and grow
with her growth. Like all things else that have an undecay-
ing life, they can never decrease, but must ever increase.
Christ grew in wisdom daily. So does the Church, not in
mere appearance, but of a truth. Her creed, therefore, can
never shrink back to the dimensions of the past, but must
ever enlarge with the onward future.' I am not now discus-

xiii.] PRACTICAL SYSTEM OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 203,
sing the truth of the doctrine of development ; but you must
take that doctrine into account in judging what Romanism
at the present day is.
Roman Catholic controversialists have often been in the
habit of running away from attacks on the most vulnerable
parts of her practical system by saying, ' Oh, the Church is
not pledged to that ; it is a mere popular abuse ; ' or, ' It is
an unauthorized speculation of some private theologians.' I
had already occasion to show how unfair an evasion that
was in the case of the dogma of the Pope's personal infal
libility. Though controversialists had run away from defend
ing it on the ground of its not having been asserted in any
formal decree, and so being only private opinion, yet now we
have supreme Roman authority for knowing that the Pro
testant champions had been quite right in holding that this
doctrine, however defective in formal attestation, had all the
time been really part of the faith of the Roman Church.
Well, this same principle gives us a right to treat the prac
tical system which prevails in the Church of Rome as some
thing for which that Church is responsible. If we point out
that popular Romanism is full of superstitions and of belief
in what sober, thoughtful Roman Catholics own to be lies,
we are told ' these things are not part of the faith of the
Church; she has never authoritatively affirmed any of them:
the religion of the vulgar is always apt to run into extremes :
you must excuse these things in consideration of the real
piety which is at the bottom of them.' But though popular
Romanism is certainly not the same as the Romanism of the
schools, I hold that it is the former which has the best right
to be accounted the faith of the Church. Let popular belief
come first, and scholastic definition and apology will come
in its own good time afterwards. I have already remarked
how seldom the infallible authority is exercised to guide
men's belief as long as it is doubtful ; but usually only comes
in when all controversy is over, to ratify the result which
public opinion had already arrived at. Is it, then, only the
duty of the head of the Church to declare the belief held by
his people when it becomes general, or is he to exercise no

204 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xiij.
superintending care over the influences which form the belief
he may afterwards have to declare ? If the Pope's infallibility
reaches so far as to qualify him for guiding the Church at
this stage, he always omits to exercise it. I have said that
popular Romanism differs as much from that of the Council
of Trent as the latter does from the creed of the Church of
England. And I wish now to point out that the difference
springs out of a fundamental difference as to the rule of faith.
The Thirty-nine Articles appeal to Scripture alone, the
•Council of Trent to Scripture and tradition ; and so it is to be
expected that the results should be different when the prin
ciples of investigation are different. But the rule of faith of
popular Romanism is different again : it is not Scripture and
tradition, but Scripture and tradition and modern reve
lations. There is a certain development of Christian doctrine which
inevitably takes place, but which is quite private and un
authorized. Anyone who thinks much about the things of
religion will be sure to make speculations of his own about
them, and to draw consequences from generally accepted
revealed truths, which consequences may, or may not, be
legitimately drawn. Here, according to Newman's theory,
would be the place for the infallible authority to interfere to
inform the Church which developments are to be accepted.
But what actually happens in a number of cases is, that these
additions to the structure of Christian doctrine find a shorter
road to recognition. Both within and without the Church of
Rome it has constantly happened that persons of an excit
able and enthusiastic frame of mind, whose thoughts have
been much occupied about religion, have supposed themselves
to be favoured with miraculous communications from God.
Such persons, for instance, were Johanna Southcote among
Protestants; St. Gertrude, St. Marie Alacoque, among Roman
Catholics. Among Protestants persons of this kind do not
find it easy to get anyone to listen to their pretensions ; they
are joined by no sober-minded persons; they collect a few
foolish people for a while, form them into a small sect, and
in a few years there is an end to them. But in the Church of

xiii.] THE LATE FATHER FABER. 205
Rome pretenders of this kind not only gather a larger band
of followers, but they meet with no opposition — not from
those of their own communion even who do not believe in
them. Few Roman Catholics would grudge any honour, not
even excepting the title of saint, to a pious woman of this
kind, even though they do not believe in her asserted revela
tions. ' She will at least promote the cause of piety ; and for
their part they do not choose to give scandal to pious minds
and triumph to unbelievers by exposing the weaknesses and
excesses of faith to an infidel world.' But meanwhile the
utterances of these supposed recipients of a revelation are
caught up and accepted with implicit faith by others. This-
will happen when the utterances express only the seer's
private speculations. But more usually they are the opinions
already favourably thought of in her own little circle, which
is therefore prepared to welcome an authoritative enunciation
of them ; and then with this backing of inspired attestation,
belief in them grows so strong and spreads so widely, that
Church authorities are no longer free to choose whether or
not they will approve of them.
There is in the Roman Church an amazing amount of
literature recording revelations such as I have described ; but
whether these revelations are genuine or not the Pope will
not tell, and it is at anyone's choice to accept or reject.
Some of the Oxford converts made it a point of honour to
show how much they were able to believe, and with what ease
they could swallow down what old-fashioned Roman Catholics
were straining at. Among these there was none more influen
tial than the late Father Faber (far more so, indeed, than Dr.
Newman), whose devotional and theological works had a
rapid and extensive sale. You can hardly read half a dozen
pages of these without meeting as proof of his assertions,
'Our Lord said to St. Gertrude,' 'It was revealed to St.
Teresa,' 'Let us listen to the testimony of God Himself: He
made known to a holy nun,' &c* These quotations are made
*'Our Lord said to St. Gertrude, that as often as anyone says to God: "My
love, my sweetest, my best beloved," and the like, with a devout intention, he re
ceives a pledge of his salvation, in virtue of which if he perseveres he shall receive in.

206 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
as much as a matter of course as you or I might cite texts of
Scripture. A number of new things about Purgatory are
stated on this authority, and being incorporated into widely
circulated devotional works, pass rapidly into popular belief:
for instance, that the Virgin Mary is queen of Purgatory, that
the Archangel Michael is her prime minister, that the souls
there are quite unable to help themselves, and that our Lord
has so tied up His own hands that He is unable to help them
except as satisfactions are made for them by living Christians;
with a number of other details as to the causes for which
souls are sent there, the length of time for which they are
punished, and the manner in which they are relieved. I
regret to have to mention that, according to the revelations
of St. Francesca, bishops seem on the whole to remain long
est in Purgatory, and to be visited with the greatest rigour.
One holy bishop, for some negligence in his high office, had
been fifty-nine years in Purgatory at the date of her infor
mation ; another, so generous of his revenues that he was
named the Almsgiver, had been there five years because,
before his election, he had wished for the dignity.*
More recently a French admirer of Father Faber has made
a systematic treatise on Purgatory, based on modern revela
tions. The book is called 'Purgatory, according to the Reve
lations of the Saints,' by the Abbe Louvet.f I have formed a
high opinion both of the piety of the Abbe and of his literary
honesty. I praise the latter quality because it is commonly
heaven a special privilege of the same sort as the special grace which St. John, the
beloved disciple, had on earth.' — All for Jisus, p. 60.
' Our Lord said to St. Teresa, that one soul, not a saint, but seeking perfection,
was more precious to Him than thousands living common lives,' p. 117.
' St. Gertrude was divinely instructed, that as often as the Angelic Salutation is
devoutly recited by the faithful on earth, three efficacious streamlets proceed from the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, most sweetly penetrating the Virgin's heart,'
p. 104. ' Once more let us listen to the testimony of God Himself: A holy nun pressed
God in prayer to reveal to her what it was in which His Divine Majesty took so much
pleasure in His beloved Gertrude,' &c, p. 323.
* All for Jesus, p. 367.
t Le Purgatoire d'apres les revelations des Saints, per M. 1' Abbe Louvet, Mis-
sionaire Apostolique : Paris, 1880.

xin.] THE ABB& LOUVET. 207
lightly regarded in Roman Catholic works, of which edifi
cation is the main object. Thus, for instance, anyone must
be mad who would trust St. Liguori for a reference. If the
saint finds anything ascribed to St. Bernard (or thinks he
remembers that he does), which is what, in his opinion, St.
Bernard ought to have said, he puts it without scruple into
his 'Glories of Mary'; and I fancy he would have thought
anyone very unreasonable who should have suggested that
he ought to give himself the trouble of looking into St. Ber
nard's works to try whether the passage was there at all, and
whether among the genuine or the spurious works. And simi
larly with the anecdotes which he relates in such numbers.
If a story is good and edifying he does not waste his time in
trifling investigations, whether there is a particle of historical
evidence for the truth of the story. Louvet, on the other
hand, inspires me with confidence that his quotations have
been correctly given, and that he has taken all the pains he
says he has to put aside every apocryphal or doubtful reve
lation, and to state nothing that is not attested by canonized
saints. On Purgatory more than on any other subject the evi
dence of revelations deserves to be listened to, for the whole
faith of the Church of Rome on this subject has been built
upon revelations, or, as we should call it in plain English, on
ghost stories. For hundreds of years the Church seems to have
known little or nothing on the subject. Even still the East
has lagged sadly behind the West in her knowledge, and the
reason is, that the chief source of Western information is a
Latin book, the dialogues of Gregory the Great, a work of
which the genuineness has been denied by some, merely
because it seemed to them incredible that so sensible a man
should have written so silly a book. But no one acquainted
with the eccentricities of the human intellect can rely on such
an argument, in the face of positive evidence the other way.
Gregory, believing twelve or thirteen centuries ago that the
end of the world was then near at hand, and that the men of
his age, by reason of their nearness to the next world, could
see things in it which had been invisible to their predecessors,
collected a number of tales of apparitions which, being

208 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
received on his authority, have been the real foundation of
Western belief in Purgatory. And so Father Faber quotes a
namesake of his as saying, ' that although Gregory was a saint
who should be loved and honoured on many accounts, yet ori
none more than this, because he had so lucidly and trans
parently handed down to us the doctrine of the purgatorial
fire ; for he thought that if Gregory had' not told us so many
things of the holy souls, the devotions of subsequent ages
would have been much colder in their behalf* I don't see,
then, why our knowledge of Purgatory should not be enlarged
from the same source from which it was first communicated;
and why Louvet should not be regarded as doing a good
work in collecting all the information that had been received
from ghosts who have appeared since Pope Gregory's time ;
for it is not reasonable to believe that means of communica
tion with the other world which existed in the seventh century
have been since completely stopped.f It appears that it is
not only that many ghosts have returned to tell of their suf
ferings, but more saints than one have been permitted to
descend to visit the purgatorial regions, and have given us,
as Louvet assures us, a complete map of the place. It
appears that Purgatory is but one division of the subter
ranean regions. At the centre of the earth is the place of
the damned ; above it lies Purgatory, divided into three
regions, for the special torments of each of which I must
refer you to Louvet. Above Purgatory is the limbus infan-
tium, inhabited by unbaptized infants ; above that the limbus
patrum, now empty, but formerly dwelt in by the souls of the
patriarchs until the descent of our Lord to release them.
I am sorry to tell you, though you might have gathered it
from something that I have said already, that the lowest
division is largely tenanted by the souls of priests and
bishops, monks and nuns : the bishops with mitres of fire on
* All for Jesus, p. 385.
f ' On the subject-matter of Purgatory we may, with less scruple, make use of
such revelations from the example of so grave an authority as Cardinal Bellarmine
himself, who, in his treatise on Purgatory, as I have already said, always adds some
private revelations as a distinct head of proof.' — All for Jesus, p. 386.

xin.] POPES IN PURGATORY. 209
their heads, a burning cross in their hands, and clad in a
chasuble of flames. But it will shock you to hear that in
that region are the souls of many popes who, with all the
treasure of the Church at their command, were either so
thoughtless or so unselfish as to make no provision for their
own needs. For example, the venerable Pius VI., in this life,
had an unusual share of suffering. He had been dragged
from his home by the impious hands of the French Revo
lution; outraged ignominiously in his twofold dignity of
pontiff and king ; dragged from city to city as a criminal,
and he died the death of a confessor of the faith in 1799. He
had done great things as an administrator, struggling with
apostolic intrepidity against Gallicanism and Josephism, the
two precursors of the Revolution, and in short his long pon
tificate of twenty-four years was one of the greatest in Church
history; yet in 1816, seventeen years after his death, Marie
Taigi saw his soul come to the door of Purgatory, and be sent
back again into the abyss, his expiation not being yet
finished. How long is it still to last ? That is the secret of
God. We know from the same source that Pius VII., who
suffered so much at the hands of the first Napoleon, and who
was so worthy and holy a pontiff that he won the respect even
of unbelievers, remained in Purgatory nearly five years. Leo
XII. escaped after a few months, on account of his eminent
piety and the short time he had held the awful responsibility
of the pontificate. I will not delay to speak of Benedict VIII.,
but will go on to tell what, as Louvet says, is really frightful,
and what one would not dare to believe if we had not as
guarantees St. Lutgarde, whose prudence and discretion are
known, and Cardinal Bellarmine, who, having studied as a
theologian all the details of this revelation, declares that he
cannot doubt of it, and that it makes him tremble for himself.
That great pontiff, Innocent III., who held the Lateran
Council, who passed for a saint in the eyes of men, and did
so much for the reform of the Church, appeared to St. Lut
garde, all surrounded by flames, and on her expressing her
astonishment, informed her that he had narrowly escaped
hell, and that he had been condemned to suffer in Purgatory
P

2IO MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
till the end of the world. He earnestly entreated her prayers,
whereupon St. Lutgarde, with all her nuns, set themselves
with all their might to make intercession for his deliverance;
but no sign came that their prayers were answered, and, for
all we know, after five centuries the poor wretch may be still
plunged in those horrible pains from which he begged so
earnestly to be delivered. ' This example,' says Bellarmine,
'fills me with real terror every time I think of it.'*
Louvet makes a calculation, by the help of his revelations,
how long an ordinary Christian may expect to have to stay
in Purgatory. I cannot trouble you with the details of his
proof, but his result is, that a Christian of more than usual
sanctity, who has never committed a mortal sin, who has
carefully avoided all the graver venial sins, and has satisfied
by penance for three-fourths of the lighter sins into which
frailty has led him, must expect to spend in Purgatory 123
years, 3 months, and 15 days. 'A truly terrifying result,'
says Louvet ; ' for if it is so with righteous souls, what will
become of poor sinners like me ?'t
But these 123 years are only years of earthly measure
ment ; they would be more than centuries if measured by the
sensations of the suffering souls. This Louvet proves by
several authentic histories. One is of two priests who loved
each other like brethren. It was revealed to one on his
death-bed that he should be released from Purgatory the first
Mass that was offered for him. He sent for his friend, and
made him promise that he would lose no time after his death
in fulfilling the conditions of his release. The friend promised,
and the moment the sick man expired, flew to the altar, and
celebrated the Mass with all the devotion he was capable of.
Immediately afterwards, his friend appeared to him radiant
with glory, but with an air of reproach on his countenance.
* O faithless friend,' he cried, ' you would deserve to be treated
with the same cruelty you have exercised towards me ! Here
I have been years in the avenging flames, and to think that
neither you nor one of my brethren should have had the
* Louvet, p. 124. f Ibid., p. 178.

xiil] ATROCITY OF SUFFERINGS OF PURGATORY. 2 1 1
charity to offer a single Mass for me ! ' ' Nay,' returned his
friend, ' you had no sooner closed your eyes than I fulfilled
my promise ; and you may satisfy yourself by examining your
body, which you will find is not yet cold.' 'Is that so?'
returned the deceased. ' How frightful are the torments of
Purgatory when one hour seems more than a year ! ' Another
case was that of an abbot who, on returning from a journey,
found that the most promising of his young monks had just
died. As the abbot was praying in the choir after matins he
saw a phantom enveloped in flames. ' O charitable Father,'
said the novice, with deep groans, ' give me your blessing. I
had committed a small breach of rule, not a sin in itself. As
this is the only cause of my detention in Purgatory, I have
been allowed by special favour to address myself to you.
You are to impose my penance, and I shall then be released.'
The abbot replied : ' As far as it depends on me, my son, I
absolve you, and give you my blessing ; and for penance, I
appoint you to stay in Purgatory till the hour of prime : ' that
was the next service, usually held at eight o'clock in the
morning. At these words the novice, filled with despair, ran
shrieking through the church, crying : ' O merciless father ! O
heart pitiless towards your unhappy son ! What ! for a fault
for which in my lifetime you would have thought the lightest
penance enough, to impose on me so fearful a penalty. Little
do you know the atrocity of the sufferings of Purgatory.' And
shrieking out, ' O uncharitable penance ! ' he disappeared.
The abbot's hair stood on end with horror ; gladly would he
have recalled his severe sentence. But the word had been
spoken. At last a happy thought struck him. He rang the
bell ; called up his monks ; told them of the facts, and cele
brated the Office of prime immediately. But all his life he
retained the impression of this horrible scene, and often said
that till then he^had had no idea of the punishments of the
other world, and could not have imagined that a few hours in
Purgatory could form so fearful an expiation.
But we shall be less disposed to pity the souls in Purga
tory when we learn what exceptional good fortune it is to get
there. To the question, 'Are there few that be saved?'
P 2

212 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm..
Louvet would return a most gloomy answer. His arguments
and calculations are very interesting, but would take me too-
long to repeat. But (p. 26) he clinches his opinion by a reve
lation. St. Bernard, it appears, was privileged on two suc
cessive days to stand by the judgment-seat of God, and hear
the sentences pronounced on all the souls that died on these
two days. He was horrified to find that of 80,000 souls only
three souls of adults were saved the first day, and only two
on the second ; and that of these five not one went direct to-
heaven : all must visit Purgatory.
Louvet, as I have said, builds his speculations solely on
the evidence of canonized saints. If he had been content
with authentic history, he might have used the following, to-
which we, at least, ought to take no exception, since the credit
of our own country is pledged to its truth.* The Roman
Breviary of 1522 relates that St. Patrick, having fasted, like
Elias, forty days and forty nights, on the top of a mountain,
asked two things of God : first, that at the day of judgment
there should not remain a single Irishman on the earth; the
other, that God would show him the state of souls after death.
Then the Lord led him to a desert place, and showed him a
certain dark and deep pit, and said, 'Whosoever shall remain
in this cave a day and a night shall be delivered from all his
sins.' This passage of the Roman Breviary was afterwards
suppressed, then restored, then finally suppressed again, on
account of the evil comments of Protestants and Rationalists.
' But,' says Louvet, ' the old Parisian and other local Brevi
aries accept the story ; so do the historians of the Church of
Ireland, and, above all, the Bollandists, with their grave
authority. And besides, there remain so many histories of
actual descents into this purgatory, that unless we accuse a
great and illustrious Church of knavery and imbecility, we
must admit that the story has a foundation of historic fact.
The routine of the descent into this purgatory was as follows :
none was permitted to descend without the sanction of his
bishop, who did all in his power to dissuade every applicant
* Louvet, p. 42.

:xm.J ST. PATRICK'S PURGATORY. 213
from the attempt, reminding him of what was very true, that
many had made the venture who had never come back. If,
-notwithstanding, the postulant persevered, the bishop gave
him a letter to the prior of the monastery which was at the
place, who also tried to turn him aside from the dangerous
-enterprise. If the candidate persisted, he was shut up in the
•church for fifteen days' fasting and prayer; then, confessed
and communicated, was sprinkled with holy water, and led
in procession, with singing of litanies, to the mouth of the
-grotto. There the prior made a last appeal. If the candi
date persevered, he received the prior's blessing, crossed him
self, and disappeared in the darkness. The prior waited a
little to see if he would come back. If not, they shut the door
and returned in procession to the church. Next day they
returned, with processions and litanies as before. If the ad
venturer was there, they led him back, singing the Te Deum;
if not, they returned the next morning : if he did not then
appear, the prior sadly locked the door of the abyss, and they
:gave him up for lost. Some successful adventurers have left
records of the sufferings of Purgatory, which they not only
saw, but participated in ; but Louvet, as I said, declines
to use these histories in his treatise. Any of you who have
read Carleton's story of the Lough Derg Pilgrim will have
learned how the descent was conducted in our degenerate
•days. Before I part with Louvet, I must mention another refe
rence of his to Irish history. You may have heard of Malachi,
who ' wore the collar of gold which he won from the proud
invader.' Alas ! the true history of the collar of Malachi is
very different from Tommy Moore's version. An Irish bishop,
praying after his office, saw a pale spectre with a collar of
flames about his neck. This was Malachi. He had misused
his kingly power; and, to bend his confessor to culpable
indulgence, had bribed him with a ring of gold. For
punishment he had now to wear this ring of flame about
his neck. And his confessor could give him no help ; for
he was himself condemned to wear a heavier and more pain
ful one. You will be glad to hear that after some months of

214 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
prayers the bishop was able to obtain relief for the two
sufferers.* These extracts, long as they have been, give you a
very faint idea of the mass of information about Purgatory
made known by revelations which respected priests, writing
with all the air of grave historians,! relate for the edification
of their flocks, in books bought up by thousands. A com
panion volume to that on Purgatory might easily be made on
the revelations about the Virgin Mary, in which the modest
doctrine of the Council of Trent, that it is useful to invoke
her intercession, is rapidly being improved into the doctrine,
that no one who does invoke it can be lost, and no one who-
does not can be saved. One would think we had a right to
know from the infallible authority whether these revelations
and the doctrine which they contain ought to be received or
not; but he remains silent. Those who, like Father Faber
and Louvet, receive these revelations as Scripture, obtain
commendation for their piety; but one who treats these
stories with complete disregard is visited with no official
censure, whatever suspicions private individuals may enter
tain of the coldness of his faith. But all the time, on the
strength of stories which the supreme authority will neither
affirm nor deny, beliefs are being silently built up in the
Church on which he is likely hereafter to be asked to put his
seal. In the Roman Church the idea seems to be now abandoned
of handing down the Faith ' once for all [aira£) delivered to
the saints.' It is a vast manufactory of beliefs, to which
addition is being yearly made. And as when you go into
some great manufactory you may be shown the article in all
its stages : the finished product, with the manufacturer's stamp
upon it; the article near completion, and wanting hardly any
thing but the stamp ; the half-finished work; the raw materials
out of which the article is made; so it is in the Roman
Church. There you have the finished article : dogmas pro-
* Louvet, p. 79.
t Louvet says of one of his authorities, ' impossible de rien lire de plus sur
comme authenticity et comme veracite,' p. 76.

xm. J THE POPE'S INTERFERENCE TOO LATE. 215
nounced by Pope and Council to be defide, which none may
deny on pain of damnation. But there are, besides, articles
fere de fide, not yet actually proclaimed by infallible
authority to be necessary to salvation to be believed in, yet
wanting nothing else but official promulgation — so generally
received, and acknowledged by such high authorities, that to
contradict them would be pronounced temerarious, and their
formal adoption by the Church seems to be only a question
of time. Somewhat below these in authority, but still very
high, are other doctrines supported by such grave doctors
that it would be a breach of modesty to contradict them.
Below these again, other things owned to be still matters of
private opinion, but which seem to be working their way to
general belief, and which, if they should win their way to
universal acceptance, will deserve to be proclaimed to be the
faith of the Church. It is needless to say what help is given
towards such general recognition of a doctrine, if a canonized
saint, whom it is impossible to suspect of deceit, and disre
spectful to suspect of delusion, declares that he has been
taught the truth of the doctrine by revelation from heaven. It
is inevitable that a doctrinal statement so commended, if no
disapprobation of it is expressed by higher authority, comes
to the Church with such a weight of recommendation that it
can hardly help becoming the prevalent opinion : and then, in
process of time, how can the head of the Church refuse to
declare that to be the faith of the Church which the great
majority of its members, including perhaps himself, believe
to be true ? If the supreme authority puts off its interference
to the last stage, that interference comes altogether too late.
It is useless to teach the Church when the Church has
already made up its mind.
And surely if Christ has left a vicar upon earth,
what more appropriate function can he have than that
of informing the world how to distinguish the voice of
Christ from that of false pretenders who venture to speak
in his name? Anyone who claims to have received a reve
lation from God must be either as much deluded as Johanna
Southcote, or as much inspired as St. Paul. If there be any

2l6 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
in the later Church to whom God has made real revelations,
we are bound to receive the truths so disclosed with the same
reverence and assent which we give to what was taught by the
Apostles. It is important for us to know whether the book
of God's revelation has closed with the Apocalypse of St. John,
or are we to add to the inspired volume the revelations of St.
Francesca, St. Gertrude, and St. Catherine. If these last are
real revelations, they who reject them are doing their souls
the same injury as if they rejected the books of Scripture.
We look to the infallible authority for guidance, but he owns
himself to be as helpless as ourselves to distinguish the true
prophet from the false pretender, and gives us leave to believe
or reject as we like. Nay, he gives a kind of ambiguous
approval : he honours the recipients of the alleged revelations,
canonizes them as saints, encourages his children to ask their
intercession, now that they are dead : but if questioned did
these persons, when they were alive, deceive the people by
teaching them their own fancies as if they were divine reve
lations, he declares this a question outside his commission to
answer. It is clear that he does not really believe in his own
infallibility.* *An answer to what is here said has been lately attempted by Father Ryder
(Nineteenth Century, Feb., 1887). In the Contemporary Review for October, 1883, 1
had complied with a wish expressed by some friends that I should put on paper some
things that I had told them in conversation in which they had been interested,
namely, what I had read in then recent publications by the Abbes Cloquet and
Louvet. My article was written without any controversial intention, and was almost
entirely confined to a simple report of what these writers had said. But in writing
about Louvet I had saved myself trouble by making use of the present Lecture, which
had been written and delivered a couple of years previously ; and the only part of my
article that can be called controversial was where I copied some of the remarks made
above, on the fact that the Church of Rome has shown herself unwilling or unable to
pronounce officially on the credit due to alleged modern revelations.
Father Ryder gives an excellent illustration of what I have said as to the habit of
controversialists, when at a loss for something better to say, of laboriously proving
what their opponents do not deny. He says that I ' admit in words' that the Church
of Rome does not pledge herself to the truth of any modern revelations, and then, as
if I did not admit it in reality, he occupies in the proof of this statement great part of
the space which he devotes to me. Surely, in the three years and more that he took
to meditate on my article, he might have discovered that the complaint I had
made was that the Church of Rome does not tell us whether we are to believe

xm. J MONTANISM. 217
I ought not to dismiss this subject of revelations without
reminding you of the first occasion when an attempt was
made to impose such private revelations as a rule of faith on
the Church. I mean, in the Montanist heresy. The Mon
tanists, you know, were perfectly orthodox. They had not
the least desire to alter the ancient faith of the Church. They
only aimed at a development of Christian doctrine ; accord
ing as prophets to whom the Paraclete revealed the Divine
will cleared up anything that had been obscure in the apos
tolic teaching, or guarded the purity of the Church by sup
plemental commands which the Church, on its first formation,
had not had strength to bear. But the Montanists held, and
as it seems to me with good reason, that the recipient of a
Divine revelation was not justified in looking on it as given
only for his private edification. It was both his privilege
and his duty to make known to the Church what God had
taught him ; and any who refused to hear rejected a message
from God. So the Montanist prophecies came to be written
down and circulated as demanding to be owned as God's
word. This was what more than anything else led the heads
of the Church to oppose people whose aims and doctrines
these things or not ; and the question why she does not deserves some better reply
than, she doesn't because she doesn't.
Then he has recourse to a ' tu quoque' — but about this I need not dispute, since,
¦clearly, he would establish my case, not his own, if he could show that the Church of
Rome behaves exactly as a Church behaves which makes no pretensions to infallibility.
He blames me for quoting the positive acceptance given by Father Faber to modern
revelations ' in an uncontroversial work intended to assist the imaginative piety of his
readers.' It is strange that Roman divines do not find out how they repel Protes
tants by the defective appreciation of the claims of truth exhibited in their distinction
as to what may be said in controversial and uncontroversial books. To people of their
own community they assert things as positive facts which they run away from defend
ing the moment an opponent grapples with them. It would seem as if their maxim
was, 'We need not be particular about the truth of what we say if no one is present
who can contradict us.'
He says that the Church is only directly concerned with the deposit entrusted to her
at Pentecost. With regard to any other statement, she does no more than say whether
or not it contradicts the doctrine of that deposit. I wish the Church of Rome did con
fine herself to the doctrine delivered to her at Pentecost ; but since the publication of
Newman's Essay on Development, the 'quod semper' of Vincent of Lerins is
thrown completely overboard, and Romish divines speak with as much disdain of a
Church which is satisfied to abide by its old creed, as a fashionable lady does of one

2l8 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
were all such as religious and orthodox men could sympa
thize with. But it was felt, and truly felt, that their prophe
cies were encroaching on the supreme authority of Scripture,
and that they were presuming to add to what had been
written. From the time of the breaking out of Montanism,
greater care was taken than had been used before, to prevent
any unauthorized uninspired composition from seeming to be
placed on a level with Scripture. And so the Epistle of
Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and one or two writings
more, which had been admitted into Church reading, were
then excluded, and fell so rapidly into such neglect, that copies
have scarcely survived to our day. And it is the real truth
that those who accept these modern revelations, and draw
proofs of doctrines from them, have really a different Bible,
not only from us, but from the Council of Trent. The Church
of Rome is but dissembling a schism when she allows differ
ences to remain unsettled, affecting the very foundations of
faith : when what is accepted by one as the voice of God
Himself is set down as a dream of silly women by another.
In what I have said I have only contemplated revelations
made in visions to their recipients, belonging thus to the
class of what may be called invisible miracles. But there
who appears in the dress she wore last season. See the passage quoted from Father
Harper, p. 202, and another in this very article of Father Ryder.
Finally, he denies that the new things taught by modern revelations can properly
be called doctrines. I do not know how else to call them. What I understand by
•doctrines' is 'revealed facts.' If God has really revealed anything, our obligation to
believe it is all the same, no matter who the organ may be through whom the reve
lation was made ; whether it be St. John or St. Paul, St. Bridget or St. Catherine.
Our only concern is to know whether or not a real revelation has been made. The
Church of Rome is willing to tell her people that they are bound to believe what is
delivered to them by St. John and St. Paul. Why will she not give the same infor
mation with regard to things which later persons, whom she honours as saints, pro
fess to have received by divine revelation ?
It cannot be said that these things do not affect practice. One specimen is
enough. It is asserted that it was revealed through St. Simon Stock that no one
who dies wearing the scapular can possibly be lost : ' in quo quis moriens aetemum
non patietur incendium.' Surely the revelation of a certain means of escaping the
flames of hell deserves to be called a doctrine, if anything can. Other things are
taught about Purgatory on the same authority which, if true, ought seriously to affect
practice. Why will not the infallible authority tell us positively whether we are to
believe these things or not ?

xm. J THE MIRACLE OF LA SALETTE. 219
have been, in my own recollection, miracles of still higher
pretensions ; yet concerning these, too, the infallible authority
will not tell us what to think. I address an audience so much
junior to myself, that some of the things I remember as hav
ing at the time made the greatest sensation are to you for
gotten stories of things that happened before you were born ;
yet they serve well to illustrate the practical working of the
Roman system. I can call to mind more revelations than
one, not hidden away in biographies of saints, whence they
can be drawn forth by enthusiastic preachers, but coming"
forth into the world, forcing their way into the newspapers,
and challenging even the investigation of the law courts.
The miracle of La Salette took place 1 9th September,
1846. Two children minding cows on a lonely mountain in
the diocese of Grenoble were surprised by the apparition of
a fine lady robed in a splendid yellow dress, wearing var
nished shoes, and with a head-dress of ribbons and flowers.
She told them that she was the Virgin Mary ; discoursed to
them on the sins of France, and gave them messages in the
name of her Son. The children told the story : the matter
was noised abroad ; pilgrimages were made to the scene of
the occurrence ; the place soon became crowded with visitors ;
chapels arose ; inns were opened, medals were struck, the sale
of the water of La Salette soon came to be a gainful traffic,
for it had not only virtue in curing diseases, but a few drops
even operated the conversion of an obstinate sinner, in whose
liquor it had been mixed without his knowledge. Among
the pilgrims was Cardinal Newman's friend and diocesan,
Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham. He published an account
of his visit, professing full belief in the reality of the miracle.
He opened at Stratford-on-Avon a chapel to our Lady of
La Salette, and introduced the Confraternity of La Salette
into his diocese. His pamphlet claims Papal sanction for
the new devotion. By a Brief, dated 26th August, 1852, the
Pope, as we are told, made the altar of La Salette a pri
vileged altar, gave a plenary indulgence to visitors to the
shrine, besides other privileges too tedious to enumerate. A
priest of Bishop Ullathorne's, a Mr. Wyse, published under

•2 20 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
the bishop's sanction a Manual of the Confraternity of La
Salette. Mr. Wyse remonstrates indignantly with those of
his co-religionists who still withhold faith from the story.
' The truth of the apparition of La Salette,' he says, ' is in
contestable ; the proofs are such that it is worthy of the
fullest belief. Yet because it is not of faith, that is to say,
because a man will not be damned for not believing it, the
faith of some who call themselves Catholics is so ungenerous
and thrifty, that they refuse their assent.' ' In matters of
faith,' he tells us, * God loves a cheerful giver : He is not
pleased with those who seek what is the very minimum of
belief which will secure their salvation. In these days of in
fidelity, supernatural faith, cultivated for safety's sake to the
very utmost, is the only security against the vilest errors.'
This language expresses a state of feeling I believe to be
very common among Roman Catholics ; but surely it is very
absurd. It is accounted faith not only to believe all that God
says, but also to believe anyone who says that God has said
a thing. Should I account it a compliment if anyone told me
that he had such faith in me that he would not only believe
-anything I said, but anything that anyone said I said ? The
result certainly would be, that although no one has any par
ticular motive to misrepresent me, he would believe a good
deal I never said, and some things I should be sorry to be
thought to have said. It is really not faith in the Divine
Word, but want of faith, if the belief which is due to a divine
revelation is thoughtlessly given to anyone who claims it.
A man could not think much of his dog's attachment to him
if he was a dog that would follow anybody.
In the present case the result proved that a certain sus
pension of judgment might be pardonable. Some of the
clergy of the neighbouring dioceses declared the whole ap
parition to be an imposture, and denied (I am sure I do not
know whether with truth or not) that the Pope had given the
alleged approbation. The Salettites declared that this was
envy and jealousy on the part of men whose own shrines had
suffered a decrease of pilgrims, in consequence of the superior
attractions of the new shrine. Then their adversaries pro-

xm.] THE MIRACLE OF LOURDES. 22 F
ceeded to particulars. It was asserted that the virgin who-
appeared to the children was a certain Constance Lamerliere,
a nun, half knave, half crazy, who could be proved to have
purchased the dress in which the Virgin appeared, and whose
connexion with the apparition could in other ways be proved.
This was stated so persistently that Constance Lamerliere
was forced to accept the challenge, and bring an action for
defamation of character ; but the Court decided against her,.
and the decision was confirmed on appeal. I shall not pre
tend that the decision was conclusive, for I believe that there
are still Roman Catholics who believe in La Salette ; but I
fear that the apparition must be pronounced a failure, as
having caused more scandal to unbelievers than edification
to the faithful, unless the large pecuniary gains it brought
to the parties interested may redeem it from the charge of
being altogether a failure.
Scarcely had the excitement provoked by the events of
La Salette begun to subside, when the supernaturalist party
dealt a heavier blow against their opponents by what was
called the miracle of Lourdes. In this spot, in Gascony,
Bernadotte Soubirous, a poor girl of fourteen, on February 1 1,
1858, while picking up dry wood, saw a beautiful lady robed
in white, with a blue sash, and the vision was afterwards
several times repeated. On being asked who she was, the
lady answered, 'I am the Immaculate Conception.' She
invited the girl to drink at a fountain. The child, seeing no
fountain, scraped away some earth with her hands. A little
water filtered through the orifice : it increased gradually in
volume, became perfectly clear, and now supplies to the faith
ful I do not know how many millions of bottles, which are in
large demand for the purpose of effecting supernatural cures.
The local bishop gave his sanction to the miracle; pil
grimages to the shrine were organized, and pilgrimages are
now made easy. It is not, as in former days, when a devout
pilgrim had to walk over half Europe with or without peas in
his shoes. Railway Companies are only too glad to organize
excursion trains, and secure for their line an undue share of the
tourist traffic. Only the other day the chairmen of the other

2 22 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
Companies were looking with envy at the profits the Midland
Great Western Company were deriving from the miracles at
Knock* True, there is a number of incredulous people who
object that the witness to the Lourdes miracle is a child sub
ject to hallucinations; and the speech 'I am the Immaculate
Conception,' does put a severe strain on one's faith. It is said,
however, that the miracles worked by the intercession of Our
Lady of Lourdes ought to banish all incredulity. But what I
-complain of is, that when there is an infallible guide he will
not interfere to clear our doubts. Why should he leave us in
¦danger of mistaking the utterances of a crazy nun or the
ravings of a hysteric child for miraculous communications
from the Blessed Virgin ; or, conversely, of rejecting a message
from heaven ?
Perhaps one reason why we must despair of getting a
solution of our doubts from this quarter is, that infallibility is
said to be subject to an unfortunate limitation. The Pope,
though infallible on questions of doctrine, is liable to be de
ceived by human testimony about a matter of fact. You may
remember reading in Burnet of the use made of this distinction
in the Jansenist controversy. The adversaries of the Janse
nists had obtained a papal condemnation of certain proposi
tions from the work of Jansenius. As devout Catholics, the
Jansenists were forced to confess that the doctrines condemned
by the Pope were false, but they saved the credit of their master
by saying that these propositions had not been asserted by
him, at least not in the erroneous sense. Their adversaries,
determined not to permit themselves to be thus balked of their
* A small village in the county of Mayo, where the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and
a third personage, supposed to be St. John, are affirmed to have appeared to many
persons on the evening of 2 1st August, 1879, and in the early days of 1880. The
scene of the alleged apparitions was the exterior of the southern gable of the sacristy
attached to the Roman Catholic chapel of the parish. See The Apparitions and
Miracles at Knock, by John Mac Philpin (Dublin : Gill & Son, 1880) ; in which tract
will be found a full account of the matter, with the depositions of witnesses made
before a commission of priests appointed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Tuam, and the particulars of many miraculous cures reported by the Roman Catholic
priest of Knock as having been effected^ blind, crippled, and diseased persons who
have visited the chapel, or swallowed particles of mortar taken from the wall.

xm. J INFALLIBILITY ON QUESTIONS OF FACT. 223
triumph, obtained from the Pope a supplemental decree,
declaring that the propositions in question were not only
erroneous, but that they had been taught by Jansenius. To
this the Jansenists replied, ' We acknowledge the Pope to be
infallible in questions of doctrine, but the question whether
Jansenius taught such and such doctrines is one of fact, and
we say that on this the Holy Father has been deceived.'
I own I do not myself see the justice of the distinction,
nor how it is rational to give up the infallibility in the one
case and assert it in another. If this limitation exists, how
can any heretic be infallibly condemned ? The falsity of his
doctrines may be infallibly asserted ; but whether he had
taught them will admit of controversy. In several doctrinal
questions which came before the Privy Council, it was found
to be easier by far to ascertain what the doctrine of the
Church of England was than whether the impeached clergy
men had contravened it. But it is more important to observe
that the doctrines of our religion are all assertions of the
occurrence of facts. That our Lord died, and was buried, and
rose again the third day, are all matters of fact. The question
which, it was said, was to have been determined if the Vati
can Council had not been prematurely broken up, whether or
not the body of the Virgin was miraculously taken up to
heaven, is a question of fact. If the Pope is unable to arrive
at certainty about things alleged to have taken place in his
own lifetime, how can he expect to be more successful about
things that happened centuries ago ? There is a story about
a grave writer who abandoned in despair a contemplated his
torical work, when he found himself unable to ascertain the
real facts of a quarrel which had taken place under his own
windows. But yet again, those miracles of modern times,
though the question of the reality of their occurrence may be
one of fact, are made the foundation of doctrines and practices
the reception of which must surely be affected by our accept
ance or rejection of the facts. Thus, in the instance last
given, if we believe that the Virgin Mary really said to a
little girl, 'I am the Immaculate Conception,' however odd
we may think her way of expressing herself, we cannot doubt

224 MODERN REVELATIONS. [xm.
that she meant to give her approval to the doctrine that she
was conceived without sin, and so that the truth of that doc
trine must be regarded as miraculously guaranteed.
Shortly after the pilgrimages to Lourdes others were
organized to Paray-le-Monial. This had been the scene of
the revelations of the blessed Marguerite Marie Alacoque,
the foundress of the now popular devotion to the Sacred
Heart of Jesus. This is not, like the other two I mentioned,
a revelation of our own time, though a great impetus was
given to that devotion by the beatification of this nun by
Pius IX. She lived at the end of the seventeenth century,
the time when the strife between the Jesuits and the Janse
nists was the hottest. Her revelations were patronized by the
Jesuits and condemned by the Jansenists. With the late
Pope the Jesuits were all-powerful. It is curious that the
origin of this Jesuit devotion seems to be fairly traceable to a
Puritan divine, Goodwin, who was chaplain to Oliver Crom
well. Goodwin published books in which he dwelt much, in
rather mystical language, on the point that our Lord's man
hood remains still united to His Divinity, and that He still
retains His human heart and feelings. The priest who after
wards became director to the nun of whom I speak was for a
considerable time in England, attached to the household of
the Duke of York, afterwards James II. , so that he might
easily have become acquainted with Goodwin's writings.
The poor nun herself was subject to what we heretics would
call hysteric delusions, in the course of which she saw many
visions in which, as always happens, the ideas of her waking
hours were reproduced. All that Goodwin had said meta
phorically about our Lord's human heart was materialized
and referred to that physical portion of our Lord's human
frame. As a specimen, I mention one of the most celebrated
of her visions, in which she saw our Lord's heart in His bosom
burning as in a furnace, and her own heart placed as a small
atom of fire in that furnace. You cannot pass by a Roman
Catholic picture-shop without observing what vogue the ado
ration of the material heart of our Lord has now gained. It
was much opposed by the Jansenists, so that it was not till

xiii.] DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART. 225
after a century and a-half that Margaret Mary obtained,
under Pius IX., the dignity of beatification, which is next
below canonization. It has been objected that this wor
ship of a portion of our Lord's Body is downright Nes-
torianism. In the course of the Nestorian controversy it
was distinctly condemned to make a separation between
our Lord's Godhead and His manhood, so as to offer wor
ship to the one not addressed to the other. And here the
worship is not even offered to our Lord's entire humanity, but
to a part of it. However, the lawfulness of this worship is
not what I am discussing now. My object is to show that
every one of these alleged revelations has a distinct bearing
upon doctrine. Of course, however objectionable this super
stitious worship may appear to us, if our Lord has revealed
His approval of it, our objections must be dismissed ; and so
an infallibility which owns itself incompent to pronounce on
the reality of alleged revelations really owns itself incompe
tent to pronounce on questions of doctrine which these reve
lations would seriously affect. So much it may well suffice
to have said about the hesitations and vacillations of the
infallible guide. I had intended to say something about
positive errors into which he has fallen, but these I must
reserve till next day.

XIV.

THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE.
I HAVE thought it well to let you see how the theory of
an infallible Church works in practice. In the former
Lectures I have given proof enough that in a number of cases
the guide who asks us to follow him prefers himself to follow,
and shows by his hesitations that he is ignorant of the true
path. I will now add some cases where he has actually
struck into wrong paths, and has been compelled, with very
lame apologies, to retrace his steps. I reserve the question
whether Popes ever have been heretics until I come to speak
of that theory which ascribes infallibility to the Pope person
ally. One instance, however, in which a Pope was compelled
to retire with disgrace, after having attempted to thrust his
infallibility into a sphere in which it failed to secure cor
rectness, is the department of Biblical criticism.
The Council of Trent having stamped the Vulgate as
' authentic,' ordered that a correct edition of this authorized
Vulgate should be published. But little was done in fulfil
ment of this decree for nearly forty years, when the task was
undertaken by Pope Sixtus V., a Pontiff who seems really to
have believed in his own infallibility. He employed a Board
of learned men to act as revisers, but in complete subordina
tion to himself. In his preface he claims the superiority to
them which he exercised, as resulting from the singular pri
vilege which he enjoyed as successor to Peter, the Prince of
the Apostles, for whom Christ prayed that his faith should
not fail, and who was charged to confirm the other Apostles
in the faith. Accordingly, he tells with complacency of the
labour which, among all his other apostolic cares, he had

xiv.] THE SIXTINE EDITION OF THE VULGATE. 227
spent on this work, day after day, and for several hours each
day, reading the collections and opinions of others, and ba
lancing the reasons for the various readings ; the plan of the
work being, that while his learned revisers collected the evi
dence, it was for him alone to decide on the validity of their
arguments, and determine by his absolute judgment what
reading was to be preferred to what. When the work was
printed he examined each sheet with the utmost care, and
•corrected the press with his own hand. The edition ap
peared in 1590, with a Constitution prefixed, in which Sixtus
affirmed the plenary authority of the edition for all future
time ('hac nostra perpetuo valitura constitutione '). ' By the
fulness of apostolic power,' he says, ' we decree and declare
that this edition, approved by the authority delivered to us
by the Lord, is to be received and held as true, lawful, au
thentic, and unquestioned, in all public and private discus
sion, reading, preaching, and explanations.' He forbids the
printing of this Bible for the space of ten years at any press
but his own in the Vatican. After that time it might be
printed elsewhere, but only from one of the Vatican copies.
He forbade expressly the publication of various readings in
¦copies of the Vulgate, and pronounced that all readings in
other editions and manuscripts, which might vary from those
¦of this Sixtine edition, should have no credit or authority
for the future. It was forbidden to alter the version in the
smallest particle ; and any person who should violate this
Constitution, it was declared, would incur the indignation of
Almighty God, and of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul ;
and was threatened with the greater excommunication, not
to be absolved except by the Pope himself.
This was the language of a man who really believed
in his infallibility. But a glance at the volume was suf
ficient to convince any moderately learned man of the
folly, not to say impiety, of such boastful presumption.
Many passages were found covered with slips of paper
on which new corrections had been printed ; others were
scratched out and merely corrected with a pen ; and dif
ferent copies were corrected in different ways. A closer
Q2

228 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
examination showed those competent to judge that the
edition had graver faults than could be accounted for by
printers' carelessness. Sixtus had changed the readings
of those whom he had employed to report upon the text
with the most arbitrary and unskilful hand ; and it was-
scarcely an exaggeration to say with Bellarmine that his
precipitate self-reliance had brought the Church into the-
most serious peril. The death of Sixtus removed all con
straint, and the learned divines whose opinions had been
overruled represented the true state of the case to his suc
cessor. There was then much embarrassment how to correct
these undeniable errors ; and some men of weight advised
the Pope to prohibit the use of the faulty books. But Bel
larmine counselled that the credit of Sixtus should be saved ;,
thereby, as he says in his autobiography, returning good for
evil ; for Sixtus, for a reason of which I may speak later, had
put Bellarmine's Controversies on the Index of prohibited
books, ' donee corrigerentur.' Bellarmine's way of solving
the difficulty was to lay the blame upon the printers,* although
in his autobiography he makes no secret that those errors
had been deliberately introduced by Sixtus himself, which he
recommended should be imputed to the carelessness of others-
Indeed Bellarmine's original proposal was a delightful illus
tration of the skill which the Order to which he belonged is
popularly believed to possess, in knowing how to insinuate a
falsehood in words consistent with truth. He recommended
that the faulty readings should be said to have occurred
* prae festinatione vel typographorum vel aliorum ' — either the
printers were to blame or somebody else. However, this evasion
* If an author has sometimes had good reason to complain, in the words of the cele
brated erratum, ' printers have persecuted me without a cause,' the present case is-
one of several in which authors have taken their revenge on printers by trying to
make them responsible for their own errors. A signal example is the virtuous indig
nation displayed by Warburton against his critic, Edwards, who had been ' such a
dunce or a knave,' as to imagine that the editor, not the printers, was responsible
for the well-known blunder in Warburton's edition of Shakespeare. Pope's state
ment that the story of ' Measure for Measure ' had been taken from the 5th novel of
the 8th decade of Cinthio's novels, is printed in Warburton's edition with the
abbreviations 'Dec' and 'Nov.,' written at full length, thus: 'Cinthio's novels,.
December 8, November 5.'

xiv.J CLEMENTINE EDITION OF THE VULGATE. 229
was disdained in the preface to the new edition, written by
Bellarmine himself, and still printed with the Roman Vulgate.
No mention is made of ' somebody else,' and the errors are
said to have occurred 'praeli vitio.' The preface tells that
when the work had been printed, and when Pope Sixtus was
going to publish it (implying that he had not published it*),
perceiving that several errors of the press had crept in, he
determined to have the whole work placed anew on the anvil.
But that Sixtus really had any such intention is a statement
for which there is no shadow of proof, and no probability.
The edition of Clement, also published as authentic, differed
from that of Sixtus in more than two thousand places. A
list of these is given in the work of Dr. James, a former
learned librarian of the Bodleian, called Bellum Papale, or
Concordia Discors. And it became evident that the work of
editing the Bible required patience, learning, critical sagacity,
and that this was a work to which ' infallibility ' was unequal.
We. owe it to the wilfulness of Sixtus that this was so
soon found out. If he had been content to follow the
opinions of the experts whom he had consulted, no doubt his
edition would have appeared without opposition, and the
Constitution prefixed, in which Sixtus had plainly claimed
for his text the guarantee of infallibility, would have been a
great obstacle to its emendation by later criticism.
I will mention one other department from which the
Popes have had to retire with their prerogative of infalli
bility sorely discredited. In ordinary cases, as I have so
often said, their policy has been to avoid committing them
selves ; but in some rare instances the case appeared to be so
plain as to make caution unnecessary. One of these cases
was when the notion was first seriously entertained by men
of science, that the sun, not the earth, is the centre of our
¦system, and that the earth, instead of being stationary, is
in rapid motion. Such an idea was so opposed to reason
and common sense, so contrary to the opinion entertained
for many ages by philosophers, so at variance with the plain
words of Scripture, that the Church authorities felt they were
* We have a copy in our Library.

230 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
quite safe in putting down teaching at once heretical and
absurd. Now let me do every justice to the Roman autho
rities who took this false step. There is no error committed
by the Popes or their councillors which we ought to be more
ready to pardon and to sympathize with; for their mistake
was prompted by reverence for Scripture, and quite similar
mistakes have been since committed by highly respected
men in our own communion. But still if we make mistakes
we confess them and profit by them. We do not pretend to
be possessors of any infallibly accurate interpretation of
Scripture, and we therefore cannot omit to use one of the few
opportunities open to us of testing the pretensions of those
who -do make this claim.
The present case is one of the most unpleasant that Ro
man Catholic controversialists have got to meet, for they
cannot but be conscious that the best apologies they can
offer are extremely unsatisfactory. They could save them
selves all trouble if they would frankly say, ' Our Church
made a great mistake two hundred and fifty years ago. She
then imagined statements to be heretical which we now know
were not only not heretical, but were perfectly true. She is
a great deal wiser now.' Perhaps the theory of develop
ment may be improved into a form which will allow that
confession to be made. But if that time comes, we need dis
pute no more about the Church's infallibility : the whole
claim will then have been given up. Meanwhile we have to-
consider whether any of the attempts have been successful
that have been made to free the Roman Church from the-
responsibility of mistakes which her rulers confessedly made
at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
It is well known to you all to what severe treatment
Galileo was subjected for holding the doctrine about the
motion of the earth which is now held by every educated
man ; or rather for being suspected of holding it. For Galileo
did not categorically state this opinion as his own, but only
introduced it in the form of a dialogue, so as not to make
himself responsible for the opinions of either speaker. In
order that you should understand the necessity for this

xiv.] GALILEO'S DISCOVERIES. 231
caution, I had better briefly tell you those facts in his life
with which we are concerned ;* and before discussing the
dealings of the Inquisition with him in 1633, I must say
something about the previous action of the Inquisition in
1616. Galileo had already a high place in the scientific world,
when, in 1609, he was the first to turn a telescope on the
heavens. All Europe soon rang with the news of the sur
prising announcements he was able to make, which entitled
him to rank as the greatest philosopher of his age. The new
facts thus brought to light speedily removed all doubts in
Galileo's own mind as to the truth of the theory which Co
pernicus had put forward concerning the motion of the earth.
One of the first of his discoveries, that of the satellites of Ju
piter, put the controversy concerning the true system of the
universe in a new position. The old theory was that stars
and planets all went round the earth. Here was a clear case
of exception ; for these four newly-discovered stars unques
tionably made their revolutions, not round the earth, but
round Jupiter. The sight of this planet, attended by its four
satellites, was alone sufficient to shake the confidence of
astronomers in their belief that the earth was the most im
portant body in the universe ; while the spectacle of these
bodies performing in perfect order their revolutions round
one celestial body could not but suggest an analogy reveal
ing the true relation of the planets to the sun. Again, when
the theory was first put forward that the planets are bodies
which only shine by the reflected light of the sun, it was
objected that, if this were the case, Venus ought to present
the same phases as the moon, changing from full face to
a crescent, according as we saw more or less of the side
illuminated by the sun. Copernicus made an unsuccessful
attempt to explain this difficulty ; but when Venus was looked
at through a telescope, she was seen actually going through
those changes, the seeming absence of which when sought
* I recommend those who have leisure to read The Private Life of Galileo, pub
lished by Macmillan in 1870, and to make the acquaintance of that most charming
person, Galileo's daughter, Sister Maria Celeste.

232 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
for by the naked eye had been considered a fatal objection
to the Copernican theory.
Galileo was a firm believer in the truth of Scripture, and
as soon as he came to believe that the Copernican theory was
true, he could not help also believing that it was not con
trary to the Bible. Accordingly, in 1613, he wrote a letter,
defending this view, to Castelli, who was Mathematical Pro
fessor at Pisa. He said that the Bible was beyond doubt
infallible; but that though the Scripture could not err, its
interpreters might. Clearly we are not to interpret every
word of Scripture literally ; for if so we should have to at
tribute to God hands, feet, and ears, and human and bodily
emotions, such as anger, repentance, and hatred. There
were obvious reasons why, in speaking incidentally of the
sun, or of the earth, or other created bodies, the Scriptures
should conform to popular language. For had a different
course been pursued, the vulgar would have been only per
plexed, and have been rendered more difficult of persuasion
in the articles concerning their salvation : —
' I believe that the intention of Holy Writ was to persuade
men of the truths necessary to salvation ; such as neither
science nor other means could render credible, but only the
voice of the Holy Spirit. But I do not think it necessary to
believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our speech,
our intellect, would have us put aside the use of these to teach
us instead such things as with their help we could find out
for ourselves, particularly in the case of those sciences of
which there is not the smallest mention in Scripture; and
above all in astronomy, of which so little notice is taken, that
none of the planets, except the sun and moon, and once or
twice only Venus, under the name of Lucifer, is so much
as named there. Surely, if the intention of the sacred writers
had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have
passed the subject over so completely.'
This letter was the occasion of the first collision between
Galileo and ecclesiastical authorities ; for though it was a
private letter, a copy fell, either through indiscretion or trea
chery, into the hands of Dominicans at Florence, one of

xiv.] WHY GALILEO MEDDLED WITH SCRIPTURE. 233
whom denounced it to the Holy Office at Rome. And na
turally it gave much offence that a layman should presume
to teach theologians how to interpret Scripture.
It is a commonplace with Roman Catholic apologists to
say that Galileo had only himself to blame for the trouble
he got into, through, as one of them expresses it, poking his
nose into what was other people's business. ' Why did he
not stick to his mathematics, and leave the interpretation of
Scripture to theologians ? He seemed determined to ruin
himself. Had he not got a message from Cardinal Barberini
(afterwards Pope Urban VIII.), telling him that he ought
not to travel out of the limits of physics and mathematics,
but confine himself to such reasonings as Ptolemy and Co
pernicus had used ? Declaring the views of Scripture theolo
gians maintain to be their own particular province.' Cardinal
Bellarmine also had said that if Galileo spoke with circum
spection, and only as a mathematician, he would be put to
no further trouble.
If theologians at that time complained that astronomers
had intruded into their province of interpreting Scripture,
astronomers have, with equal reason, complained that it was
theologians who intruded into their province of interpreting
the appearances of the heavens. The fact was that the two
provinces then overlapped, and there was ground on which
one party had as much right to be as the other. Either the
earth moves, or it does not. If it moves, theologians were
"wrong in inferring from Scripture that God had revealed that
it is at rest; if it does not move, the Copernicans had wrongly
interpreted the indications of their science. You know how
the matter has ended. Roman Catholics and Protestants are
now agreed that the theologians of two hundred years ago
were wrong in the system of astronomy which they imagined
they had derived from the Bible ; and Roman Catholics and
Protestants agree in adopting the principles of Scripture in
terpretation which Galileo taught the theologians of his day.
But it is necessary to explain how a collision had been
avoided before, and what was meant by saying that Galileo
ought to speak ' only as a mathematician.' The reason why

234 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
the speculations of Copernicus about the earth's motion had
been tolerated by ecclesiastics, while the writings of Galileo
on the same subject were rigidly condemned, was that Ga
lileo's predecessors, in order to avoid shocking existing pre
judices, had taken some pains to represent the notion of the
earth's motion, not as a true account of what actually takes
place, but as a mathematical fiction imagined for the more
convenient calculation of the places of the heavenly bodies.
There is, you know, great virtue in an if. Theologians in
sisted on saying, without contradiction, that the earth does
not move ; but they had no objection to allow mathemati
cians to amuse themselves with the problem, If the earth and
the planets went round the sun, what appearances would the
planets, on that hypothesis, present ? Galileo found that the
answer to that question was, Exactly the appearances which
we observe now; while, on the contrary, the observed appear
ances were not explained by the older theory. He could not
then resist the conviction that the Copernican doctrine of the
earth's motion was no mere mathematical fiction, but the
absolute truth.
Holding this belief, how could he acquiesce in the con
clusion that the Bible teaches the direct contrary ? From the
language used by Roman Catholic writers one would imagine
that Galileo had attempted to establish the earth's motion by
an array of Bible texts, and to prove that the opposite doc
trine was an anti-Scriptural heresy. Far from this, all he
contended for was toleration for his own belief. He only
endeavoured to make out that there was nothing in the Bible
that forbade him to believe that the earth moved. And
unless he imagined that the same thing could be scientifically
true and theologically false, how was it possible for him, who
believed that nothing false is taught as an article of faith in
the Scriptures, when he had come to believe that the doctrine
that the earth does not move is false, to avoid asserting that
the doctrine that the earth is at rest is not taught in the
Bible as an article of faith ? Nothing is so puzzling as a real
love of truth to people who are not possessed of it themselves.
The good old orthodox theologians of Galileo's day could

xiv.J GALILEO AND THE INQUISITION. 235
not imagine what motive the philosopher could have for per
sisting in saying that it was the earth which went round the-
sun, and not the sun which went round the earth. That he
should say so, merely because he was convinced it was true,
was quite beyond their comprehension. It must be from love
of opposition, from a wish to insult them, from sheer obstinacy,
from self-conceit, or some other unworthy motive. And similar
blindness to the claims of truth, and to the obligations which
it imposes, is exhibited by the Roman Catholic apologists of
the present day, who cry out against Galileo's imprudence
and hot-headed meddling with theological questions. Surely
more true zeal for the honour of Scripture was shown by
Galileo, when he reasoned that the doctrine which he knew
to be false could not be the doctrine of Scripture, than was
shown by those ecclesiastics who were angry with him be
cause he would not allow them, without remonstrance, to-
stake the credit of Scripture on the maintenance of an utterly
false philosophy ; and who, if allowed to have their own way,
would have done as much injury to the reputation of the-
Bible as they have done to the doctrine of the infallibility
of the Church of Rome.
I return now to the history. When Galileo's letter was
brought under the notice of the Roman Inquisition there
was great unwillingness to deal harshly with the philosopher,.
who was then at the height of his reputation, and who had
many and powerful friends at Rome itself, where he had
recently exhibited his telescope, amid general admiration..
Now, in every criminal trial there are two questions — a ques
tion of law, and a question of fact. In the case of a trial for
heresy, the question of fact is, What are the words which the
accused person has spoken or written ? the question of law is-
whether these words contain heresy. The practice of the
Inquisition is only to deal directly with the question of fact ;
while the question of law is referred to a special Board oF
skilled theologians, under the title of Qualifiers, their business
being to state the quality of the propositions submitted to-
them, and in particular whether or not they are heretical.
Now, the Inquisition was able to pronounce Galileo's-

-236 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
-acquittal on the question of fact. The document submitted
to them only purported to be a copy of a letter written by
Galileo : where was the original ? It could not be produced.
No doubt, if the Inquisitors had been malevolently disposed,
they might have resorted to such further inquiry as would
either have brought the letter home to Galileo, or at least
would have proved that it truly expressed his sentiments.
But they were content, in the absence of positive evidence,
to pronounce a verdict of Not Guilty ; only they took care
that the verdict should be, Not Guilty, but don't do it again.
They obtained a report from their ' qualifiers,' which ran
in the following terms: —
(i). The proposition that the sun is the centre of the
world, and immoveable from its place, is absurd, philosophi
cally false, and formally heretical, because it is expressly
contrary to Holy Scripture.
(2). The proposition that the earth is not the centre of the
world, nor immoveable, but that it moves, and also with a
-diurnal motion, is also absurd, philosophically false, and
theologically considered at least erroneous in faith.
Galileo was not required to make abjuration, or to do
penance, because he had not been convicted of heresy; but,
by order of the Holy Office, Cardinal Bellarmine summoned
him before him, and admonished him in the name of the
Pope and of the Holy Office, under pain of imprisonment,
that he must give up the opinion that the sun is the centre of
the world and immoveable, and that the earth moves, and
must not hold, teach it, or defend it either by word or writ
ing ; otherwise proceedings would be taken against him
in the Holy Office. Galileo submitted, and promised to
obey. But it was not enough that Galileo should be personally
warned against holding the heliocentric theory of the uni
verse : the whole world must be similarly instructed ;* and
this was done by another tribunal. On March 5th, 1616, the
Congregation of the Index, a Committee of Cardinals ap-
* The publication by papal authority of the decision of the ' qualifiers ' in
"Galileo's case will be mentioned presently.

xiv.] THE CONGREGATION OF THE INDEX. 237
pointed by the Pope for the prevention of the circulation of
dangerous books, published the following decree : —
' Since it has come to the knowledge of this Holy Con
gregation that the false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether
opposed to the Divine Scripture, of the mobility of the earth,
and the immobility of the sun, which Nicolas Copernicus, in
his work De revolutionibus orbium caelestium, and Didacus
a Stunica in his Commentary on Job, teach, is being pro
mulgated and accepted by many, as may be seen from a
printed letter of a certain Carmelite Father (Foscarini), en
titled, &c, wherein the said Father has attempted to show
that the said doctrine is consonant to truth, and not opposed
to Holy Scripture ; therefore, lest this opinion insinuate itself
further to the damage of Catholic truth, this Congregation
has decreed that the said books, Copernicus De revolutionibus,
and Stunica on Job, be suspended till they are corrected, but
that the book of Foscarini the Carmelite be altogether pro
hibited and condemned, and all other books that teach the
same thing.'
You might understand, from what I have said before, the
kind of correction with which the book of Copernicus might
be tolerated. But we have direct evidence in a later ' moni-
turn' published by the Congregation four years later. It
states that it had been deemed necessary to prohibit the-
book of Copernicus because it ventures to state, not by way
of hypothesis, but as actual truth, propositions concerning"
the motion of the earth, repugnant to the Holy Scripture and
to its true and Catholic interpretation, a thing by no means
to be tolerated in any Christian man. But, since the works
of Copernicus are in other respects useful, permission for
their circulation is given, provided every passage where the
motion of the earth is asserted as a fact, is altered so as to
indicate that this is merely an assumption made by the
author. And then a detailed list is given of the necessary
emendations* * I may as well here add a caution against a common confusion between Prohibi
tory and Expurgatory Indexes. The object of the Prohibitory Index is obvious.
enough, namely, to warn the faithful against mischievous books ; and of course to-

238 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
While speaking of the Congregation of the Index, I may
mention that it continued its war on the Copernican theory
for about two centuries. The Index of 1704 contains the
comprehensive prohibition, ' all books that teach the mo
bility of the earth, or the immobility of the sun.' A striking
proof that this prohibition did not remain a dead letter is
¦afforded by the preface to what is commonly called the Jesuits'*
edition of Newton's Principia. Whether apprehensive that
their own book might be placed on the Index, and its sale
forbidden, or that they might suffer in some other way for
the publication of a book so plainly teaching the mobility of
the earth, they tender in the preface the following apology: —
* Newton, in this third book, supposes the motion of the
-earth. We could not explain the author's propositions other
wise than by making the same supposition. We are there
fore forced to sustain a character which is not our own ; but
we profess to pay the obsequious reverence which is due to
the decrees pronounced by the sovereign Pontiffs against
the motion of the earth.'
I cannot help observing, in passing, how the despotic
system of the Church of Rome inevitably leads to scepticism.
such warnings full publicity was given. But cases might arise, such as that which
has now come before us, where a book in the main innocent, or even useful, was in
places disfigured by some erroneous teaching. The possessors of such books were
mercifully permitted to use them, provided they first gave them up to the Inquisitors
in order to have them returned to them with the faulty matter expunged. The
Expurgatory Indexes contained directions what passages were to be thus blotted
out. But it is plain that these directions must be reserved for the private use of
those who were to make the corrections ; for if an Expurgatory Index got into
general circulation, it would evidently be infinitely more mischievous than the books
themselves, all whose bad passages it would present in a concentrated form. The
attempts, however, to keep such Indexes secret were not quite successful. Some
fell into the hands of Protestants, who naturally triumphed on discovering that in
some instances genuine sayings of Fathers were directed to be expunged because
they had too Protestant a sound.
A copy of De la Bigne's Library of the Fathers, contained in our Library, has
undergone this expurgation, the certificate of which is to be found in the beginning
of the second volume. The faulty passages in some cases have paper pasted over
them, in others are blotted out with a pen. The shelf-mark is GG. e. 5-8. The
expurgations will be found to be those directed in Quiroga's Index, the shelf-mark of
which is N. f. 37.
* The editors were really members of a different religious order.

xiv.J THE ABANDONMENT OF THE STRUGGLE. 239
No one can trust his neighbour, or be sure that he really be
lieves the doctrine which he professes. No one can believe
that the authors of the very intelligent commentary on New
ton's Principia, to which this advertisement was prefixed,
did in their hearts pay more reverence to the decrees of the
supreme Pontiff against the motion of the earth than the
earth pays to them herself; and when we have such a strik
ing proof how Roman Catholic divines will, in order to pre
serve external unity, deny their most certain convictions,
what value can we attribute to the submission made to the
decrees of the Vatican Council by men who had given good
proof of their falsity ? — nay, what certainty have we that any
Roman Catholic really believes what he says about Purga
tory or Transubstantiation, not to speak of a disputed doc
trine like the Immaculate Conception, or the sanction that
bishops and priests have given to such a tale as that of
La Salette ?
These prohibitions continued in force for a century longer.
At the beginning of the present century the astronomer
Lalande, made great exertions at Rome to have the names
of Galileo, Copernicus, and Foscarini, removed from the
Index; but in vain. Accordingly, the Index for 1828 con
tains the names of these three culprits ; but the prohibition
against all books teaching the mobility of the earth was
quietly dropped out of the later editions of the Index. It was
only on the accession of Gregory XVI., the predecessor of
Pius IX., that the important step was taken, and the attempt
to insist on believing on the immobility of the earth was
finally abandoned. For the first time for some two hundred
years an Index of prohibited books was published, in which
no confession of previous error was made, but the names of
Galileo, Copernicus, and Foscarini, were silently withdrawn.
Even then there were some at the Papal Court who regarded
this as a weakminded concession to modern prejudice. I
remember well how common it was in Roman Catholic pe
riodicals to see the Newtonian theory of gravitation spoken
of as if it were a temporary scientific fashion, likely as time
went on to blow over. I remember that when Cardinal

240 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
Cullen came over here it was asserted that he had committed
himself as an Anti-Copernican. Mr. St. George Mivart quotes
a priest now living, a head of a college, as saying, ' How
glorious it would be if it should turn out after all that the
sun does move round the earth, and that the Church had
been all the time in the right.' But if the race of Anti-Coper-
nicans is not yet extinct,* their better instructed Roman
Catholic friends are now ashamed of them, and at the present
day those of them who discuss the case of Galileo do not
venture to deny the scientific truth of that philosopher's doc
trines, but offer other apologies, the value of which I will
consider presently.
I return now to the history of Galileo. He went back to
Florence much disheartened at the condemnation of the Co
pernican doctrines, but professing outward submission to the
Papal decisions. It would be unreasonable to suppose that
he accepted them in his heart ; and we cannot help regard
ing as ironical some of the language he used. Thus, for
instance, in a tract which he published on the motions of
comets, he says : 'Since the motion attributed to the earth,
which I, as a pious and Catholic person, consider most false
and not to exist, accommodates itself so well as to explain so
many and such different phenomena, I shall not feel sure but
that, false as it is, it may not just as deludingly correspond
with the phenomena of comets.' He preserved the same
verbal conformity to the commands of his superiors in the
* The occasion of my article in the Contemporary Review (referred to, page 216)-
was, that I had happened to come across a periodical published in Paris by the Abbe
Cloquet, which claimed for itself an immense circulation, and the main object of which,
number after number, was to denounce the Copernican theory, and to accuse of
heresy those of his ecclesiastical superiors who countenanced a doctrine condemned
by the highest authority in his Church. The circulation of such a periodical in our
own day appeared to me so very curious a phenomenon, that I could not help speaking
of it, nor did I see any need for refusing to put the story into print. But I was careful
to state that the higher ecclesiastical authorities in France, far from sympathizing
with Cloquet' s teaching, were making every effort to put it down. In fact Cloquet
was putting dangerous weapons into the hands of those enemies, not only of the Ro
man Church, but of Christianity, who desired to exclude that Church from all share
in the education of the people. The spectacle of priests disobedient to their bishops
is not unknown in our own Church ; and it was with some surprise, but with real sym-

xiv.] GALILEO'S DIALOGUE. 24 1
work which he published in 1632, which was the cause of his
subsequent troubles. He gave it the form of a dialogue,
Which enabled him to state the arguments on both sides
without committing himself to an adoption of either ; and he
said that he proposed to discuss the Copernican system as a
mere mathematical hypothesis, and to show, not its absolute
truth, but its superiority to some bad arguments by which it
had been assailed. The disguise, however, was found to be a
little too thin. Johnson said that when he reported the speeches
in Parliament he took care that the Whig dogs should not get
the best of it ; and certainly the Anti-Copernicans did not get
the best of it in Galileo's report. Their advocate was felt by
the reader to be no very wise person : 'un sciocco' he was called
by the papal reporters on the dialogue. And what made the
matter worse, it is said that the Pope (Urban VIII.) recognized
in the arguments put into the mouth of this silly speaker some
which he had formerly used himself in discussion with Galileo.
So the sale of the dialogue was forbidden, and a summons was
served on Galileo ordering him to appear before the Inquisi
tion at Rome. He made every effort to escape obedience,
pleading inability to undertake the journey (a more formi
dable business then than now), on account of his age (he was
seventy), and the bad state of his health, and asking for at
least a reprieve. His excuses were not accepted by the Pope,
who said he might come in a litter if he pleased ; but come
he must. The Florentine Inquisitor visited Galileo, and found
pathy, that I saw that our neighbours' discipline was not as perfect as I had imagined
it to be.
Father Ryder accuses me of bad taste in doing something like ' making play with
a tipsy priest.' I have never heard that there was any impeachment on Cloquet's
moral character, and I rather think that Father Ryder does not mean to bring any.
I take the phrase ' tipsy priest,' to be merely a. specimen of controversial logic.
Insubordination is wrong, tipsiness is wrong, therefore when you mean an insub
ordinate person you may speak of a tipsy one, if thereby greater odium can be
cast on an opponent. Insubordination is most excusable when a private disobeys
his captain's orders, because he knows that these orders are in direct opposition to
the orders given the captain by the colonel. Cloquet clearly proved that he had that
excuse ; for no one who, like him, is quite free from the modern prejudice that in
matters of science philosophers know better than popes, can doubt that the helio
centric theory is a condemned heresy. R

242 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
him confined to his bed, and professing himself unable to
take the journey in his then state of health. A certificate
was forwarded, signed by three of the most eminent medical
men in Florence, to the effect that Galileo was suffering from
hernia, and could not be moved without danger to his life.
The answer from the Inquisition was, that if he did not come
the Pope and the Holy Office would send down a commissary
and a physician of their own, whose expenses would have to
be defrayed at Galileo's cost. If they should find him able
to travel they were at once to deprive him of his liberty, and
send him up in irons ; if they should find that the move would
involve danger of life, they were to send him up bound and
in irons as soon as the danger was over.
Under this persuasion Galileo was induced to face the
journey to Rome, where he met with as much indulgence as
the rules of the Inquisition permitted. Until personal ex
amination was necessary, he was allowed to lodge in the
Florentine ambassador's palace, but on condition that he was
to observe strict seclusion, and receive the visits of none but
intimate friends. When personal examination was necessary,
the three or four weeks he spent within the walls of the
Inquisition were not passed in any close or unwholesome
dungeon, but in the apartments of the Fiscal of the Inquisi
tion, where the attendance of his own servant was allowed
him. Even this mitigated confinement had an unfavourable
effect on his health.
The result of the trial is well known. Galileo pleaded in
vain that he had not infringed the injunction laid on him by
defending an opinion already condemned, and the condemna
tion of which had been made known to him. When he urged
that he had left the question undetermined, and had only
discussed the probability of the Copernican hypothesis, he
was told that therein he had committed a grave error, for
that an opinion can in no manner be probable which has
already been declared and defined to be contrary to the Di
vine Scriptures. The Inquisitors were certainly justified by
the evidence when they arrived at the conclusion that there
were very strong grounds for suspecting that Galileo held

xiv. J GALILEO'S ABJURATION. 243
the heretical doctrine of the earth's motion, and also the
heresy that an opinion can be held and defended as probable
after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy
Scripture. Accordingly, in order to remove from the minds
of all Catholic Christians this vehement suspicion legitimately
¦conceived against him, he was ordered to swear that with a
sincere heart and faith unfeigned he abjured, cursed, and
¦detested the above-named and all other heresies ; and to
swear further that for the future he would not assert, either
by word of mouth or in writing, anything to bring upon him
similar suspicion. And in order that his grave and perni-
-cious error might not remain altogether unpunished, that he
might be more cautious for the future, and be an example to
others to abstain from offences of this sort, his book was pro
hibited by public edict ; he was condemned to the prisons of
the Holy Office during the Pope's pleasure, and was com
manded for three weeks to recite the seven Penitential
Psalms once a week.
Galileo made his abjuration accordingly, but for the re
maining eight or nine years of his life never completely
recovered his liberty ; for though his confinement was as
little disagreeable as such a thing could be, he was never
permitted to have quite free intercourse with his friends.
He was for five months a guest with the Archbishop of
Siena ; afterwards, when his residence in a city was thought
to lead to a mischievous propagation of his opinions, he was
allowed to reside in his own country-house, a little distance
from Florence, but not to occupy his house in that city. He
must remain in solitude, and neither invite nor receive guests
for conference. When he asked special permission to go to
Florence for medical advice, he was told that if he was trou
blesome the liberty he already enjoyed would be taken from
him. At length he was once allowed to go. He was not
permitted either to reprint his old books, or to print new
ones. When he died, his power to make a will was disputed,
and the question was raised whether his body might be
placed in consecrated ground. That was decided in his
favour; but when the Grand Duke proposed to raise a marble
R 2

244 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
monument to him, he received a message from the Pope that
such an intention, if carried out, would be most pernicious,
and that he must remember that Galileo during his life had
caused scandal to all Christendom by his false and damnable
doctrine. In considering Romanist apologies for the treatment of
Galileo, I have chiefly in view one of the ablest, published in
the Clifton Tracts in 1854, and founded on two articles, one
in the Dublin Review for July, 1838, the other in the Rambler
for January, 1852.
The apologist's first topic is the leniency shown to Galileo-
by the Inquisition, and therefore I have been careful to make
due mention of the instances of their indulgence. If you
should ever be in the wrong, and really deserve a scolding,
the most approved method of getting out of the scrape is to
wait until those who have good reason to be angry with you
make use in their wrath of some unadvisedly strong expres
sions. Then it is your turn : you may raise an outcry at the
undeserved imputations that have been cast on you; exag
gerate as much as possible the reproaches that have been
heaped upon you ; and if you play your part well the original
offence may be forgotten, and you may pass yourself off suc
cessfully as the aggrieved party. This is the common method
of Roman Catholic apologists for their Church on points on
which her doctrines or her actions have excited prejudice
against her. Their plan is to commence the reply with a
highly coloured account of the hard things Protestants have
said against them ; and then by way of contrast to produce
the maligned doctrine with everything offensive kept care
fully in the background, so as to enlist the reader's sympa
thies on the side of injured innocence, and make him wonder
that anything so harmless should be assailed by such malig
nant misrepresentations.
Thus the article to which I now refer begins by informing"
us that Protestants (we are not told who) had asserted that
Galileo had been kept for five years in the dungeons of the
Inquisition, that he had been put on the rack, that his eyes
had been put out by the cruel Inquisitors ; whereas, his pen-

xiv.J THE LENIENCY OF THE INQUISITION. 245
ance had been nothing more than the recital of the Peniten
tial Psalms once a week, and his place of imprisonment only
the Dominican Convent, where the officers of the Inquisition
themselves resided, or the ' delightful palace ' of the Tuscan
ambassador at Rome, and finally Galileo's country-place near
Florence. The account I have given you of the restrictions
under which he suffered, and which destroyed the happiness
of the last years of his life, will have shown you that this
author's rose-coloured picture is as far from the truth as the
Protestant exaggerations which he quotes, and that the
¦* tender mercies ' of the Inquisition are sufficiently cruel.
Let us suppose, for example, that the Archbishop of Can
terbury had taken it into his head that the great telescope
made by our former Chancellor, the late Lord Rosse, was
dangerous to the Christian faith ; suppose that our astrono
mer was compelled to go over to London to answer for his
heresies ; that no plea of age or ill-health was allowed to
excuse him from the journey; that he was there obliged to
observe the strictest seclusion ; and that after some months'
delay there, when eventually allowed to return home, he was
ordered to consider himself a prisoner in his own house at
Parsonstown ; that there he was forbidden to publish scien
tific books, or to hold conference with men of science, and
that he asked in vain for permission to come up to Dublin
for medical advice. Let us suppose all this, and what should
we say of the clergyman who should set up for such treat
ment such a defence as this : To be sure, the offence of the
heretical telescope was one which could not be overlooked ;
but then consider how mildly he was treated. He was not
put into a dungeon with common felons, but allowed to
occupy in the prison the Governor's own private apartments ;
he was not kept in jail for five years ; we did not put him on
the rack ; and, above all, we did not put out his eyes !
Although I accept the statement that Galileo was not put
on the rack, it is right to mention that the point has been
contested. It appears from the sentence on Galileo that his
answers not being thought satisfactory, it was deemed ne
cessary to proceed to a 'rigoroso esame,' and I think it is

246 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
sufficiently proved that in the language of the Inquisition this-
phrase meant an examination in which torture might be used.
Torture was an established method with the Inquisition. It
was used in secular courts at the time, and the Inquisition
considered that they were less able [than other courts to dis
pense with it, because the offence of heresy being a secret
one, residing in the mind alone, and therefore one which an
accused person could easily deny, special means were neces
sary to elicit his real opinions. In the case, however, of
children and very old persons a minor form of torture was
commonly used, that of threatening torture ; and accused
persons in the hands of the Inquisition had good reason to
take such threats very seriously. There is clear evidence that
torture was threatened in Galileo's case ; but as far as I can
judge, not good reason to think that it was actually used. But
the point seems to me of quite small importance. The opinion
expressed in Galileo's abjuration, that the doctrine of the
earth's motion was false, was certainly not that with which
he had entered the walls of the Inquisition ; and the argu
ments which induced him to express a change of mind were
certainly not addressed to his intellect. Put the question of
torture aside ; and still Galileo was informed that the opinion
which he really held had been pronounced heretical, and
that if he again taught it, he would be treated as a relapsed
heretic. Translating this into English, it meant that if
he were dealt mildly with, the result would be lifelong im
prisonment ; if the law were fully carried out, he must be-
burned alive, as Giordano Bruno and others had been.
The ecclesiastical authorities at the time, no doubt, thought
they had gained a triumph when they obtained Galileo's
abjuration ; but that abjuration remains their lasting dis
grace, because it could only have been obtained by means
which it was a disgrace to use. If I had time to discuss-
with you the question of the propriety of torturing and
burning heretics, I should add another to the list of papal
errors ; and an error is not less an error though he who falls
into it may be able to produce companions in his mistake,,
and to cite respectable authorities who led him into it.

xiv.J SCIENTIFIC ARGUMENTS FOR EARTH'S MOTION. 247
The question, however, whether or not the Inquisitors
dealt mildly with Galileo is irrelevant to the subject of this
lecture. What we are concerned with is, Did the Inquisitors,
acting under the Pope's authority, and with his personal
concurrence, oblige Galileo to profess belief in what we now
know to be false ; and if so, how can Infallibility be claimed
for an authority guilty of such a prodigious blunder ? Our
apologist contends that it was right to require a retracta
tion, because the scientific arguments by which Galileo sup
ported his opinion were not as good as have been since
obtained on the same side ; and that his doctrine being likely
to prejudice in men's minds their respect for the Bible, he
might properly be called on to condemn and renounce it, and
declare it to be ' false in the sense of unproved.'
False in the sense of unproved ! The apologist must have
counted on readers ignorant of the English language. He
might nearly as well have said, ' False in the sense of true.'
Who can be persuaded that to declare a doctrine to be ab
surd, false, and expressly contrary to Holy Scripture, means
no more than that the arguments which support it fall short
of demonstration ? Besides, it would be for astronomers, not
for theologians, to judge whether the scientific arguments by
which Galileo supported his views amounted to demonstration
or not. If theologians undertook to find fault with arguments
which men of science have since found to be abundantly con
clusive, they were justly punished for 'poking their nose into
other people's business.' But they made no such mistake.
The tribunal of the Inquisition never dreamed of setting itself
up as an authority for pronouncing on the progress of science.
In knowledge of the science of astronomy they must have
been perfectly well aware that Galileo was infinitely their
superior. What they thought they did know better than he
was how to interpret Scripture. It was as theologians they
interfered ; and interfered, as we now know, wrongly. And
indeed how could science ever have come to its present state
if they could have had their way ? Every good Catholic was
forbidden even to read a book which taught the mobility of
the earth. You might find something to say in defence of an

248 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
attempt to silence an ignorant person who, without any real
knowledge, had scoffingly asserted the mobility of the earth,
only in order to bring the authority of Scripture into con
tempt; but nothing to justify an attempt to suppress the
respectful investigations of the most eminent man of science
of the day.
I have just said that the Inquisitors did not claim to know
more about scientific arguments than Galileo, but that they
did claim to know better than he how to interpret Scripture.
Yet it turns out now that, with regard to the interpretation of
Scripture, Galileo was right, and they were wrong. The
condemnation of Galileo has been a good deal discussed with
reference to the question of the Pope's personal infallibility.
You will see now that it cuts much deeper, and affects the
question of the Church's infallibility, speaking by no matter
what organ. The Council of Trent declared that it is the
province of Holy Mother Church to judge of the true sense
and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Now there are
many texts of Scripture which we hold that the Roman
Church interprets wrongly ; but we have no means of forcing
her to own that we are right and she wrong. We have the
means in the case of such texts as ' He hath made the round
world so fast that it cannot be moved.' From such texts it
was inferred in the sixteenth century that the physical fact of
the immobility of the earth was a revealed truth. Every
one entitled to speak on behalf of 'Holy Mother Church'
asserted it. If general consent, universal long tradition,
absence of opposing view, can prove any interpretation of
Scripture to be lawfully imposed by the head of the Church,
this certainly was so. And yet it has now to be confessed that
that interpretation was wrong. It must be owned, therefore,
that whatever respect the Church may claim when she inter
prets Scripture, she is not infallible, and that the Church of
a more learned age may wisely review and correct the de
cisions of its predecessors.
Yes; but it will be said that the Church's infallibility
when she interprets Scripture is limited to questions of faith
and morals, and that the question of the earth's mobility

xiv. J DID THE CHURCH GO OUT OF HER PROVINCE ? 249
is not one of faith. But this is to accuse the heads of the
Church in Galileo's time of a far graver mistake. It is surely
a less error to decide a question that belongs to your province
wrongly, than not to know what belongs to your province,
and what does not. If modern apologists are right, the
Church in Galileo's time not only was wrong in pronounc
ing it to be heresy to hold that the earth went round the
sun ; but was utterly wrong in imagining that either of the
opinions — the sun goes round the earth, or the earth goes
round the sun — possibly could be heresy, the whole subject
being outside the domain with which faith has to deal. On
the contrary, the Church in Galileo's time held that it was of
faith to maintain the absolute correctness of everything as
serted in express words of Scripture, and that the doctrine of
the earth's fixity was so asserted. Some parts of Scripture,
dealing directly with faith or morals, are eminently dog
matical, and are spoken of as scripta propter se ; other parts
are only dogmatic per accidens ; but the Church has taught
that all are alike inspired. But, in any case, no loyal mem
ber of the Roman Church is justified in raising the question
whether, in Galileo's case, she went out of her province. It
is for the Church to ascertain the limits of her own powers.
How could she condemn any heresy, if it was open to the
accused person to deny the Church's jurisdiction altogether
with regard to the question in dispute ? The truth is, that
modern Roman apologists have fallen into a condemned
heresy themselves. For I have already told you that one of
the heresies condemned in the sentence on Galileo was ' that
an opinion can be held and defended as probable after it has
been declared and defined to be contrary to Holy Scripture ' ;
and the doctrine of the earth's mobility was so declared and
defined. It remains to discuss how the condemnation of Galileo
directly affects the question of Papal Infallibility. It is cer
tain that the decrees of the Inquisition and of the Congrega
tion of the Index expressed the sentiments of the individual
Pope who was the prime mover in the whole business, and
who even personally presided at some of the meetings. But

250 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
on various pleas it has been contended that the tribunal
which published the decrees was not the Pope speaking in
fallibly. That he did not speak infallibly then we need not
dispute ; but if he did not speak infallibly then, it will be
impossible to know that he ever speaks infallibly.*
But before discussing any of these pleas, let me say that
if they were successful they would only transfer the present
instance from the subject of the present lecture, ' The Blun
ders of the Infallible Guide,' to that of the preceding lecture,
' The Silences of the Infallible Guide.' We have seen that the
Popes appear to think the gift of infallibility quite too pre
cious for everyday use, and that when a disputed question
arises it is the hardest matter to obtain a decision on it from
the infallible authority. But there are some occasions which
would extort speech from the most taciturn of human beings ;
and I imagine that the most silent of men might be induced
to speak, if he saw a fellow-creature about to be severely
punished, perhaps burned alive, in his name, and by his
alleged authority, upon a charge of heresy which he had the
means of infallibly knowing was no heresy at all. It cannot
plausibly be maintained that a Church possessing an infal
lible guide to secure her from heresy should appoint a special
tribunal for the expulsion of heresy, and that that tribunal,
acting under the very eyes of the Church's head, should be
left in uncertainty what is or is not heresy. I have used the
illustration of an alchemist allowing his own children to
starve. This would be exactly verified if we were to believe
* The Rev. W. W. Roberts (see Guardian, Aug. 10, 17, 1887, and his work, Ponti
fical Decrees against the Motion of the Earth) has collected some instances from the
pontificate of the late Pope, Pius IX., in which decisions to which the Pope was less
directly committed than in the case of Galileo, were treated as binding on all Catholics.
For example, on February 20, 1857, the Congregation of the Index condemned and
prohibited certain works of a German theologian, Giinther. The decree contained no
doctrinal statement, and gave no reason for the prohibition. But some of Giinther's fol
lowers being still unwilling to own the unsoundness of their master's tenets, the Pope
wrote an apostolic letter to the Archbishop of Cologne, known as the Brief 'Eximiam
tuam,' in which he says : 'That decree sanctioned by our authority, and published
by our command, plainly ought to have sufficed that the whole question be judged
entirely settled, and that all who boast of the Catholic name should clearly and dis
tinctly understand that complete obedience was to be paid to it, and that the doctrine

xiv.] DID THE POPE SPEAK EX CATHEDRA? 25 r
that the Pope is infallible when he tells other people what is
heresy, but that he is either unable or unwilling to ascer
tain this when it is absolutely necessary for the guidance
of his own conduct. It is nothing less than a gross libel on-
Pope Paul V., who was Pope in 1 6 1 6, to assert that he did
not bring all the resources of his infallibility into play in the
case of Galileo ; and whatever errors we may accuse him of,
we can honestly acquit him of this charge.
I need not then tarry over the plea that either Paul in
1616, or Urban in 1633, erred, but only as a private doctor,.
not as a Pope speaking ex cathedra. With regard to the
question when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, the only rational
distinction is between his official and non-official utterances.
We do not hold the Papacy responsible for everything-
Urban may have said in conversation to Galileo ; but in
all the transactions which I am discussing it is clear that
neither Urban nor Paul acted as a private doctor, but as
Pope. It is said, however, that the Pope is both teacher
and governor of the Church, and that though infallible as-
teacher, he may err in the steps he takes as governor, for
the preservation of the Church's discipline. But when the
punishment of heresy is concerned, it is impossible to se
parate his disciplinary from his teaching power. It may
be assumed as certain that the Pope would not punish a
man for heresy without having first ascertained that the
doctrine which he held was heresy ; and the Pope could
not teach the world more distinctly that a certain doctrine
contained in Giinther's works could not be accounted sound.' The second Papal.
utterance quoted by Mr. Roberts was made on the occasion of a meeting of German
divines and men of science in the autumn of 1863. The Pope expressed himself dis
satisfied with their acknowledgment that ' Catholics are to submit in all their scientific
investigations to the dogmatic utterances of the infallible authority of the Church.'
Not merely so, he taught them, ' but also to the decisions pertaining to doctrine that
are put forth by Pontifical congregations, as also to those heads of doctrine which
are retained by the common consent of Catholics as theological truths and conclusions
so certain, that opinions adverse to the same, though they cannot be called heretical,.
yet deserve some other theological censure.' A third instance relates to a condemna
tion of the teaching of a Louvain Professor, Ubaghs, which, though never officially
made known to the world, was treated by Papal authority in 1866 and in 1870 as.
absolutely decisive with respect to the doctrines in question.

252 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
is heretical than by setting the example of punishing a man
for holding it.
Neither need I linger over a plea in which some Romanists
find much comfort, that the condemnation of Galileo does
not contain what is called the customary clause of Papal
•confirmation at the end. We may be sure that Paul V. did
not knowingly omit anything necessary to give validity to
his sentence ; and the fact is, that the ' custom ' in question
has come in since Paul's time, and that this clause does not
appear in previous decrees of the Congregation of the Index.*
Sixtus V. appointed fifteen Congregations of Cardinals,
assigning to each its proper function, but with the limitation
¦' that they refer to us all the more important and difficult
matters under consideration.' It is now customary that the
secretary of the Congregation should certify when a matter
has been thus referred to the Pope ; but clearly the only im
portant question is whether the matter has been thus referred,
and not whether the secretary has certified it. Such a cer
tificate was certainly not necessary in the case of the Holy
Office, the highest of all the Congregations, having jurisdic
tion over every member of the Church of whatever rank. On
account of its supreme importance, the Pope was wont to be
its president, and the votes to be taken in his presence ; so
that no important decree could go forth without having been
first submitted to the Pope. The Pope indisputably did thus
take part in the decision in Galileo's case.
Assuredly Galileo and the Copernicans of his day
were not allowed to suppose that to persist in their heresy
would be to resist anything short of infallible wisdom.
They were pressed with the words of the Bull of Sixtus V.,
by which the Congregation of the Index was remodelled :
'They are to examine and expose the books which are re
pugnant to the Catholic doctrines and Christian discipline,
and after reporting them to us, they are to condemn them by
our authority.' What was done by the Inquisition in Galileo's
¦case was not a mere verdict on a matter of fact on which the
* Mr. Roberts has not been able to find any decree of the Index with the clause
•earlier than January 17, 1729. (See Bullarium, ed. Lux., vol. xiii., p. 380.)

xrv.J THE POPE'S RESPONSIBILITY. 255
judges might pardonably go wrong, but it was the decision by
the Pope's authority on a question of doctrine. Pope Urban
made that decision his own by directing (in 1633) that in order
that these things might be known to all, copies of the sentence on
Galileo were to be transmitted to all Apostolic Nuncios, and
all Inquisitors of heretical pravity, especially the Florentine
Inquisitors. These were to summon the professors of mathe
matics and to read the sentence for their instruction. This
sentence refers to the interference of the Congregation of the
Index as made ' to the end that so pernicious a doctrine ' as
the Copernican ' might be altogether taken away and spread
no further to the heavy detriment of Catholic truth.' It states-
that the Congregation was held in the Pope's presence in
which Galileo was ordered to give up this false opinion. It
relates that Galileo had been formally made acquainted with
'the declaration made by our Lord the Pope, and promul
gated by the Sacred Congregation of the Index,' the tenor
whereof is that the doctrine of the motion of the earth and
the fixity of the sun is contrary to the sacred Scriptures, and
therefore can neither be defended or held. It may be added
that the desired Papal confirmation in express terms was
given by a later Pope, Alexander VII., in 1664, who repub
lished and confirmed the previous decrees with the words,.
' Cum omnibus et singulis in eo contentis auctoritate Apos-
tolica tenore presentium confirmamus et approbamus.' I
really recommend, therefore, Roman apologists to consider
again whether it may not be possible to maintain that the
sun actually does go round the earth, this being in my judg
ment quite as hopeful a line of defence as to deny that suc
cessive Popes officially asserted that it does.
To conclude, then, the history of Galileo makes short
work of the question. Is it possible for the Church of Rome
to err in her interpretation of Scripture, or to mistake in
what she teaches to be an essential part of the Christian
faith ? She can err, for she has erred. She has made many
errors more dangerous to the souls of men, but never com
mitted any blunder more calculated to throw contempt on
her pretensions in the minds of all thinking men, than when

254 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
she persisted for about two hundred years in teaching that it
was the doctrine of the Bible, and therefore an essential part
of the Catholic faith, that the earth stands still, and that the
sun and planets revolve daily round it.

Since this lecture was written, a couple of articles on this
subject have been published by Mr. St. George Mivart [Nine
teenth Century, July, 1885, July, 1887), of which a very brief
notice will suffice. Mr. Mivart professes to be a Roman Ca
tholic, but he is fortunate that he did not live two hundred years
ago, for if he had then expressed the views he holds now,
the Pope, if he had him in his power, would certainly have
punished him severely as a contumacious heretic of the worst
kind. The Church of Rome changes so much, that what was
heretical two hundred years ago may be quite orthodox now,
and possibly Mr. Mivart's teaching may hereafter be ac
cepted ; but at present it is calculated to try severely the
toleration of his ecclesiastical superiors ; and his best chance
of escape is, that the ' Judge of controversies ' will, according
to his usual habit, abstain from pronouncing any decision on
the questions raised by Mr. Mivart, until the controversy
comes to settle itself. Such forbearance is all the more
likely, because times have so changed with the Roman
Church that she is now glad on any terms to have the credit
of having men of science in her communion, and is willing,
therefore, to let them say what they like. It does not commit
her authority, and may retain waverers of a scientific turn of
mind. Mr. Mivart throws overboard, as any man of common
sense would, the subterfuges by which it had been at
tempted to deny that the highest ecclesiastical authorities
were distinctly pledged to the condemnation of Galileo.
He says that it has now been ascertained that what is
declared by authoritative congregations to be opposed to
the teaching of Scripture, of the holy Fathers, and of
antecedent ecclesiastical tribunals, concerning a matter of
science, may nevertheless be true. His inference is that

xiv.J MR. ST. GEORGE MIVART. 255
Roman Catholic men of science may pursue their investiga
tions regardless of any judgment ecclesiastical tribunals may
pronounce on them, it having been proved by the voice of
history that it is not to ecclesiastical congregations, but to
men of science, that God has committed the elucidation of
scientific questions. The freedom thus happily gained for
astronomical science, he concludes, extends to all science,
geology, biology, sociology, political economy, history, and
Biblical criticism ; for whatever in fact comes within the reach
of human inductive research and is capable of verification.
This may be very good doctrine, but it strikes me that it is
Protestant and not Roman Catholic doctrine.
Mr. Mivart, however, is only a Protestant as far as re
gards the subjects in which he himself takes an interest.
He has given much attention to biology, and is an au
thority on that subject, so he claims for himself perfect
freedom. He takes much interest in Biblical criticism, and
would have no scruple in accepting the most advanced
speculations which German rationalists have made con
cerning the Old Testament, which he imagines are in the
main correct, though they may have been pushed to un
justifiable extremes. As far as the Roman Catholic laity
are concerned, they are commonly so little acquainted with
Scripture, that he would not be surprised if some of them
were even disposed to chuckle over a disproof of the Bible's
truth, as being a matter likely to ' dish ' the Protestants, and
so make their own religious position more secure. But he
perceives that better instructed Roman Catholics would feel
that it would dish themselves too if the Church's teaching on
so important a question, from her foundation until now, was
proved to be mistaken. He seems to be ignorant that the
Vatican Council has asserted the inspiration of Scripture in
a way that cannot be reconciled with the speculations of
which I speak. But he confesses the reluctance that Roman
Catholic divines would feel to adopting conclusions opposed
to a|unanimous consensus of theologians, and to the ordinary
teaching^of the Church, which has constantly appealed to
Scripture for proof of her doctrines. He however urges that

256 THE BLUNDERS OF THE INFALLIBLE GUIDE, [xiv.
the basis of doctrines may be taken away and the struc
ture remain unharmed. Are not the Pseudo-Isidorian De
cretals now given up as spurious by all learned men, but the-
system of doctrines founded on them remains ? Do we not
now know that the arguments used at many Councils are
utterly bad, but the conclusions obtained by these arguments
remain in full force ? This reads like sarcasm, but I imagine-
that Mr. Mivart has written it in all sincerity.
It is not my business now to discuss all the questions
raised by Mr. Mivart. I am only concerned with the ques
tion of infallibility ; and I see no good reason why on this
subject Mr. Mivart should only go half way towards Pro-
testanti^TIe claims a right to disregard the instructions of
his infallible guide on every subject capable of verification,
but he implies that he is ready to accept those instructions
if no verifications be possible. This is much the same as if
we were to say to a traveller who had told us some marvellous
tales, I cannot believe what you have told us about France,
Portugal, and North America, because I have been there,
and I know that what you have told us is a pack of lies; but
I will believe with all my heart everything you have said
about China and Japan, because I have never been in these
countries, and therefore cannot contradict you. Mr. Mivart
ought to remember that there are other sciences besides
those in which he himself takes an interest ; such as the
science of history, and especially of the history of dogma.
Let him take the word of those who have studied these
matters, that on many of the questions on which Roman
Catholics differ from Protestants, the teaching of the Church
of Rome is as opposed to the testimony of facts as the old
theory which Galileo overturned. Had we not a parallel
case to Galileo's the other day when an expert, von Dollinger,.
was excommunicated because he would not accept a conclu
sion which the voice of history condemns ? Whenever Mr.
Mivart sees his way to give the human mind not a partial
but complete freedom, the dispute with him concerning the
infallibility of the Church is at an end.

XV.

THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY.
THE branch of the subject which I will now take up is
the discussion of the different theories as to the organ
of the Church's infallibility which have been held in the
Roman Church. I will not dwell on what I have already said :
that if the gift of infallibility had been believed in and ex
ercised from the first, it was impossible that controversy as
to its seat should ever arise.
The theory which I shall first consider is the Gallican,
which places the infallibility in the Church diffusive. In this
theory the Pope is only the leading bishop of Christendom,
and is by no means a necessary organ in proclaiming infal
lible truth. Whatever doctrine the whole Church agrees in
is infallibly true. Of course this characteristic cannot be
predicated of any doctrine from which the Pope dissents,
since such a dissent would deprive the doctrine of that
universality of acceptance which the theory imposes as a
condition ; but if a Pope declares a doctrine, it is never
theless not guaranteed as infallibly true if a Council dissent ;
or even though Pope and Council declare it, if it is not
received by the bishops throughout the world. The im
portant thing is, the universality of acceptance : the mode
of promulgation is immaterial. It may be the Pope who
proclaims it, and a Council which assents; it may be a
Council whose decrees the Pope confirms, or it may be a
number of small local councils which declare the Church's
sentiments : only let the consent of the Church be evidenced
in whatever way, and the doctrine is infallibly true. I will
presently examine whether this is a defensible theory of
s

258 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
infallibility ; but I wish first to tell you a little of the history
of Gallicanism. Its most flourishing time was at the end of the seventeenth
century, in the reign of Louis XIV. That monarch had many
points of resemblance with Henry VIII. With regard to
their relations with women, Louis was certainly not the
purer of the two ; but as he did not want, like Henry, to
marry the women on whom his caprice fixed, his frailties
caused no irreconcilable breach with the Church. He could
part with his mistresses in Lent, and then when he had re
ceived his Easter Communion take them back again. Mean
while his zeal for orthodoxy was extreme. He stirred up the
slumbering authorities at Rome to fulminate against Jan
senism. By bribery and intimidation, by the dragonnades
and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he worked so hard
for the extirpation of Protestantism from France, that he was
hailed by the enthusiastic gratitude of his bishops. 'Impressed
by such marvels,' exclaimed Bossuet in one of his orations,
' let us raise our acclamations to the skies. Let us say to
this second Constantine, this second Theodosius, this second
Charlemagne, what the six hundred and thirty bishops said
of old at the Council of Chalcedon : " You have confirmed
the faith, you have exterminated the heretics ; it is a work
worthy of your reign. Through your exertions heresy exists
no longer. God alone could have wrought this miracle. 0
King of Heaven preserve our earthly monarch : this is the
prayer of the Church — this is the prayer of the bishops." '
Unfortunately Louis, who was quite as imperious as
Henry, was as arbitrary in his dealings with the Pope as with
his own subjects. Those of you who have read Macaulay's
history of the circumstances which facilitated the English
Revolution of 1688 will remember how the Pope's sympathy
for the enterprise of William was gained by the tyrannical
behaviour of Louis towards himself. Because the Pope
wished to withdraw a privilege which had made his own
capital insecure, that, namely, of allowing the French ambas
sador's palace to be a sanctuary for brigands and assassins,
the King sent his troops to take possession of the Papal ter-

xv.J THE FOUR GALLICAN PROPOSITIONS. 259
ritory at Avignon. There had been an earlier controversy,
originating in Royal claims, which the Pope repudiated as a
novel aggression, with respect to the appointment and insti
tution to benefices ; and these led to a conflict between the
King and the Pope, which lasted about a dozen years.
Though the King had been granted by the Roman See the
right of appointment to bishoprics, yet while the contro
versy lasted the Pope would not institute the King's nomi
nees ; so that before the dispute was over there were
thirty-five bishops without institution. The French appealed
to a future general Council; they threatened to dispense
with the authority of the Pope, and to consecrate their
bishops without it, and to stop all sending of money to
Rome. The French bishops naturally took the side of their
King, whose influence in his own country was overpower
ing; and it was while the relations between France and
Rome were thus strained that what are called the Four
Gallican Propositions of 1682, drawn up by the celebrated
Bossuet, were formulated.
These are as follows : — The first declared that the power
possessed by Peter and his successors was in things spiritual,
not in things temporal ; in accordance with the texts, ' My
kingdom is not of this world ' ; ' Render unto Ceesar,' &c. ;
'Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.' Conse
quently, kings are not, by the law of God, subject to any
ecclesiastical power with respect to their temporal govern
ment, nor can their subjects be released from the duty of
obeying them, nor absolved from their oath of allegiance.
2. The second defined the power of the Pope in things
spiritual, viz. as such that the decrees of the Council of Con
stance, approved as they are by the Holy See and the practice
of the whole Church, remain in full force and perpetual obli
gation ; and it declared that these decrees must not be depre
ciated as insufficiently approved or as restricted to a time of
schism. — I may remind you that these decrees declared that a
general Council, legitimately assembled, derives its authority
immediately from Christ [and therefore not from the PopeJ,
and that every person of what dignity soever, even papal, is
S 2

260 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY. [XT
bound to obey it in what relates to the faith, or to the extir
pation of schism, or to the reformation of the Church in its
head and members. If you remember the circumstances of
the Church at the time of the Council of Constance, you will
see that these decrees were absolutely necessary at the time.
The object was to heal the schism, there being then three
claimants of the Popedom, each of whom had some who
believed him to be the real Pope. The Council deposed all
three, and elected a new Pope; and as although the whole
Christian world longed for an end to the schism, all the pon
tiffs had shown great reluctance to a voluntary resignation
it is evident the act of the Council could not meet with uni
versal recognition unless it was maintained that the Council
had an authority higher than the papal, and was able even
to depose a real Pope if the good of the Church required
it. 3. The third Gallican decree declared that the exercise
of the Apostolic authority must be regulated by the canons
enacted by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the reve
rence of the whole world ; in particular that the ancient rules,
customs, and institutions of the realm and Church of France
must remain inviolable. 4. The fourth, that though the Pope
has the principal power in deciding questions of faith, and
though his decrees extend to all Churches, nevertheless his
judgment is not irreversible until confirmed by the consent of
the Church. — Thus you see that these decrees took away alto
gether the Pope's temporal power over countries of which he
was not the civil sovereign; that in spiritual things they
limited his disciplinary power by general and local canons;
that even in matters of faith they held that his decisions
needed to be ratified by universal consent.
A point has been made by a Roman Catholic controver
sialist who wrote in answer to Janus, that the French bishops
were not unanimous on this occasion. But the fact is, that
the chief opposition Bossuet encountered was from those who
went further than himself in denying the prerogatives of
Rome. His chief opponent, the Bishop of Tournay, held
that the Apostolic See was liable to fall into heresy. Bossuet's
own opinion was that, though individual Popes might be

xv.J THE WEAKNESS OF GALLICANISM. 261
carried away by some temporary blast of false doctrine, the
See would never fall permanently into misbelief, as some
Eastern Sees had done, but that by the interposition of right-
thinking people either the erring Pope himself or his succes
sors would be brought back to the true faith. In this way the
fall of Liberius or the monothelism of Honorius presented no
difficulty to his theory.
Though the four Gallican propositions expressed, as I be
lieve, the real opinion of the French Church, yet I believe also
that but for Court pressure Bossuet and his colleagues would
not have engaged in the controversy with Rome which the
act of formulating these propositions involved. And this was
one cause of the want of permanence of Gallicanism, that so
much of its strength consisted in the Royal support : or rather
that the contest was not so much one between the French
nation and a foreign power as between the King and the
Pope, which of the two should have the filling up of livings
and soforth. It was exactly in the same way that Henry
VIII. gave a national character to what may also be repre
sented as a conflict in which only his personal interests were
involved. It is evident that in such a conflict, if the King
failed to persuade the nation that his interests were theirs ; —
if, for instance, his appointments to offices were not made to
deserving men, — then really religious men would be indifferent
to a contest which they might look on as one between a self-
seeking king and a self-seeking foreign bishop ; and they
would be on the side of the bishop if they thought his govern
ment on the whole likely to be guided by higher aims. On
these grounds, much as we are inclined to sympathize with
the anti-papalism of the Gallican bishops, I have my doubts
whether these hangers-on of the Court of Louis XIV. really
carried the religious mind of the nation with them. The
doctrine, however, which they taught as to the limits of the
papal power was no new invention of theirs; it but stated
the tradition of the Gallican Church, which had been ex
pressed on many former occasions.
Ultimately the dispute between Louis and the Pope was
settled : the King withdrew measures he had taken for enforc-

262 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
ing the Gallican declaration in his dominions, and the bishops
seeking consecration were allowed to say that they were sorry
it had been made, which did not at all imply that they
believed it was not true. A great magazine of arguments in
this controversy is the book which Bossuet wrote in defence
of the Gallican declaration. It was more than once withheld
from publication by the royal authority, lest it should impede
the desired reconciliation with Rome, and was not actually
published until after Bossuet's death.
The subsequent history of Gallicanism will not take long
to state. The fruits of the zeal of Louis in suppressing heresy
showed themselves after his death. The Jansenists, whom it
had been the work of his life to put down, whatever may have
been their doctrinal errors, were some of the holiest and best
men in his kingdom. I need not tell you how much of true
religion was lost to France by the driving out of the Hugue
nots : the consequence was that Christianity, represented in
that kingdom by its most superstitious form, revolted the
philosophic and enlightened. The principle of blind submis
sion to authority was found to be too weak to maintain the
hearty faith of the people, and a great wave of infidelity swept
over the land. In an early stage of the revolutionary troubles
an attempt was made to maintain a national Church in
France, though robbed of the greater part of its worldly
wealth. A new distribution of Sees was made : bishops were
to be elected by their flocks, and were to seek for no insti
tution from the Pope, but merely notify to him the fact of
their appointment. By a very unwise step on the part of the
framers of this new constitution, all the clergy were required
to swear their acceptance, and a number of the most respected
refused. Thereupon ensued an immediate schism between
the constitutional clergy and the non-jurors : and as in the
progress of events the leaders of the revolutionary party
showed more and more hostility to religion, so the respect of
religious men refused to attach itself to the constitutional
clergy, who were found in alliance with deists and atheists.
When the great Napoleon discerned the political necessity
of coming to terms with Christianity, he saw that an agree-

xv.J GALLICANISM IN IRELAND. 263
ment with the Pope afforded him the only practicable means.
Even more than Louis XIV., Napoleon sought to make him
self absolute over Church and State in France, and he thought
that if he could make the Pope absolute over the French clergy
he could direct the Pope as he pleased. The Pope proved less
flexible than Napoleon had anticipated, but in the first stage
of the reconciliation his help was absolutely necessary and
was given. The terms of a new Episcopate were arranged
into which survivors both of the constitutional clergy and
the non-jurors were to be admitted. But however desirable
in every way to the cause of the Church in France was this
reconciliation, it involved a complete abandonment of Galli
can principles. For it was by the Pope's authority that the
existing bishops were forced to resign and a new distribution
of Sees effected. This course of events produced a natural
reaction in France in favour of Ultramontanism, all the
abominations and impieties of republican fanaticism being
imputed, however unjustly, to the opposite system. This
reaction found an eloquent representative in the Count Joseph
de Maistre, whose writings exercised a prodigious influence
in France : so that the dying away of Gallicanism in its birth
place and stronghold seemed to make things easy for its
formal condemnation by Pius IX.
We in Ireland are interested in Gallicanism because,
before the establishment of Maynooth, Irish priests com
monly got their education in Continental schools where
Gallican principles predominated, and so imported them
into this country. At Maynooth itself French text-books
were used. In the agitation for Emancipation a prevalent
argument against granting it was that Roman Catholics
could not be loyal subjects, since they would serve two
masters, or rather indeed only one, inasmuch as they must
obey the Pope if he forbade them to obey their Sovereign.
In reply to this, great pains were taken by the advocates
for Emancipation to show that Irish Roman Catholics did
not believe in the Pope's power to release subjects from
their allegiance, and that the Ultramontane doctrine of the
Papal power was not recognized as any part of the doc-

264 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
trine of their Church. The Irish Roman Catholic bishops
were examined before a Parliamentary Committee, and gave
evidence which was afterwards cited by the American bishop
Kenrick, himself an Irishman, at the Vatican Council. As
a sample of their evidence, I will give you Archbishop
Murray's answer to the question whether the Irish bishops
had adopted or rejected what are called the Gallican liberties.
He said, ' These liberties have not come under their conside
ration as a body. The Irish Catholic bishops have therefore
not either adopted or rejected them. They have adopted,
however, and that on their oaths, the leading doctrines which
these liberties contain ; that is, the doctrines which reject the
deposing power of the popes and their right to interfere
with the temporalities of princes. That is distinctly recog
nized not as one of the Gallican liberties, but as a doctrine
which the Gospel teaches.' Bishop Doyle said that if the Pope
were to intermeddle with the temporal rights of the King,
they would oppose him even by the exercise of their spiritual
authority; that is, as he explained it, by preaching the Gospel
to the people, and instructing them, in such a case, to oppose
the Pope. Besides this repudiation of the temporal power of
the Pope, these bishops declared their opinion that the autho
rity of the Pope in spiritual matters was limited by the Canons
and by the Councils, and they swore, as they could then with
truth, that the doctrine of the Pope's personal infallibility
was no part of the Christian faith. Soon after they gave a
practical proof of their independence of the Pope ; for when
a negotiation between the Pope and the English Government
resulted in an agreement that, as a condition of Emancipa
tion, the English Government should be given a veto on the
nomination to Irish bishoprics, the Irish bishops remonstrated
with the Pope in such strong terms that the project had to be
abandoned. I have dwelt, at a little length, on the history of Gallican
ism because the subject is one on which you do not find much
information in your text-books ; but we must now consider the
truth of the doctrine, that whatever the whole Church at any
time agrees in may be relied on as infallibly correct. One

xv.J PRACTICAL INUTILITY OF GALLICAN RULE. 265
thing is plain, namely, that if this is the nature of the gift of
infallibility Christ has bestowed on His Church, the gift is
absolutely useless for the determination of controversies. It
is very comfortable to believe with regard to the controversies
of former days that the winning side was right, and that
-whatever has settled down to be the general belief is certainly
true: but what guidance does such a persuasion give us as
long as the controversy is going on ? It is very comfortable
for Roman Catholics now to think that the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception must be true because it has ceased to
be disputed in their communion. But how could the Domini
cans foresee the turn things would take a century after their
time, when they knew that the doctrine they opposed was
altogether novel, condemned by Aquinas, and unknown to
the early Fathers ? This theory, then, asserts that Christ has
furnished His Church with a lantern which throws no light on
the path in front, but only on that which has been already
traversed. Something of the same kind may be said about the
oft-quoted phrase of Vincentius Lirinensis, that we believe
' Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est.'
It is very pleasant when we can say this ; but it is obvious that
this rule can give us no help in a controversy ; for, clearly, dis
pute can only arise in the case of a doctrine which is not held
' ab omnibus,' and in such a case both parties are sure to say
that it is their opinion which has been held ' semper.' And
so when people go to use the rule they generally explain that
of course ' held by all ' does not mean absolutely and literally
all without exception, but leaves out of account heretics
and such like ; so that ' all' means only ' all right-thinking
persons,' and in this way it is in the power of each side to
claim their own view as being held by all, that is to say, all
right-thinking persons, for they are the only right-thinking
persons. We can see thus that the Gallican method of ascribing
infallibility to the Church diffusive does not satisfy any of
the a priori supposed proofs of the necessity of a judge of
controversies, on the strength of which infallibility has been

266 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
believed in. Yet unquestionably it is this aspect of the theory
of infallibility which has most power in gaining adherents.
It is certainly a very alluring doctrine that whatever is held
by the majority of the Christian world must certainly be true,
and that dissentients, if few in number, may be disregarded
without any examination of their opinions. It is plain from
Dr. Newman's account of his life that this was the argument
which made a convert of him. He compared the numbers
which were ranked on the Romish side and on the opposite,
and he said, 'What is the English Church that she should
set herself in opposition to so much larger a body ? ' Words
of Augustine that he had seen quoted in controversy, ' securus
judicat orbis terrarum,' at last so took possession of his ima
gination, that he was compelled to abandon further resist
ance. These words, as used by Augustine, were, I believe,
well justified, and are capable of further application. They
were employed with reference to the claim of the Donatists
of Africa to unchurch the rest of Christendom, because they
continued to hold communion with men who, as the Donatists
alleged, had been guilty of gross sin. Augustine replied that
the whole world was, by reason of distance, incapable of
judging of the reality of these alleged offences, but that they
could judge safely enough of the blind temerity of those who
without provocation separated themselves from the rest of the
world.* Taken thus in connexion with their context, Augus
tine's words are only reasonable ; nor would I hesitate to
extend them to other cases in which small bodies venture
to unchurch and anathematize the whole Christian world :
Baptists, for example, excluding from the pale of the visible
Church all who have been baptized by affusion, not immer
sion ; Walkerites and Plymouth Brethren reducing their
* In the notes to an Ordination Sermon published in 1864, Dr. Quarry pointed
out that in the passage cited, St. Augustine did not lay down a general maxim, nor
assert that the ' orbis terrarum ' must always be right in its judgment. The words
form part of a sentence in which, after showing that foreign Churches must needs be
ill-acquainted with the facts of the African disputes, he concludes, ' securus judicat
orbis terrarum' that they are not good who separate themselves from the whole world ;
where the word ' securus ' appears to have its most literal sense, without anxiety.

xv.J DONATISM THE ANTITYPE OF ROMANISM. 267
Church to still narrower limits. If things are alleged to be
necessary to salvation, or necessary to the being of a Church,
which Christ has revealed so indistinctly that the great bulk
of the Christian world has for centuries been unable to find
them out, then I do say that the claim is one which condemns
itself, and that the Christian world ' securus judicat ' that
such pretensions are unfounded.
But in this matter the Donatist party, not the orthodox,
are the true antitypes of the Church of Rome. That Church,
like these African schismatics of old, endeavours to cast out
of the Church of Christ all who will not bind themselves in
close alliance with her ; and the body which she would fain
exclude is in the number of its adherents, and the extent of
territory which they occupy, far more considerable than that
to which Augustine gave the title ' orbis terrarum.' If there
be weight in the maxim which has been made out of Au
gustine's words, we may rely on our numbers, and securely
smile at the pretension to unchurch us. But certainly we
repudiate Augustine's words when severed from their context,
and converted into a rule that numbers constitute a trust
worthy test of truth, and that a body so large as to be able
fairly to call itself ' orbis terrarum ' can be guilty of no error.
How would such a rule have worked in the days when
Athanasius was alone against the world, when the violence
of the Arian hurricane carried the Pope Liberius away,
when a Council twice as large as the Nicene omitted ' homo-
ousios ' from their creed, and, in the words of Jerome, the
whole world groaned in surprise to find itself Arian ? ' In-
gemuit orbis terrarum et Arianum se esse miratus est.' Nay,
how would such a rule have worked when the first preachers
of Christianity went forth to arraign the superstitions of the
whole world, attacking beliefs of immemorial antiquity, and
supported by Catholic consent ? — for it was generally held
that under different names all nations agreed in worshipping
the same divinities. Even at the present day can the Chris
tian religion bear to have its truth submitted to the test of
numbers, and can it permit its claim to be set aside if it can
be proved that the number of its adherents (counting all the

2 68 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
-different sects into which Christianity is divided) is surpassed
by the number of those who either are ignorant of Chris
tianity or reject it ? I know no Scripture warrant for assert
ing that the broad path along which the many go must be
the safe one, or that, either in religious matters or in temporal,
men can be sure of not going wrong, provided only that, like
sheep, they stick together.
Perhaps it may be objected that I am here leaving out of
sight Christ's promises to His Church that He would be with
her always, and that the gates of Hades should not prevail
against her. I grant that Protestant controversialists have
often contradicted these texts in the violence of their language
against Rome. They have represented her as so wholly
corrupt as to have lost the very being of a Church, and so
that salvation in her is practically impossible. According to
this theory, then, it must be owned that the gates of Hades
did prevail against the Church for some centuries before the
Reformation ; since for so long a time grievous corruptions
had infected Christian teaching ; and it is sought, with very
imperfect success, to trace through some obscure heretics a
succession of witnesses to the truth. Overwrought descrip
tions of the corruptions of the Roman Church not uncom
monly produce a reaction in her favour. The historical
student, in studying the history of the mediaeval Church, may
perhaps discover that the witnesses to Protestant truth are
comparatively few and broken, leaving great gaps in the
tradition : possibly he may find that some whom he might
have been disposed to claim as on his side turn out, on
closer acquaintance, not to have been as estimable as he had
imagined, and either to have been immoral in their lives, or
to have denied some doctrines which he regards as of the
essence of the Christian faith. Perhaps it may be possible
to produce on the side of the established Church, at the same
date, some men whose writings show their love to Christ, and
their firm grasp of some of the fundamental truths of the
Gospel, or whose lives prove them to have been animated by
the sincerest Christian charity. Then it often happens that
the student wheels round and expresses his conviction that it

xv.J CLAIM OF INFALLIBILITY ACQUIESCED IN. 269
was not the heretics but the established clergy who consti
tuted the true Church at the time, and consequently that it is
the latter whose teaching is to be accepted as true.
It is astonishing how, even in the minds of Protestants,
infallibility has come to be regarded as an essential attribute
of the Church, so that they think that if they acknowledge
the Church exists at all, they must acknowledge that all she
teaches is true, just as if one might not be a very good and
pious man, and yet hold many erroneous opinions ; or as if,
on the other hand, a man might not get correct hold of certain
true and important principles, and yet push them to unwar
rantable extremes, and draw erroneous conclusions from them.
For my part, as a candid disputant, I have not the least
desire to shut my eyes to anything in the Roman Church
that is really good. All I say is, that what I own to be good
has its roots not in those things which I stigmatize as cor
ruptions, but in those principles which Roman Catholics hold
in common with us, especially the great principle of love to
our blessed Lord. When once the acknowledgment has been
made that the fact that a man's having errors in his system of
doctrine does not prove that he has ceased to retain the es
sence of the faith, the whole argument breaks down which is
founded on God's promises to His Church. Granted that we
have the assurance that the being of the Church will not be
overthrown, nor her main doctrines lost, nor salvation in her
become impossible, where is the assurance that if Christians
attempt to determine a number of speculative points, by no
means essential to the faith, the majority of them will arrive
at infallibly certain conclusions ? Nay, where is the assur
ance that no humanly-devised additions will crust over and
obscure the deposit of truth which is retained ? According
to our view of the progress of Christianity in the world, we
may liken it to a stream first breaking forth in crystal purity
from its native source, but as its waters are swelled by
many a tributary, and as it flows through many a land, dis
coloured by taints derived from the soils through which it
passes ; yet, even after it has lost its first purity and bright
ness, still able to confer many blessings on the countries

270 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
which it fertilizes, while nevertheless they who drink of it at
a distance from its source find it not superfluous to filter
away its accumulated defilements, and so restore it to its
original brightness. Now how is such a view as this affected
by any considerations which make it reasonable to believe
that the waters of the river will never cease to flow ?
When we actually study Church history we see that there
were many causes in operation having a tendency to intro
duce into the stream of Christian teaching the defilements of
which I have spoken. There was the influx of heathen into
the Church, bringing with them their own systems of phi
losophy, and applying them to their new faith ; there was
the desire to conciliate prejudice by the softening of what
in Christianity might give offence ; and there were, finally,
principles of fallen human nature itself, ever seeking to be
gratified, and having thus a tendency to corrupt what had
been committed to it. No one now ventures to deny that the
tone of Church teaching has not been uniformly the same
from age to age : doctrines assume importance which in
former times were little dwelt on, and in many cases what
was at first conjecture or pious opinion passes by degrees
into a fixed and unquestioned article of belief. This fact of
gradual growth, not to say alteration of doctrine, which was
long vainly denied by Roman Catholic advocates, is now
generally admitted by them, and a power is claimed for the
Church, not indeed of publishing revelations of totally new
doctrine, and proposing them for articles of faith, but at least
of developing old doctrines, and drawing from them con
sequences unsuspected by those who held them in former
generations. This theory sets aside completely the old Roman Catholic
rule of Scripture and tradition. It gives up tradition ; and
it must in consistency abandon as completely irrational that
respect for the Fathers, which even still distinguishes
uneducated Romanists from uneducated Protestants. In
earthly science Lord Bacon pointed out that the fathers
were the children. If we think an old man likely to be wiser
than a young one, it is because he has had so much more

xv.J THE DOCTRINE OF DEVELOPMENT. 27 1
experience, and is likely to know many things of which the
young man is ignorant. But the world is older now than it
ever was. To ask us to defer to the opinion of men who lived
two centuries ago, and who consequently were ignorant of all
that the world has learned in the last two hundred years, is
as absurd as to ask a trained philosopher to defer to the
opinion of a youth just commencing his studies. And if the
theory of the development of Christian doctrine be true, the
same rule exactly ought to hold with regard to religious
truth ; and a Romanist cannot consistently censure a Pro
testant if he thinks Luther and Calvin teachers likely to be
twelve centuries wiser than Chrysostom and Augustine. But
if in the theory of Development the Fathers lose all claims to
respect, it is still worse with Scripture : the Fathers may
have been but children, but the Apostles were only infants.
They lived when the Church had but just come into being,
and before it had learned all that the Holy Spirit has taught
it in the course of nineteen centuries. If so, it ought to be only
for curiosity that we need look into books written in the very
infancy of the Church ; and to seek for our system of Chris
tian doctrine in the Bible would be as absurd as to try to
learn the differential calculus from the writings of Archimedes.
In other words, the theory of Development, as taught by Car
dinal Newman, substantially abandons the claims of Chris
tianity to be regarded as a supernatural revelation which is
likely to be preserved in most purity by those who lived
nearest to the times when it was given.
And yet there is such a thing as a real development of
Christian doctrine. We acknowledge that all the precious
truth of Scripture does not lie on the surface, and that con
tinuous study applied to the Bible, by holy men who have
sought for the aid of God's Spirit, does elicit much that might
have escaped a hasty reader, but which, when once pointed
out, remains for the instruction of future generations. But
we draw a distinction between things essential to salvation
and things true, but not necessary. The way of salvation
does not alter from age to age; those truths which were
effectual for the salvation of souls in the second or third

272 THE GALLICAN THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY, [xv.
century are sufficient for salvation still. We hold that,
therefore, a Church takes a step unjustifiable, and which
must lead to schism, if she imposes new articles of faith to
be held of necessity for salvation which were unknown to
the Church of past times.
Again, there is a development of Christian doctrine due
to the increase of human philosophy and learning. It is im
possible to prevent these from playing their part in modifying
our way of understanding the Bible. For instance, in the
case which has already come before us, that of Galileo, we
see that the progress of astronomical knowledge not only
modified the manner in which texts of Scripture were under
stood which seemed to teach the immobility of the earth, but
also made Christians understand that God, who does not work
miracles to do for men what He intended them to learn to do
for themselves, did not mean the Bible as a supernatural
revelation of the truths of astronomy or other sciences, but
left the attainment of knowledge of this kind to stimulate
and reward the exercise of men's natural powers.
Well, when it is agreed on all hands that the Church of
one age may be on several points wiser than the Church of a
preceding age, the Gallican theory of infallibility at once
breaks down. According to that theory it is consistent with
God's promises to His Church that disputes, and conse
quently that uncertainty, on several important points of
doctrine, should prevail for a considerable time; only it is
maintained that when once the majority of Christians have
agreed in a conclusion about them, that conclusion must
never afterwards be called in question. But why not, if
the Church has in the meantime become wiser ? If God,
without injustice and without danger to men's souls, can
leave many of His people for a considerable time imperfectly
informed, and even in erroneous opinion as to certain doc
trines, what improbability is there that He may have left a
whole generation imperfectly or erroneously informed on the
same subject, and reserved the perception of the complete
truth for their successors ?
Before concluding this part of the subject I ought to say

xv.J DR. PUSEY'S THEORY OF INFALLIBILITY. 273
a few words as to Dr. Pusey's theory of infallibility, which
substantially agrees with that I 4iave just examined, which
places it in the Church diffusive. Dr. Pusey could find no
language too strong to condemn the principle of private
judgment, and was heartily willing to submit his own judg
ment to that of the Church ; only it must be the united
Church. If the whole Church agree in any statement of doc
trine that must be infallibly certain. But unhappily, for the
last twelve centuries the Church has been rent by schism,
and does not agree with itself in its utterances. All that was
decreed before the great schism between East and West is
undoubtedly true, and no individual dare re-open these ques
tions ; and if now the Roman, Greek, and Anglican com
munions (for to these Dr. Pusey limited the Church) could be
united again, the gift of infallibility would revive ; but in the
Church's present disunited condition the gift is dormant. I
am not prepared to say that this is not a legitimate extension
of the Gallican theory, for if universal consent is necessary
to the propounding of an infallible decision, how can that
condition be said to be satisfied when full half the company
of baptized Christians dissent ? But Pusey's Roman Catholic
critics have seen very clearly that his theory is a reductio ad
dbsurdum of the proof of the existence of an infallible guide.
Most persons would agree that if God saw it to be necessary
to bestow on His Church the gift of infallibility for several
hundred years, it is likely she has the gift still ; and, con
versely, it is easier to believe that the gift was never bestowed
than that it was given on such conditions that the exercise
of it has proved for more than a thousand years to be prac
tically impossible. One of Dr. Pusey's Roman Catholic
critics says, very reasonably from his point of view, ' To say
that the Church has practically ceased to be infallible for
twelve centuries out of eighteen, is to say that the Holy
Ghost has failed of His mission during two-thirds of the life
time of the Church which He was by Divine promise to lead
into all truth.'* * Harper, Peace through the Truth, 1. lxi.

XVI.
GENERAL COUNCILS.

Part I.
I COME to-day to speak of that theory which makes
General Councils the main organ of the Church's in
fallibility, a theory of historic interest, but which now is
rapidly becoming obsolete. In fact the general arguments
for the necessity of an infallible judge to determine contro
versies are not satisfied by such a judge as a Council, since
that judge is not always at hand, there having been whole
centuries without Councils ; while the mode of settling dis
putes by consulting the decisions of past Councils is liable to
the same objections as that by consulting the Scriptures, with
the additional objection that the former are so much more
voluminous. In the Roman Church at present there is so
little disposition unduly to exalt the authority of Councils,
that the topics which come before us to-day may almost be
said to be no part of the Roman Catholic controversy, the
greater part of all I wish to assert being not now contro
verted. The dispute in the Roman Church, concerning the
organ of the Church's Infallibility, has had the natural
effect that those who claim that prerogative for the Pope,
and whose ascendency was completely established at the
Vatican Council of 1870, have been quite as anxious as we
can be, that no rival claim for Councils shall be allowed
to establish itself. Consequently, when I shall presently
produce evidence that even those Councils, to whose decisions
we cordially assent, were composed of frail and fallible men ;
that the proceedings of some of them were conducted in a
way that does not command our respect, and that the ulti
mate triumph of orthodoxy was due to other causes besides

xvi.J LOCAL COUNCILS. 275
the decisions of these Councils, I am trying to prove no more
than has been asserted by eminent Roman Catholic divines,
as, for example, by Cardinal Newman. But it would not
be safe to take quite silent possession of territory which
our adversaries have evacuated only in comparatively recent
times ; and it is necessary to give some examination to the
claims of Councils, because it was to these venerable bodies
that the attribute of infallibility first attached itself ; and in
the early stages of the Reformation those who resisted the
authority of the Pope declared themselves willing to submit
to the authority of a General Council freely assembled.
Local Councils. — Local Councils took their origin almost
inevitably, as you will easily see, from the fact that Chris
tian Churches in different towns regarded themselves as
all belonging to one great society. We know that in
apostolic times a Church would separate from her com
munion a member who had disgraced himself by immorality
of a scandalous kind ; so in like manner would one be
rejected who denied the fundamental doctrines of the Chris
tian faith. Now in modern times excommunication has
ceased to be an effective penalty, on account of the want
of harmonious action between the different bodies into which
Christendom is divided. If a man is put out of commu
nion by one body, he finds quite a welcome reception in
another. It was not so in the early Church. A Christian
migrating from one town to another had only to take with
him credentials from his original Church, and he was re
ceived on equal terms in his new abode. But one whom
his own Church censured found the doors of other Churches
also closed to him until those censures had been withdrawn.
This mutual recognition' of each other's acts made it neces
sary that one Church should be permitted to review the acts
of another. If a bishop were arbitrary and wrong-headed,
and excommunicated an innocent man, it were surely un
reasonable if no redress were possible ; and a Church could
scarcely insist on keeping out of communion a man elsewhere
condemned for false doctrine, without investigating his case,
if he protested that he was perfectly orthodox, and that it
T 2

276 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
was the bishop who had censured him whose views were
eccentric. My belief is, that it was the review of excom
munications for ratification or rejection which constituted
the chief business of the Councils of neighbouring bishops,
which we know to have met periodically in very early
times. One of the most interesting examples I know of an at
tempt, by means of local Councils, to collect the opinion of the
universal Church, was in the case of the Quartodeciman con
troversy at the end of the second century. You all, no doubt,
know how the attempt of Victor of Rome to put the Asiatic
Churches out of the communion of the Church universal was
frustrated by the resistance of Irenaeus. There is reason to
think that Victor did not move in this matter without pro
vocation. Churches distant from each other might celebrate
Easter on different days without serious inconvenience ; but
it would evidently be intolerable if some members of a Church
made it a matter of conscience to refuse to conform to the
prescribed rule of that Church, and insisted on holding their
feast, while their brethren around were still keeping the pre
liminary fast. I consider that it was the schismatical attempt
of a presbyter, Blastus, thus to force Quartodecimanism on
the Church of Rome, which moved Victor to endeavour to
put an end to diversity of practice. Now it is important that
you should know that Victor did not make his attempt with
out first writing to the leading bishops in different parts of
the Christian world, asking them to report to him the practice
of their Church ;* and it was only when he had thus obtained
evidence that the Asiatic Quartodecimanism was a mere local
custom, and that the practice of the rest of the Christian
world was to keep Easter on the Sunday, that he thought
himself strong enough to call on the dissentients to conform
or be excommunicated.
Obviously it was only by a number of separate Councils
that the opinion of the collective episcopate could be ascer
tained in heathen times. The collection into one city of such
a representation of the Christian episcopate as was assembled
* This appears from the letter of Polycrates (Euseb. H, E. v. 27).

xvi.J EVIL RESULT OF EXCESSIVE CLAIMS. 277
under the Christian emperors would, in heathen times, have
been a challenge for persecution ; and even if the meeting
had been safe, a majority of the bishops could not have borne
the expense of the long journey. When Constantine after
wards gathered all the bishops to Niceea, he had them con
veyed free of charge, putting all the posting resources of the
Empire at their disposal.
General Councils. — Coming now to speak of General
Councils, I feel it to be a disagreeable thing that the ex
travagant claims made by our adversaries for both Popes
and Councils force me to dwell on the frailties and im
perfections of what is on the whole entitled to the respect
and gratitude of the Church. It is a disagreeable thing
when a man for whom you have on many grounds respect
and liking is proposed with extravagant laudations as a
candidate for a situation for which you believe him to be
totally unfit. If it is impossible for you to acquiesce, the mis
taken zeal of his friends may then force you to give proof of
his unfitness, by stating things over which, if you might, you
would gladly have cast a veil. It would be a disgrace to
Christianity if the bishops of its principal see did not include
among them many men of piety, learning, and zeal, who had
done much benefit to the Church. Much rather would I dwell
on the services bishops of Rome have rendered to the Church,
than on the frailties, immoralities, or heresies which have
disfigured that chair ; but when Rome is made the hinge on
which the whole Church turns — the rock on which it rests —
then it is necessary to give proof that Rome has not strength
to bear the weight which it is proposed to lay upon it.
Similarly I should be glad to dwell altogether on the services
rendered by Councils to the Church; but when claims are
made for the authority of Councils to which they have no
pretensions, we are forced to give evidence how unfounded
these claims are. It is no pleasure to me to bring before you
the proofs that those who took part in the early Councils were
men of like passions with ourselves. Many of them, I doubt
not, were holy men ; several of them learned and wise men.
When they met together in assemblies there was good reason

278 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
for thinking that the blessing of God would rest on their de
liberations. He has promised to them that ask Him His Spirit
to guide them into truth ; and He has made a special promise
to prayer offered where two or three are assembled in His
name. Experience, however, has taught us that two men,
both of whom pray for the Spirit's guidance, will often arrive
at opposite conclusions — a fact which may be explained, first,
by the human passions, from which even the best are not free,
and which cannot but affect the correctness of the conclusions
arrived at by those whose breasts they stir (for it is not won
derful that the Holy Spirit should not completely clear from
error the minds of those whose hearts He does not completely
clear from sin) ; and, secondly, by the fact that the disagree
ments of which I speak often relate to matters which, however
important they may appear to the disputants, we may well be
lieve do not affect the essentials of the Faith. Thus, we who,
when an assembly of ourselves meet together to consult on
questions affecting the interests of the Church, invoke God's
Spirit to assist our deliberations, and expect to receive a real
answer to our prayers, need not hesitate to believe that the
prayers made for His presence with the Fathers at the early
Councils were not made in vain. Yet, as we do not expect
any such assembly of our own to be free from error, so we
hold that even the most venerable assembly of former times
consisted of imperfect men, who were collectively as well as
individually fallible. Nor have we any reason to suppose
that their deliberations were unaffected by perturbations of
human passions.
With regard to such exhibitions of human passion, I
may quote the apology made in the Tablet (R. C. news
paper) for some stormy scenes at the Vatican Council in
1870. It said : 'The human element comes out so strongly
in some of the Fathers that a sensitive J and unwise or
thoughtless spectator might easily be shocked and scan
dalized. We ought to be in no way astonished if angry
expressions, sharp comments, unworthy plans, and vexatious
agitations did from time to time betray the passions to which
human nature is subject. If this were ten times] worse than

xvi.J THE VALUE OF COUNCILS AS WITNESSES. 279
it is, it would probably be less than many of the most
important early Councils have witnessed.'
What is here said of the display of human passions at
early Councils is no more than the truth ; but this does
not at all affect the real value of the transactions of these
bodies. This value I hold to be, not any special infal
libility attaching to their decisions, but the witness they
bear to the belief of the Church of their day. At Nicaea, for
instance, we are told that Constantine's first act was to burn
unread the mutually accusatory libelli of the bishops. And
when we read further, in praise of the orthodoxy of the Fathers,
that they stopped their ears and refused to listen to the blas
phemy of Arius, an Arian might conclude that his master had
got no fair hearing. But if the Nicene Fathers are on that
account entitled to the less respect as judges, they are all the
better witnesses. Imagine an assembly of the English clergy
called after the publication of Bishop Colenso's book : who
can doubt that there would be much violence and clamour ;
that many would condemn without having read ; that many
would be incompetent from want of learning to form an
opinion of much value ? Yet, however unjudicial all this
might be, it would put beyond controversy that the opinions
condemned were novelties repudiated, and felt to be in the
highest degree offensive, by the bulk of the English clergy,
And so the Nicene Council has done us the inestimable ser
vice of showing beyond controversy that, at the beginning of
the fourth century, the denial of our Lord's co-eternity with
the Father was regarded as an offensive novelty. The voice
of an overwhelming majority of a body, very well entitled to
represent the Church of the time, gives us a compendious
assurance of their sentiments, which would be ill replaced by
the results of searching and weighing the sentiments oi indi
vidual writers. The function of Councils at any time in wit
nessing to the opinion of the Church at that time is most
important ; and if we value the earlier Councils more than
the later, it is because, as we hold that the Christian truth is
to be attained not by a new revelation, but by handing down
faithfully the old revelation, it is far more important for us to

280 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
know what was believed in the early Church than in the
later. But, indeed, belief in the infallibility of Councils can
hardly be held by anyone who has studied the history of
Councils, and who knows anything of their violence and party
spirit, and of the bad arguments on the strength of which
many of their infallible conclusions were arrived at. Any
proofs of these that I could lay before you could scarcely
establish more than is acknowledged by Romanist writers.
Cardinal Manning fairly gives up the attempt to defend the
goodness of the arguments used at Councils, and declares
that the Holy Spirit only guarantees the truth of the con
clusion arrived at, while for the arguments which led to that
conclusion only the individual speakers are responsible. And
he quotes to this effect a dictum of St. Francis de Sales, that
the arguments take place only in the porch, the final decision
in the sanctuary.* This dictum appears to me to put a severe
strain on the faith of those who receive it. We might accept
the pretensions of a professional accountant without dream
ing of examining his work. But if we heard him performing
his additions by the process, six and four are eleven, and five
are thirteen, and seven are twenty-four, how could our belief
in him be restored ? Who would have the face to say, It is
true not a single column in my preliminary calculations is
added correctly, but you may rely implicitly that I never fail
somehow or another to bring out the correct sum total ?
The Nicene Council. — Let me say something now about
the history of those first four General Councils, the conclu
sions arrived at in which we ourselves accept. And first I
speak about the Nicene.
Constantine, you may remember, at first tried to silence
the Arian disputes as about a subject too trifling to be worthy
of serious controversy. If this surprise you, you must re
member that Arius was far indeed from teaching that the
Saviour was mere man. He may almost be said not to have
denied His divinity, since he had no scruple in applying to
Him the name God, and in offering Him worship. He owned
* Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost, p. 116.

xvi. J THE VIEWS OF ARIUS. 281
Him to be ' the Word which was with God from the begin
ning, and which was God,' the ' Wisdom of the Father ' (de
scribed in Proverbs viii.), before all creatures, and through
whom God made the worlds. His point, however, was, that
as any son must be posterior to his father, so the name Son,
applied to our Lord, indicated that He was not, like the
Father, from all eternity ; but that there was — he would not
say a time when the Son was not, for he owned Him to be
anterior to all time — but at least that there was when the Son
was not. You can conceive then that Constantine, at the
time not a baptized Christian, and as a politician anxious
above everything for the peace of his Empire, should be im
patient of a dispute in which the Christian bishops made
themselves angry about, as he thought, mere metaphysical
subtleties. When, however, he could not find a hearing for
his pacific exhortations, he devised the magnificent plan of
assembling all the bishops of Christendom, and obtaining
their verdict on the point in dispute. Thus peace would be
restored by a decision which no one would be so bold as to
resist. I may anticipate the next branch of our subject, to point
out how this history proves that the idea of the infallibility of
the Bishop of Rome had not then entered any Eastern per
son's head. If to consult the Bishop of Rome would have
sufficed, his opinion could have been had with little expense
or trouble. The history of the next century or two presents a
constant succession of councils. A heathen writer complains
that the whole posting system of the empire was deranged
through its being constantly occupied by bishops hastening
to councils.* Why, at so much cost and labour, bring a num
ber of fallible men together, if one infallible man could have
* I refer above to what is said by Ammianus Marcellinus in his estimate of the
character of Constantius at the end of Book 21. I quote the passage in full because
it illustrates how educated heathen were repelled from Christianity by the spectacle
of bitter dissensions among Christians: 'Christianam religionem absolutam et sim-
plicem, anili superstitione confundens ; in qua scrutanda perplexius quam compo-
nenda gravius, excitavit plurima discidia, quae progressa fusius aluit concertatione
verborum ; ut catervis antistitum jumentis publicis ultro citroque discurrentibus per
synodos, quas appellant, dum ritum omnem ad suum trahere conantur arbitrium, rei

282 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
settled the whole question in his closet ? From the modern
Roman point of view Dr. Newman is right in the difficulty
he finds in seeing that the third General Council was at all
necessary. See his Essay on Theodoret, Historical Sketches,
ii. 347-349 : ' What could be stronger than a decision at
Rome followed by the assent to it of the Catholic world?'
He thinks (p. 336) that ' Cyril and Theodoret would have
been happier had they kept at home and settled the points
in dispute, as they began them, with theological treatises,
dispensing with hostile camps, party votings, and coercive
acts. Their controversies, I know, were on vital subjects,
the settlement of them was essential, and in settling them
the Church was infallible ; but in matter of fact and after all
they were carried on to their irreversible issue by the Pope
and the civil power, not by the Council to which they were
submitted.' This represents a modern judgment ; but in the
fourth century a 'decision at Rome' was not sufficient to
secure the ' assent to it of the Catholic world.' Constantine
had had experience in the Donatist controversy (into the
details of which I need not enter at present) that the decision
of the Roman bishop would not be accepted as final ; for, if
it had failed to settle a purely Western dispute, what proba
bility was there that it would be owned as decisive by con
tending Easterns ? Nor can I find any trace that at this stage
of the dispute the Pope was consulted at all. Certainly there
is no foundation for the assertion of a few of the less scru
pulous Romanists, that it was the Pope who summoned the
vehiculariae succideret nervos.' The serious cost of a Synod to the public revenue
is further illustrated by the fact that when Pope Liberius was anxious that the charge
against Athanasius should be investigated, not in the West, where Constantius was
thinking of holding a Council, but at Alexandria, where the alleged offences were
said to have occurred ; with the view of making his plan more acceptable to the
Emperor, he proposed that the bishops should travel to Alexandria, not at the public
expense, but each at his own proper cost (Sozom. H.E. iv. n). It seems to me
likely that Liberius had the idea that if any such order were made, the bishops would
be willing to sign an acquittal of Athanasius without taking the journey. But one
thing is clear, that if the Emperor's authority was necessary for a journey to be made
by bishops at their own cost and by desire of the Bishop of Rome, it was not pos
sible in those days for the Bishop of Rome to ' gather a General Council together
without the commandment and will of Princes.1

xvi.J GOOD SERVICE DONE BY NICENE COUNCIL. 283
Nicene Council.* The bringing it together was entirely the
Emperor's idea. The Pope got his summons like other
bishops, but being too old and infirm to obey in person,
sent two of his presbyters to represent him. This acci
dent made a precedent which his successors followed, as
if it were beneath the dignity of the Pope to journey to a
Council. Now, certainly, I have not the least desire to detract from
the respect to which the verdict of so venerable a meeting of
bishops is entitled. It was such a representative assembly as
the world up to that time had never seen. It brought together
men from the most remote parts of the world. There were
many there who could show in their bodies signs of their suf
ferings for the Faith ; for it was not more than some twenty
years since the terrible Diocletian persecution, under which
many suffered imprisonment or tortures, who survived to tell
at Nicaea what was the faith which they had confessed.
And the memory of that Council deserves to be kept in
honour for the good service it did in repelling an assault
which struck at the very life of our religion. For I verily
believe that Christianity would now be extinct if the Arian
had been adopted as its authorized form. How many Arians
are there now ? There are many now who refuse to believe
that our Blessed Lord is ' of one substance with the Father ' ;
but I doubt if there are in all the world a score of these who
would be willing to hold what amounts to Ditheism, acknow
ledging our Lord as a kind of inferior divinity, pre-existent
before all worlds, but though thus the oldest and highest of
creatures, still no more than a creature.
Nor is the respect which we owe that Council liable, as in
the case of some later Councils, to deduction on account of
turbulence in its proceedings. Our information, indeed, is
but scanty. No official acts have been preserved, as they
* The earliest authority I can find for it is nearly four centuries after the event,
namely, the sixth General Council in 680 (Mansi, Concil., xi. 661). It is to be noted,
however, that though, according to Roman theory, the office of convoking a General
Council properly belongs to the Pope, yet a Council otherwise convoked may be re
cognized as general, provided the Pope have given his consent to the convocation
previously, or even afterwards (Bellarmine, De Conciliis et Ecclesia, i. 12).

284 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
have in the case of later councils ; and there is not only no
official record, but no authentic report of the proceedings.
We do not even know with any certainty who presided
over the deliberations. Eusebius, the historian to whom we
owe so much of our knowledge of the early Church, was
present, and, if he could have known how grateful after ages
would have been for it, perhaps might have left us a detailed
account of what went on. But he had no reason to be proud
of his own share in the proceedings of a Council where his
opinion was overruled. Though not an Arian himself, he
was not in favour of the measures taken for the exclusion of
the Arians ; and he presented to the Council for adoption the
creed of his own Church, Caesarea, which was one which the
Arians could have signed. So Eusebius in the end found
himself obliged to sign a formula drawn up in opposition to
his judgment. The consequence was that he did not care to
write the history of the Council, and his silence is ill sup
plemented by other sources. One of the best of these is
found in the writings of Athanasius; and I should by no
means venture to say that that Father's defence of the truth
was untinged by human passion, or that he shows himself
likely to have put any very charitable construction on the
sayings of one whom he regarded as a dangerous heretic, by
all means to be banished from the Church.
One little passage from Athanasius* gives an interesting
glimpse how the orthodox found phrase after phrase which
they had devised, insufficient to exclude their adversaries.
The Arians were overheard consulting with each other, and
coming to the conclusion that they could agree to apply to
the Son each successively proposed title of honour ; being
always however ready with a text of Scripture in which the
same title is applied to a creature. I will repeat one as a
puzzle for you. When it was proposed to predicate eternity
of the Son, that too they thought might be conceded, be
cause it is said of ourselves, ' we which are alive are always '
— 'Ae! yap 17/iEte ol Zuvrtg. Can you tell where these words
are to be found ? f
* De decret. Nic. S-yn. c. 21. t 2 Cor. iv. 11.

xvi. J THE TERM HOMOOUSIOS. 285
Another phrase deserves a little more comment. The
Arians would own the Son to be God of God. I have said
that they had no objection to give Him the title God ; and as
for the description • of God,' they said, we are all of God,
quoting the text, ' all things are of God.' Now there is an
ambiguity about the English preposition ' of,' of which you
ought to be aware. When we say ' man was made of the dust
of the earth,' you cannot mistake the meaning. Now the Son
was 'begotten, not made.' But when we say ' begotten of the
Father,' we are apt to understand the word 'of in quite a dif
ferent sense, as equivalent merely to ' by.' In the fourth cen
tury it was inquired of what was the Son in the other sense
of the word, a question which the English language is almost
too coarse to state. One does not like to put it in the form,
From what materials was the substance of the Son derived ?
It could not be from any created substance, for it was owned
on all hands that the Son was antecedent to all creation.
The more thorough-going Arians answered, ' since nothing"
was before the Son, the Son was of nothing ' — l£ ovk ovtwv —
whence they were called Exucontians. The answer embodied
in the Creed of the Council was that the Son was of the sub
stance of the Father ; and in like manner they insisted that
the Son was of the same substance with the Father. Leading
Arians had already committed themselves to the rejection of
this word ' Homoousios,' and by the adoption of it the ortho
dox found what they were in search of — a test term which
would have the effect of excluding Arius .and his party from
the Church.
Whether or not it was practically wise to be satisfied
with nothing which would not bring about this result, even
we who live after the event find it hard to answer with cer
tainty. We know all the evils which resulted from the course
of action actually adopted : what would have followed from
the opposite course it is not so easy to say. Our own ex
perience tells us that theological opinions are apt so to shade
off into one another, that it is difficult to put out of communion
even men whose opinions seem to us clearly outside the per
missible limits, without wounding the sympathies of others

286 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
whom we have no desire to disturb or offend. It was so in
this Arian controversy. There were a number of thoroughly
orthodox men who took deep offence at a non-scriptural word
being made essential to communion. There was a further
objection to this word that it had been disapproved of at the
Council of Antioch, in 264, which condemned Paul of Samo-
sata. Paul had argued that the Father and Son being of the
same substance, this common substance must be looked on
as a third thing antecedent to both Father and Son ; and the
orthodox then were content to allow this reason against the
use of the word to prevail. The advocates for the doctrine
of Development appeal to this instance of a word, condemned
at a Council of great weight, being afterwards approved at
a still greater Council ; but it is absurd to treat as a case of
development of doctrine what is really only an example of
change as to the use of a word. We need no special theory
to explain the fact that the Church, while retaining the same
doctrine, may vary the language in which she propounds it,
according as words, limited to no special sense by Scripture,
come in the course of time to be differently understood.
What I have said as to there being a number of men,
themselves quite orthodox, who disapproved of the measures
taken to exclude Arius, may in part account for the unex
pected vicissitudes of the Arian controversy. Arius had less
than a score of bishops to take his side at Nicaea ; and we
might imagine that after he had been condemned by an
assembly of bishops, unprecedented in numbers and weight
of dignity, and after the Emperor had backed with all his
might the decrees of the Council, treating Arius as no better
than a heathen, and condescending even to comments on his
personal appearance — it might have been expected, I say,
that the heresy would be completely suppressed. Quite the
contrary proved to be the case. It is difficult to imagine
that if Alexandria had been presided over by the most lati-
tudinarian of bishops, who should have permitted Arius to
propagate his doctrines with the utmost impunity, they would
ever have won so many converts, or gained such influence in
the Christian world, as were obtained after so formal a con-

xvi.J WHY WE ACCEPT THE NICENE DECREES. 287
demnation. The Church's history for the next fifty years
presents a spectacle of convulsive struggling, with alternate
success : Council after Council meeting ; one of about twice
the numbers of the Nicene setting aside its decisions ; Atha
nasius sometimes in exile, sometimes flying for his life ;
Arianism become the creed of the whole nation of the Goths.
A little before the meeting of the second General Council,
when Gregory Nazianzen came to Constantinople as a kind
of apostle of orthodoxy, it was with difficulty he could find a
single church in which to deliver his sermons.
The interest of the subject has led me to say more about
the Nicene Council than is strictly relevant to the contro
versy with Roman Catholics, which is this Term's work ; but
the point I want to bring out is this : If any Council can
claim infallible authority it is the Nicene. Rather more than
a century after its date the Council of Chalcedon declared,
' We will neither allow ourselves nor others to transgress by
a syllable what our fathers at Nicaea have resolved ; remem
bering the command, " remove not the landmarks which thy
fathers have placed," for it was not they that spake there, but
the Spirit of God Himself A like position of honour was
conceded, when time had made them venerable, to all the first
four General Councils. The Emperor Justinian decreed that
the decisions of these four Councils should have the force of
laws, adding, ' we receive the dogmas of these four Synods
as the sacred Scriptures.' Pope Gregory the Great says that
he venerates these four as the four Gospels, and describes
them as the four-square stone on which the structure of faith
rests* Yet the hard struggle each of these Councils had to
make, and the number of years which the struggle lasted
before its decrees obtained general acceptance, show that
they obtained their authority because of the truth which they
* ' Sicut sancti Evangelii quatuor libros, sic quatuor Concilia suscipere et venerari
me fateor .... quia in his velut in quadrato lapide, sancta fidei structura consurgit '
(Epist. i. 25, adjohan. Episc. Const.). Gregory's words, quoted in the text, have
suggested to a much respected writer an unwarranted inference, ' Gregory evidently
considering these four as far more important than those which followed them.' I must
therefore note that Gregory goes on to say, ' Quintum quoque concihum pariter
veneror.' The sixth General Council did not take place till after his death.

288 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
declared, and it was not because of their authority that the
decrees were recognized as true.
Euclid is recognized as an authority because all the pro
positions which he enunciates are true, and are capable
of being proved ; and it is not that he was recognized as
infallible, and that it was thence inferred that his propositions
were true. If anyone should hereafter put forward a theory
that in matters of science there is always an infallible guide;
that at one time it was Euclid, a couple of hundred years
ago it was Sir Isaac Newton, while in our age it was Mr.
Darwin ; no evidence that our age knew nothing of such a
doctrine would be needed beyond the fact that Mr. Darwin's
theories, even supposing they afterwards come to be univer
sally received, did not gain their acceptance until after long
years of controversy. The way to see whether anyone is
recognized as a judge is to observe how parties behave after
the judge speaks. If they go on disputing the same as before,
it is plain enough that his authority is not acknowledged.
And so the fact that we ourselves believe the doctrine of
Nicaea to be true does not set aside the fact that general
acknowledgment of its truth was not obtained until after
hot and violent controversies, which lasted longer than the
average lifetime of a man.
And so it was no point of faith in the early Church to re
ceive these Councils as infallible. The deniers of their dogmas
were met by tendering to them the proof, which is the proper
evidence of them. Thus Augustine, in a well-known passage,
reasoning with Maximinus the Arian, when the authority of
the Council of Nicaea had been cited for the Homoousion, and
that of Ariminum against it, says, ' I must not press the
authority of Nicaea against you, nor you that of Ariminum
against me ; I do not acknowledge the one, as you do not
the other ; but let us come to ground that is common to both —
the testimony of the Holy Scriptures.'* It would thus appear
* 'Sed nunc nee egoNicaenum, nee tu debes Ariminense, tanquam praejudicaturus,
proferre concilium. Nee ego hujus auctoritate, nee tu illius detineris. Scripturarum
auctoritatibus, non quorumque propriis, sed utrisque communibus testibus, res cum
re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione concertet ' (August. Cont. Maximin. Arian.
ii. 14, vol. viii. 704).

HOW THE ENGLISH CHURCH ACCEPTS COUNCILS. 289
that it was not a point of faith to acknowledge the infalli
bility of Councils, as it is to acknowledge the authority of
Scripture ; but that the decisions of the Councils were re
ceived because they could be proved from Scripture.
On these grounds our own Church is commonly said to
have received the first four Councils. Thus, Jeremy Taylor
says [Dissuasive, Part IL, Book i., § i. 4), 'The Church of
England receives the four first generals as of the highest
regard, not that they are infallible, but that they have de
termined wisely and holily.' But this reception by the
Church of England is only to be understood with reference
to the language constantly used by her divines,* and has
not been expressed in any authoritative document. The
only formal acknowledgment of these Councils that I know
of is in a statute passed in the first year of Elizabeth, in
which the power to try for heresy is limited to what has
been adjudged to be heresy by the authority of canonical
Scriptures, or by some of the first four General Councils, or
by any other General Council wherein the same was declared
heresy by the express and plain words of the said canonical
Scriptures, or such as shall hereafter be determined to be
heresy by the High Court of Parliament, with the assent of
the clergy in their convocation (Eliz., cap. 1, sec. 36, A.D.
1558). Incidentally the authority of the first four General
Councils is appealed to in the Homily ' on Fasting ' ; and
again in one of the canons passed by the Convocation of
1640, in which Socinianism is described as being 'a com
plication of many ancient heresies condemned by the first
four General Councils.' All this, however, comes very far
short of any formal acknowledgment of the authority of
these Councils, and only shows that the doctrine taught
by them is accepted by us as true. We accept the doc
trines on their own evidence, and are no more concerned
with any impeachment of the wisdom or piety of the Fathers
* Several of them extend the acknowledgment to the first six Councils, e.g. Field,
of the Church, v. 51 ; Hammond, of Heresy, iii. 7-11. In the second part of the
Homily on ' Peril of Idolatry,' mention is made of pictures placed by Pope Con-
stantine in St. Peter's at Rome of ' the ancient Fathers which had been at those six
Councils which were allowed and received of all men.'
U

290 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
who made the decrees, than the value we attach to Magna
Charta would be affected by any evidence that might be pro
duced of turbulence, greediness, or self-seeking on the part
of the barons who gained it.
The Council of Constantinople. — From the first General
Council I pass to the second — that of Constantinople—
which indeed may be said to have only become an Ecu
menical Council ex post facto. Originally it was but an
assembly of Eastern bishops. Rome was not represented
there. Nor does it seem for seventy years after its occur
rence to have enjoyed the consideration of such a Council.
It was the respect with which its acts were quoted at
Chalcedon, in 451, which seems first to have given it that
character. The history of every one of the Councils tends to
support the theory that infallibility, if it exist at all, resides
in the Church diffusive, not in a Council. Every one of the
Councils has had to struggle for its reception. When its
decrees are new they have but disputed authority. When
time has mellowed them, and when the results arrived at by
the Council have been long accepted by the Church, then we
first hear of the Council's infallibility. On this Council of
Constantinople some light is thrown by a venerable Father
who was present, and who has as good a right to the title
saint as many who have been honoured with it, Gregory
Nazianzen. Indeed I believe he is almost the only Father
who is not accused of having sometimes in his writings
fallen into doctrinal error. You will all be familiar with
that saying of his, quoted by Browne in his Commentary on
the Articles, ' If I must write the truth, I am disposed to
avoid every assembly of bishops ; for of no synod have I
seen a profitable end, but rather an addition to than a
diminution of evils ; for the love of strife and the thirst for
superiority are beyond the power of words to express.'* But
it may be no harm to remind you what good cause Gregory
had had for expressing himself so energetically.
Constantinople had been for some time in the hands of
Arians ; and Gregory, who had come there as a kind of
* Epist. 130, Procopio, vol. ii. p. no: Caillau.

xvi.J THE SCHISM AT ANTIOCH. 291
missionary in the cause of orthodoxy, had by his eloquence
and exertions raised the orthodox side from almost extinc
tion to pre-eminence. In return for such services Gregory
was rewarded with the Episcopate of Constantinople, though
not without much reluctance on his own part; for having
lived an ascetic and retired life, he had much distaste for the
pomp and luxury that surrounded the bishop of the metro
polis, while he felt more acutely the worries incident to the
office than a man might have done who had lived more in
the world. You probably know that there was at this time a
schism in the Church of Antioch, into the history of the
origin of which I need not enter. Suffice it to say, that on
the one hand Meletius was owned as bishop by the great
bulk of the Christians of Antioch, and was generally accepted
as such through the East : on ,the other hand, Paulinus had
a comparatively small following in Antioch itself, but was
strong in external support ; for having been recognized by
Athanasius, he was acknowledged as bishop of Antioch in
the West. In an earlier stage of the dispute the schism
had consisted in a refusal of the orthodox to acknowledge a
prelate whom they regarded as Arian. But there was now
no difference of doctrine between the contending parties.
Meletius had disappointed the expectations of those who
thought he would have taught Arianism, and had proved to
be a staunch adherent to the Nicene Creed. In character he
was saintly, in disposition mild and conciliatory ; but over
tures which he made to Paulinus for a termination of the
schism were sternly rejected, it being thought an inex
cusable blot that Meletius had owed his election to Arian
support. It is worthy of attention that the party in this dispute
which gained the support of the Roman bishops was in the
end not successful, and that Meletius, though not acknow
ledged by Rome in his lifetime, has since been honoured by
her as a saint. The fact that Meletius presided over the
second General Council is on this account remarkable. In
other cases Romanist advocates have asserted, often without
the least evidence, that the bishops who actually presided
u 2

292 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
did so as deputed by the bishop of Rome. In this case the
president of a Council, which has since been accepted as
Ecumenical, was one whom Rome did not recognize as
bishop ; yet the Council willingly put him at their head.
Meletius died during the sitting of the Council. The
controversy having been merely personal, and there being
no disagreement in doctrine, wise and moderate men on both
sides had wished that, on the death of either, no successor
should be elected, and that the survivor should hold the see
without dispute. It is even said — but the thing has been
denied — that some compact of the kind had been assented to
by leading presbyters at Antioch, including him who was
afterwards chosen as Meletius's successor. At all events,
when the death of Meletius took place, Gregory desired that
the schism should be healed by all recognizing Paulinus as
bishop. He held that the Church ought not to be divided on
a merely personal question, and that if the controversy had
been about two angels, it would not be worth the scandal it
caused. Gregory's reputation and influence had extended to
the West : the celebrated Jerome sat at his feet as his dis
ciple. Consequently the need of conciliating the West was
felt, and was pressed strongly by Gregory. But these coun
sels were unacceptable to the greater part of the assembly,
who were jealous in maintaining their independence against
Western attempts at domination. The sun, they said, went
from the East to the West, and not from the West to the
East. They saw no reason why they should yield to a small
and insolent minority at Antioch. Gregory tells us that a
yell, rather than a cry, broke from the assembled Episcopate.
In verses in which, after he got home, he gave vent to his
feelings, he says that they buzzed about him like a swarm
of wasps ; that they cawed against him as an army of jack
daws.* Then on the arrival at Constantinople of a detach-
* ot $' (Kpa^ov &A\os &WoSev
Aripos koXqiojv cis %v i<TKeuaCfj.4vos
^ (T(pT]KWV SiKTJl'
"KTTOVffiv eiidv tuv Trpoff&irwv 6.dp6<*>s. — De Vita sua, 1680.

xvi.J GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 293
ment of bishops, who had other reasons for being unfriendly
to Gregory, the assault was turned against himself. The
bishops in question came from Egypt ; and in order to un
derstand the history of the Eastern Church for centuries after
the adoption of Constantine's new capital, you must bear in
mind the bitter jealousy that raged between Alexandria and
Constantinople. The Bishop of Alexandria had hitherto
ranked as the second bishop in Christendom ; and he saw
with disgust the rivalry of the upstart Byzantium. In the
present case the election of Gregory had foiled an attempt
of the Alexandrian bishop to thrust into the see of Constan
tinople a nominee of his own. Consequently Gregory must
be got rid of. The point was raised, that as he had been
originally consecrated to another see, his translation to Con
stantinople was a violation of the ancient canons. Gregory,
though indignant that an obsolete canon should be in
voked against him, professed himself much delighted to
return to his retirement, and willing to be thrown over
board, like Jonah, if it would give peace to the Church. We
need not doubt his sincerity. A man who undertakes un
congenial work may cheerfully continue at it as long as he
feels he is doing it successfully, but be glad to retire when
it is perceived that he has been a failure. Yet when Gregory
was taken at his word, there remained on his mind, as was
not unnatural, the greatest soreness at his treatment ; and he
has left both in prose, and still more in the verses in which
he was fond of giving vent to his feelings, descriptions which
show that the one hundred and fifty venerable fathers of
Constantinople looked much less venerable when seen close
at hand than at a distance.
He begins his verses by saying : ' You may boldly face
a lion ; a leopard is a gentle beast after all ; a snake may
frighten you and yet flee from you : there is just one animal
to be dreaded — a bad bishop.' The context of the verses
themselves, and the occasion on which they were written,
leave no reasonable room for doubt that the bad bishops
whom he proceeds to describe, were those who formed the
majority of the Council, and from whom he had personally

294 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvi.
suffered. It seems to me likely that in the coarse, illi
terate men whom he describes, he had especially in view
the Egyptian contingent ; for, as we shall presently see,
there is abundant evidence of the rude and unchristian
violence with which theological controversy was carried on
in that part of the world. It has been suggested that Gregory
had only Arian bishops in view ; but he brings no charge of
false doctrine against the objects of his invective : if he
counts them unfit for their office, it is because of their want
of education, and still more on account of their low morality.
They seem to him to have arrived at their dignity in answer
to the call of a herald who had summoned all the gluttons,
villains, liars, false swearers, of the empire;* 'they are "cha
meleons that change their colour with every stone over which
they pass ; " " illiterate, lowborn, filled with all the pride of
upstarts, fresh from the tables of false accountants," " peasants
from the plough," " unwashed blacksmiths," " deserters from
the army or navy, still stinking from the holds of the ships. "f
But it may be said the Apostles were unlearned. True ; and
give me a real apostle and I will reverence him however
illiterate ; but these are time-servers, waiting not on God,
but on the rise and flow of the tide, or the straw on the wind ;
angry lions to the small, fawning spaniels to the great -r
flatterers of ladies ; snuffing up the smell of good dinners ;
ever at the gates, not of the wise, but of the powerful ; unable
to speak themselves, but having sufficient sense to stop the
* ws Sokcw fiot
KrjpvKos 0o6wvtos eVi [xzffaTOiffiv aKovtiV
Aevp' Id' Hcroi KafclTjs eTTijS^Topes, aXcrxea (pivTUiV,
Tao"Topes, evpvTefoyres, a^atSe'es, btppvoevrts,
ZwpoirSrai, TvAaynrai, <pL\on4pTOfj.oi, afipoxtToives
Vevo-Tal 0', vfipiffral Te 8ous tiriopKOV bfxovvTts, k. t. A.
— Ad. Episc. 74.
In the text I make use of the form in which Dean Stanley (Christian Institutions,.
p. 312) has compressed Gregory's diffuse invectives'. The two poems, De Episcopis
and Ad Episcopos, occupy some sixty folio pages in Caillau's edition.
t ot 6' e| ap6rpuy, t}Alu) KGKavpevoi
ol 5' e/c StKeWrjs, Kal <rp.ivvt)S iravy][j.epov.
&AA01 5e Kw7T7jj/ ¦$) crparhv X£Aonv6res
&vtAov ttv4ov7€S 1) to aoifx iaTty^4voi.

xvi.J GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 295
mouths of those who can ; made wild by their elevation ;
affecting manners not their own ; the long beard, the down
cast look, the head bowed, the subdued voice, the slow walk,
the got-up devotee ; the wisdom anywhere but in the mind.
'Councils, congresses, we greet afar off, from which (to
use moderate terms) we have suffered many evils. I will not
sit in one of these Councils of geese and cranes ; I fly from
every meeting of bishops; for I never saw a good end of any
such, nor termination, but rather an addition of evils.'
OfiSe Tt 7rou auvoSouriv bp.6Bpovo<s cctcto/a' lycoye
Xtjvoiv rj yepdvbiv aKpna papvapdvoiv.
*T<lv6' e/HS, evda p.66os re /ecu aicr^ea KpVTTTa TrdpoiOev
Eis tva Suo"yievea>i' )(S>pov ayeip6p.eva. — Adv.fals. Episc. 92.
But I find that I had better reserve to another Lecture
the rest of what^I have to say about Councils.

XVII.
GENERAL COUNCILS.

Part II.
IF I had contented myself, as logically I might, with one
proof of the comparative novelty of the doctrine of the
Infallibility of General Councils, I need not have gone lower
down than the history of the first Ecumenical Council, that
of Nicaea. According to modern ideas, its decision ought to
have put an end to all controversy. We all approve of that
decision as correct. It was arrived at by an overwhelming
majority of a fairly representative assembly of the bishops of
Christendom. It expressed the sentiments of the Bishop of
Rome, and was endorsed by the civil authority. Yet to the
eye of a Romanist the history of the Church for the rest of
the fourth century presents a scene of awful confusion ;
Council after Council meeting to try to settle the already
settled question, throwing the Nicene Creed overboard, and
attempting to improve on it. What ailed them, not to
acquiesce in conclusions adopted by infallible authority ?
Simply that, at the time, there was no suspicion of its infalli
bility. There was no idea then but that what one Council
had done another Council might improve on.
Cardinal Newman [Historical Sketches, iii. 352) describes
the fourth-century Councils, to which I have just referred, as
' a scandal to the Christian name ;' and he goes on to say : —
' The Councils of the next century, even such as were ortho
dox, took their tone and temper from those which had gone
before them ; and even those which were Ecumenical have
nothing to boast of as regards the mass of the Fathers,

xvn.J THE COUNCILS OF THE FIFTH CENTURY. 297
taken individually, who composed them.' It is of these
Ecumenical Councils of the fifth century I come now to speak.
We must be on our guard against the temptation to which
party feeling exposes men, whether in religious or political
disputes, namely, reluctance to express disapprobation of
any men or any means that have helped to bring about the
triumph of the right side. I feel very strongly that the
side which triumphed, both at the third and at the fourth
Ecumenical Council, was the right side. We of the present
day are not concerned with the merely personal question,
whether Nestorius was misrepresented ; or whether he only
expressed himself incautiously, without himself holding
what we call Nestorianism. But we can heartily join in
condemning that Nestorianism as being practically equi
valent to a denial of our Lord's Divinity. Breaking up our
Lord's Personality into two is a scheme which enables a
man to use the loftiest language concerning the Divinity
which dwelt in Jesus, while at the same time holding Jesus
Himself to be a man imperfect morally as well as in
tellectually. If we hold that the Deity did but dwell in
Jesus without being truly and properly one with him, this is
to ascribe to him no exclusive prerogative. Might not the
Deity thus dwell with many men ? You will find that one
would be able to affirm, in the same words, concerning the
founder of Buddhism, everything that, according to the Nes-
torian hypothesis, you can affirm as to the Divinity of the
Founder of the Christian religion. And if I have no sym
pathy with Nestorianism, neither have I any with the heresy
condemned at the fourth General Council, which practically
is equivalent to a denial that our Saviour was truly and
properly man. But without having sympathy with either
heresy, we are still free to inquire whether we can approve of
the measures taken to suppress it, and whether these measures
were, in point of fact, successful.
Now, when we come down from the second General
Council to the third and fourth, our documentary means of
knowledge increase, but not so our respect for Councils.
More and more I find myself forced to say, that if I believe

298 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
the conclusions at which these meetings arrived to be true,
it is not because the Councils have affirmed them ; and, as far
as I can judge, it is not on that account that the Universal
Church has believed them either. The more I study these
Nestorian and Eutychian disputes, the less sympathy can I
feel with either party to the struggle. On both sides the
virulence of party rancour seems utterly to have killed Chris
tian charity. The problem on which the disputants were
engaged — namely, to explain how the divine and human
natures could be united in one person, and to state the
conditions of such a union — is as difficult as any with which
the human intellect has ever grappled, and is therefore one
on which error surely might deserve indulgent consideration.
Yet both parties regarded those who differed from themselves
— and that possibly only in their use of language — as wilful
deniers of the truth, enemies of Christ, haters of God, men
for whom no punishment could be too severe in this world
and in the next. And the reputation of Christianity has
suffered, as secular historians have pointed out that these
furious struggles took place at a time when the Roman
Empire was threatened with dissolution under the inroads
of barbaric tribes, who could not be successfully resisted
if Christians would not give over fighting with one another.
Cyril of Alexandria, who presided over the third Council—
that of Ephesus — is perhaps, of all those who have been
honoured with the title of saint, the one whose character
least commands our affection. In the fourth century the title
ayiog, applied to an orthodox bishop, meant, perhaps, little
more than the title ' reverend ' applied to a clergyman of the
present day. But of the qualities which go to make up our
modern idea of saintliness, the only one to which Cyril can
lay claim is zeal for orthodoxy. Of the non-theological
virtues of meekness, kindness, equity, obedience to law, we
find in him no trace. There was no country where reli
gious controversies were carried on with such violence as
in Egypt. Cyril had been brought up in a bad school ;
and he handed down to his successor the traditions of that
school with extensive evil developments. His whole career

xvn. J CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. 299
was marked by violence and bloodshed. He signalized the
commencement of his episcopate by an assault on the Nova-
tians, whose churches he shut up, seizing their sacred vessels,
and depriving their bishop of all his property.* He followed
this up by an attack on the Jews — not without provocation on
their part. A leading member of his congregation had been
punished by the magistrate on a charge brought against
him by Jews. Cyril sent for the chief rabbis, and severely
threatened them if such molestations were repeated. Riots
followed; and tidings were brought to Cyril one morning
that during the night a concerted attack had been made by
Jews upon Christians, in which several of the latter had lost
their lives. Cyril forthwith took vengeance into his own
hands, deciding that there was not room for Jews and
Christians in the same city. He put himself at the head of
an immense mob, which took possession of the synagogues,
plundered the goods of the Jews, and turned them out of the
city. These proceedings naturally brought him into collision
with the civil authorities, and the relations between the
bishop and the prefect became extremely strained. Five
hundred Nitrian monks poured down to Alexandria to give
substantial support to the cause of the affronted patriarch.
They surrounded the prefect's chariot, drove his guards
away with showers of stones, and not content with abusive
language, one of them, Ammonius by name, struck him with
a stone, and covered his face with blood. But the people
rose in defence of their magistrate, overpowered the monks,
and seizing Ammonius, carried him off to punishment, which,
according to the barbarous usage of the time, was so severe
that he died under it. Then Cyril set the evil example of
canonizing criminals as martyrs. Though there is no reason
to suppose that the assault on the prefect was due to direct
instigation of his, he made himself an accessory to it after
the fact by giving Ammonius a public funeral, bestowing on
him the title ' Admirable ; ' and would have even enrolled
him for permanent commemoration as a martyr had not the
* Socrates, H. E. vii., 7, 13-15.

300 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
disapprobation of moderate men warned him to drop the
design.* But a worse tragedy followed. The belief in Church
circles was that the governor would have been on better terms
with the bishop if he had not been too intimate with heathens.
Prominent among his heathen friends was the celebrated
Hypatia, who, in a licentious age, when public life was less
open to women than now, exercised the functions of a lecturer
in philosophy with such dignified modesty as to command
universal respect. One Peter, who held the office of reader in
the principal church, collected a band of zealots like-minded
with himself, who watched for Hypatia returning from her
school, tore her from her chariot, dragged her into a church, and
there murdered her with every circumstance of brutal atrocity.
It is not to be supposed that this deed had Cyril's sanction ;
but if a party leader tolerates and profits by the excesses of
violent followers up to a certain point, he cannot escape
responsibility if they proceed beyond the point where he
would have preferred them to stop. If the maxim ' noscilur e
sociis' is ever to have applicability, a Christian teacher must
be judged of by the spirit manifested by those who have been
the most zealous hearers of his instructions.
For excesses of zeal in his warfare against heretics, or
Jews, or heathen, Cyril has not wanted apologistsf who
willingly believe that the case against him has been coloured
by witnesses too ready to sympathize with enemies of the
Church. But there is one chapter in his history with regard
to which his line of conduct now finds no defender. I refer
to his treatment of a greater saint than himself, St. Chrysos
tom. I have already said that in reading the Church history
of the centuries following the erection of Constantinople into
* I have no wish to exaggerate the case against Cyril, and I will therefore
suggest an excuse for his conduct, which I have not seen put forward by any of
his apologists. My idea is that the prefect, suspecting that the attack on him had
been organized by a higher person than those who took part in it, endeavoured,
according to the legal usage of the time, to extract the truth from his prisoner by
torture, and that Cyril's admiration and gratitude were moved by the constancy
with which Ammonius endured, even to death, without uttering a criminatory word.
t One of the latest is Kopallik, Cyrillus von Alexandria, 1881.

xvii.] CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. 301
a capital, we must constantly bear in mind the jealousy felt
at Alexandria at the encroachments on the dignity of their
ancient see by this upstart rival. I have told how Gregory
Nazianzen was compelled, by Egyptian opposition, to resign
his see. St. Chrysostom's election to the bishopric of
Constantinople disappointed an attempt of the Alexandrian
patriarch, Theophilus, to place in Constantinople a nominee
of his own. From that time Chrysostom had in Theophilus a
bitter enemy, through whose exertions he suffered deposition
and exile, accompanied with treatment which hastened his
death. Cyril, the nephew of Theophilus, was his aider and
abettor in the warfare against Chrysostom ; and he continued
his hostility when, on his uncle's death, he succeeded to the
see. The death of Chrysostom did not soften his feelings ;
and a few years afterwards, when entreated to allow Chrysos
tom's name to be placed on the diptychs, he replied that this
would be as great an affront to the orthodox bishops on the
list as it would be to the Apostles if the traitor Judas were
reckoned in their number. It was not until ten years after
Chrysostom's death that he reluctantly gave way. Now
what, in Roman Catholic eyes, makes this conduct inexcus
able is that Cyril's obstinacy placed him in opposition, not
only to Chrysostom, but to the Bishop of Rome, out of whose
communion the Egyptians accordingly remained for twelve
years. Accordingly, Cardinal Newman here gives Cyril up.
' Cyril, I know, is a saint ; but it does not follow that he was
a saint in the year 412.' 'Among the greatest saints are
those who, in early life, were committed to very unsaintly
doings.' ' We may hold Cyril to be a great servant of God
without considering ourselves obliged to defend certain pas
sages of his ecclesiastical career. It does not answer to call
whity-brown white. His conduct out of his own territory, as
well as in it, is often very much in keeping with the ways of
the uncle who preceded him in his see, and his archdeacon
who succeeded him in it.' I hope I am not ungrateful for so
much candour if I say that if it does not answer to call

302 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
whity-brown white, neither does it answer to call black
whity-brown. Dr. Newman himself asks the question,
*Is Cyril a saint ? How can he be a saint if what has
been said above is matter of historical truth?' His chief
reason for giving a favourable answer is one that has not
much weight with us. ' Catholics must believe that Provi
dence would have interposed to prevent his receiving the
honours of a saint, in East and West, unless he really was
deserving of them.' ' It is natural to think that Cyril would
not have been divinely ordained for so prominent an office in
the establishment of dogmatic truth unless there were in him
moral endowments which the surface of history does not
reveal to us.' And he suggests, that as we hear very little of
Cyril during the last few years of his life, it may charitably
be believed that he had repented of his early violence ; and he
thinks that as ' he had faith, firmness, intrepidity, fortitude,
endurance, these virtues, together with contrition for his
failings, were efficacious in blotting out their guilt, and
saving him from their penal consequences.'
Now I am sure you will understand that if I pronounce a
man to be undeserving of the title of Saint, I do not mean to
deny that he may have repented of his sins, and have entered
the kingdom of Heaven. In giving honours to historical
characters we can only be guided by those ' moral endowments
which the surface of history does reveal;' and I count it to
involve a degradingly low estimate of the Christian character
if we hold up as a model of saintly perfection one in whom
history only enables us to discover the excellencies and fail
ings of an able and successful, but violent and unscrupulous,
party leader. If Cyril changed his character towards the end
of his life, his contemporaries do not seem to have been aware
of it. Here is the language of one of them on hearing the
news of his death : ' At last the reproach of Israel is taken
away. He is gone to vex the inhabitants of the world below
with his endless dogmatism. Let everyone throw a stone on
his grave, lest perchance he may make even hell too hot to
hold him, and return to earth.' ' The East and Egypt are

xvn.J CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. 303
henceforth united : envy is dead, and heresy is buried with
her.'* I have spoken at such length about the character of Cyril,
because in truth Cyril was the third General Council. You
will not expect me to enter into the history of the Nestorian
controversy, or to discuss whether Nestorius really deserved
condemnation, or whether by mutual explanations he might
not have been reconciled to the Church without a schism.
He is a man for whom I have no great sympathy ; but in
those days the views of the bishop of Constantinople were
not likely to meet with indulgent criticism from the bishop
of Alexandria. If I were to say that Cyril at Ephesus was
* seeking to revenge a private quarrel rather than to promote
the interests of Jesus Christ,' I should say no more than was
said by good and impartial men at the time.f ' Cyril,' says
Newman, * came to Ephesus not to argue but to pronounce
an anathema, and to get over the necessary process with as
much despatch as possible.' ' He had not much tenderness
for the scruples of literary men, for the rights of Councils, or
for episcopal minorities ' (pp. 349, 350).
* The letter from which these passages are taken (Theodoret, Ep. 180) was read
as Theodoret's at the fifth General Council (fifth Session), and there accepted as his.
But on questions of this kind Councils are not infallible ; and the letter contains a
note of spuriousness in purporting to be addressed to John, bishop of Antioch, who
died before Cyril. I own that the suggestion that for ' John ' we ought to read
'Domnus ' does not suffice to remove suspicion from my mind. But it is solely for
the reason just stated that I feel no confidence in accepting the letter as Theodoret's.
Newman's opinion that it is incredible Theodoret could have written so ' atrocious ' a
letter is one which it is amazing should be held by anyone familiar with the contro
versial amenities of the time. Our modern urbanity is willing to bury party animosi
ties in the grave ; but in the fifth century Swift's translation would be thought the
only proper one of the maxim ' De mortuis nil nisi bonum ' — ' when scoundrels die
let all bemoan 'em.' Certainly the man who half a dozen years after Chrysostom's
death spoke of him as Judas Iscariot had no right to expect to be politely treated
after his own death by one whom he had relentlessly persecuted.
t St. Isidore of Pelusium found himself constrained to write to Cyril in terms of
strong remonstrance (see Epp. 1., 310, 323, 324,370). He says that if he were, as Cyril
called him, his father, he feared the penalty incurred by Eli for not rebuking his children.
If he were, as he himself deemed, Cyril's son, he feared the example of Jonathan,
who shared his father's fate because he had not prevented his consultation of the
Witch of Endor. He begged him therefore not, in avenging a private quarrel, to
bring in perpetual dissension into the Church. Affection, no doubt, does not see

304 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
In short, nothing could have been more violent and unfair
than the proceedings at Ephesus. Nestorius may have de
served condemnation ; but it is certain that he got no fair
trial, and that the proceedings against him would have been
pronounced null and void by any English Court of Appeal.
In fact the Council was opened in the teeth of a protest made
by sixty-eight bishops, because the bishop of Antioch and
the bishops of the East were known to be within three days'
march of Ephesus. But because these bishops were known
to be likely to vote the wrong way, they were not waited for.
The Council did its work in one summer's day; deposed
Nestorius in his absence, and acquainted him with the fact
in a letter addressed to Nestorius 'the new Judas.' In a
few days the bishop of Antioch arrived, and then the other
party held what they professed to be the real Council, and
deposed Cyril.
There has been a question by what kind of majority must
the acts of a Council be carried in order to entitle them to
bind the Church : a simple majority ? or two-thirds ? or
more ? and ought we to count heads or to take the votes by
nations or in some other way ? Obviously, if we count heads,
the provinces close to the place at which the Council is held
are likely to have a disproportionately large share of the
representation. At the Council of Ephesus great complaints
were made by the Nestorian party that Cyril had taken an
unfair advantage over them ; that the Emperor had directed
only a certain number of bishops to be brought from each
province, and that he had brought a great many more from
Egypt than he had a right to bring. Ephesus, too, which
was on Cyril's side, was, as was natural, largely over-repre-
clearly, but hatred cannot see at all. Cyril was much blamed by many at Ephesus
for pursuing his private enmity as he did. They said. He is the nephew of Theo
philus, and exhibits the same character, persecuting Nestorius as he did Chrysostom,
though no doubt there was a good deal of difference between the two men.
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intBvp.e'i Kavx'fto'aaBai teal oStos, el KaX lroKb ruy Kpivo^evuv £<ttI to SuLtyopov.

xvii.J THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 305
sented. In modern times these difficulties have been avoided
by requiring that the decrees of Councils shall be practically
unanimous. Pius IV. boasted of the unity obtained at Trent
as plainly ' the Lord's doing and marvellous in our eyes.'
The unity, to be sure, was brought about by having the ques
tions submitted to a preliminary discussion in committees
or congregations ; those who there found themselves in a
minority keeping their opposition silent when the question
was submitted formally to the Council itself. And so was it
done at the Vatican Council the other day. Unanimity was
thought so essential to the validity of a Council's acts that
the anti-infallibilist bishops had not courage for such a breach
of discipline or decorum as to say ' non placet ' when the
matter came formally to a vote, and with one or two excep
tions all ran away from Rome before the day of the final
vote. Very different was the state of things at Ephesus. To
quote Dr. Newman, ' At Ephesus the question in dispute
was settled and defined before certain constituent portions of
the episcopal body had made their appearance, and this with
a protest of sixty-eight of the bishops then present, against
eighty-two. When the remaining forty-three arrived, these
did more than protest against the definition that had been
carried. They actually anathematized the Fathers who had
carried it, whose number seems to have stood altogether at
one hundred and twenty- four against one hundred and eleven,
and in this state of disunion the Council ended. How then
was its definition valid ? By after events, which I suppose
must be considered complements and integral portions of
the Council.'*
If this be so, the infallibility clearly rested not with the
Council, but with the after events, which reviewed and chose
between its contradictory utterances. But what were the
after events thus vaguely described I Bribery and intimida
tion at the imperial Court. The scene was soon transferred
from Ephesus to Constantinople ; and if the deposition of
Nestorius had more effect in the end than the deposition of
* Letter to Duke of Norfolk, p. 100.
X

306 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
Cyril by the rival section of the Council, the result was due
not to the venerable authority of the Council, but to the effect
produced by the turbulent monks of Constantinople on the
nerves of the emperor, who was one of the weakest of men,
and to tvXoylat, or, in plain English, bribes judiciously ad
ministered to his favourites. At an early stage of the
controversy Nestorius complained that Cyril was shooting
against him with golden arrows ; and when the final decision
was arrived at, the clergy of Alexandria mourned at the
impoverishment of their Church, which, in addition to sending
large sums to Constantinople, had gone in debt 1500 pounds
of gold besides*
If it was not a Council which settled the Nestorian contro
versy, still less was the Eutychian so settled. The Gallicans
were quite right in saying that the decisions of a Council only
prevail in case they are accepted by the Church. The Euty
chian question was, as you know, in the first instance decided
the wrong way by a Council, the second of Ephesus. It is
worthy of remark that at both the Councils of Ephesus the
bishop of Alexandria, as the greatest bishop present, pre
sided, the Roman legates having the second place. Romanist
* There has been preserved a letter from the archdeacon of Alexandria to the
bishop appointed to succeed Nestorius at Constantinople, complaining of the large
sums that had been already sent from Alexandria, and entreating the bishop's
influence to obtain some adequate result from this expenditure : ' Scriptum est a
Domino meo vestro fratre et Dominae ancillae Dei reverentissimae Pulcheriae et
praeposito Paulo et Romano cubiculario et Dominae Marcellae cubiculariae et
Dominae Droseriae. Et directae sunt benedictiones dignae eis. Et ei qui contra
ecclesiam est Chrysoreti praeposito magnificentissimus Aristolaus paratus est scribere
de nonnullis quae angelus tuas debeat impetrare. Et ipsi vera dignae translatae
sunt eulogiae. Scripsit autem Dominus meus sanctissimus frater vester et Domino
scholastico et magnificentissimo Arthebae ut ipsi conveniant et persuadeant Chry
soreti tandem desistere ab oppugnatione ecclesiae. Et ipsis vero benedictiones
dignae directae sunt . . . Subjectus autem brevis ostendit quibus hinc directae
sint eulogiae ut et ipse noveris quantum pro tua sanctitate laboret Alexandrina
ecclesia quae tanta praestet his qui illic sunt. Clerici enim qui hie sunt contris-
tantur quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelae, et debet praeter
ilia quae hinc transmissa sunt Ammonio Comiti auri libras mille quingentas. Et
nunc ei denuo scriptum est ut praestet. Sed de tua ecclesia praesta avaritiae
quorum nosti ne Alexandrinam ecclesiam contristent ' (Synodicon 203, ap. Mansi,
Concilia, v. 988).

xvn.J THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 307
writers reconcile this with modern theories as to Roman
supremacy by the gratuitous assertion that Cyril presided
af the first Council as the representative of the bishop of
Rome ; * but this evasion is not open to them in the case of
the second Council, the bishops of Rome and Alexandria
being on opposite sides ; and it is plain that the theory had not
yet been heard of in the East which would ascribe the head
ship of all Councils to the bishop of Rome, present or absent.
I have already remarked to you on the difference between
the theological schools of Alexandria and of Antioch, the
tendencies of the one being in the direction of mysticism,
those of the other in that of rationalism ; the one accentuating
more strongly our Lord's Divinity, the other His humanity.
The confusion that reigned in the Eastern Church for the
next two centuries arose from the fact that Alexandria, which
triumphed at the third General Council, was defeated at the
fourth. Reasons of policy had always inclined Rome to
support Alexandria against Constantinople ; but at this time
it chanced, through a rare contingency, that the see of
Rome was held by a theologian capable of forming an
opinion of his own on a doctrinal question. Pope Leo's
decision turned the scale against Alexandria ; and the result
was that many of the same men who had been on the win
ning and orthodox side at the first of these two Councils
unexpectedly found themselves on the heretical side at the
other; and it was this reverse of fortune more than anything
else which prevented Chalcedon from giving peace to the
Eastern Church, there being always hope that a similar
change of parts might take place again. You can guess
what confusion there would be in the Roman Church were
the Vatican Council now reassembled, and if the bishops
who had spoken against infallibility, and only yielded at the
last moment on the former occasion, now played the leading
part, and if Cardinal Manning, and the other leading men
who had triumphed before, were now cast out as heretics.
* The bishop of Rome duly sent legates, but Cyril was in too great a hurry to
wait for them, and Nestorius was deposed before their arrival.
X2

308 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
However, the Alexandrians came to the second Council of
Ephesus prepared to carry all before them — and so, in fact,
they did. It is notorious with what good reason this Council
was called the ' Synod of robbers ; ' but the method of decid
ing theological questions by physical force, though highly
developed on that occasion, did not originate then nor did it
come to an end then. In theological violence Alexandria had
a bad pre-eminence. What a potentate the bishop there was
may be judged from a scene that took place later at Chalcedon.
The proceedings there had been very unfavourable to Egypt,
the bishop of Alexandria having been deposed ; and no doubt
it was painful to Egyptian bishops to subscribe the formula
adopted by the Council ; but the ground alleged for their
refusal, and which the Council at length accepted as valid,
was, that it would be as much as their lives were worth when
they got home if they took any step unsanctioned by the
bishop of Alexandria. They threw themselves on the ground,
imploring the pity of the members of the Council : ' Have
mercy on us ; pity our grey hairs ; take our sees if you will,
but spare our lives ; don't send us home to certain death ; if
we must die let us die here.' The bishop of Alexandria had
a sturdy militia zealous to execute his orders. I have told of
the descent of monks from the Nitrian monasteries to avenge
his slighted authority ; but he had defenders closer at hand in
the Parabolam, a charitable corporation whose duties were
concerned with attendance on the sick, and with the burial of
the dead, and who were appointed by the bishop and were
eager to execute his orders. Possibly the nature of their
duties made them heedless of life; but they appear to have
been a most violent and turbulent set of men. To their
charge has been laid the murder of Hypatia ; at all events,
we read immediately after that event of complaints made to
the emperor, in consequence of which the appointment and
control of these men was transferred from the bishop to the
civil authorities, though things soon reverted to the old
arrangement. At both Councils of Ephesus the ships that brought the
prelates from Alexandria brought also a strong detachment

xvn. J THE SECOND COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 309
of the Bishop's bodyguard. At the first Council the sailors of
the Egyptian ships were reinforced by a body of stout peasants,
whom Cyril's ally, Memnon of Ephesus, brought up from his
farms ; and bishops of Nestorian leanings had to complain
of the intimidation to which they were subjected, not only out
of doors but in their houses. At the second Council, besides the
parabolani, there came from the borders of Syria and Persia
a horde of savage monks, well exercised in putting down
Nestorianism by physical force, whose irruption brought the
proceedings of the Council to an end in a scene of awful
confusion. Even when only the members of the Council were
present, the bishops cannot be said to have voted with perfect
freedom, when the assertion of two natures in Christ was re
ceived with cries of, ' away with him ; burn him alive ; cut
him in two; as he has divided so let him be divided.' In
such a temper of the meeting the acquittal of Eutyches was
obtained with tolerable unanimity ; and if the president,
Dioscorus, had been content to stop there, this synod might
have passed as not more disorderly than some others. But
when he proceeded to move the deposition of the bishop of
Constantinople cries of remonstrance were heard. The chief
Roman legate expressed dissent in Latin; and his Kovrpa-
SiKirovp has been duly recorded in the proceedings of the
Council. Some leading bishops threw themselves at the feet
of the throne of Dioscorus, and embracing his knees implored
him to be merciful. Then he cried out that violence was
being used towards him, and called for the assistance of the
civil power. The doors of the Church were opened ; soldiers,
monks, parabolani, rushed in, and a scene of wild confusion
ensued. The bishop of Constantinople was knocked down
and trampled on ; and the only doubtful point is whether it
was not Dioscorus himself who struck the first blow, and who
kicked him after he was down. The evidence to that effect
might perhaps be enough to produce conviction, if it were not
outweighed by the fact that afterwards, at Chalcedon, when no
misdeeds of Dioscorus were likely to be passed over in silence,
this one was not mentioned. But certain it is that the bishop
of Constantinople, within three days, died of the ill-usage he

310 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
had received. Meanwhile the other bishops of the minority
who tried to escape found the doors of the church again
locked. Some tried to hide under the benches ; one fled into
the sacristy. They were pulled out and told that they must
not go till they had subscribed the decision of the Council.
But there had not been time to write the proceedings out;
and if they were once allowed to go away, it was not likely
that their signatures could be had. So before they were
let go they were made to subscribe their names to blank
sheets, to be filled up afterwards.
An amusing scene took place when these bishops after
wards, at Chalcedon, pleaded that their signatures had been
obtained by constraint. Constraint ! cried the Eutychians.
What a plea for bishops to put forward! Is the spirit of
the martyrs so utterly extinct among you ? Or are we to sup
pose that the martyrs might have done what their persecutors
demanded, and afterwards pleaded that they had acted
under constraint ? Nay, was the reply : if we had fallen
into the hands of heathen we should have borne anything
they could inflict rather than yield. But the case was different
when we were ordered by a bishop. A bishop is a father ;
and a son must obey a father, even though he himself dis
approve of the command.
That this meeting, which Leo of Rome justly stigmatized
as ' Latrocinium,' is not venerated in the East as one of the
great Councils of the Church, is mainly due to the death of
the emperor and a change of politics at the Court of Con
stantinople ; and the violence and unfairness rather exceeded
in degree than differed in kind from what was exhibited in
other Councils more fortunate in their repute. As I have
mentioned the acclamations of the bishops at this Council, I
ought to tell you that there is a difference between the inter
ruptions permitted by the parliamentary decorum of our time
and what was considered permissible in the early Roman
Empire. In our time, interruptions at a public meeting are
usually inarticulate, clapping of hands, stamping of feet, and
so forth. Parliamentary order does not permit a speaker, not
in possession of the chair, to go beyond a cry of ' oh, oh,'

xvn. J ACCLAMATIONS AT COUNCILS. 3 1 1
' hear, hear,' ' order, order,' or ' question ; ' but in the Roman
Senate it was common for the interrupter to shout out a short
sentence, which was duly taken down by the reporters, and
regularly entered on the Acts of the Senate. Sometimes a cry
raised in this manner was taken up by the whole assembly,
which repeated it perhaps several times, and, I believe, in a
kind of chant ; and then the reporters took carefully down
how many times the cry was repeated. If time permitted, I
could give you many curious illustrations of this practice,*
which certainly did not tend to the orderliness of proceedings ;
but the acclamations of the assembly came to be looked on as
an essential way of expressing the assent of the whole meeting
to what was done. In conformity with this practice, the
proceedings of all the early Councils, whose doings are
recorded in detail, end with acclamations ; and the practice
was kept up to the latest of them : the Council of Trent, for
instance, ends with acclamations, led by the presiding Cardi
nal, and responded to by the Fathers, in the way of versicle
and response, in such manner as could not have worked if the
Fathers had not been drilled beforehand or given in print or
writing what they were to acclaim. But such acclamations,
however harmless at the end of the proceedings, must have
been very disturbing in the middle, since it could not be agree
able to a speaker to be interrupted by shouts of ' anathema to
the heretic,' ' burn him alive,' ' cut him in two.' At Chalcedon,
where the proceedings were comparatively orderly, there
were occasional scenes of great uproar. Thus, when the
Church historian, Theodoret, whose sympathies had been with
* The Augustan History is full of examples extracted from the official acts of
the Senate : see, for instance, the acclamations at the death of Commodus, and
those on the election of Alexander Severus, which fill whole chapters in the fives
by jElius Lampridius. When Tacitus pleaded his age as unfitting him for the
Empire, the Senate acclaimed : — ' Et Trajanus senex ad imperium venit ' (dixerunt
decies). After acclaiming several similar sentences each ten times, then: — 'Im-
peratorem te non militem facimus ' (dixerunt vicies) ; ' Severus dixit caput imperare
non pedes ' (dixerunt tricies), &c. At the election of Claudius II. some of the
acclamations were repeated sixty times. Another interesting specimen is to be
found in the official acts of the election of Eraclius as St. Augustine's successor,
one of the acclamations being repeated twenty-five times, another twenty-eight
times.

312 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
Nestorius, took his place, the Acts of the Council record
that : — ' The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted
out : " He is worthy." The most reverend the bishops of
Egypt shouted out : " Don't call him bishop ; he is no
bishop ; turn out the fighter against God ; turn out the Jew."
The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out :
" The orthodox for the Synod ; turn out the rebels ; turn out
the murderers." The most reverend the bishops of Egypt :
" Turn out the enemy of God ; turn out the defamer of
Christ." It became necessary for the Imperial Commissioners
to suppress the clamour.
Succeeding Councils have been less noisy and violent;
but this has been because, as a general rule, the parties
whom it was intended to condemn have not been allowed
to be present, and the Council has only represented one
side. I think the Council of Trent will bear advanta
geous comparison with some of the early Councils. Yet
what scenes might we expect to have taken place there
if the Protestants had been allowed to be present. We
may guess from one little incident related by the Papal
historian of the Council, Cardinal Pallavicino. As the
Council was breaking up from a debate in committee on
the exciting subject of Justification, one bishop took so
much offence at something said by another that, as the
cardinal tells us, after the manner of men inflamed with
anger, he burst into an act of passion more injurious to
himself than the original offence ; for having laid hands
on the beard of his opponent, he pulled out many hairs,
and forthwith left the assembly.* Great uproar ensued ;
but though the Council thought that the offending bishop
had received much provocation, they very properly expelled
him. In short, if you take up the Acts of the Councils pre
disposed to reverence their decisions as conclusions which
* ' L'altro allora, secondo il costume degli appassionati nella collera, precipito in
una vendetta assai piu nociva al vendicatore che I'ingiuria vendicata. Imperocche-
scagliate le mani alia barba del Chironese ne strappo molti peli, ed immantenente
partissi.' — Storia del Concilio di Trento, viii. 6.

xvn. J THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 313
holy men arrived at after calm and prayerful deliberation,
you find, on the contrary, records of turbulent meetings,
in which men who exhibited no particle of the spirit of
Christianity used every effort to gain a victory over their
opponents, and get them turned out of the Church. In such
a case, if we accept the conclusions arrived at as correct, it
is by no means on the authority of the bodies which affirmed
them. How little, even at the time, was the real influence of a
Council is proved by the poor success of the Council of
Chalcedon in putting an end to the controversy on account
of which it was summoned. No Council had higher external
claims on the reverence of Christians. In the number of
bishops present (over 600), it exceeded any previous Council.
It had all the sanction that could be given it by the bishop
of Rome, Leo the Great, whose dogmatic letter it enthusias
tically adopted. It was backed by all the efforts of the
Emperor Marcian, whose zeal was active in extirpating the
heresy which it condemned ; yet, after the Council, the
Monophysite heresy spread with a new growth; and in
respect of the number and zeal of its adherents, I think,
surpassed the opposite party. It had frequently its leaders
enthroned in all the Patriarchal sees — Constantinople, Alex
andria, Antioch, Jerusalem. In fact, Egypt never acquiesced
in the defeat it sustained at the fourth Council. The creed of
Chalcedon was but an exotic in that country. Its adherents
were but the 'Court party,' the Melchites. The bishop
substituted for the deposed Dioscorus was able, in some sort,
to maintain his authority as long as the emperor lived ; but
when news came of the emperor's death, forthwith they
murdered him. The empire incurred so much danger by
fighting against Monophysitism, that formulas of reconcilia
tion were drawn up, in which the Council of Chalcedon was
thrown completely overboard ; and it was attempted to state
the doctrine of our Lord's nature in a manner in which all
might agree. But no compromise was accepted. The fighting
went on until the Mahometans came down, and swept both
parties away; and the Monophysites exist, though with

3*4 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
diminished numbers, down to our own day. As I have asked
before, By what better criterion can we test whether a judge is
recognized as having authority to decide a controversy than
by observing how he is listened to when he speaks ? If we
find that no one assents to his decisions except those who had
been of the same opinion before he spoke, we may conclude
that he was not owned as having authority to speak ; and
if the Council of Chalcedon was not entitled to impose its
decisions without examination on the Christian world, I do
not see how such a claim can be made for any other Council.
I have already referred to discredit thrown on Councils by
the badness of the arguments by which their conclusions were
arrived at. For instance, at the third General Council, Cyril,
who, in his opposition to Nestorius, approached perilously
near Apollinarianism, produced ' among the formal testi
monies to guide the bishops in their decisions, an extract
from a writing of Timotheus the Apollinarian, if not of Apol-
linaris himself, ascribing this heretical document to Pope
Julius, the friend of Athanasius.'* But a more plentiful crop
of illustrations may be drawn from the proceedings of the
seventh General Council, the second of Nicaea. The Fathers
attempted to prove the propriety of image worship from
Scripture ; but, as if conscious that they would have no easy
task, they propounded the then novel doctrine of the insuf
ficiency of Scripture, and anathematized those who say that
they will not receive any doctrine on the bare authority of
Fathers and Councils, unless it be plainly taught in the Old
and New Testament. Their Scripture proofs were not what
would be very convincing to us. For instance, the antiquity
of looking at images is proved from the Psalms, since David
says, ' Show me thy face ;' and ' Like as we have heard, so
have we seen ; ' and again, from Canticles, ' Let me see thy
•countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is comely.' Should we have any hesi
tation in setting up our fallible judgment against that of
those infallible interpreters, and in pronouncing such proofs
to be texts wrested from their contexts, we need have
* Newman, Theodoret, p. 351.

xvn.J THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA. 3*5
less scruple about their proofs from antiquity, several of
which are from spurious documents which no learned Roman
Catholic now would venture to defend. I will read you from
Robertson's Church History (ii. 156) one famous story, which
was such a favourite that it was twice used in the proceedings
of the Council : ' An aged monk on the Mount of Olives, it was
said, was greatly tempted by a spirit of uncleanness. One
day the demon appeared to him, and after having sworn him
to secrecy offered to discontinue his assaults if the monk
would give up worshipping a picture of the Blessed Virgin
and infant Saviour which hung up in his cell. The monk
asked time to consider the proposal, and notwithstanding
his oath applied for advice to an aged abbot of renowned
sanctity, who blamed him for having been so deluded as to
swear to the devil ; but told him that he had yet done well
in laying open the matter, and that it would be better for
him to visit every brothel in Jerusalem than to refrain from
adoring the Saviour and His Mother in the picture. From
this edifying tale a twofold moral was drawn, with general
consent : that reverence for images would not only warrant
unchastity but breach of oaths, and that those who had
sworn to the Iconoclast heresy were free from their obli
gations.' The highest point, perhaps, that Councils attained was
at the time of the Council of Constance. For two or three
centuries the power of the Popes had been steadily growing,
until first, by their removal to Avignon and their subjugation
to French influence, then by the schism in the Popedom,
their authority was greatly weakened. The schism made it
necessary that there should be some superior authority to
determine who really was Pope : or rather that was not
enough, for though Christendom was generally agreed in
desiring that the three rival Popes should be replaced by a
single Pope, the adherents of each were indisposed to admit
that they had been all along in the wrong. What was needed
was an authority which, if the Popes should not voluntarily
resign, would be able to compel them. In order that all
might acquiesce in its decisions it was necessary that it should

316 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
have power to depose even a real Pope; for there were some
who acknowledged each of the three as the real Pope. This
power then the Council of Constance claimed in its celebrated
decree, passed without a dissentient voice, ' that every lawfully
convoked Ecumenical Council derives its authority imme
diately from Christ, and that everyone, the Pope included, is
subject to it in matters of faith, in healing of schism, and the
reformation of the Church.' I do not say that this decision
placed Councils in a higher position than they were at the
time of the Council of Nicaea — for I do not imagine that the
Roman prelate would have dreamed then of setting himself
above the Council — but it placed them higher than they had
been in the times immediately before, or than they were
afterwards. For when the Council of Basle attempted to
exercise, in the face of a universally acknowledged Pope, the
prerogatives which the Council of Constance had claimed in
the time of schism, the result was failure ; and the appearance
of the Greek representatives at the Pope's Council of Flo
rence gave the finishing blow to the pretensions of the rival
Council of Basle.
The history of this rival Council of Florence, had I time
to dwell on it, would yield a plentiful crop of reasons for
distrusting its infallibility. I do not think Mr. Ffoulkes uses
words too strong when he says : — ' Of all Councils that ever
were held, I suppose there never was one in which hypocrisy,
duplicity, and worldly motives played a more conspicuous
part. How the Council of Basle was outwitted, and Florence
named as the place to which the Greeks should come ; how
the galleys of the Pope outstripped the galleys of the Council,
and bore the Greeks in triumph from Constantinople to a
town in the centre of Italy, where the Pope was all-powerful ;
how they were treated there, and why they were subsequently
removed to Florence, would reveal a series of intrigues of the
lowest order.' That the Greeks were present there at all was
owing to the urgent necessity of obtaining Western aid for
the Greek Empire, then on the verge of ruin, against the
Turks, by whom, less than sixty years afterwards, Constan
tinople was taken. The Greek bishops were only induced to

xvn. J THE COUNCIL OF FLORENCE. 317
undertake so long a journey on the terms that their expenses
were paid by the Pope. But they found that the fulfilment
of this bargain depended on their submissiveness. Their
allowance for subsistence was three months, four months in
arrear, and, when they agreed to unite with the Latins, five
months and a-half. ' Though we made frequent demands on
account of our need,' says one of them, ' it was not given
until we came into the proposed conditions. When we had
come round, we received the second monthly allowance.' Their
spirits were broken by delays that seemed to them intermin
able, and they could not get away ; for even if they had had
money for the journey, passports were denied them. What
wonder that, when they got safe home, all the concessions
they had made were repudiated. And as to the goodness of
the arguments by which the decrees of the Council were
supported, it is enough to say that a great source of these
arguments was the spurious decretals of which I mean to
speak in another Lecture.
But, really, investigation into the history of bygone Coun
cils is needless to one who can remember, as I can, the
Council of 1870. In everything I have thus far said to
discredit the authority of Councils, I am, as my quotations
from Cardinal Newman will have told you, in full agree
ment with modern Roman Catholics, who think that, when
they have shown that infallibility does not reside in Coun
cils, they have gone very near to prove that it does rest
with the Pope. Now, if a tradesman has taken pains
to produce a belief that his rival in business is little better
than a bankrupt, it would be thought strange if he tried to
get his bills cashed on the strength of having this rival's
endorsement ; yet this was exactly what Pius IX. tried to do
when he attempted to have his claim to infallibility endorsed
by the Vatican Council. In the next Lectures we shall
examine what the Pope's bill is worth ; at present, it is easy
to show that the endorsement is worth absolutely nothing.
The unfairness of the proceedings at the Vatican Council was
such that the defeated party, in disgust, playing on the old

318 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
name, ' Latrocinium Ephesinum,' called it ' Ludibrium Vati-
canum.' There was no fair representation of bishops. In the
first place, the assembly included some three hundred titular
bishops — bishops not presiding over any real sees, but hold
ing mere titles of honour given them by the Pope, or else
missionary bishops deriving their titles from places where
there were few or no Christian congregations. In addition,
the German bishops, who constituted the main strength of the
minority, complained that they were swamped by the multi
tude of Italian and Sicilian bishops. The twelve millions of
Roman Catholics in Germany proper were represented at the
Council by fourteen bishops ; the seven hundred thousand in
habitants of the Papal States, by sixty-two ; three bishops of
the minority — Cologne, Paris, and Cambray — represented five
million ; and these might be outvoted by any four of the
seventy Neapolitan and Sicilian bishops. The German theo
logians compared their learning with that of the bishops of
these highly favoured localities, amongst whom a clean sweep
would have been made if it had been a condition of admis
sion to the Council that the bishop should be able to read
the New Testament in its original language, or have Greek
enough to be able to consult the writings of Greek Fathers
or the acts of Greek Councils — a qualification without which,
north of the Alps, one does not rank as a theologian. The
German visitors, too, compared the activity of religious
thought in the country from which they came with that in
those regions which provided the predominant element at the
Council. It was said, and I believe with truth, that more
religious books are printed in England, or Germany, or
North America in one year than in Italy in half a century.
And to the list of Italian publications the States of the
Church contributed hardly anything. In Rome a lottery
dream-book might be found in every house, but never a New
Testament, and extremely seldom any religious book at all.
So that it seemed as if it were a recognized principle, that
the more ignorant a people, the greater must be the share of

xvn.J THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 319
their hierarchy in the government of the Church. Then
the minority complained that all regulations as to the trans
action of business were in the hands of a committee appointed
by the majority, and solely representing them, without the
consent of which committee no subject could be discussed ;
and, indeed, it was complained at first that the bulk of the
Council did not know what business was coming on. At the
first meeting it was found that, owing to the bad acoustic pro
perties of the hall in which they met, nothing could be heard ;
and a number of bishops, when asked to give their formal vote,
' Placet ' or ' Non placet,' answered, ' Non placet quia nihil
intelleximus.' An attempt was made to improve matters in
this respect by partitioning off a portion of the room ; but
bad the state of things always remained. Indeed there must
always have been a difficulty in following discussions carried
on in Latin — a language which all the bishops did not pro
nounce in the same way, and which in any case is not so
easily caught, if utterance is indistinct, as are the sounds of
one's native language. But it would be too much to expect of
human attention to follow the speeches which were delivered,
these being small treatises without any limitation of length,
read by their authors without the liveliness of spoken speech,
perhaps with indistinct utterance, and in a language with which
the hearers were not familiar. An easy remedy for this state
of things would have been if the speeches had been printed
and circulated among the members of the Council, so that any
could study at home what he had heard imperfectly. But
here was the advantage of the Pope's holding the Council in
his own city. There was no license of printing. A precis of
the speaker's arguments was made for the use of an exclu
sively Infallibilist committee, which was to draw up the
decrees of the Council. That precis the speaker was not
allowed to correct, or even to see, so that if he were on the
wrong side, it might be a mere caricature of his arguments
which was submitted to the committee.
Perhaps there was the less fear of doing injustice to
the arguments, that, as I already quoted from Cardinal
Manning, the Holy Spirit's promised assistance is sup-

320 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
posed to be given, not to the arguments, but to the final
vote. And, certainly, the practical rule resulting from
belief in this principle is, ' Never trouble yourself about the
arguments, but do all in your power to secure a vote.'
Now, there are many ways besides arguments by which
votes can be secured. The use of bad arguments was,
indeed, not neglected; for a paper was circulated, said
to have been drawn up by Manning, containing a decree of
the Council of Florence, garbled in a way of which I mean
to speak on another day. But there were more powerful
influences at work than arguments, good or bad About three
hundred of the bishops were the Pope's pensioners, all their
expenses being paid by him, and therefore could not be
unbiassed judges on a question concerning his prerogatives.
The Pope himself had his good-humoured jokes on the
numbers who had accepted his hospitality, and declared that,
in trying to make him ' infallibile,' they would make him
' fallire,' that is to say, make him bankrupt. There was
no danger of that, however ; for, in order to enable him to
meet such expenses, a well-timed collection was made nomi
nally with the object of making him a present in celebration
of the jubilee of his first Mass. Fifteen Cardinals' hats
were vacant to reward the obedient ; and, no doubt, as
always happens, more were influenced by the hope of Papal
favours than actually obtained them. The Pope made no
secret how much he had his heart set on obtaining a de
claration of his infallibility. This alone would weigh very
innocently with many bishops who would shrink from dis
pleasing a venerated superior. Two or three bishops, who
unexpectedly spoke on the wrong side, received from the
Pope the severest of wiggings. ' Lovest thou me ? ' was his
salutation to another waverer.
Now, what would you think of the merits of the British
Parliament as a representative assembly if, in addition to
inequalities of representation more gross than any in our
unreformed Parliament, the Crown was free to make as
many rotten boroughs as it pleased, and to name repre
sentatives for them ; if it had three hundred members

xvn.] THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 321
receiving daily pay at its discretion, besides a number of
members candidates for promotion ; and if the smiles or
frowns of the monarch were freely applied to reward or
punish ? But, at the Council, it was not enough to gain a
majority : the minority must be reduced to complete insig
nificance ; and this was effected when, as time went on, the
summer months arrived, and the heats at Rome became
unbearable — at least to a northern constitution. At first the
tactics of the minority had appeared to be to lengthen out
the proceedings. They made long speeches, some of them
speaking out so plainly that two or three times the greatest
uproar was excited ; and it really appeared as if there
was danger that the scene at Trent would be re-enacted,
when one bishop pulled out another bishop's beard. It
became necessary for the majority to introduce what the
French call the cloture :* that is to say, the rule was made
that, at the request of ten bishops, it should be put to the
vote whether the discussion should go on any longer. And
so in the first stage of the Infallibility discussion, a premature
stop was put to the speech-making ; and, amongst others, an
able speech against Infallibility by the American bishop
Kenrick was shelved. It has been since printed as a ' concio
habenda at non habita.' But when they got into the summer
months, the acclimatized Italian and Sicilian bishops could
bear delay with comparative impunity ; but the opponents
of the dogma, who were natives of a colder climate, were one
by one sickening with fever. They begged and implored
that the Council might be adjourned ; but the Pope and his
party understood their advantage too well, and the request
was sternly refused. It became evident that if the minority
indulged in much speech-making, the operation of reducing
their numbers would be effected in a very simple way ; and so
a vote was arrived at.
But now appeared the mischief of the claim to infallibility.
In our Parliament a law may be passed in the teeth of oppo
sition, and the minority must submit and obey the law ; but
* The word has become more familiar now than it was when this Lectur was
¦written. Y

322 GENERAL COUNCILS. [xvn.
their thoughts and words are free : they can avow still that
what has been done is opposed to their judgment. But at a
Council, when a vote is arrived at, the minority are required
to blot from their mind all the tricks and manceuvres, all the
unworthy means by which they know their resistance has
been overpowered, and to accept the vote of a majority, no
matter how obtained, as the voice of the Spirit of God. The
moment the decision is pronounced, they are bound not only
to yield a decorous obedience, but from the bottom of their
hearts to believe that to be true which the moment before
they had been protesting was false, and to publish this belief
to the world. No wonder the bishops of the minority shrank
from the humiliation of saying 'non placet' one moment, and
' exanimo credo' the next. So, with two exceptions, they all
ran away, leaving behind them a protest which was not
regarded. It is plain how the chance of arriving at truth is preju
diced by the claim to infallibility. If no such claim were
made, the majority would be forced to weigh the arguments of
the minority, to count the risk of driving them into schism,
to take care not to seem before the world to have the worst of
the argument. But when infallibility is supposed to rest
with the ultimate vote, the majority have no need to care
about the arguments advanced. Secure a vote, no matter
how, and all is gained. Thus, while there is no better way
of arriving at truth than taking counsel with others, a Council
which claims infallibility is a place where the wise and
cautious are delivered over, bound hand and foot, to the will
of a tyrant majority.

XVIII.
THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER.
IT remains now to speak of that theory of Infallibility
which makes the Pope personally its organ. It is the
theory now in the ascendant ; and, since the Vatican Council,
may be regarded as the theory recognized exclusively by the
Roman Church ; and it is the only theory which satisfies the
demands of the a priori arguments showing the necessity of
an infallible guide. What these arguments try to show to be
needful is a guide able infallibly to resolve every controversy
as it arises ; and this need can only be satisfied by a living
speaking voice, not by the dead records of past councils. The
truth is, that the much desired object, of uniformity of opinion
in the Church, can only be obtained, either on the terms of
resolute abstinence from investigation, or else upon the terms
of having an inspired teacher at hand competent to make new
revelations on every desired occasion. If we adhere to the
old theory, that Christ made one revelation, which it was His
Church's business to preserve and teach ; let that revelation
have been as copious as you please, still if it is limited at all,
it is of necessity that questions must arise which that revela
tion will not have determined ; on which private judgment is
therefore free, and on which, therefore, there will be difference
of opinion. If such diversity of opinion is thought an evil,
there must be a new revelation to supplement or explain the
old one. And this necessity must go on as long as men con
tinue to exercise their thoughts on religious subjects. The
difficulty and inconvenience of assembling Councils is so
great that the number of General Councils during the whole
duration of Christendom has been comparatively few, and the
Y 2

324 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
likelihood that many more will be assembled is but small.
The Roman theory then leads you necessarily to expect a
kind of incarnation of deity upon earth ; one which with
infallible voice will decide and silence every dispute. And if
this is not to be found in the person of the Pope it is to be
found nowhere else.
The marvel however is, that if the Church had from
the first possessed this wonderful gift it should have taken
eighteen centuries to find it out. It is historically certain
that in the year 1870, when it was proposed at the Vatican
Council to proclaim the fact, the doctrine was opposed by a
number of the leading bishops ; and that since the publication
a number of most learned, and who up to that time had been
most loyal, Roman Catholics, consented to suffer excommu
nication rather than agree to it. And the reason for their
refusal, alleged, as we shall see, with perfect truth, is that
this new doctrine is utterly opposed to the facts of history.
Although, then, the theory is condemned from the first by
its novelty, let us not refuse to examine the grounds on
which it is defended.
But I must warn you at the outset that, although it was
only the question of Infallibility that I proposed in these
Lectures to discuss, I am now forced to spend time on what is
really a different question, that of the Pope's alleged supre
macy. I am obliged to do so, because I must follow the line
of argument adopted by the Roman advocates. Their method
is to try to show that Christ made the constitution of His
Church monarchical, that He appointed St. Peter to be its
first ruler and governor, and that He appointed, moreover, that
the bishop of Rome, for the time being, should perpetually be
Peter's successor in that office. Suppose they succeed in
proving all this : suppose it established that the Pope is, by
divine right, sovereign ruler of the Church, it still remains
possible that in the course of his rule he may make mistakes,
as earthly monarchs who reign by the most legitimate titles
are liable to do. And in point of fact it is fully admitted that,
in his capacity of ruler and governor, the Pope may make
mistakes, and often has made very great ones. To name no

xvm.] THE SCRIPTURE ARGUMENT. 325
other, one has already come before us in the course of these
Lectures. Whether or not it be true that the Popes, in their
capacity of teachers, have committed themselves to the de
claration that it is heresy to maintain that the earth goes
round the sun, it is certain that, in their capacity of rulers,
they endeavoured for a long series of years to put down the
teaching of that doctrine ; and all will own that this attempted
suppression was unwise and impolitic, and has brought great
discredit on their Church. Clearly, therefore, if the Roman
advocates even succeed in establishing the Pope's supremacy,
the task still lies before them of proving that the Pope, in his
capacity of teacher, is infallible. We sometimes read of
Alpine explorers who, in attempting to reach a virgin peak,
have found themselves, after infinite labour, on a summit
separated by impassable ravines from that which it was their
desire to attain. And so in this case, between the doctrines
of the Pope's supremacy and of his Infallibility there lies a
gulf which it is, in my opinion, impossible to bridge over. To
begin with : suppose it proved that St. Peter was universal
ruler of the Churches, he certainly was not universal
teacher ; for the other Apostles who were inspired as well as
he had no need to learn from him ; and their hearers were as
much bound to receive their independent teaching as were
St. Peter's own hearers. But I postpone the consideration
of difficulties of this kind. At present let us examine what
success our opponents have in establishing the doctrine of
the Pope's supremacy. If they succeed, it will be time
enough then to discuss the question of the Pope's Infalli
bility ; for if they fail, it is all over with the latter doctrine.
And first we have to consider the Scripture argument,
resting on a supposed transmission to the Pope of. certain
prerogatives of St. Peter. In order to make out the theory
by this process four things ought to be proved — (1) that Christ
gave to St. Peter a primacy over the other Apostles not merely
in dignity and precedence, but in authority and jurisdiction,
constituting him their guide and teacher and ruler ; (2) that
this prerogative was not merely personal but designed to be
transmitted to successors ; (3) that Peter was Bishop of Rome

326 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER, [xvm.
and continued so to his death ; and (4) that those who suc
ceeded Peter in this local office were also the inheritors of his
jurisdiction over the whole Church. On this last point alone
there would be ample room for controversy. If there be any
faith due to the legend that Peter was Bishop of Rome there
is some due also to the story that he had been previously
Bishop of Antioch, which see might therefore contest with
Rome the inheritance of his prerogatives. Again, it was never
imagined that the bishop of the town where an Apostle might
chance to die thereby derived a claim to apostolic jurisdiction.
But Roman Catholic controversialists make short work of the
dispute on the last two heads. They argue that if they can
prove that Christ ever provided His Church with an infallible
guide, and intended him to have a successor, we need not
doubt that the Pope is that successor, since there is no rival
claimant of the office. It is the more needful, then, to scru
tinize carefully the proofs of the first two heads, as these are
made to do double duty : not only to prove the proposition
on behalf of which they are alleged, but also to induce us to
dispense with proof of the others.
The Scripture proof, in the main, consists of three texts ;
sometimes called the three texts, viz. (1) the promise of our
Lord to Peter (recorded Matt, xvi.), that upon this rock He
would build His Church ; (2) His promise (recorded Luke xxii.),
' I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and when thou
art converted strengthen thy brethren' ; and (3) the commis
sion ' Feed my sheep,' related in the last chapter of St. John.
Before giving a particular examination to these texts I would
remark on the general presumption against the Roman
Catholic theory arising out of the whole tenor of the N. T.
history, from which we should conclude that, highly as Peter
was honoured, he was not placed in an office having jurisdic
tion over the . other Apostles ; for the Apostolate is ever
spoken of as the highest office in the Christian Church ;
' God hath set some in the Church, first Apostles, secondarily
prophets ' (1 Cor. xii. 28) : not, as it ought to be if the Roman
theory had been true, first Peter, then the Apostles. The
history related in the Acts gives no trace of Peter's having

xvm.J THE THREE TEXTS. 327
exercised the prerogatives which are now attributed to him.
To take a single example : — When Peter took the decisive
step of eating with one uncircumcised, the Church of Jeru
salem (Acts xi.) called him sharply to account for a pro
ceeding so repugnant to Jewish traditions ; and Peter did
not justify himself by pleading his possession of sovereign
authority to decide the Church's action in such a matter, but
by relating a special revelation sanctioning what he had
done. As for the Epistles, they certainly give no support
to the theory of Peter's supremacy ; and in the story of Paul's
resistance to Peter at Antioch they throw in its way one
formidable stumbling-block.
Still less is any hint given that Peter was to transmit his
office to any successor. I need not say that we are not so
much as told that Peter was ever at Rome. The New Testa
ment contains two letters from Peter himself; one purporting
to be written immediately before his death, and with the
express object that those whom he was leaving behind should
be able to keep in memory the things that it was most impor
tant for them to know (2 Pet. i. 15). We may be sure that it
Peter had any privileges to bequeath he would have done so
in this his last will, and that if there was to be any visible head
of the Church to whom all Christians were to look for their
spiritual guidance, Peter would in these letters have com
mended him to the reverence of his converts, and directed
them implicitly to obey him.
Let us turn now to the texts appealed to. That in St.
Matthew is so familiar to you all that I need not read it : but
I will give you, in the words of Dr. Murray, one of the ablest
of the Maynooth Professors, what this text is supposed to
mean. He says, ' Peter was thus established by our Lord as
the means of imparting to the Church indefectibility and
unity, and of permanently securing these properties to her.
Peter was invested with supreme spiritual authority to
legislate for the whole Church ; to teach, to inspect, to judge,
to proscribe erroneous doctrine, or whatever would tend to
the destruction of the Church ; to appoint to offices or remove
therefrom, or limit or extend the jurisdiction thereof, as the

328 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
safety or welfare of the Church would require : in one word,
to exercise as supreme head and ruler and teacher and pastor
all spiritual functions whatever that are necessary for the
well-being or existence of the Church.' * It takes one's
breath away to read a commentary which finds so much more
in a text than lies on the surface of it. If our Lord meant all
this, we may ask, why did He not say it ? Who found out
that He meant it ? The Apostles did not find it out at the
time ; for up to the night before His death the dispute went
on, which should be the greatest. When James and John
petitioned that in His kingdom they might sit with Him, one
on each hand, they do not seem to have suspected, and their
Master then gave them no hint, that the chief place in His
kingdom had already been given away. There is, as I have
just pointed out, no other indication in the New Testament
that the Apostolic Church so understood our Lord's words
recorded by St. Matthew.
It remains that this interpretation must have been got
from unwritten tradition. We eagerly turn to explore the
records of that tradition. Here, surely, if anywhere, we shall
find that unanimous consent of the Fathers of which the
Council of Trent speaks. I have already said that I do not
refuse to attribute a certain weight to tradition in the inter
pretation of Scripture. I have owned that an interpretation
of any passage has a certain presumption against it if it is
clearly new-fangled : if it derive from the text a doctrine which
the Church of the earliest times never found there. The more
important the doctrine, the greater the presumption that if
true it would have been known from the first. But certainly
here is a case where, if the Fathers were ever unanimous,
they could not fail to be so if the Roman theory be true.
This is no obscure text; no passing remark of an inspired
writer ; but the great charter text, which for all time fixed the
constitution of the Christian Church. If, in these words, our
Lord appointed a permanent ruler over His Church, the
Church would from the first have resorted to that authority
for guidance and for the composing of all disputes, and there
* Irish Annual Miscellany, iii. 300.

xviii.J THE TEXT FROM ST. MATTHEW. 329
never could have been any hesitation to recognize the meaning
-of the charter on which the authority was founded. Yet I
suppose there is not a text in the whole New Testament on
which the opinion of the Fathers is so divided ; and you have
to come down late indeed before anyone finds the Bishop of
Rome there.
The most elaborate examination of the opinions of the
Fathers is in an Epistle* by the French Roman Catholic
Launoy, in which, besides the interpretation that Peter was
the rock, for which he produces seventeen Patristic testimonies,
he gives the interpretations that the rock was the faith which
Peter confessed, supported by forty-four quotations ;t that the
rock was Christ Himself, supported by sixteen ; and that the
Church was built on all the Apostles, supported by eight.
But as Launoy was a Gallican, and as through the progress
¦of development he would not be acknowledged as a good
Roman Catholic by the party now in the ascendant, I prefer
to quote the Jesuit Maldonatus, whose Romanism is of the
most thorough-going kind, and who I may add, on questions
where his doctrinal prepossessions do not affect his judgment,
is an interpreter of Scripture whose acuteness makes him worth
consulting. He begins his commentary on this passage by
saying, 'There are among ancient authors some who interpret
"on this rock," that is, " on this faith," or "on this confession of
faith in which thou hast called me the Son of the living God,"
as Hilary^ and Gregory Nyssen,§ and Chrysostom,|| and Cyril
of Alexandria.^! St. Augustine going still further away from
the true sense, interprets " on this rock," that is, " on myself
•Christ," because Christ was the rock. But Origen " on this
rock," that is to say, on all men who have the same faith.'
* Epist. vii., Opp. vol. v., pt. 2. p. 99 : Geneva, 1731.
t This interpretation may claim the sanction of the Council of Trent, which (Sess.
III.) describes the Creed as ' principium illud in quo omnes qui fidem Christi profi-
tentur necessario conveniunt, ac fundamentum firmum et unicum contra quod portae
inferi nunquam praevalebunt.'
X De 1'rin. lib. vi., 36, 37.
§ De advent. Dom. in Carne adv. Judaeos.
|| Horn, in hunc locum, et Orat. ii., Cont. Judaeos.
If Dial. 4, De Trin.

330 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
And then Maldonatus goes on with truly Protestant liberty
to discuss each of these interpretations, pronouncing them to
be as far as possible from Christ's meaning; and to prove, not
by the method of authority, but of reason, that these Fathers
were wrong, and that his own interpretation is the right one.
I ought to tell you, however, that St. Augustine is not
perfectly uniform in his interpretation. In one of his latest
works, his Retractations, which does not mean retractations in
our modern sense of the word, but a re-handling of things
previously treated of, he mentions having sometimes adopted
the language which St. Ambrose had used in a hymn, and
which designates Peter as the rock of the Church, but most
frequently he had interpreted the passage of Christ Himself,
led by the texts " that rock was Christ," and " other founda
tion can no man lay." He leaves his readers at liberty to
choose, but his mature judgment evidently inclines to the
latter interpretation. He lays more stress than I am inclined
to do on the distinction between Petra and Petrus, regarding
the latter as derived from the former in the same manner as
Christianus from Christus.* ' Thou art Petrus,' he says, ' and
on this Petra which thou hast confessed, saying, " thou art
Christ the Son of the living God," will I build my Church :
that is to say, on myself. I will build thee on myself, not
myself on thee. Men willing to build on man said, " I am of
Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Peter." But others, who
* This expositon of St. Augustine's was derived, probably indirectly, from Origen,
who, though he speaks incidentally of ' Peter on whom the Church is built ' (Ap.
Euseb. H.E. vi. 25), yet, when directly commenting on the passage in St. Matthew
(torn. xii. \\ 10, ir), teaches that everyone who makes the same confession of faith
as Peter may claim the blessing given to Peter as given to himself. ' If you imagine
that it was on Peter alone the Church is built, what then would you say about John
the son of Thunder, or any other of the Apostles ? ' But he teaches that if we make
Peter's confession we all are ' Peters.' Just as because we are members of Christ
we are called ' Christians ; ' so Christ being the Petra— the rock — every one who drinks
of ' that spiritual rock which follows us ' is entitled to be called Petrus. ' kAAa. Kal
XpitTTou l^eAt) ovres irapuj>v/j.oi exp7j/J.aTto'av xplffriavo\, irerpas 5e Herpoi. . . . Uerpos
yap iras 6 xpt-VTOv piad-qTTjs, a(p' ov einvov ol e/c irvev^iariKris aKoAovdovffrjs irerpas, teal
eVl irao'av t^v TOLavTTjf irerpav olKoSo^ieirai 6 eKKAijo'iaTiKbs iras A6yos Kal 7] /cot' avrbv
iroAireia' eV eicd(TTu yap tuv reAeitov, ix^VTWV r0 adpoio-fia tuv GvfxirArtpoivTuv r^v
/j.aKapi6rrira A6yuv Kal epyuv Kal voi\p.aTitiV, ecriv rj virb tov deov oiKoSo/J.ovfiei'Tt
eKKAijola.

xvni.J THE ROCK OF THE CHURCH. 331
were unwilling to be built upon Peter, but would be built on
the rock — not on Petrus but on Petra — said, I am of Christ.'
Such is Augustine's commentary, which, using my Protestant
liberty, I shall not scruple presently to reject. Other Fathers
besides Augustine and Origen are not quite uniform in their
interpretation : and this is not to be wondered at ; because, as
we shall presently see, there is a sense in which the Church
is founded on Christ alone, a sense in which it was founded on
Peter's confession, a sense in which it was founded on Peter
or on all the Apostles; so that no matter which interpretation
gives the true sense of this particular passage, it is quite
easy to harmonize the doctrines which different Fathers
derive from it. But none of these can be reconciled with
the interpretation which regards this text as containing-
the charter of the Church's organization. A charter would
be worthless if it were left uncertain to whom it was
addressed or what powers it conferred. So that the mere
fact that Fathers differed in opinion as to what was meant
by 'this rock,' and that occasionally the same Father
wavered in his opinion on this subject, proves that none of
them regarded this text as one establishing a perpetual
constitution for the Christian Church. My case is so strong
that I could afford to sweep away all evidence of diversity of
Patristic interpretation of this text. I could afford to put out
of court every Father who interprets ' this rock ' of Christ, or
of all the Apostles, or of Peter's confession, and to allow
the controversy to be determined by the evidence of those
Fathers only who understand ' this rock ' of Peter himself,
and by examining whether they understood this text as
conferring a perpetual privilege on Peter and a local successor.
But at present it is enough that the extract I read from St.
Augustine shows plainly enough that at the beginning of
the fifth century it had not been discovered that this text
contained the charter of the Church's organization, the
revelation of the means of imparting to her indefectibility
and unity. And if, as I said, it had ever been known in the
Church that this was what Christ intended by the words, the
tradition could not have been lost ; for the constant habit of

332 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
resorting to this authority would have kept fresh the memory
of our Lord's commands.
We may, then, safely conclude that our Lord did not, in
that address to Peter, establish a perpetual constitution for
His Church ; but as to the historical question, whether He
¦did not, in these words, confer some personal prerogative on
Peter, I do not myself scruple to differ from the eminent
Fathers whom I have cited as holding the contrary opinion.
It seems to me that they have erred in considering the
general doctrine of Scripture, rather than what is required by
the context of this particular passage. It is undoubtedly the
doctrine of Scripture that Christ is the only foundation :
' other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ' (i Cor. iii. n). Yet we must remember that
the same metaphor may be used to illustrate different truths,
and so, according to circumstances, may have different signi
fications. The same Paul who has called Christ the only
foundation, tells his Ephesian converts (ii. 10) : — ' Ye are built
upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.' And in like
manner we read (Rev. xxi. 14) : — 'The wall of the city had
twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the
twelve Apostles of the Lamb.' How is it that there can be
no other foundation but Christ, and yet that the Apostles are
spoken of as foundations ? Plainly because the metaphor is
used with different applications. Christ alone is that founda
tion, from being joined to which the whole building of the
Church derives its unity and stability, and gains strength to
defy all the assaults of hell. But, in the same manner as
any human institution is said to be founded by those men to
whom it owes its origin, so we may call those men the
foundation of the Church whom God honoured by using them
as His instruments in the establishment of it; who were
themselves laid as the first living stones in that holy temple,
and on whom the other stones of that temple were laid ; for it
was on their testimony that others received the truth, so that
our faith rests on theirs ; and (humanly speaking) it is
because they believed that we believe. So, again, in like

xvm.] ST. PETER'S CONFESSION. 333-
manner, we are forbidden to call anyone on earth our Father,
'for one is our Father which is in heaven.' And yet, in
another sense, Paul did not scruple to call himself the
spiritual father of those whom he had begotten in the
Gospel. You see, then, that the fact that Christ is called the
rock, and that on Him the Church is built, is no hindrance
to Peter's also being, in a different sense, called rock, and
being said to be the foundation of the Church ; so that I
consider there is no ground for the fear entertained by some,
in ancient and in modern times, that, by applying the words
personally to Peter, we should infringe on the honour due to
Christ alone.
If there be no such fear, the context inclines us to look on
our Lord's words as conferring on Peter a special reward for
his confession. For that confession was really the birth of
the Christian Church. Our Lord had grown up to the age of
thirty, it would seem, unnoticed by His countrymen ; certainly
without attempting to gather disciples. Then, marked out
by the Holy Ghost at His baptism, and proclaimed by John
as the Lamb of God, He was joined by followers. They heard
His gracious words ; they saw His mighty works ; they came
to think of Him as a prophet, and doubted, in themselves,
whether He were not something more. Was it possible that
this could be the long promised Messiah ? This crisis was
the date of Peter's confession. Our Lord saw His disciples'
faith struggling into birth, and judged that it was time to
give it the confirmation of His own assurance that they had
judged rightly. By His questions He encouraged them to
put into words the belief which was forcing itself on them all,
but to which Peter first dared to give profession. In that
profession he proclaimed the distinguishing doctrine of the
Christian Church. Up to that time the Apostles had preached
repentance. They had been commissioned to announce that
the kingdom of heaven was at hand. But thenceforward the
religion they preached was one whose main article was faith
in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour.
When you once understand the importance of this con
fession, you will understand the warmth of commendation

334 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
with which our Lord received what seems to us but the
simple profession of an ordinary Christian's faith. We are
apt to forget what an effort it was for a Jew, at the time
when the nation was in a state of strained and excited
expectation of some signal fulfilment of the prophetic an
nouncement of a coming deliverer, to give up his ideal of a
coming triumphant Messiah, to fix his hopes on a man of
lowly rank, who made no pretensions to the greatness of
this world, and to believe that the prophecies were to receive
no better fulfilment than what the carpenter's son could give
them. One proportions praise and encouragement, not only
to the importance of the thing done, but also to its difficulty
to him who does it. The act of running a few steps alone,
or of saying a few articulate words is a feat on which none of
you would dream of priding himself ; but with what praise
and encouragement parents welcome a child's first attempt
to walk without support ; with what delight they catch at the
first few words he is able to pronounce. And it is not only
that the first efforts of the child are as difficult to him as
some more laborious exercise would be to us ; but also that
first victory is the pledge of many more. The very first
words a child pronounces give his parents the assurance that
that child is not, either through want of intellect or through
want of powers of speech, doomed to be separated from inter
course with mankind. The learning these two or three words
gives the assurance that he will afterwards be able to master
all the other difficulties of language, and will be capable of
all the varied delights which speech affords. And so in that
first profession of faith in Christ, imperfect though it was, and
though it was shown immediately afterwards how much as
to the true character of the Messiah remained to be learned,
still in that confession was contained the pledge of every
future profession of faith which the Church then founded has
since been able to put forth. This accounts for the encourage
ment and praise with which our Lord received that confession.
I own it seems to me the most obvious and natural way of
understanding our Lord's words to take them as conferring a
personal honour in reward for that confession. Thy name I

xvm. J ST. PETER'S REWARD FOR HIS CONFESSION. 335
have called Rock : and on thee and on this confession of
thine I will found my Church. For that confession really was
the foundation of the Church. Just as in some noble sacred
music, the strain which a single voice has led is responded to
by the voices of the full choir, so that glorious hymn of praise,
which Peter was the first to raise, has been caught up and
re-echoed by the voices of the redeemed in every age. Nay,
the anthem of thanksgiving to Jesus, the Son of God, which
has filled the mouths of the Church militant on earth, shall
still be the burden of their songs in heaven as they ascribe
'blessing, and honour, and glory, and power to Him that
sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb.'
It was not only in this first recognition of the true charac
ter of our Lord that Peter was foremost. Jesus fulfilled His
promise to him by honouring him with the foremost place in
each of the successive steps by which the Church was de
veloped. It was through St. Peter's sermon on the day of
Pentecost that the first addition was made to the numbers of
the disciples whom our Lord Himself had collected, when on
one day there was added to the Church 3000 souls ; and it
was by Peter's mission to Cornelius that the first step was
made to the admission of Gentiles to the Church ; thus
causing it to overleap the narrow barriers of Judaism and to
embrace all the families of the earth. Thus the words of our
Lord were fulfilled in that Peter was honoured by being the
foremost among the human agents by which the Church was
founded.* But I need not say that this was an honour in
which it was impossible he could have a successor. We
might just as well speak of Adam's having a successor in the
honour of being the first man, as of Peter's having a successor in
the place which he occupied in founding the Christian Church.
I have said that the Romanist interpretation of the text
we have been considering is refuted by the fact that many
eminent Fathers do not understand the rock as meaning
St. Peter. You will see now, that even if they did,f as I do
* The same explanation may be given of the bestowal on Peter of the keys of the
kingdom of heaven.
t For example Tertullian, the earliest writer quoted as interpreting the ' Rock '

336 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
myself, the Romanist consequences would not follow. If
Peter were the foundation of the Church in any other sense
than I have explained, it would have shaken immediately
afterwards when our Lord said unto him : ' Get thee behind
me, Satan,' and tottered to its base when he denied his Lord.
Immediately after Peter had earned commendation by his
acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, the doctrine of a
crucified Messiah was proposed to him and he rejected it. So
that if the Apostles had believed that the words ' On this rock
I will build my Church ' constituted Peter their infallible
guide, the very first time they followed his guidance they
would have been led into miserable error. They would have
been led by him to reject the Cross, on which we rely as our
atonement, and on which we place all our hope of salvation.
I will not delay to speak of the latter part of the passage, be
cause it is clear that the privileges therein spoken of are not
peculiar to Peter, very similar words being used in the 18th
of St. Matthew to all the Apostles.
I hasten on to the words in St. Luke, on which Roman
Catholics are forced to lay much of their case. For when
it is pointed out, as I did just now, that the charge in St.
Matthew clearly did not render Peter competent to guide the
Apostles, it is owned that the due powers were not given to
him then, but it is said they were conferred afterwards.
When it is pointed out that the disputes among the Apostles
for precedence show that they were not aware that Peter had
been made their ruler, it is answered that our Lord on the
night before He was betrayed decided the subject of these
disputes in His charge to Peter. Our habitual use of the
second person plural in addressing individuals so disguises
from the modern English reader the force of the Roman
Catholic argument, that I have hardly ever found anyone who
could quote correctly that familiar text about sifting as wheat
unless his attention had been specially called to it. Our
Lord's words do very strongly bring out a special gift to
to mean St. Peter, contends vehemently (De Pudic. 21) that the privilege conferred
by our Lord on that occasion was exclusively personal, and was fulfilled by the part
Peter took in the first formation of the Church.

xvm. J CHRIST'S PRAYER FOR PETER. 337
Peter. ' Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you
[vp.aQ, all the Apostles) that he may sift you as wheat ; but I
have prayed for thee (Peter) that thy faith fail not, and when
thou art converted strengthen thy brethren.' But certainly
no one who interpreted Scripture according to its obvious
meaning could suspect that the passage contains a revelation
concerning the Church's appointed guide to truth in all time
The whole passage refers, on the face of it, to the immediate
danger the faith of the Apostles was in from those trials
under the pressure of which they all deserted their Master.
There was a special prayer for Peter because of his special
danger, and we see that this prayer did not exclude a griev
ous fall. If no security of unbroken constancy in the faith
was thereby gained to Peter, for whom the prayer was
directly made, we have no ground for supposing that it had
greater efficacy in the case of any alleged successors, to whom
the petition can at most apply indirectly. It may be added
that the work of ' strengthening ' his brethren, thereby com
mitted to Peter (one to which he was peculiarly bound, whose
fall had perilled men's faith), was no peculiar prerogative of
Peter's. The same word artipiZttv is used in three or four
places in the Acts (xiv. 22 ; xv. 32, 41 ; xviii. 23) of Paul's
confirming the Churches of Syria and Cilicia, of Judas and
Silas confirming the brethren at Antioch, of Timothy con
firming the Thessalonian Church. And most remarkable of
all, Paul when purposing to visit Rome, which is said to have
been Peter's peculiar charge, expects that it is by his
instrumentality this benefit will be conferred on the Roman
Church : ' I long to see you that I may impart unto you some
spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established dg to arnpix-
Qrjvai Vfiag (Rom. i. 11).
I may here, in passing, mention another passage (2 Cor.
xi. 28), where Paul shows himself strangely unconscious
of Peter's prerogatives. For, having enumerated some of
his labours and sufferings in the cause of the Gospel, he
adds : * Beside those things that are without, that which
cometh on me daily, the care of all the Churches.' If, as
Roman theory would have it, the care of all the Churches
z

338 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
was Peter's province, St. Paul is most unreasonable in com
plaining of the trouble he had incurred through gratuitously
meddling with another man's work, thus literally becoming
what St. Peter himself called an aWorpioeTriaKoirog (i Pet. iv. 15).
But Paul elsewhere (Gal. ii. 8) limits Peter's province to the
'Apostleship of the Circumcision,' that is to say, to the super
intendence of the Jewish Churches ; and states that the work
of evangelizing the Gentiles had, by agreement with the three
chief Apostles, been specially committed to himself and Bar
nabas. This prayer for Peter is so clearly personal that some
Roman Catholic controversialists do not rely on this passage
at all. Neither can they produce any early writers who
deduce from it anything in favour of the Roman See. Bellar
mine can quote nothing earlier than the eleventh century,
except the suspicious evidence of some Popes in their own
cause, of whom the earliest to speak distinctly is Pope
Agatho in his address to the sixth general council, A.D. 680.
How earlier Fathers understood the passage will appear
plainly from Chrysostom's commentary,* when he answers the
question why Peter is specially addressed : 'He said this
sharply reproving him, and showing that his fall was
more grievous than that of the others, and needed greater
assistance. For he had been guilty of two faults, that he
contradicted our Lord when He said all shall be offended,
saying, "though all should be offended, yet will I never be
offended ;" and secondly, that he set himself above the others:
and we may add a third fault, that he ascribed all to himself.
In order, then, to heal these diseases, our Lord permitted him
to fall; and therefore passing by the others He turns to him :
" Simon, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat (that is to say, might trouble you, harass you, tempt
you), but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not."
Why, if Satan desired to have all, does not our Lord say, I
have prayed for all ? Is it not plainly for the reason I have
mentioned ? By way of rebuke to him, and showing that his
fall was worse than that of the others He turns His speech to
* Horn. 82. In Matt, xxvi., vol. vii., p. 785.

xvm.J THE TEXT, 'FEED MY SHEEP.' 339
him.' * Similar language is used by a much later expositor,
the Venerable Bede, in his commentary on this text of
St. Luke. He explains it ' as I have by praying preserved
thy faith that it should not fail under the temptation of
Satan, so also do thou be mindful to raise up and comfort
thy weaker brethren by the example of thy penitence, lest
perchance they despair of pardon.' It is plain that the great
teachers of the Church were ignorant for hundreds of years
that this text contained more than a personal promise to the
Apostle about to be tried by a special temptation, and that
they never found out it was a charter text revealing the
constitution of the Christian Church.
I come now to the third text, the ' Feed my sheep ' of St.
John ; and here too, certainly, there is no indication in the
text itself that there was an appointment to an office peculiar
in its kind. The office offending Christ's sheep is certainly
not peculiar to St. Peter. It is committed, in even more general
terms, by St. Paul to the Ephesian elders, 'Feed the Church
of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood ' (Acts
xx. 28) ; and by Peter himself to his fellow elders, ' Feed the
flock of God which is among you' (1 Pet. v. 1). The sequel of
the story, too, is adverse to the supposition that our Lord
meant to confer on St. Peter the oversight of his fellow
Apostles. For when he asks concerning St. John, 'What
shall this man do?' he receives something like a rebuke:
* It is proper to mention, by way of set off, that in the Homilies on the Acts,
ascribed to Chrysostom (vol. ix., p. 26), the part taken by Peter in initiating the
election of Matthias is treated as resulting from the prerogatives bestowed in the
words recorded in St. Luke's Gospel : eiKSruts irpuros tov irpdyfiaros avdevrel, are
avros iravras eyxeipLn-deis, irpbs yap tovtov eiirev 6 XpiffrSs' Kal <rv iroTe etrto-Tpetyas
o-r^/jifoe tovs ab~eA<povs aov. Chrysostom's authorship of the Homilies on the Acts
has been much disputed on account of their great inferiority, both in style and treat
ment, to his unquestioned writings. Erasmus is so impolite as to say 'Nihil unquam
legi indoctius. Ebrius ac stertens scriberem meliora.' Great preachers, however,
are not always at their best, and possibly these Homilies, as they have come down
to us, are a bad report of sermons really delivered by St. Chrysostom. And vacilla
tions of interpretation are so common with the fathers, that I do not regard it as
a proof of diverse authorship that the text in St. Luke is dealt with differently in
these Homilies and those in St. Matthew. But on no supposition is the question at
issue more than the speculative one, what prerogatives were enjoyed by Peter
personally; no ambiguity of interpretation could have been tolerated if Chrysostom
had imagined that the text in Luke determined the constitution of the Church in his
own day.
Z 2

340 THE PREROGATIVES OF PETER. [xvm.
' What is that to thee ? follow thou me.' I don't know any
respectable Patristic authority for understanding the passage
otherwise than Cyril of Alexandria, whose commentary we
may well adopt : ' If anyone asks for what cause he asked
Simon only, though the other disciples were present, and
what he means by " Feed my lambs " and the like, we
answer that St. Peter, with the other disciples, had been
already chosen to the Apostleship, but because mean
while Peter had fallen (for under great fear he had thrice
denied the Lord), he now heals him that was sick, and
exacts a threefold confession in place of his triple denial,
contrasting the former with the latter, and compensating the
fault with the correction.' And again, ' By the triple con
fession Peter abrogates the sin contracted in his triple denial.
For from what our Lord says, ' Feed my lambs,' a renewal of
the Apostolate already delivered to him is considered to have
been made which presently absolves the disgrace of his sin
and blots out the perplexity of his human infirmity.' I shall
not detain you longer with the Scripture argument ; nor shall
I examine, for instance, how Romanist advocates struggle to
make out that the appointment of Matthias was made by
the single authority of Peter, because the whole history of the
Acts (as, for instance, the appointment of the seven deacons,
the conversion of Samaria, where we find not ' Peter took
John ' but ' the Apostles sent Peter and John '), shows that
the original constitution of the Church was not monarchical,
and that when that of the Jerusalem Church became so,
James, and not Peter, was its ruler. I may mention, that in
the Clementines of which I shall have occasion to speak again
presently, and which did so much to raise the authority
attributed to Peter in the Church, it is James, not Clement,
who is bishop of bishops and supreme ruler ; and to James
Peter must yearly render an account of his doings.*
* In a still later forgery, the Decretal Epistles, this is rectified. Among these is a
letter supposed to be written by Clement, after Peter's death, to James, although, ac
cording to Eusebius, James died before Peter. In this letter Clement, as Peter's suc
cessor, assumes the position of James's master and teacher : — ' Quoniam sicut a beato
Petro Apostolo accepimus, omnium Apostolorum patre qui claves regni ccelestis
accepit, qualiter tenere debemus de sacramentis, te ex ordine nos decet instruere.'

XIX.

PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE.
I COUNT it as proved in the last Lecture that we have no
Scripture warrant for regarding Peter as more than a
foremost (or, if you will, the foremost) member of the Apostolic
college, or as having any precedence but such as his boldness,
promptitude, and energy gave him ; and that there is no trace
of his having held over the Church any official position of
headship, wherein, according to Christ's intention, he was to
have a successor. I go on now to consider Peter's connexion
with Rome, which I look on as a mere historical problem,
without any doctrinal significance whatever way it may be
determined. The generally received account among Roman
Catholics, and one which can claim a long traditional accept
ance, is that Peter came to Rome in the second year of Claudius
(that is, A.D. 42), and that he held the see twenty-five years, a
length of episcopate never reached again until by Pio Nono,
who exceeded it. It used to be said (but I believe untruly)
that as part of the ceremony of a Pope's installation he was
addressed * Non videbis annos Petri.' Now if it is possible to
prove a negative at all, we may conclude, with at least high
probability, that Peter was not at Rome during any of the
time on which the writings of the canonical Scriptures throw
much light, and almost certainly that during that time he was
not its bishop. We have an Epistle of Paul to the Romans
full of salutations to his friends there, but no mention of their
bishop. Nor is anything said of work done by Peter in
founding that Church. On the contrary, it is implied that
no Apostle had as yet visited it ; for such is the inference

342 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
from the passage already cited, in which Paul expresses his
wish to see the Roman Christians in order that he might
impart some spiritual gift to the end that they might be
established. We have letters of Paul from Rome in which
no message is sent from Peter ; and in the very last of these
letters Paul complains of being left alone, and that only Luke
was with him. Was Peter one of the deserters ? The Scrip
ture accounts of Peter place him in Judaea, in Antioch, pos
sibly in Corinth, but finally in Babylon. I have discussed,
in a former series of Lectures, whether this is to be under
stood literally, or whether we have here the first indication
of Peter's presence at Rome. But plainly, if Peter was ever
at Rome, it was after the date of Paul's second Epistle to
Timothy. Some Protestant controversialists have asserted that
Peter was never at Rome ; but though the proofs that he
was there are not so strong as I should like them to be
if I had any doctrine depending on it, I think the historic
probability is that he was ; though, as I say, at a late
period of the history, and not long before his death. I
dare say some of you know that there was a controversy
on this subject at Rome not long after the Pope ceased to be
the temporal ruler of the city. Quite lately I have seen it
still placarded as 'the immortal discussion at Rome.' Roman
Catholic priests are, as a general rule, not fond of controversy ;
but they were tempted into it this time by the fact that
victory seemed certain ; for the Protestant champions had
undertaken the impossible task of proving the negative, that
Peter was never at Rome. They might as well have under
taken to prove out of the Bible that St. Bartholomew never
preached in Pekin. I don't suppose he did ; but I don't
know how you could prove out of Scripture that he didn't.
The event showed, however, of how little use a logical victory
sometimes is. When the Protestants began to use such ar
guments as I employed just now in order to prove that Peter
had not been twenty-five years bishop, the Romanists inter
rupted them by pointing out that that was not the question.
' You undertook to prove he was never at Rome. We need

xix. J THE PLACE OF PETER'S MARTYRDOM. 343
not talk about twenty-five years ; if he was there a day, or
an hour, your cause is lost.' Thereupon their opponents
raised a shout of triumph. ' Here are the men who, until we
encountered them, had been asserting a twenty-five years'
episcopate ; and now they give up the whole fable the moment
they are grappled with, and are reduced to contend for a day
or an hour.'
For myself, I am willing, in the absence of any opposing
tradition, to accept the current account that Peter suffered
martyrdom at Rome. We know with certainty from John xxi.
that Peter suffered martyrdom somewhere. If Rome, which
early laid claim to have witnessed that martyrdom, were not
the scene of it, where then did it take place ? Any city would
be glad to claim such a connexion with the name of the
Apostle, and none but Rome made the claim. The place of
Peter's martyrdom was, no doubt, known to St. John, and,
we may reasonably think, was also known in the circle where
his Gospel was first published. Now all agree that the date
of that publication was quite late in the apostolic age ; and
the interval, till the time when men began to make written
record of what they could learn by apostolic tradition, is too
short to allow of the true tradition as to the place of St.
Peter's martyrdom being utterly lost, and a quite false one
substituted. In the earliest uninspired Christian writing,
the Epistle of Clement of Rome, he makes mention of the
martyrdom of Peter and Paul, but does not name the place
where they suffered. There is a fair presumption, however,
that in this Roman document Rome is intended. The
earliest express mention of Italy as the place of their
martyrdom is in a letter of Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth,
about 170. There is mention of their tombs at Rome in a
dialogue of Caius the Roman presbyter, about A. D. 200, and
from that time this tradition reigned without a rival. If
this evidence for Peter's Roman martyrdom be not deemed
sufficient, there are few things in the history of the early
Church which it will be possible to demonstrate.
From the question, whether Peter ever visited Rome, we
pass now to a very different question : whether he was its

344 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
bishop. Absentees are not popular in this country ; but the
worst of absentees is an absentee bishop. We think it scandal
ous when we read of bishops a hundred years ago who never
went near their sees ; but this abuse has now been completely
rooted out of our Church. Canons against non-residence
were made in earlier times ; but, if we are to believe Roman
theory, the bad example had been set by St. Peter, who was
the first absentee bishop. If he became bishop of Rome in
the second year of Claudius, he appears never afterwards to
have gone near his see until close upon his death. Nay, he
never even wrote a letter to his Church while he was away ;
or if he did, they did not think it worth preserving.
Baronius (in Ann. lviii. § 51) owns the force of the
Scripture reasons for believing that Peter was not in Rome
during any time on which the New Testament throws light.
His theory is that, when Claudius commanded all Jews to
leave Rome, Peter was forced to go away. And as for his
subsequent absences, they were forced on him by his duty as
the chief of the Apostles, having care of all the Churches.
' Paul preached the Gospel from Jerusalem round about
unto Illyricum, and, not satisfied with that, designed to go
even to Spain besides. Can we imagine Peter to have been
less active ? ' These, no doubt, are excellent reasons for Peter's
not remaining at Rome; but why, then, did he undertake
duties which he must have known he could not fulfil ?
There is another respect in which the accepted version of
Peter's history accuses him of having set a bad example. In
the primitive Church it was accounted a discreditable thing
for a bishop to migrate from one see to another ; and espe
cially from a poorer see to a richer ; it was accounted a kind
of spiritual adultery, this forsaking a poorer wife for a richer.
Several early canons forbade the practice ; and I have
mentioned how one of them was worked against Gregory
Nazianzen. Pope Leo [Ep. 84), in a decree incorporated
in the Canon law [Si quis Episcopus, c. 7, qu. 1, cap. 31),
ordered : — ' If any bishop, despising the meanness of his see,
seeks for the administration of a more eminent place, and
for any reason transfers himself to a greater people, he shall

xix.J PETER'S ANTIOCHENE EPISCOPATE. 345
not only be driven out of the see which did not belong to him,
but he shall also lose his own, so as neither to preside over
those whom in his avarice he coveted, nor over those whom
in his pride he despised.' Yet we are told that Peter, in. order
to obtain the see of Rome, abandoned that of Antioch, which
he had previously held for seven years.
On this charge, at least, Peter may fairly claim an
acquittal ; for whatever credit may be due to the story of his
Roman episcopate, the story of the Antiochene episcopate is
entitled to still less, being both of later origin and far less
widely believed. In fact, I consider that it was the circulation
of the tale of Peter's Roman episcopate which stimulated the
invention of Syrian Christians to make out an equal honour
for their capital. There is a current story of an Englishman,
who, in a country where veracity was not cultivated, found a
claim made on him for the repayment of money which he
had never received. At the trial he heard the fact of his
having received the money attested by so many witnesses
that he could not conceive how his own advocate could
be able to break the case down. But he was not prepared
for the line of defence actually adopted, which was to produce
an equal number of credible witnesses who had been present
when the money was duly paid back. On much the same
system Eastern Christians attempted no contradiction of the
story that Peter had been bishop of Rome ; but they had the
wit to see that the date assigned for his coming to that city
left some years free, between the dates of our Lord's Ascen
sion and A.D. 42, of which use might be made to establish
an earlier dignity for Antioch. The Westerns were equally
polite in accepting the Eastern story, the truth of which is
strenuously maintained by Baronius, who relies on its being
adopted in the Chronicle of Eusebius. And it is true that the
story was fully accepted in the fourth century ; but much
earlier evidence would be necessary in order to establish its
truth.* * I chanced lately to have my attention drawn to another attempt to give early
Church history a Syrian colouring. I looked into the Evidence for the Papacy, by
¦the late Lord Lindsay (afterwards Earl of Crawford), in order to see whether it

346 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
With regard to the Roman episcopate — in other words,
with regard to the charge against Peter, of having undertaken
local duties which he must have known his apostolic labours
could not permit him to fulfil — we might be disposed to give
him an acquittal on the ground of character alone. But it is
satisfactory to be able to report that the case against him
completely breaks down. In fact, we can say with confidence
that the story had not arisen in the year 1 80 ; for Irenaeus, in
a work published shortly after that year [Hcer. iii. 3), ascribes
the establishment of the Roman Church to Paul as well as
Peter ; and then adds, ' the blessed apostles having founded
and built the Church, committed the episcopal office to
Linus. Of this Linus St. Paul makes mention in his Epistle
to Timothy. To him succeeded Anencletus* [elsewhere called
Cletus, or AnacletusJ. After him Clement succeeded in the
third place from the apostles.' Thus Linus is made the first
was a book of which I needed to take notice. I found that, in producing his.
very first Patristic witness, the author was so unlucky as to stumble into both
the traps into which an inexperienced explorer of antiquity is in danger of fall
ing : he took a spurious work for genuine ; and he completely misconceived what
his witness meant to say. The witness was Ignatius, who, in writing to the
Romans, says : ' I do not command you like Peter and Paul ; ' from which
it is a common and, as I believe, a just inference that Ignatius regarded these
two Apostles as having some local connexion with that Church. But Lord
Lindsay goes on to argue that Ignatius says elsewhere (Ad Magnes. 10) that 'the
disciples were called Christians first at Antioch when Peter and Paul were founding
the Church.' He asks why Ignatius did not say, ' when the Apostles were founding
the Church,' unless that he regarded these two Apostles, with whom the Church of
Rome was connected, as superior in rank to the rest. But the second passage has a
coincidence with Irenaeus which would have awakened Lord Lindsay's suspicions if
he had been more familiar with early Fathers ; and it is, in fact, taken from the longer
form of the Ignatian Epistles, which critics of all schools now own to be spurious.
But what is amusing is, that nothing could be further from this Syrian forger's.
intention than to furnish evidence in support of Roman claims. On the contrary, he
takes the phrase which Irenaeus had used about Peter and Paul founding the Church
of Rome, and transfers it to the Church of Antioch.
* ' Anacletus is no name I ever heard of. But Anencletus (meaning the same as
Innocentius) is found as a man's name in a Greek inscription (Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. i.
116, n. 1240). The Greeks always have Anencletus. In Photius (Cod. 113, p. 90,
Bekker) the name stands Anacletus ; but the Cod. Marc, has the right form, Anen
cletus, as Dindorf observes (Thes. Gr.). The name Cletus is equally unknown, and is-
clearly a corruption of Anencletus, which sounded strange to Latin ears.' — (Von
Dbllinger, First Age of the Church, ii. 153, Oxenham's translation, 1877).

xix.J THE TESTIMONY OF IRENAEUS. 347
bishop of Rome, and his appointment St. Paul's work as
much as Peter's. This is the earliest account we have of the
succession of the Roman bishops. It is really useless to cite
other authorities ; for a doctrine so fundamental as Peter's
episcopate and its consequences is alleged to be, if true at
all, could not but be known to Irenaeus. It is worth men
tioning, as a sample of the way in which controversy is
conducted, that in Wiseman's Lectures this quotation from
Irenaeus is prominent among the proofs that Peter was bishop
of Rome, the quotation being so garbled as to make it seem
that Linus succeeded Peter in the episcopate instead of being
appointed first bishop by Peter and Paul*
I have said quite enough for the mere purpose of refuta
tion of the Roman claims ; but to me it is always pleasanter
to deal with, questions historically than controversially ; and
I wish, therefore, to state the conclusions (some of them as
I think certain, some of them from the nature of the case
only probable) which I consider would be arrived at by a
historical inquirer with no theological purpose in view, on
the questions : What was the connexion of Peter and Paul
with the Roman Church ? How came it to believe that Peter
had been its first bishop ? and, How came the duration of his
episcopate to be fixed at twenty-five years ? I am justified in
thinking that candid inquirers need not differ very much on
these questions, because I find that the results at which I
had arrived independently are, on several points, in agree
ment with those obtained by von Dollinger in his First Age of
the Church, a book published while he was still in full com-
* The whole passage is amusing : — ' I presume it will not be necessary to enter
into any argument to show that St. Peter was the first bishop of Rome. . . . Among
the moderns it may be sufficient to observe that no ecclesiastical writer of any note
pretends to denythis fact. "To St. Peter," as St.Irenaeus observes, "succeeded Linus,
to Linus Anacletus, then in the third place Clement " ' (Lectures on the Catholic
Church, Lect. 8, vol. i., p. 278). I think I have already remarked that a controver
sialist who has ventured on an assertion which, when challenged, he finds himself
unable to prove, has no better resource than to protest loudly that the thing is too
evident to need any proof. Dr. Cunningham is equally positive the other way. He
says (Growth of the Church, p. 43) :— 'No ecclesiastical historian, who is free from
ecclesiastical trammels, now believes that Peter was bishop of Rome.' And he is the
nearer the truth of the two, as may be judged from the line taken by von Dollinger.

348 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
munion with the Church of Rome, and was regarded as its
ablest champion.
I have seen, in a Roman Catholic book of controversy,
the question put, Who founded the Church of Rome ? and
the answer given : It could not have been St. Paul, because
we learn from his Epistle that there was a Church at Rome
before he had visited that city ; therefore the founder could
have been no one but St. Peter. But there are absolutely
no grounds for the tacit assumption in this argument, that the
Church of Rome must have been founded by some Apostle.
On the contrary, we know (Acts ii. 10) that 'strangers of
Rome ' were present on the day of Pentecost ; and we may
reasonably believe that some of them soon returned to
that city, whither also the constant influx of visitors from
every part of the empire would be sure soon to bring some
professors of the Christian faith. It follows that the origin
of the Church of Rome is not to be ascribed, as in the
case of some other cities, to the exertions of some missionary
arriving with the express intention of evangelizing the city,
but was due to silent and spontaneous growth. It is quite
possible that among those who came to Rome were some
' prophets or teachers,' but very unlikely that for some time
any Apostles were among the visitors. I do not attach credit
to the tradition told in the Preaching of Peter* and also by
Apollonius,t that our Lord commanded His Apostles not to
leave Jerusalem for twelve years after His Ascension; but
all probability is opposed to their having, for a considerable
time, made missionary journeys to distant places. The
example seems to have been set by Paul in the year 48 ; and
even he seems to have needed a special revelation to induce
him to cross from Asia into Europe (Acts xvi. 9) : so that,
bearing in mind how slowly the idea of throwing open
the doors of the Church to the Gentiles gained acceptance
with the first disciples, we must pronounce it a complete
anachronism to imagine an assault made by an Apostle on
the capital of the Gentile world so early as the year 42.
I have already said that the Epistle to the Romans gives us
* Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 5. f Euseb. H. E. v. 18.

xix.J THE FOUNDERS OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 349
every reason to think that Paul was the first Apostle to visit
that city.*
But what, then, are we to say to the statement of Irenaeus
that Peter and Paul founded the Church of Rome ? Probably
the simple account of the matter is, that the visit of the two
great Apostles was such an important event in the history of
the Roman Church that the men of the next generations did
not care to trace that history further back ; but it is likely
enough that these Apostles, at the time of their visit, did
important work in organizing the Roman Church, and guiding'
it through the period of transition from the state in which the
Church was taught by missionaries, or men endowed with
miraculous gifts, to the permanent state in which it was
under the guidance of a settled ministry. That the two
Apostles founded the Church of Rome in the sense of ap
pointing its first bishop is a thing by no means incredible,
even if we do not regard the authority of Irenaeus sufficient
to enable us to assert it as an ascertained fact.
But we travel at once out of the region of historic proba
bility when any evidence, tending to induce us to believe that
St. Peter once visited Rome, is taken as establishing that
he was bishop of Rome. The case is much the same as if
some person, zealous for the honour of the city of London,
were to maintain that King Alfred had been its first Lord
Mayor; and by way of proof were to present us with some
evidence that King Alfred had visited London, in which
city he would, of course, when present, have been the most
important personage. The functions of a King and a Lord
Mayor are not more distinct than those of an Apostle and
a local bishop.
On the question of the date of the origin of episcopacy,
candid men on both sides appear to me to be now approach
ing to very close agreement. On: the one hand, it may be
* On this point I differ from von Dollinger, who says (First Age, i. 160) : — ' The
notion of a gradual origin of the community without any particular founder, or of
Aquila and Priscilla being its founders, or St. Paul himself, is self- evidently unten
able.' As I remarked just now, if a man says a thing is self-evident, it usually means
that he can give no proof of it.

35° PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
regarded as certain that, at the end of the second century,
there not only were bishops everywhere, but there was no
recollection that the constitution of the Church had ever been
different; and men even found it hard to conceive the idea
of a Church without its bishop. On the other hand, we find,
in the Acts of the Apostles, but one clear indication of a
Church being presided over by a single resident ruler,
namely, that of the Church of Jerusalem, presided over by
St. James. For other such indications we have to go down
to St. Paul's later Epistles, and perhaps to the Revelation
and the third Epistle of St. John. In the New Testament
records of the apostolic age, though we find 'bishops' men
tioned, the word does not appear to denote persons singly
bearing rule in separate Churches, but to be employed as
equivalent to 'presbyters'; and this use is continued in the
genuine epistle of Clement of Rome. It is found also in the
lately recovered Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. Thus, then,
although I hold that the episcopal form of Church government
dates from apostolic times, I consider also that its rise must
be placed quite late in apostolic times. This is the opinion of
von Dollinger, who says [First Age, ii. 130): — 'The office
afterwards called episcopal was not yet marked off; the
Episcopate slept in the Apostolate. It was the last branch to
grow out of the apostolic stem. In Jerusalem it had already
taken shape in the person of St. James, whose attitude
towards the local Church, his renunciation of missionary
work, and his remaining within the holy city, point him out
as the first true and proper bishop. The other Apostles
discharged their episcopal office in superintending and
guiding different communities.' My own opinion is that
St. James was not only bishop of Jerusalem, but that the
veneration gained for him, both by his personal character
and by his kinship to our Lord, obtained for him, as the
Clementine author believed, that position of primacy over
the whole Church which, in later times, it was imagined had
been possessed by Peter. In fact, Jerusalem, being the
mother Church, naturally exercised commanding influence
over the daughter Churches (Acts xv. 1, Gal. ii. 12) ; and so

xix.J DOLLINGER ON THE ORIGIN OF EPISCOPACY. 351
the head of the Church of Jerusalem possessed, over the
entire, authority the exact extent of which we need not
trouble ourselves to define.
Von Dollinger attempts to explain why the branching
off of the Episcopate as a distinct office did not take place
earlier. He considers that, 'while the Temple stood, and
the connexion with Judaism was not finally dissolved, the
organization of the Church was, in one sense, incomplete and
provisional. It might in the interval have presbyters, who
were a common Jewish institution ; and their appointment
was no sign of separation ; but the appointment of bishops
would certainly have been regarded by all Jews, and by Chris
tians also, as an act sealing the exclusion of the Church, and
its definitive separation from the Israelite nation and religion.
Therefore the Apostles retained the episcopal authority pro
visionally in their own hands'; and he goes on to urge that
until the two nationalities, the Jewish and Gentile, were
completely amalgamated, their mutual jealousies (exhibited,
for instance, in Acts vi.) would have made it difficult for a
bishop, chosen from either party, to obtain submission from
the other. And he urges, further, that it would be difficult,
in newly-formed Churches, to find men with due qualifications
for single rule ; and that in such Churches it would be easier
to find a dozen presbyters than one bishop. The result is,
that we may not only think it an absurdity to speak of an
Apostle as bishop of Rome, but also, without at all denying
the apostolic origin of episcopacy, may count it an anachro
nism to speak of anyone as bishop of Rome in the year 42.
Accordingly, although Dollinger, as a good Roman Catho
lic, contends that St. Peter was the founder of the Church of
Rome, yet he appears to shrink from calling him bishop of
Rome, and even explains away the story of his twenty-five
years' episcopate. He says (ii. 149) : — 'From this list [the
LiberianJ comes the much-criticised statement of the twenty-
five years' duration of St. Peter's episcopate. This does not
mean that he was bishop at Rome twenty-five years, as it was
afterwards misunderstood, but that from Christ's Ascension

352 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix-
to his death was twenty-five years, during which he held his
episcopate — that is to say, his dignity in the Church.' For
myself, I cannot admit that there was any misunderstand
ing, for I do not believe that those who asserted Peter's
Roman episcopate intended to be understood in any but the
obvious sense of the words ; but Dollinger' s explanation is
quite necessary in order to make the assertion consistent
with truth. But, according to this explanation, St. Paul had
the same right as St. Peter to be accounted bishop of Rome,
and each Apostle to be accounted also bishop of each of the
Churches which enjoyed his superintending care. So that, if
we call an Apostle bishop because he exercised episcopal —
nay, more than episcopal — power, we must also hold that, in
apostolic times, one bishop might hold several sees, and one
see have, at the same time, more bishops than one.
I have already stated that the earliest list of Roman
bishops we have got is that published by Irenaeus about A. D.
1 80. But Irenaeus was not the first to publish a list of Roman
bishops. A list had been made by Hegesippus some twenty
years earlier, as we learn from an extract from his writings
preserved by Eusebius [H. E., iv. 22). The claim of certain
Gnostic sects to have derived their peculiar doctrines by
secret tradition from the Apostles stirred up the members of
the Catholic Church to offer proof that whatever apostolic
traditions there were must be sought in those Churches which
had been founded by Apostles, and which could trace the
succession of their bishops to men appointed by Apostles.
It would seem to be with the object of collecting evidence
for such a proof that Hegesippus travelled to Rome. He
states that on his way he stopped at Corinth, where he found
Primus as bishop, and was refreshed with the orthodox
doctrine of the Church, which it had held since its first
foundation. Thence he proceeded to Rome, where he arrived
in the episcopate of Anicetus, which may be roughly dated
as A.D. 155-165. He tells us that he then made a ' succession
of bishops' (cna?ox>iv) down to Anicetus ; and that in every
city and in every succession the teaching was in accordance

xix.J THE TESTIMONY OF HEGESIPPUS. 353
with the law, and the prophets,* and the Lord. He adds
that to Anicetus succeeded Soter, and to Soter Eleutherus,
who had been deacon to Anicetus. Thus it appears that the
work from which Eusebius made his extract was published in
the episcopate of Eleutherus — the same episcopate as that in
which the work of Irenaeus was published. But it may reason
ably be inferred that Hegesippus had published his list of
bishops in the time of Anicetus, to which, in the later work,
he merely adds the names of the two bishops, Soter and
Eleutherus, who had succeeded Anicetus. Nothing more
than what is here quoted is directly known of the list of
Hegesippus ; but Bishop Lightfoot has lately [Academy, May
21,1887) given reasons, which to me appear convincing, for
thinking that we have indirect means of knowledge of it.
Epiphanius [Htzr. xxvii. 6) gives a list of Roman bishops,
beginning with Peter and Paul, and ending with Anicetus.
This list entirely agrees with that of Irenaeus, except that
Anencletus is here called Cletus. Also, besides the mere list of
names, Epiphanius shows, in this section, that he had infor
mation as to the duration of episcopates, which, it may be
presumed, he drew from the same source as that whence he
derived the list of names. Now, the chapter in question
begins, ' There came to us one Marcellina, who had been
deceived by these [viz. the CarpocratiansJ, and who perverted
many in the times of Anicetus, bishop of Rome, the successor
of Pius and of the above-mentioned.' Many critics had inferred
from the phrase 'to us' that Epiphanius, who is habitually
clumsy in his use of his authorities, has here incorporated in
his work a sentence taken bodily from an older writer, who
must have written in Rome where Marcellina taught her
heresy. This inference is confirmed by the phrase ' the
above-mentioned,' for in what precedes, Epiphanius had made
no mention of Pius or his predecessors : it is afterwards that
* Vey6/ieyos Se Iv 'Pii/iy, SiaSoxV liroiyo-A/iiiv f*eXP's 'AyiK-firov, ov SidKoyos i)v
'tAeiSepos. Kal irapa 'Avlk^tov SiaSexerai 2wT7)p, fie8' oy 'EAeiBepos. 'Ey eKaffrri Se
SiaSoxfi Kal 4y eKdffrri ir6Aet ovrus exei, us <S vS/ios Kt\pvsaei Kal ol irpotprjrai Kal S
Kiptos. It must be remembered that hostility to the Old Testament was a marked
feature of the leading Gnostic sects. 2 A

354 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
he goes on to explain this sentence by giving a list of Roman
bishops. Lipsius had conjectured that Hippolytus was the
writer from whom Epiphanius borrowed this sentence ; but
Bishop Lightfoot puts forward the preferable claims of Hege
sippus, who, we know, was in Rome in the time of Anicetus,
and whose work contained a list of Roman bishops ending
with that prelate. Lightfoot points out a further coincidence,
which seems to me enough to remove all doubt as to the
correctness of his suggestion. In the same context Epi
phanius quotes a passage from the epistle of Clement of
Rome, with which epistle he would seem, however, to have
no direct acquaintance ; for he states that he found the quo
tation, iv thtiv vTropvripaTicrpoiQ. Now, Eusebius [u. s., see also
iv. 8) calls the books of Hegesippus virop.viip.aTa ['Ryrimmrog
iv ttsvte roTg tig ripag iXOovaiv viropvfipamv),* and States that the
passage already quoted, in which Hegesippus mentions his
visit to Rome, followed ptra riva irtpi tjjc KXripevrog irpog
KopivOiovg £7rtaToXije avT(£ i\pr\p.Lva. There seems, then, good
reason to think that the list given by Irenaeus just repro
duces for us the list made by Hegesippus some twenty years
before, except that the latter list may not improbably have
noted durations of episcopates, which Irenaeus omits as irrele
vant to his purpose. Dollinger, indeed (ii. 150), considers
that Irenaeus ' certainly did not know Hegesippus's book, or
he would have appealed to it against the heretics ; ' but the
coincidence appears to me so close as to exclude the supposi
tion that the authorities are independent ; and it is possible
that what Irenaeus knew was not the book published in the
episcopate of Eleutherus by Hegesippus, but the list which
he had made, and probably had published, in the episcopate
of Anicetus. In any case we arrive at the result, that in any
investigation as to the origin of episcopacy, we must take it
as a fact that a traveller to Rome, about 160, found the
Church ruled by a bishop (Anicetus), and that the Roman
* In another passage (xxix. 4), where Epiphanius quotes viropLvrjinananol as his
authority, there is reason to think that Hegesippus is also intended ; for the passage
relates to a tradition concerning James, our Lord's brother, of whom Hegesippus
wrote largely (Euseb., H. E., ii. 23).

xix.J INFLUENCE OF THE CLEMENTINES. 355
Church then believed that, since the Apostles' times, it
had been governed by bishops, whose names were then pre
served. To return now to the story of Peter's Roman episcopate,
the real inventor of that story was an editor of the Clementine
Romance, of which I spoke when lecturing on the New Tes
tament Canon. This work was brought to Rome at the very
end of the second or beginning of the third century; and
it had then prefixed a letter from Clement to James at
Jerusalem, telling how Peter had ordained him, and set
him in his own chair of teaching as bishop of Rome.
Though the doctrinal teaching of the Clementines was re
jected as heretical, the narrative part of the book was readily
believed ; and in particular this story of Clement's ordination
by Peter was felt to be so honourable to the Church of Rome
that it was at once adopted there, and has been the tra
ditional Roman account ever since.
But the adoption of this fable sadly perplexed the chrono
logy. For, according to the list of Irenaeus, Clement was but
the third Roman bishop since the Apostles ; and this is
confirmed by the internal evidence of Clement's epistle,
which, according to the judgment of the best critics, cannot
be earlier than about A.D. 97. It was felt that unless Clement
could be pushed back to an earlier period, his ordination by
Peter would not be chronologically possible. Accordingly,
another list of Roman bishops was published,* which puts
up Clement to the second, and pushes down Anacletus
to the third place. This double list has been very perplex
ing to historical inquirers ; but that the earlier order of
Irenaeus is really correct is proved by a kind of evidence
which I count peculiarly trustworthy. In the Roman Liturgy
to this day the names of its first bishops are commemorated
in the order of Irenaeus, viz., Linus, Anacletus, Clement. If this
* My own opinion is that this innovation was made by Hippolytus, the first in
the Roman Church to take up the study of chronology — a science, however, in which
he deserves credit for zeal and industry, rather than for skill. His list appears to have
been pubhshed in the third decade of the third century — a time when the story of
Clement's ordination by Peter had come to be fully believed in.
2 A 2

356 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
were the original order we can understand its being pre
served in the Church of Rome (which was very conservative
in liturgical matters), notwithstanding that subsequent chro-
nologers of eminence placed Clement second. But if Clement
had been really originally in the second place, it is quite
impossible that the name of Anencletus, who is unknown
to Church history, should have been placed before him.
These Clementine legends have so filled with fable the whole
history of St. Peter, that I should even think the story of
Peter's coming to Rome at all to be open to question, were
it not, as I already said, that no rival Church claims the
martyrdom. The Clementine letter itself, which represents Clement as
ordained by Peter, and as succeeding Peter in his chair
as chief teacher of the Church, does not expressly speak of
Peter as bishop of Rome. Tertullian, in the early part of the
third century, had heard and believed the story of Clement's
ordination by Peter, for he speaks [De Prascrip. 32) of Poly-
carp having been placed by John over the Church of Smyrna ;
and Clement, by Peter, over the Church of Rome. But it
does not seem to have dawned on Tertullian that Peter
was bishop of Rome any more than John was bishop of
Smyrna. We can only give conjectural answers to the questions,
Who first counted Peter as bishop of Rome ? and, How came
the duration of his episcopate to be fixed at twenty-five years ?
but I will tell you what seems to me most probable. Were it
not that there is no better authority for believing Peter to
have been bishop of Rome at all than for believing that he
came to Rome in the second year of Claudius, many learned
Roman Catholics would be glad to be rid of this inconvenient
addition to the story. They have found the bringing St. Peter
to Rome so early as the year 42 to be attended with chronolo
gical difficulties sufficiently perplexing. First, they have had
to push back the date of the imprisonment of Peter by Herod,
which independent chronologers, with general consent, assign
to the year 44. Then they have to bring back Peter to Jerusa
lem, to be present at the Council of Jerusalem, the proceedings

xix. J THE CHRONOLOGY OF HIPPOLYTUS. 357
at which are related (Acts xv.). Then they want him at Rome
again, in order that the edict of Claudius mentioned (Acts xviii.)
may provide him with a decent excuse for leaving his see,
and undertaking those missionary labours in ' Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,' which appear to have
continued so long that non-Episcopalians would be justified
in concluding that a Church could get on very well without a
bishop. If the commencement of the Roman episcopate
could be placed at a later date, the Roman advocates would
certainly find their task much easier.
Now Hippolytus was the first Christian scientific chrono-
loger at Rome. Before his time, lists of Roman bishops had
been made, and notes of the duration of episcopates had been
preserved ; but I consider that it was Hippolytus who first
put these dates together, with the view of showing how the
whole interval between our Lord's time and his own was to
be accounted for. My belief is that, in working his way
chronologically back, he placed the accession of Linus
twenty-six years after our Lord's Ascension. You may
take it as a fact that, in the early part of the third
century, men had come to find it impossible to conceive the
idea of a Church without a bishop. So to the question, What
about the twenty-six years before the accession of Linus ?
Was there no Roman Church then ? Hippolytus answered
that there was, and that it had St. Peter as its bishop ; and
my belief is that the duration of twenty-five years was
intended to indicate that the Roman Church was founded the
year after our Lord's Ascension*
Now you, perhaps, hardly understand how much chrono
logy has been helped by the use of a fixed era, such as ' Anno
Domini,' and how difficult early chronologers who did not use
this assistance found it to make their sums total agree when
they added together lengths of episcopates, and lengths of
emperors' reigns for ithe same period, the durations being
* Substantially this view is taken by von Dollinger in the passage already cited
from his First Age of the Church. Elsewhere he seems to think that the twenty-
five years was intended to represent the interval between Peter's imprisonment by
Herod and his martyrdom.

358 PETER'S ALLEGED ROMAN EPISCOPATE. [xix.
often given only by whole number of years, without mention
of months and days. There is, therefore, nothing to wonder
at if, when the calculations of Hippolytus, who was not a
skilful computer, were repeated by abler chronologers, they
arrived at a somewhat different result ; and taking Peter's
episcopate at twenty-five years as he had fixed it, instead of
getting back to the year after the Ascension, only got back to
the second year of Claudius.
As I have quoted Epiphanius just now, there is a peculiar
notion of his which it is worth while to mention before con
cluding this Lecture. Irenaeus, as I have said, begins his list
of Roman bishops by naming Peter and Paul as the founders
of the Church, and as having appointed Linus as Bishop.
We have just seen reason to think that Hegesippus also
began by naming Peter and Paul. It follows that there is as
good reason for calling Paul first bishop of Rome, as for so
calling Peter. This was clearly seen by von Dollinger, and
was no doubt the reason of his evident reluctance distinctly
to call Peter bishop of Rome. He says concerning the
passage in Irenaeus : — ' This makes the regulation of the
Roman Church and the appointment of Linus a common
act of both apostles ; and since then the Roman bishops
have been frequently regarded as successors of both. The
Roman Church was viewed as inheriting* alike from St. Paul,
his prerogative of Apostle of the Gentiles, and from St. Peter,
his dignity as foundation of the Church, and as partaking the
power of the keys.' And he goes on to say that Eusebius
says of Alexander that he formed the fifth bishop in the
succession from Peter and Paul, and that he almost always
reckons the others ' from the Apostles,' i. e. Peter and Paul.
He adds that later such expressions are frequent as that the
Roman Church is the seat of the two Apostles, or that the
power of Rome is founded on Peter and Paul. Now, the
admission that the origin of the Roman episcopate is to be
traced to Paul as much as to Peter, is equivalent to an
admission that neither Apostle was bishop of Rome in the
* But where is the evidence that such an inheritance was bequeathed to Rome
any more than to the other Churches where these Apostles respectively laboured ?

xix. J THE PECULIAR NOTIONS OF EPIPHANIUS. 359
modern sense of the word. For the ancients never dreamed
of two bishops sitting, like two kings of Brentford, in the
same chair.
There is just one Father who had the courage to entertain
this notion, viz. Epiphanius. In his time (the end of the
fourth century) the assertion that Peter had been bishop of
Rome had gained general acceptance. But he saw that
ancient authorities gave as much justification for counting
Paul bishop of Rome as for counting Peter. So he jumped
to the conclusion that they had both been bishops : Ukpoq
koi IlavXoc 01 airoaroXoX avrol Kal IniaKOiroi [Hcer. xxvii. 6).
Nay, he elsewhere (lxviii. 7) names it as a peculiarity of Alex
andria that ' it never had two bishops, as the other cities had.'
Dr. Hatch [Growth of Church Institutions, p. 17), with easy
faith, accepts this passage as ' decisive,' that * where there
was more than one community in a city, there was, as a rule,
more than one bishop.' Those who know their Epiphanius
will be amused at hearing anyone quote as ' decisive,' on any
subject, the unsupported testimony of an author so uncritical
and so rash. But, in this case, ' Epiphanius stands quite
alone ' : ' there is no hint or trace elsewhere of one Church
having really had two bishops.' But Dollinger has been
successful in tracing how the ' uncritical and credulous
Epiphanius ' got his view, namely, from the Apostolic Consti
tutions (in their present shape a fourth-century forgery, but)
which he accepted as a genuine work of the Apostles, calling
it a Oeiog \6yog, and often making use of it. He there found
(vii. 46) that St. Peter had appointed Euodius, and St. Paul
Ignatius, at Antioch ; that at Ephesus St. Paul appointed
Timothy, and St. John appointed John. His idea about two
bishops at Rome has been already mentioned. But at Alex
andria he found Anianus, appointed by St. Mark, named as
first bishop ; whereas Abilius, appointed by St. Luke, only
succeeds on the death of Anianus. Hence Epiphanius
derived the fancy that there was something exceptional in
the constitution of the Church of Alexandria.

XX.

THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY.
IN a former Lecture I considered the Scripture arguments
which have been adduced to prove that the Pope, by
divine right, enjoys a Primacy, originally conferred by our
Lord on St. Peter, and since then transmitted by succession
to the bishops of Rome. It is a useful test of interpretations
of Scripture to examine into their antiquity ; for there is
always an immense presumption against any new-fangled
interpretation. I did not neglect to apply this test in the
former Lecture, and we found that those passages of the
New Testament which Roman Catholics now adduce as
establishing the Pope's supremacy were not so understood
by the most ancient interpreters of Scripture. But antiquity
supplies us with a further test. The passages in question are
not of a merely theoretical character, but are supposed to
have fixed the constitution of the Christian Church. We
may then turn from commentators on Scripture to study the
history of the Church, in order to find whether that history
has really been such as it must have been if the Romanist
interpretation of these texts be the right one.
We know, as a historical fact, that the bishops of Rome,
in the course of the Christian centuries, have exercised au
thority over distant cities. The question at issue is, whether
or not that authority dates from the foundation of our re
ligion. If it had been bestowed by our Lord Himself before
He left this earth, we should find it exercised from the first,
and its rightfulness universally acknowledged. But the con
trary is the case. We can trace the history of the growth
of the supremacy of the Roman bishop, exactly as in

xx.J PAPAL SUPREMACY A DEVELOPMENT. 36 1
secular history we can trace the process by which the city
of Rome came to exercise imperial dominion. We thus
learn that in ecclesiastical matters, as well as in secular,
Roman supremacy is a development, not a tradition.
If I desired a summary proof that some at least of the
powers which the Popes have exercised in later times were
not part of the original prerogatives of the see, I should
find it in the oath which every bishop in communion with
Rome is now bound to take on his appointment : ' The
rights, privileges, and powers of the see of Peter I will,
to the best of my ability, extend and promote.' In fact,
every bishop of Rome thought he was doing a good thing
if he gained for his see some powers and privileges which
had not previously belonged to it ; and for some cen
turies he has pledged all over whom he has power to aid
him in this laudable endeavour. But one man's powers
and privileges cannot be extended except at the expense
of those of someone else. If the Popes get more power,
independent bishops must have less. The Pope's avowed
policy for centuries, therefore, has been one of usurpation ;
and unless we believe either that all the Roman Catholic
bishops have perjured themselves, or that their united
efforts, continued for hundreds of years, have failed to
augment and promote the rights, dignities, and privileges
of the Pope, that prelate must possess some powers now
which his predecessors did not enjoy.
But it is quite unnecessary for me to elaborate any proof
that the doctrine of Papal Supremacy is a development ; for
it is fully owned by Newman how faint are the traces of it
in the history of the early centuries. I have already told
you that the method of his celebrated Essay on Development
is to make frank confession that neither Scripture nor Tra
dition will furnish any adequate proof of Roman doctrines.
But then he contends that the same confession must be made
about doctrines which Roman Catholics and we hold in com
mon, and he puts forward his theory of Development as able
to supply the deficiency alike in either case. Thus, then,
while he owns (p. 164) that the Pope's Supremacy is a

362 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
development, so also, he contends, is Episcopacy. He tells us
that St. Ignatius in his Epistles is silent on the subject of the
Pope's authority ; but that this is because that authority was
not, and could not, be in active operation then. While apostles
were on earth they exercised the powers both of bishop and
Pope. When they were taken away, 'Christianity did not at
once break into portions ; yet separate localities might begin
to be the scene of internal dissensions, and [a local arbiter
would, in consequence, be wanted.' 'When the Church was
thrown on her own resources, first local disturbances gave
exercise to bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave
exercise to Popes.' Newman quotes with assent some of
Barrow's topics of proof that Roman supremacy did not exist
in the first ages of the Church : namely — (i) that in the writ
ings of the Fathers against the Gnostic heretics of the second
century they never allege the sentence of the universal pastor
and judge as the most compendious and efficacious method of
silencing them ; and (2) that heathen writers are quite igno
rant of the doctrine, although no point of Christian teaching
would be so apt to raise offence and jealousy in pagans, no
novelty be more suspicious or startling than this creation of
a universal empire over the consciences and religious practices
of men, the doctrine also being one that could not but be very
conspicuous and glaring in ordinary practice. Newman also
assents to Barrow's assertion that 'the state of the most primi
tive Church did not well admit such a universal sovereignty.
For that did consist of small bodies, incoherently situated and
scattered about in very distant places, and consequently
unfit to be modelled into one political society, or to be
governed by one head, especially considering their condition
under persecution and poverty. What convenient resort for
direction on justice could a few distressed Christians in
Egypt, Ethiopia, Parthia, India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Ar
menia, Cappadocia, and other parts have to Rome?'
Newman is quite consistent with the thesis of his Essay
in abandoning Tradition as a basis for the doctrine of Papal
supremacy ; but the basis of Development on which he
attempts to build it is altogether insufficient to constitute any

DEVELOPMENT AFFORDS NO ADEQUATE PROOF. 363
firm foundation. For the history of Development can only^
tell us what has been, not what ought to be. The cases of
Episcopacy and Papal Supremacy are not parallel ; because
the former institution dates from apostolic times ; and if it can
be shown that it was established by apostles, then it can
claim a right to permanent continuance. But what claim for
permanence can be made on behalf of any form of Church
government which confessedly shaped itself at least two or
three centuries after the apostles were all dead ? Let us
liberally grant that an ecclesiastical monarchy was the form
of government best adapted to the needs of the Church at the
time when, in temporal matters, the whole civilized world
was governed by a single ruler ; and yet it might be utterly
unfit for her requirements in subsequent times when Europe
has been broken up into independent kingdoms ; and we
might be as right now in disowning Papal authority as our
ancestors were in submitting to it.
The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men in temporal
matters as well as in spiritual ; and we can trace the working
of His Providence in guiding events in the one as well as in
the other. We can see, for example, how the establishment
of the Empire of heathen Rome tended to the furtherance of
the Gospel, which never could have spread so rapidly from
land to land if it had not been for the facility of intercourse
resulting from the Roman peace. Yet no evidence that the
Roman Empire was for a time beneficial to the world would
show that it was divinely intended to have perpetual dura
tion, or that we now commit any sin in not belonging to it ;
and if we recognize the guiding hand of God's Providence in
the formation of that Empire, we might equally do so in its
dissolution. In like manner, a citizen of the United States of
America cannot help owning that his country was originally
colonized from Great Britain ; that the authority of the
Sovereign of England was recognized in these States with
out question for a century or two ; that English rule was of
the greatest advantage in protecting the infant colonies from
enemies, and conferring other benefits on them ; yet he would
hold that the time came when English rule was no longer

364 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
beneficial, and that now the Sovereign. of England neither
hath nor ought to have authority in the United States. Thus,
then, in like manner, the most that the theory of Develop
ment could do for the doctrine of Papal Supremacy would
be to establish a proof that there have been times when the
Pope's supremacy has been beneficial to the Church (or, to
speak more cautiously, to the Western Church) ; that there
have been bishops of Rome whose aims were high, whose lives
were good, and by whose rule it was at least better to have been
guided than by any other likely at the time to have been sub
stituted for it. But surely it will be granted me, without my
having need to open up topics from which I have refrained
in this course of Lectures, that there have been bishops of
Rome whose aims were not high, whose lives were not pure,
and whose guidance it was not good to follow. What claim
to obedience can such make out ? Unless it be held that
God's Providence ceased to exert itself three centuries ago,
or else that it has merely a local operation, and does not
extend to England, Scandinavia, or Germany, the theory of
Development will afford as good a justification for the revolt
from Papal authority in the sixteenth century as for its rise
and growth in the third or fourth and subsequent centuries.
And this theory would not prevent a historical student from
pronouncing Papal Supremacy to be now a useless or mis
chievous survival of a form of Church government which has
had its day, but which is unsuited to the character of the
present age. If, therefore, we are to establish any justification
of Papal Supremacy we must fall back on the old sources
of proof, Scripture and Tradition ; for Newman's proposed
substitute, the theory of Development, completely breaks
down. If we once admit Roman Supremacy to have been but a
development, there were natural causes in operation which
quite sufficiently account for it. The primacy of the bishop
of Rome grew naturally out of the precedence accorded to
the bishop of the first city of the Empire. Our own expe
rience would tell us that the people of the greatest city can
choose their bishop from among a larger number of candi-

xx.J THE ADVANCE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 365
dates, that they are likely to be able to secure the services
of an abler man, that they can put larger sums of money
at his disposal for charitable and other purposes, and alto
gether make him a much more influential person in the
Church than the bishop of a small town. Romanists who
refer the supremacy of their see to divine appointment are
naturally desirous to throw into the background the human
causes of the greatness of the see ; yet one example is enough
to show how inevitably the temporal greatness of a city leads
to the pre-eminence of its bishop. If there be room for con
troversy as to the causes which gave Rome the first place
among Christian sees,' there can be no doubt as to the cause
which elevated Constantinople to the second place. It was
the temporal greatness of the city and nothing else. Byzan
tium was quite an upstart capital, raised to that dignity only
in the fourth century by the will of the Emperor Constantine.
It had no Christian historic associations. No Apostle had
evangelized the town, or had addressed letters to it, or suf
fered martyrdom there. It was not even a metropolitan see,
but was subject to Heraclea, the very name of which may be
unfamiliar to some of you. At the time when Constantinople
was made a capital, the recognized order of precedence of
the great sees was Rome, Alexandria, Antioch. Yet without
a struggle the relations between Constantinople and Heraclea
were inverted. Against the further elevation of Constanti
nople there would naturally be strong objection on the part
of Alexandria and Antioch, not to speak of that which might
arise from sees formerly fully equal to Byzantium, which was
now made the superior. And, besides, the bishop of Rome,
sagaciously perceiving that Constantinople, if once admitted
to the second place, would be a far more formidable rival for
the first place than Alexandria or Antioch could be, resisted
the promotion of Constantinople with all his might. But his
resistance was in vain, and the title of Constantinople to the
second place came in time to be fully admitted at Rome. So
if we had not a multitude of other examples in ecclesiastical
history, how inevitably a change in the civil position of a
city entails a change in its ecclesiastical position, this one

366 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
example would put the fact beyond controversy. It is plain
that the causes which, in spite of all the disadvantages of a
late start, were able when Constantinople became the second
city of the Empire to raise its see to the second place, would
alone have sufficed to raise to the first place Rome, which
for three Christian centuries before the foundation of Con
stantinople had reigned without a rival as the undisputed
capital of the world, the place of resort of visiters from every
land, the centre both of commerce and of intellectual activity,
the wealthiest of cities, the home of the conquering race who
had been accustomed to see the world bow down to them.
One cause there was which might have prevented Rome
from taking the first place among Christian Churches — I mean
the superior claims of Jerusalem, which had been the cradle
of Christianity, the place whence the missionaries had issued
forth who had evangelized the world. Accordingly in one of
the earliest forms of that Clementine romance, of which I had
before occasion to speak to you (a form, indeed, which I be
lieve to be earlier than the introduction of Clement into the
story), James, bishop of Jerusalem, is represented as head of
the Christian Church ; Peter has been sent abroad on a
mission by James, but is bound to render him periodical
reports of his progress ; and the forgery called the Clementine
Homilies purports to be a report of the discourses of Peter,
whether to heathen or to heretics, sent by the missionary
Apostle for the information of his ecclesiastical superior. But
the destruction of Jerusalem swept away all danger of rivalry
with Rome from that quarter. The city might have recovered
its overthrow by Titus, but the formidable rebellion in the
reign of Hadrian was visited by severer penalties. Jews
were utterly banished from the spot, and a Gentile city was
founded there, called, after the Emperor, .ZElia ; which no
circumcised person was allowed to enter. j^Elia was not at
first regarded as identical with Jerusalem, or as heir to its
privileges. In the list of bishops of Jerusalem given by
Eusebius (and as I believe taken by him from his predecessor
as a historian, Hegesippus) two distinct series are recog
nized — that of the bishops of the circumcision, who presided

xx.J THE DECLINE OF JERUSALEM. 367
over the ancient city ; and that of the Gentile bishops,
who ruled over ^Elia. In the constitution of the Christian
Churches, so late as the Council of Nicaea, Jerusalem had no
metropolitan prerogative ; and in Palestine, as elsewhere,
the rule prevailed that the city highest in civil rank was also
highest in ecclesiastical. Jerusalem was therefore subor
dinate to Caesarea, the capital of Palestine, whose bishop,
Eusebius the historian, took a leading part at Nicaea, and
was honoured with much confidence by Constantine. But
shortly after that Council, the fashion of pilgrimages was set
by the Emperor's mother Helena, whose visit, leading to
what has been happily called the Invention of the Cross,
made Jerusalem a centre of resort for Christians, and gave it
a place in their esteem which it had not previously enjoyed.
At the third General Council, you will remember, John of
Antioch was on the losing side. Juvenal of Jerusalem, an
impudent and ambitious man, was on the winning one, and he
actually attempted not only to elevate his see to metropolitan
rank, but to place it above that of Antioch. The latter attempt
had only a momentary chance of success; but Jerusalem did
become relieved of subordination to Caesarea, and was placed
in a position next below Antioch. However, my present
purpose is to point out that Rome had no rivalry from Jeru
salem to encounter, and that there was no other city which
could claim to have communicated to Rome her knowledge
of the Gospel. Rome had received a letter from the Apostle
Paul, and that Apostle had taught there for at the very least
two years. It is not recorded in inspired history that Peter
also visited Rome, and that both Apostles suffered martyr
dom there ; but I think the testimony to these things is
enough to warrant belief in them, and certain it is that the
early Church did believe in them without doubt ; so that
there was nothing to detract from the superiority which
its temporal greatness gave to Rome, on the ground of its
being inferior to any rival in closeness of relation to the first
preachers of the Gospel.
The considerations I have brought before you only establish
for Rome a precedence of honour and dignity, though it is

368 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
well, in all our investigations, to bear in mind that this
honourable precedence is a matter about which there has
not been, and need not be, any dispute. Rome's right to
govern other Churches is quite another matter, and was only
gained after hard struggles and by slow degrees. Her first in
terference with other Churches was of the most honourable
kind — of a kind that no Church is likely strongly to object
to, namely, sending them money, or otherwise conferring
benefits on them. There was no Church, some of whose
leading members would not have occasion to visit Rome,
and be able on their return to tell of hospitality and good
offices received from the Christians there. By merely suspend
ing such friendly relations, Rome had it in her power to in
flict a severe penalty on any Church. But that wealthy
Church not only exercised generous hospitality to strangers
who visited it, but was bountiful of gifts to poorer Churches.
An interesting early example accidentally becomes known
to us through a fragment of a letter written about 170 by
Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, to the Church of Rome.
Eusebius, who preserves it, remarks that the practice of the
Roman Church which Dionysius commends had been con
tinued down to the Diocletian persecution of his own time.
Dionysius writes, in acknowledgment of a donation sent from
Rome : — ' This has been your custom from the beginning to
bestow benefits in various ways on all the brethren, and send
supplies to many Churches in different cities, here refresh
ing the poverty of the needy, and in the mines ministering
to the wants of the brethren there confined. In the supplies
which you have been in the habit of sending from the be
ginning, you Romans keep up the traditional custom of
the Romans, which your blessed bishop Soter has not only
maintained but increased, both administering the bounty
which is sent to the saints, and comforting with blessed
words the brethren who go up to your city, as an affec
tionate father his children ' (Euseb. H. E. iv. 23). Dionysius
adds the interesting information that Soter's letter had come
just in time to be read at their Sunday service, and promises
that it should continue so to be read for their edification from

xx.J MUNIFICENCE OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 369
time to time, in the same way as the previous letter of the
Church of Rome written by the hands of Clement. There is
no reason to think that there was anything special in the
relations between Rome and Corinth, or that this instance,
the knowledge of which chance has preserved for us, is other
than a fair specimen of the munificent liberality of the wealthy
Roman Christians to foreign Churches. A confirmation is
given in another fragment preserved by Eusebius of a letter
of the Alexandrian Dionysius. Writing to Stephen of Rome,
and mentioning different provinces, he says : — ' Syria and
Arabia, to which you sent help on different occasions' (Euseb.,
H. E. vii. 5) ; and, oddly enough, a third example is connected
with the name of a third Dionysius, who was bishop of Rome.
St. Basil, writing to Damasus of Rome [Ep. 70), gratefully
calls to memory how in former days this Dionysius had sent
agents to his province of Cappadocia to redeem captives.
Remember now that all communications of the Church of
Rome with foreign Churches were made through their bishop.
We claim no divine right for the English episcopate to rule
over colonial Churches ; yet different colonies have acknow
ledged the Archbishop of Canterbury as their metropolitan.
If ever we see a native episcopate in India, who can doubt that
the opinion of the English episcopate would have overpower
ing weight with it, even though England has no divine claim
to rule India in spiritual matters ? But suppose that all the
money subscribed in England for foreign or colonial missions
was administered by the Archbishop of Canterbury ; that there
was no Church Missionary Society, or Society for the Propa
gation of the Gospel, or Colonial and Continental, or such
like, but that the English Primate was the one man to be
appealed to whenever any good work abroad was in need of
help, do you think that in such a case the fact that that
prelate exercised commanding influence would require any
elaborate explanation ?
The fable of Peter's Roman episcopate at once supplied the
bishops of Rome with an ecclesiastical justification for a pre
cedence which, on political grounds, it was inevitable for them
to exercise. This gain of dignity by historical associations
2 B

37° THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
operated more strongly in favour of Rome, because this
was exactly the point in which its most formidable rival,
Constantinople, was deficient. This upstart capital was, by
the favour of the Emperor, put over the heads of ancient
sees, which were far better able than Byzantium to connect
themselves with the Apostles. Now the Sovereign can give
rank, but he cannot give pedigree. He may make a noble
man, but he cannot give him old blood. In the desire of Rome
to keep down Constantinople, and prevent her from coming
into rivalry with her, she had sympathy from Alexandria
and other great eastern sees, which had been long accustomed
to yield precedence to Rome, but had no mind to see a new
superior placed over their heads. And, in particular, these
sees sympathized with Rome when she tried to alter the
ground of her priority from what it had been before, and
to claim precedence not because of her political greatness,
but because of her historical connexion with the Apostles.
For, according to that rule, Constantinople ranked below
Alexandria and Antioch as much as below Rome.
It is rather amusing how careful the bishops of Rome
thenceforward became to protest against the rank of sees
being made to depend on the civil rank of their cities. Thus,
Innocent I. writes : — ' It has not seemed fitting that the Church
of God should change her course according to the changes of
the necessities of this world ' [Ep. 18, Mansi, iii. 1055). But
the fact is that Church history swarms with examples of
changes of this kind ; for the logic of facts is too strong for
theories. The example that first occurs to me owes its in
terest to its being an incident in the life of a great man, St.
Basil. In 375, when the Emperor Valens divided the pro
vince of Cappadocia into two, the bishop of Tyana, which
was now raised to the rank of a capital, at once assumed
that he was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan, was
released from all subordination to the old capital, Caesarea,
and was entitled to claim obedience from the minor sees
of his half of the province. He took on him to assemble
synods of bishops, and to seize the revenues which the suf
fragan bishops sent to the principal see. This led to some

xx. J THE EPISTLE OF CLEMENT OF ROME. 371
distressing disputes, in which Gregory Nazianzen was forced
to take a share ; but practically the victory remained with the
bishop of Tyana. And at Chalcedon it was made a canon
that the ecclesiastical should follow the civil divisions.
I proceed now to examine into the history of the early
Church, and to inquire whether in their controversies they
recognized the bishop of Rome as their ruler, teacher, and
doctor. Confessedly, the opinion of him who was the leading
bishop of the Church had great weight in every dispute ; but
the question now is, whether his decision was final, and
whether, when Rome had spoken, the cause was finished.
At the outset of the inquiry, in one of the earliest of
Christian uninspired writings, the epistle of Clement of Rome,
we find an example, to which Romanists gladly appeal, of an
interference of the Church of Rome with a distant Church.
The object of the letter was to heal a schism in the Corinthian
Church; and the Romans use an urgent, and to some it
has seemed an imperious tone, in addressing their Corinthian
brethren. They exhort the offenders to submit * not to them
but to the will of God' (§ 56) : — ' Receive our counsel,' they
write, 'and ye shall have no cause of regret' (§ 58). 'But
if certain persons should be disobedient unto the words
spoken by God through us, let them understand that they will
entangle themselves in no slight transgression and danger;
but we shall be guiltless of this sin' (§ 59). 'Ye will give us
great joy and gladness if ye render obedience unto the
things written by us through the Holy Spirit, and root out
the unrighteous anger of your jealousy, according to the
entreaty we have made for peace and concord in this letter '
(§63). Before we pass a judgment on these sentences, it is
necessary to know the circumstances which gave occasion for
them ; for it is never safe to say that any language is too
strong, without knowing what has occurred to justify it.
Strange to say, the account of the transaction most favour
able to the Roman pretensions is that given by a Scotch
Presbyterian. Dr. Cunningham [Growth of the Church, p.
53) states that the occasion of Clement's letter was that the
2 B 2

372 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
Corinthians ' had, with much bitterness and bad blood, dis
missed some of their presbyters ; when the Roman Church,
to whom, perhaps, the paid off* presbyters had appealed,
wrote to remonstrate.' And he adds that ' this venerable
document clearly proves that, at the period when it was
written — probably towards the end of the first century — the
Churches of Rome and Corinth were under the rule of
presbyter-bishops, with a very limited jurisdiction, and sub
ject to dismissal from their office at the caprice of the people.'
Now, if this were really the constitution of the Church
in the first century, the Corinthians acted fully within their
rights in cashiering officers who had ceased to be acceptable
to them ; and the interference of the Roman Church is
inexplicable, unless it possessed, or at least claimed, the right
of controlling the independent action of foreign Churches.
But it is remarkable that there is no trace in the letter
itself of any pretension of the kind. Not a hint is given that
the question of deposing presbyters was one on which Rome
ought to have been consulted, or one which it had any right
to review. It is not stated that there had been any appeal
to Rome on the part of the displaced presbyters, but only
that the transactions at Corinth had become notorious, and
had brought great discredit on their Church (o»o-te to atpvov
ku\ traaiv avupwiroig aZ,iayairr}Tov ovo/xa vpuiv piyaXwg (5\aa-
^ijjutjflijvat). This letter claims no superiority for the Roman
Church ; and if the writer declares that its remonstrances
cannot be disregarded without sin, it is because of his con
viction of the enormity of the evil which called them forth.
For, far from thinking with Dr. Cunningham that it lies
within the discretion of a Church to turn off its presbyters
when so disposed, he treats the deposition of presbyters,
against whom no misconduct had been alleged, as a mon-
* It is a pity that Dr. Cunningham did not quote in full the otherwise unknown
authority whence he derived this feature ; for it would be interesting to know how
much these presbyters, on being dismissed, received as composition for their an
nuities. Also, since the same authority, no doubt, told something as to the fees
payable in the Roman ecclesiastical courts in the first century, we should be enabled
to tell how far the sum they received would go in defraying the costs of an appeal
to Rome, which, in later times at least, were considerable.

xx. J CLEMENT'S INTERFERENCE WELL JUSTIFIED. 373
strous and unheard-of thing. In the view of later times,
what had taken place at Corinth might be described as feuds
or dissensions ; but, in the view of the writer, rebellion
against the authority of the duly-appointed presbyters was
' a detestable and impious sedition, madly stirred up by a
few headstrong and self-willed persons' [piapag /ecu avoaiov
oTaotwQ r)v oXiya irp6<7anra irpowiTri KaX avBaSrj VTraQ\ovTa tie
Toaovrov airovuiag t^tKavtrav) . He argues that it is necessary
to the well-being of every society that duly-constituted order
should be respected ; and (c. 44) that the order constituted in
the Christian society owed its origin to apostolic appoint
ment. He has no other terms of peace to counsel than that
those who had rebelled should penitently submit to lawful
authority, even going into voluntary exile, if, for the sake of
peace, that should be necessary. Such a letter as this could
clearly not be regarded as an attempt by Rome to domineer
over provincial Churches. On the contrary, the constituted
authorities of every Church would be grateful for the moral
support generously given them by the Church of the chief
city; while the general acknowledgment of the principle,
contended for in the letter, of the stability of the sacred office
would do much to increase the reputation of the Church
which had been its successful champion. Even those whose
conduct wTas censured in this letter could take no offence at
its tone, which is only that of the loving remonstrance which
any Christian is justified in offering to an erring brother.
But it is necessary to remark that Clement's letter is in
the name, not of the bishop of Rome, but of the Church of
Rome. Clement's name is not once mentioned. It is from
independent sources (the earliest, Dionysius of Corinth, has
been just mentioned) we learn that Clement was the writer ;
but from the letter itself we should not so much as discover
that Rome had any bishop. ' The later Roman theory sup
poses that the Church of Rome derives all its authority from
the bishop of Rome, as the successor of St. Peter. History
inverts the relation, and shows that, as a matter of fact, the
power of the bishop of Rome was built upon the power of

374 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
the Church of Rome. It was originally a primacy, not of
the episcopate, but of the Church.'*
All through the second century this subordination of the
bishop to the Church continues. The bishop only addresses
foreign Churches as the mouthpiece of his Church. We have
the letter already referred to, written by Dionysius of Corinth,
(about 1 70) in the name of his Church, addressed to the Church
of Rome, and acknowledging the benefactions sent through
their bishop Soter. The letter to which he replies had been
written, not in Soter's name, but in that of his Church, as
appears from the use of the plural number. ' To-day we kept
the Lord's holy day, on which we read your letter ; by which
we shall be able to be constantly admonished, reading it from
time to time, in the same manner as your former letter to us,
written by the hands of Clement.f
At the very end of the century, the proceedings with
which the name of Victor is associated, taken with a view
of excluding Quartodecimans from communion, were taken,
not in the bishop's own name, but in that of his Church.
There is so far an advance in the prominence of the bishop,
that Victor does not suppress his own name as did Clement ;
but still the letter is not his, but that of his Church.J And
the plural number is still used in the reply of Polycrates,
in which also it is implied that the request that he should
take the opinion of the neighbouring bishops had been made
in the name of the Church, not the bishop, of Rome.§
What has been said as to the fact that in the first century
the importance of the bishop of Rome was merged in that of
his Church receives singular confirmation from the Ignatian
Epistles. Among non-canonical writers, Ignatius is the first
* Lightfoot's Clement, p. 254.
t t^v o-fifiepoy oZv KvpiaK^v aytav Ti/j.epay $ti)ydyofi.ey, ey fi ayeyva/j.ey v/i.uv tV
eiriffroAi]y' %v el-ofiev ael irore avayivuaKovTes vovQeTeloQai, us Kal rijy irporepay jjfiiv
fita. KA-ft/xevTos ypa(pe7o"ay (Euseb., H. E. iv. 23).
X \$eperai ypa<p)f\ ruy M 'Pc&fn)s dfiotas &AAti irepl tov avrov C/ijtjjjUoctos, eirlffKOirov
Ti'tKTopa SijAovaa.
§ 'Etivydfiiiy 5h ruy kincK^uv tuv ffvfi.irap6vruy (ivt)fxovevffai, ovs v/xels 7)^iuffare
lieraKAiiBTJyai iir* i/iov, Kal neTeKaAeo'djj.riy (Euseb., H. E. V. 24).

xx. J THE IGNATIAN LETTERS. 375
distinct witness to the episcopal form of Church government.
His letters to the Asiatic Churches are full of exhortations to
obey the bishop and to be united to him ; but in his letter
to the Church of Rome no hint is given that there is a bishop
entitled to the obedience (not to say of foreign Christians,
but even) of his own people. No salutation is sent to the
bishop ; and, in short, we should not discover from this letter
that there was a bishop of Rome. I am not prepared to
adopt the inference some have drawn, viz. that episcopacy
was a form of Church Government which developed itself
first in Asia Minor, and which, when Ignatius wrote, had
not yet extended itself to Rome. But there seems reason to
think that the bishop of Rome was then only concerned with
domestic government, and that Ignatius had not even heard
his name. On the other hand, the dignity of the Church of
Rome is fully acknowledged in this letter. It is addressed
to the Church ' which presides in the place of the country
of the Romans.'* The best commentary on these words is
afforded by Tertullian, whose own language may possibly
have been suggested by them [De Praescr. 36) : ' ecclesias
apostolicas apud quas ipsae adhuc cathedrae apostolorum
suis locis praesident.' Thus each of the Apostolic Churches
is regarded as presiding in its own district ; so that though
it would cost us nothing to admit a pre-eminence of the
Church of the world's metropolis over all other Churches,
the language appears to limit the presidency to the Roman
district. While on this subject, I must not omit to discuss another
early testimony to the eminence of the Roman Church. I
have already (p. 352) mentioned how Church writers refuted
the Gnostic pretence to the possession of secret apostolic
traditions, by tracing the successions of their own bishops up
to the Apostles, and thus showing that it was in their own
Churches that the genuine apostolic tradition must have been
handed down. Irenaeus, who uses this argument (ill. 3), says,
that because it would be too long in a work like his to enu
merate the successions in all the Churches, he will content
* 7}tis irpoKd8r)Tai ev r6iru xaPwv 'Vo/iatuy.

376 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
himself with giving the succession of bishops in the Church
of Rome : ' Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem
principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam (hoc
est, eos qui sunt undique fideles) in qua semper, ab his qui
sunt undique, conservata est ea quae est ab Apostolis tra-
ditio.' The passage has only been preserved in a Latin
translation, and commentators have differed very much in
their attempts to restore the Greek. Some Romanist writers
have understood the first clause to mean that it is the duty
of every Church to conform to that of Rome ; but it has been
pointed out with perfect justice that ' necesse est ' is not the
Latin equivalent for SeT, which would be rendered ' oportet,'
but for avayicr) ; and expresses not moral obligation but natural
necessity. When our Lord said (Matt, xviii. 7), avayK.r\ yap
sXOe'iv to. o-KavSaXa, he did not mean that it was a moral duty
that offences should come. Making this correction, how
ever, those who understand the clause to mean that other
Churches would be sure to be found agreeing with the Church
of Rome, have differed among themselves as to the reason
given, ' propter potentiorem principalitatem ' ; some restor
ing the Greek so as to find in these words a claim founded
on the civil greatness of Rome, others on the antiquity of
the Church. These differences I need not discuss, because I
feel no doubt that Grabe is right in considering that the
words ' convenire ad ' are not Latin for ' agree with,' but
for ' resort to,' and that ' undique ' is not to be taken as
meaning no more than ' ubique ' ; so that the meaning
of Irenaeus is ' Rome is, on account of its civil great
ness, a place to which every Church must resort : that is
to say, every Church does not come thither officially, but
Christians cannot help coming to the city from the Churches
in every part of the world. We have no need, then, to ex
amine the apostolic tradition of these Churches in their re
spective lands. We can learn it from their members to be
found in Rome, who, being in communion with the Roman
Church, must agree with it in doctrine ; and thus the apos
tolic tradition preserved in the capital has been preserved
not by native Romans only, but by the faithful collected in

xx. J QUARTODECIMAN USAGE WHY DISLIKED. 377'
the city from every part of the world.' Understanding the
passage thus, it is seen to have no relevance to modern
controversies. I am surprised that Grabe's explanation has
not been more generally adopted,* because it seems to me the
only one which brings out the force of the parenthesis ' hoc
est qui sunt undique fideles,' and which gives a meaning to
' in qua,' by which Harvey is so much puzzled that he wants
to translate it ' whereas.'
I come now to what is regarded by many as the first mild
attempt at Papal aggression — the proposal of bishop Victor
at the very end of the second century to excommunicate the
Asiatic Quartodecimans. I have on a former occasion [In
troduction to N. T., p. 43) called your attention to the pre
dominance of the Greek element in the early Roman Church ;
and in particular to the fact that we have in Victor a bishop
with a Latin name succeeding to a line of bishops whose
names (such as Anicetus, Soter, Eleutherus), in the vast
majority of cases, indicate a Greek origin. Hence it has
been thought that Victor's arrogance may be accounted for
by the fact that he belongs to a time when the Roman
Church was no longer that of a foreign colony in the great
city, but had now a predominance of native Romans, ruled by
a bishop of their own conquering race. But it seems to me
that there are considerations which tend to mitigate any
harsh judgment we might be disposed to pass on Victor.f
I think the young student of Church history is apt to be
a little scandalized on learning that there were such warm
* He is followed by Neander, who has an admirable note (Kirchengeschichte, i.
210), but was perversely misunderstood by Stieren( who says, ' miror Neandrum, qui
sequitur Grabium, illud "convenire " de conventibus legatorum ex omnibus ecclesiis
Romam missorum interpretari.' Of course Grabe and Neander were not thinking of
embassies to the Church of Rome, but of the necessary recourse of Christians to the
capital on account of civil business. Grabe quotes what Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
32) says of Constantinople : els %v ra irayraxiSev &Kpa avvTpexei ; and the 9th Canon
of the Council of Antioch : ev tt? fi.t}Tpoir6Aei iravTax^ev awTpixew irdyras robs
vpdynaTa exovras. Neander adds a still more apposite quotation from Athenaeus
(i. 36), who describes Rome as an epitome of the world in which every city is found
represented. t Hippolytus, who, it must be owned, had an object to serve in his eulogium,.
describes Victor as a kind-hearted man (eHo-vAayxyos) . (Haer. Ref. ix. 12.)

378 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
controversies in the second century on the question of the
proper day for the celebration of Easter. Surely, he thinks,
this is a matter of no importance. Might not any day have
been selected by common consent ? or if there had been any
•difficulty about this, might not different Churches without
offence keep their Easter on different days ? Yet we have
experience enough among ourselves what warmth of feeling
can be stirred by ritual peculiarities indifferent in themselves,
but supposed to indicate objectionable tendencies in those
who adopt them. In the great majority of Irish churches
any attempt to assimilate our ritual practice to Romish usage
would give the greatest offence ; and the clergyman who
should introduce the innovation would plead in vain that
the change was an improvement, or that it only concerned
matters of indifference. Now in the second century the
contest with Judaism was as pressing as the contest with
Romanism is among ourselves ; and in the West natural
suspicions were excited of the orthodoxy of a man who in
place of keeping his Easter on the day observed by the
Church, wished to celebrate it on the day of the Passover
of the unbelieving Jews. For these reasons the Quartodeci-
man usage would naturally be disliked in the West ; yet still
as long as it was merely known to be the practice of distant
Churches, it was not difficult to tolerate it. But as I have
already explained (p. 276), the case was altered when a pres
byter at Rome denounced the usage of his own Church as
un-apostolic, and as one to which a Christian could not with
a good conscience conform. Then it might well seem time
that diversity should be put an end to ; and I have pointed
out that this was not an attempt to impose a Roman pecu
liarity on the rest of the Christian world, but that Victor
commenced by writing to the leading bishops, asking each
to assemble his neighbours and report to him their practice.
It was armed with this evidence that Quartodecimanism
was only a local peculiarity, that he called on the Asiatic
Churches to conform to the usage of the rest of the world on
pain of being excommunicated. According to my view of
Christian duty, the matter in dispute was one in which a

xx.J WHAT WAS MEANT BY EXCOMMUNICATION. 379
local Church is not justified in resisting the rest of the Church
universal; and I think the Asiatic Churches ought to have
given way, rather than break unity. Yet they could plead a
tradition for their practice reaching, as they believed, up to
the Apostle John ; and when I bear in mind that the Chris
tian Easter is but a commemoration of events which happened
at the Jewish Passover season, I find no difficulty in believ
ing that St. John's practice may have been to hold the
Christian feast on the same day as the Jewish. But though
I can also think it possible that other Apostles may have
celebrated differently, and though I hold, moreover, that it
lies within the competence of the Church, for reason that
seems to her good, to deviate from Apostolic usage in ritual
matters, yet I cannot be surprised that these views were not
shared by the Asiatic Christians of the second century, and
that they held themselves bound, in defiance of threats, to
adhere to the traditional practice of their Churches.
A few words may be necessary to explain what was meant
by the threat of excommunication which was used against
them : it meant a suspension of those friendly relations which
I have already described (p. 275) as existing between the
different Churches which all regarded themselves as members
of one great community. That one Church should break
these relations with another did not necessarily imply any
claim of superiority. If the Sovereign of England were to
dismiss the Russian ambassador, it would be a token of
hostility, but would not imply any claim of superiority over
the Sovereign of Russia. Even before the Pope lost his
temporal dominions, the Crown of England refused to hold
diplomatic intercourse with him, yet did not thereby show
that it counted him as an inferior. Nevertheless, any Church
would feel it as a most severe penalty were Rome to break
communion with her. She would thereby lose the good
offices of the Church most powerful in influence and in
money. Her members, on visiting the city which strangers
had most occasion to frequent, would find themselves, no
matter how high office they had held at home, treated as
aliens to the Christian community. Added to the practical

380 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
inconvenience would be the stigma of an exclusion which,
according to the general feeling of Christians, ought not to
be inflicted but for grave cause. This same general feeling,
however, would make one Church slow to break communion
with another ; for the result of such an attempt, if unsup
ported, would be, instead of isolating that other, to isolate
themselves. Accordingly, the threat by which it had been
expected to bring the Asiatic Churches into conformity was
one of separation, not from the Roman Church merely, but
from the whole society of Christian Churches. But the at
tempt to carry out the threat was frustrated by the resistance
of Irenaeus, who wrote not only a letter of sharp remonstrance
to Victor himself, but wrote also to several other bishops,
urging that whole Churches of God ought not to be separated
from communion on account of an ancient custom, and
pointing out that the matter in dispute was one on which
differences had previously not been allowed to interrupt
communion ; citing in particular the fact that Anicetus of
Rome and Polycarp, though unable to agree on this sub
ject, had remained in close communion with each other. The
result of these remonstrances seems to have been that the
attempt to excommunicate the Asiatics was abandoned ; for
we find during the next century no trace of interruption of
communion ; and the suppression of Quartodecimanism was
only effected by the Council of Nicaea, which could speak in
the name of the universal Church with an authority possessed
by no single bishop.
I think that if we put the Romish controversy out of our
heads, we shall have no difficulty in sympathizing with all
the parties in this transaction. We cannot wonder that
Victor should have been anxious to obtain uniformity of
practice, and that he should have thought that object attain
able through pressure put by the general body of Christians
on a small number of dissentients. We can sympathize also
with the unexpected tenacity with which the Asiatics held to
a usage which they believed to be Apostolic, and we can sym
pathize still more heartily with the counsels of peace offered
by Irenaeus. But we should not have been allowed to put

xx.J THE GALLIC CHURCHES AND MONTANISM. 381
the Romish controversy out of our heads if the parts of Victor
and Irenaeus had been interchanged. Suppose it had been
Irenaeus who had rashly broken communion with the Asiatic
Churches ; suppose that Victor had then written a letter to
Irenaeus, sharply rebuking him,* and had written also to
other bishops, warning them not to separate from those
who had been unwarrantably excommunicated ; and suppose
that in consequence of this action of Victor's the threatened
schism had been averted, would not that have been paraded
as a decisive proof of Papal Supremacy ? and certainly it
would be one far stronger than any which, as things are,
early Church history can furnish.
In my opinion this was not the first time on which the
Gallic Church had come forward to defend the independence
of the Asiatic Churches ; but the passage which I have in
my mind is one which has been differently understood. In
the Montanist controversy the chief subject of difference was
that the Montanists regarded certain women as prophets,
and reverenced their utterances as inspired by God's Spirit,
while the local bishops considered them to be under the
influence of demoniacal possession, and even attempted to
exorcise the evil spirit which possessed them.f Now Euse
bius (v. 3), in relating the events of the year 177, tells that
the brethren in Gaul then drew up a judgment of their own
on this Montanist question, a judgment pious and most
orthodox, in which were also set forth letters which the
martyrs in the great persecution of that year had written
while yet in prison to the brethren in Asia and Phrygia, and,
moreover, to Eleutherus, the then bishop of Rome, pleading
on behalf of the peace of the Churches. From the last phrase
it has been very commonly inferred that these letters were an
unsuccessful attempt to avert the schism which actually took
* ipepovrai Se Kal al tovtuv tpuval irKriKTiKiliTepov KaBanTopevuv tov B'iKTopos.
<Euseb. S. S. v. 24.)
+ 1 consider that it was this way of testing prophets which is forbidden in the
Didaehe, xi. 7 : irdyra irpotp^TTiv AaAovvra iv irvei/iaTi ov ireipdtreTe ovSe SiaKpiveire-
iraffa yap a/iapria SupeMiffeTU, afori Se v apaprta ovk *QeB4,aeT<u. To offer the
indignity of exorcism to one really inspired of God's Spirit might naturally be
regarded as a sin against the Holy Ghost.

382 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
place, and that they had pleaded for the retention of the
Montanists in the Church, by either acknowledging the in
spiration of their prophets, or at least leaving that an open
question. But I cannot believe that Eusebius would have
characterized such advice as pious and orthodox; for a little
later [c. 14) he describes these Montanist prophets as poi
sonous serpents sent against the Church by the devil, the
hater of all good, who was determined to leave no form of
injury untried. And I conceive the object of the letter to
Eleutherus to have been to impress on him the propriety of
not going behind the judgment passed on these pretenders
by the bishops on the spot, since any contrary course would
be a breach of the ' peace of the Churches.'
In the third century the importance of the bishop of
Rome increases ; yet even so late as the episcopate of Cal-
listus (a. d. 217-222), it seems to me that it still depends on
his being able to speak in the name of his Church. Hippo
lytus, who was an adversary of Callistus, reproaches him
[Ref Haer. ix. 12) for the laxity of his discipline. There is
every reason to think that this was the same prelate whose
decision, that persons excommunicated on account of adultery
might be admitted to penance and restoration, gave rise to
Tertullian's treatise, De Pudicitia, in which the rigorist view
is strongly maintained, that such persons ought never in this
life to be readmitted to the Church. It used to be thought
that Zephyrinus was the bishop in question ; but the only
ground for that opinion was a mistaken belief that the life,
or at least the literary activity, of Tertullian had not con
tinued beyond his episcopate. The De Pudicitia belongs to
the latest period of Tertullian's life, in which he had come to
formal separation from the Church. Hippolytus gives no hint
that the laxity of Callistus had received any sanction from
his predecessor.
Be this, however, as it may, what we are here concerned
with is, that in discussing whether adulterers can be re
admitted to communion, Tertullian, after considering several
other texts of Scripture, comes to the texts, ' On this rock
will I build my Church,' ' I have given thee the keys of the

xx.J HIPPOLYTUS AND CALLISTUS. 383.
Kingdom of Heaven,' ' Whatsoever thou shalt bind or loose
on earth shall be bound or loosed in heaven.' Now, since
at the time this tract of Tertullian was written the story that
Clement had been ordained by Peter had come to be received
belief at Rome, it would not have surprised me if Callistus
had already made the claim for the bishop of Rome to be
heir to Peter's prerogatives. But it is remarkable that while
Tertullian altogether denies that it lies within the competence
of the bishop of Rome to give absolution to an adulterer, his
whole argument shows plainly that no claim of the kind had
been made for the bishop personally, but only for his Church,
or rather for every Church which could claim like relation
ship with Peter (' ad omnem ecclesiam Petri propinquam ').
If a personal claim had been made for the bishop, Tertullian
would completely play into his adversary's hands ; for what
he takes pains to maintain is, that the powers described in
the verses in St. Matthew were not conferred on the Church,
but on Peter personally (see p. 335). The absence of any
claim for the bishop is so striking, that two learned Roman
Catholics (Cardinal Orsi and Morcelli) have refused to believe
that Tertullian's controversy was with a bishop of Rome at
all. It must have been a bishop of Carthage. If he was ad
dressing a bishop of Rome, argues Orsi, Tertullian would not
have said, ' Thou imaginest that to thee also, that is to every
Church united with Peter, this power has been committed/
but he would have said, ' To thee who boastest that thou dost
sit on the seat of Peter, and to thy Church founded by him.'
But since Tertullian sarcastically calls his adversary ' Pontifex
Maximus,' and, ' Episcopus Episcoporum,' it cannot well be
doubted that he had a bishop of Rome in view ; and Orsi's
argument simply proves that the bishop of Rome in the days
of Tertullian had not made the claims which were afterwards
advanced by his successors.
In this controversy we are disposed to sympathize with
the clemency of Callistus rather than with the rigour of his
critics, Tertullian and Hippolytus. But since I have spoken
of the controversy between Callistus and Hippolytus, I must
tell you all that is known about it, although the case is not
one on which I lay stress, in a controversial point of view; for

384 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
I take the side of the bishop of Rome against his assailant.
The story is an interesting one ; and as it has only compa
ratively recently come to light, so that it is not to be found
in the older text-books, it is fitting that I should give you
some account of it. A book known as the Philosophumena
had been long included among the works of Origen, though
learned men had given reasons for thinking that Origen could
not have been really the author. It was but the introduction
to a larger work, the greater part of which has been since
recovered in a MS. brought from Mount Athos to Paris, and
published at Oxford in 1851, still under the name of Origen's
Philosophumena. On the publication of the whole, however,
it became abundantly plain that the work was not Origen's,
for the author appears to claim to be a bishop, and also to
have taken a leading part in the affairs of the Church of
Rome. The almost unanimous opinion of the learned
(whether Roman Catholic, Church of England, or Rational
istic) is, that the book, whose proper title is a ' Refutation of all
Heresies,' is the work of Hippolytus, who has been honoured
as a saint, and who had been known as one of the most
learned members of the Church of Rome between 200 and
235. There are still one or two learned men who do not think
the authorship fully proved ; but I have examined the ques
tion myself, and consider that it is beyond all doubt. Among
the heresies refuted in this book is one which denied the dis
tinct personality of the Father and the Son, so that these were
said to be merely different names given to the same divine
being, according as he existed in different relations or different
ways of manifestation. Hence its promoters have been called
Patripassians, the consequence having been deduced from their
teaching (whether they themselves expressly asserted it or not),
that it was the Father who suffered on the Cross. It was nearly
the same heresy as that which afterwards became notorious
under the name of Sabellianism. We learn from Hippolytus's
contemporary, Tertullian, that Praxeas, who introduced this
heresy at Rome, had also made himself conspicuous by his
opposition to Montanism, and so, probably by his admitted
orthodoxy on one point, gained a more indulgent hearing for
his erroneous teaching on another. This newly-discovered

xx.J HIPPOLYTUS AND CALLISTUS. 385
writing, in refuting the Patripassian doctrine, stigmatizes as
patrons of that heresy Zephyrinus and Callistus, who occupied
the see of Rome between 202 and 223, who had always
hitherto held an unblemished reputation in the Church, and
are entered in the Roman breviary as martyrs. Zephyrinus
is dealt with with comparative gentleness. He is described
as an illiterate and covetous man, very much under the
influence of Callistus, and partly inveigled, partly corrupted,
by him to give his episcopal patronage to the Noetians. But
with Callistus no terms are kept. He is said to have been
originally a slave of an influential Christian in Caesar's
household. Under his master's patronage he set up as a
banker, and was entrusted with large deposits by the widows
and brethren. These Callistus embezzled, and became bank
rupt. He attempted to run away, but was overtaken, and,
failing in an attempt to commit suicide, was brought back,
and sent by his master' to the pistrinum. After a time he was
released, on the intercession of some who thought that if he
were set free he might discover the embezzled money. But
this he could not do, and being watched, and unable to run
away again, he devised a desperate plan to restore his credit
among the Christians. He went into the Jewish synagogue,
and disturbed their worship, for which he was beaten, and
brought before the prefect. His master hastened to the
tribunal, and begged the prefect not to believe that he was
a Christian, as he was only seeking an occasion of death,
having embezzled much money ; but this was thought a mere
subterfuge for the extrication of the accused, and Callistus
was scourged, and sent to the mines in Sardinia. Some time
after, Marcia, the favourite concubine of the Emperor Corn-
modus, who had strong sympathies with the Christians, the
eunuch who brought her up being a Christian priest, was able
to obtain an order for the release of the Christians in these
mines, and applied to Pope Victor for their names. But he,
knowing the circumstances, did not include the name of
Callistus in the list. However, Callistus so earnestly wept
and besought the bearer of the release, that the latter, being
a kind-hearted man, took the responsibility of adding the
2 C

386 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
name of Callistus to the list. Victor, we are told, was dis
tressed at the return of Callistus, but contented himself with
banishing him to Antium. After Victor's death, Callistus suc
ceeded in ingratiating himself with his successor, Zephyrinus;
and in the Patripassian disputes, he tried to gain the favour
of both parties, with the orthodox professing orthodoxy, and
with the Noetians, Noetianism. He ultimately devised a new
theory, by which he endeavoured to make a compromise, and
steer a middle course between the teaching of Hippolytus
and that of his Patripassian opponent; on one occasion
accusing Hippolytus of Ditheism. Our author further
accuses Callistus of undue laxity in his moral discipline,
in giving an easy absolution to sinners who had been cast
out of the Church by others — some of them by Hippolytus
himself; in admitting digamists and trigamists to the ranks
of the clergy; in his allowing clergy to marry, and treating
their doing so as a matter between God and their own con
sciences ; in allowing Christian ladies to take to themselves,
if they so desired, consorts of a lower rank, with whom they
could not contract a legal marriage.
You may guess what a sensation was produced by the
discovery of a work seemingly so damaging to the credit of
two Roman bishops. Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln, who
published separately this part of the newly- discovered work,
believes every word that Hippolytus says to the discredit
of the Popes. And he cannot be much blamed for doing so ;
for Hippolytus has always been honoured as a saint and a
martyr, and the honour must have been given him from
nearly his own time ; for there is in existence a statue of
him, which is proved to be nearly contemporary by its hav
ing engraved on it the cycle which Hippolytus invented in
order to find the time of Easter. Now that cycle was an
erroneous one, and its error could not but be discovered after
using it for a dozen years. We may conclude, therefore,
that the time when it was engraved in perpetual honour of
Hippolytus was before the error was discovered ; that is to
say before A.D. 240. If we accept the testimony of Hippo
lytus, it would follow that two bishops of Rome were not

xx.J DOLLINGER'S THEORY. 387
only men of indifferent moral character, but that they fell
into heresy on a primary article of the Christian faith. Dr.
Newman, on the other hand, was so shocked at this libel on
Roman bishops, that he declared nothing would persuade
him it could be the work of the saint and martyr Hippolytus.
But a far better defence of the credit of the Roman see was
made by von Dollinger, at that time in full credit as an able
champion of the Roman Catholic Church. His work, Hip
polytus and Callistus, has been translated into English (1876),
and I do not know a more interesting and instructive work
on early Church history.
Dollinger points out that though in this work Hippolytus
claims to be a bishop, and is recognized as a bishop by early
authorities, yet that the name of his see is not mentioned by
them ; and some of them expressly declare their ignorance
of it. The statement that he was bishop of Portus (near
Rome), though generally accepted, rests on comparatively
late and untrustworthy authorities. A number of Greek MSS.,
which cite passages from his writings, describe him as bishop
of Rome. Further, in this work Hippolytus never ascribes
the title of bishop to Callistus ; and he speaks of him as
having only seemed to obtain the dignity he aimed at.
Dollinger's inference is, that the dissensions at Rome pro
ceeded to such a length that they came to formal schism,
Hippolytus being the bishop of the ultra-orthodox minority,
and Callistus the one accepted by the majority of the Roman
Church. This theory gives an excellent explanation of all the phe
nomena presented by the treatise against heresies which we
are discussing ; but it is attended by the very grave difficulty
that this, which would seem to have been one of the earliest
schisms in the Roman see, seems to have been absolutely
unknown to the rest of the Christian world ; and that although
the leader of one of the parties was that member of the Ro
man Church who was best known elsewhere for his learning
and his literary activity. If Dollinger's hypothesis be well
founded, it follows that Christians in the third century so far
from regarding the bishop of Rome as their master and
2 c 2

388 THE INFANCY OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xx.
teacher, regarded the question, who was bishop of Rome, as
one merely of local interest, and troubled themselves little to
inquire who the bishop of Rome was. Rival bishops might
claim the see for years, and one of them not an obscure
person, but the leading divine in the Roman Church of his
day, and yet the schism not leave a trace in Church history,
and, as far as we can learn, not a single Eastern Christian
have heard of its existence.
Taking this view, however, the impeachment of the
orthodoxy of the Roman bishops is at once disarmed.
Instead of believing on the word of Hippolytus that the
Roman bishops who differed with him were heretics, we
may question whether it was not he himself who was in
the wrong, whether in his zeal against those who con
founded the Persons of the Father and the Son, he did not
use such indiscreet language as to lay himself fairly open
to the charge of Ditheism : that is to say, whether he did not
so separate their substances as to seem to teach Christians
to worship two distinct Gods. It is still easier to defend
the disciplinary regulations of the Roman bishops, for the
indulgence which characterized the practice of Callistus is
more in accordance both with our own ideas, and with the
practice of the Church since his time, than the unforgiving
strictness of Hippolytus. And as for the charges of immo
rality, we are not bound to take as Gospel truth everything
that is alleged by a witness so bitter and evidently prejudiced
as Hippolytus. He clearly puts the worst construction on all
the facts of the life of Callistus. Did he become bankrupt, it
was because he had embezzled the funds entrusted to him.
Did he get into trouble by his Christian zeal, it was because
of his crimes, and because being unable to commit suicide,
he was anxious for an occasion of death. And so on.
On the whole I consider that Dollinger has made out so
good a case, that I am willing to acquit Zephyrinus and
Callistus of the charge of heresy ; though, as I have pointed
out, the theory obliges us to set very low the influence ex
erted by the Roman Church on the rest of the Christian
world at the beginning of the third century.

XXI.

THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY.
AT the conclusion of the last Lecture I told you of von
Dollinger's theory that Hippolytus was an antipope,
claiming in opposition to Callistus the dignity of bishop of
Rome. This suggests a point in the controversy which
ought not to be omitted, and on which, therefore, I will say
something before going further. Supposing it to be proved
that in order to avoid all risk of going wrong, Christ had
given to His followers this compendious rule to guard them
from error — ' Adhere to the bishop of Rome,' still even this
simple rule has its uncertainties, for we have first to deter
mine who the bishop of Rome is. Now, in all the time
between the third century and the Reformation not a cen
tury has passed in which there has not been a schism in the
Church on this very point, Christians being perplexed be
tween the contending claims of different pretenders to the
Roman see.
I have said something as to what possibly may have been
one of the earliest of these schisms ; I will now say some
thing as to what is commonly counted the twenty-ninth ; not
the last, but the greatest and most memorable for its dura
tion, its extent, and its damaging effects on the papal claims.
I mean what is commonly called the great Western schism,
which began in 1378, on the death of Pope Gregory XI. It
lasted nearly forty years, during which time two or more popes
disputed with each other the honour of being the rightful
successor of St. Peter; and the claims of the contending
parties were so evenly balanced that the nations of Western
Christendom were tolerably equally divided between them.

39° THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
Very respectable Roman Catholic writers have maintained
that it is still impossible to decide with certainty which party
was in the right — saints working miracles being numbered
among the adherents of either pontiff — and finally (I quote
from the Jesuit Maimbourg), even a General Council, which
had the aid of the Holy Ghost to enable them to decide
infallibly, did not venture to solve the question, and had
recourse to its authority instead of availing itself of its know
ledge,* that is to say, instead of informing the Christian world
which of the popes was the true one, the Council, by virtue
of its authority, deposed them all, and set up a new pope of
its own. I must assume that you have a general knowledge of the
facts of the case, and will recall to your memory that the
death of Gregory XI. was the termination of what has been
called the Babylonish Captivity, namely, the seventy years'
residence of the French popes at Avignon. It is certain
that the temporal interests of the city of Rome suffered
greatly from the absence of its spiritual head. The Roman
magistrates complained that the faithful were no longer
attracted to Rome either by devotion or interest ; that there
was danger lest the unfortunate city should be reduced to
a vast solitude ; the sacred edifices left without roof, gates,
or walls ; the abode of beasts, which cropped the grass off
their very altars. . Accordingly, the death of Gregory XI.,t
and the election of his successor taking place at Rome ;
although the Cardinals, being French, would undoubtedly,
if they had free choice, have elected a French successor, they
were surrounded by a violent mob, threatening to tear them
in pieces and set the house on fire over their heads if they
elected a foreign pope ; and although they had at first pro
tested that an election constrained by violence would not
* Histoire du grand schisme d' Occident, p. 3.
t He had come to Rome chiefly on the persuasion of Catherine of Siena, a saint
remarkable for having had the marks of the Saviour's wounds imprinted on her body,
as well as for having had an espousal ring with four pearls and a diamond, placed
permanently on her finger by our Lord Himself; although, to spare her modesty,
these honours were invisible to all eyes but her own (Bolland, AA. SS., April 30,
pp. 882, 901).

xxi.J THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM. 39 l
give a real pope but an intruder, yet ultimately they gave
way, elected an Italian Pope, Urban VI., notified his election
as usual to the Courts of Europe, and did not set up the plea
of constraint until Urban had showed himself troublesome
in the character of reformer of abuses. Then they made a
unanimous secession ; declared that they had only chosen
Urban in the persuasion that he would in conscience have
refused the pontificate, his election to which was only due to
violence. 'But he, forgetful of his salvation, and burning
with ambition, had allowed himself to be enthroned and
crowned ; and assumed the name of pope, though he rather
merited that of apostate and antichrist.' And so they set up
a French pope, Clement VII.
Now, the schism thus begun lasted longer than what is
commonly called a generation of men. A Christian who was
of an age to form an opinion on the subject, say twenty-five
years of age, when the schism began, might have died in
mature age before it was finished : all the time he might have
used more care in trying to choose the right pope than most
men now spend in choosing the right doctrine ; he might
have followed the opinion supported by his nation, and
backed by a considerable number of men in high esteem
for learning and piety; and yet some hundred years after
his death it might be discovered that in spite of all his
care he had decided wrongly, and had wandered from the
true fold out of which there is no salvation.
It is true that high Roman Catholic authority can be
adduced in support of the opinion that either pope might
safely be followed ; a charitable opinion certainly, but one
which can hardly be consistently maintained. For if Christ
has given His Church an infallible guide to truth, it surely
must be held to be no small sin to forsake that guide and
follow an impostor, more especially when the true guide
distinctly declares that those who adhere to the impostor
hazard their eternal salvation. This can certainly be proved
by contemporary evidence, that whatever may be said now,
Christians at the time were held bound to decide the question
rightly, as they valued their eternal salvation. In order to

392 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
prove this I took the trouble to copy some of the curses
denounced by each pope against the adherents of the other ;
but I have not time to read them. Suffice it to say that the
two popes were in perfect agreement in informing the Chris
tian world that this was a matter in which a wrong choice
would endanger a man's eternal salvation*
Remember that the main argument for the existence of
an infallible guide to the Church is that it is inconceivable
God could have left Christians exposed to the risk of error in
any matter concerning their eternal salvation. But here we
see that the institution of the office of Pope does not preserve
Christians from such risk of error; that on the contrary
Christians were left for several years together perplexed
between the claims of two popes, in favour of each of whom
so much might be said, and each of whom uttered the most
frightful curses against the other and his adherents ; and one
of the two must have been the real pope, and his curses have
had all the efficacy which papal dignity can give. One or other
of the two was the infallible guide to Christians, and both
agreed that this was a matter on which to decide wrongly
* The following is an extract from a circular issued by the cardinals (see Baluzius,
VitaePontt. Aven. ii. 847) : — ' Having been appointed watchmen by the Lord God of
Hosts, and occupying the highest post next after the Roman Pontiff, we are bound
vigilantly to point out to the faithful the dangers which threaten their souls, and the
snares and attacks of the enemy. "Whereas, therefore, we have learned for certain
that that seducer, Bartholomew, formerly Archbishop of Ban, falsely calling himself
Pope, has, as another Antichrist, sent certain false prophets to different parts of the
world, whom he alone has constituted Cardinals, together with some other defenders
of his wickedness, in order that by false persuasions, and crafty suggestions, they
may seduce the Christian people, and may cause them, to the eternal damnation of
their souls, to adhere to the aforesaid apostate ; and whereas, on this account, our
most holy Lord Pope Clement VII. has desired us, who have perfect knowledge of
this matter, to instruct the faithful concerning it ; and whereas it pertains to none
others than us, next after our most holy Lord Pope Clement VII., to inform the
faithful who is the true Pope, therefore, we beseech you all, in Jesus Christ, for the
safety of your souls to adhere to the same Lord Clement, &c.'
Here it is taught plainly enough that the adherents of Urban perilled their salva
tion ; and there certainly is great show of reason in what the cardinals say, viz. that
if any doubt should arise as to who the true pope was, no one could be fitter than the
cardinals (who are the next highest authority to the pope) to decide it.
Urban's counter proclamation, which is too long to be quoted in full, will
be found in Raynaldus's continuation of Baronius (An. 1378). He denounces.

xxi.J THE GREAT WESTERN SCHISM. 395
would peril a Christian's eternal salvation. The question
was an eminently practical one, for if a man happened to be
the subject of a monarch who had taken the wrong side,
he was released from his allegiance, and incurred the
penalty of excommunication if he rendered assistance to
his sovereign.
And yet this is a point on which high Roman Catholic
authority now holds that both popes were wrong. Maimbourg
(p. 57) tells us 'the thunderbolts and the anathemas which the
two popes hurled against each other, and against all those
who followed the opposite party, did no harm to anybody.'
Antoninus, archbishop of Florence, who was canonized as
a saint in 1523, writes as follows: — 'There were among the
adherents of either party, all the time the schism lasted, most
learned men and most religious, and what is more, even dis
tinguished by their miracles ; and the question could never be
so decided, but that there remained a doubt with very many.
And though it be necessary to salvation to believe that there
is but one vicar of Christ, yet on the occasion of a schism,
when several are called popes, it does not appear necessary
those children of iniquity and perdition, Robert (i.e. Clement VII.), and the other
cardinals, who had not only involved themselves in the bonds of sin, but being given
over to a reprobate mind, have endeavoured to draw others with them to destruction.
He declares that being unable, without grievous remorse of conscience, any longer to
tolerate such wickedness, he pronounces that Robert, &c, are schismatics, apostates,
blasphemers, and are to be punished as heretics : he excommunicates them, deprives-
them of all their dignities, confiscates all their goods, declares their persons detest
able and infamous, and orders them to be kept by the faithful in close prison. Any
one who should commit their bodies to ecclesiastical sepulture is excommunicated,
and can only be absolved on condition of disinterring them with his own hands.
Everyone of whatever rank, king, queen, emperor, or cardinal, is forbidden to receive
these excommunieated persons into his lands, or to allow them to be supplied with
any grain, wine, flesh, clothes, wood, victuals, money, merchandize, or any goods.
whatsoever. Every private person is excommunicated who shall transgress any of
the aforesaid commands, or who shall knowingly call the aforesaid Robert (styling
himself Clement) by the name of Pope, or who shall believe him to be Pope, from
which excommunication he is not to be freed by any but the Roman Pontiff, except
in the article of death. He releases the subjects of the princes who adhere to his
rival, from obedience to their monarchs ; and he offers to all those who shall under
take a crusade for the extermination of the aforesaid schismatics, and who shall per
secute them to the utmost of their power, the privileges and indulgences granted to-
those who proceed to the succour of the Holy Land.

394 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
to salvation to believe that this or that is the true pope, but
¦only whichever of the two was canonically elected, and no
one is bound to know who was canonically elected any more
than he is bound to be acquainted with the canon law ; but
the people may follow their princes and prelates.'
In short, provided you believe there is a pope somewhere
or other, it is quite unnecessary to know who he is, and you
may be quite safe though you adhere to a false pope, and
though the true pope be cursing you as hard as he can all
the time. Suppose that in Switzerland you had some doubt
whether an incompetent guide had not imposed on you by a
false certificate, what would you think if, on inquiring at the
office for guides, you were told that it was certainly abso
lutely necessary for you to have the authorized guide, but
that if you had duly paid your fee at the office it was quite
immaterial whether you had got hold of the right man or
not ? In whose interests would you suppose such a regula
tion to have been framed ? If it is asserted then that it is
inconceivable that God could leave His Church without some
guide able to lead her infallibly into truth, we may answer
that it is just as necessary that God should make men know
who that infallible guide is, and that it is indelibly written
in the page of history that God did leave the Church for a
space of several years in a state in which it was next to
impossible to determine who that infallible guide was. And
it avails nothing to say that this was 500 years ago, for we
¦cannot suppose that God dealt with His Church by different
rules in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries and in the nine
teenth. The souls of Christians then were as dear to Him as
the souls of Christians now, and it cannot be said that any
thing is essential to the being of the Church which God did
not see fit to give her then.
Before parting with the case of Hippolytus, I have
another remark to make on the ignorance of the Eastern
world on the subject of his pretensions to be bishop of Rome.
If he never made the claim, how came so many in the East
to call him bishop of Rome ? If he did, how was it that no
¦one in the East should have heard that the see was contested

xxi.J MODE OF APPOINTMENT OF ROMAN BISHOP. 395
by two rivals ? I must add it, therefore, as a further proof
that the bishop of Rome was not recognized as head over the
whole Church, that the appointment of that bishop was from
early times, and in theory down to the present day, a matter
of mere local concern. In early times the election rested at
Rome, as elsewhere, with the clergy and people. They did
not think of their bishop then as the infallible interpreter of
doctrine, but as the administrator of the funds in which that
Church was very rich ; and, accordingly, when they wanted
a bishop they did not look for a learned divine, but for a
good man of business. Most commonly the choice fell on
the archdeacon, who was habitually the bishop's prime
minister. So regular was this, that a story is told, though I
own on not very trustworthy authority, that in one remark
able case, the bishop finding the archdeacon to be a man
whom he would not like for a successor, was spiteful enough
to spoil his chance by ordaining him priest.* In theory, the
bishop is at the present day appointed by the local clergy;
for the cardinals are the bishops of the six suburbican sees,f
the Roman deacons, and the parish priests of the dif
ferent Roman parishes. In fact, the cardinals are leading
Roman Catholic divines of different European countries,
and the majority of them do not reside at Rome, and have
only a titular connexion with certain Roman parishes. If
the bishop of Rome is head of the whole Church, it is quite
right that representatives of the whole Church should take
part in his appointment. But the titles of the cardinals are
a standing witness to the present day that the pope is but
bishop of a single city, and that his appointment was a
matter with which persons outside that city were not sup
posed to have any concern.
I return now to carry a little further down the history of
the Roman claims. In the last Lecture we found that up to
* This story is told about Cornelius and Novatian by Eulogius of Alexandria
(Photius, Cod. 182).
t These sees had been seven : Portus, Ostia, Praeneste, Sabina, Tusculum, Albano,
and St. Rufina ; but the last has, for many centuries, ceased to exist as a separate
see. On the other hand, the Roman deacons, who for many centuries had been only
seven, are now reckoned as fourteen.

396 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
the end of the second century the importance of the bishop
of Rome is subordinate to that of the Church of Rome. Just
at the end of that century the Clementine fictions were
brought to Rome, and it is not till then we hear anything
of the succession from St. Peter.
Now, when you see Patristic evidence produced in proof
of papal Supremacy, you must be always careful to examine
who it is that is cited. I have not now in my mind merely
that ordinary caution which distinguishes the scientific from
the controversial use of authorities. With Romish contro
versialists of the less instructed sort the pre-scientific use of
authorities still prevails. With them a Father is a Father.
If they can find, in any of those to whom that name is given,
words resembling some assertion which they wish to have
believed, his name is clapped into a list of witnesses (which
sometimes they print in capital letters) all seemingly counted
of equal value. Such a list, however imposing it may appear
to the unlearned, is only glanced at with contempt by one
who understands the subject, and who knows that some of
the writers cited say nothing really relevant to the question
on which they are appealed to, and that others are persons
whose unsupported statements have no weight. For, with
increased knowledge of ancient documents, we are now able
in many cases to compare the statements of Fathers with the
sources whence they derived them, and in this way to form a
judgment how far the reporters are trustworthy. And the
result is that, as might have been expected, -the Fathers are in
this respect found to be men of very unequal merit ; and the
historical student is forced to discriminate, building nothing
with any confidence on the assertions of some, who are ha
bitually wanting in that care and caution which we find in
others. But the point which I now wish to urge is the necessity
of discriminating authorities geographically ; for the geo
graphical test is as effective as the chronological in showing
that the notion of the Petrine supremacy is a development
and not a tradition. Whatever doctrines were delivered to
the Church by our Lord and His apostles, must have been

xxi. J THE CLAIM FIRST HEARD OF AT ROME ITSELF. 397
held by the Church at all times and in all places. Now, it is
owned that the doctrine of Roman Supremacy was not held
by the Church in all times ; for it has to be confessed, as
Newman does in passages which I have quoted, that such a
form of Church government was altogether unsuited to the
condition of the Church in the first ages. But we argue
further that if our Lord had put His disciples under the
government of a single head, Christian missionaries wher
ever they went would have carried with them the knowledge
who their appointed ruler was, and would have taught the
Churches which they founded to obey him. There would
have been no difference between East and West as to the
meaning of the texts which settled the constitution of the
universal Church. The teaching of the Church on this point
would have been in all places the same ; for this is not a
subordinate doctrine, a true tradition concerning which might
conceivably have been lost. The doctrine is a fundamental
one, and those who had ever known and received it must
have kept up the memory of it by perpetual practical
application of it.
What we actually find is very different. The Gospel, you
know, contains a system of truths first promulgated at
Jerusalem, and which starting from that centre have been
propagated all over the civilized world. Now, nothing is
more certain than that the notion of Roman supremacy did
not start from Jerusalem as its centre, but from Rome as its
centre. In tracing the history of the growth of the empire
of heathen Rome, we find the city first battling with the
neighbouring Italian towns; then, when it had established
its dominion in Italy, crossing the sea, and making conquests
in foreign countries. At length its expansive power reaches
its limits : it gains some temporary victories in Parthia and
Germany, but never makes a permanent conquest of these
countries. In like manner, in tracing the history of the
growth of the ecclesiastical empire of Rome, we find that
the movement began at Rome itself; that it was at first
resisted in its own immediate neighbourhood ; that by de
grees it triumphed over that opposition, and extended itself

398 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
over all the West. But in the East, though it occasionally
gained temporary victories, their fruits were always short
lived ; and ultimately the attempt to bring the East under
the dominion of Rome utterly failed.
Bearing all this in mind, you will see the necessity, when
any ancient writer is quoted as asserting the right of the
bishop of Rome to rule over other Churches, of inquiring
who it is that says it. I might tell you, for example, that
several eminent authors assert that Paris is the capital of the
civilized world, the centre of European thought and culture.
But you would smile at me if, when asked who these eminent
authors were, I had to reply Victor Hugo, Comte, and other
enthusiastic Frenchmen. In like manner we can but smile
when Romish divines, who have undertaken to adduce evi
dence in proof of the papal claims, tender to us the assertions
of popes, or of papal legates, or of Roman presbyters. Such
evidence is only good to show what Rome would like to have
believed, but determines nothing as to what really was by
Christ's appointment the constitution of His Church.
It is much more to the purpose when they adduce Eastern
evidence ; but such evidence always turns out to be, not
spontaneous acknowledgment of the justice of the Roman
demands, but temporary acquiescence in them by persons at
the moment badly in want of Roman assistance. For the
cause of Rome was greatly helped by Eastern divisions.
Arianism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, were all Eastern
questions ; nor did the Western mind of that age appear to
possess the subtlety necessary for the originating such dis
putes. Neither, again, was the Latin language .adequate to
express all the subtle distinctions and shades of thought for
which the copiousness and flexibility of the Greek tongue
easily found expression. But each of the contending parties
in the East was always glad to get the West on its side ;
and the party successful in this endeavour could not afford
to be critical if there was too much arrogance in the tone
which their Roman supporters adopted. Thus the Easterns
were in danger of finding the fable realized of the horse tri
umphing over the stag by the assistance of the man, and

xxi. J STEPHEN'S CONTROVERSY WITH CYPRIAN. 399-
finding when his victory was won that he had permanently
a rider on his back. Actually, however, they shook the rider
off after he had served their temporary ends. For though in
politics a party, not the strongest, will sometimes succeed in
attaining its ends through the alternate assistance given it
by two other rival parties bidding against each other for its
support, yet it loses its advantage if it demands more than
either of the rivals will grant. The Romans demanded more
than any Eastern would concede, and so there ensued that
schism between East and West which continues to the
present day.
The earliest bishop of Rome whom I can find to have
claimed privileges as Peter's successor was Stephen in his
controversy with Cyprian, about A.D. 256, at which time the
story told in the Clementines had had some fifty years of
acceptance at Rome. I have already (p. 143) quoted some
of Cyprian's language, from which you will have seen that
though he did not dispute the assertion that Stephen sat in
the chair of Peter, he did not by any means regard the
bishop of Rome as the Church's infallible guide, nor even
as a competent witness to apostolic tradition if his testimony
seemed to conflict with what was found in the written word.
Now, Roman Catholics may say that in the controversy
as to the validity of heretical baptism, Stephen was right
and Cyprian wrong. I do not know whether they are quite
consistent in saying so ; for of late years, I suppose in order
to frighten waverers, they have taken to the profanity of
reiterating baptism in the case of perverts from our com
munion ; a profanity only partially mitigated by the device
of conditional baptism, which was not invented until some
centuries after the time of Stephen and Cyprian. Nor shall
I inquire whether Stephen, in his acknowledgment of here
tical baptism, was not more indiscriminate than the Church
was afterwards, which always has been careful to distinguish
between different classes of heretics, and to examine whether
the baptisms which it acknowledges have been duly made
in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.* But for my
* See the 8th Canon of the Council of Aries.

400 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
present purpose it is quite irrelevant to discuss whether
Stephen or Cyprian was right. If I were to propose the
question to you whether in their parliamentary disputes Mr.
Gladstone or Mr. DTsraeli had been in the right, I dare say
you would be far from unanimous in your answer. But if I
asked whether Mr. Gladstone acknowledged Mr. DTsraeli as
an infallible authority or vice versa, you could be unanimous
in answering that question. We may be as willing to do
honour to the memory of both Stephen and Cyprian as
Walter Scott, in the introduction to Marmion, was to the
memory of both Pitt and Fox. But certain it is that Cyprian
showed that he felt himself as little bound to follow the
ruling of Stephen as Fox was to follow the ruling of Pitt.
If the dispute about the validity of heretical baptism had not
been quelled by a timely persecution, there was danger that
it might have caused a serious schism in the Church. Cyprian
was not only unanimously supported by a council of eighty-
seven African bishops, but he had enthusiastic allies in the
East.* Chief of these was Firmilian of Cappadocia, at that
time one of the most illustrious of Eastern bishops. There
is extant a Latin translation of Firmilian's letter to Cyprian ;
and we need not doubt that the translation was made by
Cyprian himself, though some of the first editors of Cyprian's
works were minded to suppress the letter altogether on ac
count of the great disrespect with which he treats the bishop
of Rome. Certainly it is not surprising that Roman Catholics
should have found matter of offence in Firmilian's letter. He
begins by congratulating himself that through Stephen's
' inhumanity ' (in breaking communion with those who
re-baptized converts from heresy) he had had experimental
proof of Cyprian's faith and wisdom. But, he adds, that
for this benefit resulting to him from Stephen's conduct,
Stephen himself was no more entitled to gratitude than
Judas Iscariot was entitled to our gratitude for the benefits
which resulted to the world from his treason to our Lord.
This is pretty strong to begin with ; and he follows up with
¦charges of ' audacia,' ' insolentia,' ' imperitia,' ' aperta et
* On the part taken by Dionysius of Alexandria, see Euseb. H. E. vii. 5, sqg.

xxi.] STEPHEN'S CONTOVERSY WITH CYPRIAN. 40 1
manifesta stultitia ' : Stephen is 'haereticis omnibus pejor' :
'was not Stephen ashamed to say this ;' ' he had the impudence
(ausus est) to say that ;' ' he defamed Peter and Paul by the
sentiments which he attributed to them.' But Stephen appears
to have given much occasion for this asperity of language ;
for Firmilian quotes him as having called Cyprian 'false
Christ, false apostle, deceitful worker.' We must regret that
men for whom we feel so much respect should have treated
each other with so little ; but the reason for producing these
controversial amenities is that Firmilian tells us that Stephen
had boasted of his succession from Peter : ' de Episcopatus
sui loco gloriatur et se successionem Petri tenere contendit,'
'per successionem cathedram Petri se tenere praedicat.'
What privileges exactly Stephen claimed on the strength
of this succession we are not informed; but both his an
tagonists treat the connexion with Peter and Paul as only
aggravating his fault if he does not harmonize with them
in doctrine. Other evidence of the arrogance of Stephen's
claims is suggested by Cyprian's language in addressing his
African council : ' None of us sets himself up as a bishop of
bishops, or by tyrannical terror forces his colleagues to a
necessity of obeying ; inasmuch as every bishop, in the free
use of his liberty and power, has the right of forming his
own judgment, and can no more be judged by another than
he can himself judge another.'
The result is that we may name the episcopate of Stephen
as the time, when out of the fiction that Peter had been
bishop of Rome, his supposed successors began to develop
the consequence that they had a right to rule other bishops ;
but we find that this development was at the time not only
scouted in the East, but was violently resisted in the neigh
bouring province of Africa.
A somewhat earlier incident in Stephen's history will
show how far the supremacy of the pope was from being then
established. Two Spanish bishops, Basilides and Martial,
had denied Christ in time of persecution, and had therefore
been deposed by their brethren, and two others, Felix and
Sabinus, consecrated in their stead. Basilides, however,
2 D

402 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
went to Rome, and there obtained recognition as bishop
from Stephen. The clergy and people of the towns over
which these men had presided sent to Cyprian, who, assem
bling thirty-seven bishops in Council, decided in a synodical
letter that the deposition of Basilides and Martial was right,
and the election of Felix and Sabinus canonical. Cyprian
says : ' Nor can it rescind an ordination rightly performed
that Basilides, after his crime had been detected and his
conscience laid bare even by his own confession, canvassing
to be unjustly restored to the episcopate from which he had
been justly deposed, went to Rome and deceived Stephen
our colleague residing at a distance, and ignorant of the real
truth. The effect of this is not to efface, but to swell the
crimes of Basilides, in that to his former guilt is now added
the guilt of deceit and circumvention. For he is not so
much to be blamed who through negligence was imposed on,
as he is to be execrated who through fraud imposed on him.'
Now, if a Roman Catholic maintains that his present Church
system is conformed to primitive usage, let him imagine a
parallel case happening how. Let him conceive two Spanish
bishops deposed by their neighbours, and others elected
in their place without consulting the pope. The deposed
bishops appeal to Rome and are acquitted. Meanwhile the
Spanish clergy send the intruding bishops as a deputation
not to the pope, but let us say to the archbishop of Paris,
who, assembling a provincial synod, decides that the former
bishops had been rightly deposed, and the new canonically
elected, and that ' the appealing bishop had only aggravated
his guilt by deceiving Pio Nono our colleague ; but excusing
Pio Nono in that he is not so much to be blamed who through
negligence was imposed on, as he who through fraud had
imposed on him.'*
This history shows that in the third century the Christian
Churches formed one great community. No Church was
completely isolated from the rest : if disputes took place in
it their brethren elsewhere would take an interest in it, and
would use their influence in bringing about the triumph of
* Pusey's Eirenicon, p. 75.

xxi.] THE DONATIST CONTROVERSY. 403
right. That the great Roman Church should possess in
fluence of this kind was a matter of course. But we see now
that the possession of such influence was no exclusive pre
rogative of that see. Other Churches, too, claimed the right
to make their voices heard, and had no scruple in taking a
side opposite to that taken by the bishop of Rome.
When the Empire became Christian it was more impos
sible than ever for one Church to be independent of others ;
for certain privileges and immunities were immediately given
to the Christian bishops and clergy ; and if there were any
controversy as to the occupancy of any see, it was necessary
for the civil authorities to know who was recognized by the
Church generally as the rightful possessor. When Constan-
tine obtained undisputed possession of power, he found a
violent controversy raging, no less a question being involved
than who was the rightful head of the great Church of North
Africa ; the consecration of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage,
having been pronounced invalid by the party which soon
came to have Donatus as its leader. Constantine would, no
doubt, be anxious to make himself acquainted with the rules
established in the Christian Church for regulating the de
cision of such controversies ; but he never appears to have
heard from anyone that it would suffice to get the decision
of the bishop of Rome. On the contrary, the order of the
steps taken in this Donatist controversy was exactly the
reverse of what, according to later theory, it ought to have
been. There was first a decision by the bishop of Rome ;
then an appeal from the pope to a Council ; lastly, neither
pope nor Council having succeeded in making a settlement,
the matter was taken up by the Emperor personally. And
when I say a decision by the bishop of Rome, you must not
suppose that that prelate, great and influential as he was,
had taken on himself on his own authority to pronounce
judgment on the question. He interfered only as commis
sioned by the Emperor, and in this commission* he was not
* It is given by Eusebius (H. E. x. 5), where also is to be found the summons to
the Council of Aries addressed to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse. Chrestus is therein
authorized to demand a public conveyance, and to take with him two presbyters and
three servants.
2 D 2

404 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
alone : three bishops are joined with him in it by name ; and
actually some twenty took part in the investigation. How
ill it would have fared with the bishop of Rome if he had
acted alone appears from the next stage of the proceedings ;
for the Donatists treated a Council of even twenty bishops
(the bishop of Rome being one of them) as too small to
overrule the decision arrived at by seventy bishops in Africa ;
so they were granted a rehearing of the case, which took
place before a larger body of bishops assembled at Aries.
Even this did not prove decisive, and the case had to be
tried once more by the Emperor himself. The whole history
shows how completely undeveloped at that date was the
whole idea of Papal Supremacy, even over the Western
Church. The course of events, however, was favourable to the
development of Roman claims. In the Arian controversies
which soon followed, depositions of bishops were frequent ;
some were formally deposed for alleged heretical doctrine;
others were exiled, and lost their sees on charges which only
made express mention of offences against the State, however
much we may believe them to have been prompted by doc
trinal enmity.
Now, it was in the very nature of things that a person
who thought himself aggrieved by the action of his imme
diate Church superiors, should seek for sympathy and redress
outside. The Churches in the near neighbourhood would
naturally be first appealed to ; but what I have already told
you of the relations of Rome with all parts of the Christian
world ought to prepare you to expect that the intercession of
this powerful benefactor would have prevailing influence with
every Church, and therefore would be eagerly sought. With
the growth at Rome of ambitious ideas there sprung up a
desire to convert this power of friendly remonstrance into a
legal right ; and I have now to speak of the occasion when
the sanction of a Council was first given to the interference
of the bishop of Rome with regard to the deposition or re
storation of bishops outside his immediate jurisdiction.
In the latter half of the fourth century there were together

xxi.J THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA. 4°5
at Rome two prelates, concerning whom the judgment of
posterity has been different, both deposed by their nearer
neighbours, both trying to enlist on their side the bishop of
Rome. I mean Athanasius, whose name needs no expla
nation, and Marcellus of Ancyra, a strenuous opponent of
the Arians, whom therefore the orthodox party were re
luctant to condemn, but who is now generally owned to
have made dangerous confusion of the personalities of the
Father and the Son. Athanasius, exiled from the Eastern
Empire, was driven to the West. He and Marcellus each
protested his innocence to the Roman bishop, who, on their
instigation, wrote to their accusers, challenging them to
come to Rome and there establish their charges ; and when,
after a year and a half, the challenge remained unaccepted,
Pope Julius pronounced the accused parties innocent.
It remained to be seen what a General Council would
think of this acquittal, and one was arranged to meet at
Sardica. But when the Eastern representatives came thither,
they inquired whether Athanasius and Marcellus would be
treated as deposed, or whether they would be permitted to
take their seats as members of the Council ; and on finding
that the latter was intended, the Easterns separated in a body
and held a separate Council at a place called Philippopolis ;
so Sardica was purely a Western Council, and strongly anti-
Arian. You will understand how important it was then in the
interests of orthodoxy to give a right of appeal to Rome.
The Arians were in the ascendant in the East, and when they
got a good pretext, deposed orthodox bishops. Not long
before, a semi- Arian Council at Antioch had made canons pro
hibiting all appeals beyond the Metropolitan of the province.
It was manifestly in the interests of orthodoxy that redress
should be obtainable from the bishop of Rome, who might
be trusted to be on the right side. So the Council of
Sardica decreed that if a bishop thought he had good
reason to appeal from a provincial judgment of his case,
he might demand a new trial, ' Let us, if you please,

406 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
honour the memory of the Apostle Peter, and let him
write to Julius, bishop of Rome, who, if he thinks fit,
may order the case to be tried again, and appoint judges
to try it.' You will observe that what this Council granted
to the Bishop of Rome is much short of what has been
claimed for him in later times. It only gives him ap
pellate jurisdiction in the case of a bishop who conceives
himself to have been unjustly treated, but it gives no power
of original jurisdiction to the Pope, no power to evoke causes
to Rome, or set aside the judgment of Councils. And the
power of appellate jurisdiction is shown to be not an original
possession of the see, but one given it then for the first time.
We shall see presently in a remarkable case that the Roman
bishops claimed the right of appeal solely on this ground
that a Council had bestowed it on them. The Greek Canon
ists, when they accepted the decrees of Sardica, held that the
limited power of receiving appeals then granted to Rome did
not extend to the whole Church, and that the Patriarch of
Constantinople had equal power in his own province. I
think myself that the Council of Sardica intended to give the
bishop of Rome this power over the whole Church, for the
cases at issue at the time were Eastern cases ; but it is
obvious that this Council of Western bishops had no power
to bind the Eastern Church or deprive them of any portion
of their independence. The truth, however, I believe to be
not so much that the East rejected these Sardican canons as
that for some centuries people in the East knew nothing
about them. That the original of the canons was Latin, not
Greek, appears from the fact that the three oldest Latin texts
are in strictly verbal agreement, although in the case of
other canons, whose original is known to have been Greek,
they give independent translations. These canons are un
known to all the early Greek writers who might have been
expected to show acquaintance with them; they were not
mentioned either at the second General Council, that of Con
stantinople, nor in the fourth, that of Chalcedon, although
these Councils dealt with the same subject ; nor do the Greek

xxi.J THE COUNCIL OF ANTIOCH. 407
Church Historians, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, make
any mention of them when relating the transactions at
Sardica* As I have had occasion to speak of the Council at
Antioch in 341, I may add a few words as to what there
took place. You will observe that we have now got half
way through the fourth century, and that by this time
Roman pretensions had very much advanced. However,
the bishop of Rome was still contending not for a right of
deciding Eastern questions, but only for that of being con
sulted about them. The Council of Antioch demanded that
the bishop of Rome should acquiesce, without further in
quiry, in the conclusions come to by Eastern Councils with
regard to the deposition of certain bishops, on pain of
excommunication himself, if he held communion with bishops
who had been deposed. On that occasion twenty-nine useful
canons were passed which were afterwards, at Chalcedon,
adopted into the code of the Universal Church. Pope Julius
protested against these canons on the ground that he had
not been summoned to that Council, and that by Ecclesiasti
cal law no canon was binding on the Church which had not
received his assent. I don't know that we ought to allow
Julius to be witness in his own cause ; for this whole history
is one of claims made by Popes, at first meeting no recog
nition elsewhere, but by dint of pertinacious repetition at
length obtaining more or less acceptance. The Greek histo
rians, Socrates (ii. 8, 17) and Sozomen (iii. 10), appear simply
to repeat what had been said by Julius. But if his words are
fairly weighed, they seem to me to imply no more than this,
that the bringing in new canons for the government of the
whole Church was not proper to be done merely by local
Councils: 'Judgment ought to be given according to the
* I do not go so far as a learned writer in the Church Quarterly Review, April,
1881, p. 189, who on the grounds stated above, and for other similar reasons, has
grave doubts whether these Sardican decrees are not altogether a Roman forgery ;
for he himself gives good reasons for thinking that a forger would have proceeded
differently, and for example would have claimed for his canons some higher origin
than Sardica. Besides, as I have pointed out in the text, the Sardican decrees corre
spond well to the circumstances of the time to which they are attributed.

408 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
canon of the whole Church, and not so as you have given it.
. . . You ought to have written to all of us that so we might
have decided what was just.' And the first place in such a
consultation, he maintains, is due to the bishop of Rome,
especially in a matter relating to the see of Alexandria,
which, according to Roman ideas, had been evangelized from
Rome, viz. by Peter's ' interpreter,' St. Mark.
I may remark, in passing, how what I said already as
to the precedence of sees being merely determined by the
civil greatness of their cities is confirmed by the instance
of Antioch and Alexandria. In ecclesiastical associations
Antioch was far the superior. It was the older Church, and
claimed to have been presided over by St. Peter, while
Alexandria only pretended to have been evangelized later
by a disciple of Peter. But Alexandria was far the greater
city, and so its bishop came to hold the second place after
Rome ; and accordingly, the trial of the case of Athanasius
at Antioch was open to the objection that it seemed to sub-;
ject the greater see to the less, besides that the place of trial
was so remote from that where the facts to be investigated
occurred. But to return to the claims made by Julius, while
he protests against new canons made at Antioch without
his knowledge and consent, he gives no intimation that he
thought that new canons could have been made at Rome
either without the consent of other Churches.
Having spoken of Sardica, I may as well go on to speak
of the well-known Roman attempt to pass off the decrees of
that Council as Nicene. The case of Apiarius is likely to be
familiar to you. He was an African presbyter, excommuni
cated for misconduct by his bishop. He went to Rome, and
prevailed on Pope Zosirnus to take up his cause with some
warmth. The Pope's interference, and the claims on which
it was founded, were the subject of discussions in at least
three African Synods. Zosirnus, you know, founded his right
to interfere on the Sardican canons of which I have been
speaking; but which he quoted as Nicene. The African
prelates, in council assembled, declared that there was no
such canon in their copy of the Nicene code, and they begged

xxi.J THE CASE OF APIARIUS. 4°9
the Pope to write to Constantinople and Alexandria, request
ing that the Greek copies there might be collated, in order to
ascertain whether the disputed canons had really been passed
at Nicaea. The Papal legates begged hard that the Council
would be content with this request to the Pope to examine
into the matter for himself; but the Council very wisely
determined to send messengers of their own to the East to-
get copies of the Greek version of the canons of Nicaea. The
result of the mission appears from the final letter of the
African bishops. In this, after giving a short account of
what had been done, they request that the Pope will not in.
future receive persons excommunicated by their Synods, this
being contrary to the canons of Nicaea. They protest against
appeals to foreign tribunals ; they deny the Pope's right to
send legates to exercise jurisdiction in his name, which they
say is not authorized by any canon of the Fathers, and they
request that the Pope will not send any agent or nuncio to
interfere with them in any business for fear the Church
should suffer through pride and ambition. In fact, we can
plainly see that the arrogance of the Papal representatives in
Africa contributed greatly to the soreness which was felt at
Roman interference.
In defence of the false quotation of the Sardican canons
as Nicene, it is alleged that it was the practice in books of
canons to add to the earlier Councils those of later, those of
Sardica following next after the Nicene, and therefore quoted
under the same heading. That the mistake was not purely
accidental (as far as the Roman scribes were concerned) is
made likely by a Roman manuscript of the canons still
extant, in which the name Julius, which occurs in the Sardi
can decree, and which determines their date to that episco
pate, is deliberately altered to Sylvester, who was bishop at
the time of the Council of Nicaea. In the absence of any evi
dence to connect Pope Zosirnus himself with this fraud, I
willingly acquit him of deliberate forgery, and charitably
believe that he erred in honest ignorance, having been
imposed on by some too zealous subordinate ; and the same
excuse may be made for the Papal use of the forged decretals

4IO THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
of which I shall speak in another Lecture. But these instances
show how absurd it is to claim for the Pope immunity from
«rror in his declarations of doctrine, while he is allowed to
be liable to error with regard to matters of fact.* How can we
put confidence in the judgment of one who is mistaken as to
the facts which ought to guide his judgment ? When a
bishop of Rome has to decide what rights he shall claim for
his see, it surely is important for him to know what rights
early Councils had recognized and what rights his predeces
sors had exercised. If a Pope should be entirely misinformed
•on these points, it is quite to be expected that he should form
a false estimate of the rightful claims of his see. Of course
if a person is determined to believe in Infallibility he will do
so in defiance of all reason. I have already told you that
there are those who have no difficulty in believing that the
decisions of a Council are infallibly true, even when it has
been shown that the arguments which induced the Council to
come to these decisions are hopelessly bad. Such persons
will not be shaken in their belief in the correctness of the
Pope's decisions by any proof that he has been led to them
on false information. Yet if anyone tells us that it is
incredible that God would leave His Church without an
* The use made of this distinction in the Jansenist controversy is well known. In
1653, five propositions, said to have been extracted from Jansen's book, were sub
mitted to Pope Innocent X., who condemned them as heretical. The Jansenists,
when called on to subscribe to this condemnation, found themselves able to do so
without giving up their allegiance to their master. The propositions, no doubt, were
heretical, since the Pope declared them so, but they had never been asserted by Jansen,
at least not in the sense in which they were heretical. The Jansenists were deprived
of this evasion in 1656, by a new condemnation obtained from Innocent's successor,
Alexander VII., in which not only were the five propositions declared to be here
tical, but it was expressly stated that Jansen had asserted them in the heretical sense.
The Jansenists then declared that the question whether the five propositions were
heretical was one of doctrine, on which they were bound to submit to the Pope's
¦decision ; but that the question whether Jansen had asserted them was one of fact,
on which the Pope was liable to be deceived by false information ; and, therefore,
that before they could accept his ruling, it was necessary that the passages should be
produced where Jansen had made the alleged erroneous assertions. The distinction
relied on by the Jansenists is absolutely necessary to save Papal Infallibility on the
Pelagian question, for the only defence that can be made for Zosirnus is to assert that
the Pope's doctrine was sound all along, and that he was merely deceived as to the

xxi.J THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL. 411
infallible guide, we can reply that it is quite as incredible that
He would permit His appointed guide to proceed by such
methods as ought, without a miracle, to lead him to false
conclusions, and would take no heed to guard him against
giving credence to forgery and lies. At all events the case
of Apiarius shows clearly that the right of receiving appeals
was not an original possession of the see of Rome. Zosirnus
claimed it as a privilege bestowed by the great Council of
Nicaea; the African bishops were ready to concede it if it
had been so bestowed, but asked for proof that it had been.
That it belonged to the see by divine right does not seem to
have been dreamed of on either side.
Thus we see that even in the West at the beginning of
the fifth century the pre-eminence of the bishop of Rome
implied no right of absolute dominion, but was subject to
strict constitutional limitations. The East had showed its
independence still more plainly a little time before at the
second General Council. That Council was, as I have already
said, a purely Eastern body ; and its decrees were made not
only without Western assistance, but in some points in op
position to Western opinion. I refer particularly to disputes
at the time as to who were the rightful occupants of the
matter of fact whether Pelagius and Cselestius had contravened it. Yet if the Jan
senist position be tenable, any heretic might safely disregard condemnation by the
Pope. The Jansenists, persecuted in France, found shelter in Holland, where they
flourished for a time, and have preserved to our day a succession of bishops, which
enabled them to consecrate a bishop for the ' Old Catholics.' The late Dr. Tregelles,
in his little book on the Jansenists, gives an account of an interview he had in 1850,
with Van Santen, the Jansenist Archbishop of Utrecht, who gave him particulars of
an attempt made by Pope Leo XII. soon after his accession in 1827, through his
legate, Cappucini, to obtain his submission. The most interesting thing in it is
Cappucini's reply to Van Santen's plea that he could not subscribe the formulary
which declared that the condemned propositions were in Jansen's book, because he
himself had read the book, and knew that the propositions were not there : ' Pope
Urban VIII. [the same who condemned Galileo], had by his bull, In eminenti, con
demned Jansen's book, and forbidden the reading of it. In reading it at all you were
doing a forbidden act, and could not expect God to give you clear light when you
were thus acting in presumption. No knowledge, therefore, that you imagine your
self to have obtained in this unlawful way, can conflict with the clear duty of implicit
obedience to the Holy Father.'

412 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
sees of Antioch, Constantinople, and Alexandria, when the
competitors who had the strongest Western support were
rejected. And yet the time was one when the voice of the
West was likely to be listened to with unusual respect ; for
the Easterns had been under obligations to the West, both
politically and ecclesiastically. They had quite lately been
obliged to cry out for Western help when their Emperor
perished at Adrianople in the most disastrous defeat the
Roman arms had experienced since Cannae. And the ortho
dox Eastern bishops, whom the death of the Arian Emperor
had restored to ascendency, could not but gratefully remem
ber what faithful support the West had given them in the
time of the Arian domination. If the West was to be praised
for having disregarded the decisions of Eastern Councils
which had deposed Athanasius and other orthodox bishops,
how, in consistency, could they be denied the right to revise
other Eastern decisions ? Accordingly, this was what the
West claimed to do ; though it is to be remarked that the
leader in the movement was not the bishop of Rome, but
Ambrose of Milan. He appears not to have had much in
dependent knowledge of Eastern transactions, but simply to
have adopted the view of them taken at Alexandria. That
he should have regarded Paulinus as the rightful bishop of
Antioch is not surprising, but we are somewhat astonished
to find that in the contest for the see of Constantinople
Ambrose gave his adherence to the Egyptian competitor,
Maximus the Cynic, who, if the accounts that have come to
us are to be trusted, was a disreputable person quite un
worthy of the office. Ambrose in his own name, and that of
other Western bishops assembled with him in council, wrote
two urgent letters to the Emperor Theodosius, asking him to
assemble a council to decide on these disputed elections.
At first he proposed that the place of meeting should be
Alexandria ; afterwards, growing bolder, he asked for Rome.
But he is careful to protest that he claims no right to deter
mine the matter, but only desires that the bishop of Rome
and the other Western bishops should be consulted in the
matter. It is significant that in this Western attempt to in-

xxi.J SAINT JEROME. 4*3
terfere in Eastern concerns no special claim is made for the
bishop of Rome, nor is any right to decide on such disputes
claimed for his see. In fact, the bishop of Rome appears to
have been no party to this movement, for he was not an ad
herent of Maximus. The Easterns replied with the utmost
civility,* but refused to go to the other end of the world to
settle their domestic affairs ; and actually arranged them
with complete disregard of Western opinion. In this de
cision the West was forced to acquiesce.
What has been said sufficiently exhibits the necessity of
classifying our witnesses geographically : for moderate as
were the Western claims towards the end of the fourth cen
tury, as compared with what they afterwards grew to, they
evidently found no justification in Eastern tradition. We
have a graphic picture of Western contempt for the Easterns
in a contemporary letter written by Jerome from Syria to
Damasus of Rome. He had found the orthodox Church at
Antioch greatly distracted not only by the rival pretensions
of different claimants of the see, but also by disputes on the
subject of the Trinity, though these, as it would seem, merely
verbal. The question related to the use of the words vwoaramQ
and ovo-ia ; and it was disputed for instance whether it was
proper to say that there are in the Godhead three 'hypos
tases.' On these questions Jerome has evidently very strongly
made up his mind ; but he is anxious to be able to produce
an authoritative ruling in his favour by the bishop of Rome.
So he writes a flattering letter to Damasus [Ep. 15), expressing
the utmost scorn for the wretched Easterns. In the West the
Sun of Righteousness was rising ; in the East Lucifer, who
had fallen, had set his throne above the stars ; in the West
was the fertile land bearing fruit a hundredfold ; in the East
the good grain was overrun with tares and darnel; in the
West were the vessels of gold and silver, in the East those of
wood and earth, destined to be broken by the rod of iron, or
consumed with eternal fire. Jerome affects to be quite in
different to the Eastern disputes. Paulinus, or Meletius, or
Vitalis, were all alike to him ; all he cared for was to adhere
* Theodoret, H. E. vii. 5.

414 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
to the chair of Peter, the Rock on which the Church was
built. Let Damasus only tell him which competitor he ought
to adhere to, and how it was right for him to express himself.
Damasus, who no doubt well knew that Jerome had no need
to be enlightened as to which candidate was recognized at
Rome, appears to have been in no hurry to reply. So Jerome
has to write again, more urgently imploring the shepherd
to have pity on the perplexities of his wandering sheep.
Jerome, as he got older, and learned to know the East better,
abated a good deal of his youthful ' Chauvinism,' and his
amusing letter would not need much notice if this specimen
of Western conceit were not frequently cited as truly illus
trating Patristic opinion as to the rightful claims of Rome.
If we want to know the true tradition of the early Church,
we have no better evidence than the General Councils; so
with a few remarks on their canons having reference to the
present subject, I will conclude this Lecture. I may take for
granted that you are familiar with the celebrated Nicene
canon, ' Let the ancient customs prevail ; with regard to
Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis, that the bishop of Alexandria
should have authority over all these, since this is also cus
tomary for the bishop in Rome ; and likewise in Antioch
and the other provinces that the prerogatives of the Churches
be preserved ; so if any be made bishop without the consent
of the metropolitan, the Council adjudges him to be no
bishop.' The cause of this canon was certain schismatical
proceedings on the part of an Egyptian bishop, Meletius. It
is evident that the Council regarded the supremacy of Alex
andria as then an old thing ; and secondly that the Council
treats this supremacy as quite parallel to that exercised
elsewhere by the bishops of Rome and Antioch. There
could not be a stronger implicit denial of the right of Rome
to rule the whole Church, or to enjoy an exclusive privilege,
than the use of such an argument as, The bishop of Rome
has such and such powers in his neighbourhood, therefore
the bishop of Alexandria ought to have the like in his. At
the same time the right of Rome is acknowledged to rule the
Churches in the immediate neighbourhood.

xxi.J THE ROMAN PATRIARCHATE. 415
How far did that right extend ? Rufinus, who translated
these canons towards the end of the fourth century, says,.
Rome has the care of the suburbicarian Churches. Commen
tators differ as to what exactly this means. It is clear, how
ever, that Rome had not patriarchal authority as yet over
the whole West, as indeed is proved by the case of Apiarius,
which has been already discussed. I have not time to tell
at length of the struggles made by Rome from time to time
to enlarge the bounds of her patriarchal authority. It may,
however, be mentioned that the great schism between East
and West grew out of disputes as to whether certain pro
vinces belonged to the patriarchate of Rome or Constanti
nople. The two patriarchs felt a natural shame to confess
that the cause of their solicitude was the money that would
be diverted from their coffers if these provinces should be
lost to them. Consequently differences of ritual or of doc
trine, on points on which previous generations had been
content to differ, were now first represented as soul-destroy
ing errors ; and the disputants declared themselves each to
be solely moved by solicitude for the souls that would be
imperilled if they were placed under the teaching of his rival.
But all these struggles to increase the part of the Church
over which Rome was to hold sway are perfectly inconsistent
with her modern claim to dominion over the whole Church.
The man who asked our Lord to command his brother to
divide the inheritance, may have been covetous and grasp
ing; but by the very words of his petition he precluded
himself from asserting that he was the sole heir. If you
complain that your share is not as large as it ought to be,
and try to make it larger, you are still owning that you
are entitled to a share, not the whole. Accordingly, at the
present day Romanists do not count Rome as among the
great patriarchates of the Church, and they are quite con
sistent in not doing so, and in treating the patriarchal office
as inferior to that held by the Pope ; but the ancient Church,
even when it came to recognize the bishop of Rome as the
great patriarch of the West, implicitly denied his jurisdic
tion over the whole Church.

416 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
To pass now to the second General Council. One of the
Constantinopolitan canons forbids the bishops at the head of
the great ecclesiastical divisions to meddle out of their own
provinces, or throw the Churches into confusion ; but that
according to the canons the bishop of Alexandria should
alone administer the affairs of Egypt, the bishops of the East
those of the East, and so on. No mention of Rome is made
in this canon, which deals only with Eastern affairs, but
Roman claims to Eastern dominion are sufficiently con
demned by the silence of the canon, there being apparently
no necessity even to reject such pretensions.
What the Council would be willing to grant to the bishop
of Rome appears from what they granted to the bishop of
Constantinople. They did not give him any right to meddle
out of his own province, but they said that he should have
precedency of honour [to. irptafiaia rije ripfe) next after the
bishop of Rome, because his city was new Rome.
This decree of Constantinople was read at Chalcedon,
and the Council voted, ' We recognize the canon just read,
and do ourselves adopt the same determination respecting
the precedence of the most holy Church of Constantinople,
mew Rome, for the fathers naturally assigned precedence to
the see of the elder Rome, because that city was imperial ;
and taking the same point of view the one hundred and fifty
pious bishops awarded the same precedence to the most holy
see of new Rome, judging with good reason that the city
which was honoured with the sovereignty and the senate,
and which enjoyed the same precedence with the elder
imperial Rome, should also in matters ecclesiastical be
dignified like her, as being second after her.' So far the
decree might seem to give but honorary precedence, but it
went on to say, ' so that the metropolitans of Pontus, Asia,
and Thrace, should be ordained by the archbishop of Con
stantinople, these metropolitans to ordain the comprovincial
bishops.' When this canon was proposed the Roman legates,
evidently discerning that it would not be liked in Rome, said
that they had had no instructions from home on this subject,
and therefore withdrew ; but the canon was passed in their

xxi.J THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 417
absence. When the legates next day protested, and asked that
the decree should be rescinded, their demand was refused.
When word was brought to Rome of what had been done, Leo
was exceedingly angry, and refused to recognize the new
canon, professing great solicitude for the dignity of the ancient
sees of Alexandria and Antioch — founded, as he said, the one
by Peter's disciple Mark, the other by Peter himself before
he went to Rome — a line of argument which effectively main
tained the superior claims of Rome itself. In his resistance
the bishop of Rome might count on sympathy not only from
these sees, but also from those whose metropolitans were in
future to be consecrated in Constantinople instead of in their
own province. It is worthy of remark that the ground on
which Leo asserts the nullity of the canons is not their
having been passed without his consent, but their being in
opposition to the decrees of Nicaea, which he said would last
to the end of the world, and which no subsequent assembly
of bishops, however numerous, had power to alter.* But in
spite of Roman protests the canon remained firm ; Con
stantinople retained the rank assigned to it, and after long
unavailing struggle Rome was forced to recognize the ex
isting facts. The Quinisext Council, 681, confirmed all the
Chalcedon canons without exception, and the Council of
Florence formally renewed the order established by Chal
cedon, with Constantinople second.
To what a height Constantinople grew may be judged
from the title of Ecumenical or universal bishop, about which
there was such amusing controversy at the end of the sixth
century. In the grandiloquent language of the East it did
not mean all that the word would in strictness convey ; and
the bishop of Constantinople would probably have allowed
that there might be more universal bishops than one; but
Gregory the Great, taking it literally, was shocked at what
* Leo, in like manner, rejected the ambitious claims, already mentioned, of
Juvenal of Jerusalem, on the ground that they were an infringement of the Nicene
canon. But though Juvenal did not succeed in obtaining everything he had wished
for, the question of the claims of Jerusalem was dealt with as an entirely open one by
the Council of Chalcedon, and that see then permanently secured a higher position
than Nicaea had given it.
2 E

418 THE PROGRESS OF ROMAN SUPREMACY. [xxi.
he called a proud and foolish word ; declared that the
assumption of it was an imitation of the devil, who exalted
himself above his fellow angels ; that it was unlike the
behaviour of St. Peter, who, although first of the Apostles,
did not pretend to be more than of the same class with the
rest, and that this piece of arrogance was a token of Anti
christ's speedy coming. I call this amusing on account of
the laughable shifts to which Roman divines are reduced in
their efforts to reconcile this language with the assumption
of the same title and all it denotes, by Gregory's successors.

XXII.

THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE.
ALTHOUGH the question of the Infallibility of the Pope
is that with which I am directly concerned in this
course of Lectures, yet in treating of the matter historically
I have found it necessary, before entering on the discussion
of it, to trace the growth of Roman Supremacy; because the
claim to Infallibility was the last stage in the progress of
Roman ambition. First, there was but the readily acknow
ledged claim to honourable precedence among Churches ;
then there was the claim to command, first over neighbouring
Churches, afterwards over more distant ones ; last of all came
the idea of Infallibility. It was not necessarily suggested
by the claim to sovereignty, for the most rightful of human
rulers is not exempt from occasional errors ; but the notion
was suggested by the exemption which Rome seemed to
enjoy from the calamities which befel other principal sees.
At the third General Council the bishop of Constantinople
was deposed for heresy ; at the fourth the bishop of Alex
andria. Other sees were, in like manner, at times occupied
by men whom the later Church repudiated as heretics. Pro
bably the true explanation why it was long before the name
of heretic permanently attached itself to any bishop of Rome
is, that the side supported by the powerful influence of Rome
always had the best chance of triumphing, and so of escaping
the stigma of heresy which the defeated party incurred. At
one time, indeed, it seemed for a moment that things might
turn out differently; for on the temporary triumph of Eutychi-
anism at the Robber Synod of a.d. 429, the bishop of Rome
was excommunicated as a heretic ; but by the opportune
2 E 2

420 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxir.
death of the Emperor the cloud blew over, and this piece of
impudence was regarded as only aggravating the guilt of the
Alexandrian. Thus, then, it was not until after some five
centuries, during which the ' Chair of Peter ' escaped any
permanent stain of heresy, that the idea suggested itself that
this exemption was a privilege conferred in answer to our
Saviour's prayer that Peter's faith should not fail. We have
now to inquire how far the belief in such a privilege is jus
tified by facts ; and we must also examine whether the bishop
of Rome has really discharged the office of teacher and guide
to the Church, which it is imagined was conferred on him.
I have already (p. 385) spoken of the charge of heresy
brought by Hippolytus against Zephyrinus and Callistus.
Dollinger's is the only way of meeting that case which saves
the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. An attempted proof that
the accused bishops were really orthodox would leave the
reply still open, at least Hippolytus regarded it as a pos
sible thing that the bishop of Rome might be a heretic. But
if Hippolytus did not regard Callistus as bishop of Rome, no
use can be made of the case in the present controversy.
I pass over minor matters and come at once to the great
Arian controversy. I have already remarked that Constan-
tine clearly knew nothing of the idea that the bishop of
Rome was the appointed teacher and guide of the Church ;
for if that had been the accepted belief of the Church of the
day, the Emperor could not but have heard of it ; and, being'
most anxious to suppress controversy, and to give peace to the
Church, he would not have adopted the costly expedient of a
Council, but would have used the simpler method of obtain
ing a ruling from the bishop of Rome, if he had any reason
to think that the Church would accept that ruling as decisive.
But the history of these Arian disputes affords a painful
proof that this controversy, at least, was not settled by the
bishop of Rome. I allude to the fall of Liberius. The case
being a celebrated one, it may be well to delay a little on it,
and to state without exaggeration what the real amount of
this fall was.
Liberius, to his credit, made at first a noble resistance to

xxn.] THE FALL OF LIBERIUS. 42 1
the pressure put on him by the Arian Emperor Constantius*
He defied his threats and submitted to exile ; but in his ban
ishment he was purposely insulated from other confessors.
His Church at Rome was committed to another, Felix, who
was consecrated by three Arian bishops. And it was this
which seems more than anything else to have wrought on
the constancy of Liberius — the being separated from his see,
and knowing that his place there was occupied by another.
After two years' banishment he seems willing to submit to
anything in order to obtain restoration. St. Jerome tells us
that Fortunatian, bishop of Aquileia, who had lapsed into
Arianism, seduced him and constrained him to the subscrip
tion of heresy. He became the bearer of the letter of Liberius
to the Emperor. The heretical creed was offered to Liberius
by Demophilus of Constantinople, one of the worst of the
Arians. Liberius ^writes to the Arians as his most beloved
brethren the presbyters and his fellow-bishops, the bishops
of the East. He apologizes to the bishops for ever having
defended Athanasius, on the ground that bishop Julius, his
predecessor, had so done ; ' but having learned,' he says,
'when it pleased God, that you have condemned him justly,
I assented to your sentence. So, then, Athanasius being
removed from the communion of us all, so that I am not
even to receive his letters, I say that I am quite at peace and
concord with you all, and with all the Eastern bishops
throughout the provinces. But that you may know better
that in this letter I speak in true faith the same as my com
mon lord and brother, Demophilus, who was so good as to
vouchsafe to exhibit your Catholic creed, which at Sirmium
was by many of our brethren and fellow-bishops considered
set forth and received by all present : this I received with
willing mind, contradicted in nothing. To it I gave my
assent : this I follow ; this is held by me.' St. Hilary in
terrupts the account thrice with the words, ' This is Arian
faithlessness ;' ' anathema, I say to thee, Liberius and thy
associates ;' ' again, and a third time, anathema to the
* In the following I abridge the story as told in Pusey's Councils of the Church,
p. 168.

42 2 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxn.
prevaricator Liberius.' Time compels me to omit another letter
of Liberius, still more miserable, in which he puts himself
expressly in communion with the whole Arian and semi-
Arian party in the East and West, even with the worst of the
Arians, out of communion with all who rejected the Arians,
speaks of Athanasius as one who was bishop of Alexandria,
and entreats his own restoration to Rome through the heads
of the persecuting Arian party.
It is certain that to obtain restoration Liberius signed
an Arian creed, made at Sirmium. St. Hilary calls it Arian
perfidy ; St. Jerome heretical pravity. There were, however,
three creeds known as Sirmian ; and there is no evidence
which of the three it was that Liberius signed. Roman
Catholics assert that it was the most nearly orthodox of
the three, without any proof except that they would prefer
the fact to be so. Anti-Romanists say that Liberius was
at the time in a mood to sign anything to obtain restora
tion, and that of course the Arians would insist on his
signing whatever would suit their purpose best. For myself,
I think that it is of no importance which he signed, and
that his signing means no more than communicating with
the Arians, which it is certain he did. You will remember
that the Arians were struggling for comprehension, and
that they were willing to use extremely high language con
cerning our Lord's dignity. The worst of their formulae
did not assert anything untrue, but merely omitted the
phrases which the orthodox used to exclude the Arians.
For instance, if Liberius signed the worst of the Sirmian
formulae, he would only have had to say that we do not
worship two gods ; that our Lord said, 'My Father is greater
than I,' and that the word 'homoousios' is not in Scripture.
Imagine that the anti-supernaturalist party got complete
ascendance over the English Crown and Parliament; that they
struck out of the English Prayerbook every assertion of the
divinity of our Lord ; that they made bishops of Mr. Voysey
and some of the leading Unitarians ; deposed and imprisoned
the most formidable of the orthodox bishops, not on a charge
of heresy, but of riot and sedition ; that they put the arch-

xxii.] THE FALL OF LIBERIUS. 423
bishop of Canterbury into prison, and required his subscrip
tion to the Unitarian creed ; suppose that after a couple of
years' imprisonment, finding that a leading Broad Church
clergyman was about to be permanently fixed in his see, he
yielded so far as to acknowledge Voysey as his dear brother
bishop, and to disavow all connexion with the orthodox
bishop who had been deposed ; would it make much differ
ence more or less whether he at the same time signed a
formula declaring that our Lord was perfect man, that his
life had been a model of excellence, and his doctrines un
surpassed in purity — but saying nothing about his divinity ?
This consideration that the fault of Liberius was not so
much the ' assertio falsi ' as the ' suppressio veri,' demolishes
at once one of the apologies made for his prevarication,
namely, that he erred only as a private doctor, and not as
the teacher of the Church. Exactly the opposite I believe to
be the case. I do not think there is any evidence to lead us
to think that in his private capacity he thought less highly
of our Lord than any of us do. In his heart, I doubt not, he
condemned Arianism. It was in his official letters, addressed
to all the bishops of the East, and intended for publication
by them, that he gave to Arianism all the weight of his
official position, treating the questions that had been raised
about our Saviour's person as matters on which different
opinions might be held without necessitating any breach of
communion. Take, however, the most favourable view of
his conduct, and it is plain that in the Arian dispute it was
not the bishop of Rome who was the teacher and guide of
the Church : that duty was performed by Athanasius, the
bishop of Alexandria.
This schism between Felix and Liberius has introduced
a good deal of perplexity into Church history. Notwith
standing the bad auspices under which Felix was introduced,
he appears to have been a good man, and to have had a
considerable following. He had been archdeacon, and it
was usually the archdeacon who succeeded to the bishopric.
After the death of Liberius, the ultra-orthodox refused to
accept anyone as bishop who had taken the side of Felix ;

424 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
and this one of the candidates, Damasus, had done, the
candidate who was ultimately successful, and to whom
Jerome addresses the most highflown language as to the
dignity of his see. He was opposed by Ursinus, and the
scenes of riot were so great as to surpass anything we now
know of in the most stormy election contest. One Sunday
over a hundred dead bodies were taken out of the church
where a contest had been going on. With the success of the
party of Damasus the memory of Felix became gradually
purified from the taint of heresy. The series of Roman pon
tiffs now includes a Felix IL, who is honoured as a saint and
martyr. How to fit in his history has puzzled historians ;
but the most learned believe that he is no other than the
antagonist of Liberius.
We come down now a little later, to the Pelagian contro
versy, and have to inquire whether it was the bishop of
Rome who, on the questions then at issue, taught the Church
how to believe. She had much need of guidance, for she had
been perplexed by contrary decisions. An African council
had condemned Pelagius ; but he had been pronounced
orthodox by another council at Diospolis, in Palestine. The
African bishops appealed to Rome, and obtained Pope Inno
cent's approval of their decisions. But a letter and confession
of faith, which Pelagius sent to Rome, did not arrive until after
Innocent's death, and the question came for further hearing
before his successor, Zosirnus. Caelestius, the doctrinal ally
of Pelagius, appeared in person at Rome, and, having made
his profession of faith, was carefully cross-examined by the
Pope. It is possible that there may have been something in
the early training of Zosirnus to dispose him favourably to the
accused ; for his Greek name suggests that he may have been
of Eastern extraction, and the Fathers of the Eastern Church
have always accentuated man's freewill more strongly than
St. Augustine taught the West to do. Whether this be so or
not, Zosirnus arrived at the conclusion that Caelestius and
Pelagius had been unjustly accused; and he wrote to the
African bishops two letters expressing this opinion — the first
after his interview with Caelestius, the other after receiving

xxii.] ZOSIMUS AND THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 425
the letter of Pelagius. He strongly censures the two bishops,
Heros and Lazarus, who had played the part of accusers,
describing them as turbulent mischiefmakers, whose own elec
tion to the episcopate had been annulled, and whom he had
excommunicated. He lectures the African bishops on the
duty of not being hasty in believing evil of their neighbours :
he tells them that they need be no more ashamed of retracting
a condemnation hastily pronounced than those who had con
demned the chaste Susanna were of acquitting her after her
innocence had been established by Daniel : that if there was
joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, there ought to
be still more joy on discovering that one who had been sup
posed to have sinned had not sinned at all. He only wishes
they could have been present to hear the professions of Caeles
tius and Pelagius. Those who had been there had been
moved almost to tears that men of such perfect orthodoxy
(' absoluta? fidei ') should have been so unjustly defamed. Not
withstanding, the African bishops stood firm, and in full
council passed canons condemning anew the Pelagian errors.
Nor did they rely on spiritual weapons only ; for an inter
ference of the civil power was obtained, subjecting Pelagius
and his adherents to severe penalties, including that of
banishment. Then the Pope gave way, and by timely
yielding has escaped the stigma of heresy. The accepted
Roman Catholic theory is that Zosirnus was an orthodox
man who, although he fancied he had fully examined into
the question, had allowed his simplicity to be imposed
on by the cunning of the heretics, until the clear-sighted
African bishops set him straight. Suppose we accept this
view, yet still we must ask the question, Who then fulfilled
the office of guide to the Church? Was it the Pope who
taught the African bishops, or they who taught him ? When
I observe how they refused to accept the voice of the oracle
until the oracle had given the answer they desired, I am
reminded of having heard of a man who never trusted his
judgment when he had to make a practical decision, but
always tossed up. If the result agreed with his own in
clinations he acted on it confidently, feeling that he was not

426 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
gratifying his own wishes, but obeying the guidance of the
lot. If the result was not what he liked, he tossed again.
The only one of the great controversies in which the Pope
really did his part in teaching Christians what to believe was
the Eutychian controversy. Leo the Great, instead of waiting,
as Popes usually do, till the question was settled, published
his sentiments at the beginning, and his letter to Flavian was
adopted at the Council of Chalcedon. This is what would
have always happened if God had really made the Pope the
guide to the Church ; but this case is quite exceptional,
resulting from the accident that Leo was a good theologian,
besides being a man of great vigour of character. No similar
influence was exercised either by his predecessors or his suc
cessors ; and I have already remarked that Leo failed to settle
the question. In the West, indeed, his authority was decisive,
but in the East his opinion was accepted only by those who
had been of the same opinion before ; and Chalcedon and
Leo's letter enjoyed only a precarious and fluctuating as
cendency. If the Pope appears to advantage in the history of the
fourth General Council, there is a lamentable downfall when
we come to that of the fifth. I have already remarked that
there was a reversal of parts between the third and fourth
Councils, several, such as Theodoret, who had narrowly
escaped condemnation as Nestorians, taking a leading part at
Chalcedon. What may be called the rationalistic section
was defeated at the former and triumphed at the latter. This
was very shocking to the Alexandrians. I referred before to
attempts made to unite the Monophysites with the Eastern
Church, by making an entirely new statement of orthodox
doctrine, and throwing overboard Chalcedon and Leo's letter
altogether. That such attempts should be made, and with some
apparent hopes of success, shows how little the infallibility of
Pope or Council was believed in in the East. The Popes natu
rally resisted these attempts, and, being politically indepen
dent of the Eastern empire, were able to make their opposition
effectual ; but in the sixth century the Eastern emperor,
Justinian, made himself master of Italy ; and what followed

xxii.] VIGILIUS AND THE FIFTH COUNCIL. 427
may lead us to judge how little the dream of Roman Infalli
bility would have been likely to have arisen, if it had not
been for the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople,
which left the Pope for centuries to reign at Rome without
rival or superior. Justinian imagined that he might be able
to reconcile the Monophysites by condemning, not indeed
Chalcedon, but some of those leading divines whose orthodoxy
Chalcedon had admitted, but who were specially obnoxious
to the Monophysite party. It was naturally disliked in the
West that the verdict of the great Council which they accepted
should be reviewed and reversed, even though the point in
question were not the general statement of doctrine, but only
the pronouncing on the orthodoxy of individuals. The African
bishops stoutly resisted. The Pope showed the greatest re
luctance to join, but, under the powerful pressure which the
Emperor put on him, he wriggled and twisted in the most
humiliating way, trying to please both parties — the Emperor
and his Western brethren — and with the usual result of
pleasing neither. It was not until after his name had been
struck out of the diptychs by the Council that he yielded a
tardy and undignified assent. I have so little sympathy with
the trial of men for heresy a hundred years after their death
that I have never cared to form an opinion of my own whether
the writings condemned by the fifth Council deserved the
censure passed on them. But as the acts of the Council re
ceived the confirmation of the Pope, and are now recognized
by the Roman Church, we must assume that the Council was
in the right all through. What respect can we have then for
Vigilius, as guide to the Church, who resisted the Council as
long as resistance was possible ; who held the same relation
to it of late and reluctant assent, as Eusebius of Caesarea
held to the Council of Nicaea, or Theodoret to that of
Ephesus ?
It might seem that the claims of the Pope to be the guide of
the Church could hardly fall lower than at the fifth Council ;
but lower they did fall at the sixth. In the acts of that
Council, after anathematizing other Monothelite heretics,
they proceed ' with these we likewise provide that Honorius,.

428 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
who was bishop of Rome, should be cast forth from the Church
-of God, and anathematized ; because we find by his writings
to Sergius that he followed his mind in all things, and con
firmed his impious dogmas.' In another part of the pro
ceedings, where the heretics and their patrons are anathema
tized by name, we have, 'Anathema to the heretic Theodorus ;
anathema to the heretic Cyrus, anathema to the heretic
Honorius ; ' and this anathema is repeated in two or three
other parts of the proceedings. Further, there is an epistle of
Pope Leo II. confirming the acts of this General Council, in
which, after anathematizing Theodore, Cyrus, Sergius, and
others, he adds, ' also Honorius, who did not illuminate this
apostolic see with the doctrine of apostolic tradition, but per
mitted her who was undefiled to be polluted by profane
teaching.' This condemnation is repeated in the second
Council of Nicaea, counted by Roman Catholics as the seventh
General ; and the adversaries of images are classed with Arius
Macedonius, Apollinarius, Nestorius, Honorius, and all their
pestilent crew. The Council reckoned as the eighth General
also condemns Honorius. The profession of faith made by
the Popes on their day of election, from the sixth to the ninth
century, contains a profession of assent to the anathema
passed by the fathers of the sixth General Council on the other
Monothelites, and 'on Honorius, who fomented their detestable
teaching.' The condemnation of Honorius was inserted in the Roman
breviaries down to the end of the sixteenth century. It has
been left out of those published since ; but this mere attempt
to drop his condemnation out of sight is not enough for the
present generation. In our day, when all the villains of his
tory have been whitewashed, it might be expected that some
attempt would be made to rehabilitate Pope Honorius, even if
his case were not a formidable stumbling-block in the way of a
popular theory. The first attempts were somewhat inconsistent
with each other. Honorius was never condemned : he was con-
¦demned unjustly : he was condemned only as a private doctor;
he was censured, not as a heretic, but only as not having
been sufficiently energetic in putting down heresy. The

xxii.] WHEN THE POPE SPEAKS EX CATHEDRA. \2q
letters attributed to him are forged ; they are perfectly
orthodox. Of the defences made at the present day by the advocates
of infallibility, the first to be examined is the assertion that
the Pope, in the letters which have been censured, did not
teach ex cathedra, inasmuch as it does not appear that these
letters had been read in a synod of Italian bishops, nor do
they bear marks of being addressed to the universal Church.
The point here raised is an important one, and it is not
really a digression from the case of Honorius if I delay
to give a full discussion of it. Everyone can understand
that there is a clear distinction between legal decisions
pronounced by a judge on the bench and opinions on points
of law which he may have expressed in private conversation.
So we readily admit that, supposing the Pope to possess
the gift of Infallibility, that attribute is not to be expected
to attach to things occasionally said by him in his private
capacity, and not in that of public teacher of the Church.
But this is no justification for a number of arbitrary rules
which have been invented for distinguishing when the
Pope speaks ex cathedra — rules as to which the advocates
of Infallibility have been able to come to no agreement.*
And yet it has been necessary to invent such rules, in
order to relieve the papal see of the responsibility of a
number of decisions which everyone owns to be erroneous.
To my mind, the only common-sense view is, that the Pope
speaks ex cathedra whenever he clearly speaks in his official
capacity : that is to say, whenever, either spontaneously, or in
answer to questions addressed to him as Pope, he publishes in
writing his decisions on a question of doctrine. If you try
beyond this to introduce conditions for ex cathedra utterances,
these are mere crotchets of theologians. The case is just the
same as if a physician set up to be infallible, and, after a
number of patients had died under his treatment, you endea
voured to frame a set of rules, distinguishing by the kind of
* I remember that at the time of the Vatican Council, one of the opponents of the
dogma of the Pope's personal infallibility declared himself willing to acknowledge
that the Pope was infallible when he speaks ex cathedra, only he was not convinced
that since our Lord's time any Pope ever had spoken ex cathedra.

430 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
paper they were written on, or the manner in which he had
affixed his signature, the prescriptions in which he was to be
regarded as speaking as a private person from those which
he had given as the infallible physician. I need not speak,
then, of arbitrary rules, such as that the decree should be
affixed to the door of St. Peter's, or any other, as to the
observance of which Christian people in general would have
no evidence. One theory made it necessary to an ex cathedra utterance
that the decree should be made in council. In point of
fact, the earliest papal decisions were always so made. The
reason of this was that the Pope's personal authority was
not, in early times, so strong that he could afford not to
back it up with the opinion of others. When the Pope sent
bis decision to the East, for instance, he used to summon
previously a Council of all the bishops within reach, so that
he might speak in their name as well as in his own. This
oonciliar form, belonging to many of the earlier papal
utterances, has been imitated in later times by papal allocu
tions being addressed, in the first instance, to an assembly of
cardinals or other bishops. But it is clearly inconsistent with
modern ideas of papal infallibility to make the presence of a
Council necessary. Suppose some of the Council should not
agree, would the decree be less binding ? If the Council
added nothing to the authority of the decree, why summon
them to hear what might in no way concern them ?
Another theory made it necessary that the Pope should have
duly deliberated about the matter in hand, and have taken the
advice of theologians and learned doctors, for it was notorious,
it was said, that many Popes have been very ignorant, and
that without the use of such means their opinions would not
be entitled to regard. But it was soon seen that the gift of
infallibility would be worthless if any such condition were
attached to its exercise. It might be very proper and right
that the Pope, before announcing his decision, should take
advice. Pius IX., I have already told you, did so before
defining the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. But,
plainly, his authority would be worth nothing if those to

xxii.] OBITER DICTA. 43 1
whom his decrees were addressed were entitled to inquire
whether or not he had used these human means to guide his
judgment. Clearly their duty as obedient subjects is to take
for granted that he has done everything that is right.
Received Roman Catholic theory does, indeed, recognize
one case where the absence of sufficient care deprives papal
utterances of the attribute of infallibility : it is held that the
' obiter dicta ' in such an utterance may be erroneous. This
distinction prevails in our own law courts. Though the
judgment of a Court of Appeal binds inferior courts, yet if the
judges in pronouncing sentence express an opinion on a
subject not immediately before them, that goes for nothing, it
being possible that if they had heard the question properly
argued they might have changed their sentiments. Thus,
Pope Nicolas I. was consulted by the Bulgarians whether a
Jew or a Pagan could give valid baptism. He replied in the
affirmative, but further volunteered the information that the
baptism would be equally good, whether given in the name of
Jesus alone or in that of the Three Persons of the Trinity.*
This is now given up as clearly erroneous teaching, but is
excused as an ' obiter dictum,' the Pope having gone out of
his way to answer a question he had not been asked. It
seems to me that the analogy to our law courts does not hold.
Judges who decide by human wisdom may go wrong for want
of adequate use of human means to guide and inform their
judgments. But if the Holy Spirit inspire the sentence He
cannot be supposed dependent on these human means ; and
if information is given which had not been asked for, this
surely ought to be attributed to the Holy Spirit's special
direction, and to be received with all the more reverence.
The Pope's authority would fail to be decisive in disputes if
the parties are to be at liberty to pull his sentence to pieces,
and decide how much of it they will receive.
Now, as regards this particular case, remember that the
Roman Church holds that an unbaptized person cannot enter
the kingdom of Heaven, and that baptism in the name of
Jesus alone is not valid. It follows that if the Bulgarians
* Respons. ad consult. Bulg. civ., Mansi. xv., 431.

432 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. xxii.]
accepted the instruction officially given them by the Pope,
hundreds of them may have imagined themselves baptized
when they really were not, and then, for want of baptism, their
souls must have been eternally lost. Now, it seems to me
monstrous to imagine that anyone could be damned for
following the guidance of him whom Christ had appointed
as teacher of the Church. So that if I believed the Pope to
hold this office, I should find myself constrained to believe
that the ruling Of Nicolas was right. No evasion as to the
form in which the instruction was conveyed will suffice. If
the Pope be Christ's vicar, it is incredible that he could be
permitted officially to mislead His people into error incon
sistent with their salvation.
The Vatican Council of 1870 made what must be regarded
as an attempt to answer the long unsettled question, What is
the test of an ex cathedra utterance? It declared that the
Pope speaks ex cathedra ' when, performing his office of pastor
and doctor of all Christians, in virtue of his apostolic authority,
he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by
the universal Church.' The condition here indicated is
derived from Bellarmine, who makes it a condition for an ex
cathedra decree that it should be addressed to the whole
Church, or that it should proclaim a moral law to the whole
Church. All these conditions are generally invented in
order to save the Church from being bound by some pal
pably erroneous papal decisions. Thus, Eugenius IV., in his
instruction to the Armenians, to be found annexed to the
Acts of the Council of Florence, explains the doctrine of the
Seven Sacraments. Now, not to speak of other points in
which his teaching is now owned to be erroneous, he lays
down that the matter and form of the sacrament of Orders is
the delivery of the vessels, together with certain words. But
as this rite and the words in question were never used in
the Church for the first thousand years and more, it would
follow, if this were correct, that the Church for so long a time
had no valid Orders — a consequence which makes it necessary
that the doctrine of Eugenius shall in some way be taken out
of the category of ex cathedra decisions. Yet it is obviously

xxii. J WHEN THE POPE SPEAKS EX CATHEDRA. 433
a most unfair limitation to papal infallibility to maintain that
the appointed guide to Christians collectively is unable to
conduct them safely if they consult him individually. Really
believe that the Pope is an infallible guide, and nothing but
the controversial exigency of relieving yourself from assent to
certain erroneous papal decisions could induce you to put
such a limitation on the office entrusted to him by Christ.
But, further, this measure of relief to weak consciences is
altogether too sweeping in its application. For over a
thousand years of the Church's history no single decree of a
Pope addressed to the universal Church is known. The Bull,
'Unam Sanctam,' of Pope Boniface VIII., in 1303, is the first
addressed to the whole Church. I told you how a Jesuit
writer urged it as an unanswerable reply to Dr. Pusey's theory
of infallibility, that his condition that the Church should be
undivided makes it necessary to maintain that the gift has
been dormant for the last 1200 years — that is to say, for two-
thirds of the lifetime of the Church. And surely the objection
is just as fatal if it was for the first 1200 years the gift was
dormant, and if it were only in comparatively modern times
that the Pope awoke to the exercise of his full powers.
To apply all this to the case of Honorius, if the defence be
made for him that his erroneous doctrine was not propounded
£X cathedra, the only distinction in this matter that I can
recognize as rational is that between the Pope's official and
non-official utterances; and in this Monothelite controversy
the Pope's sentiments were undoubtedly expressed officially.
The Eastern patriarchs would have troubled themselves little
about the opinion of a private Italian divine named Honorius ;
but it was of the utmost importance to know what line would
be taken by the bishop of Rome. But we need the less
contest this point, as it would pain the papal advocates of the
present day to acknowledge that Honorius, even in his private
¦capacity, was a heretic ; and they maintain that the letters of
Honorius are quite orthodox. Perhaps that may be my own
opinion ; but not the less do I protest against Dr. Manning
and his coadjutors committing such an audacious exercise of
private judgment as to approve as orthodox letters which
2 F

434 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
were burnt as heretical by the sixth General Council, con
demned by the two succeeding Councils, and by all the Popes
for centuries in their solemn profession of faith on their day
of installation. In our times, when so many unfavourable judgments of
history are reversed or mitigated, it was only natural that the
heretics of old should get the benefit of the same court of
appeal. Many of them are only known to us by the writings
of their opponents, men often most bitterly prejudiced against
them and incapable of giving them what we should count fair
play. Often, no doubt, they were made answerable for con
sequences which, whether truly following from their premisses
or not, they themselves repudiated. The subjects in debate
were often most abstruse, the terminology most difficult ; and
it is quite possible that in some cases the differences were
only verbal, and that men were counted as heretics who did
not really differ from the orthodox so much in faith as in
their manner of expressing themselves. I can well believe
that some who are counted as bad heretics were worthy, well-
meaning men, who had puzzled their heads with bad meta
physics, on subjects which the human understanding is ill
able to grasp. Perhaps a Roman Catholic will say that it
is because I am a heretic myself that I am inclined to think
not very ill of heretics ; and if I feel bound to class Pope
Honorius under that denomination, I do not at all think un
favourably of him on the whole, nor am I disposed to deny
that, heretic as he was, he may have been a very worthy man
and a very good Christian.
In fact, I count that there are no heretics better entitled
to charitable apologies than the Monothelites. Christianity
was at the time fearfully weakened in the East by internal
divisions on the question concerning our Lord's twofold
nature. If by any mutual explanation union could be
restored, undoubtedly the greatest benefit would be conferred
on the Church. Now the most orthodox defender of Christ's
twofold nature would grant, that in His sinless humanity
there was not that conflict of two wills which we expe
rience, but that in His case the ' law of the members ' was

xxii.] HONORIUS AND MONOTHELISM. 435
in complete subjection to ' the law of the mind.' On
the other hand, it seemed that all the Monophysites were
contending for might be satisfied by an explicit recognition
of the perfect harmony between our Lord's two natures.
Thus there seemed to be a hopeful prospect of compromise,
on the terms that both parties should agree in recognizing in
our Lord a single will. The plan appeared for the moment
successful ; the Monophysites largely assented ; the emperor
adopted the scheme, and it was agreed to by the patriarchs
of the four great sees — Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria,
and Antioch. The patriarch of Jerusalem alone held out,
and by his strenuous opposition overturned the compromise.
Certainly, then, on this occasion it was he, and not the
bishop of Rome, who was the teacher of the Church.
The feeling of the present day on the question whether we
ought to say that our Lord had a single will or two harmonious
wills would be to condemn more strongly the raising of the
question than the determining it wrongly. The majority, I
imagine, have rather a Carbonarian faith in the Church's
doctrine on this subject ; and if they had been told that it
was the Dithelites whom they were to condemn as heretics,
would have been equally ready to assent. There is a sense
in which Monothelism is certainly inconsistent with the truth
of our Lord's twofold nature ; and we must therefore rejoice
that Sophronius of Jerusalem prevented the adoption of a
formula which might have tended to undermine the doctrine
of the Incarnation ; but whether the heretical sense was that
in which the doctrine was held, by Sergius and other leading
Monothelites is more than I will undertake to say. I have
no harsh inclination to repel any excuses that may be offered
for any of them; but I see no reason for making any special
exemption in favour of Honorius, or separating his case from
that of other Monothelites. One cannot do so without directly
contradicting the sixth General Council, which declared that
Honorius ' in all things had followed the opinions of Sergius
and had sanctioned his impious dogmas/
But the truth is, we have no interest whatever in debating
the personal orthodoxy of Honorius, or in trying him for
2F 2

436 THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE. [xxii.
heresy twelve centuries after his death. The question which
has importance for our times is not whether this or that Pope
was a heretic, but whether it is possible for a Pope to be a
heretic. The case of Honorius shows that as late as the
seventh century no suspicion had entered the mind of the
Church that it was not. We need not go behind the accla
mations of the Council, 'Anathema to the heretic Sergius,
anathema to the heretic Honorius.' If these anathemas are
not conclusive against the individual, they are conclusive
against the Pope. They prove to demonstration that whether
Honorius personally deserved condemnation or not, his official
position was not regarded in men's minds then, either as
securing him against the possibility of falling into heresy, or
as protecting him against condemnation if he did.
For another reason, the question concerning the personal
orthodoxy of Honorius or any other Pope is one with which
we have the very slightest concern. When it was suggested
that we might content ourselves with the guidance of the Holy
Scriptures, Romanist advocates have replied, that though the
Bible may be infallible it is not an infallible guide : that is to
say, it does not protect those who follow it from danger of going
wrong. Surely now we may say as much for the Pope. Let
him be infallible if you please ; let him be in his heart of the
most admirable orthodoxy, still he is not an infallible guide if
by his public utterances he leads Christian people wrong. If
a guide misconduct us, it is not the least comfort to us to be
told that this man has really a most thorough knowledge of
the passes, and before being admitted as guide had passed a
most brilliant examination. Now it is beyond controversy
that cases have occurred when Christian people would have
gone wrong if they followed the guidance of the bishop of
Rome. Liberius may in his heart have had infallible know
ledge that Athanasius was in the right and his opponents
vile heretics ; but the Christian world was not concerned with
the thoughts of Liberius but with his acts; and they who
were guided by them would find themselves ranged against
Athanasius and on the side of his opponents. And not to go
through a host of other cases, at which I have glanced already.

xxii.] HONORIUS AND MONOTHELISM. 437
where the Christian world avoided heresy by following some
guidance different from that of the bishop of Rome, Honorius
may have had in his heart, if you choose to say so, the most
orthodox abhorrence of Monothelism. But all this supposed
internal orthodoxy does not alter the fact that in his capacity
of guide he did all that in him lay to lead the Christian world
into that heresy. So it remains proved that even if it were
possible to demonstrate that no bishop of Rome had ever
entertained sentiments that were not most rigidly orthodox,
still the Pope is not an infallible guide.

XXIII.
THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER.
ANYONE who has read enough of Roman Catholic peri
odical literature, within the last ten or twenty years, to
become familiar with their internal controversies, will know
something of the disputes between the 'maximizers' and the
' minimizers ' ;* the latter party being anxious to reduce to a
minimum the system of doctrine to which the Church's Infal-
libity was to be regarded as pledged; setting aside as not
spoken ex cathedra a number of Papal utterances which, in
the judgment of their opponents, could not be disregarded
without falling into the sin of heresy. In fact, a Roman
Catholic who has to engage in controversy with Protestants
naturally dislikes to weaken his position by extending it too
much, and therefore is glad to represent himself as not bound
to defend any doctrines to which the Church's Infallibility is
not clearly pledged. But if he were suspected by a loyal
member of his own communion of not believing those doc
trines which he has declined to defend, he would certainly be
set forth as a bad Catholic. If I chose to pursue further the
subject of Papal Infallibility, I could easily swell the list of de
cisions made by papal authority which are now acknowledged
to be erroneous. In each of these cases Roman Catholic apolo
gists are forced to make excuses in different ways, trying to
show that the attribute of Infallibility did not attach to the
erroneous decision. But the general result is that, while
Roman Catholics are now mainly agreed on the principle
* This was written several years ago, and as I have not kept up my reading of
Roman Catholic periodicals, I really don't know how far the Vatican Council suc
ceeded in putting an end to these disputes.

xxin.] THE ENCYCLICAL OF 1864. 439
that the Pope is infallible, the greatest differences of opinion
will be found among them as to whether any particular papal
utterance is infallible; and any Roman Catholic who does not
like to accept any decision of the Pope need have no diffi
culty in producing a parallel case of some previous decision,
to all appearance possessing the same claims to reverence,
but which is now acknowledged to have been wrong. So that,
in short, I do not know how to sum up the Roman Catholic
doctrine on this subject except by the formula, The Pope is
always infallible, except when he makes a mistake.
I will not trouble you with the case of such an extreme
maximizer as one who, a little time ago, insisted, in defiance
of his ecclesiastical superiors, that Roman Catholics are still
bound by the Pope's decrees against the motion of the earth ;
for it may be considered that the earth has had the Pope's
permission to move since the year 182 1, when the prohibition
against Copernican books was removed from the Index. But
there have been later papal decrees, concerning the obli
gation of accepting which there has been much controversy
among Roman Catholics.
If all the official utterances of a Pope are to be regarded
as authoritative, no Pope has given more employment to the
believers in his Infallibility than Pius IX. found occasion to
do in his long pontificate. The most remarkable was the
encyclical 'Quanta Cura,' published on the 8th December,
1864, which was accompanied by a syllabus containing ex
tracts from previous allocutions of the Pope condemning
eighty false doctrines. Dr. Newman, who had been always an
extreme minimizer, laboured hard to relieve himself from the
obligation of accepting this syllabus. It was not signed by
the Pope himself, but only by his officials ; therefore if you
accepted the accompanying encyclical, you might reject the
syllabus. Thus the authority of the eighty articles rested
only on the several allocutions in which they were first con
tained; and then Dr. Newman tried, by examining the special
occasion on which each condemnation was delivered, to limit
its application to some particular case. All this special
pleading is as offensive to a thoroughgoing Papalist like

44° THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
Manning as it is unsuccessful in the judgment of outsiders
like ourselves. It is plain enough that here the Pope has
selected a number of his judgments in individual cases, and
has made them into general principles for the instruction of
the universal Church. They are principles of which the party
who predominated at the Vatican Council are not in the least
ashamed ; and it was generally understood that if the sittings
of that Council had been prolonged, they would have been
formulated in such a way as to receive the sanction of the
Council. In fact, my own copy of them forms part of the
proceedings of the Vatican Council brought out by a Roman
Catholic publisher ' Cum permissu superiorum,' where the
Encyclical and the Syllabus hold the first place in the ' Acta
publica quibus concilium Vaticanum praeparatum est.'
Now in this Syllabus the proposition is condemned (77)
that in our age it is no longer expedient that the Catholic
should be the only religion of the State, and that all other
forms of worship whatever should be excluded. Of course
this condemnation leaves it free to the Pope to tolerate tole
ration where the civil power is too weak to enforce uniformity ;
but the proper state of things is taught to be one in which
the Roman Catholic religion shall be supreme or rather
sole. What kind of toleration should be allowed to native
subjects of a Roman Catholic State may be guessed from the
next article, which condemns the proposition that it is laud
able in such a State to allow even foreign settlers the free
exercise of their religion. In the accompanying Encyclical,
which even Dr. Newman allows has the undoubted authority
of the Pope, it is condemned as a doctrine altogether opposed
to Scripture, to the Church, and to the Fathers, that violators
of the Catholic religion should not be restrained by punish
ments except when the public peace requires. Pius IX.
echoes the language of his predecessor, Gregory XVI., in
stigmatizing the claim of liberty of conscience and worship
as a 'deliramentunT ; and as a necessary consequence similarly
stigmatizing the claim of liberty of speech or liberty of the
press. In art. 24 of the Syllabus the doctrine is condemned
that the Church has not the power of applying coercion, or

xxiii.] THE ENCYCLICAL OF 1864. 44 1
has not direct or indirect temporal power as well as spiritual.
A Jesuit commentator on this explains : ' As the Church has
an external jurisdiction, she can impose temporal punish
ments, and not only deprive the guilty of spiritual privileges.
The love of earthly things which injures the Church's order
obviously cannot be effectively put down by merely spiritual
punishments ; it is little affected by them. If that order is to
be avenged on what has injured it, if that is to suffer which
has enjoyed the sin, temporal and sensible punishments must
be employed.' Among these he enumerates fines, imprison
ment, scourging, and banishment. He laments that in these
days the true principles are not acted on as they should. We
see, he says, that the State does not always fulfil its duties
towards the Church according to the Divine idea, and, he
adds, cannot always fulfil them through the wickedness of
men. And thus the Church's right in inflicting temporal
punishment and the use of physical force are reduced to a
minimum. It is plain that the Inquisition was but the legitimate carry
ing out of the principles here enunciated. And accordingly,.
soon after the publication of this document, the Pope canonized
two inquisitors. If it is said that the pretensions of the Pope
expressed in these articles are mediaeval and inconsistent
with the spirit of modern times, such an objection is met by
anticipation in another article (80) which condemns the state
ment that the Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile
himself with progress, with liberalism, with modern civiliza
tion : in other words, pronounces that such reconciliation is
neither practicable nor desirable. Elsewhere (13) he con
demns the assertion that the methods and principles by which
the schoolmen cultivated theology do not agree with the neces
sities of our times and the progress of the sciences. In con
nection with this I may mention two other condemned
propositions : one (1 1) that the Church ought not to animadvert
on philosophy, but allow her to correct her own errors ; the
other (12), that the decrees of the Pontiffs hinder the free pro
gress of the sciences. With respect to the relations of the
ecclesiastical and civil power, those are condemned (23) who

442 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
assert that the Popes and their Councils have transgressed
the limits of their power and usurped the rights of princes :
in other words, the principles of Boniface VIII. and other
aggressive pontiffs are frankly adopted. Again (38), those
are condemned who say that the arbitrary conduct of the
Popes led to the schism between the Eastern and Western
Church. It is denied (25) that power not inherent in the
office of the episcopate, but granted to it by the civil
authority, may be withdrawn from it at the discretion of
that authority ; or (30) that the immunity of the Church and
its ministers depends on the civil laws ; or (42) that in the
conflict of laws, civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should
prevail. It is denied (48) that any system of merely secular
education can be approved ; and (74) those are condemned
who say that the law of marriages belongs to the secular,
not the ecclesiastical tribunal. With regard to the Pope's
temporal power, there is not only a condemnation (76) of
those who say that the abolition of that power would tend to
the liberty and happiness of the Church, but several allo
cutions are referred to in which the doctrine is set forth
which all Catholics ought most firmly to hold concerning
the civil power of the Roman Pontiff. You will take notice
that the Pope's temporal power is thus made not a mere
result of the events which have led to different portions
of Europe becoming subject to different rulers, but that there
is a doctrine concerning it which all Catholics ought most
firmly to hold.
It would not have been possible for me, within the limits
of these Lectures, to give you any complete history of the
growth of Papal Supremacy. I have contented myself with
sketching an account of its first beginnings, and I must allow
you to study elsewhere the history of the later stages of the
process by which the bishop of Rome became, in spiritual
things, the master of the greater part of Europe. But having
in view the internal controversies between Roman Catholics,
to which I have referred, I do not think I ought to conclude
this series of Lectures without saying something as to the
theory of the Pope's authority in things temporal. And I

xxm. 1 THE DECRETAL EPISTLES. 443
cannot discuss that subject without first speaking of the
forgery of the Decretal Epistles, which did so much to lead
men to believe that the Pope's power, whether in things
temporal or spiritual, was subject to no limitation.
It is not more than the truth to say that the Roman claims
have principally taken their growth out of two forgeries. I
have already described one of them, the pseudo-Clementine
literature, which first started the idea that St. Peter had been
bishop of Rome. This idea was developed by successive
Roman bishops, who drew from it the consequence that,
as St. Peter had been chief of the Apostles, so the bishop of
Rome ought to be chief of all bishops ; and who by gradually
increasing claims endeavoured to elevate men's notions of the
authority which in that capacity he ought to exercise. But
the highest claims previously made fell far short of what men
were taught was the Pope's rightful possession, in the second
forgery of which I have now to speak — the collection of letters
purporting to have been written by early bishops of Rome, a
collection first published in the ninth century.
It was a natural custom with Western bishops in early
times, when cases of doubt or difficulty occurred to them in
the administration of their dioceses, to ask the advice of the
bishop of Rome. This is no more than what our own colonial
bishops have been in the habit of doing, without thereby
acknowledging in the English Church any right to command
its daughter Churches. I remember one remarkable instance
of the kind. Bishop Colenso, before he became noted for
any doctrinal eccentricity, wrote to ask the advice of bishops
at home on the delicate question how converts were to be
dealt with who, at the time of their conversion, were married
to more wives than one. I have already pointed out that
there was exactly the same reason why Roman opinion should
be respected in distant places, as there is why English opinion
should be respected in the Colonies, namely, in both cases, the
liberality of contributions from the central source to Church
work abroad. The bishop of Rome was very rich. I dare say
you know the joke with which the heathen Praetor parried the
attempts of his friend, Bishop Damasus, to convert him:

444 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
' Make me bishop of Rome,' said he, ' and I will become a
Christian at once.' The bishop of Rome, I have no doubt,
spent his money liberally and well on Church work at home
and abroad, and the opinion of a man who can confer sub
stantial benefits will always be listened to with respect.
In the progress of Roman ambition what had at first been
but the advice of a venerated superior in dignity became an
order or decree. In fact, the manner in which the Roman
bishops pushed their claims was, whenever one of two con
tending parties endeavoured to enlist the bishop of Rome on
his side, to treat the applicant as having made no more than
proper acknowledgment of papal authority to decide the
question. He in whose favour the decision was given might
be trusted not to criticize too severely the arrogance of its
terms. In like manner, they who asked for advice from the
bishop of Rome were complimented as dutiful subjects who
had come to him for orders. The earliest genuine epistle of
the kind is one by Siricius, who was Pope A.D. 384, in
answer to a letter addressed to him by a Spanish bishop,
asking for direction on some points of Church discipline
for cases occurring in Spain. Siricius answers in a tone of
authority, intermixing some reproofs; and his answers are
to stand as decrees upon the several points submitted to his
judgment. This letter of Siricius is the first of a collection
published in the sixth century by Dionysius Exiguus, who
took pains to collect all the papal epistles which were
known in his time. These letters do contain proofs enough
of Roman arrogance and incipient assumption; but the
powers therein claimed for the Roman prelate were too
small to satisfy the ambition of later times. In the ninth cen
tury another collection of papal letters, which were supposed
by some means to have escaped the industry of Dionysius,
was published under the name of Isidore, by whom, no doubt,
a celebrated Spanish bishop of much learning was intended.
In these are to be found precedents for all manner of instances
of the exercise of sovereign dominion by the Pope over other
Churches. You must take notice of this, that it was by
furnishing precedents that these letters helped the growth of

xxm.] THE DECRETAL EPISTLES. 445
papal power. Thenceforth the Popes could hardly claim any
privilege, but they would find in these letters supposed proofs
that the privilege in question was no more than had been
always claimed by their predecessors and always exercised
without any objection.
No sooner was this forgery made than it was brought into
active use by Nicolas I. (Pope, 858-867), who, in the audacity
of his designs, exceeded all his predecessors, pressing to
the uttermost every claim which they had made, and pushing
the limits of the Roman Supremacy to the point of absolute
monarchy. He employed these letters in his disputes with
Hincmar and the Gallic Church, and again in his contro
versy with the Greek patriarch, Photius, and others. The
decretals, however, did not produce their full fruit for a con
siderable time after their production. After the death of
Nicolas there came more than a century of darkness and
immorality, described in the extract I formerly read from
Baronius, during which the papacy fell to the lowest point
of degradation. From that it emerged, at the middle of the
eleventh century, by the appointment of German pontiffs —
men of pure lives and of high aims. They saw the Church
under complete bondage to the mighty of this world ; eccle
siastical offices bought and sold without shame ; vice uni
versally prevalent, and clergy unable to rebuke it, because
they were themselves deeply tainted with it. The movement
of papal aggrandizement, of which the celebrated Hildebrand
(afterwards Gregory VII.) was the life and soul, owed its
success to the moral weight which it gained from the belief
that it was an honest attempt to grapple with great abuses,
and to the general satisfaction that was felt at seeing the
empire of brute force confronted by a more mighty spiritual
power. Pope Gregory, accepting with entire faith the de
cretal epistles as authentic records of the powers exercised
by his predecessors, felt himself authorized to push the
principles involved in them to what he regarded as their
legitimate consequences. From these epistles it followed at
once that the Pope was the sole source of spiritual power ;
without his consent no Council could be held ; every bishop,

446 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
priest, or layman might appeal to him from every other judg
ment ; the Church must be withdrawn from the control of all
secular power, and be subjected to a single spiritual despot,
whose errors and faults, if such there were, must be borne in
silence, for from him there could be no appeal. One of the
cardinals, whose assistance Gregory employed in drawing up
his new system of Church law, attributes to St. Boniface the
doctrine, that even if a Pope is so bad that he drags down
whole nations to hell with him in troops, nobody can rebuke
him, for he who judges all can be judged of no man ; the
only exception is in case of his swerving from the faith.
One main pillar of Gregory's system was borrowed from
the false decretals. The Church of Rome, by a singular
privilege, has the right of opening and shutting the kingdom
of heaven to whom she will. It is plain that if the Pope has
this power he can constrain to obey his will any man who
values his eternal salvation ; and so Gregory was able to use
his power of binding and loosing in dethroning kings, and
loosing subjects from their oaths of allegiance. Another
doctrine Gregory got from the false decretals was, that no
one dare hold speech with an excommunicated person; and
as kings and emperors were not exempt from the operation
of this rule, it followed that if the Pope excommunicated a
king, nobody could, even in matters of business, hold commu
nication with him ; so that he was no longer fit to reign, and
must be deposed. This business, however, of deposing kings
is a matter on which I shall have something more to say
presently. But on these spurious decretals is built the whole
fabric of the Canon Law. The great schoolman, Thomas
Aquinas, was taken in by them, and he was induced by them
to set the example of making a chapter on the prerogatives
of the Pope an essential part of treatises on the Church.
Bellarmine, and a number of other Roman controversialists,
were similarly misled. Yet completely successful as was
this forgery, I suppose there never was a more clumsy one.
These Decretal Epistles had undisputed authority for some
seven hundred years, that is to say down to the time of the
Reformation ; yet the moment they were seriously assailed

xxm.] THE DECRETAL EPISTLES. 447
(as they were by the Magdeburg Centuriators)*, defence was
soon found to be hopeless ; and there is not a single Roman
Catholic divine at the present day who would venture to
maintain their genuineness. In fact, the letters are full of
the most outrageous anachronisms. Persons who lived
centuries apart are represented as corresponding with one
another. The early bishops of Rome quote the Scriptures
according to Jerome's version, including the text of the three
heavenly witnesses.! Some of them who lived in pagan times
are made to complain of the invasion of Church property
by laymen. There is a uniformity of style between letters
written by Popes separated by long intervals : one egg, say
the Centuriators, being not more like another than one of
these epistles to another. The same phrases recur, the sub
jects are all of the same sort, such as the primacy of the
Roman see, the allowance of appeals, &c. The style is
barbarous, and full of expressions not used in early times,
but common in Frankish writers of the ninth century. They
say nothing of the events, the heresies, and other controver
sies, of their supposed date, but are full of questions which
had not then arisen ; and they name Church officers and
Church ceremonies which had not then been introduced.
We can fix with tolerable precision the date of this forgery.
The letters borrow matter from the decrees of more than one
Council that was held in the first half of the ninth century :
among others one that was held in 845 ; and they are them
selves quoted in 857 ; so between these two dates the forgery
was made ; and if we say 850, we cannot be very far wrong.
The place of composition was Gaul. Mentz is the city named
in your text-books ; but I think modern scholars are more
disposed to say Rheims. Much as these letters helped
Roman ambition, it was not the primary object of the
forgery ; but rather to secure the position of provincial
* The first great Church History on a large scale, so described because arranged
according to centuries, and because the originator, Flacius Illyricus, commenced the
preparation of the work at Magdeburg. The first volume appeared in 1559.
t There is an unlucky blunder at the outset. In a letter, purporting to be addressed
by Clement to James, James is favoured with an extract from his own Epistle, which
is ascribed to Peter.

448 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
ecclesiastics, and make it difficult to depose them. For this
object it was very useful to take away from his neighbours
all power of dealing with a criminous ecclesiastic, and to let
the only authority that could deal with him be the distant
one — Rome. A strong case of suspicion is made out against
Ebbo, archbishop of Rheims, as having something to say to
this forgery — at least it was calculated to serve his interests.
He had taken an active part in the politics and fightings of
these troubled times, and when the opposite party got the
upper hand he came to be deposed. Well, it has been noticed
that the most important steps taken against Ebbo, which
according to the old Church law would have been quite valid,
would, according to the law of these new decretals, be alto
gether wrong. However this may be, the main point is, that
the decretals are not a Roman forgery, but a Gallic one,
however much they helped the growth of Roman power.
That they did help it enormously is certain ; yet, now that
the spuriousness of these documents is universally acknow
ledged, Romish advocates think that they can throw down
the scaffolding, and yet that the edifice built by its means
can remain. They boldly assert that these letters really
taught nothing new; that they ascribed no more power to
the see of Rome than it had long possessed. I think this is
as impudent an assertion as has been ever made by contro
versialists. It would be as reasonable, supposing they had
been for centuries circulating Bellarmine's chapters on the
Pope as part of Holy Scripture, to say, as soon as they were
found out, that it really made no difference ; that, after all,
Bellarmine said no more than was already taught in the text,
* Thou art Peter.'
If we want to know what share these letters had in the
building of the Roman fabric we have only to look at the
Canon Law. The ' Decretum '* of Gratian quotes three hundred
and twenty-four times epistles of the Popes of the first four
centuries, and of these three hundred and twenty -four quota-
*This work, published in 1151, was intended as a collection of everything that
Gratian could find having the force of law in the Church ; and it had such success
that it became the standard work on the law of the Roman Church.

xxm.J THE DECRETAL EPISTLES. 449
tions, three hundred and thirteen are from the letters which
are now universally known to be spurious. I will not pledge
myself to the genuineness of the remaining eleven. In writ
ing a former Lecture I had occasion to refer to Bellarmine,
to see whether he could cite any father as applying to Rome
the text in which Christ prays that Peter's faith should not
fail. I found he could allege no writer who was not a Pope,
and the Popes he begins by citing are taken from the spurious
decretals. The treatise of Bellarmine is founded on that of
Melchior Canus ; and of twenty quotations which he gives on
this subject, eighteen are out of the false decretals. So idle
is it to deny that this forgery is the foundation on which the
Romish belief in papal power has been founded.
But it is said that you must grant that this is not a Roman
forgery. Well, if a man presents a forged cheque, and gets
money for it, it is something to say in his defence that he did
not forge it himself; but if he were an honest man, as soon as
he discovered the forgery he would give back what he had
wrongfully acquired. Have the Popes any idea of abandon
ing the pretensions they were led by these documents to
assert ? Not the very slightest. Of course the moral guilt of
the party who first utters a forged cheque depends on the
question : Did he do so, knowing it to be forged ? It is a true
maxim, that we easily believe what is in accordance with our
wishes ; and it has so often happened that good Protes
tants have received, without the smallest sifting, untrust
worthy authorities produced on the right side, that I am not
in a hurry to accuse Pope Nicolas of conscious imposture.
That the Pope asserted what was not true is certain. I hold
it to be equally certain that he asserted what, if he had taken
proper care, he might have known not to be true. Did he search
the archives of his own See in order to find whether any trace
of these letters of his predecessors was to be found there ? On
the contrary, when the genuineness of the alleged letters is
questioned on account of their not being to be found in
previous collections, he puts down all these doubts with a
high hand, accusing these former collections of incom
pleteness. 2 G

450 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
Some of Dr. Littledale's critics lift up their hands in holy
horror at the idea of a saint like Nicolas being accused of
wilful forgery. What the character of this individual was is
a matter with which we have no concern ; we are concerned,
not with the man, but with the Pope. Now, when you catch
a man presenting a forged cheque, it is all very well to say
he could not possibly have known it to be forged, he is such
a very respectable clergyman. But if you find that this very
respectable clergyman makes a constant trade of presenting
forged cheques, and living on the proceeds, our judgment can
hardly be quite so charitable. Now there never was a case
so gangrened with forgery as that for the papal claims ; that
which we have been discussing is the most stupendous ; but
it had been preceded by a constant succession of forgeries, of
which there can be no doubt that Rome was the birthplace.
I told you already of the attempt to pass off the Sardican
canons as Nicene. At the Council of Chalcedon the Roman
legates were detected in presenting the sixth canon of Nicaea
with a forged preface, that 'the Roman Church always had
had the primacy.' The string of subsequent Roman forgeries
is so long that it would tire your patience to go through it.
One of them is mentioned in Burnet : ' The Fable of P.
Marcellin.' It was invented to establish the principle that the
Pope was inviolable, and could not be tried by any human
tribunal : the story being that Pope Marcellinus had sacri
ficed to idols, and that a Synod of 284 bishops being assembled
at Sinuessa, they had not the hardihood to presume to try the
Pope, but asked him to pass sentence on himself, which he
accordingly did, by confession and self-condemnation. Then
comes a series of forgeries falsifying the history of the great
Council of Nicaea. Constantine was made out to have been
baptized at Rome ; the Council of Nicaea was summoned by
the Pope's authority ; a letter was forged from the Council,
asking the Pope to confirm its decrees, which he accordingly
does at a Council held at Rome. Then there comes the ' Liber
Pontificalis,' in which the scanty record of the bishops of
Rome is enriched with fictitious stories of the doings of their
pontificates, these fictitious stories being largely made use of

xxm.] ROMAN FORGERIES. 45 1
in the forged decretals. It would be too long to tell how
Cyprian, who in his lifetime had been an opponent of papal
ambition, and whose works had, consequently, been rejected
by Pope Gelasius, was thought too great a man to be allowed
to remain permanently on the wrong side, and was therefore
converted to Roman orthodoxy by means of a judicious
interpolation into his works. I suppose you have heard of
the famous Donation of Constantine. The older fiction
of his cure from leprosy and baptism by Sylvester was
improved by a narrative, that the emperor, out of gratitude,
bestowed Italy and the western provinces on the Pope ; this
forgery having been made in order to induce king Pepin to
secure these territories to the Pope, who, under the cover of
this forgery could ask them, not as a gift, but as a restitution.
The success of this forgery induced others to swell the temporal
power of the Pontiffs. Never have men incurred the woe —
' Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness,
and his chambers by wrong' — more than the Popes have done,
both in respect of their temporal and their spiritual power.
It is impossible to think that if Roman prerogatives had
rested on any Divine gift, it would have been necessary to
bolster up the fabric with so enormous a congeries of fraud
and lies.
Roman pretensions reached their height when the Pope
claimed to be the supreme ruler of Christendom, administering
directly such territories as he was pleased to keep under his
immediate control, and with power to depose any sovereign
over the remaining parts who might be disobedient to his
will. It is well to let you know what a plausible defence is
made at the present day for even this extreme power of the
Pope. The Popes are represented in teaching the maligned
doctrine of their deposing power, to have been but the
champions of what are now recognized as the just rights of
subjects. There was, indeed, a time when this doctrine of the
deposing power could not have been harmonized with what
was taught in the pulpits of the Church of England. After
the Restoration, the evils which had been keenly felt as
attending the disturbance of an established Government
2 G 2

452 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
were still fresh in men's memory, and were in their estima
tion incomparably worse than the half-forgotten evils which
it had been hoped by rebellion to redress. So experience
seemed to them to justify the doctrine of the absolute un
lawfulness of resistance to the Civil rulers. The question of
defining the limits of the power, prerogatives, or jurisdiction of
sovereign princes was then easily settled ; for it was held that
there were no limits, or rather that, if there were, the trans
gression of them was an offence which it must be left to God
to detect and to punish. Subjects must not presume to make
themselves judges of their superiors; for if it were lawful for
them to be judges in their own cause against the prince, then
no one who had a mind to rebel need be at a loss for a lawful
cause. It was recalled to mind that when St. Paul wrote the
words : ' Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers,' the
sovereign whom he instructed his disciples to obey was Nero ;
whence it was inferred that the best of saints were bound to
be in subjection to the worst of men, if he were their lawful
ruler. No impieties or faults in the man could invalidate his
office. Though Nero deserve worthily to be abhorred, yet
still the emperor is, and ought to be, sacred. A man
cannot be so wicked, but that he is still a man by God's crea
tion ; a magistrate cannot be so vile and unjust, but that he
is still an officer by God's institution. He holds his govern
ment by deputation from God, as God's officer ; and to rebel
against him were the violation of government, which is the
very soul and support of the universe, and the imitation of
God's providence.
This doctrine is what we should pronounce servile ; but
when it was delivered it had, at least, the recommendation
that it certainly was not Popish. South, in a sermon,* some
points of which I have here reproduced, casts odium with great
dexterity on the doctrine of the lawfulness of resistance to
princes, as taught by the Puritans of his time, by showing its
identity with what had been taught by the Popes and the
* On Rom. xiii. I. In verifying this quotation, I find in the second sermon on
Isaiah, v. 20, a curious opinion, which I forbear to quote, as to the value of the dis
tinction whether or not the Pope speaks ex cathedra.

xxm.J THE DEPOSING POWER OF THE POPES. 453
Jesuits, from which he argued that the sons of Geneva and
the sons of Rome were as truly brothers as were Romulus
and Remus, both having sucked their principles from the
same wolf.
If this identification was then used to the damage of
the Puritans, it has been so used in our time to the benefit
of the Romanists. Their doctrine concerning the Pope's
power to depose temporal princes, and to release their
subjects from the obligation of oaths which had been
taken to them, had been treated by Protestant divines
as so clearly indefensible, that it was supposed only neces
sary to show that it had been taught with authority in
the Roman Church, when it would follow at once that
that Church was not infallible. Now it is contended that
the Popes, in teaching this maligned doctrine, were only
the champions of what are recognized as the just rights
of subjects, their defenders against the tyranny of royal
oppressors. In ages when brute force was everywhere supreme, and
when despots held sway, many of whom were wicked enough
to be capable of rivalling the enormities of the worst of the
Roman emperors, was it not the safety of the world that the
Church could not be silenced ? When others crouched in. fear
and choked down their grief and indignation, one old man,
feeble in this world's strength, but strong in the authority of
Him in whose name he spoke, had courage to tell the evildoer
how his actions were judged of in the sight of God, and could
successfully threaten him, if he did not reform, with the loss
of the power which he misused. ' It is amusing,' exclaim the
Romish advocates, 'that Protestants should affect to be
shocked at the claim of the Popes to release subjects from
their oaths of allegiance to unworthy sovereigns. One would
be tempted to think that Protestants themselves believed
these oaths to be chains which no human power could undo,
and which in no change of circumstances cease to be binding.
Why, just the reverse is the case. The deed of those who
rose in arms against their king, and sent him to public execu
tion, finds now many an approver and defender ; and those

454 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
who condemn it absolutely repudiate the slavish principles
of the divines of the Restoration. If concerning this there be
difference of opinion, Protestants, at least, are nearly unani
mous in counting it a glorious revolution when another king
was driven from his throne in violation of the most solemn of
oaths. The large majority of the clergy of those days, loud
as they had been shortly before in condemning the rebellious
doctrines of the Puritans, when they had tasted a little of
oppression themselves, scrupled not to treat their old oaths
of allegiance as no longer binding, and to take new ones to
monarchs of their own choosing. These principles have
spread over Europe. In the year 1848 there was scarcely a
throne whose occupant was not dispossessed. We do not
pretend to be in the least shocked at any of these changes of
government ; yet is it satisfactory that people should make
themselves judge and jury in their own cause, and depose
their sovereign when they please ? What is an oath worth if
he who takes it regards it as binding only so long as he him
self may choose to observe it ? Were it not infinitely better
that there should be a recognized arbiter over all, who should
hear all complaints of misgovernment, and decide whether it
had reached such a point as would justify resistance and
warrant subjects in withholding their sworn allegiance ? '
Such an arbiter, it is said, was the Pope in the middle ages,
by the common consent of European nations. However little
a prince might relish the Pope's interference with himself, he
seldom objected to his interference with his neighbour; and
often the king whose deposition by the Pope is now said to
have been an act of tyrannical usurpation, had been himself
ready to profit by the Pope's gift to him of another sovereign's
dominions. This shows that the Pope's authority was then
recognized as legitimate. But, in particular, it was then part
of the common law of Christendom that he who ruled over a
Christian nation must himself be a Christian : neither a
heathen nor a heretic. And the Pope was evidently dis
charging an office which specially belonged to him if he
declared whether or not a sovereign had fallen into heresy,
and whether or not he had accordingly incurred the forfeiture

xxm.J THE DEPOSING POWER OF THE POPES. 455
of his crown. Thus, then, we who admit that cases may
occur when subjects may lawfully depose their sovereigns, and
treat the oaths they have taken to them as no longer binding,
are called on to admit also that it would be an advantage
that there should be an authority competent to decide whether
in any case withdrawal of allegiance would be justified. And
so we are told that we ought to be ashamed of the outcry we
have raised against the exercise of the deposing power by
the mediaeval Popes, such an outcry not being justifiable
unless we adopt the Caroline doctrines of passive obedience
and non-resistance; the exercise of the deposing power
having been perfectly legitimate according to the political
constitution of Europe at the time, and that constitution
which gave a common head to all Christian nations, being
really preferable to the international anarchy of the present
time. Such is the defence made for the extravagant pretensions
in secular matters of the Popes of the middle ages. I post
pone for a time the consideration of the two questions whether,
in point of fact, the European nations did really concede the
supremacy over temporal princes which the Popes claimed to
exercise ; and whether it would have been advantageous to
them to have conceded it ; because it is necessary first to
point out that Roman apologists mislead us if they would
have us believe that it was on any such voluntary concession
that the Pope rested his claims. He did not claim the right
because nations had given it to him; but nations often yielded
it to him because they believed his assertion that God had given
it to him. The consent of peoples would, of course, affect the
prudence of exercising the right, but not the right itself. The
late Pope might believe that he had the power to depose the
emperor of Germany or of Russia, but he knew that if he
did so he would only ruin his own adherents in these coun
tries if they obeyed his deposition of their sovereign. In
this way the consent of peoples is necessary to'the prudent
exercise of the deposing power ; but the Popes never admitted
that it was the consent of peoples which gave them their
power. It is in this sense that we are to understand language

456 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
used by Pio Nono, in which he spoke of the 'right' of de
posing sovereigns, as exercised by his predecessors, and
stated that their authority in accordance with public right
which was then vigorous, and with the acquiescence of all
Christian nations, extended so far as to pass judgment even
in civil affairs on the acts of princes and nations. That we
are here to understand the acquiescence of Christian nations
not as giving the right, but as constituting that happy state
of things which made its exercise possible and prudent, is
evident from the language used by his predecessors.
Take the first great case of the deposition of a prince — that
of the emperor Henry, by Gregory VII. It was not the consent
of peoples to which Gregory appealed, but to the blessed Peter,
whom he addressed in these words : — ' Since it hath pleased
thee that the people of Christ, specially entrusted to thee,
should obey me in thy stead ; since by thy grace power is
given to me to bind and loose in heaven and in earth, there
fore relying on this trust for the honour and defence of thy
Church, and in behalf of Almighty God, I deny to Henry the
government of the whole nation of Germany and Italy, and I
release all Christians from the bond of the oath which they
have made to him, and I forbid anyone to serve him as if he
were a king.' These principles were acted on and improved
by Gregory's successors. Innocent III. applied to himself the
words of God spoken to Jeremiah, and declared that God had
ordained the Pope, as Christ's vicar, ' to have power over all
nations and kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, to
destroy, to build, and to plant.' It was this Pope who found
the papal power in the first chapter of Genesis ; that power
being the sun which God hath appointed to rule the day, that
is, in spiritual things ; while the imperial power was but that
lesser light which He had appointed to rule in the night, that
is in carnal things. It would be too long to tell how com
mentators worked out this analogy, as, for instance, that the
spiritual power shines by its own light ; the temporal derives
its authority from the spiritual, which commands subjects to
be obedient for conscience' sake. Nay, it was supposed pos
sible to determine thus the exact proportion between the two

xxm.J THE BULL 'UNAM SANCTAM.' 457
powers, though unhappily the theologians, who invoked the
aid of the unfamiliar sciences of astronomy and arithmetic,
went so far astray in their calculations as to do gross injustice
to the papal claims. The gloss on this decretal of Innocent
computes that as the earth is seven times greater than the
moon, and the sun eight times greater than the earth, so it
follows (I do not exactly see how) that the papal dignity is
forty-seven times greater than the Imperial.* Later Popes
still further developed the theories of Gregory and Innocent.
Boniface VIII., for instance, in the preamble of a Bull, giving
away the Island of Sardinia, commences, ' Being set above
kings and princes by a divine pre-eminence of power, we dis
pose of them as we think fit.' But the fullest statement of his
doctrine concerning his supremacy is in his celebrated Bull
' Unam Sanctam.' In this he lays down that there is but
one Catholic Church, and of that Church but one head, namely
Christ, and Christ's vicar, Peter, and his successor. In Peter's
power are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal, each of
which is therefore in the power of the Church. [I may say,,
in passing, that one of the most used texts in this controversy
was that which relates Peter's words on the night of our
Lord's betrayal, ' here are two swords,' on which it was re
marked that our Lord's reply was not ' that is too much,' but
' it is enough.'J One of these swords must be subject to the
other : the temporal to the spiritual. If, therefore, the earthly
power err, the spiritual will judge it ; but if the spiritual err,
God only can set it right. This authority, not human, but
divine, was given by the divine lips to Peter, and confirmed to
him and his successors. ' Therefore whoso resists this power
resists the ordinance of God, unless, like a Manichaean, he
pretends that there are two first principles, which we declare
to be heretical and false. Moreover, we declare, affirm, define,
and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary to salvation that
every human creature should be subject to the Roman Pontiff.'
Enough has been quoted to show what a misrepresentation
it is when Roman apologists wish to produce an impression
that the mediaeval Popes exercised a dominion lawful because
* Decret. Greg., lib. i., tit. 33, c. 6.

458 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER [xxm.
granted to them by the public consent of the time. It was not
on this consent that the Popes themselves based it. The con
sent, indeed, was by no means, at any time, universal. Natu
rally, when the Pope made a present of one man's territory
to another, he who received the gift and he at whose expense
it was made were apt to hold different opinions as to the
Pope's power to confer it. But if the consent were ever so
general, it was given only because belief was given to the
Pope's assertion that a man would forfeit his eternal sal
vation by denying his claim. If that claim were really un
founded, no subsequent consent could legalize it. As well
might a man who presents a forged cheque at a banker's
maintain that he has a just claim to the money he receives
because the banker's clerks have freely and voluntarily
handed it over to him. They did so under a false appre
hension, supposing the claimant to be vested with an au
thority which he did not possess. In like manner, when the
Popes came before the nations of Europe with forged docu
ments in their hands, asking them on this evidence to own
that Christ's vicar had the right to apportion their territories
as he pleased, the fact that the claim was admitted does not
legalize it, because it was fraudulent in its inception.
Far be it from me to disguise the fact that the Pope's claim
was admitted. It is this fact which makes the doctrine of the
deposing power so great a stumbling-block in the way not
only of the theory of the personal infallibility of the Popes
but of every theory of infallibility whatsoever. Take the
theory most opposed to the Ultramontane, the Gallican, and
I say that the theory that the Pope possesses by divine right
the power of deposing kings, satisfies all the Gallican
tests whether a doctrine is infallibly true. It was solemnly
propounded by the Pope as 'de fide,' and acquiesced in
generally by the Western Christian world. Particular exer
cises of the power were objected to by the parties whom they
affected, as transgressing the just limits of the power; but the
general existence of the power was not denied. If, therefore, we
now do not admit that Christ gave the Popes that power in tem
poral things which they claim, it follows inevitably that what

xxm.J FOLLOWS FROM HIS INFALLIBILITY. 459
Romanists count the Catholic Church may err ; for, setting
aside the Eastern nations which they do not include in it, all
the West agreed in accepting the Pope's account of his power
as true. It will be found, then, that the consistent maintainers
of Papal Infallibility at the present day are forced to hold the
doctrine of his temporal power ; and they really do hold it,
however they may try to make it palatable to modern ears by
speaking of the consent of peoples to admit it.
But, in truth, this doctrine of the Pope's temporal power
has not merely the accidental connexion with the doctrine
of infallibility that it happened to be affirmed by the infallible
authority. It is the necessary outcome of the theory that
God has given to His people on earth a guide able infallibly
to resolve all their doubts and guarantee them against error.
Bellarmine's book on Controversies was for a time placed
on the index, because in the then Pope's judgment he had
placed on too low grounds his defence of the Pope's temporal
power. But any reasonable Pope might have been well
satisfied with the proof Bellarmine gives that a power in
temporal things results, when once it is acknowledged that
the Pope is an infallible guide both in faith and morals. Is
it possible to think that it is only speculative error from
which that guide can free men ? Would he be able to give
no help to men whose consciences were perplexed ; and, when
they were hesitating between two courses, one of which could
not be followed without sin, would he be unable to point out
the right one ? In particular in the case which has come before
us — of subjects who had grave reason to complain of their
rulers, but doubted whether or not the misgovernment had
been such that in withdrawing their allegiance they would be
guilty of neither perjury nor rebellion, and feared to trust
their own judgment in so weighty a matter, to whom should
they turn for guidance but to him whom they believed to have
been appointed by Christ as guide and ruler of His Church
on earth ; and, if he really possessed the attributes he claimed,
was it possible that he could guide inquirers wrong ?
O'Connell said that he would take his theology from

460 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
Rome, but not his politics. This saying betrays ignorance
of the Roman Catholic doctrine that the Pope is an infallible
guide not only in matters of faith (or, in other words, on ques
tions of speculative theology), but also in morals. It cannot
be denied that many political questions involve questions of
morals. Bellarmine rightly pointed out that, even though
Christ conferred no direct temporal power on the Pope, yet,
from the spiritual power which He did confer, and chiefly
from the power infallibly to declare what are sins and what
are duties, follows indirectly, indeed, but inevitably, temporal
power of the highest kind. For he who is able to speak in
God's name, and to declare with authority what God has
commanded or forbidden, is really in a position to utter
commands which supersede the commands of any human
authority. Thus, in a merely temporal matter which only concerns the
affairs of this world, Bellarmine holds that the Pope has no
right to interfere with the duly constituted authorities ; but
in anything that concerns the safety of souls he has a right
— and remember it is for the Pope to decide whether a
thing concerns the safety of souls or not. In such a
case he may abrogate a civil law injurious to men's souls,
which the civil power refuses to annul ; or he. may make
a law which the civil power neglects to enact ; or he may
deprive a prince of his power altogether : provided always
thaf he sees that the good of men's souls so requires. In
particular, though the early Christians submitted to the
rule of a Nero or a Diocletian, it was for want of power to
resist successfully that they so submitted ; but now that they
have strength to shake off such a yoke, the Pope would
gravely neglect his duty if he left their souls exposed to the
serious peril in which they would be involved if they were
ruled over by an infidel or heretical sovereign. When Christ
commanded Peter to feed His flock, He conferred on him the
powers necessary to the fit discharge of that office, and
amongst these powers are the power to keep off wolves — that
is, to shield the flock from heretics — and the power to keep in

xxm.J PRACTICAL REFUTATION OF THE CLAIM. 461
order and restrain unruly rams, who butt and injure the
peaceable sheep — that is to say, to restrain sovereigns who,
though Catholics, may use their power to the injury of the
souls of their subjects.
The connexion that has been established between the
doctrine of the Pope's Infallibility and that of his power in
temporal things, has the advantage of bringing the doctrine
of Infallibility to an experimental test. The Pope may, with
little fear of contradiction, dispose of the kingdoms of the
unseen world. He may inspire his adherents with the con
fidence in which one of them* boasts that an indulgence which
he destines for a soul in purgatory reaches its destination as
surely as a letter which he puts into the post-office ; and the
pretension can neither be tested nor experimentally refuted.
But when his infallibility comes within the sphere of this
world's concerns we are better able to see what it is worth.
And the test is not an unfair one, for it might seem as if it
could not fail to turn out to the advantage of the claim. Can
anything seem more desirable than that there should be a
supreme court, which should make all war, whether civil or
foreign, impossible, by its power of arbitrating all disputes
whether between one sovereign and another or between any
sovereign and his subjects ? No wonder that the nations of
Europe gladly embraced the idea, when they saw the hope of
obtaining such a guardian of the public peace. But, alas !
the old difficulty arose — Who was to guard the guardian ?
He proved altogether unworthy of his trust. His decisions
were made, not in the interests of peace and justice, but of his
own selfish ends. It is proof enough of this that he has lost
his power; for the tribunal which he occupied, if rightly filled,
would have conferred such temporal advantages on the world
that, when it was also backed by the highest religious sanction,
it needed not that it should have been guided by infallible
wisdom. Had it been governed by common fairness and
honesty, Europe would never have parted with it. But then
took place exactly the practical refutation that was expe
rienced by the Caroline doctrine of non-resistance. Anglican
* Father Faber.

462 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
divines held that under no circumstances was it lawful to
resist the civil ruler. If he misgoverned, God alone could
judge him. They made practical trial of their theory, and
soon were glad to abandon it. So, in like manner, the
Romish divines owned the danger of making the civil ruler
irresponsible. They instituted a power above him, to which
he must give account ; but they held that if that power went
astray none but God could set it right. And here, too, those
who had accepted the theory were forced to abandon it by
discovering that there is no exception to the rule, that irre
sponsible power is apt to lead before long to absolutely
intolerable abuse.
In deciding, for instance, between prince and subjects, a
ruler most hateful to his subjects was upheld, if subservient
to the Pope, and one most acceptable to them deposed, if not
submissive to Papal will. It is enough to mention our own
experience. The degrading submission of King John to the
Pope gained him the Pope's hearty support in his contests
with his subjects, and the great Charter was obtained not
merely from a reluctant king, but in defiance of Papal excom
munications. On the contrary, a sovereign so acceptable to
her subjects as Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated and
deposed by two successive Pontiffs — a futile act, by which
they injured their own religion more than anything else.
Even Roman Catholic states disregarded the excommunica
tion ; and treaties, alliances, business, commerce, went on as
before. Meanwhile, the fanatical believers in the Pope's
power, who were driven by his instigations into rebellion,
suffered death, and yet did not gain for their religion the
moral victory which was won for ours by the constancy of our
martyrs in the Marian persecutions, because those men were
understood by all to have suffered death, not as heretics but
as rebels and traitors.
The case of King John, to which I have referred, was
made the subject of a special apology by Cardinal Manning.
His defence is in substance this : — The excommunication is
not to be understood as implying the Pope's disapproval of
the provisions of the great Charter. Many of these related

xxm.J THE POPE'S LOCAL SOVEREIGNTY. 463.
to the correction of local abuses, which the Pope, by reason of
distance, was quite incapable of understanding. But it was
the means which the barons took to obtain the Charter which
put them clearly in the wrong. In the early stages of the
conflict, when the tyrant king was trampling impartially on
civil liberties and ecclesiastical rights, the Pope and the
barons were united in resistance, and the latter were conse
quently in the right. But when their ally, having obtained
his own objects, had made a separate peace, they had no
business to carry on the fight any longer. If the king did
not redress their wrongs they might appeal to the Pope, and
be content with whatever satisfaction he might be pleased to
give them ; notwithstanding that, as Manning himself has
reminded us, the Pope's want of local information made him
an incompetent judge of the matters in dispute. I have no
doubt that Manning's theory of the duty of subjects coincides
with that of Innocent III. But, as even in John's time it was
rejected as an innovation, and the English declared that the
ordering of secular matters belongeth not to a Pope, so it is
not likely that the doctrines will find favour now which we
rejoice were not accepted by our fathers.
I have said that the Popes abused their power by exer
cising it, not in the interests of the peoples whom they
claimed to govern, but in their own ; and I must add, not in
the interests of anything that can plausibly claim the high
name of religion, but of the most vulgar ambition. For the
Popes were not content with the lofty position of being
supreme judges over temporal princes : they wanted to be
temporal princes themselves ; and when they sought to
aggrandize their dominions they freely used the spiritual
weapon of excommunication.
You know that they were successful in this endeavour; so
much so, that if it were mentioned that I was lecturing • on
the temporal power of the Popes,' it would be popularly
imagined that I was discussing the right of the Popes to rule
over a certain portion of Italy. I think, therefore, that I
must not wholly omit to say something about this claim ; but
you will observe that it is a different thing from what I have

464 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
been really discussing, viz. the Pope's right to interfere in
temporal matters in any part of the world. The latter right,
if it exist at all, is an inalienable possession of the See, and
must have belonged to it from the first, being inseparably
•connected with the Pope's office as head of the Church and
infallible guide to Christians on questions of faith and morals.
The former right only belongs to the See accidentally. It
was some centuries before it possessed it, and the Pope might
cease to be a temporal sovereign without any loss of his spiri
tual powers.
In my private opinion his spiritual power would then be
all the greater, and therefore I never thought it matter for
controversial triumph that the Pope, in 1870, ceased to be an
Italian prince. I do not believe the assertion that temporal
sovereignty is necessary for the free exercise of his spiritual
power ; for I believe that in the present state of public opinion
the Pope would be quite as free to excommunicate any person
whom he thought unfit to be a member of his Church, if he
lived in London or New York, as if he lived in Rome. Nay,
I count that his direction of spiritual matters was far more
liable to be influenced by extraneous considerations when he
was dependent on foreign powers for his possession of a pre
carious throne than since he has had nothing to hope for from
the good-will of secular princes. However, I will not dispute
that the Pope may be a better judge than I as to what the
interests of his religion require ; and I must acknowledge that
Pius IX. held it to be essential to those interests that he
should be king as well as Pope. It was judged that at the
bottom of his claim to infallibility was anxiety on his part
that his word should be taken on this subject; and it was
believed that if the Vatican Council had been prolonged it
would have been asked to ratify his opinion. A list of doc
trines—with respect to which Cardinal Manning says that
the Church cannot be silent, cannot hold her peace — begins
with the Trinity and Incarnation, and ends with the necessity
of the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See. Still I cannot
but think it likely that future Roman Catholic divines will
count it as a providential escape that their Church has not

xxm.J THE POPE'S LOCAL SOVEREIGNTY. 465
irrevocably committed herself to a claim likely to bring her
less honour than disgrace.
I know no part of Church History less calculated to
impress a truly religious man with respect for the Papacy
than the history of those Popes who did most to gain
its Italian States for the Church. There have been worse
Popes : indeed, their immediate predecessors were worse
who, instead of working for the benefit of the See, aimed
only at gaining principalities for their sons and their
nephews. But all alike seem to have their whole thoughts
bent on things of earth, and to be men from whom no one
would dream of coming to obtain spiritual counsel.
I have already said something as to frauds used in
order to gain that power, beginning with the famous
forgery of the donation of Constantine, by which the
Frankish monarchs were induced to believe that the Italian
provinces rightfully belonged, not to the Greek emperors,
but to the Roman Pontiffs ; and this forgery was suc
ceeded by others with similar objects. But many a power
has proved a benefit to the world, the first origin of which
will not bear investigation. I should not care, therefore, to
mention the frauds by which the papal power was built up, if
a more sacred origin had not been claimed for it ; but the best
justification of the power would have been in the use that was
made of it. Surely we should say that the happiest of men must
be that chosen people who were so fortunate as to be under the
direct rule of him whose office it was to punish all instances of
misgovernment in others, of him who was appointed to feed
-Christ's sheep, who was the divinely constituted guardian of
truth and justice in the world. His dominions, we should
expect, would rapidly increase by the voluntary cession of
peoples, anxious to place themselves under his beneficent
rule. Godliness has promise of the life that now is as well as of
that which is to come. Surely he whose infallible wisdom
prescribes such laws as best secure men's eternal happiness
might be expected to rule in such a way as most to promote
the happiness of his subjects in this life. If there be any force
2 H

466 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
in the a priori arguments which have made men believe that
God will be sure to fulfil all their expectations as to His
government of this world, and in particular that He will sup
ply an unerring guide, able to resolve correctly every theo
logical problem about which the members of His Church
may dispute, surely we might argue that God would not bring
discredit on His gift by refusing to His appointed minister in
things spiritual, at least, some share of the human wisdom
with which things temporal are managed ; and that He would
not put such a strain on men's faith as to require them to
believe that the same man who was seen to be thoroughly
unwise and incompetent in every matter on which we can
form a judgment of our own, might be trusted to make
decisions, guided by infallible wisdom, in those matters on
which we are told we are not competent to form any judg
ment at all.
It is not possible to state what papal Government might
reasonably have" been expected to be without seeming to
be cruelly ironical. For it is notorious that what, if the
Romanist theory of its origin were true, ought to be the best
government in the world, in fact turned out to be the very
worst. At the time of the accession of Pius IX. it was
fondly hoped that he would distinguish himself as a re
former of previous maladministration ; and in this hope
Mr. Mahony, better known as Father Prout, who was then
at Rome, wrote the following description of the condition
of the Papal States at the time of that accession: — 'Con
fessedly things had gone on during Gregory's sixteen years
of reign from bad to worse, from feebleness to dotage. The
finances were in an awful state ; the trade and commerce
of the country depressed, paralysed, and in despair; the
cultivation of science in every department clogged and dis
countenanced ; no hope, no buoyancy, in any of the liberal
professions ; deep-rooted discontent among the people ; open
rebellion in the legations ; corruption in every branch of the
civil and in some departments of ecclesiastical adminis
tration; dogged reluctance to adopt any system of amelio
ration ; stupid adherence to worn-out expedients and bygone

xxm.J HOW THE PAPAL STATES WERE RULED. 467
traditions of redtapery ; the approach of ruin looked at with
the calm stolidity of an idiot who hugs himself to the last in
the cherished monotony of routine and fatalism. All was
desolate, waste, barren, and dilapidated, beyond the graphic
picture of the inspired writer who has left on solemn
record his landscape of the field of the sluggard, with its
fences broken down and other evidences of sad improvidence :
" I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of
the man void of understanding, and lo ! it was all grown over
with thorns ; and nettles had covered the face of it, and the
stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw and con
sidered it well ; I looked and received instruction ; yet a little
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep ;
so shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy
want as an armed man." ' I cannot quote at greater length
Mahony's picture of oppressive taxes ; great waste in the col
lection; discouragement of arts and industry; discontent of
the educated classes, there being no place for any layman in
the employment of the Government; sullen dissatisfaction
with the overpowering predominance of Austrian power,
whose bayonets secured the continuance of the existing state
of things, and scared away all hope of reform. This picture,
you will observe, was not drawn by an enemy anxious to dis
credit the Pope's government generally, but by one who
hoped that the prosperity to be introduced by Pius IX. would
contrast brightly with past mismanagement. I need not say
how these hopes were disappointed : how Pius, after figuring
for a year or two in the character of a liberal Pope, became
frightened at the prospect that opened out to him : how it
became more and more difficult to induce his subjects to sub
mit to his rule : how he maintained a precarious seat on his
throne as long as he was propped up by foreign bayonets,
and fell from it the moment they were withdrawn.
Manning is not likely to make many converts in England
to his doctrine, that the miserable right of a few priests
to misgovern some thousands of Italians is necessary to the
perfection of Christ's kingdom upon earth. But if he is
right in holding that this doctrine is a legitimate deduction
2 H 2

468 THE POPE'S TEMPORAL POWER. [xxm.
from his theory of Infallibility, the falsity of the con
clusion serves to prove that there is falsity in the premisses.
If it is incredible that Christ should leave His people exposed
to the risk of error in matters of speculation, it is incredible
also that He would leave them exposed to the risk of going
wrong in practical matters. If there is an infallible guide to
tell us how to believe, that guide ought to be able to tell us
also how we are to act. It is impossible to make a separation
between faith and morals. Ultramontanes are only con
sistent in saying that he who governs the one must also have
dominion over the other. But he whom we recognize as able
to give us unerring guidance in practical matters is, in truth,
the ruler of Life. His advice avails more with us than the
commands of any person whatever. If there be, then, any
such infallible guide upon earth, every secular power which
does not itself submit to it and frame its laws according to
its dictates, must rightly regard it as an enemy. For if the
infallible authority does its duty it must scrutinize every
ordinance of the secular power in order to ascertain whether
that law directly or indirectly affects the welfare of the souls
of the people. But there are few questions with which legis
lators deal which do not come under this description. For
instance, this authority has claimed — and, on its own prin
ciples, rightly claimed — to pronounce upon toleration, civil
liberty, education, marriage : nay, it clearly would not travel
out of its province if it pronounced on the lawfulness of any
foreign war, nor if it directed subjects to vindicate their
rights by rebellion. It is argued, then, that if Christ did not
see fit to complete His scheme by giving His vicar upon
earth temporal power as well as spiritual, that vicar would
be left exposed to suffer from temporal governments such
measures of expulsion or repression as the rulers of any
country deal to those who will not submit to the law of the
land. But the Popes have had the opportunity of working out
their theory of a necessity of temporal power, and have
brought it to miserable failure. Not only did they destroy
the temporal prosperity of the states they governed, but they

xxm.J ITS PRACTICAL RESULTS. 469
impaired their own spiritual influence through the hatred
inspired by the character of their rule. The Pope might
drive through any part of heretic London, and be sure of a
courteous reception : but the last two Popes have thought it
necessary to shut themselves up in their own palace, through
alleged fear, if they stirred out of it, of meeting insults from
their countrymen who ought to know them best. Now, men
who have themselves made such a poor hand at governing
are clearly not fit to teach others how to govern ; and there
fore we may safely reject the Pope's claim to interfere with
secular princes in their government of their states. And this
claim is, as we have seen, inseparably connected with the
Pope's general claim to Infallibility, so that we arrive once
more at the result that we have no right to think that Christ
has provided us with any infallible security for right thinking
or right doing, or taught us any other way for attaining
these ends than the prayerful use of the means He has given
us for the education of our own reason and conscience.

APPENDIX

DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
I. CONSTITUTIO DOGMATICA DE FIDE CATHOLICA.
II. CANONES.
III. CONSTITUTIO DOGMATICA PRIMA DE ECCLESIA CHRISTI.
IV. SUSPENSIO CONCILII.

APPENDIX.

DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
The Decrees of the Vatican Council being not so easily accessible to
students as older authoritative documents of the Roman Church, I
subjoin here the chapters of the ' Constitutio dogmatica de Fide
Catholica,' passed at the Third Session, April 24th, 1870, and the
* Constitutio dogmatica prima de Ecclesia Christi,' passed at the Fourth
Session, July 18th, 1870. The reason why there was not a ' Constitu
tio secunda' appears from the subjoined extract from the Apostolic
Letter suspending the Council. Only formal business was done at the
first two Sessions of the Council.

CONSTITUTIO DOGMATICA DE FIDE CATHOLICA.
CAPUT I.
De Deo rerum omnium Creatore.
Sancta Catholica Apostolica Romana Ecclesia credit et confitetur, unum
esse Deum verum et vivum, Creatorem ac Dominum coeli et terrae, orrmi-
potentem, aeternum, immensum, incomprehensibilem, intellectu ac volun-
tate omnique perfectione infinitum ; qui cum sit una singularis, simplex
omnino et incommutabilis substantia spiritualis, praedicandus est re et
essentia a mundo distinctus, in se et ex se beatissimus, et super omnia,
quae praeter ipsum sunt et concipi possunt, ineffabiliter excelsus.
Hie solus verus Deus bonitate sua et omnipotenti virtute, non ad augen-
dam suam beatitudinem, nee ad acquirendam, sed ad manifestandam
perfectionem suam per bona quae creaturis impertitur, liberrimo consilio

474 APPENDIX. [cap. ii.
simul ab initio temporis utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem
et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam, ac deinde humanam
quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam.*
Universa vero, quae condidit, Deus providentia sua tuetur atque guber-
nat, attingens a fine usque ad finem fortiter, et disponens omnia suaviter.T
Omnia enim nuda et aperta sunt oculis ejus, J ea etiam, quae libera crea-
turarum actione futura sunt.

CAPUT II.
De Revelatione.
Eadem Sancta Mater Ecclesia tenet et docet, Deum, rerum omnium
principium et finem, naturali humanae rationis lumine e rebus creatis certo
cognosci posse ; invisibilia enim ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta
sunt intellecta, conspiciuntur : § attamen placuisse ejus sapientiae et boni-
tati, alia, eaque supernaturali via, se ipsum ac aeterna voluntatis suae
decreta humano generi revelare, dicente Apostolo : Multifariam, multisque
modis olim Deus loquens patribus in Prophetis, novissime, diebus istis
locutus est nobis in Filio.||
Huic divinae revelationi tribuendum quidem est, ut ea, quae in rebus
divinis humanae rationi per se impervia non sunt, in praesenti quoque
generis humani conditione ab omnibus expedite, firma certitudine et nullo
admixto errore cognosci possint. Non hac tamen de causa revelatio abso
lute necessaria dicenda est, sed quia Deus ex infinita bonitate sua ordinavit
hominem ad finem supernaturalem, ad participanda scilicet bona divina,
quae humanae mentis intelligentiam omnino superant ; siquidem oculus
non vidit, nee auris audivit, nee in cor hominis ascendit, quae praeparavit
Deus iis, qui diligunt ilium. 51
Haec porro supernaturalis revelatio, secundum universalis Ecclesiae
fidem, a sancta Tridentina Synodo declaratam, continetur in libris scriptis
et sine scripto traditionibus, quae ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae,
aut ab ipsis Apostolis Spiritu Sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae,
ad nos usque pervenerunt.** Qui quidem veteris et novi Testamenti libri
integri cum omnibus suis partibus, prout in ejusdem Concilii decreto recen-
sentur, et in veteri vulgata latina editione habentur, pro sacris et canonicis
suscipiendi sunt. Eos vero Ecclesia pro sacris et canonicis habet, non
ideo, quod sola humana industria concinnati, sua deinde auctoritate sint
approbati ; nee ideo dumtaxat, quod revelationem sine errore contineant ;
sed propterea, quod Spiritu Sancto inspirante conscripti Deum habent
auctorem, atque ut tales ipsi Ecclesiae traditi sunt.
* Cone. Later, iv. c. I. Firmiter. t Sap. viii. I. j Cf. Hebr. iv. 13.
\ Rom. i. 20. || Hebr. i. r-2. H 1 Cor, ii. 9.
** Cone. Trid. Scsh. iv. Deer, de Can. Script.

cap. iii. J DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 475
Quoniam vero, quae sancta Tridentina Synodus de interpretatione
divinae Seripturae ad cofircenda petulantia ingenia salubriter decrevit, a
quibusdam hominibus prave exponuntur, Nos, idem decretum renovantes,
hanc illius mentem esse declaramus, ut in rebus fidei et morum, ad aedifi-
cationem doctrinae Christianae pertinentium, is pro vero sensu sacrae
Seripturae habendus sit, quem tenuit ac tenet Sancta Mater Ecclesia, cujus
est judicare de vero sensu et interpretatione Scripturarum sanctarum ; at
que ideo nemini licere contra hunc sensum, aut etiam contra unanimem
consensum Patrum ipsam Scripturam sacram interpretari.

CAPUT III.
De Fide.
Quum homo a Deo tanquam Creatore et Domino suo totus dependeat,
et ratio creata increatae Veritati penitus subjecta sit, plenum revelanti Deo
intellectus et voluntatis obsequium fide praestare tenemur. Hanc vero
fidem, quae humanae salutis initium est, Ecclesia catholica profitetur, vir-
tutem esse supernaturalem qua, Dei aspirante et adjuvante gratia, ab eo
revelata vera esse credimus, non propter intrinsecam rerum veritatem na-
turali rationis lumine perspectam, sed propter auctoritatem ipsius Dei re-
velantis, qui nee falli nee fallere potest. Est enim fides, testante Apostolo,
sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium.*
Ut nihilominus fidei nostrae obsequium rationi consentaneum esset,
voluit Deus cum internis Spiritus Sancti auxiliis externa jungi revelationis
suae argumenta, facta scilicet divina, atque imprimis miracula et prophe-
tias, quae cum Dei omnipotentiam et infinitam scientiam luculenter common-
strent, divinae revelationis signa sunt certissima et omnium intelligentiae
accommodata. Quare turn Moyses et Prophetae, turn ipse maxime Chris-
tus Dominus multa et manifestissima miracula et prophetias ediderunt ; et
de Apostolis legimus : Illi autem profecti praedicaverunt ubique, Domino
cooperante, et sermonem confirmante, sequentibus signis.f Et rursum
scriptum est : Habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem, cui bene facitis
attendentes quasi lucemae lucenti in caliginoso loco 4
Licet autem fidei assensus nequaquam sit motus animi caecus : nemo
tamen evangelicae praedicationi consentire potest, sicut oportet ad salutem
consequendam, absque illuminatione et inspiratione Spiritus Sancti, qui dat
omnibus suavitatem in consentiendo et credendo veritati. § Quare fides
ipsa in se, etiamsi per charitatem non operetur, donum Dei est, et actus
ejus est opus ad salutem pertinens, quo homo liberam praestat ipsi Deo
obedientiam, gratiae ejus, cui resistere posset, consentiendo et coope-
rando. * Hebr. xi. I. X 2 Petr. i. 19.
f Marc. xvi. 20. § Syn. Araus. ii. can. 7.

476 APPENDIX. [cap. iv.
Porro fide divina et catholica ea omnia credenda sunt, quae in verbo
Dei scripto vel tradito continentur, et ab Ecclesia sive solemni judicio sive
ordinario et universali magisterio tamquam divinitus revelata credenda
proponuntur. Quoniam vero sine fide impossibile est placere Deo, et ad filiorum ejus
consortium pervenire ; ideo nemini unquam sine ilia contigit justificatio,
nee ullus, nisi in ea perseveraverit usque in finem, vitam aeternam asse-
quetur. Ut autem officio veram fidem amplectendi, in eaque eonstanter
perseverandi satisfacere possemus, Deus per Filium suum unigenitum
Ecclesiam instituit, suaeque institutionis manifestis notis instruxit, ut ea
tamquam custos et magistra verbi revelati ab omnibus posset agnosci. Ad
solam enim catholicam Ecclesiam ea pertinent omnia, quae ad evidentem
fidei christianae credibilitatem tam multa et tam mira divinitus sunt dis-
posita. Quin etiam Ecclesia per se ipsa, ob suam nempe admirabilem
propagationem, eximiam sanctitatem et inexhaustam in omnibus bonis
foecunditatem, ob catholicam unitatem, invictamque stabilitatem, magnum
quoddam et perpetuum est motivum credibilitatis et divinae suae legationis
testimonium irrefragabile.
Quo fit, ut ipsa veluti signum levatum in nationes,* et ad se invitet,
qui nondum crediderunt, et filios suos certiores faciat, firmissimo niti fun-
damento fidem, quam profitentur. Cui quidem testimonio efficax subsidium
accedit ex superna virtute. Etenim benignissimus Dominus et errantes
gratia sua excitat atque adjuvat, ut ad agnitionem veritatis venire possint ;
et eos, quos de tenebris transtulit in admirabile lumen suum, in hoc eodem
lumine ut perseverent, gratia sua confirmat, non deserens, nisi deseratur.
Quocirca minime par est conditio eorum, qui per coeleste fidei donum ca-
tholicae veritati adhaeserunt, atque eorum, qui ducti opinionibus humanis,
falsam religionem sectantur; illi enim, qui fidem sub Ecclesiae magisterio
susceperunt, nullam unquam habere possunt justam causam mutandi, aut
in dubium fidem eamdem revocandi. Quae cum ita sint, gratias agentes
Deo Patri, qui dignos nos fecit in partem sortis sanctorum in lumine,
tantam ne negligamus salutem, sed aspicientes in auctorem fidei et con-
summatorem Jesum, teneamus spei nostrae confessionem indeclinabilem.

CAPUT IV.
De Fide et Ratione.
Hoc quoque perpetuus Ecclesiae catholicae consensus tenuit et tenet,
duplicem esse ordinem cognitionis, non solum principio, sed objecto etiam
distinctum : principio quidem, quia in altero naturali ratione, in altero fide
divina cognoscimus ; objecto autem, quia praeter ea, ad quae naturalis
ratio pertingere potest, credenda nobis proponuntur mysteria in Deo abs-

cap. iv.J DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 477
condita, quae, nisi revelata divinitus, innoteseere non possunt. Quocirca
Apostolus, qui a gentibus Deum per ea, quae facta sunt, cognitum esse
testatur, disserens tamen de gratia et veritate, quae per Jesum Christum
facta est,* pronunciat : Loquimur Dei sapientiam in mysterio, quae abs-
condita est, quam praedestinavit Deus ante saecula in gloriam nostram,
quam nemo principum hujus saeculi cognovit, nobis autem revelavit Deus
per Spiritum suum : Spiritus enim omnia scrutatur, etiam profunda Dei.f
Et ipse Unigenitus confitetur Patri, quia abscondit haec a sapientibus
et prudentibus, et revelavit ea parvulis.J:
Ac ratio quidem, fide illustrata, cum sedulo, pie et sobrie quaerit,
aliquam, Deo dante, mysteriorum intelligentiam eamque fructuosissimam
assequitur, turn ex eorum, quae naturaliter cognoscit, analogia, turn e myste
riorum ipsorum nexu inter se et cum fine hominis ultimo ; nunquam tamen
idonea redditur ad ea perspicienda instar veritatum, quae proprium ipsius
objectum constituunt. Divina enim mysteria suapte natura intellectum
creatum sic excedunt, ut etiam revelatione tradita et fide suscepta, ipsius
tamen fidei velamine contecta et quadam quasi caligine obvoluta maneant,
quamdiu in hac mortali vita peregrinamur a Domino : per fidem enim
ambulamus, et non per speciem.§
Verum etsi fides sit supra rationem, nulla tamen unquam inter fidem
et rationem vera dissensio esse potest : cum idem Deus, qui mysteria re-
velat et fidem infundit, animo humano rationis lumen indiderit ; Deus autem
negare seipsum non possit, nee verum vero unquam contradicere. Inanis
autem hujus contradictionis species inde potissimum oritur, quod vel fide
dogmata ad mentem Ecclesiae intellecta et exposita non fuerint, vel opi-
nionum commenta pro rationis effatis habeantur. Omnem igitur assertio-
nem veritati illuminatae fidei contrariam omnino falsam esse definimus.||
Porro Ecclesia, quae una cum apostolico munere docendi, mandatum
accepit fidei depositum custodiendi, jus etiam et officium divinitus habet
falsi nominis scientiam proscribendi, ne quis decipiatur per philosophiam,
et inanem fallaciam.^[ Quapropter omnes christiani fideles hujusmodi
opiniones, quae fidei doctrinae contrariae esse cognoscuntur, maxime si
ab Ecclesia reprobatae fuerint, non solum prohibentur tanquam legitimas
scientiae conclusiones defendere, sed pro erroribus potius, qui fallacem
veritatis speciem prae se ferant, habere tenentur omnino.
Neque solum fides et ratio inter se dissidere nunquam possunt, sed
opem quoque sibi mutuam ferunt, cum recta ratio fidei fundamenta de-
monstret, ejusque lumine illustrata rerum divinarum scientiam excolat ;
fides vero rationem ab erroribus liberet ac tueatur, eamque multiplici
cognitione instruat. Quapropter tantum abest, ut Ecclesia humanarum
artium et disciplinarum culturae obsistat, ut hanc multis modis juvet at
que promoveat. Non enim eommoda ab iis ad hominum vitam dimanantia
* loan. i. 17- + Matt. xi. 25.
t I Cor. ii. 7-9. § 2 Cor. v. 7.
I| Cone. Lat. V. Bulla Apostolici regiminis. IF Coloss. ii. 8.

478 APPENDIX. [cap. iv.
aut ignorat aut despicit ; fatetur imo, eas, quemadmodum a Deo, scien-
tiarum Domino, profectae sunt, ita si rite pertractentur, ad Deum, juvante
ejus gratia, perducere. Nee sane ipsa vetat, ne hujusmodi disciplinae in
suo quaeque ambitu propriis utantur principiis et propria methodo ; sed
justam hanc libertatem agnoscens, id sedulo eavet, ne divinae doctrinae
repugnando errores in se suscipiant, aut fines proprios transgressae, ea,
quae sunt fidei, occupent et perturbent.
Neque enim fidei doctrina, quam Deus revelavit, velut philosophicum
inventum proposita est humanis ingeniis perficienda, sed tanquam divinum
depositum Christi Sponsae tradita, fideliter custodienda et infallibiliter de-
claranda. Hinc sacrorum quoque dogmatum is sensus perpetuo est reti
nendus, quern semel declaravit Sancta Mater Ecclesia, nee unquam ab eo
sensu, altioris intelligentiae specie et nomine, recedendum. Crescat igitur
et multum vehementerque proficiat, tam singulorum, quam omnium, tam
unius hominis, quam totius Ecclesiae, aetatum ac saeculorum gradibus,
intelligentia, scientia, sapientia : sed in suo dumtaxat genere, in eodem
scilicet dogmate, eodem sensu, eademque sententia.*
* Vine. Lir. Common, n. 28.

DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 479

CANONES.

De Deo rerum omnium Creators.
1. Si quis unum verum Deum visibilium et invisibilium Creatorem et
Dominum negaverit ; anathema sit.
2. Si quis praeter materiam nihil esse affirmare non erubuerit ; anathema
sit. 3. Si quis dixerit, unam eandemque esse Dei et rerum omnium sub
stantiam vel essentiam ; anathema sit.
4. Si quis dixerit, res finitas, turn corporeas turn spirituales aut saltern
spirituales, e divina substantia emanasse ;
aut divinam essentiam sui manifestatione vel evolutione fieri omnia ;
aut denique Deum esse ens universale seu indefinitum, quod sese deter-
minando constituat rerum universitatem in genera, species et individua
distinctam ; anathema sit.
5. Si quis non confiteatur, mundum, resque omnes, quae in eo continen-
tur, et spirituales et materiales, secundum totam suam substantiam a Deo
ex nihilo esse productas ;
aut Deum dixerit non voluntate ab omni necessitate libera, sed tam
necessario creasse, quam necessario amat seipsum ;
aut mundum ad Dei gloriam conditum esse negaverit ; anathema sit.

II.
De Revelatione.
1. Si quis dixerit, Deum unum et verum, Creatorem et Dominum nos
trum, per ea, quae facta sunt, naturali rationis humanae lumine certo cog
nosci non posse ; anathema sit.
2. Si quis dixerit, fieri non posse, aut non expedire, ut per revelationem
divinam homo de Deo, cultuque ei exhibendo edoceatur ; anathema sit.
3. Si quis dixerit, hominem ad cognitionem et perfectionem, quae
naturalem superet, divinitus evehi non posse, sed ex seipso ad omnis tandem
veri et boni possessionem jugi profectu pertingere posse et debere ; ana
thema sit.
4. Si quis sacrae Seripturae libros integros cum omnibus suis partibus,
prout illos sancta Tridentina Synodus reeensuit, pro sacris et canonicis non
susceperit, aut eos divinitus inspiratos esse negaverit ; anathema sit.

480 APPENDIX. [cann. m., iv.

Ill
De Fide.
1. Si quis dixerit, rationem humanam ita independentem esse, ut fides
ei a Deo imperari non possit ; anathema sit.
2. Si quis dixerit, fidem divinam a naturali de Deo et rebus moralibus
scientia non distingui, ac propterea ad fidem divinam non requiri, ut
revelata Veritas propter auctoritatem Dei revelantis credatur; anathema
sit. 3. Si quis dixerit, revelationem divinam externis signis credibilem fieri
non posse, ideoque sola interna cujusque experientia aut inspiratione privata
homines ad fidem moveri debere ; anathema sit.
4. Si quis dixerit, miracula nulla fieri posse, proindeque omnes de iis
narrationes, etiam in sacra Scriptura contentas, inter fabulas vel mythos
ablegandas esse ; aut miracula certo cognosci nunquam posse, nee iis
divinam religionis christianae originem rite probari ; anathema sit.
5. Si quis dixerit, assensum fidei christianae non esse liberum, sed argu-
mentis humanae rationis necessario produci ; aut ad solam fidem vivam,
quae per charitatem operatur, gratiam Dei necessariam esse ; anathema
sit. 6. Si quis dixerit, parem esse conditionem fidelium atque eorum, qui ad
fidem unice veram nondum pervenerunt, ita ut catholici justam causam
habere possint, fidem, quam sub Ecclesiae magisterio jam susceperunt,
assensu suspenso in dubium vocandi, donee demonstrationem scientificam
credibilitatis et veritatis fidei suae absolverint ; anathema sit.

IV.
De Fide et Ratione.
1. Si quis dixerit, in revelatione divina nulla vera et proprie dicta
mysteria contineri, sed universa fidei dogmata posse per rationem rite
excultam e naturalibus principiis intelligi et demonstrari ; anathema sit.
2. Si quis dixerit, disciplinas humanas ea cum libertate tractandas esse,
ut earum assertiones, etsi doctrinae revelatae adversentur, tanquam verae
retineri, neque ab Ecclesia proscribi possint ; anathema sit.
3. Si quis dixerit, fieri posse, ut dogmatibus ab Ecclesia propositis,
aliquando secundum progressum scientiae sensus tribuendus sit alius ab eo,
quern intellexit et intelligit Ecclesia ; anathema sit.

capp. i., n.J DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 481

CONSTITUTIO DOGMATICA PRIMA DE ECCLESIA CHRISTI.
CAPUT I.
De Apostolici Primatus in beato Petro institutione.
Docemus itaque et declaramus, juxta Evangelii testimonia primatum
jurisdictionis in universam Dei Ecclesiam immediate et directe beato Petro
Apostolo promissum atque collatum a Christo Domino fuisse. Unum enim
Simonem, cui jam pridem dixerat : Tu vocaberis Cephas," postquam ille
suam edidit confessionem inquiens : Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi, solem-
nibus his verbis allocutus est Dominus : Beatus es, Simon Bar-Jona, quia
caro et sanguis non revelavit tibi, sed Pater meus, qui in coelis est : et
ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram aedificabo Ecclesiam
meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam : et tibi dabo claves
regni coelorum : et quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in
coelis : et quodcumque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in coelis. t
Atque uni Simoni Petro contulit Jesus post suam resurrectionem summi
pastoris et rectoris jurisdictionem in totum suum ovile dicens : Pasce agnos
meos : Pasce oves meas.f Huic tam manifestae sacrarum Scripturarum
doctrinae, ut ab Ecclesia catholica semper intellecta est, aperte opponuntur
pravae eorum sententiae, qui, constitutam a Christo Domino in sua Ecclesia
regiminis formam pervertentes, negant, solum Petrum prae caeteris Apos
tolis, sive seorsum singulis sive omnibus simul, vero proprioque jurisdic
tionis primatu fuisse a Christo instructum : aut qui affirmant, eundem
primatum non immediate directeque ipsi beato Petro, sed Ecclesiae, et per
hanc illi ut ipsius Ecclesiae ministro delatum fuisse.
Si quis igitur dixerit, beatum Petrum Apostolum non esse a Christo
Domino constitutum Apostolorum omnium principem et totius Ecclesiae
militantis visibile caput ; vel eundem honoris tantum, non autem verae
propriaeque jurisdictionis primatum ab eodem Domino nostra Jesu Christo
directe et immediate accepisse ; anathema sit.
CAPUT II.
De perpetuitate Primatus beati Petri in Romanis
pontificibus.
Quod autem in beato Apostolo Petro princeps pastorum et pastor
magnus ovium Dominus Christus Jesus in perpetuam salutem ac perenne
bonum Ecclesiae instituit, id eodem auctore in Ecclesia, quaefundata super
* loan. i. 42. t Matt. xvi. 16-19. X Ioan- xxi- 'S-1?-
2 I

482 APPENDIX. [cap. m.
petram ad finem saeculorum usque firma stabit, jugiter durare necesse est.
Nulli sane dubium, imo saeculis omnibus notum est, quod sanctus beatissi-
musque Petrus, Apostolorum princeps et caput fideique columna, et Ecclesiae
catholicae fundamentum, a Domino nostra Jesu Christo, Salvatore humani
generis ac Redemptore, claves regni accepit : qui ad hoc usque tempus et
semper in suis successoribus, episcopis sanctae Romanae Sedis, ab ipso
fundatae, ejusque consecratae sanguine, vivit et praesidet et judicium
exercet.* Unde quicumque in hac Cathedra Petro succedit, is secundum
Christi ipsius institutionem primatum Petri in universam Ecclesiam, obtinet.
Manet ergo dispositio veritatis, et beatus Petrus, in accepta fortitudine
petrae perseverans, suscepta Ecclesiae gubernacula non reliquit.f Hacde
causa ad Romanam Ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse
semper fuit omnem convenire Ecclesiam, hoc est, eos, qui sunt undique
fideles, ut in ea Sede, e qua venerandae communionis jura in omnes
dimanant, tamquam membra in capite consociata, in unam corporis
compagem coalescerent.J
Si quis ergo dixerit, non esse ex ipsius Christi Domini institutione, seu
jure divino, ut beatus Petrus in primatu super universam Ecclesiam habeat
perpetuos successores ; aut Romanum Pontificem non esse beati Petri in
eodem primatu successorem ; anathema sit.
CAPUT III
DE VI ET RATIONE PRIMATUS ROMANI PONTIFICIS.
Quapropter apertis innixi sacrarum litterarum testimoniis, et inhaerentes
turn Praedecessorum Nostrorum, Romanorum Pontificum, turn Conciliorum
generalium disertis perspicuisque decretis, innovamus oecumenici Concilii
Florentini definitionem, qua credendum ab omnibus Christi fidelibus est,
sanctam Apostolicam Sedem, et Romanum Pontificem in universum orbem
tenere primatum, et ipsum Pontificem Romanum successorem esse beati
Petri, principis Apostolorum, et verum Christi Vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiae
caput, et omnium Christianorum patrem ac doctorem existere ; et ipsi in
beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem Ecclesiam a
Domino nostra Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse ; quemad-
modum etiam in gestis oecumenicorum Conciliorum et sacris canonibus
continetur. Docemus proinde et declaramus, Ecclesiam Romanam, disponente
Domino, super omnes alias ordinariae potestatis obtinere principatum, et
hanc Romani Pontificis jurisdictionis potestatem, quae vere episcopalis est,
immediatam esse : erga quam cujuscumque ritus et dignitatis pastores
* Cf. Ephesini Cone. Act. III.
t S. Leo M. Serm. in. (al. 11.) cap. 3.
J S. Iren. Adv. haer. 1. in. c. 3. et Cone. Aquil. a. 381. inter epp. S. Ambros.
ep. xi.

cap. iii.J DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 483
atque fideles, tam seorsum singuli quam simul omnes, officio hierarchicae
subordinationis veraeque obedientiae obstringuntur, non solum in rebus
quae ad fidem et mores, sed etiam in iis, quae ad disciplinam et regimen
Ecclesiae per totum orbem diffusae pertinent; ita ut, custodita cum
Romano Pontifice tam communionis, quam ejusdem fidei professionis
unitate, Ecclesiae Christi sit unus grex sub uno summo pastore. Haec est
catholicae veritatis doctrina, a qua deviare salva fide atque salute nemo
potest. Tantum autem abest, ut haec Summi Pontificis potestas officiat ordi-
nariae ac immediatae illi episcopalis jurisdictionis potestati, qua Episcopi,
qui positi a Spiritu Sancto in Apostolorum locum successerunt, tamquam
veri pastores assignatos sibi greges, singuli singulos, pascunt et regunt,
ut eadem a supremo et universali Pastore asseratur, roboretur ac vin-
dicetur, secundum illud sancti Gregorii Magni : Meus honor est honor
universalis Ecclesiae. Meus honor est fratrum meorum solidus vigor. Turn
ego vere honoratus sum, cum singulis quibusque honor debitus non
negatur.* Porro ex suprema ilia Romani Pontificis potestate gubernandi universam
Ecclesiam jus eidem esse consequitur, in hujus sui muneris exercitio libere
communicandi cum pastoribus et gregibus totius Ecclesiae, ut iidem ab
ipso in via salutis doceri ac regi possint. Quare damnamus ac reprobamus
illorum sententias, qui hanc supremi capitis cum pastoribus et gregibus
communicationem licite impediri posse dicunt, aut eandem reddunt
saeculari potestati obnoxiam, ita ut contendant, quae ab Apostolica Sede
vel ejus auctoritate ad regimen Ecclesiae constituuntur, vim ac valorem non
habere, nisi potestatis saecularis placito confirmentur.
Et quoniam divino Apostolici primatus jure Romanus Pontifex universae
Ecclesiae praeest, docemus etiam et declaramus, eum esse judicem supre-
mum fidelium, t et in omnibus causis ad examen ecclesiasticum spectan-
tibus ad ipsius posse judicium recurri ; X Sedis vero Apostolicae, cujus
auctoritate major non est, judicium a nemine fore retractandum, neque
cuiquam de ejus licere judicare judicio. § Quare a recto veritatis tramite
aberrant, qui affirmant, licere ab judiciis Romanorum Pontificum ad
oecumenicum Concilium tamquam ad auctoritatem Romano Pontifice
superiorem appellare.
Si quis itaque dixerit, Romanum Pontificem habere tantummodo officium
inspectionis vel directionis, non autem plenam et supremam potestatem
jurisdictionis in universam Ecclesiam, non solum in rebus, quae ad fidem
et mores, sed etiam in iis, quae ad disciplinam et regimen Ecclesiae per
totum orbem diffusae pertinent ; aut eum habere tantum potiores partes,
* Ep. ad Eulog. Alexandria 1. VIII. ep. XXX.
f PiiP. VI. Breve, Super soliditate d. 28. Nov. 1786.
X Concil. Oecum. Lugdun. 11.
§ Ep. Nicolai 1. ad Michaelem Imperatorem.
2 I 2

484 APPENDIX. [cap. iv.
non vero totam plenitudinem hujus supremae potestatis ; aut hanc ejus
potestatem non esse ordinariam et immediatam sive in omnes ac singulas
ecclesias, sive in omnes et singulos pastores et fideles ; anathema sit.

CAPUT IV.
De Romani Pontificis infallibili magisterio.
Ipso autem Apostolico primatu, quern Romanus Pontifex, tamquam Petri
principis Apostolorum successor, in universam Ecclesiam obtinet, supremam
quoque magisterii potestatem comprehendi, haec Sancta Sedes semper
tenuit, perpetuus Ecclesiae usus comprobat, ipsaque oecumenica Concilia,
ea imprimis, in quibus Oriens cum Occidente in fidei charitatisque unionem
conveniebat, declaraverunt. Patres enim Concilii Constantinopolitani quarti,
majorum vestigiis inhaerentes, hanc solemnem ediderunt professionem :
Prima salus est, rectae fidei regulam custodire. Et quia non potest Domini
nostri Jesu Christi praetermitti sententia dicentis : Tu es Petrus, et super
hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, haec, quae dicta sunt, rerum
probantur effectibus, quia in Sede Apostolica immaculata est semper
catholica reservata religio, et sancta celebrata doctrina. Ab hujus ergo
fide et doctrina separari minime cupientes, speramus, ut in una com-
munione, quam Sedes Apostolica praedicat, esse mereamur, in qua est
integra et vera Christianae religionis soliditas.J Approbante vero Lugdu-
nensi Concilio secundo, Graeci professi sunt : Sanctam Romanam Ecclesiam
summum et plenum primatum et principatum super universam Ecclesiam
catholicam obtinere, quem se ab ipso Domino in beato Petro, Apostolorum
principe sive vertice, cujus Romanus Pontifex est successor, cum potestatis
plenitudine recepisse veraciter ethumiliter recognoscit; et sicut prae caete-
ris tenetur fidei veritatem defendere, sic et, si quae de fide subortae fuerint
quaestiones, suo debent judicio definiri. Florentinum denique Concilium
definivit: Pontificem Romanum, verum Christi Vicarium, totiusque Ecclesiae
caput et omnium Christianorum patrem ac doctorem existere ; et ipsi in
beato Petro pascendi, regendi ac gubernandi universalem Ecclesiam a
Domino nostra Jesu Christo plenam potestatem traditam esse.
Huic pastorali muneri ut satisfacerent, Praedecessores Nostri indefessam
semper operam dederunt, ut salutaris Christi doctrina apud omnes terrae
populos propagaretur, parique cura vigilarunt, ut, ubi recepta esset, sincera
et pura conservaretur. Quocirca totius orbis Antistites, nunc singuli, nunc in
Synodis congregati, longam ecclesiarum consuetudinem et antiquae regulae
formam sequentes, ea praesertim pericula, quae in negotiis fidei emergebant,
ad hanc Sedem Apostolicam retulerunt, ut ibi potissimum resarcirentur
X Ex formula S. Hormisdae Papae, prout ab Hadriano II. Patribus " Concili
Oecumenici vii., Constantinopolitani iv. proposita et ab iisdem subscripta est.

cap. iv.J DECREES OF THE VATICAN COUNCIL. 485
damna fidei, ubi fides non potest sentire defectum.-)" Romani autem Ponti-
fices, prout temporum et rerum conditio suadebat, nunc convocatis oecu-
menicis Conciliis aut explorata Ecclesiae per orbem dispersae sententia,
nunc per Synodos particulares, nunc aliis, quae divina suppeditabat provi-
dentia, adhibitis auxiliis, ea tenenda definiverunt, quae sacris Scripturis
et apostolicis Traditionibus consentanea, Deo adjutore, cognoverant. Neque
enim Petri successoribus Spiritus Sanctus promissus est, ut eo revelante
novam doctrinam patefacerent, sed ut, eo assistente, traditam per Apostolos
revelationem seu fidei depositum sancte custodirent et fideliter exponerent.
Quorum quidem apostolicam doctrinam omnes venerabiles Patres amplexi
et sancti Doctores orthodoxi venerati atque secuti sunt ; plenissime scien-
tes, hanc sancti Petri Sedem ab omni semper errore illibatam permanere,
secundum Domini Salvatoris nostri divinam pollicitationem discipulorum
suorum principi factam : Ego roga'd pro te, ut non deficiat fides tua, et tu
aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos.
Hoc igitur veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis charisma Petro ejusque
in hac Cathedra successoribus divinitus collatum est, ut excelso suo munere
in omnium salutem fungerentur, ut universus Christi grex per eos ab erroris
venenosa esca aversus, coelestis doctrinae pabulo nutriretur, ut, sublata
schismatis occasione, Ecclesia tota una conservaretur, atque suo fundamento
innixa, firma adversus inferi portas consisteret.
At vero cum hac ipsa aetate, qua salutifera Apostolici muneris efficacia
vel maxime requiritur, non pauci inveniantur, qui illius auctoritati obtrec-
tant ; necessarium omnino esse censemus, praerogativam, quam unigenitus
Dei Filius cum summo pastorali officio conjungere dignatus est, solemniter
asserere. Itaque Nos traditioni a fidei Christianae exordio perceptae fideliter
inhaerendo, ad Dei Salvatoris nostri gloriam, religionis Catholicae exalta-
tionem et Christianorum populorum salutem, sacro approbante Concilio,
docemus et divinitus revelatum dogma esse definimus : Romanum Ponti
ficem, cum ex Cathedra loquitur, id est, cum omnium Christianorum Pastoris
et Doctoris munere fungens pro suprema sua Apostolica auctoritate doctri
nam de fide vel moribus ab universa Ecclesia tenendam definit, per assisten-
tiam divinam, ipsi in beato Petro promissam, ea infallibilitate pollere, qua
divinus Redemptor Ecclesiam suam in definienda doctrina de fide vel mori
bus instructam essevoluit; ideoque ejusmodi Romani Pontificis definitiones
ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae, irreformabiles esse.
Si quis autem huic Nostrae definitioni contradicere, quod Deus avertat,
praesumpserit ; anathema sit.

* Cf. S. Bern. Epist. cxc.

486 APPENDIX.

SUSPENSIO CONCILII.
Postquam Dei munere Oecumenici Vaticani Concilii celebrationem inire
anno proxime superiori Nobis datum est, vidimus, sapientia, virtute ac
sollicitudine Patrum, qui ex omnibus orbis terrarum partibus frequentissimi
convenerant, maxime adnitente, ita res gravissimi hujus et sanctissimi
operis procedere, ut spes certa Nobis affulgeret, eos fructus, quos vehe-
menter optabamus, in religionis bonum et Ecclesiae Dei humanaeque
societatis utilitatem ex illo fore profecturos. Et sane, jam quatuor publicis
ac solemnibus sessionibus habitis, salutares atque opportunae in causa fidei
Constitutiones a Nobis, eodem sacra approbante Concilio, editae ac pro-
mulgatae fuerunt, aliaque turn causam fidei, turn ecclesiasticae disciplinae
spectantia ad examen a Patribus revocata, quae suprema docentis
Ecclesiae auctoritate brevi sanciri ac promulgari possent. Confidebamus,
istiusmodi labores, communi fraternitatis studio ac zelo, suos progressus
habere, et ad optatum exitum facili prosperoque cursu perduci posse ; —
sed sacrilega repente invasio hujus almae Urbis, Sedis Nostrae, et reli-
quarum temporalis Nostrae ditionis regionum, qua, contra omne fas, civilis
Nostri et Apostolicae Sedis principatus inconcussa jura, incredibili perfidia
et audacia, violata sunt, in eam Nos rerum conditionem conjecit, ut sub
hostili dominatione et potestate, Deo sic permittente, ob imperscrutabilia
judicia sua, penitus constituti simus. In hac luctuosa rerum conditione,
cum nos a libero expeditoque usu supremae auctoritatis Nobis divinitus
collatae multis modis impediamur, cumque probe intelligamus, minime
ipsis Vaticani Concilii Patribus in hac alma Urbe, praedicto rerum statu
manente, necessariam libertatem, securitatem, tranquillitatem suppetere et
constare posse ad res Ecclesiae Nobiscum rite pertractandas, cumque
praeterea necessitates fidelium, in tantis iisque notissimis Europae calami-
tatibus et motibus, tot pastores a suis ecclesiis abesse haud patiantur ; —
idcirco Nos, eo res adductas magno cum animi Nostri moerore perspici-
entes, ut Vaticanum Concilium tali in tempore cursum suum omnino tenere
non possit ; praevia matura deliberatione, motu proprio ejusdem Vaticani
Oecumenici Concilii celebrationem usque ad aliud opportunius et commodius
tempus per hanc sanctam Sedem declarandum Apostolica auctoritate,
tenore praesentium, suspendimus, et suspensam esse nunciamus, Deum
adprecantes, auctorem et vindicem Ecclesiae Suae, ut, submotis tandem
impedimentis omnibus Sponsae Suae fidelissimae ocius restituat libertatem
et pacem.

INDEX.

Abilius, 359.
Abraham's servants, number of, 158.
Absentee bishop, the first, 344.
Acclamations at Councils, 310.
Act of faith, 97.
iElia and Jerusalem, 366.
Africanus, 135.
Agatho, Pope, 338.
Agreement of different Churches proves
what? 150.
Alacoque, 204, 224.
Alexander VII., 253.
Alexandria, supposed peculiarity of its
Church, 359.
 its rivalry with Constantinople,
293, 3°'. 365-
 and Antioch, their different ten
dencies, 161, 166, 307, 408.
Allegory, 161.
Ambiguity of word ' authority,' 177.
 'tradition,' 141.
Ambrose, 162, 164, 330, 412.
Ammianus Marcellinus, 281.
Ammonius, monk, 299.
Anacletus, 346, 355.
Anathemas appended to decrees of
Councils, 90.
Anianus, 359.
Anicetus, 352, 380.
Anointing of sick, 156.
Antioch, its claims to precedence, 367,
408.
 schism at, 291.
 the Chair of Peter, 326, 345.
 Council of, orthodox, 286.

Antioch, Council of, Semiarian, 377,
4°5» 4°7-
Antipopes, frequency of, 389.
Antiquity, the appeal to, 42.
Antoninus of Florence, 393.
Apiarius, 408, 415.
Apollinarianism, 314.
Apollonius, 348.
Apostolate, the highest office in the
Church, 326.
Apostolic constitutions, 359.
Appeals, necessity for, 275, 404.
A priori arguments for Infallibility,
Lect. vi.
Aquinas on Immaculate Conception,
179, 265.
 on doctrine of grace, 185.
 on persecution, 191.
 on false decretals, 446.
Archdeacon often succeeded to bishop
ric at Rome, 395, 423.
Arguments, bad, at Councils, 280, 320.
Arianism, 166, 267, 279-286.
Ariminum, Council of, 288.
Aries, Council of, 399, 403.
Armenians, instruction to, 432.
Arminian controversy, 184.
Articles of Church of England, 124,
138. H°, '52, 204.
Assumption of B. V. M., 40, 106.
Athanasius, 267, 284, 291, 405, 423.
 on Invocation of Virgin, 37
 on sufficiency of Scripture,
153-
Athenaeus, 377.

488

INDEX.

Augustan History, 311.
Augustine on Invocation of Virgin, 37.
 on intelligibility of Scrip
ture, 90.

on authority of Scripture,
on Purgatory, 133.
on use of allegory, 163.
on persecution of hereties,
 on authority of Nicene
Council, 288.
 on rock of the Church,

143, 145-

191.

329-33"

 ' Securus judicat orbis ter
rarum,' 266.
Auxiliis, Congregations de, 185.
Avignon, 259, 390.
Babylonish Captivity, 390.
Bacon, Lord, 165, 187, 270.
Bailly, 24.
Baptism, conditional, 399.
 heretical, 143, 145, 399.
 infant, 95.
Barberini, Cardinal, 233.
Barnabas, Epistle of, 158.
Baronius, 101, 344, 392, 445.
Barrow, 362.
Basil, 142, 369, 370.
Basilides of Spain, 401.
Basle, Council of, 316.
Bath, bridge at, 73.
Beauty of our Lord's Person, 135.
Bede, Venerable, 339.
Beliefs, how we get them, 63.
Bellarmine on Scripture and tradition,
28, I2S, 133, 139-
 on notes of the Church, 1 70.
 and the Congregations de auxiliis,
185.
 on persecution, 192.
 on Purgatory, 208-210.
 and Sixtus V., 228.
 and Galileo, 233, 236.
 on Councils, 283.

Bellarmine on our Lord's prayer for
Peter, 338.
 on ex cathedra decisions, 432.
 and the false decretals, 446.
 on the Pope, 449.
 why his work was placed on the
Index, 459, 460.
Benedict VIII., 209.
Benumbing effect of Doctrine of Infal
libility, 106.
Bernard, St., 93, 212.
Bible (see Scripture), not in Milner's
sense, an infallible guide, 81-4.
 why translated into Latin, 117.
 reading, if Church infallible, all
risk and no gain, 116.
 encouraged by early Fathers, 118.
 discouraged by Church of Rome,
123.
Bigne, De la, 238.
Bishops, Roman Catholic, oath taken
by, 361-
Blastus, 276.
Boccaccio, 101.
Boniface VIII., 433, 457.
 St., 446.
Books, religion not to be learned from,
"3-
Bossuet, his controversy with Jurieu, 34.
 opposes doctrine of Develop
ment, 35.
 his Variations, 34, 85.
 himself illustrates variations of
Romanism, 86.
 his adulation of Louis XIV., 258.
 on Gallicanism, 259, sqq.
Bribery used by Cyril, 306.
Bridget, St., 218.
Browne, Bishop, 287, 290.
Brownson's Review, 36, 87.
Bulgarians, 431.
Bull, Bishop, 35, 36.
Butler's Analogy, 68, 100.
Bumet on the Articles, 184, 222, 450..
Busby, Dr., 109.
Byzantium (see Constantinople).

INDEX.

489

Csecilian of Carthage, 403.
Caelestius, 424.
Caesarea, 284, 367.
Caius, 343.
Callistus, 382-388.
Capes, 61, 174.
Cappucini, 411.
Carbonarian faith, 92, 435.
Cardinals, 395.
Carleton, 213.
Carpocratians, 353.
Castelli, 232.
Catechisms, changes in Romish, 25.
 not guaranteed from error,
192.
Cathedra, ex, 172, 251, 429-433.
Catherine of Siena, 390.
Ceremonies and Church customs, 140.
Certainty, to what kind of certainty
Romanists lay claim, 61.
 the less we talk of it, the more we
have, 76.
Chalcedon, Council of, 287, 307-314,
371, 4°7, 4'6.
Charter text, 154, 331.
Chrestus of Syracuse, 403.
Chrysostom, his treatment by Cyril,
300-304.
 on Scripture, 89, 116-121, 166.
 on Invocation of Virgin, 37.
 on Transubstantiation, 93.
 on primacy of Peter, 329, 338, 339.
Church Quarterly Review, 407.
Civil greatness of cities regulates pre
cedence of their sees, 365, 370.
Claudius, second year of, 344-357.
Clement of Alexandria, 134, 162.
 of Rome, 136, 218,343, 347,
354-5, 371-4-
 Pseudo-, 340, 355, 366, 443.
 VII., 391.
 VIII., 185, 229.
Cletus, 353.
Clifford, Bishop, 55.
 Professor, 65.
Clifton Tracts, 244.

Cloquet, Abbe, 216, 240.
Colenso, 279, 443.
Commentaries on Scripture not guar
anteed from error, 189.
Communion in one kind, 3 1 .
Conditional baptism, 399.
Confession of Peter, its importance,
333-
Constance, Council of, 260, 315.
Constantine, Emperor, 279, 403.
 fables about, 451, 465.
Constantine, Pope, 289.
Constantinople, its rise to the second
place, 365, 370.
 its rivalry with Alexandria, 293,
301.
 Council of, 290-295, 411, 416.
Contemporary Review, 216, 240.
Copernicus, 75, 231, 237, 439.
Cornelius and Novatian, 395.
Councils, their value as witnesses, 279.
 which received by Church of
England, 289.
Crawford, Lord, 345.
Cullen, Cardinal, 240.
Cunningham, Dr., 347, 37L
Cyprian, 93, 143, 399, 401, 451.
Cyril of Alexandria, 282, 298-306, 314,
329, 34°-
Damasus, 369, 413, 424, 443.
Decretal Epistles, 340, 443-449.
Decretum of Gratian, 448.
Demophilus, 421.
Deposing power, 451-461.
Development, theory of, 29-41, 149,
202-205, 230, 270-272, 286, 362-
3^4-
Devil-worshippers, 87, 88.
Didache, 381.
Diodorus of Tarsus, 165.
Dionysius of Alexandria, 144, 369, 400.
 of Corinth, 343, 368, 373

374-

• Exiguus, 444.
¦ of Rome, 369.

490

INDEX.

Dioscorus, 313.
Ditheism, 283, 386, 388.
Dollinger, von, 22-3, 50, 256, 346-352,
357-9, 387-8-
Dominicans, 179, 184, 232.
Domnus, 303.
Donatists, 145, 266-7, 282, 403.
Double face of Romish teaching, 188.
Doyle, Bishop, 264.
Duration of our Lord's ministry, 135.
Easter controversies : see Quartodeci-
man.
Eastern divisions helped cause of Rome,
398.
Ebbo, 448.
Ecclesiastes, 163.
Ecumenical bishop, 417.
Edwards and Warburton, 228.
Eleutherus, 353, 381.
Elizabeth, 2, 289, 462.
Emancipation bill, 190, 263.
Encyclical of Pius IX., 439-442
Eothen, 64.
Ephesus, Council of, 298-306.
 second Council, 308-310.
Epiphanius, 353, 359.
Episcopacy, 148, 350, 362.
Eraclius, 311.
Erasmus, 339.
Eugenius IV., 432.
Eunuch, Ethiopian, 120.
Eusebius, 284, 345, 367, 381.
Euthalius, 136.
Eutychianism, 166, 306-310, 426.
Excommunication, 275, 379.
Exorcism, 381.
Explicit belief, 91.
Expurgatory indexes, 33, 237.
Extreme Unction, 128, 156.
Exucontians, 285.
Faber, Father, 205, 214, 461.
Faith, 80, 97, 107, 220, 473.
Fathers, 15, 33, 128, 270, 396.
Felix of Rome, 421, 423.
 of Spain, 401.

Ffoulkes, 174, 197, 31b.
Fides Carbonarii, 92.
Field, 289.
Firmilian, 144, 400.
Florence, Council of, 316, 320, 480,
482.
Forgeries, Roman, 409, 450.
Fortunatian, 421.
Foscarini, 237.
Foundation of the Church, 332.
Fox, 3.
Francesca, 206, 216.
Franciscans, 179, 182.
Furniss, Father, 95.
Galileo, 230-256.
GalHcanism, 87, 209, 258-272, 306.
Gallic Churches, 381.
Gelasius, 451.
Genealogy, double of our Lord, 135.
Geographical classification of authori
ties, 397.
Gertrude, Saint, 205.
Gibbings, 192.
Gibson's Preservative, 173.
Giordano Bruno, 246.
Gnostic appeal to tradition, 147-8.
Goodwin, 224.
Grabe's Irenaeus, 376.
Gratian, 448.
Gregory the Great, 165, 207, 287, 417.
 VII., 445, 456-
 XL, 389, 390.
 XVI., 199, 239, 440, 466.
 Nazianzen, 287, 290-295, 301,
344, 377-
 Nyssen, 329.
Giinther, 250-1.
Gury, 95.
Hadrian, revolt of Jews under, 366.
Hammond, 289.
Harper, Father, 202, 218, 273.
Harvey's Irenaeus, 377.
Hatch, Dr., 359.
Hawkins, Dr., 124.
Heart, Sacred, 224.

INDEX.

491

Hebrews, Epistle to, 136.
Hegesippus, 352-4, 366.
Helena, Empress, 367.
Henry Emperor, deposition of, 456.
Henry VIII., 258, 261.
Heraclea and Constantinople, 365.
Heracleon, 167.
Heresy, material and formal, 93.
Heretics, propriety of burning them
189-192, 246.
 apologies for, 434.
Heretical baptism, 143, 145, 399.
Hermas, 136.
Hermeneutical tradition, Lect. X.
Heros and Lazarus, 425.
Hilary, 329, 421.
Hildebrand, 445.
Hincmar, 445.
Hippolytus, 161, 354, 357, 377, 382-388.
Homoousios, 267, 285, 288, 422.
Honorius, 428, 433-7.
Hosius, Cardinal, 92.
Hypatia, 300, 308.
Iconoclastic controversy, 315.
Ignatius, 346, 359, 362, 375.
Ignorance of Eastern world as to Ro
man bishop, 388, 394.
 of Roman authorized teachers,
193-
Illative sense, 68.
Illyricus, Flacius, 447.
Immaculate Conception, 20, 106, 132,
157, 177-183, 223.
Index, congregation of, 236, 252.
 expurgatory and prohibitory, 33,
237-
Infallible Church, what it really is, 1 10.
Infallibility, cardinal importance of the
doctrine, 17.
 full extent of the claim, 19.
 late beginning of the claim, 419.
 in matters of fact, 223, 410.
 truth of the doctrine assumed by
Protestants, 269.
Innocent I., 370, 424.

Innocent III., 209, 456, 463.
 IV., 95-
 X., 410.
Inquisition, 236, 246, 44L
Interpretation of Scripture, 127, 154,
248, 473-
 two schools of, 161.
Invocation of Virgin, 37.
Irenaeus, 27, 135, 138, 150, 276, 346,
352, 375, 38o, 480.
Isidore of Pelusium, 303.
 of Spain, 444.
James, our Lord's brother, 156, 340,
355, 366, 447-
 Dr., 229.
Jansenists, 222, 224, 262, 410.
Janus, 22, 260.
Jerome, 27, 146, 163, 267, 292, 413.
Jerusalem, 350, 367.
Jesuits, 173, 184, 224, 238.
Jewel, 28.
Jews at Alexandria, 299.
John the Apostle, claimed by Quarto-
decimans, 379.
 his Gospel, 96, 167, 339.
 of Antioch, 303, 367.
 King of England, 462.
 ofLeyden, 79.
 XXII., 186.
Josephism, 209.
Judas Iscariot, 301, 303, 304.
Julius, Pope, 314, 406-7.
 III. 186.
Jurieu, 34.
Justinian, 287, 427.
Juvenal of Jerusalem, 367, 417.
Keenan's Catechism, 25, 192.
Kenrick, Bishop, 264, 321.
Knock, miracle of, 222.
Kopallik, 300.
Lalande, 239.
Lamerliere, Constance, 221.
Latrocinium, 310, 318.
Launoy, 329.

492

INDEX.

Lausanne, bishop of, 199.
Leo the Great, 307, 313, 344, 417, 426.
 X., 186, 192.
 XII., 199, 209.
Liber Pontif calls, 450.
Liberianlist of Roman bishops, 351.
Liberius, 267, 282, 420-424.
Lightfoot, Bishop, 353, 374.
Liguori, 194, 207.
Limbus, 208.
Lindsay, Lord, 345.
Linus, 346, 355.
Lipsius, 354.
Littledale, 95, 123, 407, 450.
Llamaism, 43.
Locke, 65.
Loretto, 197.
Louis XIV., 258-261.
Lourdes, 221-4.
Louvet, Abbe", 206-16.
Lucian, martyr, 165.
Lutgarde, 209.
Luther, 192.
Macarius Magnes, 164.
Macaulay, 258.
Macnamara's Bible, 189.
Magdeburg Centuriators, 447.
Mahony, 466.
Maimbourg, 390, 393.
Maistre, de, 263.
Majority in a Council, what necessary,
305-
Malachi, King, 213.
Maldonatus, 329.
Mallock, 59.
Manning, 18, 41-2, 87, 280, 319, 433,
462, 467.
Marcellina, 353.
Marcellinus, 450.
Marcellus of Ancyra, 405.
Marcia, 385.
Marcian, 313.
Margaret Mary, 204, 224.
Maria Celeste, 231.
 Taigi, 209.

Mark, St., and Alexandria, 408.
Martial of Spain, 401.
Mary (see Assumption, Immaculate
Conception), 21, 31, 37, 122, 161,
194, 202, 206.
Maskell, 106.
Matthias, election of, 339, 340.
Maurice, 173.
Maximinus, Arian, 288.
Maximizers and Minimizers, 438.
Maximus the Cynic, 412.
Maynooth, 24, 183, 263.
Melchior Canus, 449.
Melchites, 313.
Meletius of Antioch, 291, 413.
 of Egypt, 414.
Memnon, 309.
Messianic passages in O. T., 159.
Metaphors used with different applica
tions, 332.
Michael the Archangel, 206.
Migne, Abbe, 130.
Migration from see to see, 344.
Millennium, 136.
Milner, Bishop, 20, 32, 78-107, 128,
132, 182.
Miracles, 44, 197.
Mivart, St. George, 240, 254-6.
Mohler, 30.
Molina, 185.
Monophysites, 313.
Monothelism, 428, 434.
Montanism, 79, 217, 381.
Morcelli, 383.
Munificence of Roman Chmch, 368,
443-
Murray, Archbishop, 264.
 Professor, 327.
Nantes, edict of, 258.
Napoleon, 209, 262.
Neander, 377.
Nero, 452.
Nestorians, 166, 225, 297-303, 307.
Newman : see Development.
 on Anglican difficulties, 10.

INDEX.

493

Newman : his tracts against Romanism,
18.
 his letter to Bishop Ulla-
thorne, 21.
.  on invocation of Virgin, 37.
 . — his attempt to escape the
' argument in a circle,' 57.
 his grammar of assent, 63-77.
 on the faith required from

the unlearned, 91.
 on Syrian school of interpre

tation, 166.
 on absence of claim of infalli

bility, 173.
 on the organ of infallibihty,

176.

¦ his reconciliation of Anglican

and Roman doctrine of tradition,
I52-I59-
 on Liguori, 195.
 how converted, 266.
 on Councils of fifth century,

282-317.
 owns modemness of doctrine

of Papal supremacy, 361, 397.
 on Hippolytus, 387.
 on the Syllabus, 439.

Newton, 238.
Nicaea,Council of, 279-289,380,414,417.
 second Council of, 314.
Nicolas I., 431, 445-9-
Noetians, 385-6.
Notes of the Church, 170.
Novatians, 299, 395.
Oath, taken by Roman bishops, 361.
Obiter dicta, 431.
O'Connell, 190, 459.
Old Catholics, 22-24.
Opportunism, 184.
Orders, Sacrament of, 432.
Organ of Infallibility, 176.
Origen, 162-166, 330, 384.
Orsi, Cardinal, 383.
Pallavicino, 312.
Papal States, 463~5-

Papias, 136.
Parabolani, 308.
Paray-le-Monial, 224.
Passive obedience, 455.
Patriarchates, 415.
Patrick, St., 212.
Patripassians, 384.
Paul, St., 346, 352, 359.
 of Samosata, 286.
 IV., 186.
 V., 251.
Paulinus of Antioch, 291, 412.
Pelagianism, 184, 424.
Pericles, 41.
Perrone, 30.
Persecution, ethics of, 190-2.
Persecutors, not always bad men, 3.
Petavius, 34.
Peter, St., his prerogatives, 323-40.
 his connexion withRome, 341-359.
 hisconnexionwithAntioch, 344-5.
 succession from, first claimed by
Stephen, 399, 401.
 our Lord's prayer for, 336-9, 420,
449, 483-
 deacon of Alexandria, 300.
Petitio principii, 54, 58.
Petra and Petrus, 330.
Petrasancta, 192.
Philip and the Eunuch, 120.
Philippopolis, 405.
Philo and allegory, 162.
Philumena, 198-201.
Photius, 445.
Pius I., 353.
 IV., 127, 173, 189, 305.
 VI., 209.
 VII., 209.
 IX., 177, 196, 224, 250, 320,430,
439, 445, 464, 467-
Polycarp, 356, 380.
Polycrates, 276, 374.
Popes, Lects. xix.-xxin.
Praxeas, 384.
Precedence of sees determined by
greatness of their cities, 365, 370,408.

494

INDEX.

Prescription, Tertullian on, 146-151.
Presidency of Councils, 284, 291, 307.
Primacy originally belonged to Church,
not bishop of Rome, 374.
Primus of Corinth, 352.
Printers' errors, 228.
Private judgment, 46-52, 323.
Proofs not offered by Romish Church,
127.
Protestant, use and origin of word, 9.
Prout, 466.
Psalm xiv. 1, 159.
Purgatory, 133, 206-214.
Pusey, 43, 152, 194, 202, 273, 402, 421,
433-
Qualifiers, 235.
Quarry, Dr., 266.
Quartodecimans, 276, 374, 377.
Quinisext Council, 417.
Quiroga's Index, 238.
Retractations of St. Augustine, 330.
Revelation, book of, 161.
Revelations, modern, Lect. xm.
Rheims, 200, 447.
Rhemish notes, 189.
Robber Synod, 308-10, 419.
Roberts, Rev. W. W., 250.
Robertson, 315.
Rock of the Church, 327-36, 382.
Rome, natural causes for its prece
dence, 367.
 the idea of its supremacy origi
nated in Rome, and not known
elsewhere, 397.
Rufinus, 415.
Rule of faith, 125, 138-51, 204.
Ryder, Father, 216, 218, 241.
Sabellianism, 384.
Sabinus of Spain, 401.
Sales, St. Francis de, 280.
Salette, 219.
Sardica, Council of, 405-10.
Scepticism and Romanism, 5.
Schism, 8, 10.

Schism great Western, 389-94.
Scotus, Duns, 179.
Scripture argument for primacy of
Rome, 325.
Scripture reading encouraged by early
Church, 117.
 discouraged by Church of Rome,
123.
Scripture, sufficiency of, Lect. VIII.
Sergius, Monothelite, 428.
Seymour, Mr., 173.
Silenceof Scripture as toPapacy, 82, 327.
Simon Stock, 218.
Sinuessa, Council of, 450.
Siricius, Pope, 444.
Sirmian Creed, 422.
Sixtus IV., 180-83.
 V., 186, 226-9, 252, 459.
Socrates, historian, 299, 407,
Sophronius of Jerusalem, 435.
Soter, 353, 368, 374.
Soubirous, Bernadotte, 221.
South, 452.
Southcote, Joanna, 71, 204, 215.
Sozomen, 407.
Spires, Diet of, 9.
Spurgeon, 42.
Stability of sacred office, 373.
Stanley, Dean, 294.
Stephen of Rome, 143, 369, 399-402.
OT-npiQeiv, 337.
Stieren's Irenaeus, 377.
Stunica, 237.
Suburbican sees, 395, 415.
Succession of bishops, why first traced,
148.
 of Roman bishops, 136, 355.
Supremacy does not imply infallibihty,
325-
Swift, Dean, 303.
Swords, two, 457.
Syllabus of Pius IX., 439.
Sylvester of Rome, 409.
Syrian school of interpretation, 163.
Syrian colouring of Church History,
345-

INDEX.

495

Tablet, 278.
Taigi, Marie, 209.
Taylor, Jeremy, 16, 142, 289.
Teresa, St., 205.
Tertullian, 138, 141, 146-50, 335, 356,
375, 382.
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 165.
Theodoret, 282, 303, 311, 426.
Theophilus of Alexandria, 301, 304.
Tii\, 158.
Timotheus, Apollinarian, 314.
Todd, 173.
Toleration, how far allowed by the
Pope, 440.
Torture, use of, 246.
Tracts for the Times, 18.
Tradition, Lects. viii., ix.
Travelling expenses of bishops, 277,
281.
Tregelles on Jansenism, 411.
Trent, Council of, 33, 90, 125-8, 156,
180, 184, 202-4, 214, 226, 248, 311,
3'2, 328.
Tyana, 370.
Ubaghs, 251.
Ullathome, Bishop, 21, 219.
Unam Sanctam, the Bull, 433.
Unanimity, whether necessary at Coun
cils, 305.
Ultramontanism, 86, 263.
United States and England, 364.
Unsystematic character of Bible, 113.
University teaching, no.

Urban VI., 391.
 VIII., 199, 233, 241, 251-3,
411.
Ursinus, 424.
Utrecht, 411.
Valentinians, 148,
Van Santen, 411.
Variations, argument from, 85.
Vatican Council, 21, 61, 80, 87, 106,
128, 176, 193, 223, 255, 278, 305,
317-22, 324, 432, 440, 471-484.
Victor, 276, 374, 377-381, 385.
Vigilius, 427.
Vincentius Lirinensis, 32, 36, 217, 265.
Virgin Mary not invocated by early
Church, 37.
 silence of Scripture about her,
122.
 and of early Fathers, 161.
Vitalis, 413.
Vulgate, editions of, 226.
Warburton, 228.
Washing the disciples' feet, 155.
Whately, Archbishop, 17, 73.
Wisdom as described in Prov. viii.,
159, 281.
Wiseman, 347.
Wordsworth, Bishop, 386.
Wyse, Mr., 219.
Zephyrinus, 382, 385.
Zosirnus, 408, 424.

THE END.

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