THE POPE AND THE COUNCIL, BY JANUS.
Since the apostolic bull convoking the General Council of the Vatican, now in session, has been issued by Pius IX., an immense literary activity has manifested itself in most countries about the great and important questions which are supposed to claim the attention of that august assembly of the Catholic Church. Not only Catholic, but also Protestant reviews have engaged in various ways in the discussion of matters relating to the council. Very numerous, indeed, are the pamphlets—nay, books and volumes of greater import—that have been published within the last ten months in Italy, Belgium, France, England, and Germany. It is particularly in this latter country that publications concerning more or less the present council have been most numerous, and prominent reviews have given able and elaborate notices of most of them. Several publications, of this character have been rendered accessible to Italian, French, and English readers, thus exhibiting the importance attached to them outside of Germany.
It is our present purpose to enter upon a closer examination of a work which we have already briefly noticed in a former number, we mean the book, The Pope and the Council, by Janus, of which an authorized translation appeared both in England and in this country.
We adduce this fact as a very peculiar one, which will cause still greater surprise to the reader when he is informed that an authorized French translation appeared but a short time after the original itself.
The reader has already been told what he is to think of the orthodoxy of Janus, when his doctrines are judged by the criterion established by the church. But let us state here at once that we have a right to apply the Catholic test to the doctrine set forth by Janus. For they, namely, the authors (p. 14,) expressly profess to be in communion with the Catholic Church, though "inwardly separated by a great gulf from those whose ideal of the church is an universal empire." The translator, too, presents Janus as "a work of Catholic authorship," and declares "the authors members of a school, morally if not numerically strong, who yield to none in their loyal devotion to Catholic truth!"
In view of such declarations, we may proceed to inquire, What is the aim of Janus? The authors can best answer this question; for, in their opinion, since the forgery of the Isidorian Decretals, about the year 845, the primacy has been distorted and transformed.
"The papacy, such as it has become, presents the appearance of a disfiguring, sickly, and choking excrescence on the organization of the church, hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers, and bringing manifold diseases in its train."
Moreover, Janus boldly asserts à priori that the approaching council will not enjoy that freedom of deliberation necessary to make it truly œcumenical.
"The recently proclaimed council is to be held not only in Italy, but in Rome itself; and already it has been announced that, as the sixth Lateran Council, it will adhere faithfully to the fifth. That is quite enough; it means this: that whatever course the synod may take, one quality can never be predicated of it, namely, that it has been a really free council." (Pp. 345, 346.)
These extracts would be quite sufficient to show the aim of Janus, and his view of the "pope and the council." How such harsh and preposterous language may be reconciled with loyal devotion to Catholic truth, and that commendable piety which the authors of Janus profess, we ask candid and impartial readers to decide.
Janus considers it to be true piety "to expose the weak points of the papacy, denounce its faults, and purposely exhibit their mischievous results;" appealing to a saying of St. Bernard, Melius est ut scandalum oriatur, quam ut veritas relinquatur. It is this intense love of truth which prompts Janus "to oppose, frankly and decisively, every disfigurement" (p. 20) which the church has undergone for nearly a thousand years. "To ward off so fatal a catastrophe," with which the church is now threatened by the council, the authors have attempted in this work to contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion, (p. 27,) and have entered this "protest, based on history," and appeal to the "thinkers among believing Christians," and are modest enough to hope that their "labors will attract attention in scientific circles, and serve as a contribution to ecclesiastical history." (Preface.)
We cannot, therefore, be surprised that a work with such a scientific programme should have caused some sensation, even among Catholic theologians, many of whom were not slow to unmask the historical representations, and "direct reference to original authorities," of which Janus makes such great parade. That Janus was hailed with great delight, not only abroad but also in this country, by an anti-Catholic press, and nearly all reviews or periodicals, cannot be a matter of wonder, when we know that such allies as Janus within our own pale are welcome to the enemies of the church.
In England, Janus was heralded by a grand preliminary and concomitant flourish of trumpets. Every thing was done by a certain very small but very zealous clique to give this book as great a publicity as possible.[62] The North British Review, the Saturday Review, and the Academy, have joined in one chorus of eulogy, exulting over the victory which they think Janus has achieved. Among the many admirers of Janus in our country, suffice it to say that one writer has been so fascinated by this "work, so entirely made up of facts," that he triumphantly exclaims, "No one can help feeling convinced of its veracity." Nay, more than this, the same reviewer pays a compliment to Janus which, considering the source it comes from, involves a strange contradiction. It runs thus,
"The author (Janus) shows himself throughout a thorough Catholic, but an earnest and liberal Christian, a learned canonist, a faithful and discriminating historian."
Without further comments, we propose to meet Janus and his admirers upon equal grounds, since it is their earnest wish
"that the reader's attention should be exclusively concentrated on the matter itself, and that, in the event of its evoking controversy, no opportunity should be given for transferring the dispute from the sphere of objective and scientific investigation of the weighty questions under review." (P. 28.)
We have no reason to dread that facts and "original authorities" must and can speak for themselves, and we too shall hope to see where the saying of Pope Innocent III. is verified, "Falsitas sub velamine sanctitatis tolerari non debet."
In presence of such a vast amount of matter as Janus gives to his readers, and we might say en passant with such little semblance of order and system, it becomes necessary to confine our examination to three leading points: 1. To the manner in which the investigation is conducted, or the scientific character of the work; 2. To the orthodoxy which the authors profess; 3. To the historical and critical parts of the book.
1. As is correctly stated in the "Translator's Notice," the substance of the volume already appeared in a series of articles in the Allgemeine Zeitung, or Gazette of Augsburg, in March, 1869, under the heading of "The Council and the Civilta." In these articles, "historical facts" were brought forward, which called forth prompt and sharp answers from the Catholic reviews of Germany, where several falsehoods were exposed and denounced as gross misrepresentations. When these articles were issued in their present form, the authors of Janus took no notice of the exposure, but quietly dropped from their book these three mendacious statements. Not a word of apology or retractation was offered. An able theologian[63] has pointed out these tactics of Janus; but, to our knowledge, no reply was given.
"Our Janus," says the same critic, "may feel quite at ease; he will not be brought to the stake either for his historical criticism, or even for his heresies; but he has branded himself as a forger by the very act of spiriting away these lies, only to come forward with a look of perfect innocence and palm off upon the world others more numerous."
Indeed, the new name of Janus, assumed by the authors, has also a figurative meaning, inasmuch as a different face may be exhibited, just as the case may demand. Janus declares his love and attachment to the church and the primacy, and regards it as a complete misapplication of the term piety "to conceal or color historical facts and faulty institutions." (P. 20.)
Hence the inference will be legitimate to stigmatize as impious a mode of investigation which misstates and distorts historical facts, shaking at the very foundation both the church and the primacy. And this is precisely what Janus would accomplish, even contrary to his own avowed intention. For, according to him, "The primacy rests on divine appointment;" and still it has been transformed, and has become destructive to the church, rending asunder that unity which to uphold and represent it had been instituted. (Pp. 18, 21.)
"Since the ninth century, a transformation of the primacy, artificial and sickly, the consequences of which have been the splitting up of the previously united church into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other."
If such is the case, where, may we ask, is that primacy of divine institution to be found?—that primacy ever-living and indefectible as the church herself. And yet, we have the word of Janus for it, the primacy, divinely instituted as the centre of unity, has virtually become extinct, and has failed to be the source and centre of unity. Did Janus himself dare to face this inevitable and logical conclusion?
"The Roman bishops not only believed themselves to be in possession of a divine right, and acted accordingly, but this right was actually recognized by others." (P. 22.)
How is this profession to be reconciled with the following one, "that the form which this primacy took depended on the concessions of the particular local churches"?
What the privileges were which Christ himself bestowed on the primacy, Janus nowhere attempts to state. Where, then, is his reason for asserting that the form which the primacy took depended on concessions? Wherein consist the privileges inherent in the primacy by divine right, and which are those conceded by the local churches? Until Janus has distinctly defined these respective limits, with what show of logic and scientific process can he pronounce that for eight centuries the primacy was legitimately developed, and since the ninth century so fatally transformed and totally disfigured? Truly, if he had committed himself to any precise theory,[64] he would have exposed himself to an inglorious refutation; as it is now, he has taken refuge in silence. And yet, in justice to himself, and in order to save his scientific reputation, Janus was obliged to define these divine rights of the primacy before he could venture to say that they had been fatally transformed; thus he is able to bring forward "a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Superficial minds may be ensnared by this deceitful procedure, but fair and scientific thinkers will rise indignantly and enter their solemn protest against such an abuse of logic and history. Moreover, it is obvious that a primacy whose form, that is, rights inherent to it, are made dependent upon the consent of those over whom it is to be exercised, is illusory, and is a mere shadow. It is very difficult to understand how such a novel mode of reasoning should have escaped our authors, who have "written under a deep sense of anxiety," and we fear that, by pledging their faith to such dogmas as the infallibility of the church, and the divinely appointed primacy of St. Peter and his successors, in the person of the bishops of Rome, they have either deluded themselves or hoped to delude others by hollow professions of faith and a hypocritical show of piety.
The authors, having thus left a wide and open field in which to lead astray and bewilder the minds of their readers, do not hesitate to assert, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right in the same way" over the churches in different countries. Quite a captious and vague affirmation in each and every particular. Are we to understand that, because the same primatial rights were not everywhere and uniformly exercised, there were no acknowledged rights of the primacy? And yet to this conclusion, however illogical, such a proposition would lead. If the Roman bishops have not at all times exercised the same rights over the churches in Egypt as over those of Africa or Gaul, it is simply owing to the different condition of the various churches, where the exercise of such rights was not necessary, and by the very nature of things varied to meet the exigencies of the churches. What opinion would we form of a writer—we may be permitted to use a familiar illustration—who, from the fact that Congress did not at one time enforce the same article of our constitution in the State of Ohio as it did in Virginia, concluded that this legislative body possessed not, or was not conscious of possessing, the same rights and power granted by the constitution in Ohio as in Virginia? This is precisely what Janus would induce his readers to believe regarding the rights of the primacy. That the popes throughout the first centuries of the church exercised primatial rights, Janus readily grants, and must grant from the position he assumes. Now, if the exercise of such rights over the various churches at different periods of the ancient church, taken collectively, involve all those prerogatives which the papacy has since claimed and enjoyed, we must of necessity infer that the rights of the primacy, as understood and exercised at the present period, are identical with those of the first eight centuries.
This we could prove by a "work entirely made up of facts, and supporting all statements by reference to the original authorities." Yes, this has already been done by able and judicious historians; among the more modern ones we may appropriately challenge a careful perusal of the history of Dr. Döllinger,[65] in which a complete enumeration of the prerogatives exercised by the bishops of Rome over the whole church, both in the east and in the west, may be found, together with a direct reference to many and unexceptionable historical facts. Under the present head we merely refer to the action of Pope St. Victor, in the second century, against the churches of Asia Minor concerning the question of paschal celebration against the Quartodecimans; St. Stephen, against the Anabaptists in Africa; St. Cornelius, against Novatus and Felicissimus; St. Dionysius, in the case of Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, when the Emperor Aurelian himself would not sustain him, and referred to the Bishop of Rome for a final decision; all these statements attested by such writers as Eusebius,[66] Socrates,[67] and Theodoret.[68] How about the appeal of the Montanists to the Bishop of Rome, mentioned by Tertullian[69] himself? Did not Marcion repair to Rome to obtain a reversal of the sentence passed against him?[70] Did not that illustrious champion of faith, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, appeal to Pope Julius I. against the Arians, when the Council of Sardica was convoked at the request of the pope in the year 343, and the supremacy of the Roman bishop solemnly acknowledged, to whom all must appeal for final sentence?[71]
Janus, however, with this most conspicuous incident of history before him, says,
"There is no mention of papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches, with the single exception of the canon of Sardica, which never obtained universally even in the west." (P. 23.)
Having produced one most remarkable instance of the application of this canon of Sardica, we now must inform our readers that this same canon of the Synod of Sardica was inserted in a Latin version of a collection of canons known by the name of "Prisca Collectio,"[72] as early as the fifth century, and regarded as a code of laws attesting the tradition of the ancient church, according to the maxim of St. Vincent of Lerins, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est. In like manner did St. John Chrysostom, that great doctor of the eastern church, appeal to Pope Innocent I., although his adversary, the usurper Theophilus, had sent delegates to Rome to gain the pontiff, who annulled all the acts of Theophilus and his party against the illustrious patriarch. The letter which St. Chrysostom[73] wrote to the pope adds great strength to our argument. St. Cyprian, too, by whose authority our adversaries would fain triumph, sent the acts of synods held by himself to the Bishop of Rome for confirmation, and also asked St. Stephen to depose Marcion, Bishop of Arles, as being a partisan of Novatian, and to appoint another in his place. But we must ask pardon of the reader for having already been too long in these references—though as yet we have said nothing of the many acts and letters of Pope St. Leo the Great—all of which demonstrate beyond the shadow of doubt that the most ample exercise of all primatial prerogatives was made in nearly all the churches of the Christian world. A rapid glance over the discourses and letters of the distinguished pontiff, in the voluminous work of Ballerini, will corroborate our assertion in its whole extent. What are we to think of these words of Janus, "No one acquainted with church history will choose to affirm that the popes ever exercised a fixed primatial right"? To us, it would seem nothing less than an appeal to the ignorance of his readers. A similar proceeding we notice in the following paragraph:
"The well-known fact speaks clearly enough for itself, that throughout the whole ancient canon law, whether in the collections preserved in the eastern or the western church, there is no mention made of papal rights."
We do not attribute such a confused and inaccurate knowledge to Janus, that he is not fully aware what all these collections comprise. These collections or codes of law are pretty numerous,[74] both in the Greek and in the Latin churches, and some of them contain besides the "Canones Apostolorum," not only many decrees of the councils, both particular and œcumenical, that were held during the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, but also the decretals of the early popes. Thus, for instance, the collection made by the monk Dionysius[75] comprises, in a chronological order, the decretals or decrees of all the popes from St. Siricius, in the year 395, to St. Anastasius II. in 486. Another Spanish collection of canons, called the Liber Canonum, is very comprehensive,[76] embracing the decrees of all the synods that were held in the eastern and western churches, together with the decretal letters of twenty popes from St. Damasus to Gregory the Great. A similar collection of canons in Africa was approved by the Synod of Carthage in 419. Now, according to our authors, in all these collections "no mention is made of papal rights, or any reference to a legally defined action of the Bishop of Rome in other churches." Truly! we need but challenge an examination of many decrees of synods, and of the official letters of the popes contained in these collections, and we shall find all primatial rights fully exercised and universally acknowledged. Who does not know the splendid testimonies of the fathers in the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, both of which acknowledged in their acts the supremacy of the see of Rome! As to the many decretal letters of the popes, there are no more celebrated documents in early history than the professions of faith given by Pope Celestine I. to the bishops of Gaul against Semipelagianism,[77] St. Boniface to the bishops of Illyria, St. Gelasius in a decree on canonical Scripture and the well-known formula of Pope St. Hormisdas,[78] subscribed to by the eastern bishops. By far the greater number of these pontifical letters constituting those collections imply one or another prerogative exercised by the bishops of Rome, who were ever conscious, even in those early ages, of being the supreme teachers and guardians of faith appointed by Christ himself. With what mien of self-sufficiency and confidence Janus can style a "well-known fact," something of which just the very opposite results from an inspection of historical records, is more than unintelligible in authors who make such ado about their scientific fairness. With a desire to save Janus's reputation as a learned canonist and faithful historian, we must presume such a grave misstatement wilful, and naturally enough he must have reckoned on readers who have little or no knowledge of the "ancient collections of the canons." Yet we must not fail to enter an energetic protest against these self-proclaimed "scientific labors and contributions to ecclesiastical history." Is it by such unblushing assertions, without proof to sustain them, that the authors show their "love and honor for an institution" which forms an essential part of the constitution of the church?
The whole introduction of this work, covering nearly thirty pages, exhibits a programme with summary indications, whence Janus infers that with the present council the system of absolutism is to be crowned, and the church to come within the grasp of a "powerful coalition." This great danger to the church the anonymous authors feel in duty bound to avert, and to oppose this "advancing flood-tide," in which we may discover another characteristic mode of warfare, since Janus deems it necessary to "assail a powerful party, with clearly ascertained objects, which has gained a firm footing through the wide ramifications of the Jesuit order." And this party he can only attack by "bringing forward a very dark side of the history of the papacy." Indeed, a singular mode of warfare, but one which presents no feature of novelty. Have not the Reformers of the sixteenth century, like most of their forerunners, concealed their true aim by attacking ostensibly the Curia, or some religious body, as Luther did the Dominicans, and in the seventeenth century did not the Jansenists resort to a similar stratagem? Now, with such a clear profession before us, why these assaults on the hierarchy and the church in general for the last thousand years? Why make the whole church accountable for the misdeeds and menacing coalition of a party? Why, as faithful Catholics, appeal, not to the council nor to the hierarchy, but "to the thinkers among believing Christians"? Reformers before Janus usually appealed from the popes to general councils, but he surpasses them all by appealing neither to the one nor to the other, but to the laity, who may even pronounce on the "reception or rejection of the council or its decisions." Assuredly no further arguments need be brought forward to satisfy candid and discriminating minds that Janus has ill succeeded in masking his true purpose; nor can his professions of loving truth and justice stand the test of criticism, or the dignity of scientific investigation tolerate the insolent treatment it has suffered at the hands of Janus and his school. For those among our readers who must be shocked at seeing names of men distinguished for their learning and piety at a very critical period in Germany, quoted in support of the opinions of this school of traitors, (pp. 16, 17,) we can say that Janus, by attributing to such men a similarity of views with himself, makes a gratuitous and bold assertion, corroborated by no reliable authority; only one name, that of the eccentric Baader, lends any probability to this impudent statement. But such names as Walter, Philipps, Hefele, Hagemann, Gfrörer, and even Döllinger up to a certain time, renowned for their profound researches and contributions to ecclesiastical history and jurisprudence, are studiously omitted by Janus; nor would it have served his purpose, since the eminent theologians just mentioned have undermined and exploded whatever scientific or historical basis Febronianism and Gallicanism could boast of, and which Janus would reëstablish. In summing up our considerations on this point, we fully concur in the remarks of an able writer, that Janus
"does his utmost to overthrow what is at present by far man's strongest barrier against the rapid and violent inflowing atheistic tide, without attempting to substitute another in its place. If his book could exercise any real power, that power would be put forth in favor of those whom the author agrees with us in regarding as the most dangerous enemies of every highest human interest."
This serious apprehension has been fully verified by the many admirers Janus has found in the hostile camp; nay, the apostate Froschhamer has even complimented Janus publicly,[79] with only one restriction, namely, that he has only gone half-way, and finds fault with this inconsistency.
2. We did not propose to content ourselves with the gratuitous assertion that Janus is not "throughout a thorough Catholic and earnest Christian;" but we shall make it clear that he has already seceded from well-established points of doctrine, and even rendered his scheme of reforming the church an impossible hypothesis. As we have already stated, Janus directs his attacks against a "party"—ultramontanism—which, he says, is "essentially papalism." (P. 34.) But while professing to oppose an "ultramontane scheme," he finally arrives, by a very promiscuous array of historical facts and scientific investigations, at the conclusion that the entire church, led by the popes during the last thousand years, has been dragged into this gross error and devastating torrent of ultramontanism. By means of a huge forgery the "whole constitution and government of the church has been changed"—that is, has become a human institution, and lost its divine character. What, then, is the result the writers of Janus arrive at as to their own position? "Inwardly a great gulf separates" them from such a church and its chief pastor—that is, from Pius IX. and the episcopacy. For in another place (p. 3) he affirms that the doctrines he attacks are "identical with those of the chief head." Does it not follow from these premises that Janus excludes himself from this "centre of unity," as the see of Rome has been called by St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage? Likewise St. Jerome, in his book against Rufinus, asks the latter, "Is your faith the faith of the Church of Rome? If so," he adds, "we are both Catholics." During the pontificate of St. Hormisdas, from the year 514 to 523, two hundred and fifty bishops signed a formulary sent them by the pope, in which they declared that they who were not in all things in union with the apostolic see were cut off from communion with the Catholic Church.[80]
"Sequentes in omnibus," says the text so forcibly, "Apostolicam Sedem et prædicantes ejus omnia constituta, spero ut in una communione vobiscum, quam Sedes Apostolica prædicat, esse merear, in qua est integra et verax Christianæ religionis soliditas. Etiam sequestratos a communione Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, id est, non consentientes Sedi Apostolicæ."[81]
By what right, then, or by what interpretation, we demand, can Janus be called a "thorough Catholic"?
The unity and indefectibility of the church of Christ are essential doctrines, most clearly and distinctly embodied in the sacred Scriptures. But Janus no longer admits them, as the following passages will show:
"The previously united church has been split up into three great ecclesiastical bodies, divided and at enmity with each other.... When the presidency in the church became an empire, ... then the unity of the church, so firmly secured before, was broken up." (P. 21.)
According to Janus, a "great and searching reformation of the church is necessary;" and, let it be understood, not in matters of discipline, which can vary, but in matters of faith—yes! in the most important points touching the divine constitution of the church.
"The popes possessed none of the three powers which are the proper attributes of sovereignty; neither the legislative, the administrative, nor the judicial."
"For a long time nothing was known in Rome of definite rights bequeathed by Peter to his successors."
"The bishops of Rome could neither exclude individuals nor churches from the church universal." (Pp. 64, 66.)
Confront these assertions with the few but remarkable facts already given from history, and what becomes of them?
"There are many national churches which were never under Rome, and never even had any intercourse with Rome." (P. 68.)
Janus then proceeds to give examples of such autonomous churches, and we confess that it has seldom been our lot to see any thing more vague and evasive.
In the first place, we refer to the letter of the Syrian bishops, which was read in the fifth session of the synod held in Constantinople in the year 536, by the Patriarch Mennas; moreover, the profession which the Archimandrites and other Syrian monks sent to Pope Hormisdas, in which they plainly acknowledge and invoke the Bishop of Rome as supreme guardian of the entire flock of Christ.
If the churches in Persia, in Armenia, and in Abyssinia, before they were commingled and entangled with the different Gnostic sects and Monophysites, or Jacobites, were in union with the churches of Alexandria, of Antioch, and Constantinople, who, in their turn, recognized the supremacy of the see of Rome, in what possible sense can they be called autonomous? Frumentius had been ordained Bishop of Axuma, in Abyssinia, by St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, toward the year 326.[82] Will Janus claim St. Athanasius as his partisan respecting this autonomy? His attempt to claim the same autonomy for the early Irish and British churches is no less hazardous, and we refer to Dr. Döllinger's history[83] for a refutation of such claims. In this connection, however, it was only our purpose to prove from Janus's own admission that the "unity of the church was broken up." Quite natural, too, since the "centre of unity" no longer preserved its divine mission and character!
We hasten to another grave charge against the orthodoxy of Janus, namely, that he denies the primacy both in its divine institution and in its rights. The true primacy he reviles as "papalism," and would substitute a mere primacy of honor or "presidency." For it was only during a few centuries that the primacy had a sound and natural development; since then it has become disfigured by human "fabrications," and consequently exists no longer. Such being the case, we are unable to discover even a supremacy of honor, lawfully exercised by the pope. We solicit a careful examination of the primacy as it appears in the Ancient Constitution of the Church, and in the Teachings of the Fathers, (pp. 63-75,) and the inevitable conclusion derived from those assumptions, sounding like oracles of Delphi, will be this, the plenitude of power assumed and exercised by the Bishop of Rome over the whole church has no foundation whatsoever, neither in the Scriptures, as interpreted by the fathers, nor in ancient tradition, but has been and still is an encroachment on the privileges of the particular churches, a usurpation exercised by force and oppression—in fine, an innovation on the divine constitution given to the church by Christ. Every thing that is advanced by Janus purporting to trace historically the origin and causes of papal power and its "unnatural development," even with that illustrious pontiff St. Leo the Great, (p. 67,) taking up nearly two thirds of the volume, proves, if any thing, that no special prerogative was given to St. Peter by Christ, and hence could not, of course, be "hereditary in the line of Roman bishops." (P. 74.) The great nightmare of Janus is, indeed, the pope's infallibility, or the supremacy of the Roman see in doctrinal decisions; but while assaulting the former in a pêle-mêle warfare, he utterly destroys the primacy itself; though it would seem that infallibility properly understood is but a corollary of the primacy itself. While professing to reject the doctrine of the "papacy," Janus discards a truly apostolic doctrine of the Catholic Church, and we cannot but suspect him of well-calculated dissimulation when he says that the "authors of the book profess their adherence to the conviction that the primacy rests on divine appointment." Contrast this with the statements quoted, and we can hardly refrain from sentiments of abhorrence and indignation at such duplicity, as, on the one hand, we find it stated that "the ancient church found the need of a bishop possessed of primatial authority," and, on the other hand, "nothing was known of definite rights," and the "same powers were exercised by the bishop of Antioch, Jerusalem, or Alexandria."
The orthodoxy of Janus and his abettors is impeachable in another no less serious point. The church has ever been conscious of her own infallibility, whereby she is protected from all error in teaching "all truth to the nations;" in other words, it has ever been firmly believed among Catholics that the ecclesia docens, or teaching church, succeeded to the divinely bestowed privilege of apostolic infallibility, and, whether congregated in council or dispersed throughout the world, is a true exponent of "unity in faith and grace" with her divine Founder. If this were not so, in what possible sense could the church be called "a pillar and ground of truth"? Where would the assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit have any visible action or influence, if it be not to preserve her "immaculate, holy, and pure"? Hence, those beautiful images employed by the Apostle St. Paul, of the "union of the body with the head," of this truly spiritual alliance of Christ with his spouse, that is, the church, through whose ministry the life of Christ descends from the head to the members, Christ's life being nothing else but truth and grace.
But if we adopt Janus's idea of the church, she has become as the "harlot of Babylon," a depositary of falsehood and iniquity. For he denies the unerring authority of œcumenical councils under the conditions in which it has always been received as a dogma by Catholic theologians. The oath of the bishops toward the apostolic see, prescribed for many past centuries, is pronounced by Janus as incompatible with "that freedom of deliberation and voting" which are essential to such an assembly. But, we may ask, does this oath interfere in the least with the strict obligation of keeping the faith intact and inviolable? Does this oath imply any violation of Catholic conscience? You might as well assert that the oath taken by a member of Congress, or of a particular legislature, to support and abide by the constitution, interferes with his liberty of speaking and voting. In keeping with this hypothesis of Janus, all the councils that were held in the west, and universally acknowledged as œcumenical, "were perverted, and mere tools of papal domination—shadows of the councils of the ancient church." (P. 154.) But the councils held in the east were truly œcumenical, because the popes had nothing to do with them, (pp. 63, 64;) but the emperors, on the contrary, exercised all those prerogatives which the popes afterward usurped; hence the councils in the west were but a "sham and mockery" when compared to the genuine œcumenical councils held by the emperors, "who sometimes trenched too closely on this freedom." (P. 354.) Yet the weight of imperial power and domination does not do away with that essential condition of an œcumenical council. But with the popes the case is quite the reverse! Truly admirable logic of our Janus! He is not content with unprincipled expositions and illogical hypotheses, but resorts to positive falsification of history when he says,
"Neither the dogmatic nor the disciplinary decisions of these councils (held in the east) required papal confirmation; for their force and authority depended on the consent of the church, as expressed in the synod, and afterward in the fact of its being generally received."
And again,
"The popes took no part in convoking councils. All great councils were convoked by the emperors; nor were the popes ever consulted about it beforehand." (Pp. 63, 64.)
What is the verdict of history on these points? That very Latrocinium of Ephesus, in 449, which Janus so adroitly would put among those councils that were regarded as œcumenical, called forth a protest not only from Pope Leo the Great, but also from the eastern bishops, because the ambitious Dioscorus assumed to himself the right of presiding, and, as Prosper and Victor remark in their chronicles, "usurped the prerogative of the supremacy." The most ancient historians, Socrates, Sozomenus, and Theodoret, who continued the church history of Eusebius, attest unanimously those prerogatives of the Roman bishop, which our authors would so boldly deny. Thus, Sozomenus, in the third book of his history, chapter 10, says,
"It is a pontifical law (νὁμος Ιερατικὁς) that whatever has been done without the judgment of the Roman bishop, be null and void."
Socrates, alluding to the Arian Synod of Antioch in "Encæniis," in 431, by the adherents of Eusebius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and which pronounced the deposition of St. Athanasius, observes,
"Neither Julius, the Bishop of Rome, was present, nor did he send any one thither to take his place; though it is prohibited by ecclesiastical law that any thing be decreed in the church without the consent of the Roman pontiff."[84]
When, therefore, St. Athanasius, together with Paul of Constantinople, Marcellus of Ancyra, and Asclepas of Gaza, sought the protection of Pope Julius, the latter had their cause examined in a council held at Rome in 343, at which a great number of eastern bishops were present. Whereupon the pope declared the accused bishops innocent, restored them to their sees, and severely censured those who had concurred in the sentence of deposition against Athanasius and the other bishops. Let it be understood that the Arian bishops, too, on their part, had appealed to the same pope. The action taken by the Pontiff Julius in this grave affair is designated by the historian Socrates[85] as a "prerogative of the Roman Church." In like manner, Pelagius appealed to Pope Innocent I.; Nestorius, to Pope Celestine, to whom St. Cyril of Alexandria had already reported.
Cælestius, a disciple of Pelagius, already condemned by the Synod of Carthage, invoked the arbitration of Pope Zosimus;[86] Eutyches, having been excluded from the communion of the church by Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople, appeals to Pope St. Leo, who in his turn calls upon Flavian to give an account, which the latter does without delay. The correspondence between Leo and Flavian on this point shows the falsehood of Janus's assertion, that the "fathers had given the see of Rome the privilege of final decision in appeals," (p. 66,) and that the "bishops of Rome could exclude neither individuals nor churches from the communion of the church universal." Who does not know the remarkable words of St. Augustine, when Pelagius had been condemned by the synods of Milevis and Carthage in 416, and still persisted to hold communion with the church? Pope Innocent ratified the decrees of the synods, and the illustrious champion against Pelagianism exclaims,
"Two councils have already been sent to the apostolic see; thence answer has been received; the case is terminated; may the error too be ended."[87]
Vain, too, is the attempt of our authors to give dark colors to the transactions between the fathers of the Council of Chalcedon and Pope St. Leo I. (P. 67.) Let us see what the fathers of this council say to the pope, when they request him to sanction that famous twenty-eighth canon, which the legates of Leo had refused to sanction. They say, "Knowing that your holiness hearing (what has been decreed) will approve and confirm this synod and close their petition thus,
"We therefore pray that by thy decrees thou wilt honor our judgment, and we having in all things meet manifested our accordance with the head, so also may thy highness fulfil what is just. (ουτω καὶ ἣ κορυφἣ τοις παισὶν ἀναπληρὡσαι τὸ πρἑπον.)"[88]
Leo I. did not sanction this twenty-eighth canon, for the very reason that it implied, though in equivocal terms, that Rome obtained the primacy on account of its political dignity.
Nor is it true that the fathers by this canon claimed "equal rights" for the see of Constantinople; but merely patriarchal rights and exemption from subordination to Alexandria and Antioch, as the sixth Nicene canon had ordained. Pope Leo I. in his letter[89] to the Emperor Marcian affirmed that Constantinople was indeed an "imperial," but no "apostolic city." Compare this with the words of Janus, "But when Leo had to deal with Byzantium and the east, he no longer dared to plead this argument." Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople at that period, previous to the Council of Chalcedon was obliged to hold a synod in the presence of the papal legates, in which Leo's letter to Flavian was read and signed, and Eutyches sentenced and deposed. Even at the Council of Ephesus, in 431, St. Cyril presided as plenipotentiary of Pope Celestine, who, upon a report sent him by St. Cyril, had condemned the Nestorian errors in a synod held at Rome in 430, and summoned Nestorius to retract within ten days under pain of excommunication. How trivial, then, and calculated to confuse the reader, must this remark of Janus seem, "At the two councils of Ephesus others presided." It is a well-known fact that the papal legates at the Council of Chalcedon declared that it was a high misdemeanor of the second assembly of Ephesus, in 449, and a crime in Dioscorus of Alexandria, that it was presumed to hold a general council without the authority of the apostolic see; and Dioscorus was accordingly deposed.
The Council of Chalcedon was not convoked before Pulcheria and Marcian had requested and obtained the consent of Pope Leo I., and at its termination the fathers said in their letter to the pope that he had presided over them by his legates as the "head over the members;" and that the emperor had been present for the maintenance of decorum.
Why, then, allege such examples as the despotic actions of Constantius, against whom such great and distinguished bishops as St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and Lucifer, raised their pastoral voice, when this same emperor so harassed the bishops at Rimini and Seleucia in 359, aided by the cunning of Ursacius and Valens, that they subscribed to an ambiguous but not heretical formulary. Wherefore, St. Jerome exclaims, "Ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est." The purpose of Janus in placing these assemblies among other councils universally regarded as œcumenical, appears, to say the least, suspicious! (P. 354, and Translator's Notice.)
We might yet quote many examples to exhibit what must be styled gross misrepresentation and falsification of history on the part of Janus, when he thus plainly states that the popes were never consulted when councils were convoked, nor allowed to preside, personally or by deputy—and "it is clear that the popes did not claim this as their exclusive right," (p. 63.) If any thing were wanting to corroborate our argument, we need but allude to the declaration of the Patriarch Mennas of Constantinople, and many other eastern bishops. When the Emperor Justinian would continue the council which was convoked with the express consent of Pope Vigilius, who withdrew his permission after the emperor issued an edict on the three articles, (tria capitula,) the pope fled to Chalcedon, whence he directed a letter to the whole church,[90] giving an account of the deplorable state of things, adding that he had deposed the haughty bishop, Theodorus of Cæsarea, and suspended Mennas of Constantinople, with the bishops who took his part. The declaration made by Mennas and other bishops, professing their entire submission, affords a most striking example of the supreme authority of the apostolic see in the midst of such turmoil and religious disputes, the pope being an exile and the bishops enjoying the protection of the emperor; and hence not a vestige of coercion in their unqualified declaration, which we may be pardoned for subjoining here. It is as follows,
"Following the apostolic doctrine, and anxious to maintain ecclesiastical unity, we are about to frame the present declaration,[91] We receive and acknowledge the four holy synods, ... and all other things that were decreed and written in these same synods by common consent with the legates and representatives of the apostolic see, not only in matters of faith, but every thing that was so defined and enacted in all other causes, judgments, constitutions, and ordinances we promise hereby faithfully and inviolably to observe."[92]
A circumstance which gives greater weight to this whole exposition is, that these councils were chiefly attended by eastern bishops, among them the patriarchs of Constantinople; and that the Roman pontiffs, though not personally present, still by their representatives, who were not all bishops, exercised such high prerogatives. The emperors themselves recognized these rights of the see of Rome both by their laws and public acts.[93]
We have been rather prolix, and have carried our examination further than we intended; but it seemed necessary to sustain our charges against Janus and his admirers by various and most unexceptionable authorities from history, and the canons of the early councils. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome in teaching and governing the universal church, could not be exhibited in a more resplendent light than in connection with general councils, those grand assemblies of the hierarchy of the church. Nothing, therefore, was better calculated than the futile essays of the anonymous authors of Janus to depreciate and obliterate, if possible, these prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs in connection with œcumenical councils, in order to lay the foundation of their hypothesis, that since the ninth century papal usurpation and ambition held high sway in the church, "hindering and decomposing the action of its vital powers." How far Janus has succeeded in finding such a basis for his edifice in history and in ancient canonical collections, how far his statements are supported by "reference to original authorities," the candid and judicious reader of church history will have been able to decide. If Janus asks the verdict of history for his "Ancient Constitution of the Church," that verdict cries aloud against such a miserable caricature, and his appeal to past tradition is an appeal to ignorance or wilful prejudice. We have impeached his orthodoxy on points of the very first importance, and in vain do we look for those "original authorities" which should verify his hypothesis of the "ancient church."
Before summing up our arguments on this head, we will be allowed to point out another serious and most pernicious error of Janus. He says,
"The force and authority of the decisions of councils depended on the consent of the church, and on the fact of being generally received." (Pp. 63, 64.)
Yet we must examine what is meant by this consent of the church; here is his theory:
"When a council passes sentence on doctrine, it thereby gives testimony to its truth. The bishops attest, each for his own portion of the church, that a certain defined doctrine has hitherto been taught and believed there; or they bear witness that the doctrines hitherto believed, involve, as their necessary consequence, some truth which may not yet have been expressly formalized. As to whether this testimony has been rightly given, whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops—on that point the church herself is the ultimate judge, by her acceptance or rejection of the council or its decisions." (P. 334.)
What a precious theory indeed of our authors! The teaching body in the church, or the hierarchy, are mere witnesses in giving testimony to the truth. But this testimony may ultimately be rejected; for whether such a testimony has been rightly rendered or not, is left to the decision of the church—consisting of the clergy and laity. Whence by a rigid conclusion it follows that the highest tribunal of "acceptance or rejection" of the decisions of a general council, is with the great mass of the faithful or "thinkers among believing Christians." In view of such plain propositions, we should like to be informed how inerrancy or infallibility can be attributed to an œcumenical council? We may then select any council and doubt, as thinking Christians, "whether freedom and unbiassed truthfulness have prevailed among the assembled bishops." All certainty is excluded by such a theory, where the decisions of a general council are only binding when accepted by the church outside of the council. This is nothing less than a complete negation of traditional and sound Catholic doctrine—it is simply proclaiming the broad Protestant dogma which grants the widest scope to the private judgment of the individual. In one direction have the authors of Janus been consistent; for they purpose by their labors "to contribute to the awakening and direction of public opinion," which is the tribunal charged by Janus to reject in advance the decrees of this council. (P. 345.) He himself makes an extensive use of this great privilege; for, according to him, since the ninth century there were no truly œcumenical councils; the whole church has been forced and cajoled into giving a wrong testimony. All councils since the period just named have proclaimed the views and tenets of a party as the constant belief of all Catholic Christendom. Such an issue Janus would fain declare impossible. Alas! for his beautiful theory, destroying with one hand what he would build up with the other.
"The church in its totality is secured against false doctrine."
There is precisely the dilemma in which Janus has involved himself. The whole work from beginning to end is intended to show that the church has sunk into a labyrinth of errors, that she has radically changed her ancient and divine constitution, that her centre of unity has become disfigured and sickly, that her vital powers are in a state of decomposition. Does all this not imply false doctrine? Has the church not thereby fallen away from Christ and the apostles? Perhaps Janus will say that it is only the hierarchy that erred, not the "thinkers among believing Christians," himself, of course, among the latter.
Well may we inquire of Janus and his admirers, What has become of the promises made to the church by her divine Founder? Where is that spirit of truth to guide her through her pastors, the bishops united with the supreme Head? Where is that firm rock against which the gates of hell shall not prevail?
These questions are so intimately connected with the whole divinely reared edifice of the church of Christ, that to deny what the authors of Janus have done is heresy in its worst form, as much as Arianism, Pelagianism, or Nestorianism. We cannot withhold from our readers the appreciation of a candid and thoughtful outsider on the position Janus has followed throughout his work:
"If the liberal Catholicism of Janus and his friends is an infallible system, it is an infallible system which has succumbed at once to a false pretence of infallibility on one side and an openly-admitted fallibility on the other. Now, infallibility which is beaten for centuries, both by a sham infallibility and by admitted incapacity for true infallibility, is infallibility of a very novel kind, very difficult to imagine. It looks, at first glance, very like a rather specially fallible kind of fallibility with a taste for calling itself grand names. If Janus and his friends are right, no paradox of the Christian faith is half as great as theirs, which maintains that the true infallibility of the church has not only lain perdu for centuries, but has been impersonated by a growth of falsehood without any interposition on the part of the divine source of infallibility. That, we confess—with all our respect for the wish of Janus to enter a protest on behalf of liberty and civilization—we do find a hypothesis somewhat hard even to listen to. A dumb infallibility that cannot find its voice for centuries, even to contradict the potent and ostentatious error that takes its name in vain—is that the sort of divine authority to which human reason will willingly go into captivity? But we might sympathize with the authors of Janus, in spite of their utterly untenable intellectual position, if they seemed to us to have any clear advantage in moral earnestness and simplicity over their opponents. But, while there is a certain school of ultramontanes that simply and profoundly believes in the infallibility of the pope, in spite of all the critical and historical difficulties which the liberals ably parade and sometimes even overstate, we find it hard to believe that the latter believe cordially in any church infallibility at all." (Quoted by the Dublin Review, January, from the Spectator, November 6, 1869.)
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF THE REVUE DU MONDE CATHOLIQUE.