Now, Janus does away with this distinction by comparing it to "wooden iron" invented merely as an expedient hypothesis, whereas all theologians of repute agree on this difference, as well as on the essential conditions of the ex cathedra decisions. If there be some difficulties and minor differences among theologians on papal decrees, this by no means affects the value of this important and necessary distinction itself. Even the decrees of an œcumenical council may give rise to similar differences among theologians. It is nothing less than a falsehood on the part of Janus that the cause of this inerrancy claimed for the pope as universal teacher is due to direct divine and plenary inspiration. All theologians are unanimous in asserting merely a divine assistance to guard against error, just as the church herself is divinely guided by the Holy Spirit, promised by Christ to reside with her for ever. There cannot be any necessity for substituting inspiration or a new revelation, since the infallible magisterium in the church is exercised in the two-fold duty of teaching and preserving all those truths which she has received as a sacred deposit from her divine Founder. Moreover, it is supposed that the pope when issuing such decrees to the universal church, binding all the faithful, proceeds with that caution and prudence which such weighty acts demand, that he has full liberty to assure himself of all human counsel and human means to find the true and genuine sense of Scripture and tradition. Alluding, therefore, to ignorant popes making use of their power of dogmatic creativeness and erecting their "own thoughts" into dogmas of faith, is an appeal to prejudice and commonplace mockery wholly unworthy of writers who would be admired for their calm and dignified scientific labors. Other opponents of papal infallibility have never gainsaid that at least this doctrine has always found many and able adherents, who have advanced strong arguments claiming the serious consideration of every theologian and thinking Christian, and therefore recommended by most respectable authority. But Janus comes forward to stamp this "ultramontane doctrine" with the stigma of absurdity and ridicule, and declares its advocates to be miserable sycophants, devoid of all learning or honesty of intention. (P. 320.)
The references we have given exhibit the doctrine of infallibility in such colors as scarcely to be recognized, and all advocates of the doctrine will repudiate such an unfair and arbitrary statement. The cunning insinuation that infallibility invests the popes with personal sanctity and integrity of morals, is no less captious and shallow. To what purpose those tirades on the private lives of the popes, or the extravagances of the Curia, and the administrative measures of the civil government, etc.? The supposition as though the whole church, that is, all the faithful, would have to accept falsehood for truth, vice for virtue, is a play of Janus's imagination. For those who uphold papal infallibility exclude the possibility of such an issue on account of the intimate union necessarily existing between the church and its spiritual head. According to the promises of Christ, that union—eminently one of faith—will never be severed, since Christ himself commanded this obedience of the flock to Peter and his successors. It cannot for a moment be supposed that the wise Lord of his vineyard sanctioned an obligation to accept falsehood for truth, or vice for virtue. The infallible magisterium of the church would be fatally compromised if the faithful were commanded by lawful authority to give interior assent to a false doctrine. So much for the intrinsic falsehood of the hypothesis of Janus. Yet he attempts to surround it with an authoritative garb by citing Bellarmine as maintaining "that if the pope were to err by prescribing sins and forbidding virtues, the church would be bound to consider sins good and virtues evil, unless she chose to sin against conscience." (P. 318.)
Who does not at once see this terrible alternative by which Janus triumphantly proves from the author quoted "that whatever doctrine it pleases the pope to prescribe, the church must receive"? Having the work of Bellarmine before our eyes, with the above passage in the context, we were greatly amazed, to say the least, to see how the entire proposition conveys just the very opposite meaning of what Janus would induce his readers to believe. Here is the argument in question:
"The pope cannot err in teaching doctrines of faith, nor is he liable to err in giving moral precepts binding the whole church in matters of essential good and evil. For if this were the case, that is, if the pope erred in matters of essential good or evil, he would necessarily err also in faith; for Catholic faith teaches that every virtue is good and every vice evil. Now, if the pope erred by commanding vices or prohibiting virtues, the church would be bound to believe vices good and virtues evil, unless she chose to sin against conscience."[172]
Bellarmine's meaning evidently is that such an issue becomes impossible. This reductio ad absurdum, or showing to what contradiction a denial of his thesis would lead, has been exhibited by our authors as a bona fide tenet of Bellarmine! The passage itself is partly transcribed with minute reference, so that it is beyond the courtesy of even a mild critique to exonerate Janus from the charge of deliberate dishonesty in this instance.
Hitherto we have confined ourselves to a critical examination of a doctrine against which Janus directs his assaults. In the first place, we submitted his version of the same, and afterward the authentic explanation by those whom our authors acknowledge to be its most able exponents. The inevitable conclusion which forces itself on every mind is, that Janus has developed the doctrine of infallibility to suit his own fancy, and consequently the arguments he brings forward, supposing them true for discussion's sake, would indeed undermine the position assumed by himself, but in no way affect the genuine one propounded by his opponents. In order to make good his arguments from church history and canonical sources against the stand-point taken by the acknowledged advocates of infallibility, these three conditions must be verified, 1st. That the pope acted in his capacity of universal teacher, using his public authority as supreme head of the church; 2d. That his judgments appertain to matters of doctrinal belief and moral law necessary to salvation. 3d. That he proposes such things to the faithful, under pain of heresy, to be believed with interior assent as of divine faith, that is, a revealed truth. There is the simple issue between Janus and his adversaries. Has he advanced one single decree of any pope, invested with these essential conditions, obliging to believe falsehood and heresy or commanding to commit an evil and absolutely vicious action under the name of virtue? We doubt whether any candid and discriminating historian will maintain that Janus has accomplished any such task. However, that the reader may not suspect us of narrowing the domain of papal infallibility, we will quote a passage from an able and warm adherent of this doctrine, whose writings are well known as by no means liable to any suspicion of under-statement:
"In the case of any given document, we have to consider, from the context and circumstances, which portion of it expresses such doctrine; for many statements, even doctrinal, may be introduced, not as authoritative determinations, but in the way of argument and illustration. Many papal pronouncements, though they may introduce doctrinal reasons, yet are not doctrinal pronouncements at all, but disciplinary enactments; the pope's immediate end in issuing them is, not that certain things may be believed, but that certain things may be done. If the doctrinal reasons, even for a doctrinal declaration, are not infallible, much less can infallibility be claimed for the doctrinal reasons of a disciplinarian enactment. Then again, the pope may give some doctrinal decision as head of the church, and yet not as universal teacher. Some individual may ask at his hands, and receive, practical direction on the doctrine to be followed in a particular case, while yet the pope has no thought whatever of determining the question for the whole church and for all time. Much less, as Benedict XIV. remarks, does the fact of his acting officially on some moral opinion fix on it the seal of infallibility as certainly true. Nor, lastly, can any conclusive inference be drawn in favor of some doctrinal practice, from the fact of its not having been censured or prohibited. The pontiff of the day, whether from intellectual or moral defect, may even omit censures and prohibitions which are greatly desirable in the church's interest, or enact laws of an unwise and prejudicial character."[173]
As we have already insinuated, Janus makes this infallibility extend to the private conduct of the popes, to their particular sayings and to all other things which were merely preliminary steps to their official measures. Now, it is certain, as is frequently urged by ultramontanes, that the pope, in becoming pope, does not cease to be a man, and to have his own private opinions, and not being infallible in these, by the very force of terms, they may be erroneous.
What we might thus far have conceded to Janus without great injury to the doctrine he opposes, we now proceed to question, and examine this "history of the hypothesis of papal infallibility, from its first beginnings to the end of the sixteenth century." He has indeed resuscitated weighty questions, and not unfrequently antiquated difficulties which we could point out from works printed for three hundred years and more. In order to be brief and clear, we shall begin with the alleged "forgeries" upon which Janus insists throughout his book, and thereafter interrogate history as to the many "papal errors," usurpations, and encroachments.