§ 7. The Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed, or Symbolum Apostolicum, is, as to its form, not the production of the apostles, as was formerly believed, but an admirable popular summary of the apostolic teaching, and in full harmony with the spirit and even the letter of the New Testament.

I. Character and Value.—As the Lord's Prayer is the Prayer of prayers, the Decalogue the Law of laws, so the Apostles' Creed is the Creed of creeds. It contains all the fundamental articles of the Christian faith necessary to salvation, in the form of facts, in simple Scripture language, and in the most natural order—the order of revelation— from God and the creation down to the resurrection and life everlasting. It is Trinitarian, and divided into three chief articles, expressing faith—in God the Father, the Maker of heaven and earth, in his only Son, our Lord and Saviour, and in the Holy Spirit (in Deum Patrem, in Jesum Christum, in Spiritum Sanctum); the chief stress being laid on the second article, the supernatural birth, death, and resurrection of Christ. Then, changing the language (credo in for credo with the simple accusative), the Creed professes to believe 'the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.'

This change was observed already by Rufinus (l.c. § 36), who says: 'Non dicit "In Sanctam Ecclesiam," nec "In remissionem peccatorum," nec "In carnis resurrectionem." Si enim addidisset "in" præpositionem, una eademque vis fuisset cum superioribus. . . . Hac præpositionis syllaba Creator a creaturis secernitur, et divina separantur ab humanis.' The Roman Catechism (P. I. c. 10, qu. 19) also marks this distinction, 'Nunc autem, mutata dicendi forma, "sanctam," et non "in sanctam" ecclesiam credere profitemur.'

§ 8. The Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed, or Symbolum Nicæno-Constantinopolitanum, is the Eastern form of the primitive Creed, but with the distinct impress of the Nicene age, and more definite and explicit than the Apostles' Creed in the statement of the divinity of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The terms 'coessential' or 'coequal' (ὁμοούσιος τῷ πατρί), 'begotten before all worlds' (πρὸ πάντων τῶν αἰώνων), 'very God of very God' (θεὸς ἀληθινὸς ἐκ θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ), 'begotten, not made' (γεννηθείς, οὐ ποιηθείς), are so many trophies of orthodoxy in its mighty struggle with the Arian heresy, which agitated the Church for more than half a century. The Nicene Creed is the first which obtained universal authority. It rests on older forms used in different churches of the East, and has undergone again some changes.

Compare the symbols of the church of Jerusalem, the church of Alexandria, and the creed of Cæsarea, which Eusebius read at the Council of Nicæa, in Usher, l.c. pp. 7, 8; more fully in Vol. II. pp. 11 sqq., and in Hahn, Bibliothek der Symbole, pp. 40 sqq., 91 sqq.

The Eastern creeds arose likewise out of the baptismal formula, and were intended for the baptismal service as a confession of the faith of the catechumen in the Triune God.

Eusebius, in his Epistle to the people of Cæsarea, says of the creed which he had proposed to the Council of Nicæa for adoption, that he had learned it as a catechumen, professed it at his baptism, taught it in turn as presbyter and bishop, and that it was derived from our Lord's baptismal formula. It resembles the old Nicene Creed very closely; see Vol. II. p. 29. The shorter creed of Jerusalem used at baptism, as given by Cyril, Catech. xix. 9, is simply the baptismal formula put interrogatively; see Hahn, pp. 51 sqq.

We must distinguish two independent or parallel creed formations, an Eastern and a Western; the one resulted in the Nicene Creed as completed by the Synod of Constantinople, the other in the Apostles' Creed in its Roman form. The Eastern creeds were more metaphysical, polemical, flexible, and adapting themselves to the exigencies of the Church in the maintenance of her faith and conflict with heretics; the Western were more simple, practical, and stationary. The former were controlled by synods, and received their final shape and sanction from two œcumenical Councils; the latter were left to the custody of the several churches, each feeling at liberty to make additions or alterations within certain limits, until the Roman form superseded all others, and was quietly, and without formal synodical action, adopted by Western Christendom.

In the Nicene Creed we must distinguish three forms—the original Nicene, the enlarged Constantinopolitan, and the still later Latin.

1. The original Nicene Creed dates from the first œcumenical Council, which was held at Nicæa, A.D. 325, for the settlement of the Arian controversy, and consisted of 318 bishops, all of them from the East (except Hosius of Spain). This Creed abruptly closes with the words 'and in the Holy Ghost,' but adds an anathema against the Arians. This was the authorized form down to the Council of Chalcedon.

2. The Nicæno-Constantinopolitan Creed, besides some minor changes in the first two articles,

The most remarkable change in the first article is the omission of the words πουτέστιν ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ Πατρός, θεὸν ἐκ θεοῦ on which great stress was laid by the Athanasian party against the Arians, who maintained that the Son was not of the essence, but of the will of the Father.

II. Character and Contents.—The Symbolum Quicunque is a remarkably clear and precise summary of the doctrinal decisions of the first four œcumenical Councils (from A.D. 325 to A.D. 451), and the Augustinian speculations on the Trinity and the Incarnation. Its brief sentences are artistically arranged and rhythmically expressed. It is a musical creed or dogmatic psalm. Dean Stanley calls it 'a triumphant pæan' of the orthodox faith. It resembles, in this respect, the older Te Deum, but it is much more metaphysical and abstruse, and its harmony is disturbed by a threefold anathema.

It consists of two parts.

The first part (ver. 3–28) sets forth the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity, not in the less definite Athanasian or Nicæno-Constantinopolitan, but in its strictest Augustinian form, to the exclusion of every kind of subordination of essence. It is therefore an advance both on the Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed; for these do not state the doctrine of the Trinity in form, but only indirectly by teaching the Deity of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and leave room for a certain subordination of the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. The post-Athanasian formula states clearly and unmistakably both the absolute unity of the divine being or essence, and the tri-personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is one in three persons or hypostases, each person expressing the whole fullness of the Godhead, with all his attributes. The term persona is taken neither in the old sense of a mere personation or form of manifestation (πρόσωπον, face, mask), nor in the modern sense of an independent, separate being or individual, but in a sense which lies between these two conceptions, and thus avoids Sabellianism on the one hand, and Tritheism on the other. The divine persons are in one another, and form a perpetual intercommunication and motion within the divine essence.

The later scholastic terms for this indwelling and interpenetration are περιχώρησις, inexistentia, permeatio, circumincessio, etc. See my Church History, Vol. III. p. 680.

If the mystery of the Trinity can be logically defined, it is done here. But this is just the difficulty: the infinite truth of the Godhead lies far beyond the boundaries of logic, which deals only with finite truths and categories. It is well always to remember the saying of Augustine: 'God is greater and truer in our thoughts than in our words; he is greater and truer in reality than in our thoughts.'

'Verius cogitatur Deus quam dicitur, verius est quam cogitatur,' De Trinitate, lib. VII. c. 4, § 7. Dr. Isaac Barrow, one of the intellectual giants of the Anglican Church (died 1677), in his Defense of the Blessed Trinity (a sermon preached on Trinity Sunday, 1663), humbly acknowledges the transcendent incomprehensibility, while clearly stating the facts, of this great mystery: 'The sacred Trinity may be considered either as it is in itself wrapt up in inexplicable folds of mystery, or as it hath discovered itself operating in wonderful methods of grace towards us. As it is in itself, 'tis an object too bright and dazzling for our weak eye to fasten upon, an abyss too deep for our short reason to fathom; I can only say that we are so bound to mind it as to exercise our faith, and express our humility, in willingly believing, in submissively adoring those high mysteries which are revealed in the holy oracles concerning it by that Spirit itself which searcheth the depths of God. . . . That there is one Divine Nature or Essence, common unto three Persons, incomprehensibly united, and ineffably distinguished—united in essential attributes, distinguished by peculiar idioms and relations; all equally infinite in every divine perfection, each different from the other in order and manner of subsistence; that there is a mutual inexistence of one in all, and all in one, a communication without any deprivation or diminution in the communicant; an eternal generation, and an eternal procession, without precedence or succession, without proper causality or dependence; a Father imparting his own, and the Son receiving his Father's life, and a Spirit issuing from both, without any division or multiplication of essence—these are notions which may well puzzle our reason in conceiving how they agree, but should not stagger our faith in assenting that they are true; upon which we should meditate, not with hope to comprehend, but with dispositions to admire, veiling our faces in the presence, and prostrating our reason at the feet, of Wisdom so far transcending us.'

The second part (ver. 29–44) contains a succinct statement of the orthodox doctrine concerning the person of Christ, as settled by the general Councils of Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451, and in this respect it is a valuable supplement to the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. It asserts that Christ had a rational soul (νοῦς, νεῦμα), in opposition to the Apollinarian heresy, which limited the extent of his humanity to a mere body with an animal soul inhabited by the divine Logos. It also teaches the proper relation between the divine and human nature of Christ, and excludes the Nestorian and Eutychian or Monophysite heresies, in essential agreement with the Chalcedonian Symbol.

See the preceding section.

III. The Damnatory Clauses.—The Athanasian Creed, in strong contrast with the uncontroversial and peaceful tone of the Apostles' Creed, begins and ends with the solemn declaration that the catholic faith in the Trinity and the Incarnation herein set forth is the indispensable condition of salvation, and that those who reject it will be lost forever. The same damnatory clause is also wedged in at the close of the first and at the beginning of the second part. This threefold anathema, in its natural historical sense, is not merely a solemn warning against the great danger of heresy,

So a majority of the 'Ritual Commission of the Church of England,' appointed in 1867: 'The condemnations in this Confession of Faith are to be no otherwise understood than as a solemn warning of the peril of those who willfully reject the Catholic faith.' Such a warning would be innocent and unobjectionable, indeed, but fall far short of the spirit of an age which abhorred heresy as the greatest of crimes, to be punished by death.

I. The first Council of Nicæa, A.D. 325; called by Constantine M.

II. The first Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381; called by Theodosius M.

III. The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431; called by Theodosius II.

IV. The Council of Chalcedon, A.D. 451; called by Emperor Marcian and Pope Leo I.

V. The second Council of Constantinople, A.D. 553; called by Justinian I.

VI. The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680; called by Constantine Pogonatus.

VII. The second Council of Nicæa, A.D. 787; called by Irene and her son Constantine.

The first four Councils are by far the most important, as they settled the orthodox faith on the Trinity and the Incarnation. The fifth Council, which condemned the Three (Nestorian) Chapters, is a mere supplement to the third and fourth. The sixth condemned Monothelitism. The seventh sanctioned the use and worship of images.

Worship in a secondary sense, or δουλεία, including ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, but not that adoration or ἀληθινὴ λατρεία, which belongs only to God. See Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Bd. III. p. 440.

To these the Greek Church adds the Concilium Quinisextum,

This Synod is called Quinisexta or πενθέκτη, because it was to be a supplement to the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, which had passed doctrinal decrees, but no canons of discipline. It is also called the second Trullan Synod, because it was held 'in Trullo,' a saloon of the imperial palace in Constantinople. The Greeks regard the canons of this Synod as the canons of the fifth and sixth œcumenical Councils, but the Latins never acknowledged the Quinisexta, and called it mockingly 'erratica.' As the dates of the Quinisexta are variously given 686, 691, 692, 712. Comp. Baronius, Annal. ad ann. 692, No. 7, and Hefele, l.c. III. pp. 298 sqq.

The Greek Church celebrates annually the memory of the seven holy Synods, held during the palmy days of her history, on the first Sunday in Lent, called the 'Sunday of Orthodoxy,' when the service is made to reproduce a dramatic picture of an œcumenical Council, with an emperor, the patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, priests, and deacons in solemn deliberation on the fundamental articles of faith. She looks forward to an eighth œcumenical Council, which is to settle all the controversies of Christendom subsequent to the great schism between the East and the West.

Since the last of the seven Councils, the doctrinal system of the Greek Church has undergone no essential change, and become almost petrified. But the Reformation, especially the Jesuitical intrigues and the crypto-Calvinistic movement of Cyril Lucar in the seventeenth century, called forth a number of doctrinal manifestoes against Romanism, and still more against Protestantism. We may divide them into three classes:

I. Primary Confessions of public authority:

   (a) The 'Orthodox Confession,' or Catechism of Peter Mogilas, 1643, indorsed by the Eastern Patriarchs and the Synod of Jerusalem.

   (b) The Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, or the Confession of Dositheus, 1672.

   To the latter may be added the similar but less important decisions of the Synods of Constantinople, 1672 (Responsio Dionysii), and 1691 (on the Eucharist).

   (c) The Russian Catechisms which have the sanction of the Holy Synod, especially the Longer Catechism of Philaret (Metropolitan of Moscow), published by the synodical press, and generally used in Russia since 1839.

   (d) The Answers of Jeremiah, Patriarch of Constantinople, to certain Lutheran divines, in condemnation of the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, 1576 (published at Wittenberg, 1584), were sanctioned by the Synod of Jerusalem, but are devoid of clearness and point, and therefore of little use.

II. Secondary Confessions of a mere private character, and hence not to be used as authorities:

   (a) The two Confessions of Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1453. One of them, purporting to give a dialogue between the Patriarch and the Sultan, is spurious, and the other has nothing characteristic of the Greek system.

   (b) The Confession of Metrophanes Critopulus, subsequently Patriarch of Alexandria, composed during his sojourn in Germany, 1625. It is more liberal than the primary standards.

III. Different from both classes is the Confession of Cyril Lucar, 1629, which was repeatedly condemned as heretical (Calvinistic), but gave occasion for the two most important expositions of Eastern orthodoxy.

We shall notice these documents in their historical order.

At the end (§ 14–20) are added, for the benefit of the Turks, seven arguments for the truth of the Christian religion, viz.:

This apologetic appendix is omitted in the editions of Brassicanus and Fuchten, and is rejected by Otto as a later addition (l.c. pp. 5–11).

1. The concurrence of Jewish prophecies and heathen oracles in the pre-announcement of a Saviour.

2. The internal harmony and mutual agreement of the different parts of the Scriptures.

3. The acceptance of the gospel by the greatest and best men among all nations.

4. The spiritual character and tendency of the Christian faith, aiming at divine and eternal ends.

5. The ennobling effect of Christ's religion on the morals of his followers.

6. The harmony of revealed truth with sound reason, and the refutation of all objections which have been raised against it.

7. The victory of the Church over persecution and its indestructibility.

The other Confession, ascribed to Gennadius, and generally published with the first, is written in the form of a Dialogue ('Sermocinatio') between the Sultan and the Patriarch, and entitled 'The Way of Life.'

De Via Salutis. The full title, as given by Gass, l.c. II. 16, and Otto, l.c. p. 409, reads:

But there is no external evidence for the authorship of Gennadius; and the internal evidence is against it. There was no need of two Confessions for the same occasion. There is nothing characteristic of a Mohammedan in the questions of the Sultan. The text is more loose and prolix in style than the genuine Confession; it contains some absurd etymologies unworthy of Gennadius;

The word θεός, is derived from θεωρεῖν (ἀπὸ τοῦ θεωρεῖν τὰ πάντα οἱονεὶ θεωρός), and also from θέειν, percurrere (ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἀεὶ καὶ πανταχοῦ πάρεστιν); πατήρ is derived from τηρεῖν (ἀπὸ τοῦ τὰ πάντα τηρεῖν), υἱός from οἷος, talis (qualis enim Pater, talis Filius), πνεῦμα from νοέω, intelligo (πάντα γὰρ ὀξέως ἐπινοεῖ).

At that time Jeremiah II. was Patriarch of Constantinople (from 1572–94), a prelate distinguished neither for talent or learning, but for piety and misfortune, and for his connection with the Russian Church at an important epoch of its history. He was twice arbitrarily deposed, saw the old patriarchal church turned into a mosque, and made a collecting tour through Russia, where he was received with great honor, and induced to confer upon the Metropolitan of Moscow the patriarchal dignity over Russia (1589), and thus to lay the foundation of the independence of the Russian Church.

Mouravieff gives an interesting account of this visit of Jeremiah, who styled himself 'by the grace of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, which is new Rome, and Patriarch of the whole universe.' He made his solemn entry into the Kremlin seated on an ass, and presented to the Czar several rich relics, among which are mentioned 'a gold Panagia [picture of the Virgin Mary], with morsels of the life-giving Cross, of the Robe of the Lord, and of that of the Mother of God, incased within it, as well as portions of the instruments of our Lord's Passion, the Spear, the Reed, the Sponge, and the Crown of Thorns.'

After considerable delay, Jeremiah replied to the Lutheran divines at length, in 1576, and subjected the Augsburg Confession to an unfavorable criticism, rejecting nearly all its distinctive doctrines, and commending only its indorsement of the early œcumenical Synods and its view on the marriage of priests.

This third letter of Jeremiah is called Censura Orientalis Ecclesiæ, and covers nearly ninety pages folio. His first two letters are brief, and do not enter into doctrinal discussions.

The documents of both parties were published at Wittenberg, 1584.

The Answers of Jeremiah received the approval of the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672,

In Kimmel's Monumenta, Vol. I. p. 378.

The Anglican Church has since made several attempts to bring about an intercommunion with the orthodox East, especially with the Russo-Greek Church, during the reign of Peter the Great, and again in our own days, but so far without practical effect beyond the exchange of mutual courtesies and the expression of a desire for the reunion of orthodox Christendom.

See beyond, § 20.

The Confession of Metrophanes

Ὁμολογία τῆς ἀνατολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς, συγγραφεῖσα ἐν ἐπιτομῇ διὰ Μητροφάνους Ἱερομονάχου Πατριαρχικοῦ τε Πρωτοσυγγέλλου τοῦ Κριτοπούλου. Confessio catholicæ et apostolicæ in Orienti ecclesiæ, conscripta compendiose per Metrophanem Critopulum, Hieromonachum et Patriarchalem Protosyngellum. It was first published in Greek, with a Latin translation, by J. Hornejus, at Helmstädt. 1661. Kimmel compared with this ed. the MS. which is preserved in the library at Wolfenbüttel, but he died before his edition appeared, with a preface of Weissenborn (1850).

Although orthodox in the main, it yet presents the more liberal and progressive aspect of Eastern theology. It was intended to give a truthful account of the Greek faith, but betrays the influence of the Protestant atmosphere in which it was composed. It is strongly opposed to Romanism, but abstains from all direct opposition to Protestantism, and is even respectfully dedicated to the Lutheran theological faculty of Helmstädt, where it was written.

Nicolaus Comnenus called Metrophanes a Græco-Lutheranus, but without good reason.

§ 15. The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631.

The Confession of Cyril Lucar was never adopted by any branch or party of the Eastern Church, and even repeatedly condemned as heretical; but as it gave rise to the later authentic definitions of the 'Orthodox Faith,' in opposition to the distinctive doctrines of Romanism and Protestantism, it must be noticed here.

Cyrillus Lucaris (Kyrillos Loukaris

Properly 'the son of Lucar,' hence τοῦ Λουκάρεως. The word λοῦκαρ in later Greek is the Latin lucar, or lucrum, stipend, pay, profit, whence the French and English lucre.

Cyril Lucar was born in 1568 or 1572 in Candia (Crete), then under the sovereignty of Venice, and the only remaining seat of Greek learning. He studied and traveled extensively in Europe, and was for a while rector and Greek teacher in the Russian Seminary at Ostrog, in Volhynia. In French Switzerland he became acquainted with the Reformed Church, and embraced its faith. Subsequently he openly professed it in a letter to the Professors of Geneva (1636), through Leger, a minister from Geneva, who had been sent to Constantinople. He conceived the bold plan of ingrafting Protestant doctrines on the old œcumenical creeds of the Eastern Church, and thereby reforming the same. He was unanimously elected Patriarch of Alexandria in 1602 (?), and of Constantinople in 1621. While occupying these high positions he carried on an extensive correspondence with Protestant divines in Switzerland, Holland, and England, sent promising youths to Protestant universities, and imported a press from England (1629) to print his Confession and several Catechisms. But he stood on dangerous ground, between vacillating or ill-informed friends and determined foes. The Jesuits, with the aid of the French embassador at the Sublime Porte, spared no intrigues to counteract and checkmate his Protestant schemes, and to bring about instead a union of the Greek hierarchy with Rome. At their instigation his printing-press was destroyed by the Turkish government. He himself—in this respect another Athanasius 'versus mundum,' though not to be compared in intellectual power to the 'father of orthodoxy'—was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. At last, however—unlike Athanasius, who died in peaceful possession of his patriarchal dignity—he was strangled to death in 1638, having been condemned by the Sultan for alleged high-treason, and his body was thrown into the Bosphorus. His friends surrounded the palace of his successor, Cyril of Berœa, crying, 'Pilate, give us the dead, that we may bury him.'

Πίλατε, δὸς ἡμῖν τὸν νεκρόν, ἵνα αὐτὸν θάψωμεν.

Cyril left no followers able or willing to carry on his work, but the agitation he had produced continued for several years, and called forth defensive measures. His doctrines were anathematized by Patriarch Cyril of Berœa and a Synod of Constantinople (Sept., 1638),

Cyril of Berœa seemed to assume the authenticity of Cyril's Confession. He was, however, himself afterwards deposed and anathematized on the charge of extortion and embezzlement of ecclesiastical funds, and for the part he took in procuring the death of Cyril Lucar by preferring false accusation against him to the Turks. See Mouravieff, Hist. of the Church of Russia, translated by Blackmore, p. 396. Blackmore, however, gives there a wrong date, assigning the death of Cyril to 1628 instead of 1638.

§ 16. The Orthodox Confession of Mogilas, A.D. 1643.

The Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church

Ὀρθόδοξος ὁμολογία τῆς καθολικῆς καὶ ἀποστολικῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἀνατολικῆς. It is uncertain whether it was first written in Greek or in Russ. First published in Greek by Panagiotta, Amst. 1662; then in Greek and Latin by Bishop Normann, of Gothenburg (then Professor at Upsala), Leipz. 1695; in Greek, Latin, and German by C. G. Hofmann, Breslau, 1751; by Patriarch Adrian in Russian, Moscow, 1696, and again in 1839, etc.; in Kimmel's Momum. I. 56–324 (Greek and Latin, with the letters of Nectarius and Parthenius). Comp. Kimmel's Proleg. pp. lxii. sqq. The Confession must not be confounded with the Short Russian Catechism by the same author (Peter Mogilas).

Article I.—The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, with the single procession of the Spirit. (Πνεῦμα ἅγιον ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον. Against the Latins.)

Article II.—The Holy Scriptures must be interpreted, not by private judgment, but in accordance with the tradition of the Catholic Church, which can not err, or deceive, or be deceived, and is of equal authority with the Scriptures. (Essentially Romish, but without an infallible, visible head of the Church.)

Article III.—God has from eternity predestinated to glory those who would, in his foreknowledge, make good use of their free will in accepting the salvation, and has condemned those who would reject it. The Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional predestination is condemned as abominable, impious, and blasphemous.

Article IV.—The doctrine of creation. The triune God made all things, visible and invisible, except sin, which is contrary to his will, and originated in the Devil and in man.

Article V.—The doctrine of Providence. God foresees and permits (but does not foreordain) evil, and overrules it for good.

Article VI.—The primitive state and fall of man. Christ and the Virgin Mary are exempt from sin.

Article VII.—The doctrine of the incarnation of the Son of God, his death, resurrection, ascension, and return to judgment.

Article VIII.—The work of Christ. He is the only Mediator and Advocate for our sins; but the saints, and especially the immaculate Mother of our Lord, as also the holy angels, bring our prayers and petitions before him, and give them greater effect.

Article IX.—No one can be saved without faith, which is a certain persuasion, and works by love (i.e. the observance of the divine commandments). It justifies before Christ, and without it no one can please God.

Article X.—The holy Catholic and Apostolic Church comprehends all true believers in Christ, and is governed by Christ, the only head, through duly ordained bishops in unbroken succession. The doctrine of Calvinists, that bishops are not necessary, or that priests (presbyters) may be ordained by priests, and not by bishops only, is rejected.

Article XI.—Members of the Catholic Church are all the faithful, who firmly hold the faith of Christ as delivered by him, the apostles, and the holy synods, although some of them may be subject to various sins.

Article XII.—The Catholic Church is taught by the Holy Ghost, through prophets, apostles, holy fathers, and synods, and therefore can not err, or be deceived, or choose a lie for the truth. (Against Cyril; comp. Art. II.)

Article XIII.—Man is justified, not by faith alone, but also by works.

Article XIV.—Man has been debilitated by the fall, and lost the perfection and freedom from suffering, but not his intellectual and moral nature. He has still the free will (τὸ αὐτεξούσιον) or the power to choose and do good or to flee and hate evil (Matt. v. 46, 47; Rom. i. 19; ii. 14, 15). But good works done without faith can not contribute to our salvation; only the works of the regenerate, done under grace and with grace, are perfect, and render the one who does them worthy of salvation (σωτηρίας ἄξιον ποιεῖται τὸν ἐνεργοῦντα).

Article XV.—Teaches, with the Roman Church, the seven sacraments or mysteries (μυστὴρια), viz., baptism (τὸ ἅγιον βάπτισμα, Matt. xxviii. 19), confirmation (βεβαίωσις or χρίσμα, Luke xxiv. 49; 2 Cor. i. 21; and Dionysius Areop.), ordination (ἱεροσύνη, Matt. xviii. 18), the unbloody sacrifice of the altar (ἡ ἀναίμακτος θυσία, Matt. xxvi. 26, etc.), matrimony (γάμος, Matt. xix. 6; Eph. v. 32), penance and confession (μετάνοια καὶ ἐξομολόγησις, John xx. 23; Luke xiii. 3, 5), and holy unction (τὸ ἅγιον ἔλαιον or εὐχέλαιον, Mark vi. 13; James v. 14). Sacraments are not empty signs of divine promises (as circumcision), but they necessarily (ἐξ ἀνάγκης) confer grace (as ὄργανα δραστικὰ χάριτος).

Article XVI.—Teaches the necessity of baptism for salvation, baptismal regeneration (John iii. 5), infant baptism, and the salvation of baptized infants (Matt. xix. 12). The effect of baptism is the remission of hereditary and previous actual sin, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. It can not be repeated; sins committed after baptism must be forgiven by priestly absolution on repentance and confession.

Article XVII.—The Eucharist is both a sacrament and a sacrifice, in which the very body and blood of Christ are truly and really (ἀληθῶς καὶ πραγματικῶς) present under the figure and type (ἐν εἴδει καὶ τύπῳ) of bread and wine, are offered to God by the hands of the priest as a real though unbloody sacrifice for all the faithful, whether living or dead (ὑπὲρ πάντων τῶν εὐσεβῶν ζώντων καὶ τεθνεώτων), and are received by the hand and the mouth of unworthy as well as worthy communicants, though with opposite effects. The Lutheran doctrine is rejected, and the Romish doctrine of transubstantiation (μεταβολή, μετουσίωσις) is taught as strongly as words can make it;

Decr. 17 (Kimmel, P. I. p. 457): ὥστε μετὰ τὸν ἁγιασμὸν τοῦ ἄρτου καὶ τοῦ οἴνου μεταβάλλεσθαι (to be translated) μετουσιοῦσθαι (transubstantiated), μεταποιεῖσθαι (refashioned, transformed), μεταῤῥυθμίζεσθαι (changed, reformed), τὸν μὲν ἄρτον εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ ἀληθὲς τοῦ κυρίου σῶμα, ὅπερ ἐγεννήθη ἐν Βηθλεὲμ ἐκ τῆς ἀειπαρθένου, ἐβαπτίσθη ἐν Ἰορδάνῃ, ἔπαθεν, ἐτάφη, ἀνέστη, ἀνελήφθη, κάθηται ἐκ δεζιῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ πατέρος, μέλλει ἐλθεῖν ἐπὶ τῶν νεφελῶν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ—τὸν δ̉ οἶνον μεταποιεῖσθαι καὶ μετουσιοῦσθαι εἰς αὐτὸ τὸ ἀληθὲς τοῦ κυρίου αἶμα, ὅπερ κρεμαμένου ἐπὶ τοῦ σταυροῦ ἐχύθη ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου ξωῆς. Mosheim thinks that the Greeks first adopted in this period the doctrine of transubstantiation, but Kiesling (Hist. concertat. Græcorum Latinorumque de transsubstantiatione, pp. 354–480, as quoted by Tzschirner, in Vol. IX. of his continuation of Schroeckh's Church Hist. since the Reformation, p. l02) has shown that several Greeks taught this theory long before or ever since the Council of Florence (1439). Yet the opposition to the Calvinistic view of Cyril and his sympathizers brought the Greek Church to a clearer and fuller expression on this point.

Article XVIII.—The souls of the departed are either at rest or in torment,

ἐν ἀνέσει, lit. in relaxation, recreation, ἢ ἐν ὀδύνῃ, or in pain, distress.

§ 19. The Doctrinal Standards of the Russo-Greek Church.

The latest doctrinal standards of Greek Christianity are the authorized Catechisms and Church-books of the orthodox Church of Russia, by far the most important and hopeful branch of the Eastern Communion.

Russia received Christianity from the Byzantine Empire. Cyril and Methodius, two monks of Constantinople, preached the gospel to the Bulgarians on the Danube after the middle of the ninth century, translated the Scriptures

The Psalms and the New Testament, with the exception of the Apocalypse.

§ 20. Anglo-Catholic Correspondence with the Russo-Greek Church.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century proceeded entirely from the bosom of Latin or Western Catholicism. The Greek or Eastern Church had no part in the great controversy, and took no notice of it, until it was brought to its attention from without. The antagonism of the Greek Communion to Western innovations, especially to the claims of the Papacy, seemed to open the prospect of possible intercommunion and co-operation. But, so far, all the approaches to this effect on the part of Protestants have failed

1. The first attempt was made by Lutheran divines in the sixteenth century, and ended in the condemnation of the Augsburg Confession.

See above, § 13.

2. Of a different kind was Cyril's movement, in the seventeenth century, to protestantize the Eastern Church from within, which resulted in a stronger condemnation of Calvinism and Lutheranism.

See §§ 15–18.

3. The correspondence of the Anglican Non-Jurors with Russia and the East, 1717–1723, had no effect whatever.

Two high-church English Bishops; called 'Non-Jurors' (because they refused to renounce their oath of allegiance to King James II., and to transfer it to the Prince of Orange), in connection with two Scottish Bishops, assumed, October, 1717, the responsibility of corresponding with the Russian Czar, Peter the Great, and the Eastern Patriarchs.

The letters of the four Bishops signing themselves 'Jeremias, Primus Angliæ Episcopus; Archibaldus, Scoto-Britanniæ Episcopus; Jacobus, Scoto-Britanniæ Episcopus; Thomas, Angliæ Episcopus,' are given by Lathbury, in his History of the Non-Jurors, pp. 309–361, as documentary proof of their doctrinal status, but the answers are omitted.

After a delay of several years, the Patriarchs, under date, Constantinople, September, 1723, sent their ultimatum, requiring, as a term of communion, absolute submission of the British to all the dogmas of the Greek Church. 'Those,' they wrote, 'who are disposed to agree with us in the Divine doctrines of the Orthodox faith must necessarily follow and submit to what has been defined and determined by ancient Fathers and the Holy Œcumenical Synods from the time of the Apostles and their Holy Successors, the Fathers of our Church, to this time. We say they must submit to them with sincerity and obedience, and without any scruple or dispute. And this is a sufficient answer to what you have written.' With this answer they forwarded the decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672.

The Russians were more polite. The 'Most Holy Governing Synod' of St. Petersburg, in transmitting the ultimatum of the Eastern Patriarchs, proposed, in the name of the Czar, 'to the Most Reverend the Bishops of the Remnant of the Catholic Church in Great Britain, our Brethren most beloved in the Lord,' that they should send two delegates to Russia to hold a friendly conference, in the name and spirit of Christ, with two members to be chosen by the Russians, that it may be more easily ascertained what may be yielded and given up by one to the other; what, on the other hand, may and ought for conscience' sake to be absolutely denied.

The two letters of the Holy Synod, the one signed Moscow, February, 1723, the other without date, are given by Blackmore, Doctrine of the Russian Church, Pref. pp. xxvi.–xxviii. The anonymous author (probably Dr. Young, now Bishop in Florida) of No. II. of the Papers of 'the Eastern Church Association' supplies the signatures of nine Church dignitaries of Russia from personal inspection of the archives of the Holy Synod, at a visit to St. Petersburg, April, 1864.

But such a conference was never held. The death of Peter (1725) put an end to negotiations. Archbishop Wake, of Canterbury, wrote a letter to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, in which he exposed the Non-Jurors as disloyal schismatics and pretenders. The Eastern Patriarchs accused the Anglicans of being 'Lutherano-Calvinists,' and the Russian Church historian, Mouravieff, in speaking of the correspondence, represents them as being infected with the same 'German heresy,' which had been previously condemned by the Orthodox Church.

History of the Church of Russia, translated by Blackmore, pp. 286 sq., 407 sqq.

4. A far more serious and respectable attempt to effect intercommunion between the Anglican and Russo-Greek Churches was begun in 1862, with the high authority of the Convocation of Canterbury, and the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The ostensible occasion was furnished by the multiplication of Russo-Greeks on the Pacific coast, and by the desirableness of securing decent burial for Anglican travelers in the East, but the real cause lies much deeper. It is closely connected with the powerful Anglo-Catholic movement, which arose in Oxford in 1833, and has ever since been aiming to de-protestantize the Anglican Church. Hundreds of her priests and laymen, headed by Dr. John H. Newman, seceded to Rome; while others, less logical or more loyal to the Church of their fathers, are afraid of the charms or corruptions of the Papacy, and look hopefully to intercommunion with the Holy Catholic Orthodox and Apostolic Mother Church of the East to satisfy their longing for Catholic unity, and to strengthen their opposition to Protestantism and Romanism. The writings of the late Dr. John Mason Neale, and Dr. Pusey's Eirenicon, contributed not a little towards creating an interest in this direction.

In the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, held in New York, October, 1862, a joint committee was appointed 'to consider the expediency of opening communication with the Russo-Greek Church, to collect authentic information upon the subject, and to report to the next General Convention.' Soon afterwards, July 1, 1863, the Convocation of Canterbury appointed a similar committee, looking to 'such ecclesiastical intercommunion with the Orthodox East as should enable the laity and clergy of either Church to join in the sacraments and offices of the other without forfeiting the communion of their own Church.' The Episcopal Church in Scotland likewise fell in with the movement. These committees corresponded with each other, and reported from time to time to their authorities. Two Eastern Church Associations were formed, one in England and one in America, for the publication of interesting information on the doctrines and worship of the Russo-Greek Church. Visits were made to Russia, fraternal letters and Christian courtesies were exchanged, and informal conferences between Anglican and Russian dignitaries were held in London, St. Petersburg, and Moscow.

See the details in the Occasional Papers of the two Eastern Church Associations, published since 1864 in London (Rivington's) and in New York, and the Reports in the Journal of the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, held in New York, 1868, Append. IV. p. 427, and Append. XI. p. 480, and of the Convention in Baltimore, 1871, Append. VI. pp. 565–85. These reports are signed by Bishops Whittingham, Whitehouse, Odenheimer, Coxe, Young, and others. A curious incident in this correspondence, not mentioned in these documents, was the celebration of Greek mass, by a Russian ex-priest of doubtful antecedents, in the Episcopal Trinity Chapel of New York, on the anniversary of the Czar Alexander II., March 2, 1865.

The Armenians (numbering about three millions and a half) excel all the rest in numbers, intelligence, and enterprise, and are most accessible to Protestant missionaries.

The Monophysites have their name from their distinctive doctrine, that Christ had but one nature (μονὴ φύσις), which was condemned by the fourth œcumenical Council of Chalcedon. They are the antipodes of the Nestorians, whom they call Dyophysites. They agree with the Council of Ephesus (431) which condemned Nestorius, but reject the Council of Chalcedon (451). They differ, however, somewhat from the Eutychean heresy of an absorption of the human nature by the divine, as held by Eutyches (a monk of Constantinople, died after 451), and teach that Christ had one composite nature (μία φύσις σύνθετος or μία φύσις διττή). They make the humanity of Christ a mere accident of the immutable divine substance. Their main argument against the orthodox or Chalcedonian Christology is that the doctrine of two natures necessarily leads to that of two persons, and thereby severs the one Christ into two sons of God. They regarded the nature as something common to all individuals of a species (κοινόν), yet as never existing simply as such, but only in individuals. Their liturgical shibboleth was, God has been crucified, which they introduced into the trisagion, and hence they were also called Theopaschites.

With the exception of the Chalcedonian Christology, the Monophysite sects hold most of the doctrines, institutions, and rites of the Orthodox Greek Church, but in simpler and less pronounced form. They reject, or at least do not recognize, the Filioque; they hold to the mass, or the eucharistic sacrifice, with a kind of transubstantiation; leavened bread in the Lord's Supper; baptismal regeneration by trine immersion; seven sacraments (yet not explicitly, since they either have no definite term for sacrament, or no settled conception of it); the patriarchal polity; monasticism; pilgrimages and fasting; the requisition of a single marriage for priests and deacons (bishops are not allowed to marry); the prohibition of the eating of blood or of things strangled. On the other hand, they know nothing of purgatory and indulgences, and have a simpler worship than the Greeks and Romans. According to their doctrine, all men after death go into Hades, a place alike without sorrow or joy; after the general judgment they enter into heaven, or are cast into hell; and meanwhile the intercessions and pious works of the living have an influence on the final destiny of the departed.

2. Nearly a century elapsed before another champion of Romanism appeared, less learned, but more eloquent and popular, Jacques Bénigne Bossuet. He was born at Dijon, 1627, was educated by the Jesuits, tutor of the Dauphin 1670–81, Bishop of Meaux since 1681, Counselor of State 1697, and died at Paris 1704. The 'Eagle of Meaux' was the greatest theological genius of France, and the oracle of his age, a man of brilliant intellect, untiring industry, magnificent eloquence, and equally distinguished as controversialist, historian, and pulpit orator. He is called 'the last of the fathers of the Church.' While the hypocritical and licentious Louis XIV. tried to suppress Protestantism in his kingdom by cruel persecution, Bossuet betook himself to the nobler and more successful task of convincing the opponents by argument.

This he did in two works, the first apologetic, the second polemical.

(a) Exposition de la doctrine de l’église catholique sur les matières de controverse.

First published in Paris 1671, sixth ed. 1686, and often since in French, German, English, and other languages. It was approved and commended by the French clergy, even by Pope and Cardinals at that time, and attained almost the authority of a symbolical book. But the Jesuit father Maimbourg disapproved it.

In the early stages of the Reformation, Luther himself appealed to a general council, but he came to the conviction that even general councils had erred (e.g., the Council of Constance in condemning Hus), so that he had to trust exclusively to the Word of God and the Spirit of God in history. In deference to the special wish of the Emperor Charles V., the evangelical princes and divines were invited; but being refused a deliberative voice, they declined. 'They could not fail,' they replied, 'to appreciate the efforts of the Emperor, and they themselves were longing for an impartial council to be controlled by the supreme authority of the Scriptures, but they could not acknowledge nor attend a Roman council where their cause was to be judged after papal decrees and scholastic opinions, which had always found opposition in the Church. The council promised by the Pope would be neither free nor Christian, nor œcumenical, nor ruled by the Word of God; it would only confirm the authority of the Pope, on whom it was depending, and prove a new compulsion of conscience.' The result shows that these apprehensions were well founded.

At the second period of the Council, 1552, a number of Protestant divines from Württemberg, Strasburg, and Saxony, arrived in Trent, or were on the way, but they demanded a revision of the previous decrees and free deliberation, which were refused.

After long delays the Council was opened by order of Pope Paul III., in the Austrian City of Trent (since 1917, belonging to Italy), on the 13th December, 1545, and lasted, with long interruptions, till the 4th of December, 1563. The attendance varied in the three periods: under Paul III. the number of prelates never exceeded 57, under Julius III. it rose to 62, under Pius IV. it was much larger, but never reached the number of the first œcumenical Council (318). The decrees were signed by 255 members, viz., 4 legates of the Pope, 2 Cardinals, 3 Patriarchs, 25 Archbishops, 168 Bishops, 39 representatives of absent prelates, 7 Abbots, and 7 Generals of different orders. Two thirds of them were Italians. >From France and Poland only a few dignitaries were present; the greater part of the German Bishops were prevented from attendance by the war between the Emperor and the Protestants in Germany. The theologians who assisted the members of the Synod belonged to the monastic orders most devoted to the Holy See.

The pontifical party controlled the preliminary deliberations as well as the final decisions, in spite of those who maintained the rights of an independent episcopacy.

The overruling influence of the papal court over the Council rests not only on the authority of Paolo Sarpi, but on many contemporary testimonies, e.g., the reports of Franciscus de Vargas, a zealous Catholic, who was used by Charles V. and Philip II. for the most important missions, who watched the proceedings of the Council at Trent from 1551 to '52 and gave minute information to Granvella. See Lettres et Mémoires de Fr. de Vargas, de Pierre de Malvenda et des quelques erèques d'Espagne, trad. par Michel le Vassor, Amst. 1699; also in Latin, by Schramm, Brunswick. 1704. Le Plat pronounced this correspondence fictitious, but its authenticity has been sufficiently established (see Köllner, l.c. pp. 40, 41).

During a period of nearly twenty years twenty-five public sessions were held, of which about one half were spent in mere formalities. But the principal work was done in the committees or congregations. The articles of dispute were always fixed by the papal legates, who presided. They were then first discussed, often with considerable difference of opinion, in the private sessions of the 'Congregations,' and after being secretly reported to, and approved by, the court of Rome, the Synod, in public session, solemnly proclaimed the decisions. They are generally framed with consummate scholastic skill and prudence.

The decisions of the Council relate partly to doctrine, partly to discipline. The former are divided again into Decrees (decreta), which contain the positive statement of the Roman dogma, and into short Canons (canones), which condemn the dissenting views with the concluding 'anathema sit.' The Protestant doctrines, however, are almost always stated in an exaggerated form, in which they would hardly be recognized by a discriminating evangelical divine, or they are mixed up with real heresies, which Protestants condemn as emphatically as the Church of Rome.

Thus the Canones de Justificatione (Sess. VI.) reject Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, as well as Solifidianism and Antinomianism.

The doctrinal sessions, which alone concern us here, are the following:

The last act of the Council was a double curse upon all heretics.

The Cardinal of Lorraine said, 'Anathema cunctis hereticis.' To this the fathers responded, 'Anathema, Anathema.'

The decrees, signed by 255 fathers, were solemnly confirmed by a bull of Pius IV. (Benedictus Deus et Pater Domini nostri, etc.) on the 26th January, 1564, with the reservation of the exclusive right of explanation to the Pope.

As this Profession of Pius IV. is the most concise and, practically, the most important summary of the doctrinal system of Rome, we give it in full, and arrange it in three parts, so that the difference between the ancient Catholic faith, the later Tridentine faith, and the oath of obedience to the Pope as the vicar of Christ, may be more clearly seen. It should be remembered that the Nicene Creed was regarded by the ancient Church as final, and that the third and fourth œcumenical Councils solemnly, and on the pain of deposition and excommunication, forbade the setting forth of any new creed.

Conc. Ephes. (431), Canon VII.; Conc. Chalced. (451), after the definition of faith.

TRANSLATION OF THE PROFESSION.

See the Latin text in the two bulls of Pius IV. above mentioned, also in Mohnike, 1.c. pp. 46 sqq., in Streitwolf and Klener, Libri Symb. I. 98–100 (with the various readings), and in Denzinger, Enchir., p. 98. Also Mirbt, pp. 337–40. For additions to the oath, Vol. II. 210.

I. The Nicene Creed of 381, with the Western Changes.

§ 26. Roman Catechism, 1566.

The Roman Catechism was proposed by the Council of Trent, which entered upon some preparatory labors, but at its last session committed the execution to the Pope.

Sessio XXIV. De Reformatione, cap. 7 (ed. Richter, p. 344), the Bishops are directed to provide for the instruction of Catholics, 'juxta formam a sancta synodo in catechesi singulis sacramentis præscribendam, quam episcopi in vulgarem linguam fideliter verti, atque a parochis omnibus populo exponi curabunt.' According to Sarpi, a draft of the proposed Catechism was laid before the Synod, but rejected. In the 25th and last session (held Dec. 24, 1563), the Synod intrusted the Pope (Pius IV.) with the preparation of an index of prohibited books, a catechism, and an edition of the liturgical books ('idemque de catechismo a Patribus, quibus illud mandatum fuerat, et de missali, et breviario fieri mandat,' p. 471).

The work is intended for teachers (as the title ad Parochos indicates), not for pupils. It is a very full popular manual of theology, based upon the decrees of Trent. It answers its purpose very well, by its precise definitions, lucid arrangement, and good style.

The Roman Catechism treats, in four parts: 1, de Symbolo apostolico;  2, de Sacramentis;  3, de Decalogo;  4, de Oratione Dominica. It was originally written and printed without divisions.

The division into four parts, and of these into chapters and questions, appeared first in the edition of Fabricius Lodius, Col. 1572, and Antw. 1574. Other editions vary in the arrangement.

Notwithstanding the high character and authority of this production, it did not prevent the composition and use of many other catechisms, especially of a more popular kind and in the service of Jesuitism. The most distinguished of these are two Catechisms of the Jesuit Peter Canisius (a larger one for teachers, 1554, and a smaller one for pupils, 1566); the Catechism of Cardinal Bellarmin (1603), which Clement VIII. and later Popes commended as an authentic and useful exposition of the Roman Catechism, and which is much used by missionaries; and the Catechism of Bossuet for the diocese of Meaux (1687). The Roman Church allows an endless multiplication of such educational books with adaptations to different nationalities, ages, degrees of culture, local wants and circumstances, provided they agree with the doctrinal system set forth by the Council of Trent. Most of these books, however, must now be remodeled and adjusted to the Council of the Vatican.

Thus, for instance, in Keenan's Controversial Catechism, as published by the 'Catholic Publishing Company,' New Bond Street, London, the pretended doctrine of papal infallibility was expressly denied as 'a Protestant invention; it is no article of the Catholic faith; no decision of the Pope can oblige under pain of heresy, unless it be received and enforced by the teaching body, that is, by the Bishops of the Church.' But since 1871 the leaf containing this question and answer has been canceled and another substituted. So says Oxenham, in his translation of Döllinger on the Reunion of Churches, p. 126, note. The same is true of many German and French Catholic Catechisms.

§ 29. The Argument for the Immaculate Conception.

The importance of the subject justifies and demands a brief examination of the arguments in favor of this novel dogma, which is one of the most characteristic features of modern Romanism, and forms an impassable gulf between it and Protestantism. It is a striking proof of Romish departure from the truth, and of the anti-Christian presumption of the Pope, who declared it to be a primitive divine revelation; while it is in fact a superstitious fiction of the dark ages, contrary alike to the Scriptures and to genuine Catholic tradition.

1. The dogma of the sinlessness of the Virgin Mary is unscriptural, and even anti-scriptural.

(a) The Scripture passages which Perrone and other champions of the Immaculate Conception adduce are, with one exception, all taken from the Old Testament, and based either on false renderings of the Latin Bible, or on fanciful allegorical interpretation.

(1) The main (and, according to Perrone, the only) support is derived from the protevangelium, Gen. iii. 15, where Jehovah Elohim says to the serpent, according to the Latin Bible (which the Romish Church has raised to an equality with the original): 'Inimicitias ponam inter te et mulierem, et semen tuum et semen illius; Ipsa conteret caput tuum, et tu insidiaberis calcaneo ejus' (i.e., she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt assail her heel). Here the ipsa is referred to the woman (mulier), and understood of the Virgin Mary.

Pope Pius IX. has given his infallible sanction to this misapplication of the protevangelium to Mary in the gallant phrase already quoted (p. 112) from his Encyclical on the dogma.

But the translation of the Vulgate, on which all this reasoning is based, is contrary to the original Hebrew, which uses the masculine form of the verb, he (or it, the seed of the woman), i.e., Christ, shall bruise, or crush, the serpent's head, i.e., destroy the devil's power; it is inconsistent with the last clause, 'and thou shalt bruise his (i.e., Christ's) heel,' which contains a mysterious allusion to the crucifixion of the seed, not of the woman; and, finally, the Romish interpretation leads to the blasphemous conclusion that Mary, and not Christ, has destroyed the power of Satan, and saved the human race.

The Hebrew text admits of no doubt; for the verb יְשׁוּפְ, in the disputed clause, is masculine (he shall bruise, or crush), and הוּא naturally refers to the preceding זַרְעָהּ (her seed), i.e., זֶרַצ אִשָּׁה (the woman's seed), and not to the more remote אִשָּׁה (woman). In the Pentateuch the personal pronoun הוּא (he) is indeed generis communis, and stands also for the feminine הִיא (she), which (according to the Masora on Gen. xxxviii. 25) is found but eleven times in the Pentateuch; but in all these cases the masoretic punctuators wrote הִוא, to signify that it ought to be read הִיא (she). The Peshito, the Septuagint (αὐτός σοι τηρήσει κεφαλήν), and other ancient versions, are all right. Even some MSS. of the Vulgate read ipse for ipsa, and Jerome himself, the author of the Vulgate, in his 'Hebrew Questions,' and Pope Leo I., condemn the translation ipsa. But the blunder was favored by other Fathers (Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory I.), who knew no Hebrew, and by the monastic asceticism and fanciful chivalric Mariolatry of the Middle Ages. To the same influence must be traced the arbitrary change of the Vulgate in the rendering of שׁוּף from conteret (shall bruise) into insidiaberis (shall lie in wait, assail, pursue), so as to exempt the Virgin from the least injury.

(2) An unwarranted reference of some poetic descriptions of the fair and spotless bride, in the Song of Solomon, to Mary, instead of the people of Jehovah or the Christian Church, Cant. iv. 7, according to the Vulgate: 'Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te.' In any case, this is only a description of the present character.

(3) An arbitrary allegorical interpretation of the 'garden inclosed, and fountain sealed,' spoken of the spouse, Cant. iv. 12 (Vulg.: 'hortus conclusus, fons signatus'), and the closed gate in the east of the temple in the vision of Ezekiel, xliv. 1-3, of which it is said: 'It shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince; the prince he shall sit in it, to eat bread before the Lord.' This is a favorite support of the doctrine of the perpetual virginity. Ambrose of Milan (d. 397) was perhaps the first who found here a type of the closed womb of the Virgin, by which Christ entered into the world, and who added to the miracle of a conception sine viro the miracle of a birth clauso utero.

Epist. 42 ad Siricium; De inst. Virg., c. 8, and in his hymn A solis ortus cardine. The earlier Fathers thought differently on the subject. Tertullian calls Mary 'a virgin as to a man, but not a virgin as to birth' (non virgo, quantum a partu); and Epiphanius speaks of Christ as 'opening the mother's womb' (ἀνοίγων μήτραν μητρός). See my History of the Christian Church, Vol. II. p. 417.

To this characteristic Encyclical is added the so-called Syllabus, i.e., a catalogue of eighty errors of the age, which had been previously pointed out by Pius IX. in Consistorial Allocutions, Encyclical and other Apostolic Letters, but are here conveniently brought together, and were transmitted by Cardinal Antonelli to all the Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.

This extraordinary document presents a strange mixture of truth and error. It is a protest against atheism, materialism, and other forms of infidelity which every Christian must abhor; but it is also a declaration of war against modern civilization and the course of history for the last three hundred years. Like the papal bulls against the Jansenists, it is purely negative, but it implies the assertion of doctrines the very opposite to those which are rejected as errors.

A learned Jesuit, Clemens Schrader, translated them into a positive form.

The number of errors was no doubt suggested by the example of Epiphanius, the venerable father of heresy-hunters (d. 403), who, in his Panarion, or Medicine-Chest, furnishes antidotes for the poison of no less than eighty heresies (including twenty before Christ), probably with a mystic reference to the octoginta concubinæ in the Song of Solomon (vi. 8).

The Pope divides the eighty errors of the nineteenth century into ten sections, as follows:

I. Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism, No. 1–7.

Under this head are condemned the following errors:

(1.) The denial of the existence of God.

(2.) The denial of his revelation.

(3 and 4.) The sufficiency of human reason to enlighten and to guide men.

(5.) Divine revelation is imperfect, and subject to indefinite progress.

(6.) The Christian faith contradicts human reason, and is an obstacle to progress.

(7.) The prophecies and miracles of the Bible are poetic fictions, and Jesus himself is a myth.

'Jesus Christus est mythica fictio.' I am not aware that any sane infidel has ever gone so far. Strauss and Renan resolve the miracles of the gospel history into myths or legends, but admit the historical existence and extraordinary character of Jesus, as the greatest religions genius who ever lived.

II. Moderate Rationalism, No. 8–14.

Among these errors are:

(12.) The decrees of the Roman See hinder the progress of science.

(13.) The scholastic method of theology is unsuited to our age.

No. 13. 'Methodus et principia, quibus antiqui Doctores scholastici theologiam excoluerunt, temporum nostrorum necessitatibus scientiarumque progressui minime congruunt.'

(14.) Philosophy must be treated without regard to revelation.

III. Indifferentism, Latitudinarianism, No. 15–18.

(15.) Every man may embrace and profess that religion which commends itself to his reason.

No. 15. 'Liberum cuique homini est eam amplecti ac profiteri religionem, quam rationis lumine quis ductus veram putaverit.'

(16.) Men may be saved under any religion.

No. 16. 'Homines in cujusvis religionis cultu viam æternæ salutis reperire æternamque salutem assequi possunt.'

(17.) We may at least be hopeful concerning the eternal salvation of all non-Catholics.

No. 17. 'Saltem bene sperandum est de æterna illorum omnium salute, qui in vera Christi Ecclesia nequaquam versantur.'

(18.) Protestantism is only a different form of the same Christian religion, in which we may please God as well as in the Catholic Church.

No. 18. 'Protestantismus non aliud est quam diversa veræ ejusdem christianæ religionis forma, in qua æque ac in Ecclesia catholica Deo placere datum est.'

IV. Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies, Clerico-Liberal Societies.

Under this head there are no specifications, but the reader is referred to previous Encyclicals of 1848, 1849, 1854, 1863, in which 'ejusmodi pestes sæpe gravissimisque verborum formulis reprobantur.' The Bible Societies, therefore, are put on a par with socialism and communism, as pestilential errors worthy of the severest reprobation!

V. Errors respecting the Church and her Rights.

Twenty errors (19–38), such as these: the Church is subject to the State; the Church has no right to exercise her authority without the leave and assent of the State; the Church has not the power to define dogmatically that the religion of the Catholic Church is the only true religion; Roman Pontiffs and œcumenical Councils have exceeded the limits of their power, usurped the rights of princes, and have erred even in matters of faith and morals;

No. 23. 'Romani pontifices et concilia œcumenica a limitibus suæ potestatis recesserunt, jura principum usurparunt, atque etiam in rebus fidei et morum definiendis errarunt.'

VI. Errors concerning Civil Society, considered as well in itself as in its relations to the Church. Seventeen errors (39–55).

(44.) 'Civil authority may meddle in things pertaining to religion, morals, and the spiritual government.'

(45.) 'The whole government of public schools, in which the youth of a Christian commonwealth is trained, with the exception of some Episcopal seminaries, can and must be assigned to the civil authority.'

No. 45. 'Totum scholarum publicarum regimen, in quibus juventus christianæ alicujus Reipublicæ instituitur, episcopalibus dumtaxat seminariis aliqua ratione exceptis, potest ac debet attribui auctoritati civili,' etc. Compare Nos. 47 and 48. Hence the irreconcilable hostility of the Romish clergy to public schools, especially where the Protestant Bible is read.

(46.) 'The method of study even in the seminaries of the clergy is subject to the civil authority.'

(52.) 'The lay government has the right to depose Bishops from the exercise of pastoral functions, and is not bound to obey the Roman Pontiff in those things which pertain to the institution of bishoprics and bishops.'

(55.) 'The Church is to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.'

No. 55. 'Ecclesia a Statu, Statusque ab Ecclesia sejungendus est.' Compare Alloc. Acerbissimum 27 Sept. 1852.

VII. Errors in Natural and Christian Ethics, No. 56–64. Here among other things are condemned the principle of non-intervention, and rebellion against legitimate princes.

VIII. Errors on Christian Matrimony, No. 65–74.

Here the Pope condemns not only loose views on marriage and divorce, but also civil marriage, and any theory which does not admit it to be a sacrament.

No. 73. 'Vi contractus mere civilis potest inter Christianos constare veri nominis matrimonium; falsumque est, aut contractum matrimonii inter Christianos semper esse sacramentum, aut nullum esse contractum, si sacramentum excludatur.'

IX. Errors regarding the Civil Principality of the Roman Pontiff, No. 75, 76.

(75.) Concerning the compatibility of the temporal reign with the spiritual, there is a difference of opinion among the sons of the Christian and Catholic Church.

(76.) The abrogation of the civil government of the Apostolic See would be conducive to the liberty and welfare of the Church.

X. Errors referring to Modern Liberalism, No. 77–80.

Under this head are condemned the principles of religious liberty as they have come to prevail in the most enlightened States of Christendom. The Pope still holds that it is right to forbid and exclude all religions but his own, where he has the power to do so (as he had and exercised in Rome before 1870); and he refuses to make any terms with modern civilization.

(77.) 'Ætate hoc nostra non amplius expedit, religionem catholicam haberi tamquam unicam status religionem, ceteris quibuscumque cultibus exclusis.'

(78.) 'Hinc laudabiliter in quibusdam catholici nominis regionibus lege cautum est, ut hominibus illuc immigrantibus liceat publicum proprii cujusque cultus exercitium habere.'

(79.) 'Enimvero falsum est, civilem cujusque cultus libertatem, itemque plenam potestatem omnibus attributam quaslibet opiniones cogitationesque palam publiceque manifestandi conducere ad populorum mores animosque facilius corrumpendos ac indifferentismi pestem propagandam.'

(80.) 'Romanus Pontifex potest ac debet cum progressu, cum liberalismo et cum recenti civilitate sese reconciliare et componere.'

The Syllabus, though resting solely on the authority of the Pope, must be regarded as an integral portion of the Roman Creed; the Pope having since been declared infallible in his official utterances. The most objectionable as well as the least objectionable parts of it have been formally sanctioned by the Vatican Council. The rest may be similarly sanctioned hereafter. The Syllabus expresses the genuine spirit of Popery, to which may be applied the dictum of the General of the Jesuits: 'Aut sit ut est, aut non sit.' It can not change without destroying itself.

In the mean time the politico-ecclesiastical doctrines of the Syllabus, together with the Infallibility decree, have provoked a new conflict between the Pope and the Emperor. Pius IX. looks upon the State with the same proud contempt as Gregory VII. 'Persecution of the Church,' he said after the recent expulsion of the Jesuits (1872), 'is folly: a little stone [Dan. ii. 45] will break the colossus [of the new German empire] to pieces.' But Bismarck, who is made of sterner stuff than Henry IV., protests: 'We shall not go to Canossa.'

American Protestants and European Free Churchmen reject all interference of the civil government with the liberty and internal affairs of the Church as much as the Pope, but they do this on the basis of a peaceful separation of Church and State, and an equality of all forms of Christianity before the law; while the Syllabus claims absolute freedom and independence exclusively for the Roman hierarchy, and claims this even in those countries where the State supports the Church, and has therefore a right to a share in its government.

[The Syllabus of Pius IX. was substantially confirmed by Leo XIII., Nov. 1, 1885, June 1, 1889, and Feb. 1, 1890, and Pius XI. in pascendi gregis, 1907. It is pronounced infallible by Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., II., 780, Straub, de eccles., II., 398–402, and Leitner, Hdbuch. des kath. Kirchenrechts, 2nd ed., p. 15. Other documents pronounced by Lehmkuhl, II., 726–88, infallible, are Leo X.'s bull against Luther, 1520, Innocent X.'s against Jansen, Innocent XI.'s against the Laxists, etc.—Ed.]

More than three hundred years after the close of the Council of Trent, Pope Pius IX., who had proclaimed the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, who in the presence of five hundred Bishops had celebrated the eighteenth centennial of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul, and who was permitted to survive not only the golden wedding of his priesthood, but even—alone among his more than two hundred and fifty predecessors—the silver wedding of his popedom (thus falsifying the tradition 'non videbit annos Petri'), resolved to convoke a new œcumenical Council, which was to proclaim his own infallibility in all matters of faith and discipline, and thus to put the top-stone to the pyramid of the Roman hierarchy.

He first intimated his intention, June 26, 1867, in an Allocution to five hundred Bishops who were assembled at the eighteenth centenary of the martyrdom of St. Peter in Rome. The Bishops, in a most humble and obsequious response, July 1, 1867, approved of his heroic courage, to employ, in his old age, an extreme measure for an extreme danger, and predicted a new splendor of the Church, and a new triumph of the kingdom of God.

'Summo igitur gauaio,' said the five hundred Bishops, 'repletus est animus noster, dum sacrato ore Tuo intelleximus, tot inter præsentis temporis discrimina eo Te esse consilio, ut "maximum," prout aiebat inclitus Tuus prædecessor Paulus III., "in maximis rei Christianæ periculis remedium," Concilium œcumenicum convoces. Annuat Deus huic Tuo proposito, cuius ipse Tibi mentem inspiravit; habeantque tandem œvi nostri homines, qui infirmi in fide, semper discentes et nunquam ad veritatis agnitionem pervenientes omni vento doctrinæ circumferuntur, in sacrosancta hac Synodo novam, præsentissimamque occasionem accedendi ad sanctam Ecclesiam columnam ac firmamentum veritatis, cognoscendi salutiferam fidem, perniciosos reiiciendi errores; ac fiat, Deo propitio, et conciliatrice Deipara Immaculata, hæc Synodus grande opus unitatis, sanctificationis et pacis, unde novus in Ecclesiam splendor redundet, novus regni Dei triumphus consequatur. Et hoc ipso Tuæ providentiæ opere denuo exibeatur mundo immensa beneficia, per Pontificatum romanum humanæ societati asserta. Pateat cunctis, Ecclesiam eo quod super solidissima Petra fundetur, tantum valere, ut errores depellat, mores corrigat, barbariem compescat, civilisque humanitatis mater dicatur et sit. Pateat mundo, quod divinæ auctoritatis et debitæ eidem obedientiæ manifestissimo specimine, in divina Pontificatus institutione dato, ea omnia stabilita et sacrata sint, quæ societatum fundamenta ac diuturnitatem solident.'

The call was issued by an Encyclical, commencing Æterni Patris Unigenitus Filius, in the twenty-third year of his Pontificate, on the feast of St. Peter and Paul, June 29, 1868. It created at once a universal commotion in the Christian world, and called forth a multitude of books and pamphlets even before the Council convened. The highest expectations were suspended by the Pope and his sympathizers on the coming event. What the Council of Trent had effected against the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, the Council of the Vatican was to accomplish against the more radical and dangerous foes of modern liberalism and rationalism, which threatened to undermine Romanism itself in its own strongholds. It was to crush the power of infidelity, and to settle all that belongs to the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the Church, and the eternal salvation of souls.

After describing, in the stereotyped phrases of the Roman Court, the great solicitude of the successors of Peter for pure doctrine and good government, and the terrible tempests and calamities by which the Catholic Church and the very foundations of society are shaken in the present age, the Pope's Encyclical comprehensively but vaguely, and with a prudent reserve concerning the desired dogma of Infallibility, defines the objects of the Council in these words: 'In œcumenico hoc Concilio ea omnia accuratissime examine sunt perpendenda ac statuenda, quæ hisce præsertim asperrimis temporibus majorem Dei gloriam, et fidei integritatem, divinique cultus decorem, sempiternamque hominum salutem, et utriusque Cleri disciplinam ejusque salutarem solidamque culturam, atque ecclesiasticarum legum observantiam, morumque emendationem, et christianam juventutis institutionem, et communem omnium pacem et concordiam in primis respiciunt. Atque etiam intentissimo studio curandum est, ut, Deo bene juvante, omnia ab Ecclesia et civili societate amoveantur mala, ut miseri errantes ad rectum veritatis, justitiæ salutisque tramitem reducantur, ut vitiis erroribusque eliminatis, augusta nostra religio ejusque salutifera doctrina ubique terrarum reviviscat, et quotidie magis propagetur et dominetur, atque ita pietas, honestas, probitas, justitia, caritas omnesque Christianæ virtutes cum maxima humanæ societatis utilitate vigeant et efflorescant.'

The preamble, even in its present modified form, derives modern Rationalism and infidelity, as a legitimate fruit, from the heresies condemned by the Council of Trent—that is, from the Protestant Reformation; in the face of the fact, patent to every scholar, that Protestant theology has been in the thickest of the fight with unbelief, and, notwithstanding all its excesses, has produced a far richer exegetical and apologetic literature than Romanism during the last three hundred years.

The objectionable passage, as finally adopted, reads thus: 'No one is ignorant that the heresies proscribed by the Fathers of Trent, by which the divine magisterium of the Church was rejected, and all matters regarding religion were surrendered to the judgment of each individual, gradually became dissolved into many sects, which disagreed and contended with one another, until at length not a few lost all faith in Christ. Even the Holy Scriptures, which had previously been declared the sole source and judge of Christian doctrine, began to be held no longer as divine, but to be ranked among the fictions of mythology. Then there arose, and too widely overspread the world, that doctrine of Rationalism which opposes itself in every way to the Christian religion as a supernatural institution.' See the different revisions of the schema de fide in Friedrich's Monum. Pt. II. pp. 3, 65, 73.

The supplement of the decree binds all Catholics to observe also those constitutions and decrees by which such erroneous opinions as are not here specifically enumerated have been proscribed and condemned by the Holy See. This can be so construed as to include all the eighty errors of the Syllabus. The minority who in the General Congregation had voted Non Placet or only a conditional Placet, were quieted by the official assurance that the addition involved no new dogma, and had a disciplinary rather than a didactic character. 'Some gave their votes with a heavy heart, conscious of the snare.' Strossmayer stayed away. Thus a unanimous vote of 667 or 668 fathers was secured in the public session, and the Infallibility decree was virtually anticipated. The Pope, after proclaiming the dogma, gave the Bishops his benediction of peace, and gently intimated what he next expected from them.

'Videtis,' he said, 'Fratres carissimi, quam bonum sit et jucundum ambulare in domo Dei cum consensu, ambulare cum pace. Sic ambuletis semper. Et quoniam hac die Dominus Noster Jesus Christus dedit pacem Apostolis suis, et ego, Vicarius ejus indignus, nomine suo do vobis pacem. Pax ista, prout scitis, expellit timorem. Pax ista, prout scitis, claudit aures sermonibus imperitis. Ah! ista pax vos comitetur omnibus diebus vitæ vestræ; sit ista pax vis in morte, sit ista pax vobis gaudium sempiternum in cœlis.'

Besides the all-powerful aid of the Pope, whom no Bishop can disobey without fatal consequences, the Infallibilists had the great advantage of perfect unity of sentiment and aim; while the anti-Infallibilists were divided among themselves, many of them being simply inopportunists. They professed to agree with the majority in principle or practice, and to differ from them only on the subordinate question of definability and opportunity.

Only the address of the German Bishops took openly the ground that it would be difficult from internal reasons (viz., the contradiction of history and tradition) to proclaim Infallibility as a dogma of revelation. See Friedrich, Tagebuch, p. 126; and Frommann, Geschichte, p. 62.

In the mean time a literary war on Infallibility was carried on in the Catholic Church in Germany, France, and England, and added to the commotion in Rome. A large number of pamphlets, written or inspired by prominent members of the Council, appeared for and against Infallibility. Distinguished outsiders, as Döllinger, Gratry, Hyacinthe, Montalembert, and others, mixed in the fight, and strengthened the minority.

See the literature in the next section, and in Friedberg, pp. 33–44. Comp. Frommann, pp. 66 sqq.

After preliminary skirmishes, the formal discussion began in earnest in the 50th session of the General Congregation, May 13, 1870, and lasted to the 86th General Congregation, July 16. About eighty Latin speeches

According to Manning, but only 65 according to Friedberg, p. 47.

When the vote was taken on the whole four chapters of the Constitution of the Church, July 13, 1870, in the 85th secret session of the General Congregation (601 members being present), 451 voted Placet, 88 Non Placet, 62 Placet juxta modum, over 80 (perhaps 91), though present in Rome or in the neighborhood, abstained for various reasons from voting.

See the list in Friedberg, pp. 146–149; also in Friedrich, Docum. II. pp. 426 sqq.; and Quirinus, Letter LXVI. pp. 778 sqq. Quirinus errs in counting the 91 (according to others, 85 or only 70) absentees among the 601. There were in all from 680 to 692 members present in Rome at the time. See Fessler, p. 89 (who states the number of absentees to be 'over 80'), and Frommann, p. 201. The protest of the minority to the Pope, July 17, states the number of voters in the same way, except that 70, instead of 91 or 85, is given as the number of absentees: 'Notum est Sanctitati Vestræ, 88 Patres fuisse, qui, conscientia urgente et amore s. Ecclesiæ permoti, suffragium suum per verba non placet emiserunt; 62 alios, qui suffragati sunt per verba placet juxta modum, denique 70 circiter qui a congregatione abfuerunt atque a suffragio emittendo abstinuerunt. Hic accedunt et alii, qui, infirmitatibus aut gravioribus rationibus ducti, ad suas diœceses reversi sunt.'

§ 34. Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Tradition and Scripture.

The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism, the two test dogmas which must decide the ultimate fate of this system. Both were enacted under the same Pope, and both faithfully reflect his character. Both have the advantage of logical consistency from certain premises, and seem to be the very perfection of the Romish form of piety and the Romish principle of authority. Both rest on pious fiction and fraud; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism; the dogma of Infallibility, which exempts the Bishop of Rome from error, resolves Catholicism into Papalism, or the Church into the Pope. The worship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ, and a man-god in Rome for the God-Man in heaven. This is a severe judgment, but a closer examination will sustain it.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, being confined to the sphere of devotion, passed into the modern Roman creed without serious difficulty; but the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which involves a question of absolute power, forms an epoch in the history of Romanism, and created the greatest commotion and a new secession. It is in its very nature the most fundamental and most comprehensive of of all dogmas. It contains the whole system in a nutshell. It constitutes a new rule of faith. It is the article of the standing or falling Church. It is the direct antipode of the Protestant principle of the absolute supremacy and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures. It establishes a perpetual divine oracle in the Vatican. Every Catholic may hereafter say, I believe—not because Christ, or the Bible, or the Church, but—because the infallible Pope has so declared and commanded. Admitting this dogma, we admit not only the whole body of doctrines contained in the Tridentine standards, but all the official Papal bulls, including the mediæval monstrosities of the Syllabus (1864), the condemnation of Jansenism, the bull 'Unam Sanctam' of Boniface VIII. (1302), which, under pain of damnation, claims for the Pope the double sword, the secular as well as the spiritual, over the whole Christian world, and the power to depose princes and to absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance.

This bull has been often disowned by Catholics (e.g., by the Universities of Sorbonne, Louvain, Alcala, Salamanca, when officially asked by Mr. Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1788, also by Martin John Spalding, Archbishop of Baltimore, in his Lectures on Evidences, 1866), and, to some extent, even by Pius IX. (see Friedberg, p. 718), but it is unquestionably official, and was renewed and approved by the fifth Lateran Council, Dec. 19, 1516. Paul III. and Pius V. acted upon it, the former in excommunicating and deposing Henry VIII. of England, the latter in deposing Queen Elizabeth, exciting her subjects to rebellion, and urging Philip of Spain to declare war against her (see the Bullarium Rom., Camden, Burnet, Froude, etc.). The Papal Syllabus sanctions it by implication, in No. 23, which condemns as an error the opinion that Roman Pontiffs have exceeded the limits of their power.

On the other hand, if the dogma is false, it involves a blasphemous assumption, and makes the nearest approach to the fulfillment of St. Paul's prophecy of the man of sin, who 'as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself off that he is God' (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Let us first see what the dogma does not mean, and what it does mean.

It does not mean that the Pope is infallible in his private opinions' on theology and religion. As a man, he may be a heretic (as Liberius, Honorius, and John XXII.), or even an unbeliever (as John XXIII., and, perhaps, Leo X.), and yet, at the same time, infallible as Pope, after the fashion of Balaam and Kaiphas.

Nor does it mean that infallibility extends beyond the proper sphere of religion and the Church. The Pope may be ignorant of science and literature, and make grave mistakes in his political administration, or be misinformed on matters of fact (unless necessarily involved in doctrinal decisions), and yet be infallible in defining articles of faith.

Pope Pius IX. started as a political reformer, and set in motion that revolution which, notwithstanding his subsequent reactionary course, resulted in the unification of Italy and the loss of the States of the Church, against which he now so bitterly protests.

Infallibility does not imply impeccability. And yet freedom from error and freedom from sin are so nearly connected in men's minds that it seems utterly impossible that such moral monsters as Alexander VI. and those infamous Popes who disgraced humanity during the Roman pornocracy in the tenth and eleventh centuries, should have been vicars of Jesus Christ and infallible organs of the Holy Ghost. If the inherent infallibility of the visible Church logically necessitates the infallibility of the visible head, it is difficult to see why the same logic should not with equal conclusiveness derive the personal holiness of the head from the holiness of the body.

On the other hand, the dogma does mean that all official utterances of the Roman Pontiff addressed to the Catholic Church on matters of Christian faith and duty are infallibly true, and must be accepted with the same faith as the word of the living God. They are not simply final in the sense in which all decisions of an absolute government or a supreme court of justice are final until abolished or superseded by other decisions,

In this general sense Joseph de Maistre explains infallibility to be the same in the spiritual order that sovereignty means in the civil order: 'L’un et l’autre expriment cette haute puissance qui les domine toutes, dont toutes les autres dérivent, qui gouverne et n’est pas gouvernée, qui juge et n’est pas jugée. Quand nous disons que l’Eglise est infaillible, nous ne demandons pour elle, il est bien essentiel de l’observer, aucun privilége particulier; nous demandons seulement qu’elle jouisse du droit commun à toutes les souverainetés possible qui toutes agissent néssairement comme infaillibles; car tout gouvernement est absolu; et du moment où l’on peut lui résister sous prétexte d’erreur ou d’injustice, il n’existe plus.' Du Pape, ch. i., pp. 15, 16.

§ 35. The Liturgical Standards of the Roman Church.

A secondary symbolical authority belongs to those Latin liturgical works of the Roman Church which have been sanctioned by the Pope for use in public and private worship. They contain, in the form of devotion, nearly all the articles of faith, especially those referring to the sacraments and the cultus of saints and of the holy Virgin, and are, in a practical point of view, even of greater importance than the doctrinal standards, inasmuch as they are interwoven with the daily religious life of the priests.

Among these works the most important is the Missale Romanum, as issued by Pius V. in 1570, in compliance with a decree of the Council of Trent. It was subsequently revised again under Clement VIII. in 1604, and under Urban VIII. in 1634. The substance goes back to the early eucharistic services of the Latin Church, among which the principal ones are ascribed to Popes Leo I. (Sacramentarium Leonianum, probably from 483–492), Gelasius I. (Sacramentarium Gelasianum), and Gregory I. (Sacramentarium Gregorianum). But considerable diversity and confusion prevailed in provincial and local churches. Hence the Council of Trent ordered a new revision, under the direction of the Pope, with a view to secure uniformity. The Missal consists of three parts, besides Introduction and Appendix, viz.: (a) The Proprium Missarum de Tempore, or the services for the Sundays of the Christian year, beginning with the first Sunday in Advent, and closing with the last after Whitsuntide, all clustering around the great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. (b) The Proprium Missarum de Sanctis contains the forms for the celebration of mass on saints' days and other particular feasts, arranged according to the months and days of the civil year; the annually recurring death-days of saints being regarded as their celestial birth-days, (c) The Commune Sanctorum is supplementary to the second part, and devoted to the celebration of the days of those saints for whom there is no special service provided in the Proprium. The Appendix to the Missal contains various masses and benedictions.

Next comes the Breviarum Romanum, revised by order of the Council of Trent, under Pius V., 1568, and again under Clement VIII., 1602, and finally brought into its present shape under Urban VIII., 1631. Since that time it has undergone no material changes, but received occasional additions of new festivals. The Breviary

The term Breviary is derived from the abridgments of the Scriptures and lives of saints contained therein, as distinct from the plenarium officium; by others from the fact that later editions of the work are abridgments of former editions.

The centres of Old Catholicism are Munich and Bonn in Germany, and Geneva and Soleure (also Olten) in Switzerland. Beyond these two countries it has many isolated sympathies, but no organized form, and no hold upon the people.

The German origin of the movement operates against it in France, which, with all its Gallican traditions, has, for political reasons, since the war of 1870, become more Romish than it ever was before. When Völk, at the Old Catholic Congress in Constance, alluded to the uprising of the Deutschthum versus the Welschthum, and the intrigues of French Jesuits, Hyacinthe and Pressensé left the hall. Yet the Old Catholic priests, who were elected pastors of Geneva by the Catholic part of the population in October, 1873—Loyson, Hurtault, and Charard—are all Frenchmen. Once more Geneva seems to become the centre and starting-point of a new reformation, which sooner or later will react upon France. Abbé Michaud, formerly of the Madeleine in Paris, so far is the only prominent Old Catholic in France. Among the Irish Catholics there is not the least indication of sympathy with Old Catholicism, not even in free America. Spain and Italy ought to sympathize with it, for the Pope is the implacable enemy of Italian unity and the Spanish republic; but they have kept aloof so far from any progressive religious movement; and Spain has once more surrendered herself to the rule of a Bourbon and the Pope (1875). In England, the famous pamphlet of Gladstone on the Vatican Decrees (1874) has brought to light the Old Catholic sympathies of Lord Acton and other prominent English Catholics.