The only thing which may and must be said in his excuse is that the question was then new and not yet properly understood. He was, so to say, an innocent heretic before the church had pronounced a decision. As soon as it appeared that the orthodox dogma of two natures required the doctrine of two wills, and that Christ could not be a full man without a human will, the popes changed the position, and Honorius would probably have done the same had he lived a few years longer.

Various attempts have been made by papal historians and controversialists to save the orthodoxy of Honorius in order to save the dogma of papal infallibility. Some pronounce his letters to be a later Greek forgery. Others admit their genuineness, but distort them into an orthodox sense by a nonnatural exegesis. Still others maintain, at the expense of his knowledge and logic, that Honorius was orthodox at heart, but heretical, or at least very unguarded in his expressions.3 But we have no means to judge of his real sentiment except his own language, which is unmistakably Monotheletic. And this is

how much more must this hold good of the Head himself!" Neander adds in a note: "Although the theory of two modes of working" [which is the orthodox doctrine] "lies at the foundation of the very thing he here asserts, yet he carefully avoided expressing this." In the same sense, Dr. Döllinger, when still in communion with Rome, stated the doctrine of Honorius, and said (Fables of the Popes, p. 226, Am. ed.): "This doctrine of Honorius, so welcome to Sergius and the other favorers and supporters of Monotheletism, led to the two imperial edicts, the Ekthesis and the Typus."

1 Bellarmin, and Bishop Bartholus (Bartoli) of Feltre, who questioned also the integrity of the letters of Sergius to Honorius (in his Apol. pro Honorio I., 1750, as quoted by Döllinger, p. 253, and Hefele, III. 142). Döllinger declares this to be " a lamentable expedient."

So Perrone, Pennachi, Manning. These divines presume to know better than the infallible Pope Leo II., who ex cathedra denounced Honorius as a heretic.

So Pope John IV. (640-642), who apologized for his predecessor that he merely meant to reject the notion of two mutually opposing wills, as if Christ had a will tainted with sin (Mansi, X. 683). But nobody dreamed of ascribing a sinful will to Christ. Bishop Hefele and Cardinal Hergenröther resort substantially to the same apology; see notes at the end of this section.

the verdict not only of Protestants,' but also of Gallican and other liberal Catholic historians.2

2. Honorius was condemned by the sixth oecumenical Council as "the former pope of Old Rome," who with the help of the old serpent had scattered deadly error.3 This anathema was repeated by the seventh ecumenical Council, 787, and by the eighth, 869. The Greeks, who were used to heretical patriarchs of New Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, felt no surprise, and perhaps some secret satisfaction at the heresy of a pope of Old Rome.

Here again ultramontane historians have resorted to the impossible denial either of the genuineness of the act of condemnation in the sixth oecumenical Council, or of the true meaning of that act. The only consistent way for papal infallibilists is to deny the infallibility of the cecumenical Council as regards the dogmatic fact. In this case it would involve at the same time a charge of gross injustice to Honorius.

3. But this last theory is refuted by the popes themselves, who condemned Honorius as a heretic, and thus bore testimony for papal fallibility. His first successor, Severinus, had a brief pontificate of only three months. His second successor, John IV., apologized for him by putting a forced con

1 Walch, Neander, Gieseler, Baur, Dorner, Kurtz, etc. See note on p. 5022 Richer, Dupin, Bossuet, Döllinger.

3 Mansi, XI. 622, 635, 655, 666.

Baronius (Ad ann. 633 and 681), and Pighius (Diatribe de Actis VI. et VII. Concil.).

5 As a condemnation, not of the heresy of Honorius, but of his negligence in suppressing heresy by his counsel of silence (ob imprudentem silentii œconomiam). So the Jesuit Garnier, De Honorii et concilii VI. causa, in an appendix to his edition of the Liber diurnus Romanorum pontificum, quoted by Hefele (III. 175), who takes the trouble of refuting this view by three arguments.

6 An error not in the dogmatic definition, but in facto dogmatico. It is argued that an ecumenical council as well as a pope may err in matters de facto, though not de fide and de jure. This view was taken by Anastasius, the papal librarian, Cardinal Turrecremata, Bellarmin, Pallavicino, Melchior Canus, Jos. Sim. Assemani, and recently by Professor Pennachi. See Hefele, III. 174, note 4.

struction on his language. Agatho prudently ignored him.' But his successor, Leo II., who translated the acts of the sixth Council from Greek into Latin, saw that he could not save the honor of Honorius without contradicting the verdict of the council in which the papal delegates had taken part; and therefore he expressly condemned him in the strongest language, both in a letter to the Greek emperor and in a letter to the bishops of Spain, as a traitor to the Roman church for trying to subvert her immaculate fate. Not only so, but the condemnation of the unfortunate Honorius was inserted in the confession of faith which every newly-elected pope had to sign down to the eleventh century, and which is embodied in the Liber Diurnus, i. e. the official book of formulas of the Roman church for the use of the papal curia. In the editions of the Roman Breviary down to the sixteenth century his name appears, yet without title and without explanation, along with the rest who had been condemned by the sixth Council. But the precise facts were gradually forgotten, and the medieval chroniclers and lists of popes ignore them. After the middle of the sixteenth century the case of Honorius again attracted attention, and was urged as an irrefutable argument against the ultramontane theory. At first the letter of Leo II. was boldly rejected as a forgery as well as those of Honorius; but this was made impossible when the Liber Diurnus came to light.

2

3

The verdict of history, after the most thorough investigation from all sides and by all parties remains unshaken. The whole church, East and West, as represented by the official acts of

1 Or rather he told an untruth when he declared that all popes had done their duty with regard to false doctrine.

In this Confession the popes are required to anathematize "Sergium . . . . una cum Honorio, qui pravis eorum assertionibus fomentum impendit." Lib. Diurn. cap. II. tit. 9, professio 2. The oath was probably prescribed by Gregory II. at the beginning of the eighth century.

* Baronius rejects the letter of Leo II. as spurious, Bellarmin as corrupted. Bower (History of the Popes) remarks: "Nothing but the utmost despair could have suggested to the annalist (Baronius) so desperate a shift."

œcumenical Councils and Popes, for several hundred years believed that a Roman bishop may err ex cathedra in a question of faith, and that one of them at least had so erred in fact. The Vatican Council of 1870 decreed papal infallibility in the face of this fact, thus overruling history by dogmatic authority. The Protestant historian can in conscience only follow the opposite principle: If dogma contradicts facts, all the worse for the dogma.

NOTES.

Bishop Hefele, one of the most learned and impartial Roman Catholic historians, thus states, after a lengthy discussion, his present view on the case of Honorius (Conciliengesch., vol. III. 175, revised ed. 1877), which differs considerably from the one he had published before the Vatican decree of papal infallibility (in the first ed. of his Conciliengesch., vol. III. 1858, p. 145 8q9, and in his pamphlet on Honorius, 1870). It should be remembered that Bishop Hefele, like all his anti-infallibilist colleagues, submitted to the decree of the Vatican Council for the sake of unity and peace.

"Die beiden Briefe des Papstes Honorius, wie wir sie jetzt haben, sind unverfälscht und zeigen, dass Honorius von den beiden monotheletischen Terminis Ev déλnua und μía évépyɛia den erstern (im ersten Brief) selbst gebrauchte, den anderen dagegen, ebenso auch den orthodoxen Ausdruck dúo ¿vépyɛtat nicht angewendet wissen wollte. Hat er auch Letzteres (die Missbilligung des Ausdruckes Svo érépy.) im zweiten Brief wiederholt, so hat er doch in demselben selbat ZWEI natürliche Energien in Christus anerkannt und in beiden Briefen sich so ausgedrückt, dass man annehmen muss, er habe nicht den menschlichen Willen überhaupt, sondern nur den VERDORBENEN menschlichen Willen in Christus geläugnet, aber obgleich orthodox denkend, die monotheletische Tendenz des Sergius nicht gehörig durchschaut und sich missverständlich ausgedrückt, so dass seine Briefe, besonders der erste, den Monotheletismus zu bestätigen schienen und damit der Häresie FACTISCH Vorschub leisteten. In dieser Weise erledigt sich uns die Frage nach der Orthodoxie des Papstes Honorius, und wir halten sonach den Mittelweg zwischen denen welche ihn auf die gleiche Stufe mit Sergius von Constantinopel und Cyrus von Alexandrien stellen und den Monotheleten beizählen wollten, und denen, welche durchaus keine Makel an ihm duldend in das Schicksal der nimium probantes verfallen sind, so dass sie lieber die Aechtheit der Acten des sechsten allgemeinen Concils und mehrerer anderer Urkunden läugnen, oder auch dem sechsten Concil einen error in facto dogmatico zuschreiben wollten." Comp. his remarks on p. 152: "Diesen Hauptgedanken muss ich auch jetzt noch festhalten, dass Honorius im Herzen richtig dachte, sich aber unglücklich ausdrückte, wenn ich auch in Folge wiederholter neuer Beschäftigung mit diesem Gegenstand

und unter Berücksichtigung dessen, was Andere in neuer Zeit zur Vertheidigung des Honorius geschrieben haben, manches Einzelne meiner früheren Aufstellungen nunmehr modificire oder völlig aufgebe, und insbesondere über den ersten Brief des Honorius jetzt milder urtheile als früher."

Cardinal Hergenrother (Kirchengeschichte, vol. I. 358, second ed. Freiburg i. B. 1879) admits the ignorance rather than the heresy of the pope. "Honorius," he says, "zeigt wohl Unbekanntschaft mit dem Kern der Frage, aber keinerlei häretische oder irrige Auffassung. Er unterscheidet die zwei unvermischt gebliebenen Naturen sehr genau und verstösst gegen kein einziges Dogma der Kirche."

§ 114. Concilium Quinisextum. A. D. 692.

MANSI, XI. 930-1006. HEFELE, III. 328–348. GIESELER, I. 541 sq. WM. BEVERIDGE (Bishop of St. Asaph, 1704-1708): Synodicon, sive Pandectoe canonum. Oxon. 1672-82. Tom. I. 152–283. Beveridge gives the comments of Theod. Balsamon, Joh. Zonaras, etc., on the Apostolical Canons.

ASSEMANI (R. C.): Bibliotheca juris orientalis. Rom 1766, Tom. V. 55-348, and Tom. I. 120 and 408 sqq. An extensive discussion of this Synod and its canons.

The pope of Old Rome had achieved a great dogmatic triumph in the sixth œcumenical council, but the Greek church had the satisfaction of branding at least one pope as a heretic, and soon found an opportunity to remind her rival of the limits of her authority.

The fifth and sixth ecumenical councils passed doctrinal decrees, but no disciplinary canons. This defect was supplied by a new council at Constantinople in 692, called the Concilium Quinisextum,' also the Second Trullan Council, from the banqueting hall with a domed roof in the imperial palace where it was held.2

It was convened by the Emperor Justinian II. surnamed

1 Σύνοδος πενθέκτη. The Greeks consider it simply as the continuation of the sixth acumenical council, and call its canons κανόνες τῆς ἕκτης συνόδου. For this reason it was held in the same locality. The Latins opposed it from the start as a Synodus erratica," or Conciliabulum pseudosextum." But they sometimes erroneously ascribed its canons to the sixth council.

"

2 Concilium Trullanum in an emphatic sense. The sixth council was held in the same locality.