The letters of Honorius, which are still extant,* express the doctrine of the One Divine Operator, or Agent, in the two natures, which is, in substance, the Catholic doctrine of two operations, each nature having its own operation. "We should confess," says he, "both natures in Christ, united in natural unity, operating in communion with each other; the divine nature doing what belongs to God, and the human nature executing the things of the flesh, not separately, nor confusedly; not teaching that the nature of God was changed into the man, or the human nature into that of God, but confessing the difference of natures to be entire." At the artful suggestion of Sergius, Honorius ordered silence to be observed as to the terms of one or two operations, being content with requiring that Christ should be held to be one Divine Operator in the two natures. This injunction was serviceable to the cause of heresy, which in the mean time spread like a cancer. The abuse made of the good faith of the Pontiff drew down censure on his memory, as if he were the abettor and approver of an error which he did not strongly and instantly condemn: but I may be permitted to observe, that men are often judged by the results of their actions, and that the forbearance of Honorius, and his anxiety to terminate the wordy contest and preserve peace, might have gained the praise of consummate prudence and enlightened zeal, had not the perverse ingenuity of the Monothelites turned the prohibition to the advantage of their cause. The orthodoxy of Honorius never wanted strenuous defend

John IV., in his letter to the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, complained that Pyrrhus, Bishop of Constantinople, was abusing and perverting the words of his predecessor. John the Abbot, the secretary employed by Honorius, testified that the implied disclaimer of two wills in Christ, was intended to exclude only the corrupt will of fallen man; and the martyr Maximus, the declared enemy of Monothelism, vindicated the faith of the Pontiff. A more solemn, though less direct vindication, is contained in the letter of Pope Agatho to Constantine Pogonatus, read with acclamation in the sixth General Council, in which he asserts that his predecessors had never failed in the performance of the high duties of their office: "This is the rule of true faith, which the apostolic Church of Christ, this spiritual mother of your most tranquil empire, warmly held and defended both in prosperity and adversity; which Church, through the grace of Almighty God, is shown to have strayed at no time from the path of apostolic tradition, and to have never succumbed to the perverse novelties of heretics; but what, from the commencement of Christian faith, she learned from her founders, the princes of the apostles of Christ, she incorruptibly retains to the end, according to the promise of our Lord

* John Baptist Bartholi, Bishop of Feltri, in an Apology for Honorius, maintains that the first letter to Sergius has been adulterated, and that the second is a forgery, of which nothing was known at Rome.

† In Ep. ad Marin. presbyt.

and Saviour Himself, which He declared to the prince of His apostles, in the Gospel, saying: 'Peter, Peter, lo! Satan hath sought to sift you as one sifteth wheat, but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith may not fail: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren.' Let, then, your serene clemency consider, that the Lord and Saviour of all, whose gift faith is, and who promised that the faith of Peter should not fail, charged him to confirm his brethren; as it is notorious to all that the apostolic Pontiffs, my predecessors, have always fearlessly done."* All this seems expressly directed to repel any charge likely to be made against Honorius; and the applause which followed the reading of the letter, "PETER HAS SPOKEN THROUGH AGATHO," implies the assent of the Council to the statement: yet the records of the proceedings contain censures on the memory of Honorius, which force us to believe that the fathers there assembled considered him to have been guilty, if not of culpable connivance, at least of an untimely dissimulation. Without disrespect to their authority, they may be supposed to have been mistaken in a matter of fact, merely personal, namely, the spirit and intention with which the letters were written.

It is not necessary to insist more particularly on this vindication of an individual Pontiff. I have not undertaken to prove, what, indeed, no Catholic divine asserts, that the Pope may not, by the artifices of heretics, be betrayed into measures prejudicial to the faith; neither have I deemed it necessary to maintain, what I am deeply convinced of, from the special prayer of Christ, that God will never suffer him to propound error in a solemn doctrinal definition directed to the universal Church. My object has been to show that the Popes, as primates of the Church by divine right, exercised high judicial authority in determining and maintaining the doctrines of faith. It is not merely in the eleventh century that language occurs like that which was addressed by St. Bernard to Innocent II.: "It is right that all dangers and scandals which arise in the kingdom of God, especially such as regard faith, should be reported to your apostleship: for I think it proper that the wounds inflicted on faith should be there healed, where faith cannot fail. That is the prerogative of the See." In the fifth century, Pope Hilarius was addressed by the Bishops of the province of Tarragona, in language almost equally emphatic. The occasion of their writing was a personal or disciplinary affair, of which they availed themselves to express their desire to profit by the instruction of the Holy See: "Even were there," say they, "no necessity of ecclesiastical discipline, we should seek to benefit by the privilege of your See, since the extraordinary preaching of the most blessed Peter, who, after the resurrection of the Saviour, received the keys of the kingdom, shone forth for the illumination of all: the principality of whose Vicar, as it is eminent, is to be feared and loved by all. Wherefore, profoundly adoring

Conc. Coustant. iii. act. iii., col. 1081, Coll. Hard. t. iii.
† Ep. ad Innoc. ii.

in you God, whom you serve without reproach, we have recourse to the faith which was praised by the mouth of the apostle; and we seek a reply from that source, where nothing is ordained erroneously, nothing presumptuously, but all with pontifical deliberation."*

We may be allowed to recapitulate in the words of Dr. Nevin: "Examples of the actual exercise of supreme power on the part of the Popes, in the fourth and fifth centuries, are so frequent and numerous, that nothing short of the most wilful obstinacy can pretend to treat them as of no account. In every great question of the time, whether rising in the East or in the West, all eyes show themselves ever ready to turn toward the cathedra Petri, as the last resort for counsel and adjudication; all controversies, either in the way of appeal, or complaint, or for the ratification of decisions given in other quarters, are made to come directly or indirectly, in the end, before this tribunal, and reach their final and conclusive settlement only through its intervention. The Popes, in these cases, take it for granted themselves, that the power which they exercise belongs to them of right, in virtue of the prerogative of their See; there is no appearance whatever of effort or of usurpation, in the part they allow themselves to act; it seems to fall to them as naturally as the functions of a magistrate or judge in any case are felt to go along with the office to which they belong. And the whole world apparently regards the primacy in the same way, as a thing of course, a matter fully settled and established in the constitution of the Christian church. We hear of no objection to it, no protest against it, as a new and daring presumption, or as a departure from the earlier order of Christianity. The whole nature of the case implies, as strongly as any historical conditions and relations well could, that this precisely, and no other order, had been handed down from a time, beyond which no memory of man to the contrary then reached."†

Ep. Tarrac. ep. t. ii. conc. Hard. col. 787.

"Early Christianity," Mercersburg Review, Sept., 1851.

CHAPTER XII.

Governing Power.

21.-EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY.

WE have seen abundant evidence of the most decided exercise of the primacy in the maintenance of faith. The same documents prove that the Bishop of Rome was regarded as the governor of the universal Church, regulating its administration by laws, enforcing their observance, and occasionally mitigating their rigor by opportune indulgence. But few of the many rescripts which emanated from the Holy See in the early ages, have escaped the flames kindled by the heathen persecutors, or the ravages of time; yet they are amply sufficient to establish the fact, that a governing power was at all times claimed by the Roman Bishop, as successor of St. Peter, by divine right, and that the claim was admitted, and its exercise oftentimes implored, by the bishops throughout the world. The administration of the Church was, nevertheless, conducted on settled principles, because the power was given by the Lord, not for destruction, but for edification; and the canons, or rules, made by the Popes, or by Councils, were sacredly respected, unless when the high interests of religion required a departure from them. "Let the rules govern us," cried out St. Celestine; "let us not set aside the rules; let us be subject to the canons, whilst we observe what the canons command."+

The divine origin of episcopal power is loudly proclaimed by St. Cyprian, whose language is strictly applicable to the Roman Pontiff, the representative and depositary of the plenitude of episcopal authority. In order to show the crime of insubordination, he adduces the well-known passage of Deuteronomy, wherein the decree of the High Priest is enforced with the strongest penal sanction; from which, as well as from other testimonies, he thus concludes: "Since these and many other weighty examples are upon record, by which the priestly authority and power, through divine condescension, are established, what think you of those who, being enemies of the priests, and rebels against the Catholic Church, are not awed, either by the threat of the Lord who forewarns, or

* The admirable adaptation of the pontifical enactments to the variety of circumstances, is acknowledged by Voltaire. Of Rome, he says: "Elle a sû toujours tempérer les loix selon les tems et selon les besoins." Sur la Police des Spectacles, vol. v.

† Ep. ad ep. Illyric. t. i. Coustant, col. 1064.

by the avenging judgment that awaits them? For from no other source have heresies arisen, or schisms sprung up, than from not obeying the priest of God, and not reflecting that THERE IS ONE PRIEST, FOR THE TIME, IN THE CHURCH, AND ONE JUDGE, FOR THE TIME, IN THE PLACE OF CHRIST, to whom if all the brotherhood yielded obedience, according to the divine instructions, no one would attempt any thing against the college of priests; no one, after the divine judgment, after the suffrage of the people, after the consent of his fellow bishops, would make himself judge, not of the bishop, but of God; no one would rend the Church of Christ by the breach of unity; no one, through vanity and pride, would form a new heresy apart and without." It may be contended, not without plausibility, that this is said of a local bishop, namely, of Cyprian himself but it is difficult to apply language so strong to each individual bishop, since it is certain that on the principle of unqualified obedience to the diocesan, the whole body of the clergy and people of Constantinople would have been perverted, when Macedonius, or Nestorius held that See. The mere episcopal character did not afford a guarantee of orthodoxy— the mere fact of succession did not ensure the truth of the doctrine professed. As Dr Nevin well observes, "It must be the office in unity with itself under a catholic form; the office as representing the undivided and indivisible Apostolical Commission, on which, as a rock centring in Peter, the church was to be built to the end of time." It is only in the person of the chief bishop, whom Divine Providence wonderfully guards and directs, that the observations of Cyprian are fully verified. His own resistance to Stephen may seem to show that he did not inculcate obedience to the mandates of the Roman Bishop; yet as it arose from a supposed abuse of power, it is reconcilable with the advocacy of the general principle, that obedience should be rendered to the one priest and one judge. Besides, the text is painfully illustrated by the history of that opposition, in connection with the rise of Donatism. Had Cyprian in that instance obeyed the priest of God, and reflected that THERE IS ONE PRIEST, FOR THE TIME, IN THE CHURCH, AND ONE JUDGE, FOR THE TIME, IN THE PLACE OF CHRIST, the scandal of dissension would have been avoided, and the Donatists would have had no pretext for using his venerable name in support of their error and schism.

We have seen that Victor and Stephen acted as persons having authority over the Asiatic and African prelates. The evidences of a similar exercise of governing power multiply during the fourth and fifth ages, when, in consequence of the liberty which the Church enjoyed, there was a development of her power, as occasions presented themselves for its exercise. Pope SIRICIUS, in the year 385, replying to the consultation of Himerius, Bishop of Tarragona, in Spain, says: "We bear the burdens of all who are heavily laden, or rather the blessed apostle Peter bears

Ep. lix., alias liv.lv.

† Art. Cyprian, M. R. July, 1852.