THE POPE HONORIUS, ANSWER TO THE REVEREND FATHER GRATRY, E"£tr M. lu. COLIN, Priest of St. Sulpice. MONTREAL, VAPOUR PRESSES OF " LA MINERVE," 16, Rue St. Vincent. 1870 THE POPE HONORIUS RESPONSE TO THE REVEREND FATHER GRATRY, FOR MR. JLt. COLIN, Priest of St. Sulpice. MONTREAL, From the steam presses of "la minerve, 1G, St, Vincent Street. 1870 POPE HONOEIUS RESPONSE TO REVEREND GKRATRY. The clearly expressed purpose of the letter of Rev. Gratry, is to present, in the fact of Pope Honorius, an irrefutable argument against the doctrine of Pontifical Infallibility. Before we get into that, let me make a few comments. The letter of the Eévd. Father's letter has the serious fault of treating, with little measure, a school where erudition, science, and devotion to the truth have always shone with brilliance; where, often, talent has risen to genius and virtue to heroism, and which today includes the great majority of Bishops with the Pope in their midst. It is an outrage to put this school as if it were the palori of public opinion; to reproach it with having "neither science, nor reason, nor discussion, nor attention, nor any intellectual operation whatsoever;" to make it the hideous boulevard of error, falsehood, and fraud, and to accuse it even of trampling under foot three Councils and five Popes." Why so violate all the rules of moderation, propriety and justice? Moreover, making the justification of Honorius a case for excommunication ipso facto, the letter rises to a degree of exaggeration which cannot be explained; for it is no longer only Mgr. Manning whom it is necessary to strike with anathema, but Pope Gregory XVI and St. Ligouri, Suarez and Bellarmine, in a word, all the great men, all the great saints and all the great Popes who, for twelve centuries, have been guilty, even indirectly, of the alleged offence. Pius IX, the living head of the Church, and whom his virtues cannonize every day, should not himself be sheltered from this universal censure, since he has congratulated, in recent Briefs, Mgr. de Malines and Father Jean-Jacques, Kedemptorist, both of whom are known to justify Honorius. There is no one who does not see how unheard of is the excess we are pointing out and how it reveals a deeply agitated soul. Naturally, one is led to believe that the author of the letter will have drawn from some dust certain unknown manuscripts; that he will have had at his disposal documents, clarifications hitherto unknown, certain pieces that had escaped the research of critics before him. One cannot explain otherwise the sharp tone and the decisive air that he affects in a question so debated and so many times judged against him. However, this is not the case. All that he advances is precisely what has been said and refuted for a long time. Everything he alleges that is strongest and most specious is even in Bossuet's defense, 3 and yet has never convinced Bossuet himself. If, in fact, the great Bishop of Maux had been, by all these testimonies, fully convinced of the condemnation of Honorius, how would he have refused to write himself the fourth article of the Declaration, that which is opposed to infallibility? - How, later, drawing the consequences of his arguments, would he try to mitigate the terms of the Declaration, by affirming that V Assembly of 1682 did not claim to deny V infallibility?<- How, finally, could he never have resolved to bring to light, during his lifetime, this too famous Defence which cost him more than 20 years of work, and which the mere condemnation of Honorius as a heretic, once properly ascertained, would have been sufficient to authorize. Is not this indecisive and floating conduct the character of a poorly settled and unconvinced judgment? Does it not betray the existence of a serious doubt in the depth of the thought? It would therefore have been appropriate, it seems, for Fr. Grratry to restrain himself a little more, and not to abandon himself, in favour of a false and entirely refutable opinion, to the excesses and scandals to which his intemperate zeal has led him. But enough of the tone and spirit of this lamentable piece. Let us come to the fact of Pope Honorius. 4 II. Here is the question: Is Pope Honorius a heretic, a Monothelian? * Fr. Gratry has endeavored to produce only those witnesses who testify to condemn this Pope. Let us produce, in our turn, those who testify to justify him. When Bishop Manning, with the Letters of Honorius in his hands, seeing that there is nothing in them that offends the faith, presents them as a proof of the orthodoxy of this Pope, common sense seems to say that he is reasoning justly and wisely, since, after all, these Letters are the very body of the offence. Fr. Grratry does not want such natural logic. He sees in it only a ridiculous "simplicity;" discovers in it only an "audacious proceeding in regard to three General Councils," and calls* it "breaking the judgment of three Councils." Note. - What Monolithicism is. In Jesus Christ there is only one person but two natures; and consequently, only one person but two wills or two operations: the divine will and the human will. But if we consider only the human nature, there is only one will in Him, which is always in conformity with the divine will, and not two, as in us who are fallen; not that of the flesh and that of His spirit. For Jesus Christ took our nature without sin or concupiscence. Thus, to say that in Jesus Christ there is only one will can be true or false, orthodox or heretical, according to the point of view from which one places oneself. To say, for example, that there is only one will in Jesus Christ, in relation to the two natures, is false and heretical: it is the error of the Monotheles, the one that is claimed to be attributed to Honorius. But to say that there is only one will in Jesus Christ, considering only the human nature, is true and orthodox; and we will prove that such is the meaning of the letters of Honorius. A Monothelian is therefore a heretic who admits in Jesus Christ only one will or only one operation, namely, the Divine to the exclusion of the human, which amounts to confusing the two natures. 5 Is not this way of judging a little hasty and even violent? Would it not have been more prudent and respectful, more in keeping with moderation, further from passion and anger, more worthy of a sincere love of truth, to allow at least a hint of doubt about the scope or even the existence of the condemnation? For the condemnation as a heretic is closely linked to the crime of heresy. But if this crime does not exist, if it is history that demonstrates it, how, in the name of history, can the condemnation be pronounced? At most, we would be entitled to conclude that history is powerless to clarify this point. And since there are so many difficulties to be resolved, so many clouds and obscurities to be dispelled, was it not necessary to give it a hearing and to spare the insults a little more? III. Let's get to the evidence that justifies Honorius * And first, let us quote the words of this Pontiff, in his Letters to Sergius: "We must recognize," he says, "that the two" natures are united in one Christ, that each" operates and acts in union with the other: the "divine" nature operates what is divine, and the human nature "operates what is of the flesh, without there being any division" or mixture.' Honorius occupied the See from 625 to 638. Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was, about the same time, the principal author of the heresy of the Mouothélitos. 6 And further on. - "We must proclaim the two natures, that is, the divinity and the humanity, which, in the one person of the Son of God, being united without mixture or division, operate what is proper to them. What do we find in these texts that is not in perfect harmony with the faith? Let us observe them carefully. Everything is correct. The unity of the person in Jesus Christ is clearly expressed against the Nestorians by these words: - one Christ; one person. - The natures are carefully distinguished against the Eutychians, namely: - the divine nature and the human nature. And the two operations are affirmed to the point of evidence against the Monothelians, when it is said: - each nature operates and acts, without mixture; each operates what is proper to it: the divine, that which is divine and Vhuman, that which is of the flesh. What could be clearer and more precise? These two distinct natures; this unmixed union of divinity and humanity; these two operations respectively proper to the two natures and without confusion; can all this pure, true, explicit doctrine be that of a heretic? Is it not directly opposed to Monothelianism? Is it not its condemnation? You may object in vain that Honorius, in his Letters, imposed silence on the two wills or the two operations in Our Lord. This measure of prudence changed nothing in the dogma which had just been established; it did not overturn it, and was even intended to protect it. The whole of the East being on fire over this difficult question of the two operations, the Tontife, afflicted with the evils of the Church, thought it advisable to have regard to the state of things and to discard anything that might increase the excitement of the spirits. For this purpose he urged silence. And this was not an abjuration of his doctrine, nor a profession of Monothelianism, nor an admission of formal heresy of any kind: he had declared his faith sufficiently for no one to have the right to question it. It was, on his part, an act of administration, and nothing more. And this act is not lacking in illustrious approvers. But let's look at the passage that is most open to misinterpretation: "We confessom,^ one will in Jesus" Christ, since, sa&s no doubt, the Godhead has "assumed/ our nature, without sin." Does not this term of one will in Jesus Christ, in this place, amount to an open recognition of the one will of the Monothelians? And is not the heresy here manifest? - Far from it. - This expression is so right that faith forbids changing it. It is true that only one will is mentioned, but it is no less true that this will is considered only from the point of view of our nature assumed by the Yerbe, without sin; which is perfectly orthodox, the contrary being heresy and blasphemy. Consequently, the Letters of Honorius, whether they recall only one will, or exhort to silence, or expressly point out both operations, are everywhere. from the point of view of dogma, without error, exact, irreproachable, orthodox, and attest in an indubitable manner that this Pontiff is no heretic. But this truth will become even more evident from all the testimonies we are about to relate. IV. What we have just read and seen in the text of the Letters is confirmed by the entire tradition of the West and the East Let us listen, in the West, to John Sympon, the very secretary of Honorius. Questioned by the Emperor /only three years after the death of the Pontiff, on L way of hearing the Letters in question, John protests strongly against the perfidy of the Monothelians, who pretend to explain them for the benefit of their error, and he adds these words: "When we spoke of a single will in the Lord, we were not thinking of his dual nature, but of his humanity alone. Sergius, in fact, "having maintained that there were in Jesus Christ two "contrary wills, we said that one could not "recognize in him the two wills' "namely^ that "of the flesh and that of Yesprit, as we ourselves "have them since sin." Can it be said more clearly that Honorius did not profess the heretical will of the Monothelians and that he did not advance anything that was not perfectly in accordance with revelation? - One will in Jesus Christ with respect to his humanity alone is of faith. 9 And when such a testimony is given, three years after the death of Honorius, by the secretary of that Pope, by one who wrote the Letters with his own hand, and who lent them his style and form, does not that testimony deserve to be accepted? But here are other contemporaries. They are Popes. V. John IV, elevated to the Apostolic See, barely two years after the death of Honorius, wrote to the Emperor Constantine Pogonat these no less precise words "Our Predecessor (Honorius) said that there "were not in Jesus Christ, as in sinful man, two contrary wills, that of the flesh" and that of Y spirit: but it is absolutely false, "that he admitted in Jesus Christ only one "will" Is this not the assertion of Secretary John, repeated in identical terms, based on the same distinction and sanctioned by Apostolic Authority? Let's continue: Ten years later, Pope St. Martin I came, in turn, to depose with Pope John IY and Secretary John. - In his letter to the Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem, against the Monothelians, after having condemned Theodore of Pharan, Cyrus, Sergius Pyrrhus and Paulus, he not only does not include Honorius among them, but he immediately adds: that never the Pontiffs of the Apostolic See, 10 Apostolicœ Sedis Pontifices, had allowed the treasures of the Faith to be stolen, surripere fidei thesauros. - In a synodal address in Rome, before a large number of Western bishops, he praised the zeal of his predecessors against the Monothelians - And in a letter to Arnaud of Utrecht: "The Holy See," he says, "never ceased to exhort them" (Sergius and Pyrrhus), to warn them, to rebuke them, to threaten them, to bring them back to the "truth which they had betrayed." Now to what sentiments, to what exhortations, to what threats, on the part of his Predecessors, does St. Martin I allude here, when it comes to Sergius? To the exhortations, warnings, and threats contained in the Letters of Honorius, since, according to chronology, there is no other Roman Pontiff who wrote to this patriarch. So there are already three witnesses, in perfect agreement, testifying that Honorius did not err; that he was never a Monothelian; that he always taught the true faith. And these witnesses, what are they? - The most serious, the most honest, the most truthful, and the best informed: two Popes who lived with Honorius, one of whom is canonized, and Honorius' own secretary. His letter, more complete and less passionate, more in keeping with history and more respectful of the truth, would have caused less surprise and less scandal. Yet all is not yet revealed about the great fact of Honorius. 11 VI. The West alone has raised its voice so far. The East will speak in its turn. But it will be to unite with the West. - That is, to confirm the testimony of the Popes; - To confound the audacity of the Monothelians who, despite this testimony, distort the true meaning of the Letters of Honorius; - To exalt the virtue and orthodoxy of Honorius. Two men, belonging to the time of the fact in question, and who cannot be held suspect in this interesting cause, represent to us the Traditions of the East: St. Maximus, abbot and martyr of Constantinople, and Pyrrhus, Monothelian patriarch of that Capital of the Empire. St. Maximus, questioning Pyrrhus, said to him: "To whom should we rather defer on the meaning of this Letter (of Honorius)? "To the Pontiffs successors of Honorius, who illuminate all the West with the light of sound doctrine, or to those who speak, as they please, in Constantinople? M And Pyrrhus responds with this confession: "It would be more reasonable to believe the Ponti" fes of Rome." But the Pontiffs of Rome, we know what they clearly declared about the meaning of the Letter, we have seen above, and St. Maximus recalls it here by these strong expressions: "But," he adds, "they protested that the intention of Honorius, which was well known, had been to stifle by silence a heresy of which he feared the consequences, and that he had never pretended to give victory to the Monothelians. Here, then, is a Monothelian patriarch of Constantinople and a holy abbot, whose virtue and knowledge make him the interpreter of all the East, who join John IY, St. Martin I and Secretary John in declaring the orthodoxy of the accused Pontiff. This is not all. Pyrrhus condemns the accusers of the Pope; he repents of having imitated them, and retracts himself, continuing thus: "My predecessor misinterpreted the words" of the Pope (Honorius). But I ask for mercy" for him and for myself. It was through ignorance that "we fell into this error. I am "ready to recant." And in order to leave no doubt as to the sincerity of his feelings, he even adds that he will go to the tomb of the Holy Apostles and to the feet of the Pope to make this retreat. Could the East confess more strongly that Honorius is not a heretic? As for St. Maximus, after having scorned, on the one hand, the Monothelians who fraudulently ranked Honorius among them with the infamous note of audacious and false, and glorified, on the other hand, this Pontiff with the august titles of pious, orthodox and divine, Divinus Honorius, he generously runs to martyrdom, supported by the faith of the great Honorius and for the defense of this faith. Since we have nothing more to give than our blood and our lives to attest our convictions, the martyrdom of St. Maximus, mingling with all our testimonies, imbues them with a new character of authenticity and clothes them with a sublime consecration. VII. Such is the revealing history of Honorius before the Second Ecumenical Council. Nothing has been left unsaid, nothing has been concealed from the facts which throw light on this important question, and the traditions of the West and the East seem to be two rays of light, united in a single beam, which throw the glare of evidence on the faith of the unjustly slandered Pontiff. It is in vain that we look for these luminous facts and powerful testimonies in Fr. It is true that this author shows a deep hatred for dissimulations, mutilations and falsifications; he even expresses a kind of indignation towards those who work to suppress history; but does he himself speak of the confession of the Patriarch Pyrrhus? Does he name only the holy abbot Maximus? Does he mention the three testimonies, quoted above, of Pope St. Martin? Does he even hint at the existence of the reply of the secretary John and of the letter so convincing of Pope John IV? Of all this he says not a word. These. great documents of history, the closest to the fact of Honorius, the most intimately linked to this fact, the most capable of presenting it to us in its true light, are nothing in his eyes... say nothing to his thoughts and he keeps them silent with a sort of calculated affectation. Why this calculation? Why these serious and thoughtful omissions? If it is not that Fr. G-ratry holds to certain opinions, certain sophisms which he is determined to uphold against all evidence? If it is not that he is determined not to recognize the orthodoxy of Honorius so as not to have to confess the infallibility of the Supreme Pontiffs? Unable to look into the face of a light that would have shown him the emptiness of his prejudices, he turns away so as not to see it, and he draws a veil to hide it from other eyes. Two things are now historically undeniable: the first, that Honorius is orthodox; the second, that he was so believed, before the VI Ecumenical Council, both in the East and in the West. Popes John IV and St. Martin I, with the secretary John, testify to this for the West; and St. Maximus, abbot and martyr, with Pyrrhus, Monothelian patriarch of Constantinople, testify to it for the East. Almost half a century has passed since the death of Honorius and here we are in 680 at the opening of the Third General Council of Constantinople, the Ecumenical Life. VIII. Let us pause before this Council where the West and the East, brought together heart to heart, Soul to Soul, receive in common the lights from on High. The two letters of Pope St. Agathon are opened in the august assembly and read aloud among the Fathers. - The Pope declares that the Apostolic See has never deviated from the ways of truth in any part of the error; - That the Apostolic Pontiffs, of whom he is Successor, have always upheld the cause of the faith; - That his Predecessors, of apostolic memory, never ceased to exhort them, (Sergius, Pirrhus, etc.,) to warn them, to conjure them to desist from this heretical dogma (Monothelianism), at least by keeping silent. In these passages Honorius is always in view: he is justified first of all by these words have always upheld, etc., have never ceased, etc., which envelop him with all the Popes; and he is even praised for his zeal against the heretics, for the words at least in being silent point to him personally. Then come the names of the heretics. St. Agathon enumerates these names in his first Letter. Here they are: "Cyrus, Theodore of Pharan, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter of Constantinople." - But Honorius is not there. He repeats them again in his second Letter; they are the same as in the first, and Honorius does not appear there any more. Then, Honorius being thus justified, praised, and protected against any confusion which might be made of him with the heretics, St. Agathon again expressly enjoins that nothing be added to what has just been established, that nothing be diminished from it, and that nothing be changed. 16 These are the things which the Letters of the Holy Pontiff, sent to the Old Ecumenical Council and read in that Council, contain in substance with regard to the great fact of Honorius. - They exonerate Honorius and moreover shelter him from anathemas. The West has spoken. What attitude will the Fathers of the Council, those witnesses of the East, take in the face of this immortal monument of Pontifical authority? - Nothing is more memorable. No sooner had the reading of the Letters been completed than all the Fathers cried out with acclamation: "Omnes ità crêflimus! - This is how we all believe! " "Peter spoke through the mouth of Agathon! " - Agathon says: The Church of Rome has never fallen into error, and Honorius has not taught heresy. - And the Fathers answer: Omties ità crfdimus. Agathon says: Our Predecessors, and even Honorius who ordered silence on the two wills, were always full of zeal against Monothelianism. - And the Fathers reply: Omnes ità crêflimus! - Agathon said, You shall condemn only those whom I condemn, namely: Cyrus, Theodore, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul and Peter, but not Honorius. - And the Fathers answer, Omnes ità crtdimus! - Agathon says: We forbid anything to be added to or changed in what we have ruled in our Letters. - And the Fathers reply: Omnes ità". crtdimus! 17. The Fathers, to show that they had really complied with the prescriptions of the Holy Pope, wrote to him, at the end of the Council, these words worthy of note: "That they had, in fact, condemned what he himself had condemned"; words which prove once more that Honorius was not anathematized at the Old Council. Isn't this testimony obvious, clear, irrefutable? The Pope and a whole Council, the West united with the East, with the Holy Spirit assisting them, therefore recognize and proclaim Honorius to be Orthodox. And you, my R. Father, who say you have the texts before your eyes, how could you not have read them? How is it that you, who rage so ardently against dissimulations, frauds and lies, have reported from the Third General Council only the one thing that perhaps did not take place there: anathemas against Honorius? How, when it is a question of the most serious and sacred thing in history, the testimony of an Ecumenical Council, do you affect to mutilate fraudulently its acts? The letters of Pope St. Agathon are everything in the Third Council: they are its rule; they are its soul; and you say nothing about these letters. You see, however, that according to this very considerable part of the acts of the Old Council, according to this Council itself, Honorius is recognized, proclaimed orthodox. Could we not leave it at that and regard the question of the fact of Honôrius as sufficiently settled? Is it not enough to have heard the voice of the West and that of the East, both avenging the honor of the Pontiff, before the sixth Council and in this Council? Let us, however, follow the tradition still further, and, leaving the seventh century, let us advance beyond the Council, by about two more centuries. IX. Pope Adrian I sent to the Fathers of the VIII Ecumenical Council, in 869, a formula to be subscribed, in which it is said: That "The Roman Pontiffs had always kept the Catholic faith without the stain of heresy? This was a clear statement that not one Pope, and Honorius no more than any other, had been an heir or condemned as an heir. So what did the Fathers do? All of them, 102 in number, signed the formula, and signed it without protest or demand. Much more, Photius, who was present, the intruder Photius, that declared enemy of Pontifical authority; that man, deeply versed in the knowledge of general Councils, who had but one word to say in stigmatizing the Apostolic See; that to recall, that to show, in the acts of the Old Council, the condemnation of a Pope as an heir, of Pope Honorius, did not do so, did not say that word, and forced himself into silence by seeing the formula subscribed to by all the Bishops of the Council. What can we conclude from this silence, if not that in the ninth century and in the City Ecumenical Council, the orthodoxy of Honorins was believed and accepted without question? How else to explain the fact that not one bishop, not even the deceitful Photius, opposed the formula of Pope Adrian with the name of Honorius? Did they not have before their eyes the acts of the Old Council? Either, indeed, the name of Honorius was not in these acts among those of the Monothelians; or, if it was inserted, Photius and the Fathers, knowing that it was only by fraud and forgery, no one of them dared to avail himself of it, for fear of being publicly confounded by the Papal Legates. X. From the ninth century, let's go to the middle of the eleventh. The whole historical tradition runs invariably in the same direction with regard to the fact of Honorius. Everywhere this Pontiff is justified. In a letter of Pope Leo IX, written to Michael Cerul aire, schismatic patriarch of Constantinople, we read this assertion: "That never has a Roman Pontiff fallen into heresy, but, on the contrary, Roman Pontiffs have always confirmed in the faith their brother Bishops." Does Michael Cerularus refute an assertion so shocking to his bold claims to primacy in the Church? Not at all. This man who so ardently pursued the impious work of Photius, this patriarch, envious of scourging the Pontiffs of Rome and who later consummated the Eastern schism, does not oppose Leo IX to the condemnation of a Pope by the VI Council? This is an accusation of which he never speaks. He does cover the Apostolic See with insults and calumnies; but of Honorius condemned as a heretic, he makes no mention. And yet, if this fact had been true, if he had been able to make it an invincible weapon in the midst of these violent struggles against Eome, would he have missed the opportunity of such a brilliant victory? He was therefore convinced that Honorius had not been condemned, and therefore regarded him as orthodox. Therefore, from the eleventh to the ninth century, from the ninth to the end of the seventh, and from there back to the time of Honorius, both East and West have always believed and attested the orthodoxy of this Pontiff. History proves this assertion: history by the testimonies of five Popes, two of whom had known Honorius, and by the variously expressed confessions of one hundred and two Bishops at the VIII Ecumenical Council and of three Patriarchs of Constantinople, hostile to the Popes; history by the letters of Honorius' own secretary, by the word and martyrdom of the St. Abbot of Constantinople, and lastly by the acts of the VI General Council. Thus pure tradition, without fraud, without lie or mutilation, transmits, by a continuous march, through four hundred years, the great fact of Honorius, the fact of his orthodoxy. St. Bernard, the glory and oracle of his time, arrived in the twelfth century to collect this incorruptible tradition. He confirms it himself by declaring, with assurance, that it was always believed until his time that the Roman Pontiffs could not fail in the faith; he transmits it intact to St. Thomas Aquinas who, in turn, consecrates it by the authority of his book. Since then, the three great schools of Theology, the Thomistic, the Scotist and the Molinistic, all of which are constantly unanimous on the doctrine of infallibility, have brought this tradition unblemished to us and to the inviolable doors of the august Vatican Council. At last the cause has been judged. History, from Honorius onwards, has always said that this Pontiff is not an heir. This is the solemn confession of the West and the East before the Ecumenical Council, in this Council and after this Council, What is the value of the arguments we are hearing now? That is what we have to examine. XI Father G-ratry lists all his proofs; he brings them together, condenses them and counts twenty-three. Before discussing them in themselves, let us first note some of the misunderstandings and errors they contain. We shall know better, at once, how much one must distrust the historical erudition of this author, and how little one must be intimidated either by the absolute assertions and the trenchant assertions, which he repeats unceasingly in his favor, or by the hazardous incriminations and the unmeasured calumnies which he accumulates against the others. 22 lo. In the fifth paragraph you say, Father, that you have before you the profession of faith which the Popes swore to in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth centuries concerning the condemnation of Honorius by the Council. How could the Popes have made this profession of faith in the sixth century and even throughout the seventh, since the VI Council, from which the condemnation emanated, did not open until 680, towards the end of the seventh century? 2o. In paragraph VI, No. 1, we read these words: "Before the sixteenth century, no one ever denied that Honorius had been condemned by the Sixth Council."-What! Did not Pope Adrian I and Pope Leo IX deny it, as we have seen above, the one in the ninth century, the other in the eleventh, by the implicit terms of their Letters? 3o, You add in the same place: "Before this century, (the 'sixteenth), no one has ever expressed a doubt about the authenticity of the acts of the VI Council. "Another false assertion. Photius, of the ninth century, and Michael Cerularus, of the eleventh, refute you by the conduct which they hold in regard to the Apostolic Letters. 4o. You continue thus: "Since the sixteenth century, no one has ever drawn from any dust the slightest monument in favour of Honorius. " - Third false assertion in No. 1 alone, which is the beginning of all your proofs. For no one is unaware of what modern criticism has drawn from the lights of history, for the last fifteen years or so, to bring to light the orthodoxy of Honorius. We shall speak of this soon. 5o. You attribute to Leo II the Liber Pontificalis 23 of which you speak in Nos. 16, 17, 18. This is an anachronism of about two hundred years. - This collection, in fact, written in the ninth century, contains the biography of Pope Leo II, who died in the seventh. 6o. In No. 21 you make the librarian Anastasius contemporary with Pope Agathon - another anachronism no less serious than the previous one, since Anastasius is of the ninth century and Pope Agathon, under whom the VI Council opened, is of the seventh. But you wanted at all costs to have contemporary witnesses of the VI General Council. That is why you hasten, in the next issue, to set back two centuries Hincmar of Rheims, one of the most famous bishops of the ninth century, and to bring him closer to Agathon than to Anastasius. 7o. Here is something quite insidious. - You suggest, in paragraph XII, with a merciless harshness of expression, that the Breviary was corrected in 1830 only to give credence to the Letter of Pope Agathon. - Is it not unheard of to impose this on the good faith of the public, when you know, Father, that these Letters, those which serve as the basis of our proofs, exist in all the ancient works, and that they are, for example, entirely, in substance, in the learned Labbe who died more than two hundred years ago! Here, then, are three false assertions, three considerable anachronisms, and an odious insinuation; in all, three gross errors introduced, in a few pages, by Fr. G-ratry, into the great fact of Honorius. This would be a lot in a whole volume of history; it is far too much for the limits of a simple letter and especially of a letter with a dogmatic aim and tending to overthrow an unquestionable doctrine. And yet, that's not all. XII. Your whole argument, Father, is grouped around four heads: the Roman Breviary, the Liber diurnus, the Letters of St. Leo II and the Anathemas of the Councils. Indeed, if we look carefully at your twenty-three allegations, we will not find anything else. Now, of these four proofs: the first, proves nothing for you; the second and third prove against you, and the last, taken literally in your sense, is an attack on the Church and on the promises of Jesus Christ. Let's take it in order. XIII. The Breviary proves nothing for you. The Breviary is an august and venerable book. It is the prayer, and the sacred prayer of the Church. It is the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Martyrs, the Fathers, the Doctors, the Righteous; it is the whole Church kneeling with T. C. at the foot of the throne of God. C. at the foot of the throne of God. It is the soul of the Church rising with its sighs, its praises, its hopes and its adoration to the gates of the Eternal Mansion. All this is true. It is still true that in several ancient Roman Breviaries, those, for example, of 1520^, the * Note: As there were also other Roman Breviaries at that time which did not contain the name tPHonorfus, the whole force of Fr. The same is true of the other two, which are the same. The name of Honorius appeared, in the lesson of St. Leo, among those of Sergius, Cyrus, Paul, etc. But what can we conclude from this in your favour? Nothing, absolutely nothing. You reason thus: The name of Honorius is found mixed, in the Breviary, with the names of several heretics, therefore Honorius is heretical. The conclusion is illogical, and you know it well. For you are not unaware that, by the same sophism, all the dissenting sects find their errors in Scripture? Could not this name, indeed, have been interpolated? And if it has not been, should not the word heretic, which is sometimes subject to restriction, be applied here to Honorius precisely in its limited sense? In the face of the great testimonies that history has given us above, are these not the doubts, the questions that invincibly present themselves to the mind? But you ignore it. Your decision is made in advance. And instead of doubting, of examining, you introduce, against the facts and against universal feeling, with regard to the Breviary, the private interpretation which you must, as a Catholic, reject for Scripture. And yet, does not Sacred Scripture have even more authority in itself than the Breviary? So what should we say? Here it is: It is Catholic tradition that fixes the meaning and authority of the words of Scripture; it fixes again the meaning and authority of the information of the Fathers; it is therefore also that which must determine for us the meaning and authority of the texts of the Breviary. The Breviary is only a part of the tradition, not the whole tradition. It has its share of authority, but it is not all the authority. When its testimony agrees with the rest of tradition, it confirms and consecrates it; it becomes one of its most respectable organs and one of its most holy mouthpieces; and I can say, in this case: the Breviary has spoken, therefore tradition has spoken. But when it deviates in any respect, its voice being no longer more than an isolated voice, I must conclude, without hesitation, that it must be interpreted, or that it has been either interpolated by some copyist's error, or corneated on inaccurate manuscripts. And this is precisely what happens in this part of the Breviary. For, the two lessons of the office of Pope 8t. Leo II, where Honorius is found among the heretics, were taken from the Liber Pontificalis, and the Liber Pontificalis was itself copied, in this place, by the Librarian Anastasius, from the Letters of the same Pope St. Leo. Therefore, the Roman Breviary can say nothing here, nothing to prove more than these Letters. And we shall see that these, supposing them not to be falsified, require that the term heretic, with regard to IIonorius, be restricted to the particular sense of indirect heretic, of heresy-maker. What crime is there, I ask, in correcting a mutilated text or in removing from the book of prayer an ambiguous word that lends itself to a false meaning? But why, you may ask, has this word been allowed to stand for so long? The answer is easy. First of all, the error was sufficiently corrected by tradition. And what demonstrates this is that the great Doctors, the great Theologians who recited this passage of the Breviary every year, did not teach the Pontifical Infallibility any less. Secondly, this brings out something which you singularly slander in the Roman Church, namely, the profound respect which she has always professed for the texts, for the manuscripts, for the works and for all the monuments of antiquity. Her conduct, her wisdom, is to cover them with her protection, even when they appear to be opposed to her, contenting herself simply with fixing their value and meaning, in order to remove from them what is inaccurate. I could quote a great number of passages of Scripture which support this assertion. But let it suffice for me to give the following example: Why is the fourth verse of Psalm 26 still used today in this form: Unampetii à Domino, hanc requiram : ut inhabitem in domo Domini...? It is obvious that grammatically this makes no sense, and that it should be: Unum petit.... hoc requiram. Yes, it is obvious. But the Church, which knows it, which sees it, has too much respect for a text that has been handed down to it by the hand of the centuries, to change even these two little words. She is content to make up for this material error by telling us that this verse means: I have asked the Lord for one thing only, and I will seek it out carefully, and that is to dwell in the house of the Lord. 28 And so, in matters of faith or which touch on faith, it makes up for the errors of manuscripts, copyists and translators. However, when circumstances demand it, when a heresy arises which wants to take advantage of an omission, an ambiguity or a material interpolation, then the Church, for the good of souls, and in order to protest against the error, completes the omission, removes the ambiguity or erases the interpolation. This is what happened with regard to the introduction of the Filioque into the Creed when the heresy of the Macedonians appeared, and what was seen later with regard to the suppression of the word Honorius in the Breviary on the occasion of Lutheranism and Jansenism. This, Father, is how this perfidious weapon that you pretended to discover in a word of the sacred book of prayer escapes from your hands. - Everyone can see that the Breviary proves nothing for you. XIV. The Liber diurnus is against you. Let's put it on display. What thesis do you attack? - That of Monsignor Deschamps, namely, that if Honorius was condemned, it was only for negligence. And what is your thesis? - That Honorius was anathematized, not for negligence, but for formal heresy. Such is the debate between you and the Bishop of Malines. 29 Now in the Liber diurnus, in the place of the Profession of Faith of the Popes, we do not read: fuit hœreticus, Honorius fat heretic; we do not read: hœresim docuit, Honorius taught heresy. If these words were there, the Liber diurnus would contain your thesis and be for you. But here are the terms of the formula: Fomentum impendit, or according to another edition: Silentium impendit, that is to say, Honorius gave rise by his kindness or by his silence to the development of Monothelianism; which is exactly the thesis of Bishop Deschamps; which is for him and against you. It is one thing to give place, by silence, by kindness, to the development of a heresy; it is another thing to teach it formally and dogmatically. St. Peter, as is well known, had favored Judaism out of kindness or misunderstanding, and in this he was rebuked by St. Paul. But could one conclude that he formally taught Judaism? Would one dare to say so? Has it ever been said? - No, never. If he was guilty, it is quite constant that he never failed in the faith. It was the same for Honorius. That is the sense in which Monsignor Deschamps speaks of it, and it is that sense that you attack. Let us admire, in passing, the astonishing wisdom of God in the conduct of His Church. By this formula of the Liber diurnus, the Vicars of Jesus Christ thus committed themselves, by oath, not only never to profess heresy, but also never to tolerate it with the least leniency. 30 Is this not worthy of the humility and faith of those who pride themselves on being the Servants of the Servants of God? Was it necessary, Father, on this occasion, to pour out invective against those who do not share your prejudices, your sophisms and your errors? Should you have presented us as men full of passion, who rush with blind ardor to defend Honorius; who indiscriminately overturn everything that seems to testify against him; who defy all excommunication, and trample underfoot three Councils and five Popes. What! You claim to support a thesis, and you bring as proof what destroys your thesis! So much for the Liber diurnus. It is against you. Let us turn to the letters of Pope Leo II. XV. Pope Leo II's letters are still against you, and for the same reason. These letters contain Bishop Deschamps' thesis and overturn yours. Let us judge by the texts. An official letter from Pope St. Leo II to the Emperor Constantine Pogonat and four from the same Pope to the Bishops or King Envig of Spain are preserved, all written around the same time, that is, almost immediately after the closing of the VI Ecumenical Council. Of the four Letters from Spain, only two are attributed to Honorius. 31 The other two, sent to the Bishops, express the reason for the condemnation in this way: Honorius did not extinguish the burgeoning flame of heresy, and by his negligence encouraged it. The one addressed to Erwig presents the same motive: Honorius consented to let the immaculate faith be sullied. There is obviously no question, in these two letters, of formal heresy, but only of indirect connivance, of negligence; which is word for word the thought of Bishop Deschamps. But here you produce the official Letter of Leo II to the Emperor, and this letter, you say, states: that Honorius has endeavoured to overthrow the immaculate faith. - "To strive to overthrow the faith," you add, "is active, effective and formal heresy." - Therefore, the Letter of Leo II to the Emperor is against Mgr. Deschamps. "Yous see," you add, "the case is fully adjudicated." It is easy to give yourself a victory. Of three letters, only one seems to be favorable to you, and already everything is judged in the direction of your feelings. First, such a hasty and arbitrary decision is not legal. Moreover, there is an essential flaw that totally nullifies it. This defect is in a little word inserted in your text, the word "endeavoured", on which rests the whole force of your argument. Unfortunately, it is a falsified word. You have read: subvertere conatus est, he tried to overthrow. And Pope Gregory XYI, who had at his disposal the manuscripts of the Vatican Library 32, assures us that we must read MACULARI PERMISIT, he allowed the faith to be sullied; he allowed it by his negligence and his sparingness; which destroys all your hopes at once. For, of the five Letters above mentioned, two of them are silent on the condemnation of Honorius, and the other three agree that this Pope was guilty only of negligence and leniency. XYI. Let us go further and even say that all these Letters of St. Leo II, intimately linked to each other, could well be falsified. This feeling is quite probable. For one of them is addressed to a bishop Quirice who had not existed for three years. Another has the Archbishops, Legates of Pope St. Leo, attending the VI Council, but they never appeared. This is not all. The same Letter, according to the dates, is from Pope St. Leo before the Pontificate of this Pope. Is it necessary to cast serious doubt on the authentic integrity of these Letters? And are we not entitled to suspect even the conviction of negligence? Where did these falsifications come from? From that of the acts of the VI Council, as we shall explain. Of the four great testimonies of the E. Father G. Ratry, three have already been taken away from him, and even two protest against him. 33 And will the fourth, which he draws from the anathemas pronounced by three Ecumenical Councils, remain more firm in his hands? XVII. Let us observe first of all that all the proof being based on the acts of the VI Council, it is this one that must be considered first of all, since the same reasoning will extend to the other two. Let us prove what we have stated above: The anathemas of the Councils, taken in the sense of Fr. G-ratry, are an attack on the Church and on the promises of Jesus Christ. Let us see in effect. On the one hand, Pope Honorius is anathematized as a formal heretic: your entire argument, Father, tends only to demonstrate this. You take these words in their strict sense: "Anathema to the heretic Honorius"; you repeat them purposely several times; you do not want to stop at the thought that perhaps they are interpolated by falsification, or that the word heretic is to be taken here, as in many other places in history, in the restricted sense of indirectly dliereic, of a falsifier of dlierey, which implies only negligence. You see only one thing in this august Assembly, and that is that the Letters of Honorius are burned there; you hear only one thing, and that is that an absent person, a Pope, is judged, condemned and struck down. So, according to you, the VI General Council condemns Pope Honorius as an active and formal heretic. On the other hand, we know with what imposing majesty the Fathers, united with Pope St. Agathon, declared that Honorius, no more than the other Popes, had never fallen into error; that Honorius, like the other Popes, had even always been full of zeal against error; that Honorius was not to be enveloped in the condemnation which befell the heretics Cyrus, Theodore, Sergius, etc, We have even seen that the Fathers wrote to the Holy Pontiff that they had only condemned what he had condemned. Therefore, according to the acts of the Council, Honorius is not condemned as a heretic. What does this mean? Let the Council condemn and not condemn a Pope. Let it say, let it judge yes and no on the same point, and on a point which immediately touches the faith, since this condemnation must fix the meaning of the words so well known of Jesus Christ: You are a stone, etc. Tai prayed that your faith would never be shipwrecked. Feed my lambs: feed my sheep, etc. - But to say yes and no on the same point; is to contradict oneself, is to be wrong. - To say yes and no on a point that touches the law is to contradict oneself on faith, it is to err on faith. - Now the Old Ecumenical Council represents the Church. When it speaks, it is the Church that speaks. - So the Church failed on this Council" 85 What! The Church failed! Yes, if your thesis is true, my 11. Father; if it is true, according to your thought, that Honorius was condemned as a formal heretic and condemned as Pope. You will not escape this conclusion. It is logical and can be rigorously deduced from your entire letter. But don't you see what a criminal attack it is against the Church? Do you not understand that by heaping anathemas on the head of a Pope as you do, you are insulting, you are insulting, you are slandering the Church? Do you not feel that you are bringing reproach upon his forehead, and that by putting error in his bosom, you are bringing death to his soul? You want the Council to have anathematized a Pope, and immediately the eternal and immutable promises of Jesus Christ vanish before the powers of darkness, and the whole Church, struck to the heart, is in the depths of the abyss. So it is you who trample on the Councils, the Popes, the Church and the sacred word of the Son of God. Yet the imperishable Church cannot fail. The Church, in which wisdom, fidelity, the glory of the Almighty and the destiny of the world are irrevocably committed, cannot leave her path, run to her ruin, deny on the one hand what she affirms on the other. It cannot say to the Sixth Ecumenical Council: Pope Honorius is a heretic, and Pope Honorius is not a heretic, 36 but you have nothing to take back from the Letters of St. Agathon, solemnly acclaimed by the Fathers. And no one has ever done so. So you have to give up your thesis. And you must, therefore, of two things one: either hold as suspect anathemas which the fraud of the Greeks might well have falsified, as we shall see; or acknowledge that the word heretic, with regard to Honorius, does not mean a formal heretic, but an indirect heretic, a wrongdoer of heresy, guilty of neglect of heresy. The choice is only between these two parties next to the precipice where your system leads. For all the documents we have gathered in favour of the orthodoxy of the illustrious Accused do not even allow us to agree that he was anathematized as a private doctor. XVIII. The second sentiment, that of condemnation for negligence, adopted by Bishop de Malines, embraced by Pope Gregory XVI, by St. Liguori and by most theologians, is based on a distinction relating to the word heretic, which you call arbitrary, and which, however, has nothing strange or new. It is received, approved, consecrated this distinction, because it has for it the authority of learned men and moreover that of history. Bossuet, in his Defence (Liv. 7, ch. 26), admits, with regard to Honorius, that both heretics properly so called and mere heresy-makers are condemned as heretics. 37 Noel Alexander, one of the most learned and ardent Jansenists of his sect, makes the same observation and confesses that Honorius was condemned only for negligence, ut reum negligentiœ. The celebrated Bolgeni proves that this manner of enveloping, in the same sentence, heresy-makers and formal heretics is customary in the Church, and he adds that Honorius was condemned "because by imposing silence on the question" then agitated, he favored heresy." All this is in perfect accord with the Liber diurnus and with the Letters of Pope St. Leo. As for examples, here are some: Theognis and Eusebius of Nicomedia, who were denounced only for their connivance with the Arians, and later Theodoret, John, and several others, who were accused only of not having openly opposed the heresy of Eutyches, were nonetheless struck down with anathemas as heretics, the first two at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and the others at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It is therefore neither ridiculous, nor illogical, nor absurd, as you claim, my E. Father, it is neither ridiculous nor illogical nor absurd, as you claim, to lump together under the term heretic, in certain cases at least, both heretics properly so called and those who, through kindness or negligence, promote heresy. No doubt it will never be argued that Vhomicide is theft, because the two ideas which correspond to these two words are of an entirely different order. But there is not the same distance between heresy and heretic as between theft and homicide. The example you give us is poorly chosen and proves nothing. XIX. Moreover, there are sound reasons for questioning the authenticity of the anathemas and believing them to be falsified. This was formerly the thought of Baronius and Bellarmin, and it is what is strongly maintained in our day by Tizzani in his General Councils* (1867), and by Fr. H. Colombier in the Études Religieuses des ER, PP. Jesuits, 1869 and 1870. Here are the reasons: lo. Not only does Pope St. Agathon not condemn Honorius, but he excuses him from all ne