The Vatican Dogma

(1) Autobiographical notes (in Russian). Y.M.C.A. Press 1946 p. 48-49.

(2)Put, N. 15, p. 39.

The Vatican Dogma

The doctrine of papal supremacy was built up in Roman Catholicism in the course of centuries in the struggle with the episcopalian system. It was the expression of the Western Christians’ religious voluntarism and of their awareness of the Church as, first and foremost, an organised power. Until 1870, however, papacy was merely a fact–true, a fact of the utmost importance, but not having as yet the force of a dogma which it acquired after the Vatican Council of 1870. That was a dividing line in the history of Catholicism, the goal for which it had striven in developing the system of papacy. In the preceding history of the church, innumerable assertions that the power of the pope is absolute can be matched by probably just as many direct or indirect assertions to the contrary. This difference of opinion existed in Catholic literature right up to 1870 and was apparent even at the Vatican Council itself, where many of its most learned and influential members were definitely opposed to the formula asserting papal infallibility, submitted to the Council for discussion. It was only after this Council that papalism ceased to be merely a fact but became a dogma: the question was closed. Roma locuta est—in the face of the whole world, in the full light of publicity. The way the Council was organized and carried on its work is made perfectly clear by documentary evidence and the testimony of its members. The Council is of momentous significance for Catholicism; it showed both the immense power of discipline and organisation, characteristic of the Catholic world, and its great weakness—absence of spiritual freedom.

The few dissenting theologians, with the venerable Dœllinger at their head, found themselves outside the pale of the Church as “Old Catholics.”

This is incontestably proved in the historical monographs by Friedrich[1], Schulte[2] and Friedberg[3]. The Vatican Council has as much claim to be called a council as the present day meetings of delegates in the U. S. S. R. to be regarded as free expressions of the will of the people.

To begin with, bishops, of whom a church council is normally composed, are present there as representing, or bearing witness for, their respective dioceses—there can only be a council when people give and take counsel. But in this case there could have been no such thing, since the very purpose of the Council had been kept secret. No one knew why it was being called, and its main object was revealed only after it had assembled, though the leading party—the Jesuits—had a fairly clear notion of it. The papal allocution of 26.VI.1867 referred to convoking the Council, but during the two and a half years that passed not a single question of importance was put down for its deliberation. The committee of theologians, which under the chairmanship of a cardinal was preparing the agenda, did not inform the episcopate of the result of its labours. Thus secrecy enveloped the Council's transactions from the first.

When the delegates arrived, they received printed instructions from the pope who had already appointed all the officials of the Council. The instructions made provision for several committees, but the chief committee of projects, apart from which no resolutions could be proposed, had already been appointed by the pope. The two other committees were elected by a simple majority vote, but the majority clearly belonged to the papal party, because of the composition of the Council. The three committees included only about a hundred persons, i.e. one sixth or one seventh of the total number of the members, which varied from 764 to 601. The rest remained in enforced inactivity, and were not even allowed to hold private consultations. They had to languish in the expectation of general meetings for which no definite times were fixed. While the Council was still sitting, the instructions were changed by the pope and made more stringent. General meetings were held in a hall with such bad acoustics that most of those present could not hear the speakers at all; the chairman had the right to determine the order in which the speakers were to address the audience, and to stop the discussions. Members of the Council were presented with certain resolutions drawn up by the committees; they had no books at their disposal (the Vatican library was closed to them) and had only a few days to prepare themselves for discussion meetings. There was a general atmosphere of eavesdropping and espionage, of which many delegates complained. In view of all this, the proceedings can hardly be described as a Council; letters and much other material that has been published make abundantly clear the dejection and even dismay that possessed its members[4].

But, it will be asked, how could all the bishops present give their consent to something that was repugnant to the conscience of many of them? It is not as though they were threatened with the Bolshevist horrors, torture and death; at the worst, their career would have been spoiled. The explanation is, in the first place, that the composition of the Council had been pre-arranged, so as to secure a majority obedient to the pope. This was done by including, in addition to real bishops representing their diocese, a considerable number of titular bishops who represented no diocese whatever and were, at bottom, simply obedient officials of the pope’s consistory, and also of men who were not bishops at all—cardinals and generals of different orders[5].

The overwhelming number of diocesan bishops were Italian (out of the total number of 541 European bishops, Italy had 276, Austria-Hungary—48, France—84, Germany— 19). It is clear enough what this preponderance of Italian bishops meant: they were directly subordinate to the pope as their patriarch and entirely dominated by Rome. The non-diocesan members of the Council together with the disproportionate number of Italian bishops constituted a majority which could carry any resolution submitted to the meeting. This is precisely what happened.

When on July 13, 1870 the Vatican dogma was put to the vote, 88 members of the Council were against it (non placet) and 62 conditionally so (placet juxta modum); 84 out of the 88 and 41 out of the 62 were diocesan bishops representing such influential Catholic countries as Austria-Hungary, France and Germany. When the dissenting bishops left the Council (of this more will be said later), 535 members remained for the final voting; 533 voted for the resolution and only two—against. By that time only 4 out of 24 German bishops were present only 44 out of 86 French bishops, only 9 out of 60 from Austria-Hungary, 148 out of 264 from Italy and so on. Among those who took part in the voting were 22 cardinals without dioceses, 3 Latin patriarchs in partibus, 4 abbots nullius dioceseos, 23 generals of Orders, 13 abbates generales, 88 episcopi in partibus infidelium, 30 of which had no diocese or flock whatever[6]. Such are the figures.

Learned theologians to whom so important a place was assigned at the Council of Trent, had no part at all in the Vatican Council, unless they happened to be bishops or papal officials in clerical garb; only a few theologians were brought in as consultants; thus Professor Friedrich came with Archbishop Hohenlohe. Altogether, participation of laymen, even as mere advisers or only as members of committees was carefully ruled out. The assembly was to consist of obedient members who, in addition to the general ecclesiastical discipline, would be in direct canonical subordination to the Pope.

It has already been said that the bull convoking the Council gave no indication of the actual subject of discussion, and the Schema introduced in December 1869 did not disclose it either. It was essential to create an impression that the new dogma, for the sake of which, as it appeared later, the Council had been convoked, was an answer to a demand from below, from the flock as a whole. In truth, however, the fear that the dogma of papal infallibility might be submitted to the Council caused the utmost anxiety and opposition in Catholic circles from 1867 onwards—though, apparently, no preparations were made to meet the danger.

Schema constitutionis dogmaticae de ecclesia, introduced at the Council with the direct consent of the pope, did not even mention the pope in chapter IX de ecclesiae infallibilitate which sets forth the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church. We read there: haec autem infallibilitas, cujus finis est fidelium sanctitas in doctrina fidei et morum intemperata veritas, magisteria inest, quod Christus in ecclesia sua perpetuum instituit cum ad Apostolos dixit: Matt. 28, 19-21 (see Friedrich, Documenta II, 91-3). Chapter XI de romani pontificis primatu also says nothing about papal infallibility. To make at that juncture no reference to the point at issue is essentially misleading and incomprehensible, but it was done quite deliberately, and the prearranged mechanism worked like a clock.

As early as January 1870, at the initiative of Bishops Martin and Senestre a petition was sent to the pope; it immediately received the support of the majority of the Council members and thus anticipated the decision before any discussion of the subject. The petition asked for the proclamation of the pope’s supreme and infallible authority in matters of faith. 46 Council members from Austria-Hungary and Germany immediately sent a counter-petition, asking not to submit this subject for discussion; they were joined by 38 French, 27 American, 17 Eastern and 7 Italian bishops[7].

All this was happening in an atmosphere of enforced silence and moral tension. In Rome it was impossible even to print any of the speeches or notes or papers, so that a kind of secret literature sprang up and was passed from hand to hand (it was only published much later in Professor Friedrich’s collection).

The petition supported by the majority was submitted to the pope once more, and in answer to it, first, the Instructions were altered (22.II.1870) depriving the Council—in spite of the protests of the minority—of what freedom had been still left to it, and then an “addition” was made to the Schema in ch. XI about papal primacy, and that served as the basis of the Vatican dogma. It was presented to the Council on March 6, and criticisms of it could only be made in writing until March 17. Thus only eleven days were given to the members for criticising a proposition that was suddenly thrust upon them and threatened to undermine the very foundations of church life. One may well understand the alarm and despondency that prevailed at the Council; there was actually talk of the pope being insane. He clearly and indeed blatantly supported the partizans of infallibility, and paid no attention to the petitions and protests of their opponents, giving them no answer whatever.

The collection of written protests against the dogma of papal infallibility shows how strong was the opposition to it[8]. 61 members wrote that the proposed dogma should be withdrawn and some gave decisive dogmatic and canonic reasons for this; 14 said that the subject required further investigation; others regarded the proposed dogma as a self-contradictory innovation likely to lead to schism; only 56 were more or less in favour of it. But in accordance with the Instructions, the written comments were addressed to the committee, the composition and the attitude of which had been settled beforehand—and of course the committee took no notice of them. As to discussions at general meetings, all they amounted to was that a few members made speeches which were quite inaudible because of the bad acoustics and wearied most of the audience. Besides, members of the Council suffered from the terrible heat of the Roman summer, particularly trying for elderly people from the Northern Europe. They begged to have the sittings postponed or temporarily suspended, but in vain; heat proved to be an extra ally of the champions of infallibility.

In spite of a number of protests and attempts at opposition on the part of the minority, the original proposition, formulated even more strongly than before (see Schulte 285 f.) was on July 12 put before the Council for deliberation. On July 13, without any preliminary discussion (which was actually contrary to the Instructions) it was put to the vote at the general meeting. After this, and also without any further discussion, it was submitted to the public assembly on July 18, accepted by the majority, with only two dissenting votes, and immediately ratified by the pope. Between July 13 and July 18, unbeknown to the Council, the resolution had again been reshaped: it was somewhat abridged[9], but had a most important addition: namely, the words ex sese sine consensu ecclesiae were introduced into it. These words which contain the very essence of the dogma, were inserted without any preliminary deliberation, put to the vote, and adopted by the Council en bloc.

A sincere and impartial observer of the Vatican performance cannot help being shocked by such methods, however genuine and deeprooted his sympathies for the Western church may be.

But what had become of the opposing party? How could such astounding unanimity have been achieved at the decisive voting, when a new formula had been unexpectedly slipped into the resolution? Evidently the opposition had partly melted away under the influence of the tropical heat and pressure “from above”, and besides, something incredible even in the annals of this “Council” had happened to it. After voting against the resolution at the meeting of July 13, the opposition lost heart; it saw the necessity to preserve its unity, but was incapable of defending the common cause. The dissenting members decided to leave the battlefield, with a parting gesture of respect for the pope. On July 17, on the eve of the decisive voting; a declaration was sent to him by 56 diocesan bishops, headed by Schwarzenberg, the archbishop of Prague; among them was the famous Strossmeyer, the Church historian Bishop Hefele, the Archbishop of Paris D'Arbois, Dupanlou and others. They reaffirmed their vote against the motion (suffragia renovare et affirmare) but at the same time declared that they would not be present at the public meeting so as not to vote against the proposal in the presence of the Holy Father upon a matter which concerned him personally (pietas enim filialis ac reverential....non sinunt nos in causa Sanctitatis Vestrae personam adeo proxime concernante falam et in facie patris dicere non potest). This declaration, dictated by weakness on the part of the most independent section of the Council, somehow connects the question of a fundamental church dogma with pietas et reverentia for the pope, thus emphasising as it were his bid for personal power.

The pope put the declaration aside, as he had done before with others which displeased him. The signatories thus committed ecclesiastical suicide, and the Vatican dogma was adopted almost unanimously; only the two non placet testify that it was possible in spite of all to vote against the proposal at the last moment.

Contrary to the practice of former councils, the resolution was published by the autocratic decision of the pope in the form of a bull of the Pater aeternus on July 18,1870, merely mentioning sancto approbante concilio. These words were an external expression of the fact that the Council had abolished itself as such.

It now remained to make the decision of the Council accepted by the masses. To this end excommunications, anathemas and other penalties were speedily introduced. The same bishops who at the Council were proving that the Vatican proposal was entirely contrary to the tradition of the .Church, immediately began in their dioceses to insist on the recognition of the Vatican dogma under the threat of excommunication. This was done by bishop Ketteler[10] and others. The group of German scholars headed by Dœllinger (Schulte, Reinkens, Langen, Friedrich and others) were victims of the Vatican dogma; they were eventually driven to the position of sectarians and founded “Old Catholic” church. The fact that it had so little success shows how deeply Catholicism was imbued with papacy: reformation in the XIX century was a failure, which proved to some that it was wrong, and to others that it came too late.

Conscious and thinking Catholics, free from Ultramontanist fanaticism, had to face the painful task of reconsidering their attitude to the Church. Those who had originally disagreed with the dogma accepted it out of ecclesiastical obedience—but how did they accept it? Was it merely external submission, from habit and discipline, or an inward one, as demanded by the Vatican dogma and the whole system of papacy? If the Pope is the vicar of Christ, the living incarnation of the Church, his decision must be binding apart from all evidence and even against it. One must sincerely and inwardly disagree with oneself, with the evidence of one’s own reason and make another’s thought one’s own: this is the sweet sacrifice of the intellect, sacrificio dell-intelleto—if it be possible. It is precisely in such self-conquest for the sake of submission to authority, even against one’s whole mind and conscience, that lies the essence of papacy as an ecclesiastical system. But if there is no such inward act of submission, there remains only hypocritical obedience that sanctions falsehood and pretence.

What, then, was the nature of the submission? Some of the former opponents of the dogma changed their attitude so sharply, that there can scarcely be a doubt about the character of the change. But it is instructive to follow the inner tragedy of the chosen few—of sincere and spiritually responsible men like, for instance, bishops Strossmeyer and Hefele. Both were bitterly opposed to the Vatican dogma and persisted longer than anyone else in refusing to recognise it, but in the end both gave in and submitted. Their letters have been published and enabled us to reconstruct the past. Bishop Hefele writes to Dœllinger from Rotenburg on August 10, 1870 (i.e. after the Vatican dogma had been proclaimed by the Pope): “It would have been best to say once more at the Council non placet and not comply with the demand for obedience. But as there was no unanimity, we acted in the way that had been indicated, and agreed to work together locally…I am not yet sure what I will do but I will never accept the new dogma without the modifications on which we insist, and I will deny that the Council was free or its decisions binding. Let the Romans prohibit and excommunicate me, and appoint someone to administer my diocese. May be God will be merciful and before long call away from the scene the perturbator ecclesiae…”[11] This letter certainly does not testify to the self-abnegation of reason in favour of papal infallibility, and the wish for a speedy demise of the infallible “disturber of church peace” gives one a profound shock, coming as it does from the learned author of Conciliengeschichte to whom the history of the development of church consciousness was an open book. In his next letter to Dœllinger Hefele writes: “To recognise as a divine revelation something which is untrue in itself—let those who can, do so—non possum (ib. 223). On November 11,1870 Hefele wrote to the Bonn Committee: “I too cannot hide from myself, whether in Rotenburg or in Rome, that the new dogma has no true basis in the Scriptures and the tradition, and that incalculable harm has been done to the church, which had never received a more cruel and deadly blow than was dealt to it on July 18” (224). On January 25, 1871 Hefele wrote to his friends at Bonn as follows: “Unfortunately, I must say with Schulte that for many years I thought I was serving the Catholic Church, but I served the distortion (das Zerbild) inflicted upon it by Romanism and Jesuitism. It was only in Rome I saw with perfect clarity that what is happening there is Christian in name and appearance rather than in reality; the grain has disappeared and only the husk remains, everything is completely externalized (verausserlicht)” (ib. 228). As the reader can see for himself this is anything but unquestioning submission to infallible authority. Six weeks later, however, Hefele’s tone changes: by re-interpreting the dogma he becomes reconciled to it, and soon submits altogether (ib. 229).

Bishop Strossmeyer at first was also irreconcilable. On Sept. 7, 1870 he wrote to Professor Reinkins (who later became an Old Catholic bishop), speaking of the pope’s despotic and arbitrary behaviour at the Council and of “unabashed and hideous use of papal infallibility—in order to make that infallibility a dogma” (252). “Papacy has become entangled in petty worldly trade and sunk to the level of a purely Italian institution” (253). He expresses his confidence that his own nation (the Horvats) will “one day free itself from Roman despotism” (254). In a letter to Dœllinger of 4.III.1871 he writes: “the most objectionable and absurd means were used to prevent a free exchange of opinions. I repeat for the hundredth time that never, never can God give His blessing to a thing that has come about in this fashion” (254). “If ever in history a meeting was the very opposite of what it ought to be, it was the Vatican Council. Everything which could compromise the name of ‘council’ was there to a superlative degree” (255). “Of course in Rome there is no breath of the spirit of Christ, for whereas He forbade to call Him ‘good’, in Rome they strove in a most shameless way for the title of infallibilis” (257). Strossmeyer, too, constantly expresses a wish for the death of the pope: “for some days past people have been saying here that the Pope was dangerously ill and even that he died. This would be a real blessing for mankind…” (258); see also a number of similar letters to various people: 258-263).

But this bishop too ended by submitting. In the words of Schulte “he did not care about doing something for the faith, since his sole interest was to raise up the Yugoslav nation”, This Slav nationalist so completely forgot the voice of his conscience as a churchman that in 1881, out of national and political considerations, he himself proclaimed in his pastoral epistle papal omnipotence and infallibility. It is noteworthy that about the same time Strossmeyer, with the weight of this compromise on his conscience, was trying to convert V. Solovyov to Catholicism.

Adherents of the Vatican dogma endeavour to prove—and indeed are bound by that very dogma to do so—that it has always been held by the Church (in accordance with the maxim of Vincent of Lira: quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus creditum est). This is utterly out of keeping with the facts, as was incontestably shown by the Catholic opponents of the Vatican dogma at the Council and outside it (in showing this, the group of scholars who eventually joined the Old Catholics did a great service to the Church). Less than a hundred years before the Council papal absolutism was recognised only by certain schools of theology and certainly not by the Catholic Church as such[12]. The doctrine in question was solemnly rejected by the whole Catholic Church at councils the significance of which is now usual1y belittled or altogether denied. The reference is of course to the great councils of the Reformation period, at Constance and Basel; the first is regarded as partly an œcumenical council, and the second is not recognised at all.

According to the Vatican dogma the pope is the supreme and infallible head of the church, not responsible to anyone or subject to any jurisdiction, since there is no ecclesiastical authority above him. This idea is in irreconcilable contradiction to the dogmatic fact (i.e. a fact having a doctrinal significance) that in the history of the Catholic church there have been and therefore may be—disturbances connected with the pope as a person. On such occasions the church, as represented by its bishops, was faced with the necessity, first, of deciding which was the true pope out of two or even three anti-popes and, secondly, of judging and deposing these popes and enthroning a new one.

Indeed, if the Vatican dogma is consistently thought out, the interruptions of papacy naturally brought about by the death of a pope must cause dogmatic perplexity: if a vicarius Christi can exist at all, how can he be mortal? How can the actual order of papacy be interrupted, as undoubtedly happens through death? A patriarchate may become vacant when a patriarch dies or is removed, but then patriarchy is not a special holy order, which papacy is supposed to be. Patriarchy is an ecclesiastical office with exalted rank and special jurisdiction attached to it, but as far as holy orders are concerned a patriarch is a bishop—and the order of episcopacy, like that of priesthood, is not interrupted by the death of its individual representatives, and will go on till the end of time. With papacy the case is different: a break is caused by the death of its representatives, since a pope exists only in the singular.

If it be said that papacy is not a special order but only an office, since the pope is in bishop’s orders, that will be quite in keeping with the view of the universal church before the schism, but it will be contrary to the Vatican doctrine. According to it, there is a special grace (charisma) given to Peter and his successors—veritatis et fidei nunquam deficientis—which constitutes the order of papacy. Roman Catholic theology has gradually raised St. Peter so high above the other Apostles that he is no longer regarded as one of them but as a prince of Apostles. In addition to the general apostolic charisma he has his own, personal one, similarly to the way in which episcopacy includes priesthood. A bishop celebrates the liturgy like a priest, and does not differ from him in this respect, but it does not follow that they are of equal rank. The same considerations apply to the Catholic conception of the pope, for whom a fourth and highest degree of holy orders has been created. True, Catholic literature contains no direct expression of the idea that papacy it the highest of holy orders—that of episcopus episcoporum or episcopus universalis, but this is either evasiveness or inconsistency; the special.and exceptional place assigned to the “primate” in Catholic canonical writings can have no other meaning[13].

But if papacy be understood as a special order of St. Peter (Tu es Petrus is sung when the newly elected pope is carried in procession), the difficulties which have already been mentioned stand out all the more clearly. On the one hand, bearers of lower hierarchical orders cannot ordain to higher orders, so that the consecration of a pope by bishops (cardinals) is canonically and sacramentally unmeaning: the pope ought in his life-time to consecrate his successor. On the other hand, if an order is discontinued because there is no bearer of it, there is a break in the apostolic succession as a whole. The permanent miracle of the existence of a vicarius Christi requires his personal immortality. The dogmatic teaching about the pope must certainly be made less presumptuous and confine itself to regarding the pope as simply a patriarch but that, of course, means the fall of the whole Vatican fortress. In any case, as has been said already, the mere fact of the death of a pope has dogmatic implications which have not yet been satisfactorily dealt with by the Roman theologians.

Still greater dogmatic importance for the problem of papacy attaches to intentional and artificial interruptions in papal succession, due to the papal court’s desire to manage by themselves for a time, without the vicarius Christi[14]. What becomes meanwhile of the fullness and infallibility of ecclesiastical power? If the answer be that it remains with the church, this means that the church can do without a pope, being “widowed” for a time like a diocese without a bishop. This clearly proves, one would have thought, that not the church is a function of papacy, but papacy is a function of the church which can, in certain circumstances, make up for the absence of the pope.

The problem which the death of a pope raises indirectly, comes openly to the fore in the case or ecclesiastical schism when there is more than one pope in existence. When this happened the church itself, through its highest organ—the council, settled matters, judged the popes, deposed some and appointed others. The superiority of the council to the pope, dogmatically laid down at the Councils of Constance and Basel, had been exercised by them before this dogmatic proclamation was made. Those councils rejected the claim that the pope is not subject to any ecclesiastical jurisdiction, “prima sedes a nemine judicatur”. They judged and deposed the popes, and neither the church, nor Pope Martin V appointed by the Council of Constance, nor his successors, objected to this. To object would have meant questioning their own legitimacy and admitting that they were usurpers.

I repeat, these facts have a dogmatic significance; Roman Catholics are fond of saying that Providence has preserved the see of Rome from dogmatic errors, but in this case it may with equal justice be said that Providence allowed certain facts, the dogmatic significance of which was to preserve the Roman see from making false claims and to give clear indications of the right course[15].

Turning from facts to doctrine, we must say that at the beginning of the XV century, allowing of course for many exceptions, the general opinion of the Catholic church was opposed to papacy as an ecclesiastical system and favoured the idea of councils. This was apparent both at Constance and at Basel. Even the most ardent adherents of papacy admit that the Council of Constance was necessary, useful and even (in part) œcumenical in character, but they strive at all costs to weaken its dogmatic decision, accepted at the 4th session and directly contradictory to the Vatican dogma. That decision is as follows: Ipsa synodus in spiritu congregata legitime generale consilium faciens, ecclesiam catholicam mililantern representans, potestatem a Christo immediate habet, cui quilibet cujuscunque status dignitatis, etiamsi papalis existat, obedire tenetur in his quae pertinent ad fidem et extirpationem dieti schismatis et reformationem generalem ecclesiae Dei in capite et membris[16].

At the 5th session this statement, subsequently confirmed more than once at the Council of Basel, was repeated and amplified. It was accepted after the flight of Pope John XXIII when the Council was about to try him for a number of offences. The result of the trial was that the pope was deposed, and another pope, Martin V, was elected; the procedure was recognised by the whole Catholic world as legally valid. But according to the principle “prima sedes a nemine judieatur”, and, a fortiori, according to the Vatican dogma, the act of trying and deposing a pope, and electing a new one in his place is unlawful and revolutionary. If, however, the council had a right to act as it did, it obviously had dogmatic and canonical reasons for it, expressed in the resolution passed at the 4th and the 5th sessions. The deposition of one pope and election of another is a dogmatic, or as lawyers say, conclusive fact, either disproving the absolute primacy of popes or interrupting their canonical succession: if Martin V is not a lawful pope, his successors are not lawful either; papal succession is discontinued.

Instead of drawing all the dogmatic and canonical conclusions from this impasse, by means of which Providence as it were delimits the claims of papacy, Catholic theologians do their utmost to minimise the significance of the awkward facts; this is what Hefele, the learned historian of the Council of Constance strives to do. He recognises that the course adopted by the Council at the difficult time when there were three popes at once was the only possible one. Thus he admits the legitimacy of actions which in his view are ecclesiastically illegal. According to the Roman Catholic doctrine it is as impossible for a council to depose a pope and appoint a new one, as it is impossible for priests to consecrate a bishop. But Hefele goes on to say that the Council of Constance may only be regarded as œcecumenical after its last (41-45) session, when it worked jointly with Pope Martin V. If, however, it was not legally valid or not œcumenical (to use Hefele’s deliberately vague phraseology) from the first, its transactions 28 have no validity, and it could not become cecumenical in conjunction with a new pope for, in that case, he would not be a rightful pope[17].

The same far-fetched devices are used to explain away the fact that Pope Martin V had confirmed several, if not all, decrees of the Council of Constance, recognising it as œcumenical if only in part, but never declared any of its decrees to be heretical. He undoubtedly ratified the dogmatic decrees concerning the false doctrines of Wycliffe, Huss etc. proclaimed by the council at the same time as the decree about the authority of an œcumenical council over the pope[18]. Is it possible that a council, said to be heretical in respect of a fundamental dogma about the church, should in another respect be considered œcumenical? This is one of the evasions and ambiguities of the Roman doctrine, historically explained by the simple fact that Pope Martin did not venture to protest against the resolutions which displeased him, waiting for a more favourable moment to do so, and at the same time wishing to make use of the council for the struggle against the heretics. But from the point of view of dogma we have here an impermissible ambiguity. Pope Martin V’s pronouncement with regard to the Council of Constance could, as Hefele himself admits, be interpreted by each side in its own way (Hefele, VII, 348, 368).

His successor, Pope Eugenius IV, was more precise and in 1446 accepted the decisions of the Council of Constance absque tamen praejudicio juris dignitatis et praeeminentiae sedis apostolicae. Hefele takes this to mean that all the resolutions limiting papal power are excluded (v. VI 372-3). Later on, in 1459, Pope Pius II in the bull Exsecrabilis condemned appeals to a council against the pope; in 1516 Pope Leo X in the bull Pastor aeternus condemned the resolution of the Council of Basel (which merely restated that of the Council of Constance) about the supremacy of the council over the pope. This was how matters stood until Pius IX issued the bull Pater aeternus in July 1870— and this is how they stand now.

It is instructive to observe to what extent Roman Catholic dogmatic theologians are hypnotised by papism. The seal of papal approbation has so decisive a significance for them that they lose all interest in the council which was the primary source of the doctrines receiving the approbation. A council consisting in one respect of obvious heretics establishes the true faith—a fountain sends forth both sweet water and bitter! Or else, a council becomes simply a papal office for drawing up theological projects.

III

This vacillation and inconsistency is even more apparent at the Council of Basel where a regular struggle with the pope was carried on for many years with varying success.

After the victory of papacy the Council of Basel was, naturally, excluded from the number of œcumenical councils recognised by the Western Church (although it was at this council that the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, proclaimed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX was formulated). What is of interest to us, however, is not this final rejection of its œcumenical character, but the changes in the pope’s attitude to it while it was still sitting. Such changes would have been impossible had the church already held at that time the dogma of papal infallibility. On the contrary, the Council of Basel firmly maintained the dogmatic definition of the Council of Constance and re-stated it more than once.

The Council of Basel was opened on July 23, 1431, soon after the election of Pope Eugenius IV (after the death of Martin V) and immediately came into conflict with the pope who wished to dissolve it and call a new council in Italy at Bologna. (It had been decided at Constance that councils were to be held every ten years). The Council passed a resolution denying the pope’s right to dissolve it—and therefore denying his plena potestas. After a time the pope began negotiations with the rebellious Council and offered either to transfer it to some other place or to limit its competence; the offer was made through the Bishop of Tarentum, who in his speech at the Council extolled papal primacy and plena potestas. In answer, the Council accused the pope of schismatic tendencies and demanded that the order for its dissolution should be revoked; the dissolution, in their opinion would, among other things, hinder the union with the Greek Church, of which the pope had spoken. As against the contention of the Bishop of Tarentum that the pope had plena potestas and the bishops in partem solicitudinis only, the council maintained that it was competent to deal with matters of faith, with eradicating schisms and reforming the church in respect of its head and members, according to the definition laid down by the Council of Constance. Only God and œcumenical councils were infallible, while even angels were fallible, and popes too, as for instance Anastasius and Liberius. Altogether, the pope was no more than caput ministeriale.

By these arguments the members of the Council were proving that their insubordination was legitimate, and the pope’s claims unjustifiable (Hefele VII, 477-8). As time went on, the difference between the council’s and the pope’s conception of ecclesiastical authority grew more and more pronounced. At the II session on 27.IV.1433 resolutions were passed compelling the pope to convoke a council periodically and to attend it, under penalty of being called before a tribunal and even of being declared a schismatic. On June 16 a new resolution was passed condemning the pope for his attitude to the council and saying that the subordination to the council was a mater of doctrine, “fidei concernit”, so that if Pope Eugenius IV neglected to hear the church (i.e. the council), he would be as an heathen man and a publican. On July 13 the main theses of Constance were once more confirmed at Basel. The conflict with the pope developed into a regular struggle for power; the pope was summoned before a tribunal and although the trial was postponed more than once, it took place at last and the pope was deposed.

Before this happened, however, certain events raising important theoretical issues took place. On July 29, 1433 the pope, unaware of his indictment by the Council published the bull Inscrutabilis cancelling all the resolutions which the Council had passed against him. Two days later, however, on August 1, he had to issue another bull, Dudum sacra, in which he fully recognised the Council on condition that his legates should preside there, and that all the resolutions directed against him personally should be cancelled. At the same time, a former bull, Deus novit, attacking the Council, was declared to be unauthentic. When, however, the pope heard of the council’s decrees against him, he issued on September 11 a new bull, In arcano, annulling those decrees and anathemising those who obeyed them.

On October 16 a debate was held at the Council, in the presence of Emperor Sigismund, between the president of the Council, Cardinal Julian Cesarini, and the papal legate, Archbishop of Spoletto, on the same subject that was discussed at Vatican in 1870, but in a very different setting. Cardinal Cesarini maintained the primacy of the council over the pope, citing the authority of the council of Constance, of the seven Oecumenical Councils and particularly of the Council of Chalcedon, of St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. Gregory the Great, and disputed the pope’s right to dissolve a council. He concluded by saying that this was a matter concerning faith (ib. 554). Conditions of peace were dictated to the pope, and as he was in a difficult position, he accepted them in toto in a new bull, also called Dudum Sacra, December 15, 1443. He admitted in it that he had striven for the dissolution of the Council, and this had led to grave dissensions. He did not use the former authoritative formula “volumus contentamur”, but the formula suggested by the Council: decernimus et declaramus. He recognised that the Council from the first carried on its work legitimately in respect of the three main points (uprooting heresy, pacifying and reforming the church in its head and members) and of matters connected therewith. The pope speaks as though the Council had never been dissolved; the order for its dissolution is declared to be null and void, and he is ready to wish the Council cum effectu ac omni devotione ac favore prosequi. The two former bulls, Inscrutabilis of July 26 and In arcana of September 11 are cancelled (as well as the unauthentic Deus novit), and all the strictures against the Council members rescinded[19].

Let the champions of papal infallibility reconcile as best they can all these hesitant and contradictory statements made in the course of a few months on the same subject, undoubtedly dealing with fide et moribus. It is obvious that the pope’s recognition of the council which openly and de fide asserts its primacy implies that such assertion is legitimate. Otherwise there would be no escaping the conclusion that the pope recognised a manifestly heretical council, persisting in its heresy.

But since the pope submitted to the Council insincerely and out of sheer necessity, he prepared for himself a way of retreat by means of the usual evasions. When circumstances changed, he declared at the College of Cardinals in 1439 that he had consented merely to prolong the Council but certainly had not accepted its decrees. This idea was adopted and zealously supported by the papal theologian J. Torquemada[20]. In the bull Moyses of September 4, 1439, the pope actually condemned the Basel decrees as impious, and attempted at the same time, following Torquemada’s tortuous arguments, to undermine the force of the decree of the Council of Constance[21]. All this, however, happened much later; at the time the pope’s capitulation was welcomed at the Council of Basel as a great triumph and immediately registered in its transactions[22]. The most important thing to note is that the Council, after being recognised by the pope, re-stated at the session of June 18, 1434 the Vth decree of the Council of Constance about the supremacy of the council over the pope. All the resolutions passed at Basel were issued as bulls in the name of the Council, in contradistinction to the Vatican where “the decision of the Council” was published in the form of a papal bull[23].

A new factor was introduced into the history of the Council of Basel by negotiations with the Greeks about the union of the Eastern and Western Churches, eventually proclaimed at the Council of Florence. Leaving aside the question of the union as such, we are here concerned simply with the part which that Council played in the destinies of the Western Church. From the very first, negotiations with the Greeks became a weapon in the struggle between the pope and the Council of Basel. The Greeks cared very little about real union with the Western Church, which they regarded with traditional hatred and loathing; the Emperor wanted the union for purely political reasons, hoping for military help against the Turks. None of the Greek delegates were, to begin with, favourable to the Latins, but as the Council went on with its work, some of them, like Vissarion and Isidore, changed their attitude.

Quite apart from all this, however, the Greeks (who were mistaken in their political calculations) began discussions about the union at a time when the Western Church was paralyzed by its own dissensions and itself needed uniting. Negotiations could be carried on with only one of the two parties into which the church was split, and each wanted to turn the union with the Greeks to its own advantage. The Greek delegation at first negotiated with both sides—the pope and the Council;—and each made advances to the Greeks, sending to Constantinople embassies which quarreled with and plotted against each other. They promised the Greeks various favours, each trying to outbid the other. This went on for more than four years[24].

In the end the pope won, and the Greeks consented to come to his council—not, of course, because they regarded it as canonically legitimate, but because the Basel party went too far in their objections to the place where the council was to sit; besides, they quarreled among themselves and made a number of tactical mistakes. Nevertheless after arriving at Ferrara, the Greeks did nothing for six months (from April to October 1438), waiting for members from Basel and representatives of the French and German peoples who never arrived at all. As a temporary expedient the Greeks had to deal with a papal conciliabilum which consisted of eight cardinals (all the others were at Basel), two “titular” patriarchs, 61 archbishops (mostly electi i.e. “Vatican archbishops”), 43 abbots and a general of an Order; all real representatives—some hundreds of them—were at Basel. Accordingly, the Council of Florence was not a general council and was not regarded as such in the West till the XIX century[25] on the strength of the Vatican dogma. True, the pope assured the Greeks at that time that his presence was sufficient to ensure that a council was a General one; but in that case there was no need to have a council at all, and negotiations could be just as well carried on with the pope alone. This, indeed, was what happened at the so called “General” Council of Lyons in 1274, when the emissaries of the Emperor Michael read to the pope’s legates the confessio required of them, and the matter ended there. But it was impossible to force the issue in that way after the Greeks had been negotiating with the whole Western Church as represented by both its centres—the pope and the council. And it soon became evident that a General Council with the Greeks was a failure, for the Basel party opened hostilities at once. While in Florence the Greeks were being forced to recognise the pope’s supremacy, another part of the Roman Catholic Church denied this supremacy as a matter of dogma. It was the hopeless position of the Greeks as well as their indifference to the question at issue that prevented them arbitrating in the great schism in the Western Church and implanting there the principles of Orthodoxy. Had they done so, they would have prevented the fall of Byzantium and the coming of the Reformation.

By the time that the Council of Florence had assembled, a new conflict developed between the pope and the Council of Basel. The pope issued a bull transferring its sittings to Ferrara; in reply the Basel party held a trial condemning the pope and prohibiting him in temporalibus et spiritualibus. When the pope declared the General Council at Ferrara opened, members of the Basel Council on March 24, 1438 solemnly condemned it as a schismatic gathering and denied de fide the pope’s right to transfer a General Council from one place to another. The most important of the Catholic countries, France and Germany sided, on the whole, with Basel (consider, e.g. the Bourge Assembly and “pragmatic sanctions” 7.VII.1438, Germany’s conciliatory “neutrality”, and the Reichstag of Mainz on 26.III.1439 accepting the reformational decrees of Basel); all the West European countries were anxious to have a new General Council convoked. In any case, there was no question of recognizing the Council of Florence, and the pope, with the Greeks whom he had inveigled, remained isolated. The profound cleavage in the Western Church made speeches about union with the Eastern Christians ring hollow.

At the 32nd session of May 16,1439, in answer as it were, to the future declaration of the Florentine Council, the following theses were once more laid down as veritates fidei catholicae: 1) an œcumenical council is superior to the pope; 2) the pope cannot transfer, or cancel, or dissolve an œcumenical council; 3) anyone who denies this is a heretic (Hefele, VII 778-9). At the 34th session of June 25, 1439 the pope was declared to be deposed after trial. Thus, at the very time when in Florence union with the Greek Church was being signed, at the Council of Basel, which in any case represented a considerable section of the Western Church, the plenary rights of the pope and of his council were denied, and the thesis about the supremacy of the pope, proclaimed at the Council of Florence, was, from the point of view of dogma, rejected as heresy. But the Florentine thesis, disputed at the time, was resuscitated in our own day by the Vatican Council and put at the basis of its definition[26]. The statement, expressed in inexact, metaphorical and somewhat ambiguous terms had not been sufficiently discussed[27], and was forced upon the Greeks at the conclusion of a council which had lasted for many weary months.

It is worth noting that John of Ragusa, in his answer to Vissarion, justified the pope’s power over the bishops as his vicars by the alleged fact that St. Peter appointed patriarchs, metropolitans and bishops to various dioceses; in supporting this, he quoted a spurious passage from pseudo-Isidore’s Anaclite, and an also spurious text of the 6th canon of the 1st Nicean Council. (The text had been proved to be spurious at the IV Oecumenical Council of 451, where papal legates had attempted to make use of it). In his arguments John of Ragusa referred also to the notoriously spurious Donatio Constantini—a document which had already been proved unauthentic by Laurentius Valla and Nicolaus Cusanus (Hefele VII. 733).

The statement had apparently not been discussed in detail, though there was a dispute about an important addition, insisted upon by the Latins but rejected by the Greeks—namely, the assertion that papal authority must be recognized on the strength of sacra scriptura et dicta sanctorum. It would have been difficult to avoid ascribing exaggerated significance to “dicta” taken out of their context, and finally the addition took the form of KATH'ON TROPON—quemadmodum (etiam) in gestis conciliorum et in sacris canonibus. This all-important formula is unquestionably vague and ambiguous. If it be understood with reservations as meaning that the pope’s primacy holds solely within the limits of œcumenical councils (of which the Greeks recognize only seven) and their canons, this interpretation implies that the Orthodox East is right in regarding the pope as first among bishops and precludes anything resembling the Vatican dogma. If, however, the reservations are taken away (as is done in the Latin translation by adding etiam, to which there is no equivalent in the Greek text[28], it means that the councils and canons recognized papacy in the same sense as modern Catholicism does—which was certainly not the case. The Councils of Constance and Basel clearly show that within the Roman Catholic Church itself disagreement on the subject was as strong at that time as at the time of the Vatican Council; but in the XV century it was expressed freely, and in 1870 it was stifled.

While proclaiming papal supremacy, the Council of Florence passed over in silence the burning question of the day—namely, that of the relation of the pope to the council. There is reason to think that at that time the question was not regarded as settled by the Florentine decree. In September or October 1439, when the Council was over, the pope arranged in Florence a debate on the subject in the presence of cardinals and other ecclesiastical dignitaries. Cardinal Cesarini defended the thesis adopted by the Council of Basel, and Juan Torquemada (who was soon after created cardinal) opposed him—so, obviously, it was still an open question[29]. Torquemada himself did not believe in papal infallibility: he maintained that the pope was not subject to any jurisdiction unless he fell into a heresy—which, however, was incredible. Hefele also admitted such a contingency and thought that in that case the pope would cease to be a live member of the church. But of course this was Hefele’s opinion before the Vatican Council took place.

The Council of Basel persisted in its quarrel with Eugenius IV and at the end of 1439 elected an anti-pope, Felix V, who afterwards transferred the Council to Lausanne. The schism was renewed and only after the death of Eugenius (in 1447) the newly elected pope Nicolas V, who succeeded in making peace with the princes and securing their mediation, began negotiating with the anti-pope. The following conditions were offered to Felix V: he was to renounce the tiara and receive compensation in money from pope Nicolas, and besides remain first cardinal enjoying all the privileges which this entailed. Felix agreed, and Nicolas V, in a special bull, revoked all the strictures upon Felix, the Council of Basel and their adherents. Felix, on his side, rescinded in a special missive all the censures against Eugenius IV, Nicolas, and their adherents, and confirmed his own privileges and appointements. At the second session of the Council at Lausanne Felix signed his resignation, say