De Moor II:41: The Supreme Judge: Not the Church, Part 1

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ג.  On this eminence, not even the Church is to be placed, whether of the Elect, which is truly called the Invisible Church, or of the Called, in which are mixed many Reprobates; or the Universal Church of Clerics and Laics together, as Bellarmine, book III, de Ecclesia, chapter XIV, tome 2, Controversiis, column 187, joins the Entire Body of the faithful and the Entire Body of the Bishops; or the Representative Church of Overseers, upon whom that privilege is wont chiefly to be bestowed by our Adversaries, whether it be represented in Councils, or in one Roman Pope:  concerning the remaining Overseers of the Church considered individually there is no controversy, whom our Adversaries readily concede to be liable to error.  Yet we except here the Extraordinary Doctors of the Old Testament, namely, the Prophets, and the first that founded the Church of the New Testament, namely, the Apostles, whom we willingly acknowledge to have been blessed with the gift of Infallibility in teaching, and through whom the Holy Spirit to have exercised Judgment Supreme and ἀνυπεύθυνον, not accountable, in matters of faith:  at which point, nevertheless, we assert that those very Prophets and Apostles are to be considered after the likeness of Ministers, through whom the Spirit, by whom they were moved,[1] was delivering His sentence as the Supreme Judge.

Moreover, in every case mentioned we deny to the Church Supreme Judgment in the Interpretation of Scripture, and in the Decision of controversies of Faith:  1.  Because the private Judgment of Discretion belongs to individual believers, in accordance with § 39, which ought to remain free:  neither by an αὐτοκρατορικὴν/autocratic and ἀνυπεύθυνον, not accountable, determination of the Church is it lawful to take from believers free recourse to the Sacred Scriptures.  2.  Because all things are to be examined by the Scripture, which as the sole and supreme Rule of the Church is also addressed to its individual members.  But a subordinate Judge, to whom the Law was given by the Prince, according to which he ought to judge, is not able to arrogate to himself Judgment Supreme and ἀνυπεύθυνον, not accountable, from the Law at pleasure, when controversy at length arises:  but it belongs to the Prince himself to interpret his Law:  which God does in Scripture, to which He accordingly sends all, Deuteronomy 5:32; Isaiah 8:20, concerning the sense of which passage see § 4 above; 2 Peter 1:19, 20, upon which passage see my Commentarium.  3.  Because every Church in this world is Fallible, see below Chapter XXXII, § 16:  both of the Elect, which indeed is not able to err finally in the foundation and necessary articles, but never in this life is to be said to be so infallible that it is liable to no error; and this Church is truly Invisible, neither are its member able to be infallibly discerned by other men, see Chapter XXXII, § 3, 4, 8; and so this is not able to sustain the part of a visible Judge concerning the sense of Scripture and controversies of faith:  and of the Called, who often, and sometime even universally in particular places, are able to err, Romans 11:20; Acts 13:46:  and of the Prelates, who, α.  As men, are liable to error, Romans 3:4, whom even our Adversaries would not deny to able to err as individuals; but what the individuals do not have separately, that does not belong to all of them conjointly; neither is a Council, which is made up of fallible members, able to be infallible:  consult below, Chapter XXXIII, § 26.  β.  They themselves are subject expressly to error in rebukes and prophecies, Isaiah 56:10; Ezekiel 7:26; Matthew 24:24.  γ.  Indeed, they are judged on account of their presumption of Infallibility, Jeremiah 18:18.  δ.  And in very grievous errors with great frequency are found the very High Priests and Councils both under the Old and under the New Testament.  Examples bear this out:  Aaron, when he prepared the golden calf and built an altar before it, Exodus 32:2-5; Urijah, at the commandment of Ahaz constructing an altar according to the form of the idolatrous altar of Damascus, and sacrificing on it, with the altar that Solomon had caused to be made by divine commandment set aside, 2 Kings 16:10-16; Caiaphas, regarding the Lord Jesus as a plague upon the republic, accusing Him of blasphemy, and hence obtaining a sentence of death against Him, which example TURRETIN frees from many Exceptions, Theologiæ Elencticæ, locus XVIII, question XI, § 14; the Pharisees and Sadducees, who as individuals were liable to grievous errors in faith and practice, and who notwithstanding as public Doctors were instructing the people, but to both of these sects the members of the highest Politico-Ecclesiastical Council among the Jews were devoted, Acts 23:6; Councils of the Prophets and Elders, for example, of the four hundred Prophets about the time of Ahab, all whom a Spirit of falsehood was bringing into one, 1 Kings 22:6, 19-23; and of the Elders in the time of Christ, who even with one accord by the consent of the Elders present repudiated the true Messiah, and judged Him worthy of death as a blasphemer, Matthew 26:65, 66.

Under the New Testament, there are Examples in Paul of Samosata,[2] etc., who, at least all those reviewed by our AUTHOR, were Ministers in the Church of the first dignity; Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, who called Christ a ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον, mere man, denied His Deity and preexistence before His birth of the Virgin Mary.  Photinus, Bishop of Sirmium in Illyricum, who held the same heresy concerning the Son of God as Samosata, and nonsensically said that the Holy Spirit is neither God nor a person of the Trinity.[3]  Arius, Presbyter of the Alexandrian Church, and ἐξηγητὴς τῶν θείων γραφῶν, Interpreter of the Divine Scriptures, whose errors concerning the Son of God as less than the Father, a creature made ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, from non-being, a created God, the instrument of the Father in Creation; and concerning the Holy Spirit, not even God, but a creature of the Son; are well-known:  no less well-known are the factions and tumults that the Arian heresy stirred up.[4]  Macedonius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who similarly impugned the Deity of the Holy Spirit, and asserted that He was only a created force, ministering to the Son, a created force, I say, that would be in all spirits.[5]  Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, who erred, as it was commonly thought, from the truth concerning the Union of the two Natures in Christ.[6]  Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, who was the first patron of the Eutychian heresy, and condemned at the Council of Chalcedon.[7]  Peter Mongus, Bishop of Alexandria, previously Archdeacon of the Alexandrian Church, thrust into the Alexandrian chair by turbulent men, was the head of the faction of the Eutychians; but thereafter, since he appeared in letters written to embrace the Council of Chalcedon, he was confirmed in the Alexandrian Patriarchate by the Emperor, but left his own sect among the Eutychians without a definite leader/ head, hence to be called the Acephali.[8]  Peter Gnapheus, Overseer of the Antiochene seat, thereafter was numbered among the heads of that same sect.[9]

That many Doctors congregated together are no less Fallible, is taught by the examples of entire Councils erring even under the New Testament, of which sort, for example, are the Councils of Rimini and Seleucia under Constantius in the Fourth Century, confirming Arianism;[10] the second Ephesian, λῃστρικὸν/Robber’s, Council in the Fifth Century, in which, with Dioscorus of Alexandria as President, the Eutychian heresy was approved;[11] the Second, Pseudo-Ecumenical Council of Nicea,[12] which rescinded the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of Constantinople,[13] and established the veneration of images.

To this Argument from the sought and abundantly confirmed Fallibility of the Church, Bellarmine is able to be set in opposition, book II de Conciliis, chapters VI-IX, tome 2, Controversiis, columns 75-102, in which he tries to enervate the same with a great many arguments, but to no purpose.

From what has been said, as the Fallibility of the Church is evident in general, so certain Particulars are added against the Roman Church, which, α.  with the others is without a promise of Infallibility, while Paul admonishes these very Romans, Romans 11:20-22, καλῶς·  τῇ ἀπιστίᾳ ἐξεκλάσθησαν, etc., well; because of unbelief they were broken off, etc.  β.  And it has had many Bishops erring in faith; Liberius in the Fourth Century subscribing to an Arian formula at the behest of Constantius, when he was wearied with two years of exile:[14]  see SPANHEIM, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century IV, chapter XI, columns 911, 915, 916, opera, tome I; BUDDEUS, Isagoge ad Theologiam universam, book II, chapter II, § 5, tome 1, pages 458, 459a.  Vigilius, who in the Sixth Century actually changed his opinion three times concerning the case of the Three Chapters and of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and by the condemnation of the Three Chapters involved himself in the crime of heresy by the judgment of most of the Latins and Africans of that time:[15]  see SPANHEIM, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century VI, chapter X, § 4, column 1123, § 9, columns 1127, 1128.  Honorius I, who asserted Monthelitism, and condemned those that opposed, in the Seventh Century; afterwards Pope Honorius himself was then also anathematized by the Sixth Ecumenical, or Third Constantinopolitan, Council:[16]  see SPANHEIM, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century VII, chapter VIII, § 3, columns 1220, 1221, § 6, column 1224, chapter IX, § 4, 5, columns 1227, 1228.  John XXII, who in the Fourteenth Century denied that the Souls of the saints are received into heaven, and enjoy the vision of God before the day of the Resurrection; but he, when near to death, recanted:[17]  see SPANHEIM, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century XIV, chapter III, § 3, columns 1744, 1745, chapter V, § 11, column 1764.  John XXIII, who in the Fifteenth Century at the Council of Constance was to be deprived of office, having been accused of denying the future Life and the Resurrection of the dead:  see SPANHEIM, Historia Ecclesiastica, Century XV, chapter II, § 2, column 1819, and likewise in Xeniis Romano-catholicorum, Dilemma XIV, in Antidoro, § 2, columns 1143, 1144, opera, tome 3.  And according to Canon Law, says our AUTHOR, it is possible to have Bishops deviating from the faith:  so indeed in part I of the Decree of GRATIAN, Distinction XL, chapter VI, Si Papa, columns 211, 212, it is read that the Pope is to be judged by no one, unless he be found a deviant from the faith:  in the place of which the Gloss on that place has, unless he be found a heretic:  but, if this be impossible, for what reason is that restriction added?  γ.  Never in the Church was the Roman Church acknowledged as the Universal Judge, whatever it might sophistically urge, with the Easterners and Africans everywhere setting themselves in opposition; consult below Chapter XXXIII, § 7.  δ.  In Judgment concerning the most weighty heads, as this very thing concerns the supreme and infallible Judge in matters of faith, it has changed and changes even now; not daring according to its infallibility and authenticity to remove the quarrels and grave disagreements that are between the Thomists and the Scotists, and other sects among them, they thrive.  A good number of this sort of varying and contradictory Decrees and Brevia of the Roman Popes in the doctrine of religion are related by SPANHEIM, Stricturis adversus Bossueti Expositionem Doctrinæ catholicæ, chapter I, opera, tome 3, column 1054, chapter II, columns 1076-1078; add his Xenia Romano-catholicorum, Dilemma II, in Antidoro, § 2, columns 1123, 1124.  ε.  And also it was formerly convicted of Apostasy, Idolatry, Tyranny, which things compelled our fathers to secede from that Church, and of all Authority unjustly usurped:  consult below Chapter XXXII, § 12.  ϛ.  The Roman Church itself is not able to deny its own Fallibility in its own Head, when it acknowledges that the Pope as a private Doctor is indeed able to err; see Bellarmine, book IV de Romano Pontifice, chapter II, Controversiis, tome I, column 960; but not as the Pope speaking ex Cathedra:  thus the Parisian Jesuits in the College of Clermont in 1661 defended this thesis:  “Christ committed the government of His Church to the Popes in such a way that He granted to them the same Infallibility that He Himself has, as often as they speak ex Cathedra.”  Now, this Cathedra denotes, not a certain pulpit in which the Pope shall sit; but speech with a quality of some sort, with the necessary means for Infallibility applied.  And so in this way the same man is able to be orthodox as Pope, but a heretic as a private man:  but why does not he, erring as a private man, consult himself as Pope, so that he might cease to err?  They do not distinctly explain what that Cathedra is, and by what marks it is able to be discerned with certainty whether the Pope rightly applied all the requisite means for Infallibility, and so is to be said to have spoken ex Cathedra, or not.  Philippe Vlaming, himself a Papist author, acknowledges that this is doubtful, especially concerning the more ancient times, Epistle XIII contra David Pierman, § 9, tome 2, page 380.  While according to the understanding of the Papists he occupies the Cathedra of Peter from the time that he is elected and inaugurated, and so it would appear that he ought always to be believed to speak ex Cathedra.  Moreover, the Papists in a variety of ways restrict this Infallibility, when they state that the Pope is indeed able to err as a private Doctor even in universal questions of Right, both of faith and of manners; but in addition that the Pope, even with a General Council, is able to err in particular controversies of Fact, which depend upon human testimony, although not in questions of Right, as it is in Bellarmine, book IV de Romano Pontifice, chapter II, Controversiis, tome I, column 960:  while the Jesuits everywhere call the Pope the Infallible Judge, both in questions of Right and of Fact, which two are frequently not even able to be separated from each other; see TURRETIN, Theologiæ Elencticæ, locus XVIII, question XI, § 3, 23.  On the other hand, Philippe Vlaming maintains the Fallibility of the entire Church in matters of Fact, Epistle III contra David Pierman, tome I, pages 49-71.  Thus they sometimes say that the Pope is able to err in those things that pertain to Manners, but not in those things that concern Faith:  while both in the dogmas of Faith and in the precepts of Manners, that are prescribed to the whole Church, and that have to do with matters necessary for salvation, or with those things that are of themselves good or evil, Bellarmine, on the other hand, pronounces him Infallible, book IV de Romano Pontifice, chapter II, Controversiis, tome I, column 973.  And certainly, if to the Pope the perpetual assistance of the Holy Spirit is given to grant Infallibility to him in matters of Faith, why is he not also able to have the same for those things that pertain to Manners?  Neither is he able to err against good Manners by establishing anything according to the plenitude of his power that is unjust or illicit of itself; since by that most grievous error in Faith it is previously held that that belongs to it of Right.  But that is correct, which LOUIS ELLIES DU PIN, the Parisian Theologian, with protracted effort expended, would present as proven, that the Roman Popes are not Infallible in judgment, Dissertation V de Antiqua Ecclesiæ Disciplina.  On the question, Whether the Pope is able to err in Faith? see WHITAKER, Controversy IV, question VI, opera, tome 2, pages 694-714.

[1] 2 Peter 1:21.

[2] Paul of Samosata (200-275), Bishop of Antioch from 260 to 268, was a monarchian and adoptionist.  In 269, he was deposed by a Synod at Antioch.

[3] Although the exact character of Photinus’ (died 376) beliefs are not clear, he appears to have in some way denied the full and proper Deity of Jesus Christ.

[4] Arius’ (c. 250-336) doctrine created a faction in the Church, which long after his death continued to cause trouble, and even to threaten the very being of the true Church.

[5] Macedonius I of Constantinople (flourished 340-360) was the progenitor of a heretical group known as the Macedonians, who denied the Deity of the Holy Spirit.

[6] Nestorius (c. 386-451) taught that in Christ, there are not only two natures, but two persons, Jesus of Nazareth and the eternal Son of God.  Some believe that this was not actually Nestorius’ view, but rather his opponents’ caricature of his beliefs.

[7] Dioscorus was Patriarch of Alexandria from 444 to 454.  Dioscorus supported Eutyches, the champion of Alexandrian monophysitism.  Although he was deposed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, he continued to be recognized by many as Patriarch until his death in 454.

[8] That is, the head-less.  Peter Mongus was Patriarch of Alexandria through twelve tumultuous years, from 477 to 489.

[9] Peter the Fuller was Patriarch of Antioch from 471 to 488.

[10] In 358, Emperor Constantius II convened two councils (one in the West at Rimini, and one in the East at Seleucia Isauria) to settle the Arian controversy, which adopted a compromise, that is, the Semi-Arian position.

[11] The Second Council of Ephesus was held in 449.

[12] The Second Council of Nicea was held in 787.

[13] This iconoclastic Council was held in 786.

[14] Liberius was Roman Bishop from 352 to 366.

[15] Vigilius was Roman Bishop from 537 to 555.  The Three-Chapter Controversy was instigated by the Emperor Justinian.  In order to reconcile Monophysite Christians to the Greater Church, which had embraced the Chalcedonian formula, he called for the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia, certain writings of Theodoret, and a letter of Ibas of Edessa, since these “Three Chapters” were particularly offensive to the Monophysites.  He called for the subscription of the Bishops of the Church, which occasioned the controversy.  The Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned the Three Chapters.

[16] Honorius I was Roman Bishop from 625 to 638.  In 680, he was anathematized by the Third Council of Carthage as a Monothelite, asserting that Christ had but one energy and will, rather than two energies and will.

[17] John XXII was the Roman Pope from 1316 to 1334.