POPE IIONORIUS AND HIS HERESY.
WHILE the modern world delights itself with dwelling on the potent spells over nature which the course of recent science has placed within the power of man, it has always seemed to us a much more impressive measure of the sublimity of human nature and of the tenacity of its peculiar and characteristic life, to observe the delicate turns of refined metaphysical speculation on which the most obtrusive and important material changes of outward things, —the fortunes of States and the flow of populations,—ultimately depend. Thus no historian of the slightest grasp will doubt for a moment that had the third and fourth centuries not busied them- selves as eagerly as they did with the metaphysics of Arianism, the whole history of the middle ages would have been different, the discipline of the infant European intellect would have been essentially altered, and in all probability the assimilation of the Visigothic invaders (who were mostly Arian) into the body of the great mediaeval States would have been determined by conditions quite other than those of actual history. And how curious it is to observe that even now the decision of the (Ecumenical Council assembled at Rome, and therefore most probably the whole future of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism,—in other words, the political affinities, and therefore destinies of populations which count by hundreds of millions at least, —will depend in a great measure on the relative success which different schools of theologians may attain in defining to a hair's breadth what is the drift of two Latin letters written in the seventh century by a Bishop of Rome to a Patriarch of Constantinople on the use of a particular Aristotelian word (which would be so alien to our thoughts as to be hardly trans- latable into the English tongue), and which was employed in refer- ence to the metaphysics of the relation between the divine and human nature of the Redeemer, by the doctors of the East. Yet so it is. A brisk controversy has been going on for more than a year between the Infallibilists and the advocates of the opposite doctrine, namely, that the Pope, though speaking ex cathedra and on dogma, but without the assistance and consent of a Council, may err,—as to the case of Pope Honorius, who, as all parties equally admit, unquestionably failed in his duty of resisting the spread of a very subtle heresy afterwards condemned, and gave, superficially at least, and to all appearances, a substantial support to it. The two parties to the controversy most accessible to English readers are both very learned men, Mr. Le Page Renouf, and Dr. Ward, the well-known editor of the Dublin Review.* And it may be well for the English public, if only for the sake of a complete change of intellectual air, to consider the delicate points at issue between these two able and subtle combatants, and then meditate a little on the marvellous fineness of those hidden pivots of human life which we are beginning to forget and ignore, solely because we have, in general, made up our minds quite honestly that these are not matters on which the human intellect has the means of form- ing any sort of honest judgment,—but on which, none the less, the finest intellects were engrossed 1,200 years ago, and many will continue to be engrossed for hundreds of years to come. The subject of the controversy is one on which it is necessary to speak with reserve and reverence, but of which we must say a word or two before displaying the case of the contending parties.
• The Cam of Pope Ilona-Ins Reconsidered with Reference to Recent Apologies. Le Page snout. Longmaue.
The Dublin Review, January, 1870 (pp. 250-7). Barns, Oates, and Co. The old heresy that there was no proper human nature in Christ had been successfully resisted and condemned, when, naturally enough, analysis began to ask how much the assertion that two dis- tinct natures were bound up in one divine person might mean. Did it mean only that there was a human power of .experience, human sensation, human perception, human memory, human judgment, and human affections, discernible in the human life of our Lord, all, however, under the dominant impulse, as it were, of a single principle of action ?—or did it mean that the divine person included two principles of action, one divine and one human, the latter of which was free to struggle and rebel against the former, and therefore free also to submit and surrender itself, as in the words, " Now is my soul troubled? and what shall I say? Father, save we from this hour. Yet for this cause came I to this hour. Father glorify thy name" ? This was the great question which originated the controversy as to the single or double will included in the person of our Lord. Certain Eastern theologians wished to use the phrase, that as there was but one person in Christ, so there could be but one " energy " or active principle. Certain other theologians maintained that as there were two natures in Christ, there must be two ' energies' or active principles, corresponding to those two natures. The former seem to have had the same difficulty which some of the profoundest schools of modern philosophy still feel in even conceiving of a sepa- rate will which does not constitute a separate person,—though, no doubt, in our English sense, the word ' person' passes, as Dr. Newman says, almost as much too far on the individualizing side of the theological meaning of persona, as ' character' or 'aspect' would fall short on the opposite side (the side which would make three persons in one substance only three aspects of the same reality). The school which harped on the decision that there was but one person in the two natures of Christ, argued, then, that there could be but one principle of action, and that divine, though this single principle of action might have the most diverse phases ; and they held that the words which seem to point to a potentiality of con- flict between the human and divine in Christ must have been to some extent didactic, as illustrating rather what a human will in a human nature would tend to, under such circumstances, than any- thing which our Lord's divine will did actually tend to. The second school, in favour of the two ' energies,' insisted on His actual words implying temptation and the surrender of a really human prin- ciple of action, and built thereupon the inference that within the one ' person' of the Incarnate Son of God, there were two distinct wills, the divine will belonging to the divine nature, and the human will taken up with the human nature. Such was the substantial issue. Now for our controversialists.
There can be no question at all, and is none, at least between Mr. Renouf and Dr. Ward, that Pope Honorius, through negligence of a (to Romanists) very faulty kind, did not oppose, but as far as his language went, seemed to favour the doctrine of the single will (Monothelism) when it was presented to him by Sergius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and that he thereby created a scandal in the Church which led to his own subsequent condemnation by a council. But it is a very serious matter for the infallibilists how far his negligence went. Mr. Renouf maintains that it not only went as far as material heresy, i.e., holding a false doctrine, though before it had been condemned by the Church, and not, therefore, in opposition to the authoritative voice of the Church,—but that it was for heresy that Pope Honoring was subsequently condemned ; and, again, not only was he heretical, but he was heretical in a document expressly intended to teach the universal Church on a question of dogma. On the contrary, Dr. Ward holds that Pope Honorius was not guilty of holding false doctrine at all, but only of using ill-con- sidered, ambiguous, and careless language, which had the effect of confirming a correspondent in his own false doctrine, which Pope Honorius had misunderstood and failed to fathom. Further, Dr. Ward holds that this ill-considered, ambiguous, and careless language was not contained in any dogmatic decree intended to direct and bind the intellect of the Church, but only in an official letter on a matter of " discipline " written to prohibit the use of particular phrases—" one energy " and " two energies " —which had given rise to misunderstandings and confusions in the Church. Both combatants are—to Protestant minds unable to conceive of distinctions of this kind as involving sin— somewhat too vigorous in their controversial language ; but Mr. Renouf, perhaps as belonging to the weaker and better belaboured party, appears to us decidedly the more bitter of the two. But when we remember how momentous the issue must be to either party, we cannot perhaps be surprised at warm Ian- BY P. guage. On the one side, the Infallibilists, even if they carry
their point, are aware that for all time to come those external to the Church will say, and say very justly, " Here was a historical nicety which, decide it which way you will, the fairest-minded man not committed to a theory would hardly, in the presence of such evidence, venture to decide at all, and yet you stake upon the chance of a right solution one of the most momentous of all intellectual principles for all time to come. Yet this is only the weakest of many weak points in the case for the perfect orthodoxy of the various Popes' teaching. Even if there were no such weak points at all, there would be but a poor case for a doctrine which assumes the perfect consistency of the Popes' teaching, for as many, or it may be, many more centuries to come than there are centuries already past." On the other hand, the party opposed to papal infallibility must necessarily feel even more aghast at the pro- spect. They have hitherto held the Church speaking by a General Council infallible.. They have now committed themselves deeply to the proposition that a decree very likely to be carried by the General Council now sitting is proved by the evidence of one or two indisputable facts to be false. They have come to that conclusion on grounds which cannot be affected by any decree of the Council. In their hearts they believe that they know a vast deal more of the true grounds for deciding this particular test- question than nine-tenths of the bishops who are to be asked to vote whether the fact in question is a fact or no fact. And, therefore, the decree would cause for them the alternative between a, life of uncomfortable and probably insincere conformity, and a final schism with the Church of their adoption or of their birth. We can hardly wonder that both parties are a little tender and hot on so very critical an issue.
And now let us give very briefly a summary of the niceties urged on either aide to determine this very delicate question by which so mighty an issue in great measure hangs. First, then, we hold that on the question of heretical thought and doctrine approved by the mind of the Pope, the evidence is so nicely balanced that it is nearly impossible for a reasonable mind to come to any conclusion. On the one hand, the expressions in Honorius's letter might look a good deal as if he were simply confounding two quite different matters,—as if he thought the question was about the existence in Christ also of the good and the bad will found in every man, of that struggle of which St. Paul speaks so emphatically as going on in himself, and as if he were simply denying the carnal will to Christ; in other words, as if he had never even grasped the ques- tion really at issue at all, whether there was a separate perfect but human will in Christ's human nature, as well as the perfect divine will belonging to the Godhead which assumed that human nature. But we confess that it is difficult to credit him with the degree of stupidity that would be needful for Dr. Ward's view, if lie persisted in this confession after receiving the extended exposi- tion of the view of the party favouring the "double energy." And on one point Dr. Ward almost answers himself. He says very justly that if Honorius had intended to teach that the doctrine of a double faculty of will in Christ—a divine and human will—was a heresy which he required orthodox Catholics to reject, he would have aanblished it very carefully to the whole of his own diocese, which was already in favour of the two wills in Christ, and therefore on that theory heretical. Doubtless, and therefore, as Dr. Ward infers, Honorius could have had no notion at all of aeforming the belief of his own section of the Catholic world. But then, if his own section of the Catholic world had so clear a
view on- this subtle point of the divine metaphysics, it is simply impossible that Honorius could have misunderstood altogether the explicitly declared faith of his Eastern correspondent and his opponent. The controversy and its bearing would have been per- fectly familiar to him. He might have been a heretic, but he could not have been out of his depth. If we assume a real familiarity with the doctrine of the two wills in Christ in the West, Honorius must be accounted really heretical. If we suppose the analysis quite new, then Honorius may have been in the dark, but
also he must have been quite unconscious that his language favoured -a view which was condemned by the mind of his own Church. On the whole, we should say that Honorius was confused and heretically inclined ; that his view decidedly favoured what the Roman Church afterwards declared to be heresy, but that he favoured it less in
his second letter than in his first,—that the result of his con- sideration of the matter shook him to some extent as to his previous view. Mr. Renouf is quite successful in showing, how-
ever, that Honorius was subsequently condemned by a Council for favouring and supporting heresy. On that there can hardly be any question. Honorius was so far from being a defender of the-faith, that he certainly gave comfort to the heretics, whether knowingly or unknowingly. On the other hand, Dr. Ward has made out a very strong case against this heresy of Honorius's having been declared ex cathedra, —in the peculiar sense attached to that term by the Ultramontane party, namely, a decision proclaimed with an intention of requiring interior assent from all good Catholics. Honorius asks only the disuse of certain terms, single energy' and ' double energy.' What he says of the ' one will' he says as an obiter dictum on a point not presented to him. He does not even publish his decision. And so far from condemning the view of the party that contended for the ' two energies,' he still calls the head and chief of that party " frater et co-episcopus noster," though the bishop referred to had withdrawn no expression of belief at all. Un- doubtedly Honorius could not have intended to condemn piplicly —requiring, of course, Catholic assent to the condemnation—one whom he acknowledged without condition as his brother and epis- copal colleague. If the distinction between teaching erroneously and requiring the assent of all Catholics to that teaching is good for anything, Dr. Ward has made out his case against ex cathedra teaching.
But surely it is running infallibility uncommonly fine to admit that an infallible Pope when consulted on a real theological difficulty may give a confused and in effect erroneous answer, and one which has a widespread and potent effect in spreading heresy, although if he had attempted formally to require the assent of the Catholic world to his heresy, the Holy Ghost would have interfered to prevent it ! Can the Holy Spirit of God acquiesce in anything so very like an abuse of His special functions as that? Such infallibility looks to us very like the invention of a wire-drawn theology, and not the broad operation of a divine law. It almost reads, in Dr. Ward's pages—we speak with real reverence,—like a hair-breadth escape of God from sanctioning error. If Catholics were plunged into error by it, and plunged into error on the very strength of their reverence for a really infallible guide, were they not in some sense deceived by God? Surely, Mr. Renouf is right in saying that the promise on which the Ultramontanes found their doctrine,—" I have prayed for thee that thy strength fail not," was not fulfilled in a case when the Pope's strength did fail, and did fail with the result of spreading what was thought a fatal heresy in the Church?
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