Pope Gelasius I vs. The Council of
In an official work as Pope, Pope Gelasius I wrote:
“The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which we receive, is a divine
thing, because by it we are made partakers of the divine-nature. Yet the substance or nature of the bread and wine does not cease.
And assuredly the image and the similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the performance of the mysteries.”
-Pope
Gelasius I, On the Two Natures in Christ. Taken from Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III, ch.7, part 95
This
is obviously a denial of the Roman Catholic dogmatic definition of transubstantiation (i.e. the belief that the bread and the wine
in the Lord’s Supper are turned into the actual body and blood of Jesus while still having the appearance of bread and wine) that
was given at the Council of Trent (i.e. a Roman Catholic ecumenical council). Here, Gelasius is expressing a belief that is
closer to consubstantiation (i.e. the view that, upon consecration, the bread and wine are infused with the spiritual presence of
Christ but remain bread and wine). Thus, the official writings of an early pope contradict the dogmatic teachings of an ecumenical
council, and so, one of these two parts of the church that Rome claims to be infallible must be in error.
Roman Catholic apologists have tried to get around this by trying to say that Gelasius was trying to make an analogy to Christ’s
incarnation, that his theological vocabulary was imperfect, and thus, his analogy was imperfect (www.cin.org/users/jgallegos/faq.htm,
question 12). However, as Philip Schaff (a Protestant historian) notes, many of his Roman Catholic counterparts (and apologists)
realized the consequences of what Gelasius said and attempted to prove that that part of Gelasius’ work was not genuine:
“Many
Roman divines, through dogmatic prejudice, doubt the genuineness of this epistle. Comp. the Bibl. Max. tom. viii. pp. 699-700.”
-Philip
Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. III, ch.7, part 95, footnote 1019
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm#_edn330
There is no way to get around this text. Whether he was making an analogy or not, he still believed that the bread and wine still remained bread and wine in essence and not just accident (i.e. only looks and tastes like bread and wine). [See the article on the early church’s view of the Eucharist for the multiple church fathers who did not believe in transubstantiation.]
Pope Vigilius
In 553 A.D., the Eastern emperor summoned the fifth ecumenical council primarily to determine the orthodoxy of the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa. Before the council had been convened, Vigilius, the pope, issued an official papal decree, ‘The Judicatum’, which anathematized the men mentioned above and their writings. Then, when the council was meeting, he issued a new decree, ‘The Constitutum’, which rescinded his first decree by saying that the matter was in the judgment of God since the above mentioned people were already dead. However, the fifth ecumenical council ignored the pope’s decree and anathematized the three authors as well as those who refused to do the same. So, Vigilius then revoked his first ‘Constitutum’ and decreed a new ‘Constitutum’ which submitted to the decision of the council. First, it is obvious that the entire church, represented by the ecumenical council, did not believe in either the primacy or the infallibility of the pope. This much is clear from the actions of the fifth ecumenical council in ignoring the pope’s official ex cathedra decree. Second, it is apparent that even Pope Vigilius did not view himself as infallible since he admitted that he was wrong, and he even appealed to Augustine’s Retractiones as an example of very highly respected leaders of the Church admitting that they were wrong and fixing their past errors.
Pope Gregory I vs.
At the ‘Counter-Reformation’ Council of Trent (a Roman Catholic ecumenical council), in session 4, the council said in part:
“It has thought it proper, moreover, to insert in this decree a list of the sacred, lest a doubt might arise in the mind of someone as to which are the books received by this council. They are the following: of the Old Testament…Tobias, Judith…Ecclesiasticus…with Baruch…two books of Machabees, the first and second…If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts…let him be anathema.”
-Council
of
The Council of Trent officially canonized what Protestants would call the Apocryphal books (i.e. non-inspired books). The point here is not to argue whether it was incorrect or not to canonize these books (see the article on the Canon). Rather, I wish to point out that this contradicts an official work of a pope, Pope Gregory the Great. In his Morals on the Book of Job, Gregory states:
“With reference to which particular we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not Canonical, yet brought out for the edification of the Church, we bring forward testimony. Thus Eleazar in the battle smote and brought down an elephant, but fell under the very beast that he killed” (1 Macc. 6.46).”
-Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, (Oxford: Parker, 1845), Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job, Volume II, Parts III and IV, Book XIX.34, p.424.
In
this work, Gregory the Great officially denied the canonicity of 1 Maccabees, and as many scholars have pointed out, he denied the
canonicity of the entire Apocrypha. This is a direct contradiction with later Roman Catholic dogma. Thus, the official
writings of an early pope contradict the dogmatic teachings of an ecumenical council, and so, one of these two authorities of the
church that
There
are two objections that Roman Catholic apologists use to get out of this. The first objection they use is to say that Gregory
never wrote the Morals on the Book of Job while he was pope, and thus, his statement would not be official and dogmatic. However,
according to William Jurgens, one of Roman apologists’ favorite patristic experts, Gregory was still writing his book for the first
five years of his pontificate (590-604 A.D.):
“Gregory’s response was Moralia or Moralium libri or Exposito in librum Iob, at
which he worked intermittently for many years, finally completing the work in thirty-five books about the year 595 A.D.”
-William Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1979), Volume III, p.313.
So, while Gregory was still writing and reviewing his work, Gregory had been pontiff for five years before he finished his work.
The second objection that Roman apologists make is that Gregory was speaking as a private theologian, and thus, it would not be an official church document. William Webster answers this objection:
“This is erroneous…Gregory’s Commentary on Job was the
standard commentary for the entire
-William Webster, http://www.christiantruth.com/sippocanon.html
Gregory’s work on Job was included in the Glossa Ordinaria, the official Biblical text and commentary of the Middle Ages. There is no doubt that this was an official Church pronouncement on morals of the faith, an infallible statement according to Roman dogma.
Pope Honorius
In the seventh century, the Christological debates continued to rage on. At that time there was a split in the church between the monophysites (i.e. those that believed that Christ had one nature, the divine) and the orthodox (i.e. those that believed that Christ had two natures, the human and the divine). An attempt was made on the part of Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, to heal the division by making a compromise in doctrine. The invented doctrine was called monothelitism which taught that Christ had two natures but only one will. One of those who joined Sergius in promoting this heresy was Honorius, Pope of Rome, and we know that he believed in the heresy because of three letters that he wrote to Sergius. The other supporters of monothelitism around the known world used the writings of Sergius and the letter of Honorius to promote the heresy, and so, about fifty years later, the sixth ecumenical council was convened. Here is part of the determination of the 13th session of the council:
“The holy council said: After we had reconsidered, according to our promise which we had made to your highness, the doctrinal letters of Sergius, at one time patriarch of this royal god-protected city to Cyrus, who was then bishop of Phasis and to Honorius some time Pope of Old Rome, as well as the letter of the latter to the same Sergius, we find that these documents are quite foreign to the apostolic dogmas, to the declarations of the holy Councils, and to all the accepted Fathers, and that they follow the false teachings of the heretics;therefore we entirely reject them, and execrate them as hurtful to the soul. But the names of those men whose doctrines we execrate must also be thrust forth from the holy Church of God, namely, that of Sergius some time bishop of this God-preserved royal city who was the first to write on this impious doctrine; also that of Cyrus of Alexandria, of Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, who died bishops of this God-preserved city, and were like-minded with them; and that of Theodore sometime bishop of Pharan, all of whom the most holy and thrice blessed Agatho, Pope of Old Rome, in his suggestion to our most pious and God-preserved lord and mighty Emperor, rejected, because they were minded contrary to our orthodox faith, all of whom we define are to be subjected to anathema. And with these we define that there shall be expelled from the holy Church of God and anathematized Honorius who was some time Pope of Old Rome, because of what we found written by him to Sergius, that in all respects he followed his view and confirmed his impious doctrines.” (emphasis mine)
-The Sixth Ecumenical Council, 13th Session
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-126.htm#P5872_1297340
This ecumenical council (infallible according to Roman Catholicism) condemned Honorius in his official capacity as pope and said that the teachings of his documents (i.e. his letters) were “impious doctrines” and were “hurtful to the soul”. The Roman Catholic Church historian, Dollinger, comments on the case of Pope Honorius:
“This one fact-that a Great Council, universally received afterwards without hesitation throughout the whole Church, and presided over by Papal legates, pronounced the dogmatic decision of a Pope heretical, and anathematized him by name as a heretic-is a proof, clear as the sun at noonday, that the notion of any peculiar enlightenment or inerrancy of the Popes was then utterly unknown to the whole Church.”
-Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870), p.61.
Throughout history, this has been seen as the greatest case of Papal fallibility.
Philip Schaff notes the absurd ways some Roman Catholics try to get around this:
“Pennacchi… is of opinion that Honorius’s letters were strictly speaking Papal decrees, set forth auctoritate apostolica, and therefore irreformable, but he declares, contrary to the opinion of almost all theologians and to the decree of this Council, that they are orthodox, and that the Council erred in condemning them; as he expresses it, the decree rests upon all error in facto dogmatico. To save an Ecumenical Synod from error, he thinks the synod ceased to be ecumenical before it took this action, and was at that time only a synod of a number of Orientals! Cardinal Baronius has another way out of the difficulty. He says that the name of Honorius was forged and put in the decree by an erasure in the place of the name of Theodore, the quondam Patriarch, who soon after the Council got himself restored to the Patriarchal position. Baronius moreover holds that Honorius’s letters have been corrupted, that the Acts of the Council have been corrupted, and, in short, that everything which declares or proves that Honorius was a heretic or was condemned by an Ecumenical Council as such, is untrustworthy and false. The groundlessness, not to say absurdity, of Baronius’s view has been often exposed by those of his own communion, a brief but sufficient summary of the refutation will be found in Hefele, who while taking a very halting and unsatisfactory position himself, yet is perfectly clear that Baronius’s contention is utterly indefensible.”
-Philip Schaff, Excursus on the Condemnation of Pope Honorius
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-131.htm#P5927_1323872
One of the less conspiratorial claims is that Honorius was teaching as a private theologian and not in an official capacity as pope. However, as noted above, the sixth ecumenical council anathematized his “impious doctrines” as “hurtful to the soul” and anathematized Honorius as “Pope of Old Rome”. If this is not condemning the Pope of Rome in his official capacity, then nothing is!
The second claim is that Pope Agatho, the current pope at that time, wrote a letter to the council that said that the Roman See has always kept the faith undefiled by heresy. However, Pope Agatho’s letter was written before the 13th session, and as we have seen, the 13th session went ahead and anathematized Honorius anyways. It is true that Pope Agatho, as with just about every pope in history, made extremely high claims about himself and his predecessors. On the other hand, it is obvious that because the council anathematized Honorius as a heretic, they disregarded his statement as not being wholly factual. This is seen very clearly in the letter that they wrote to Agatho after the session:
“And then tearing to pieces the foundations of their execrable heresy, and attacking them with spiritual and paternal arms, and confounding their tongues that they might not speak consistently with each other, we overturned the tower built up by these followers of this most impious heresy; and we slew them with anathema, as lapsed concerning the faith and as sinners…and their names are these: Theodore, bishop of Pharan, Sergius, Honorius, Cyrus, Paul, Pyrrhus and Peter.” (emphasis mine)
-6th Ecumenical Council, Letter of the Council to St. Agatho
http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-14/Npnf2-14-130.htm#P5914_1316163
Clearly, the council believed that Honorius was one of those who “built up…the tower…of this most impious heresy” (i.e. someone who officially taught it and promoted it).
The third claim is that Pope Leo II, the pope after Agatho, corrected the council in a letter saying that Honorius had sinned for his negligence (and thus, would not be guilty of heresy). However, it is clear from history that every pope for the next 300 years made a papal oath to recognize the 6th Ecumenical Council and its decrees, including the anathema of Honorius:
“In the Liber Diurnus, i.e. the Formulary of the Roman Chancery (from the fifth to the eleventh century), there is found the old formula for the papal oath…according to which every new Pope, on entering upon his office, had to swear that ‘he recognized the sixth Ecumenical Council, which smote with eternal anathema the originators of the heresy (Monotheletism), Sergius, Pyrrhus, etc., together with Honorius.’”
-Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church (Edinburgh: Clark, 1896), Volume V, p.180.
Even Pope Leo II, the pope that Roman Catholic apologists try to use to save Honorius, condemned Honorius as a heretic and said that he (i.e. Honorius) tried to ‘subvert the faith by a profane betrayal’, hardly negligence:
“Leo accepted the decisions of
-W.J. Sparrow Simpson, Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (London: John Murray, 1909), p.35.
All attempts to salvage Honorius are just vain attempts to rewrite history in order to save a lie.
The Fallibility of
Popes
(Part 2)