Imagine that the anti-supernaturalist party got complete ascendency over the English Crown and Parliament; that they struck out of the English Prayerbook every assertion of the divinity of our Lord; that they made bishops of Mr. Voysey and some of the leading Unitarians; deposed and imprisoned the most formidable of the orthodox bishops, not on a charge of heresy, but of riot and sedition; that they put the archbishop of Canterbury into prison, and required his subscription to the Unitarian creed; suppose that after a couple of years' imprisonment, finding that a leading Broad Church clergyman was about to be permanently fixed in his see, he yielded so far as to acknowledge Voysey as his dear brother bishop, and to disavow all connexion with the orthodox bishop who had been deposed; would it make much difference more or less whether he at the same time signed a formula declaring that our Lord was perfect man, that his life had been a model of excellence, and his doctrines unsurpassed in purity-but saying nothing about his divinity? This consideration that the fault of Liberius was not so much the assertio falsi' as the 'suppressio veri,' demolishes the genuineness urged by the Benedictine editors seem to me quite convincing, and dispose by anticipation of the very weak objections raised by Hefele. There remains the question, may not Hilary have been mistaken, and been imposed on by Arian forgeries in the name of Liberius? I do not think this likely and it appears to me that Jerome also accepted the letters as genuine; for I believe that it was from one of them he learned the share taken by Fortunatian in the lapse of Liberius. But I believe that if these letters had been Arian forgeries they would have claimed far more countenance from Liberius than these letters give. They only represent him as signing the first Sirmian creed, a formula so near orthodoxy that the difficulty is, if this were all that Liberius had done, why should Hilary be so angry with him for doing what he treats tenderly in the case of others? But to this the Benedictine editors make a perfectly good answer, viz. that we judge very differently of the same words if spoken by an adversary who seems to be approaching the truth, and if spoken by a former defender of the truth who now seems to be making defection from it. The letters in question though they give a humiliating picture of the broken courage of Liberius, yet do not represent him as doing anything that a man orthodox in heart might not under pressure bring himself to. The formula he signed stated nothing false; and the guilt or innocence of Athanasius, he might persuade himself, was a merely personal question. I take it that it was in consequence of the letters written from Beroa announcing the willingness of Liberius to comply with the conditions insisted on by the emperor, that Liberius was summoned to what is called the third Sirmian Council. XXII.] THE FALL OF LIBERIUS. 429 at once one of the apologies made for his prevarication, namely, that he erred only as a private doctor, and not as the teacher of the Church. Exactly the opposite I believe to be the case. I do not think there is any evidence to lead us to think that in his private capacity he thought less highly of our Lord than any of us do. In his heart, I doubt not, he condemned Arianism. It was in his official letters, addressed to all the bishops of the East, and intended for publication by them, that he gave to Arianism all the weight of his official position, treating the questions that had been raised about our Saviour's person as matters on which different opinions might be held without necessitating any breach of communion. Take, however, the most favourable view of his conduct, and it is plain that in the Arian dispute it was not the bishop of Rome who was the teacher and guide of the Church that duty was performed by Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria. This schism between Felix and Liberius has introduced a good deal of perplexity into Church history. Notwithstanding the bad auspices under which Felix was introduced, he appears to have been a good man, and to have had a considerable following. He had been archdeacon, and it was usually the archdeacon who succeeded to the bishopric. After the death of Liberius, the ultra-orthodox refused to accept anyone as bishop who had taken the side of Felix; and this one of the candidates, Damasus, had done, the candidate who was ultimately successful, and to whom Jerome addresses the most highflown language as to the dignity of his see. He was opposed by Ursinus, and the scenes of riot were so great as to surpass anything we now know of in the most stormy election contest. One Sunday over a hundred dead bodies were taken out of the church where a contest had been going on. With the success of the party of Damasus the memory of Felix became gradually purified from the taint of heresy. The series of Roman pontiffs now includes a Felix II., who is honoured as a saint and martyr. How to fit in his history has puzzled historians; but the most learned believe that he is no other than the antagonist of Liberius. We come down now a little later, to the Pelagian controversy, and have to inquire whether it was the bishop of Rome who, on the questions then at issue, taught the Church how to believe. She had much need of guidance, for she had been perplexed by contrary decisions. An African council had condemned Pelagius; but he had been pronounced orthodox by another council at Diospolis in Palestine. The African bishops appealed to Rome, and obtained Pope Innocent's approval of their decisions. But a letter and confession of faith, which Pelagius sent to Rome, did not arrive until after Innocent's death, and the question came for further hearing before his successor, Zosimus. Cælestius, the doctrinal ally of Pelagius, appeared in person at Rome, and, having made his profession of faith, was carefully cross-examined by the Pope. It is possible that there may have been something in the early training of Zosimus to dispose him favourably to the accused; for his Greek name suggests that he may have been of Eastern extraction; and the Fathers of the Eastern Church have always accentuated man's freewill more strongly than St. Augustine taught the West to do. Whether this be so or not, Zosimus arrived at the conclusion that Cælestius and Pelagius had been unjustly accused; and he wrote to the African bishops two letters expressing this opinion-the first after his interview with Cælestius, the other after receiving the letter of Pelagius. He strongly censures the two bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who had played the part of accusers, describing them as turbulent mischiefmakers, whose own election to the episcopate had been annulled, and whom he had excommunicated. He lectures the African bishops on the duty of not being hasty in believing evil of their neighbours : he tells them that they need be no more ashamed of retracting a condemnation hastily pronounced than those who had condemned the chaste Susanna were of acquitting her after her innocence had been established by Daniel: that if there was joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, there ought to be still more joy on discovering that one who had been supposed to have sinned had not sinned at all. He only wishes they could have been present to hear the professions of Cælestius and Pelagius. Those who had been there had XXII.] ZOSIMUS AND THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY. 431 been moved almost to tears that men of such perfect orthodoxy ('absolutæ fidei') should have been so unjustly defamed. Notwithstanding, the African bishops stood firm, and in full council passed canons condemning anew the Pelagian errors. Nor did they rely on spiritual weapons only; for an interference of the civil power was obtained, subjecting Pelagius and his adherents to severe penalties, including that of banishment. Then the Pope gave way, and by timely yielding has escaped the stigma of heresy. The accepted Roman Catholic theory is that Zosimus was an orthodox man who, although he fancied he had fully examined into the question, had allowed his simplicity to be imposed on by the cunning of the heretics, until the clear-sighted African bishops set him straight. Suppose we accept this view, yet still we must ask the question, Who then fulfilled the office of guide to the Church? Was it the pope who taught the African bishops, or they who taught him? When I observe how they refused to accept the voice of the oracle until the oracle had given the answer they desired, I am reminded of having heard of a man who never trusted his judgment when he had to make a practical decision, but always tossed up. If the result agreed with his own inclinations he acted on it confidently, feeling that he was not gratifying his own wishes, but obeying the guidance of the lot. If the result was not what he liked, he tossed again. The only one of the great controversies in which the pope really did his part in teaching Christians what to believe was the Eutychian controversy. Leo the Great, instead of waiting, as popes usually do, till the question was settled, published his sentiments at the beginning, and his letter to Flavian was adopted at the Council of Chalcedon. This is what would have always happened if God had really made the pope the guide to the Church; but this case is quite exceptional, resulting from the accident that Leo was a good theologian, besides being a man of great vigour of character. No similar influence was exercised either by his predecessors or his successors; and I have already remarked that Leo failed to settle the question. In the West, indeed, his authority was decisive; but in the East his opinion was accepted only by those who had been of the same opinion before; and Chalcedon and Leo's letter enjoyed only a precarious and fluctuating ascendency. If the pope appears to advantage in the history of the fourth general council, there is a lamentable downfall when we come to that of the fifth. I have already remarked that there was a reversal of parts between the third and fourth councils, several, such as Theodoret, who had narrowly escaped condemnation as Nestorians taking a leading part at Chalcedon. What may be called the rationalistic section was defeated at the former and triumphed at the latter. This was very shocking to the Alexandrians. I referred before to attempts made to unite the Monophysites with the Eastern Church, by making an entirely new statement of orthodox doctrine, and throwing overboard Chalcedon and Leo's letter altogether. That such attempts should be made, and with some apparent hopes of success, shows how little the infallibility of pope or council was believed in in the East. The popes naturally resisted these attempts, and, being politically independent of the Eastern empire, were able to make their opposition effectual; but in the sixth century the Eastern Emperor Justinian made himself master of Italy; and what followed may lead us to judge how little the dream of Roman Infallibility would have been likely to have arisen, if it had not been for the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople, which left the pope for centuries to reign at Rome without rival or superior. Justinian imagined that he might be able to reconcile the Monophysites by condemning, not indeed Chalcedon, but some of those leading divines whose orthodoxy Chalcedon had admitted, but who were specially obnoxious to the Monophysite party. It was naturally disliked in the West that the verdict of the great council which they accepted should be reviewed and reversed, even though the point in question were not the general statement of doctrine, but only the pronouncing on the orthodoxy of individuals. The African bishops stoutly resisted. The pope showed the greatest reluctance to join, but, under the powerful pressure which the emperor put on him, he wriggled and twisted in the most humiliating way, trying to please both parties |