ART. IV. MR. RENOUF'S REPLY ON POPE HONORIUS.

The Case of Pope Honorius reconsidered_with_reference to Recent Apologies. By PETER LE PAGE RENOUF. London: Longmans.*

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YONSIDERING the vast amount of reading which Mr. Renouf has accumulated on the Honorius question, we were at first surprised that he had not been able to put together a more plausible argument than is contained in the pamphlet before us. But on reflection, we have come to account for its extraordinary weakness, by supposing that his multifarious studies have somewhat confused and bewildered his mind on the whole inquiry.

He is rather fond indeed of throwing in our teeth our comparative unacquaintance with "the literature of the subject." But this objection, we think, proceeds on a fundamental misconception of what a periodical reviewer has to do. The present writer willingly admits, that when Mr. Renouf's first pamphlet appeared, he had no fuller knowledge of Monothelism than of the other thousand heresies which have disfigured ecclesiastical history. But it will always be found, that an unsound theological writer-quite apart from the more recondite details of his immediate themeoffends broadly against known truths of theology and against fixed laws of reasoning; and it is the business of his reviewer in a periodical to point out those errors. If the reviewer had to wait and first study profoundly "the whole literature of the subject," more than one undesirable result must ensue. Such errors as those to which we refer, instead of being exposed at once, would remain unchallenged for an indefinite period; other theological scandals would have to pass unnoticed; and at last, when the reviewer had equipped himself at all points to meet the original assailant, his comment would be found extending to a much greater length than a periodical could admit. The necessities of our position, then, entirely forbid such a course. In January we have to write on the Monothelite heresy; in April on the Procession of the Holy Ghost in each case drawing on our current knowledge of theology and history, and assisted only by such special study as there may happen to be time for.

We should say in most cases that a periodical writer is, for this reason, in a position of considerable disadvantage; and it is certain

*F. Gratry and other Catholics on the continent have recently been treating the Honorius question. But we think it will be more convenient to comment on them separately in our "Notices"; and to confine the present article, which was in type before F. Gratry's pamphlet had appeared, to our own personal controversy with Mr. Renouf.

that he is always especially liable to fall into this or that incidental mistake, however great pains he may take to avoid it. But in the present instance we really doubt, whether our comparative ignorance is not more serviceable than Mr. Renouf's great acquired knowledge. We flatter ourselves that we look at the admitted facts of the case in a straightforward and unsophisticated way; whereas Mr. Renouf seems hardly able to contemplate facts at all, through the perplexity caused him by that endless multiplicity of comments which has come under his notice.

His theses are three in number. He alleges firstly (pp. 11-41), that Honorius is proved by his Letters to have professed Monothelism; secondly (pp. 42-68), that Honorius was condemned by the Church as a Monothelite; and thirdly (pp. 69-90), that Honorius taught Monothelism ex cathedrâ. For the purpose of vindicating the dogma of Pontifical infallibility, it is amply sufficient of course to disprove his third thesis. But as we are convinced that all three are mistaken-the first and third indeed extravagantly so it will be more satisfactory to confront them successively. We cannot pretend of course, within the limits of an article, to notice every single statement contained in a pamphlet of a hundred pages. Nor again will it be necessary for us even to touch Mr. Renouf's swaggering and pretentious assaults on F. Bottalla; because that very distinguished theologian mentions, in a letter to the "Tablet," that he himself intends to take the matter in hand. But we believe it will be found that we have not avoided any one argument adduced by Mr. Renouf for either of his theses.

Firstly then, Mr. Renouf maintains that Honorius is proved by his Letters to have professed Monothelism. And for the purpose of exhibiting this fact, he reasonably enough enters on various inquiries as to the genuine doctrines of that heresy. We have been surprised however at his singular self-contradiction on this head; and this is the first point to which we would direct attention.

"The whole controversy," he says (p. 19, note), "really turned on the question, whether the will is to be attributed to the person or to the nature." We do not see how this sentence can be otherwise understood, than as affirming that all the Monothelites regarded the will as exclusively attributable to the person.* So in

*Yet our author proceeds to lay down as the Monothelite tenet, that "the duality of wills in human personality is a result of the Fall." Why the Fall only affected man's nature; and Mr. Renouf has affirmed that Monothelites regarded the will as attributable only to the person. Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo?"

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On the θέλημα ὑποστατικόν” and “ γνωμικόν,” as distinguished from "pvoikov," see Petavius's ninth book, De Incarnatione, c. 7. See also F. Bottalla, p. 15.

p. 20 he says that the Monothelites thus argued: "there is but one Person in Christ, therefore there is but one will." But if all this be so, they must have considered that in the nature there exists no faculty of willing whatever; and that God the Son, when He assumed human nature in its integrity, assumed no human faculty of willing. Yet on this point-which he considers a "most important" one-only six pages earlier (p. 12, note), Mr. Renouf had expressed the precisely opposite opinion. He had maintained confidently (against Petavius and the great body of scholastics) that the Monothelites did ascribe to Christ a human faculty of willing. But his inconsistency does not end here. In the note just cited he professes agreement with Vasquez and Lugo; and their opinion is, that the Monothelites admitted indeed in Christ a human faculty of willing, but denied Him to have elicited human acts of will. Nevertheless, in two different places (p. 12, note; p. 19, note) Mr. Renouf implies that all which the Monothelites denied to Christ was a free human will. Here then are three discrepant opinions, ascribed to the whole Monothelite body by Mr. Renouf: (1) that Christ has no human faculty of willing; (2) that He has the faculty, but never elicited human acts of will; (3) that He elicited human acts, only not free acts.

The question whether the Monothelites did or did not ascribe to Christ a human faculty of willing, is external to our argument; and we shall express on it no opinion: but as to free will, we must entirely demur to Mr. Renouf's last implication. No doubt the Monothelites, in denying to Christ all human acts of will, denied to Him inclusively all free acts; nor again do we at all deny, that the doctrine of Christ's human liberty follows legitimately from what was defined against Monothelism. But if Mr. Renouf really means, that Monothelites ascribed to Christ human acts of will, and that they only denied the freedom of those acts,—we are more amazed than we can express. No other source of information on Monothelistic tenets can approach in authenticity to the testimony of S. Martin I. and his Lateran Synod; and four different canons of that Synod set forth the doctrine of "the wicked heretics." What is that doctrine? They "deny and reject" Christ's "two wills and operations, the divine and human (can. 14); they regard "the theandrical energy" as "a single and not double operation" (can. 15); they uphold "one will and operation of Christ's divinity and humanity (can. 18). In fact, if it is the denial of Christ's human liberty which constitutes Monothelism, then Monothelism was never condemned, either by S. Martin I. or by the Sixth Council: for not one syllable is to be found in either definition concerning Christ's human liberty.*

"

* We may safely infer indeed from the Sixth Council's definition, that the question of liberty occupied no prominent place in the controversies against

We shall assume therefore as sufficiently demonstrated, that the Monothelites denied our Blessed Lord to have elicited any human acts of will whatever; and conversely, we shall assume that no one was involved in that heresy, who admitted the existence of such

acts.

There are one or two further points of doctrine which Mr. Renouf's pamphlet makes it necessary to consider, in order that we may vindicate the faultless orthodoxy of Honorius's Letters. To these we now proceed.

In January, 1869 (pp. 185-7) we drew out, to the best of our power, the practical exhibition of Monothelism. No one who admits the correctness of our exposition, can assent for a moment to Mr. Renouf's opinion (p. 12) that, before this heresy arose, "the tradition of the Church had not been so clear and explicit as to leave no room for doubt." We must maintain on the contrary, that, so soon as Monothelism was correctly apprehended, it was at once seen to contradict directly a large body of vital dogma, which had been enforced as of faith from the very Apostolic age. No doubt as in the parallel case of Arianism-individual Fathers of earlier centuries had occasionally used incautious expressions, which admitted afterwards of Monothelistic perversion; but this arose from the very fact, that the Monothelistic tenet was so utterly external to their thoughts and imagination. We say this in protest against Mr. Renouf: and we say it without attempt at proof, because neither does Mr. Renouf attempt proof for his own most paradoxical opinion. In like manner we protest against his assertion (p. 12), that "the Monothelite leaders were one and all sincerely attached to the creed of the Church, as laid down by the Council of Chalcedon." We follow the enormous majority of Catholic writers in holding, that Monothelism was a mere offshoot of the Eutychian heresy; that its leaders could not consistently and straightforwardly accept (as they professed to accept) the Chalcedonian Definition; and that their whole reasoning was in consequence confused and self-contradictory. But on all this we cannot reply to Mr. Renouf's arguments, for he has adduced none.

There is one more point of doctrine however, started by Mr. Renouf, to which we must refer. "According to orthodox theology," he says (p. 21, note), "there was in Christ contrarietas voluntatum simpliciter.'"* But the Sixth Council defines, that His "two natural wills are not mutually contrary (God forbid!), as the impious heretics asserted." In January, 1869 (pp. 193-5) we set

Monothelism. The Council defines that His "human will was subject to His divine and omnipotent will." They could not have spoken thus unqualifiedly and without explanation, if they had felt it an important part of their work to vindicate the liberty of His human will.

* In fairness we must mention that he italicises the word "simpliciter."

forth what we understood to be the Catholic dogma on this particular subject; and we should have been glad if our opponent had distinctly stated how far he concurs with it. Still more glad should we have been, if he had given his opinion on Dr. Döllinger's dictum to which we there referred. Dr. Döllinger implies that, during His Agony, Christ forgot for a moment "the irrevocable counsel of God," and indulged in "a passing wish" inconsistent with that counsel: but thatthe next instant" better thoughts "triumphed in Him.” That the writer of this horrible passage should dare to arraign such documents as Honorius's Letters, is among the many marvels of disloyal and rebellious Catholicism.

And lastly, on our own side there is one point of doctrine which we must mention, to which, if we may judge by one of Mr. Renouf's notes (p. 18), he is a total stranger: we mean the doctrine, that God the Son wrought His miraculous works through the mediation of His sacred humanity. We know of no theologian who has expressed this doctrine more clearly and fully than Suarez (de Incarn., disp. xxxi.), and we will here give a very brief outline of what he says. It is of faith, he affirms (sec. 2), that Christ wrought true miracles through His humanity; according to His own declaration, that the Son of Man hath power on earth of forgiving sins": and from this, adds Suarez, it necessarily follows, that a supernatural power for this purpose was given to the sacred humanity. This power, moreover, resides in the sacred humanity "per modum habitûs," and was given from the very moment of the Incarnation. It is further the more probable view, in Suarez's estimation, that every grace which God has ever given to man, from the moment of the Incarnation, He has given through the sacred humanity as through His instrument. "The Man Christ,"adds Suarez (sec. 3.), "by the actions of His humanity, has worked miracles, and justified souls in giving grace and the like, not only by moral, but also by real and physical operation (modo)." Still this sacred humanity "was not the chief proximate principle in such acts, but only the organ and instrument of the Word." It is extraordinary how Mr. Renouf has bungled in his note to page 18, from ignorance apparently of this touching doctrine.

This leads us to one particular point of contrast between Monothelism and Orthodoxy, which deserves careful attention. S. Leo had laid down in his Letter to S. Flavian, that "each of Christ's natures performs its proper work with communication of the other "; and more distinctly in another Letter, quoted by Petavius (de Incarn., 1. 8, c. xi. n. 7), that "neither were divine things done by Him without His co-operation as man, nor human things without His co-operation as God."* This distinction between the divine and

"Ut nec sine Homine divina, nec sine Deo agerentur humana." So the Sixth Council: "Dum cum alterius communione utraque natura indivise et inconfuse propria vellet atque operaretur."