"defines" then means simply "finally determines"; and has no reference whatever to the particular shape which may be assumed by this final determination.

V. Lastly it seems to be thought by some, that, according to the Definition, no Act is ex cathedrâ, which does not express the Pope's intention of obliging the faithful to assent. For our own part we have consistently and earnestly maintained, that extrinsic circumstances will often be sufficient to make known such intention. Take the "Mirari vos," on which we have just now been speaking. It is impossible to imagine words more express and unmistakable, than those whereby Gregory XVI. in the "Singulari nos " declared what had been his intention in the earlier Encyclical: but that earlier Encyclical itself most certainly expresses no such intention. Now we entirely fail to apprehend, what part of the Vatican Definition can be even alleged as ever so distantly implying, that an Act, in order to be ex cathedrâ, must express its own ex cathedrâ character. According to the Definition, the Pope speaks ex cathedrâ whenever under due conditions "he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals, to be held by the Universal Church." Let us give an obvious illustration. No Pontifical utterance can perhaps be named, which has been so prominently declared ex cathedrâ by theologians of every school, as S. Leo's Letter to S. Flavian. In the great Gallican controversy of two centuries back, its ex cathedrâ character was the chief fixed point round which the battle raged. "S. Leo's letter was ex cathedrâ" said the Gallicans; "and yet observe that the Council of Chalcedon re-examined it." "No doubt it was ex cathedrâ " answered their opponents; "but the Council did not re-examine it, in any sense which implied its fallibility."* For those who

"affirm" that Cardinal Pacca's confidential letter was a Papal ex cathedrâ Act. Why in the first place it was only one particular out of a long series. But had it stood alone-take a parallel case. S. Leo published ex cathedra his well-known dogmatic letter to S. Flavian, which in no way expressed its own ex cathedrâ character. Suppose one of the Bishops, to whom he sent it for subscription, had inquired of him whether it was to be taken as definitive and irreformable; and had been answered in the affirmative. According to the "Guardian," this private response would have been an ex cathedrâ Act! In our case there was a special unfairness in the "Guardian's" criticism; because the one test, on which we have throughout laid greatest stress as establishing an Act's ex cathedrâ character, has been its being published by the Pope for the Church's instruction.

Bellarmine is the only theologian we ever heard of, who doubted that the Letter was ex cathedrâ. As to the other Ultramon tanes, it is the more remarkable that they should so persistently take for granted its ex cathedrâ character, because they would have been relieved of much controversial difficulty had they called this into question.

may not otherwise have access to it, we may mention that we printed it in our number of April 1868, pp. 492-497. They will see that it does not hint ever so distantly, at S. Leo's intention of obliging all Catholics to assent. Nevertheless when one finds him circulating it among the various churches-requiring the subscription of Bishops to it—claiming infallibility for it by his Legates at Chalcedon—accepting with complacency the declaration of Western Bishops that they accept it as their symbol of faith-one sees irrefragable proof of what he intended it to be. Now of course it is impossible to exaggerate the improbability, that the Vatican Council should have issued a Definition, excluding this Letter from the number of infallible declarations. But this is not our present point. We will ask our readers merely to assume, that S. Leo wrote his Letter with the intention of binding Catholics to assent; and that he sufficiently manifested to them that intention, by extrinsic indications. In that case assuredly he "defined a doctrine concerning faith, to be held by the Universal Church." No one, we suppose, will doubt this obvious statement. Indubitably then the phraseology of the Vatican Definition in no way implies, that a Pontifical ex cathedrâ Act must itself express the Pontiff's intention of obliging the faithful.

We have now gone through all the arguments which (so far as we know) have been adduced for thinking, that the Vatican Definition in any way discredits the doctrine we have always maintained on the extent of infallibility. Our purpose has been essentially defensive; because the Council only professed to pronounce on the "subject" of infallibility, and it has therefore as yet defined nothing on the "object thereof. Yet we think that it has given various somewhat strong indications in our favour; and these we will now proceed to mention.

We have already stated our own general doctrine, with sufficient precision for our present purpose; but we will here express it in a somewhat different shape. Within the local Roman Church, the "Ecclesia urbis Romanæ," there is preserved, by special assistance of the Holy Ghost, indefectible purity of doctrine and tradition; in such sense that she is the standard and source of doctrinal purity to all other churches in Christendom.*

Now what we maintain is, that this inde

Here are the Archbishop's words on the "Ecclesia urbis Romanæ : "If any one shall answer that these evidences do not prove the infallibility of the Pope, speaking ex cathedrâ, they will lose their labour. I adduce them to prove the immemorial and universal practice of the Church, in having recourse to the Apostolic See as the last and certain witness and

fectible and authoritative orthodoxy is constantly issuing in ex cathedrâ Pontifical Acts. We cannot think that such Acts are rare and exceptional; we hold on the contrary, that they are ordinary and matter-of-course events in the Church's history. We have already argued, that there is nothing in the proceedings of the Vatican Council to discredit such a view; and we now add that those proceedings do much to give it positive support.

I. The first fact which we shall mention in this connection, is derived from the Postulatum for a definition, which received the signature of some five hundred Bishops while the Council was sitting. If any persons are to be considered authentic expositors of the Church's mind on the meaning of the Definition, it must be those who petitioned for it and were afterwards its chief supporters. Now, in their Appendix, they accumulated various testimonies to the dogma which they wished the Council to define; and one of these testimonies is the Address made to Pius IX., at the Centenary of 1867, by the assembled Episcopate. In that Address occurs the following passage:

Never has your voice been silent. You have accounted it to belong to your supreme office to proclaim eternal verities; to smite with the sword of your Apostolic utterance the errors of the time, which threaten to overthrow the natural and supernatural order of things, and the very foundations of ecclesiastical and civil power; to dispel the darkness which perverse and novel teachings have shed over men's souls; and to declare, persuade to, and approve all that is needful and wholesome to the individual, to the Christian family, and to civil society: so that at length all may attain to know what it is, that every Catholic should hold, retain, and profess. For that exceeding great care we render to your Holiness the deepest thanks; and with endless

judge of the divine tradition of faith. That they prove this no one will, I think, deny. Even those who imagine that Honorius was a heretic, have never ventured to incur the condemnation of Peter de Osma, who affirmed that the Church of the City of Rome may err.' Even the Gallicans of 1682 professed to believe the See to be infallible, while they affirmed that he who sat in it was fallible." ("The Ecumenical Council, &c.," p. 91.)

We may be allowed to refer, for our own apprehension of the Church's doctrine concerning the indefectible orthodoxy of the Ecclesia urbis Romanæ, to our number of Jan., 1870, pp. 197, 198. Here, however, we must make an obvious explanation. In that article we said, that the doctrinal decrees of a Pontifical Congregation are the most authentic exposition of Roman doctrine, except only Pontifical ex cathedrâ pronouncements. This statement proceeded on our own principle, that all such Acts as those mentioned in the "Quantâ curâ" are ex cathedrâ. Those who do not accept this principle, must at all events (as we have urged) regard such Acts as even more authentic expositions, than Congregational decisions themselves, of the pure and supremely authoritative Roman tradition.

*This Postulatum will be found at length in the Archbishop's Pastoral on "The Vatican Council,” pp. 163-71

gratitude, and, believing that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius, therefore, whatsoever you have spoken, confirmed, and pronounced for the safe custody of the Deposit, we likewise speak, confirm, and pronounce; and with one voice and one mind we reject everything which, as being opposed to Divine faith, the salvation of souls, and the good of human society, you have judged fit to reprove and reject. For that is firmly and deeply established in our conviction, which the Fathers at Florence defined in their decree on union, that the Roman Pontiff" is the Vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church, and father and teacher of all Christians." *

Here it is declared, that Pius IX.'s "voice has never been silent," so frequent have been his doctrinal utterances; and that all those utterances have been accepted by the Episcopate. But those Bishops who signed the Postulatum declared (by the very fact of citing the Address at all) that, in their judgment, all these unceasing doctrinal utterances had been ex cathedrâ; because the one and only point of their citations was, to show (as they themselves express it) "the common opinion of Bishops, concerning the supreme and infallible authority of the Roman Pontiff in matters of faith and morals."+

II. Our second testimony is from the Preamble to the Definition. This Preamble singles out three in particular, from all the ecclesiastical authorities which might have been adduced, for the dogma to be defined. The first of these is the well-known formula, prescribed by Pope Hormisdas to the Eastern Bishops; and we will cite the account of this formula, given by the Archbishop in his Pastoral on "The Ecumenical Council." We italicise one clause :

"The first act of salvation is to keep rightly the rule of faith, and in no way

Quoted by the Archbishop in his Pastoral on the Centenary, p. 32. The Archbishop thus comments on this part of the Address, in his Pastoral on the Centenary :-"By these words the Bishops did not confirm the Acts of the Pontiff as if they needed confirmation, nor accept his declarations of truth and condemnations of error as if they needed their acceptance. They did not intend or imply that the supreme Pontifical Acts since 1862, in the form of Allocutions, Briefs, Encyclicals, and the Syllabus, were of imperfect and only inchoate authority until their acceptance should confirm them. Nothing was further from the thoughts of the Pastors of the Church. They recognised the voice of Peter in the voice of Pius, and the infallible certainty of all his declarations and condemnations, in virtue of the supreme and singular prerogative of Doctor of the Universal Church, given by our Lord Jesus Christ to Peter, and through Peter to his successors. They renewed, before the tomb of the Apostle, the adhesion they had already given, one by one, in the midst of their flocks, to the successive utterances of the Sovereign Pontiff, as these, from time to time, had reached them. The Encyclical Quantâ curâ' and the Syllabus or compendium of eighty condemnations in previous Encyclicals and Allocutions-all these had been at once received by them as a part of the supreme teaching of the Church, through the person of its head, which, by the special assistance of the Holy Ghost, is preserved from all error. They did not add certainty to that which was already infallible" (pp. 33, 34).

to deviate from the decrees of the Fathers. And inasmuch as the words of our Lord Jesus Christ cannot be passed over, who said, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' &c. . . . these words are confirmed by their effects, for in the Apostolic See religion has been always preserved without spot." Then follows a condemnation of heretics and of all in communion with them. "Wherefore we receive and approve all the Letters of Pope Leo, and all that he wrote concerning the Christian religion. Therefore, as we have said, following in all things the Apostolic See, and professing all its decrees, I hope to be worthy to be in that one communion with you which the Apostolic See enjoins, in which is the perfect and true solidity of Christian religion " (p. 86).

It is not then S. Leo's Letter to S. Flavian, which alone is ex cathedrâ; but "all his Letters," "all that he wrote concerning the Christian religion." How numerous and frequent therefore must have been S. Leo's ex cathedrâ Acts !

III. Further, let the following sentence of the Preamble be duly pondered:

"But since in this our age, in which the salutary efficacy of the Apostolic office is more than ever required, not a few are found who oppose its authority, we judge it to be absolutely necessary solemnly to assert the prerogative [of infallibility in ex cathedrâ Acts], which the Only-Begotten Son of God vouchsafed to unite with the supreme pastoral office."

In this age then, more perhaps than in any other, it is "absolutely necessary " for "the salutary efficacy of the Apostolic office," that its prerogative of infallibility be universally accepted. But there is no other function of that office which by possibility could derive additional efficacy from such acceptance, except only the function of teaching. Pius IX. then, with approbation of the Council, declares that the teaching, put forth by the Pope against the chief errors of this age, will derive much additional efficacy, from a universal belief in the infallibility of his ex cathedrâ Acts. It is plain then, by the very force of terms, that his teaching against the chief errors of his age has been ex cathedrâ; and he himself announces in the "Quantâ curâ," that such teaching is contained in a constant series of Encyclicals, Allocutions, and other Apostolic Letters.

At last however (to repeat a former remark) the most direct and strongest evidence, derivable from the Council for our thesis, is a comparison, between the description which the Bishops give of an ex cathedrâ Act on the one hand, and the description on the other hand given by Pius IX. in the "Quantâ curâ," of what he had done in the various Encyclicals, Allocutions and Apostolic Letters to which he refers.