against the Canons were resisted. 177

And again,

"Although the Pontiff of the Roman Church, on account of the dignity of the Apostolic See, is held in greater reverence than the Bishops throughout the world, yet he may not in any thing transgress the tenour of canonical rule."

Lastly,

"All alike detesting it, because it seemed so unbefitting that he who ruled the Apostolic See should transgress the primitive Apostolic tenour of the canons.'

"The destruction of the Basilica and consequent prevention of the consecration was attributed to the judgment of God. A. 1004.”

The beginning of the independence of the monks from their Bishop was formally resisted on the same ground.

"Gauslen, Bishop of Maçon, gravely expostulated about the ordination of some monks of Cluny by Burchard of Vienne, by virtue of a privilege which they had from the Roman Church. Whereon the Synod of Ansa enacted thus: "Reading anew the judgments of the holy Council of Chalcedon and of many authentic Councils, which enjoin how the abbots and monks in each country should be subject to their own Bishop, and that a Bishop should not presume to ordain or consecrate in the diocese of another without the licence of the Bishop himself, they decreed that the Charter was invalid, as not only not agreeing with, but even contravening the canonical judgments. The Archbishop, being convinced by reason, asked pardon of Gauslen, and made amends to him by a mulct, put upon him. A. 1025."

Even in the time of Gregory VII., Bossuct quotes the second Council of Limoges, which laid

1 Conc. Ans. A. 1025. Conc. ix. 858.

M

178" Acts of Pope against Canons of no force."

down, "it is not lawful for any to receive penance and absolution from the Apostolic See, without consulting his Bishop." Pope Gregory, who had been imposed upon, rescinded his absolution, saying, "I profess that I desire rather to be the helper and comforter of my fellow-Bishops every where than to contravene them." Another Bishop is quoted in the Council, who refused to confirm his act, in imposing a penance. 4 "I cannot believe that this mandate came from him, as being against the canons." "The Bishops said, this we hold as provided from the Roman Apostolic See itself and from the other Fathers,' that what is obtained, contrary to the canons, should have no force, and should seem to have been extorted against the mind of the Apostolic See."

"So then," Bossuet sums up, "the whole system of discipline rests on the ancient institutions; and both the Bishops profess that they obey according to the canons,' and the Roman Pontiffs, that they are both ruled and rule 'according to the canons.'

"But after that, amid the decay of discipline and the growth of ambition and adulation, this rule was departed from, and the Roman Pontiffs began, by extraordinary mandates, reservations, and tenths, to impose heavy burdens, some pecuniary, and gradually to draw to themselves the rights of the Bishops and Clergy; S. Louis published the Pragmatic Sanction, to restrain these new and daring attempts. These are the words

3 Conc. Lemov. II. Sess. ii. Conc. ix. 906. 3 Ib. col. 908.

5 Ib. c. 8. p. 314.

4 Ib. 909.

• Ib. c. 9.

"Pragmatic sanction" of S. Louis. 179

of the first chapter: "We enact and ordain that the Prelates of the Churches of our realm, the Patrons and ordinary Collators to benefices, have their full plenary right, and that his own jurisdiction be preserved to each. C. 2. Also let Cathedral Churches and other Churches of our realm have their elections free, and carry them integrally into effect.' C. 4. Also we will and ordain that promotions, collations, provisions, and dispositions of prelatures, dignities, and all other ecclesiastical benefices and offices of our realm whatsoever take place according to the disposition, ordination, and determination of common law, the sacred Councils of the Church of God, and the ancient institutes of the holy Fathers.' A. 1268 (1269 before Easter').

"These are what we call the liberties of the Gallican Church, to be governed by common law, the authority of Councils, and the institutes of the Fathers."

There was yet a fifth chapter in authentic records, though omitted in the earlier editions of the Bibliotheca Patrum.

"Also the exactions and very heavy money-burdens which

Prag. Sanct. S. Lud. Conc. xi. 907, 908. Boch. Decr. Eccl. Gall. Preuves des Libert. de l'Égl. Gall. T. ii. c. 15, n. 36, p. 76, ed. 1731.

8 Conc. xiv. 446. ed. Col. The Paris editors of Bossuet refer for this chapter to the "Mémoire et avis de M. Jean du Tillet-sur les Libertés de l'Église Gallicane," who printed it out of the "Commentaria Curiæ Parisiensis" "entire and authentic, as it is found in the ancient registers; and as it has been heretofore printed in the oldest Proceedings of the Parliament of A. 1515, and even in a book of M. Hélie, formerly Archbishop of Tours, for the Concordat, printed at Thoulouse A. 1518." "" 'It was omitted," Bossuet says, "by M. de la Bigne, in the 'Bibliotheca Patrum' (and by others following him), he having a defective copy, which should now be supplemented out of more entire copies: whether the good man had a scruple as to any thing being published under the name of

180 Infallibility of Church, fallibility of Pope;

have been imposed by the Roman curia upon the Church of our realm, whereby our realm has been miserably impoverished, as well as any which shall hereafter be imposed, we will not that they be levied or collected; save only for any reasonable pious and most urgent cause or inevitable necessity, and of the spontaneous and express consent of ourselves and of the Church of our realm."

Had we had a S. Louis, instead of a sovereign who, owning no master except his lusts, his rapacity, and his ambition, confounded all, right and wrong, the great quarrel between the Crown of England and the Pope in the sixteenth century might have been averted.

669

The question of the superiority of a General Council to the Pope, or conversely, had a direct practical interest, when the Council of Pisa, as representing the universal Church," "assembled by the grace of the Holy Ghost," "having," as it alleged,

66

duly heard the cause," condemned and deprived the two rival Popes, Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII., and, seven years afterwards, the Council of Constance deposed John XXIII. for his crimes'. These things have long passed away. But the principle involved in the declaration of the Council of Constance, that a General Council was superior to a Pope, went much deeper. For it rested on the

S. Louis, whereby the Roman Curia seemed to be blamed, or whether the printers feared that inconvenience should be occasioned them by the attaching of notes of censure. Any how, that fifth article had been quoted long before." Def. xi. 9, pp. 317, 318.

9 Conc. Pis. Sess. xv.

1 Conc. Const. Sess. Gen. xii.

ground of holding Council superior to the Pope. 181

alleged infallibility of a General Council, as the representative of the whole Church, to which our Lord had promised that "the gates of hell should not prevail against it," and contrariwise on the fallibility of the Pope. This even Denys of Reichel lays down, who, Bossuet says 2, "was the one of all, who maintained most vehemently the superiority of the Pope to the Church, even when assembled."

"In some things, viz. in those which properly and directly relate to the province of a General Council, and for the determination or expediting of which it is held, in these things the Council appears to be above the Pope, so that the Council in voting is free; nor has the Pope any coercive power over it in such causes, and we have to abide by the determination of a General Council rather than of the Pope. Such causes are, the extirpation of heretical pravity and of schism; the declaration of the faith and publication of its creed; the universal reformation of the Church in its head and members. So then, in expediting these things, the power of the General Council is said to be greater than that of the Pope, because Christ promised to the Church, or to a Council representing it, infallible direction and His unceasing glorious assistance: so that it cannot err in faith, nor in those things which appertain to morals, because in determining such things it is guided immediately by the Holy Ghost. Whence the Pope too is bound in such things to abide by the determination of the Church or the statutes of the Council, as the ordinance and sentence of the Holy Ghost. And since the Pope can err in faith and morals and other things which are of necessity of salvation, it seemeth that we are not to abide ultimately and entirely by his judgment in these things, since it is not an infallible rule or an

App. ad Def. Decl. Cler. Gall. i. 9, Œuvres xxxiii. 479. * Tract. de Auct. Papæ et Conc. P. 1. art. 27. T, i. f. 340 v. Col. 1532, quoted by Bossuet, Ib. 480.