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 STKES

368

STLLABUS

the time of the Patriarch Timothy, one of the succes- sors of St. Athanasius.

Am^lineau, La geographie de L'Egypte A Vlpoque Copte (Paris, 1893). 467; Smith. Diet, of Greek and Roman geogr. a. v.; MuL- LEH, Notes on Ptolemy, ed. Didot, I, 725; Butcher, The Story of the Church o/ Egypt (London, 1897), pasaiin.

S. P:iTRIDE8.

Sykes, Edmund, b. at Leeds; martyred at York Tyburn 23 March, 1586-7; was a student at the College at Reims where he was ordained 21 Feb., 1.581, and sent to the English Mission on 5 June following. He laboured in his native Yorkshire with such zeal and sacrifice, that his strength failed. Arthur Webster, an apostate, took advantage of his illness to betray him, and he was committed to the York Kidcot by the Council of the North. In his weak- ness he consented to be present at the heretical ser- vice, but he refused to repeat the act and remained a prisoner. After confinement for about six months, he was again brought before the Council and sen- tenced to banishment. On 23 Aug., 1585, he was transferred to the Ca,stle of Kingston-upon-Hull, and within a week shipped beyond the seas. He made his way to Rome, where he was entertained at the English College for nine days from 15 April, 1586, his purpose being to atone for his lapse by the pilgrimage, and he also entertained some thoughts of entering religion. There he understood that it was God's will that he should return to the English mis- sion, and reaching Reims on 10 June, he left again for England on 16. After about six months he was betrayed by his brother, to whose house in Wath he had resorted, and was sent a close prisoner to York Castle by the Council. He was arraigned at the Lent Assizes, condemned as a traitor on the score of his priesthood, and on 23 March, 1586-7 was drawn on the hurdle from the castle yard to York Tyburn, where he suffered the death penalty.

Douay Diaries, Collectanea F, in Foley, Records S.J., III; Diary of English College, Rome in Foley, Records S.J,, VI ; Morris, Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers, III.

J. L. Whitfield.

Syllabus (ffi/XXajSos, "collection"), the name given to two series of propostions containing modern reli- gious errors condemned respectively by Pius IX (1864) and Pius X (1907).

I. The Syllabus of Pius IX. — A. History. — The first impulse towards the drawing up of the Syllabus of Pius IX came from the Provincial Council of Spoleto in 1849. Probably on the motion of the Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia, Pecci (later on Leo XIII), a petition was laid before Pius IX to bring together under the form of a Constitution the chief errors of the time and to condemn them. The prep- aration began in 18.52. At first Pius IX entrusted it to Cardinal Fornari, but in 1854 the Commission which had prepared the Bull on the Immaculate Conception took matters in hand. It is not known how far the preparation had advanced when Gerbet, Bishop of Perpignan, issued, in July, 1860, a "Pastoral Instruction on various errors of the present" to his clergy. With Gerbet's "Instruction" begins the second pha-se of the introductory history of the Syllabus. The "Instruction" had grouped the errors in eighty-five theses, and it pleased the pope 80 much, that he set it down as the groundwork upon which a fresh commission, under the presidency of Cardinal Caterini, was to labour. The result of their work was a specification, or cataloguing, of sixty-one errors with the theological qualifications. In 1862 the whole w.as laid for examination before three hundred bishops who, on the occasion of the canonization of the Japanese Martyrs, had assembled in Rome. They appear to have approved the list of theses in its e.s.sentials. Unfortunately, a weekly paper of Turin, " II Mediatore", hostile to the Church, published the wording and qualifications of the theses,

and thereby gave rise to a far-reaching agitation against the Church. The pope allowed the storm to subside; he withheld the promulgation of these theses, but kept to his plan in what was essential.

The third phase of the introductory history of the Syllabus begins with the appointment of a new com- mission by Pius IX; its most prominent member was the Barnabite (afterwards Cardinal) BOio. The commission took the wording of the errors to be con- demned from the official declarations of Pius IX and appended to each of the eighty theses a reference indicating its content, so as to determine the true meaning and the theological value of the subjects treated. With that the preparation for the Syllabus, having occupied twelve years, was brought to an end. Of the twenty-eight points which Cardinal Fornari had drawn up in 1852, twenty-two retained their place in the Syllabus; of the sixty-one theses which had been laid before the episcopate for examina- tion in 1862, thirty were selected. The promulga- tion, according to the original plan, was to have taken place simultaneously with the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; in the event it was ten years later (8 December 1864) that Pius IX published the Encyclical "Quanta Cura", and on the same day, by commission of the pope, the secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli, sent, together with an official communication, to all the bishops the list of theses condemned by the Holy See. The title of the document was: "A Syllabus containing the most important errors of oar time, which have been condemned by our Holy Father Pius IX in Allocutions, at Consistories, in Encycli- cals, and other Apostolic Letters".

The reception of the Syllabus among Catholics was assured through the love and obedience which the children of the Church bear towards the vicar of Christ on earth. They were, besides, prepared for its contents by the various announcements of the pope during the eighteen years of his pontificate; and, as a matter of fact, no sooner had it made its appearance than it was solemnh- received in national and provincial councils by the episcopate of the whole world. Among the enemies of the Church, no papal utterance had stirred up such a commotion for many years: they s.aw in the Syllabus a formal rejection of modern culture, the pope's declaration of war on the modern State. In Russia, France, and also in those parts of Italy then subject to Victor Emmanuel, its publication was forbidden. Bismarck and other statesmen of Europe declared themselves against it. And to the present day, it is a stumbling-block to all who favour the licence of false Liberalism.

B. Binding Power. — The binding power of the Syllabus of Pius IX is differently explained by Cath- olic theologians. All are of the opinion that many of the propositions are condemned if not in the Sylla- bus, then certainly in other final decisions of the infallible teaching authority of the Church, for instance in the Encychcal "Quanta Cura". There is no agreement, however, on the question whether each thesis condemned in the Syllabus is infallibly false, merely because it is condemned in the Syllabus. Many theologians are of the opinion that to the Syl- labus as such an infallible teaching authority is to be ascribed, whether due to an ex-cathedra decision by the pope or to the subsequent acceptance by the Church. Others question this. So long as Rome has not decided the question, everyone is free to follow the opinion he chooses. Even should the condemnation of many propositions not possess th.at vmchangeablene.ss peculiar to infallible decisions, nevertheless the binding force of the condemnation in regard to all the propositions is beyond doubt. For the Syllabus, as appears from the oflici:d commu- nication of Cardinal Antonelli, is a decision given by the pope speaking as universal teacher and judge to