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 HONORItrS

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HONORIUS

in Latin, Italian, and Spanish, and is the one by which Honoratus will ever be known. It Ls unsurpassed in the theoretical part, but, as might be expected, the study of the sources of Church histon,', patristic litera- ture, hagiography, etc., has made such strides within the last two centuries that the practical portion is anti- quated; "Denuntiatio historia> ecclesiasticce" (anony- mous, 1726). Wliile the "Reflexions" were chiefly directed against TiUemont, this work takes Fleurj- to task for his Gallicanism. — "A treatise on the so-called Mass of Flacius lUyricus", of which Honoratus had already spoken in the " Reflexions", remains unedited.

BihUothecaCarmelil., I. 661-65; HcRTER, Xomenclator; JrxG- MANN in Kirchenlex., s. v.

B. Zimmerman.

Honorius, S.unt, Archbishop of Canterbury, fifth in succession from St. Augustine, elected 627; conse- crated at Lincoln by St. Paulinus of York, 628; d. 30 Sept., 653 (the last date alone is certain; the others are those usually accepted); commemorated, by de- cree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (1SS3), in the Supplement to the Breviary for England on 30 Sept. Little is known about the history of this saint before his elevation, and not much more of his long episco- pate. From Bede we gather that he was a Roman monk, a disciple of St. Gregory, and probably a Bene- dictine. He either accompanied St. Augustine in 596 or was one of the second band of missionaries sent in 601. As a member of that apostolic company, he must have led that life of fervent piety, which, we are told, had so much effect in converting the inhabitants of Kent. When Honorius's predecessor, Justus, died, Paulinus, fresh from the conversion of Xorthumbria, was the only English bishop left to consecrate him. From two letters of Pope Honorius I, preserved in Bede, it appears that Honorius and his consecrator, in applying to Rome for their pallia, asked that, in order to avoid the delays and uncertainties then in- volved in a journey to Italy, whenever the occupant of one of the metropolitan sees should die, the survi- vor should have power to consecrate the successor, a request which the pope granted. The chief act of Honorius's episcopate was the mission of St. Felix, whom he consecrated and sent to convert the East Angles, an expedition which was crowned with com- plete success. He administered his own diocese with great zeal and energy. The pope's letter to him shows that his life was spent in the vigorous exercise of the duties of his office and in the faithful observance of the rule of his master, St. Gregory. On the over- throw of the flourishing Kingdom and Church of Northumbria by Cadwalla of Wales and Penda of Mercia in 633, he received Paulinus and appointed him to the vacant See of Rochester. On tljc death of Paulinus in 644, Honorius consecrated Ithamar, a native of Kent, as his successor. And some years later, he consecrated a deacon of Mercia, Thomas, to succeed Feli.x in East Anglia, and in or about 652 Berctgils or Boniface, a native of Kent, to succeed Thomas. Next year the archbishop himself died and was buried with his predecessors in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, founded by St. Augustine.

Ada SS., Sept.. VIII; Bede, Hist. Erc'l., II, chs. iii. xvi, xvii, xviii, xx; III, chs. viii, xx; Haddan and Stubbs. EcH. Doc, III (1871). 82-9S; Anglo-Saion Chron., ad ann. 627, 6S3. 654; Hunt in Diet. Sat. Biog., s. v.

Joseph Keating.

Honorius I, Pope (625—12 Oct., 638.), a Campa- nian, consecrated 27 Oct. (Duchesne) or 3 Nov. (Jafff"', Mann), in succession to Boniface V. His chief noto- riety has come to him from the fact that he was con- deinned as a heretic by the sixtli general council (6S0).

The Letter of Sergius to Honorius. — The Mo- nothelite question was raised about 634 in a letter to this pope from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Ser- gius. He related that Emperor Heraclius, when in Armenia in 622, in refuting a Monophysite of the Se-

verian sect, had made use of the expression "one oper- ation" (energ}', ivipyaa) of the Incarnate Word. C\Tus, Bishop of the Lazi, had considered this doubt- fully orthodox, and had asked advice of Sergius. Sergius replied (he says) that he did not wish to decide the matter, but that the expression had been used by his predecessor Mennas in a letter to Pope Vigilius. In 630 CjTus had become Patriarch of Alexandria. He found Egj-pt almost entirely Monophysite, as it had been since the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Cjtus, by the use of the expression for which Sergius had been able to produce such good authority, had formulated a series of propositions, which most of the Monophy- sites were willing to accept, and they were by this means reunited in large numbers to the Catholic Church, "so that those who formerly would not speak of the di\'ine Leo and the great Council of Chalce- don now commemorated both ■with a loud voice in the holy mysteries". At this juncture Sophronius, a Palestinian monk, famed for holiness, came to Alexandria. He disapproved of the formulary of Cyrus, and Sergius was eviilently somewhat dis- quieted at this. The reunion of so many heretics was indeed glorious; but the ease with which it had been accomplished must have seemed suspicious. Sophro- nius was not ready at once with quotations from the Fathers to show that "two operations" was the only orthodox expression. But Sergius was ready to drop the expression "one operation" if Sophronius would do nothing that might destroy the union already ac- complished at Alexandria. Sophronius agreed. Ser- gius, however, was not satisfied with recommending Cyrus for the future to refrain from all mention of cither one or two operations, but thought it necessary to place the whole matter before the pope. Sergius has commonly been treated as a heretic who did his best to deceive the pope. It seems more fair and more accurate to say that he was rather a politician than a theologian, but that he acted in good faith. He nat- urally was anxious to defend an expression which the emperor had used, and he was imawarc that the letter of ilennas to Vigilius was a Monoph_\site forgery. But Cyrus's large use of his formula and its denunciation by St. Sophronius cau.sed him to take precautionary measures. His readiness to drop the expression shows modesty, if his wish that Sophronius's fornuila should also be dropped shows ignorance. Nothing could have been more proper, or more in accortlance with the best traditions of his see, than to refer the whole matter to Rome, since the Faith was in question.

Monothelism. — The Monothelite heresy is not in reality distinct from that of the Monophysites. The last few years have made us better acquainted with the writings of Timothy ^Elurus, Sevenis of Antioch, and other Monophysites, and it is now plain that the chief points on which the various sections of the Monophysites were agreed against Catholicism were the assertions that there is but one Will in the In- carnate Word, and that the operations (actixdties, ivfpyelai) of Christ are not to be distinguished into two classes, the Divine and the human, but are to be considered as being the "theandric" (Divino-human) actions of the one Christ (see Eutychianism). Now these two formulae, "one Will", and "one tlieandric operation", are characteristic of Monothelism. It was not perceived liy the ancients that this Monothel- ism, when it arose, was no new heresy, l)ut expressed the very essence of Monophysitism. 'This was because the war with the latter hcre.sy had been a war of words. The Catholics, following St. Leo and the Council of Chalcedon, confessed two natures, <pi<reiS. in Christ, using the word nature to mean an essence without subject, i. e. as distinct from hypostasis; whereas the Monophysites, following St. Cyril, spoke of " one nature ", understanding the word of a subsists ent nature or subject, and as equivalent to hypostasis. They consequently accused the Catholics of Nestorian-