Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/249

Rh preludes of the great Western schism, and of the Council of Constance—the praxis Ecclesiæ is definite and undeniable, and that Gerson was right in saying that any one who had ventured to deny the infallibility of the See and of the Successor of Peter would have been condemned for heresy.

But if for heresy, in what light did the consent of the faithful, and the tradition of the Church, regard the truth denied? The correlative of heresy is faith.

This, then, is what may be regarded as the first period of simple, traditional faith, immemorial and universal, in the stability of the faith of Peter in his See and in his Successor; which, when analysed, is the infallibility of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.

We must here close the first period of this sub-