Page:Petri Privilegium - Manning.djvu/352

38 Leo;' and in the Council of Constantinople which acclaimed, 'Peter hath spoken by Agatho;' and in the address of the five hundred Bishops at the centenary of St. Peter in 1867, in which they unanimously declared that 'Peter had spoken by Pius:' for they well knew that many, even of those who joined most loudly in that acclamation, denied that these words ascribe infallibility to the Successor of Peter. Experience therefore proved, even if theology long ago had not, that an acclamation is not a definition; and that an acclamation leaves the matter as it found it, as disputable after as it was before. Nothing short of a definition would satisfy either reason or conscience; and nothing but this was ever for a moment thought of.

Such, then, is a slight outline of the internal history of this protracted contest. It passed through nine distinct phases: and it must be confessed that they who desired to avert the definition held their successive positions with no little tenacity.

The first attack came from the World without, in support of a handful of professors and writers, who denied the truth of the doctrine: the second position was to admit its truth but to deny that it was capable of being defined: the third, to admit that it was definable, but to deny the opportuneness of defining it: the fourth, to resist the introduction of the doctrine for discussion: the fifth, to render discussion impossible by delay: the sixth, to protract the discussion till a conclusion should become physically impossible before the summer heats drove the Council to disperse: the seventh, when the discussion closed, to