Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/565

 SYLLABUS that the popular will, as expressed in public opinion or otherwise, is the supreme law, inde- pendent of all other, divine or human ; and that in the political order accomplished facts, as ich, have the force of right. Next came errors bating to the constitution and rights of the _mily, especially such as aim at refusing re- ligious bodies all control over or share in edu- ition ; the denial to the church as founded by Christ of all proper authority or jurisdic- 'ional rights, distinct from or independent of "le state ; the denial of power in the church to )ind the conscience by any laws of hers, save only in so far as these are promulgated by the state ; the denial of any validity to spiritual 3nalties decreed against secret societies in ates which tolerate their existence, or of force excommunications pronounced against per- ms usurping property belonging to the church, religious orders, or ecclesiastical corpora- ns, &c. This bull and the syllabus are to be taken as one authoritative act, the 80 errors designated in the latter being grouped under ten different heads, including pantheism and its adjuncts naturalism and absolute rational- ism, moderate rationalism, and religious indif- ferentisrn ; 20 propositions adverse to the con- stitution and rights of the church, 17 on civil society and its relations to the church, 10 on Christian marriage, 2 on the temporal prince- ship of the pope, and 4 on modern liberalism in its bearings on religion. The appearance of bo'th these documents created much excitement in France, where Jules Baroche, the minister of public worship, issued on Jan. 1, 1865, a circular letter to the French bishops forbidding the publication by them of the syllabus and of the doctrinal part of the bull. The liberal French press and the government journals also attacked these wide condemnations as "an act subversive of social order," "a monstrous error in politics as well as in the intellectual and moral order," "an attempt to restore an absolute theocracy, to set up a tyranny over everybody and everything." The minister de- clared the doctrine of the pope to be "con- trary to the principles on which the empire reposed," and the Journal des Debats transla- ted and analyzed the propositions condemned. Bishop Dupanloup replied to the latter, point- ing out over TO mistranslations and misconcep- tions ; while nearly all the French prelates, including Archbishop Darboy, replied to the former, denouncing the ministerial prohibition. The bishop of Belley and the cardinal-arch- bishop of Besancon read both documents from the pulpit, and were prosecuted by the gov- ernment. Elsewhere, though the proceeding of Pius IX. was generally condemned by the secular press, the civil governments did not feel called upon to interfere with the bishops, for whose special guidance the syllabus had been drawn up. In the beginning of 1871 Dr. Schulte, professor of canon and German law in the university of Prague, in a pamphlet en- titled " The Power of the Roman Popes over SYLVESTER 537 Princes, Countries, Peoples, and Individuals," assumed that the syllabus with all its 80 prop- ositions was an utterance ex cathedra, as de- fined by the council of the Vatican. This assumption, as well as the whole argument of Dr. Schulte, was assailed by Bishop Fessler of St. Polten in Lower Austria, who had been secretary of the council, in his "True and False Infallibility of the Popes " (Vienna, 1871; English translation, London and New York, 1875), for which he received a congrat- ulatory letter from Pius IX. In the autumn of 1874 the doctrines condemned in the syl- labus were brought prominently before the public by Mr. Gladstone's pamphlet, " The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Al- legiance." From the syllabus and the bull Quanta cura he selected 18 propositions bear- ing principally on the liberty of the press, of conscience, worship, and speech, on the es- sential rights of both church and state, and their mutual subordination, on education, mar- riage, the abolition of the pope's temporal power, tolerance, and the reconciliation of the papacy with modern liberalism. The interpre- tation of the various propositions by Mr. Glad- stone, and his conclusions therefrom, drew forth replies from Dr. Newman, Cardinal Man- ning, and other Roman Catholic writers, who accused him of mistranslating several proposi- tions and misstating their sense. With regard to the doctrinal authority both of the bull Quanta cura and of the annexed syllabus, it is generally admitted by Roman Catholic theo- logians that the former has the character of an ex cathedra utterance, while the specific char- acter of the latter is still a matter of dispute. All agree that the propositions condemned are erroneous, and that the condemnation should be accepted by all Catholics as final, while it is maintained by some that the syllabus has the same official and doctrinal value as the bull itself, and by others that the list of errors is only compiled for the convenience of bishops and theologians, each proposition bearing only that censure pronounced on it specially in the original document. SYLVESTER, the name of two popes, besides an antipope. I. Sylvester I., Saint, born in Rome about 270, died there, Dec. 31, 335. He suc- ceeded Pope Melchiades Jan. 31, 314, and con- curred with the emperor Constantine in con- vening the council of Nice. (See NICE, COUN- CILS OF.) He is frequently mentioned in his- tory in connection with the "donation" said in the false decretals to have been made to him by Constantine of Rome and its tempo- ralities. His feast is "held on Dec. 31. II. Sylvester II., Gerbert, born at Aurillac in Au- vergne about 920, died in Rome, May 12, 1003. He was a Benedictine monk of St. Gerold, Auvergne, studied under Hatto, archbishop of Vich in Catalonia, and at Rheims, and opened in that city a university course under the pa- tronage of the emperor Otho II., which became famous throughout Europe. He constructed