Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/200

188 contradict this our definition, which God forbid, let him be anathema."

9. In this definition it is explicitly defined that the head of the Church is infallible, and it is assumed as certain that the Church also is infallible.

It is declared that this infallibility extends to all matters of faith and morals, but it is not defined where the limits of faith and morals are to be fixed. It is defined that the acts of the head ex cathedrâ are infallible, but cases may perhaps arise in which doubts may be made as to whether this or that act be ex cathedrâ or no. In these cases of doubt no one can decide but the head of the Church. Cujus est condere, ejus est interpretari. The legislator alone is interpreter of the law. It was for this reason that Pius the Fourth, by a bull after the Council of Trent, first reserved to himself the interpretation of the decrees of the Council: secondly, prohibited all private persons to undertake to fix the meaning of them; and thirdly, excommunicated all persons who should appeal from the Council of Trent to a future General Council. If, therefore, any doubt be ever mooted as to whether an act be or be not an act ex cathedrâ, no one need be scared by those who, either to ventilate their learning or to alarm the simple, pretend that there are thirty theories as to what is or is not an act ex cathedrâ. The answer is