Page:The True Story of the Vatican Council.djvu/66

54 Florence, which was the last authoritative decree on the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. To this no objection as to the subject-matter was made; but it was urged that the draft address already contained expressions stronger than the decree of the Council of Florence, which only implicitly contains the infallibility of the head of the Church as the teacher of all Christians, for the address explicitly declares that "Peter has spoken by the mouth of Pius." To this it was answered that though beyond all doubt these words explicitly declare the voice of the Pontiff to be infallible as Peter was, yet this acclamation of the fathers of Chalcedon and that of the third Council of Constantinople were always, and not unreasonably, set aside as of little weight in controversy, as little more than rhetorical amplifications of the authority of Leo and of Agatho. They were not doctrinal formulas, much less definitions, but only acclamations; and acclamations define nothing, and can form neither objects of faith nor terminations of controversy. It was therefore by the vote of almost all the seven members of the commission, if not indeed by the united vote of all, decided that the words of the decree of the Florentine Council should be inserted. These facts are here noted in detail because their importance will be seen hereafter. They prove that at the Centenary in 1867 the primacy of the Roman