Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/193

 ] the Pope be decreed infallible now, it follows that he must have been equally infallible from the beginning. The same character must rest on all decisions across eighteen centuries complying with the conditions essential to its exercise. Is the Council to make the application of the principle to the past, and investigate this theological field of history. Dupanloup recoils from the prospect of such investigations; nor is he happy about their effect upon the doctrine itself. Augustine taught that, after the judgment of Rome, there remained the Council of the Universal Church. This affirms the principle that, after the decision of the Pope, the decision of the Church is essential to a definition of faith. And Dupanloup manifestly held the same.

3. But difficulties increase. The Infallibility of the individual seems inconsistent with the Divinely constituted function of the Episcopate as judge and witness to the Faith. The whole principle of the Christian centuries has been that the collective testimony of the Episcopate is the ultimate expression in matters of faith. Bishops, says Dupanloup, are judges as to what the faith really is. They have always decided in Councils as true judges. The very expressions affixed with their signatures prove it. "Ego judicans, ego definiens, subscripsi." Such was the formula. Was—but when Dupanloup wrote these sentences he had not anticipated the introduction of a novel form at the Vatican Assembly. A change of theory is appropriately accompanied by a change of phrase. Meanwhile the Bishop pursues his argument. If Papal Infallibility is independent of the Episcopate, then the essential prerogative of the latter would be done away. What defining power is left for the Bishops to exert? They can give, we are told, their sentence in the form of a simple assent. But will they be free to give their assent