Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/212

 192 appeared the volume entitled ''The Pope and the Council, by Janus. Janus,'' as the preface assured the reader, was the production of several writers; but, as Friedrich tells us, under Döllinger's control. Janus was an expansion of the five articles in the Augsburg Gazette. The purpose of Janus was to demonstrate that, according to ancient Catholic principles, the chief exponent of the faith in Christendom was the Collective Episcopate; and therefore that the Council stood supreme above the Pope. Leo himself acknowledged that his treatise could not become a rule of faith until confirmed by the assent of the Episcopate. The process by which these principles were reversed is ascribed partly to the ever-increasing ascendancy of the papal power, to which in the long development of centuries many things contributed. The historical evolution was not without protests and reactions, but forged documents, accepted by uncritical ages as correct, misled even such theologians as St Thomas.

Various influences tended to advance the conception of the Pope's Infallibility. There was the influence of the theologians after St Thomas, whose great authority seemed sufficient, but whose opinion was founded on fictitious documents. There was the influence of the Inquisition, which, wherever it was dominant, rendered instruction in the ancient conception impossible. There was the influence of the Index, which meant the suppression of criticism and the conversion of historical literature into partisan productions for the maintenance of Ultramontane opinions. The publication of certain books, such as the Liber Diurnus, containing historic statements impossible to reconcile with Papal Infallibility, was prevented, and impressions already printed