Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/30

 10 recognition of authority or primacy; in every judicial sentence of the Roman See.

A third section of Roman theologians has been definitely unable to discover the doctrine anywhere in the Patristic period. Among the more critical and historically-minded of recent Roman writers there is a belief in the doctrine, independent of any evidence for it in the Age of the Fathers; indeed often coupled with an acknowledgment that the period does not yield to their scrutiny instances either of its recognition as a principle, or of its exercise as a fact. Advancing to the Patristic times with the definition of Infallibility as given in the Vatican Decree, they affirm that one essential condition of its exercise is deliberate intention to instruct the Universal Church. All instruction not given with that express intention is entirely outside the range of Infallibility. Evidently the great mass of judicial decisions, appeals to Rome, recognitions of its authority, praises of its impartiality and rectitude, assertions of the danger of disobedience to its words, have nothing to do with the doctrine of Infallibility; and are acknowledged by this school of Roman writers to be no proof of the doctrine's existence. This recent Roman attitude involves an entirely different estimate of Patristic evidence from that formerly prevalent among the Ultramontanes. It brings the Ultramontane curiously round to agreement with the opposite school as to the actual contents of the Patristic period. There is far less readiness to-day than formerly to assume that inferences which appear to a modern Ultramontane necessarily obviously involved in a statement or a claim, were really actually seen and understood and accepted among the primitive writers by whom the statement or claim was made. This is a sign of a more historic spirit, and therefore exceedingly hopeful.