Page:William John Sparrow-Simpson - Roman Catholic Opposition to Papal Infallibility (1909).djvu/62

 42 was accepted by the Fathers of the Sixth Council. But what they understood by it, said Bossuet, can be readily gathered from the following single fact: they approved the teaching of Agatho, but they condemned the teaching of Honorius. Manifestly they did not endorse the theory that no Roman Pontiff had ever deflected from the faith, or that his decisions deserved the unquestioning submission of Christendom. All that the Council could have assented to was that as a general fact the truth was held in Rome; without pronouncing any opinion as to the invariable fidelity of individual Popes. If Agatho meant more than this, he was, said Bossuet, mistaken in a question of fact. His statement must be set beside that of Leo II., who affirmed that Honorius, "instead of suppressing the flame of heretical views by his apostolic authority, encouraged it by his neglect."

The immediate successors of Honorius passed over his error and spared his memory. This was natural. For his pontificate was exemplary in other respects; he died in the peace of the Church; he had not acted with evil intentions; nor was he pertinacious in defence of his error; nor did anything in the condition of the Western Church require a public refutation of his error. But in the East it was otherwise. The Monothelites publicly supported themselves under his authority. Accordingly, the Sixth Council felt compelled to condemn Honorius also, as having in all things followed the lines of Sergius and promoted his dangerous teaching. Thus the Council's reply to Agatho's letter on the invariability of his See was an announcement that they had condemned his predecessor.

Bellarmine boldly asserts that in any case Honorius's letters contain no heresy. He only forbade the use of the terms, "one will," or "two wills" in Christ, a course