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Bible Encyclopedias
Papacy
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or We give under this head a historical review of the rise and development of papal claims spiritual, ecclesiastical, and political; referring the dogmatic treatment to INFALLIBILITY, SUPREMACY, and TEMPORAL POWER, and leaving the import of the name to PAPA, and all that relates to the official or personal treatment to POPE. In the history of the papacy four great periods may be distinguished:
(1) The history of the bishops of Rome from the earliest times to the establishment of the States of the Church in the 8th century;
(2) the history of the popes during the Middle Ages until the Reformation of the 16th century;
(3) the papacy from the 16th century to the Vatican Council in 1870;
(4) the era of Papal Infallibility, beginning in 1870.
I. Early Period. — The history of the Church of Rome during the first century is involved in an obscurity which is not likely to be ever fully cleared up. As the entire edifice of Roman Catholicism rests upon the supposition that the pope is the successor of St. Peter, as bishop of Rome- the Roman Catholic historian can take part in the researches concerning the origin of the Church of Rome only for the purpose of defending the Roman episcopate of St. Peter. Until quite recently, the statement of Eusebius and Jerome respecting a twenty or twenty-five years' episcopate of Peter in Rome was very generally accepted by Catholics historians; at present the only fact which they find themselves able to prove from the much-disputed testimonies of ancient writers is the presence on two different occasions of St. Peter in Rome, which they think is compatible with the. old tradition of a long missionary episcopate. Among non-Catholic writers there is an entire agreement that the legend of a Roman episcopate rests on a great chronological mistake. A large number of historians of note (among them Baur and Zeller) altogether deny that Peter was ever in Rome; and even those who concede a sufficient importance to the testimonies of ancient writers to regard a visit of St. Peter to Rome as probable, are equally positive in rejecting the Roman Catholic tradition concerning his episcopate. (See PETER).
Moreover, the origin of episcopacy itself dates, according to most Protestant, writers, from the 2d century of the Christian era, making a Roman, like any other bishopric during the 1st century, an impossibility. Of the actual exercise of anything like primatial or papal jurisdiction on the part of St. Peter, even Roman Catholic writers have been unable to discover a vestige .
As immediate successors to St. Peter, as bishops of Rome, a number of men are mentioned by the Catholic tradition of whom so little is known that the ancient papal catalogues even disagree as to their order of succession and terms of office. Hegesippus (in Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 4:22) gives the following list, which is regarded as the most probable: Linus, Anencletus (or Cletus), Clemens Romanus, Evarestus Alexander, Xystus (or Sixtus) I, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Anicetus, Soter, Eleutherius, Victor, Zephyrinus, Calixtus, etc. The years of their administration, as given in different lists, are entirely irreconcilable. There is no reason to doubt their existence; but they were probably only prominent members of the Roman presbytery. The first name in the list which is celebrated in Christian antiquity is Clement, to whom two of the most famous among the works of the apostolic fathers are ascribed. But notwithstanding his celebrity in the Church, traditions is much divided as to the time of his administration, now making him the first, and now the third successor of Peter. It is a disputed point whether he is identical with the noble Roman, Flavius Clemens, who is said to have suffered martyrdom under Domitian. One of the principal writers on the earliest history of the Church of Rome, Lipsius, who in his first works had assumed the identity, adduces in his work, Chronologie der rimischen Bischlef (Kiel, 1869), cogent reasons against it. The first letter of Clement to the Corinthians is an important document in the history of the papacy, for in it Catholic historians find the first example of the exercise of a sort of papal authority. But, as the very introduction shows, this epistle is not sent at all in Clement's own name, but in that of the Roman congregation, and the tone pervading it is anything but hierarchical. The epistle may, however, justly be quoted as an indication of the high esteem in which the Church of Rome was held at a very early period. This prominent position is easily explained by the political preeminence of the city, which was the capital of the Roman world-empire, and by the high antiquity of the Roman Church, to which Paul had addressed one of his epistles, and which the churches of Italy, Gaul, and Spain looked upon as their mother Church. There is only one other passage in the writings of the apostolic fathers which is adduced as an argument for the existence of the papacy at that time. Ignatius of Antioch (died 107), in his epistle to the Roman Church, calls her προκαθημένη τῆς ἀγάπης, which Mohler (Patrologie, 1:144) and other Catholic scholars explain as "head of the love-union of Christendom," while Protestant writers understand it as only meaning "taking the lead in love." It is at all events significant that in the whole epistle the bishop of Rome is not even mentioned.
With Xystus I (about 115 to 125) a second division in the oldest papal catalogues begins. It is regarded as probable that he was the first who occupied in the presbyterial college of Rome an episcopal position, although his fellow-presbyters may have only regarded him as primus interpares. With Hyginus (about 135 to 139), Pius I (died about 154), Anicetus (died 166 or 167), and Soter (died 174 or 175), the history of the Roman bishopsbegins to be better authenticated. The names which have just been mentioned are closely united in history with the names of the Gnostics Cerdon, Valentinus, and Marcion. "The Shepherd of Hermas," one of the celebrated writings of the apostolic fathers, is ascribed to a brother of Pius I; and during the administration of Anicetus, bishop Polycarp came to Rome to discuss with the Roman bishop the first Easter controversy. Under Eleutherius, towards the close of the 2d century, Ireneus came to Rome as the delegate of the congregation of Lyons in affairs relating to Montanism. Irenuses is the first Church writer who unquestionably mentions an honorary pre-eminence of the Roman Church. He calls her (Adv. Haer. 2:2) the greatest, the oldest, Church, acknowledged by all, founded by the two most illustrious apostles, Peter and Paul, the Church "with which, on account of her more important precedence, all Christendom must agree" ("Ad hane enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est eos, qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea quxa est ab apostolis traditio").
The famous passage is only extant in Latin translations, and is of somewhat disputed interpretation, but it is not doubted that Irenaeus meant to place the Church of Rome above the other enostolic churches, to which likewise a precedence of honor is allowed. It is to be observed, however, that this passage altogether speaks of a precedence of the ‘ Roman Church,' not of the Roman bishop, and that there is no indication that anything beyond a mere precedence of honor is meant. That this was really the idea of Ireneusis confirmed by the fact that when about 190, bishop Victor of Rome broke fellowship with the churches of Asia Minor for the only reason of their peculiar Easter usages, Irenaeus rebuked Victor for troubling the peace of the Church, and declared himself against a forced uniformity in such non-essential matters. The Asiatic churches emphatically refused to comply with the demand of the Roman bishop, and the controversy remained unsettled until the 4th century when the Council of Nice decided in favor of the Roman practice. Tertullian also gave prominence to Rome among the apostolic mother churches, but after joining the Montanists he ridiculed the Roman bishop by calling him in irony "pontifex maximus" and "episcopus episcoporum." At the beginning of the 3d century Hippolytus censured the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Calixtus for the lax discipline of their Church. It appears from his work that these bishops claimed an absolute power within their own jurisdiction, and that Calixtus established the principle that a bishop can never be deposed or compelled to resign by the presbytery. Cyprian (died 258) is the first who asserts in clear words the fundamental idea of the papacy, claiming superiority for the bishop of Rome as the successor of Peter, and. accordingly calling, the Roman Church the chair of Peter, the found it of priestly unity, and the root and mother of the Catholic Church. It is, however, only an ideal precedence which Cyprian concedes to the bishop of Rome, for in the controversy concerning heretical baptism, Cyprian, at the head of the African Church, and in union with the bishops of Asia Minor, opposed the position taken by the Roman bishop Stephen, and accused him of error and abuse of power.
A retrospect of the history of the Church during the first three centuries shows a gradually increasing readiness to concede to the Church, and at a later period to the bishop of Rome, some kind of honorary supremacy, and an eagerness of the bishops of Rome to use this disposition of other churches for enlarging their jurisdiction, and for asserting a real superiority over other bishops — a claim which, as has been shown, was promptly and emphatically denied in all parts of the Christian world; and it is a most remarkable circumstance that almost every writer of this period whose words can be used as a testimony in favor of proving the existence of a germ of papacy, also mentions — and personally endorses — the stanch opposition made to the first claims of the Roman bishops. The first oecumenical Council of Nice (325), in its sixth canyon, makes only an incidental mention of the Roman bishop. It confers upon the bishops of Antioch and Alexandria metropolitan rights over the churches of their several provinces, "since the same belongs also to the bishop in Rome." The boundaries of the Roman diocese are, perhaps intentionally, not defined, but it appears certain that the Roman diocese comprised, in the opinion of the Nicene Council, only the ten suburbicarian provinces, or nearly the whole of Central Italy and the islands. (See PATRIARCHATE).
Nothing certainly indicates that at this period anyone conceded to the Roman bishop a jurisdiction over all the Occidental churches; and not only the Church of North Africa, in the following century, but also the diocese of Milan and the Church of Arelate at a much later period repelled any claim of the Roman bishop to a jurisdiction over them. The canons of the Nicene Council were, however, forged at Rome in the interest of the papacy at an early period, and the words Ecclesia Romnana semper haquit primatum were inserted. At the Council of Calcedon (451) the Roman- legate, Paschasinus, read the canon with the forged addition, but the council protested at once, and opposed the genuine to the forged version of the Nicene canon. The Synod of Sardica (q.v.), held in 343, conceded to the Roman bishop, Julius I (337-352), a really superior jurisdiction over other bishops, as canons 3 to 5 provide that in case a sentenced bishop desired to obtain a new decision from another synod, his judges must apply to Julius, bishop of Rome, who would decide whether a new synod was to be called or the judgment of the former was to be ratified, and until his decision was made the see of the sentenced bishop must not be filled. Julius might decide the case of the appealing bishop either through the bishops of the ecclesiastical province, or through his delegates, or in the exercise of his own power. It was, however, only one party among the bishops which conceded to the bishop of Rome these excessive powers, for the other party, embracing the Oriental bishops, seceded from the synod, and held distinct sessions in the neighboring city of Philippopolis. The wording of the resolutions appears, moreover, to indicate that the movers of the resolutions were aware that the latter were an innovation, and moreover that the superior jurisdiction which was accorded to the bishop of Rome was intended for bishop Julius personally, not for his office. That at this time large portions of the Church did not know of, or at least did not recognize any claim of the Roman bishop to superior jurisdiction, is easily proved. The synods of the Church, even the oecumenical synods, were convoked, without any cooperation on the part of the Roman bishop, by imperial decree. At none of these synods did the bishop of Rome or his legates preside, and for no dogmatic decision did the ancient Church appeal to Rome. The bishops of Rome, however, with great consistency and prudence, knew how to enlarge the precedence which had been accorded to the Church of the Imperial City, and the honors which for personal merits had been conferred upon individual occupants of the see into a permanent ascendency, for which a divine origin was .claimed, in order to make it an organic part of the doctrinal system of the Church. Innocent I (402-417) endeavored to put upon the canons of Sardica a far-reaching construction, and appealed to them for claiming a right of cognizance in all important ecclesiastical questions. Zosimus (417-418) asserted that the fathers had conferred upon the Roman see the prerogative that his decision should be the last and decisive one. ‘ The fraudulent habit. of ascribing the canons of the Synod of Sardica to the first oecumenical Council of Nice became quite general in Rome. At the Synod of Ephesus, in 431, the Roman legates declared that Peter, to whom Christ had given the power of binding and unbinding, was continuously living and judging through his successor.
The first pope, in the real sense of the word, was Leo I (440-461). Being endowed by nature with the old Roman spirit of dominion, and being looked upon by his contemporaries, in consequence both of his character and his position, as the most eminent man of the age, he developed in his mind the ideal of an ecclesiastical monarchy, with the pope at the head, and endeavored with great energy to transform the constitution of the Church in conformity with his ideal. As a theological writer, he used nearly all the arguments which the defenders of the papacy up to the present time have adduced from the Bible. As bishop of Rome, he carried through his claims to supreme power over the whole Church with a greater energy than any of his predecessors. The bishops of the African and Spanish churches submitted to his demands. Bishop Anastasius of Thessalonica applied to him to be confirmed. and when Leo granted his prayer, and extended his jurisdiction over all the Illyrian churches, Roman supremacy thereby gained an important foothold even in the East. In Gaul, however, he met with a most determined resistance on the part of Hilarius, the metropolitan of Arles; and though he procured from the emperor Valentinian III an edict which unconditionally subjected all bishops of the West Roman Empire to the primacy of Rome, he obtained only a partial victory. At the fourth oecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451) Leo's legates protested against the famous twenty-eighth canon, which elevated the patriarch of New Rome, or Constantinople, to official equality with the pope. But this protest, as well as that of Leo's successors, remained without effect, and the Eastern half of the Christian Church learned to look upon the bishop of Constantinople as its highest dignitary, whose claims were supported by a council which Rome herself recognizes as oecumenical. After the death of Leo, the papal chair was for nearly one hundred and fifty years filled by weak, insignificant men, who reasserted the papal claims of Leo without possessing his energy to enforce them, and who encountered the unanimous resistance of the Eastern patriarchs. When Felix II (483-492) ventured to excommunicate the patriarch of Constantinople, a complete ‘ schism between the Western and Eastern Church took place, which lasted over thirty years. Gelasius I (492-496) mockingly called the patriarch of Constantinople the bishop of the παροικία of Heraclea, and proclaimed the principle that the pope's authority was higher than that of kings and emperors. When pope Symmachus (501 or 503) was acquitted by a synod held in Rome of the charges of adultery, of squandering the property of the Church, and other crimes, the partisans of the pope at this council declared that it did not behoove the council to pass judgment respecting the successor of St. Peter; and one deacon, Ennodius (subsequently bishop of Padua), vindicated this decision by asserting that the Roman bishop is above every human tribunal, and is responsible only to God himself.
Facts like these prove the existence at this early period of the germs of the extremest papal theory, but how little foundation they had in the real sentiments of the Church may be seen from the fact that for many centuries afterwards, even late in the Middle Ages, emperors and general councils deposed and appointed popes, and that the bulk of the Church, clergy as well as laity, felt no scruple in submitting to the popes thus set up. The struggle about Roman supremacy in this period was, however, chiefly a question of power. The orthodoxy of the popes was occasionally, without hesitancy, called into doubt by their own partisans. Anastasius II (496-498) was suspected of consenting to monophysitism, and the strictly papal writer, Baroinius ascribes his sudden death to an evident judgment of God. Vigilius (540-554) owed his elevation to the papal see to Eutychian promises, and his entire administration is characterized by vacillation between Eutychianism and orthodoxy. His successor, Pelagius (554-560), so greatly alienated by his Eutychian tendencies some of the Western and even Italian bishops (like those of Aquileja and Milan) that for some time they suspended all connection with Rome. Gregory I (590-604) was, next to Leo I, the greatest of the Roman bishops during this first period of their history. His claims in some respects appeared to be more moderate, and especially more modest, than those of Leo. He protested against the adoption by the Constantinopolitan patriarch of the title of "universal bishop," and is said to have been the first among the Roman bishops who, with a humility strangely contrasting with the papal claims to a rule over the entire world, added to his name the title of Servus Servorum Dei. Gregory marks the transition of the patriarchal position of the Roman bishops into the strict papacy of the Middle Ages. He saw that the bishops of Rome could no enjoy the ecclesiastical supremacy at which they aimed until they threw off their political dependency, and he skillfully used the settlement of the Longobards in Italy to prepare the way for their independence. The triumph of the Catholic Church over Arianism in Spain, and the success of the Roman mission in England, greatly promoted the plans of Gregory; but he did not as yet actually possess the power of the mediaeval popes, and we therefore prefer to place him at the close of the first, and not, as is done by many historians, at the beginning of the second period in the history of the papacy. The last century of this first period of the papacy is also characterized by the beginning of that system of stupendous forgeries which furnished during the following period the chief support of the boundless claims of the papacy, and the origin and tendency of which have only quite recently been fully explained by modern criticism. The conversion and baptism of Constantine by Sylvester; the inviolability of the pope in the pretended acts of a Synod of Sinuena, with the fabulous history of pope Marcellinus; the Constitutum Sylvestri, the Gesta Liberii, the Gesta Xysti III, and towards the close of the 6th century the forged additions to Cyprian's De unitate ecclesice, to the Liber pontificalis, etc., all have the same tendency.
II. The Papacy of the Middle Ages. — In the 7th and 8th centuries a series of important events added to the ecclesiastical ascendency of the popes a high and influential position among the secular governments of the world. In proportion as the Byzantine emperors lost their hold of Italy, and especially the city of Rome, the actual power in the latter passed over into the hands of the pope the he head of an aristocratic municipal government. Pope Zacharias I (741-752) sanctioned the dethronement of the weak Merovingian dynasty by the revolutionary declaration "that whoever possessed the power should have also the name of the king," and his successor, Stephen III (752-757), anointed the usurper Pepin as king of the Franks. In return for these services, Pepin readily complied with the invitation of the pope to come to the aid of Rome against the Longobards, and, after obtaining a decisive victory, committed, as Roman Patricius, to the pope the provinces which the exarch had governed, alleging that the Franks had shed their blood not for the Greeks, but for St. Peter, and for the good of their own souls. Charlemagne confirmed and enlarged the donation which his father had made, and on Dec. 25, 800, laid the deed of the enlarged donation on the tomb of St. Peter. (See TEMPORAL POWER).
Thus the popes became secular princes, though at first vassals of the Carlovingian emperors; and they were led to conceive the plan of restoring the old world-empire of the Romans by the rule of the pope over the entire world. Soon after the establishment of the temporal power the popes availed themselves of the weakness of the Carlovingian emperors to emancipate themselves from their authority; and, in order to efface the recollection that the secular power of the popes was the gift of the German princes, the story was started that Constantine the Great had given Rome and Italy to pope Sylvester, and that this was the reason why the imperial capital had been removed to Constantinople. The actual power of the popes was, however, for several centuries not commensurate with their claims and aspirations. When the imperial dignity passed from the weak Cariovingiaiis of France to the energetic rulers of Germany, the emperors in many cases: asserted and enforced the right to depose and appoint popes, to prescribe laws for the Church, and to govern it according to their own views rather than those of the popes. These imperial rights were carried out by strong emperors in spite of the powerful support which the papal claims received theoretically from the famous collection of forged documents, known under the name of the Isidorian or pseudo-Isidorian decretals. The popes, from Clement I (91) to Damasus I (384), are there represented as ruling over a Church in which the clergy were. disconnected with the State, and unconditionally subordinate to the pope. Episcopacy appears for the first time as an emanation from the papacy; synods are regarded as valid only when they have been called by the popes, and all their resolutions are said to need a confirmation by the popes, who appear vested with the supreme legislative, supervisory, and judicial powers. For many centuries this collection was the storehouse from which popes and papal writers took the most efficient weapons in the conflicts respecting the ecclesiastical claims of the papacy; but Protestant criticism so irrefutably established its spuriousness that the advocates of the papacy now content themselves with attempting to prove that the deception was not of a criminal character or of much consequence, and that its primary object was not to enlarge the papal power, but to secure the independence of the Church against secular rulers.
The first half of the 10th century is known as the period of "pornocracy," during which the papal chair was filled by a succession of reprobates for which the history of few, if any, episcopal sees of the Christian world furnishes a parallel. Two Roman families strove to obtain permanent control of the papal chair, and to convert it into a family benefice; and even some of the unworthy occupants of the chair appear to have familiarized themselves with this idea, which was thwarted by the revolt of the public sentiment against the papal scandals. The vigorous interference of emperor Otho I, who had the last papal representative of "pornocracy," John XII, cited before a synod at Rome (963), which convicted him of murder, blasphemy, and all kinds of lewdness, and deposed him from his office, actually arrested the total decay of the papal dignity. The influence of the following emperors, especially of Henry III, secured the election of a number of popes (among them several Germans) who were of unimpeachable morality, and sincerely anxious to deliver the Church from the almost universal simony and licentiousness of the clergy. Their reformatory efforts were seconded by several new organizations which had arisen in the Church. The congregation of Clugny endeavored to find for the higher claims which the papal writers derived from the Isidorian decretals a new religions basis, and congregations of hermits in Middle and Upper Italy developed a new taste for the most rigid kind of asceticism, the principal representative of which is Petrus Damiani.
About the middle of the 11th century a Roman monk, Hildebrand, who was a pupil of Clugny and a friend of Damiani, succeeded in effecting a complete change in the internal and external relations of the papacy. In order to emancipate the papal chair from the influence of the German emperors, he prevailed upon pope Leo IX (1048-1054), who owed his election to his cousin, emperor Henry III, to go to Rome in the character of a pilgrim, and to be there once more elected by the Roman clergy and people. One of the following popes, Nicholas II (1058-1061), committed the power of choosing the pope almost entirely to the College of Cardinals. In 1073 Hildebrand, after being for about twenty-five years the guide of the papal policy, ascended himself the papal chair under the name of Gregory VII. He is commonly regarded as the greatest pope of all times. He clearly and boldly set forth the theory of a theocratic rule of the pope over all nations of the world. The priesthood was regarded by him as the only power directly instituted by God, the power of secular rulers as the product of human agencies. The pope, as vicar of God, was to stand in times of violence between princes and their people, enforcing the law of divine right by his spiritual power, and able either to humble the people or to depose princes. The papacy he represented as the sun from whom all secular authority, also the empire, derived their light like the moon. He sternly .enforced the law of priestly celibacy, in order that all priests, by renouncing the delights and cares of domestic life, might devote their exclusive labors to promoting the cause of the Church. To the claims which his predecessors had based upon the Isidorian decretals, Gregory added the doctrine of the infallibility and sanctity of the pope, and his right to depose princes and absolve subjects from the oath of loyalty. The period from Gregory VII to Innocent III and Innocent IV is an almost continuous conflict between the popes and the secular governments, during which the former, with an iron firmness, endeavored at first to destroy the direct influence of princes upon the government and offices of the Church, and secondly to subject all secular governments to the pope and the Church. Only two years after his elevation to the papal see (1095) Gregory held a synod in Rome, which- condemned all simony, and laid every one under excommunication who should confer or receive an ecclesiastical office from the hands of a layman. After lasting about fifty years, the controversy regarding the investiture of bishops was ended by the Concordat of Worms (1122), by which emperor Henry V, after the precedence of the governments of England and France, surrendered "to God, to St. Peter and Paul, and to the Catholic Church, all right of investiture by ring and crosier," and granted that elections and ordinations in all churches should take place freely in accordance with ecclesiastical laws. These provisions were confirmed as valid for the entire Church by the-first General Council of Lateran, and completed the emancipation of the Church from secular governments. The struggle now following for the supremacy of the popes over secular governments was chiefly carried on by the popes Alexander III, Innocent III, and Innocent IV against the emperors of the house of Hohenstaufen. In the progress of this conflict the papacy obtained grand triumphs the extinction of the house of Hohenstaufen, the penance of Henry II of England at the tomb of Becket, the oath of homage taken by John Lackland and a number of petty princes, the foundation of the Latin empire at Constantinople. Boniface VIII (1294-1303), in his struggle against Philip IV of France, meant to crown this edifice of papal absolutism by the bull Unam sanctanz (Nov. 18, 1302), which declared that "for every human creature it is a condition of salvation to submit to the Roman pontiff" (subesse Romano pontifici onzni humance creaturae declaramus esse de necessitate salutis).
This excess of daring arrogance brought on a fatal collapse. As in England the nobility and commons had extorted from their cowardly king the Magna Charta as a bulwark against royal and popish presumption, so in France the Assembly of Estates derided the papal excommunication; and when Boniface himself was imprisoned, aid his successors compelled to reside at Avignon in slavish dependence upon the French kings, the papal authority received in the public estimation a staggering blow from which it has never recovered. The residence of the popes at Avignon, or, as it was called even before the times of Luther; the Babylonian exile of the popes, was followed by the great Schism (1378-1409), when Christendom was scandalized by the rival claims of two or, at times, of three vicars of God, who hurled against each other frightful anathemas. The papal theory that the papal see shall not be judged of by any one was thus most completely exploded, for the secular governments, the schools, the clergy, and the laity all had to make their choice between the rival claimants. The clamor for a radical reformation of the Church in its head and members met with the heartiest responses from all sections of the Church, and led to the convocation of the general councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1414- 1418), and Basle (1431-1433), which asserted the superiority of oecumenical councils over the popes, and did not hesitate to depose popes and elect new ones. The principles which guided these councils were radically and irreconcilably at variance with the theories of papal absolutism which Gregory VII and his successors had so boldly proclaimed. How general the acquiescence of the leading men in the reformatory attempts of these councils was may be inferred from the fact that when the Council of Pisa was called both the rival popes were abandoned by their cardinals, who united with two hundred bishops, three hundred abbots of monastic institutions, many hundred doctors of theology and canon laws, and the envoys of the secular governments in the deposition of the popes. If the central idea of these councils, the superiority of the oecumenical councils over the popes, could have been carried through, the development of the Roman Catholic Church would have taken a radically different turn. But unfortunately the cunning of pope Martin V (1417-1431), who had been elected by the Council of Constance, knew how to thwart the general demands for a reformation by separate treaties with the principal Christian nations; and his successor, Eugenius IV (1431- 1447), gained a complete victory over the Council of Basle, which, after being gradually abandoned by the Church, by' the very pope whom it had opposed to Eugenius, and finally by its own members, closed its sessions after 1443 without a formal adjournment. The power of the papacy was now gradually restored, and at the close of the 15th century Innocent VIII (1484-1492) and Alexander VI (1492-1503) once more attained the highest climax of depravity which has ever disgraced any episcopal see.
III. The Papacy since the Reformation. — By the Reformation of the 16th century a considerable portion of Christian Europe totally broke off its connection, not only with the papacy, but with the entire Church system, over which the popes, in the course of the last thousand years, had gradually obtained an absolute power. Though arising from a theological controversy of so small dimensions that pope Leo X regarded it as a monkish quarrel, the Reformation at once gathered a gigantic strength from the latent contempt of the papacy which animated millions of minds. The efforts of Leo X and his immediate successors to crush the spreading secession by the secular arm were unsuccessful; and although the new order of the Jesuits succeeded in arresting its progress in some of the European countries, the Scandinavian kingdoms, Great Britain, Holland, Switzerland, and many of the German states were permanently lost. The fear of further losses led, however, to the removal of some of the grossest abuses in the Church; and characters like Innocent VIII and Alexander VI have not occupied the papal chair since the beginning of the Reformation. With great reluctance the popes consented to the convocation of a general council, which had long been called for by the nations of Europe, to restore peace to the Church, and to reform the existing abuses in a manner sanctioned by ecclesiastical traditions. The Council of Trent (15451563) did not succeed in reconciling the Protestants with the papacy, but it adopted some salutary rules for the government and the discipline of the Church. It had not, however, the courage to assume, with regard to the papal power, the position of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, amid after its adjournment the popes again claimed and exercised the dangerous prerogative of explaining its decrees.
Within the Church the order of the Jesuits, in consequence of its admirable organization, obtained an influence which had never before been possessed by any monastic order or other association. What the popes themselves, in default of their former power, could no longer obtain from secular governments by threats of excommunication, the Jesuits endeavored to achieve by means of education and by court influence. But while accommodating to the wishes, and sometimes even the vices of powerful princes, from whom they expected a furtherance of the interests of the Church and their own order, they tried with the most uncompromising consistency to make the popes the absolute rulers of the Catholic hierarchy in matters of faith as well as of ecclesiastical administration. Everywhere they stand forth as the advocates of an unconditional submission to papal decisions in doctrinal controversies, and of the abolition of all the independent rights formerly possessed by the bishops, who were more and more to be converted into subaltern offices of a papal monarchy. The great popes of the Middle Ages, Gregory VII, Alexander III, Innocent III and IV, and Boniface VIII, had clearly and boldly traced the boundary-lines of the papal theocracy to which the entire human race was to be subjected; but the Jesuits have done more than all popes and bishops for developing the principles according to which the administration of such an empire must be carried on, in order to be consistent and effective. It was to be expected that an organization like the Jesuits should obtain an all powerful influence at Rome. The other religious orders naturally felt jealous at the new-comer, by whom they were totally eclipsed; not a few of the bishops rebelled against being stripped of the more extensive authority of their predecessors; the majority of Catholic scholars chafed against the condition of abject servitude which the papal hierarchy, as it was understood by the Jesuits, assigned to them; and many governments became alarmed at the excessive claims, in behalf of the papacy which were set up in the schools and the books of the Jesuits; but public sentiment in Catholic countries was, on the whole, in their favor. Thus, the popes were emboldened to reassert from time to time the mediaeval ideas of their predecessors, the most significant fact in this respect being the famous bull In Caena Domini, to which Urban VIII (1623-1644) gave its final form, and in which not only Saracens, pirates, and princes, who impose arbitrary taxes, but Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists were anathematized.
The Peace of Westphalia (1648) demonstrated, however, anew that the actual influence of the popes upon the secular affairs, even in Catholic states, had irretrievably departed. The representatives of Protestant and Catholic governments met in common council to deliberate upon the peace of the world; the legal existence of Protestantism was recognized by all Catholic governments; while the pope, by his solitary and entirely ineffectual protest, revealed to the world, in a very conspicuous manner, that however obstinately the theocratic ideas of the Middle Ages might still be adhered to by the ecclesiastical functionaries and devoted theologians, he had lost all control of the political world. In fact, the popes, from a political point of view, more and more appeared as the rulers of a petty Italian state (the states of the Church) rather than as the heads of a grand theocratical world-empire. Even in the College of Cardinals this view gradually gained strength; and While none of the old claims of the papacy were discarded, many popes appeared to care as such for their particular state. The greater importance which now attached to the pope's character, as secular prince, manifests itself in the habit of selecting nearly all the occupants of the papal chair from among the great Italian families, and in the fact that none but Italians have been elected popes since Adrian VI (1522, 1523), who was a native of Holland. At the same time a tendency showed itself at times among the cardinals to increase,the influence of their college by electing popes who were chiefly remarkable for the absence of energy and any prominent qualities of mind. Thus it was said that Innocent X (1644-1655) was made pope on the ground that he never said much, and had done still less; Clement X (1670-1676), a feeble octogenarian, "did nothing except to weep over the administration of his family favorites;" Benedict XIII (1727-1730) seemed always to regard the convent of the Dominicans as his world; while his hypocritical favorite, Coscia, bartered away both Church and State, until primitive Christian simplicity became utterly ridiculous in a court so recklessly conformed to the world;" and Clement XII -(1730-1740) "was raised to the throne when old and blind'' (Hase, Church History).
The episcopal tendencies in the Catholic Church which had made such a gallant struggle against the absorption of the old rights of the episcopacy by papal absolutism at the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, and which even at Trent had been sufficiently powerful to thwart a part of the papal designs, made at the close of the 17th century a grand demonstration. An assembly of French bishops and barons, which was convoked by Louis XIV in 1682, defined the views of the Gallican Church in regard to the prerogatives of the papacy in the four following famous propositions: 1. That Peter and his successors have received power from God in spiritual, but not in secular affairs; 2, That this power is limited, not only by the decrees of the Council of Constance relating to the authority of general councils, but, 3, by the established prescriptions and usages of the Gallican Church; and, 4, That the decisions of the pope, when not sustained by the authority of the Church, are not infallible. This was one of the grandest and most important manifestoes on the part of the bishops of the Catholic world against the papal theories of Gregory VII and his successors. The bishops of France, with but few exceptions, concurred in these resolutions; and thus one of the largest and oldest Catholic countries bore a unanimous, and therefore so significant a testimony, that France and the popes were radically disagreed as to the powers which in the Catholic Church belong to the papacy. The pope, Innocent XI (16761682), parried the dangerous blow with courage and skill. He had the proposition of the Gallican Assembly publicly burned at Rome by the common hangman. and refused to sanction the consecration of any newly-appointed bishops until the revocation of the four propositions. The bishops in this conflict showed themselves as cowardly as the pope was resolute, and the king likewise soon effected a reconciliation by complying with the pope's demand. The bishops of France for a long time remained divided into a Gallican and a papal or Ultramontane party, but the latter steadily gained ground.
A still greater triumph was gained by the papacy in the long doctrinal controversies caused by a posthumous work of bishop Jansenius of the Netherlands. The views on grace which were propounded in this work were accepted by many of the most eminent theologians of France and other countries, but the Jesuits caused five of its propositions to be condemned. The friends of Jansenius contended that the five propositions had been misunderstood at Rome, and had a sense different from the one in which they were condemned by the pope. It was the first time that the question came up whether the pope had not only the right to make decisions in doctrinal controversies, but could also demand that his interpretation of any theological work must be accepted as correct. Alexander VII (1655-1667) made this demand, and assured the world that the propositions of Jansenius were actually condemned in the sense intended by Jansenius. The Catholic world was for a long time agitated by this question; but as the French government was determined upon the extermination of the Jansenists even more than the pope, the novel demand of the papacy for an acknowledgment of its right to give an infallible interpretation of any theological work was tacitly acquiesced in. Only a small body in the Netherlands, the so-called Jansenists, persisted, under an archbishop of Utrecht and two bishops, in their resistance to this papal claim, maintaining to the present day, in spite of the oft-repeated papal anathemas, an independent ecclesiastical organization.
About the middle of the 18th century a violent tempest began to collect throughout Catholic Europe against the papacy. The educated classes of these countries were very largely pervaded by a disbelief in the entire doctrinal system of the Catholic Church and regarded the papacy as the chief obstacle-to. the progress of enlightenment and culture among the masses of the population. The Jesuits were viewed as the worst outgrowth of the papal system, and became as such the objects of intense hatred. In 1759 Pombal excluded them from Portugal and confiscated their property; and when the pope interceded for them all connection with Rome was broken off. The example of Portugal was followed by the Bourbon courts of France, Spain, Parma, and Naples, all of which expelled the Jesuits, and ridiculed the threats of excommunication with which the pope threatened some of them. When the papal chair became vacant, in 1769, the combined influence of these courts secured the election of cardinal Ganganelli as pope Clement XIV (1769-1774), who, after some hesitation, yielded to their urgent demands for the abolition of the Jesuits, which he announced by the brief called Dominus ac Redemptor noster, on Aug. 16, 1773, and represented as a step, which was required by the peace of the Church. About the same time a German bishop, Nicholas of Hontheim, resumed the work of the Gallican Assembly of 1682. Under the name of Justinus Febronius he published a book (1763), in which the superiority of general councils over the popes, and the divine and independent rights of the bishops, were defended with great vigor and scholarship. The book created an immense sensation, but the author recanted on his death-bed (1778). Soon after (1786), the archbishops of Mayence, Tryves, Cologne, and Salzburg agreed at Ems upon the so-called Emser Punctation, which demanded the establishment of an independent national Church of Catholic Germany. But as the majority of the German bishops sided with the pope against the archbishops, this attempt likewise proved a complete failure. The same fate awaited the radical measures by which the emperor Joseph II of Austria endeavored to disconnect the Roman Catholic Church of his dominions from the pope, and to convert it into a strictly national agency for the education of the masses of the population. Although pope Pius VI (1774-1799), by a personal visit, in vain endeavored to make an impression upon the emperor, public opinion, as well as the bishops, opposed the efforts for reform, and the emperor lived long enough to see their failure.
The French Revolution of 1789 threatened the papacy with as great territorial losses as the Reformation of the 16th century. For a time France appeared to be lost to the papacy. Christianity itself was abolished by the National Convention, and though the Directory (17951799) again permitted the exercise of Christian worship, French armies proclaimed in Rome the Roman republic, and carried pope Pius VI as a prisoner to France, where he died. His successor, Pius VII (18001823), was the first pope for many centuries whose election did not take place in the city of Rome. A concordat concluded with Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801 restored to the pope his ecclesiastical and temporal power; but when he revived all the old hierarchical claims of the papacy, the emperor again (1808) occupied the papal territory, and revoked the donation of his predecessor Charlemagne (1809); and when he was excommunicated by the pope, he carried the latter as a prisoner to Fontainebleau. — The downfall of the Napoleonic rule and the Congress of Vienna put an end to the endangered position of the papacy. The ruling monarchs of Europe, the emperors of Austria and Russia, and the king of Prussia, desired the cooperation of the papacy for the suppression of liberal ideas. Although the protest of the papal delegate, Consalvi, against the work of the Congress of Vienna was smiled at by the diplomatists, the governments of Europe generally, even those of the Protestant states, not only consented to the restoration of the temporal power of the popes, but regulated the affairs of the Catholic Church in the several states by means of Concordats (q.v.), which, though proceeding from the assumption that the secular governments were at least a coordinate, and not, as the mediaeval popes claimed, a subordinate power, conceded to the papacy a far-reaching influence, and even a vigorous support in ecclesiastical and educational matters. The concessions thus made were skillfully used by Pius. VII and his successors, Leo XII (1823-1829), Pius VIII (1829-1830), and Gregory XVI (1831-1846), to extend again the spiritual influence of the Church upon the Catholic population of Europe, and to recover part of the lost ground. Immediately after his return to Rome (1814) Pius VII restored the order of the Jesuits, who were once more, as in the days before their suppression, the boldest champions of all the claims of the papacy, especially in the Catholic countries, and the violent opposers of liberal institutions.
The most notable success which was won during the first half of the 19th century by the papacy was the great decline and almost complete extinction of the Gallican and Episcopalian tendencies among the bishops and clergy. Even governments which might have been expected to oppose with all their might the spread of ultra-papal tendencies, as the Orleans dynasty in France, and the Protestant governments of Germany, made little or no effort to prevent the elevation of the most zealous adherents of the papal theories to the episcopal sees, and the coercion of the lower priesthood to the same views. It soon became apparent that in the Catholic Church of the 19th century councils like those of Pisa, Constance, and Basle would be impossible, and the papacy, in its conflicts with the secular governments, the representative assemblies, and the liberal spirit of the age, could at least rely on an almost unanimous support of the episcopacy and the lower clergy. But the masses of the population in a number of Catholic countries, as was shown by elections and by revolutionary movements, preferred liberal institutions in spite of all declarations and even excommunications of the papacy. This was especially apparent in the states of the Church, where only Austrian bayonets could prevent the people from overthrowing the temporal power of the popes. — The elevation of Pius IX to the papal chair (June 16, 1846) not only encouraged the hopes of those who believed that some concessions to the liberal tendencies of the political world would be compatible with the true interests of the papacy, but even called forth Utopian dreams of advanced liberals like the Italian priest and philosopher Gioberti, who enthusiaistically maintained that the papacy, at the head of a confederacy of liberal Italian states, might bring about a full reconciliation between political liberalism and the papal creed, and might place Italy in the front rank of Christian nations. These hopes were bitterly disappointed when the pope first hesitated, and finally refused, in 1848, to take part in the Italian uprising against Austrian rule, and the republican government was established in Rome which decreed the deposition of the pope. It needed an interference of the French army to restore him to his throne (1850); but in 1859 and 1860 the larger part of the states of the Church concluded by popular vote to join: the new kingdom of Italy, and the city of Rome itself was only prevented from following this example by French troops until 1870, when the withdrawal of the French garrison was at once followed by the declaration of the Romans in favor of annexation to Italy, and by the cessation of the temporal power of the pope,
IV. The Papacy since the Declaration of Infallibility. — Only one year before the downfall of the temporal power, the pope convoked a general council at Rome, which was to elevate the ultra-papal theory to its climax by proclaiming the papal infallibility as a dogma of the Catholic Church. For many centuries, even before the times of Gregory VII, the popes had actedas if they were infallible. They had not only demanded, but, as far as lay in their power, enforced submission to their doctrinal decisions. They had forbidden appeals from their tribunal to a general council, and even disallowed the plea of the Jansenists and other censured schools that the popes had erred in understanding the right sense of the censured books. The Church had practically submitted to these claims, but only from want of organized and efficient opposition, not from doctrinal concurrence, as the councils of the 15th century and the Gallican Assembly of the 17th irrefutably prove. (See INFALLIBILITY).
The Jesuits, since the days of Bellarmine, have been foremost in discussing and defending the infallibility theory, but no pope until Pius IX had dared to solemnly declare it as a doctrine of the Church. Pius IX had given some indication of what might be expected from him by proclaiming, in 1854, the opinion held by many Catholic theologians of the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary as a doctrine of the Church, and by the syllabus of 1864 — the most sweeping condemnation of the principles of modern civilization and progress that has emanated from any pope. Nevertheless, when the, design of the pope to proclaim papal infallibility as a Church doctrine became known, many bishops, especially in the Teutonic countries; earnestly declared against the intended measure, not so much because. they professed a personal disbelief in the doctrine, but because they regarded its promulgation: as extremely inopportune, and fraught with dangers to the best interests of the Church. The Vatican Council acceded, however, on July 18, 1870, to the wishes of the pope, 536 members of the council voting for, 2 against the proposition, and 106 being absent, most of whom were unwilling to vote-favorably. (See VATICAN COUNCIL).
All the bishops of the opposition gradually submitted to the promulgated doctrine, except a few of the United Eastern churches. In Germany and Switzerland, however, a number of distinguished theologians persisted in their opposition, and originated the Old Catholic movement. (See OLD CATHOLICS).
The membership of the Old Catholic Church amounted at the close of 1876 to .only about 200,000, a small number in proportion to the 200,000,000 at which the nominally Catholic population of the globe is estimated. But the papacy, with its new claims no less than with its old, lacks the recognition of the largely Catholic countries, as has been abundantly proved by the history of the years since the Vatican Council. Only a few months after the proclamation of the new doctrine, the city of Rome defied the papal excommunication by voting for the abolition of the temporal power and annexation to the kingdom of Italy. The Italian government an Parliament have established their seat in the former capital of the Romish Church, and, notwithstanding all the censures of the Church, the Italian people, in October, 1876, once more elected a Parliament pledged to defend the national unity against the pretensions of the papacy. In France, where the Ultramontane party- has undoubtedly made great progress:even among the laity, the elections to the General Assembly held in 1875 gave a majority which is openly unfavorable to the temporal power and other papal claims. In Austria, next to France the largest among the Catholic countries, the lower house of the Vienna Parliament has declared its sympathy with the principle of religious liberty, and even with the Old Catholics. In all the other Catholic countries of Europe and America the papacy has but an uncertain hold of governments and parliaments. It has had, since 1870, more or less serious conflicts with Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States of Colombia, and, except in the little kingdom of Belgium, where the Parliament is under the complete control of the Ultramontane party, it cannot rely on the subserviency of a single secular government. And even Ultramontane Belgium finds it necessary to accredit an ambassador at the court of the Italian king, though he is under papal excommunication for having overthrown the temporal power of the papacy. — The relations of the papacy to non-Catholic governments have been seriously affected by the Vatican Council. In view of the past history of the papacy, the governments. of Germany and Switzerland have deemed it necessary to introduce new laws on the administration of the property of the Church and on public education, which have kindled new and bitter conflicts with the papacy. Russia remains in the attitude of open hostility to the papacy in which it had been for a considerable time previous to the Vatican Council. (See ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH).
Although stripped of his secular power, the pope, in 1876, was still treated by most of the Catholic and some non-Catholic governments as a sovereign, the following states having diplomatic agents accredited near the papal chair: Bavaria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, the German Empire, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Monaco, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Peru, Portugal, San Salvador, and Spain.
Literature. — The chief sources for the history of the Roman bishops until the 6th century are the papal catalogues. They are divided into two. classes, the Greek and the Latin. Of the former, only those found in Irenaeus (Adv. Haereses, 3:3,3) and in Eusebius are of importance. Of the latter writer we have a double list, one in the Chronicles (only in the Armenian translation, not in the Latin translation by Jerome), from Peter to Gains (died 296); the other in his Church History, from Peter to Urbanus (230). Jerome, who, in his free translation of the Chronicles of Eusebius, continues the list of Roman bishops down to his contemporary and patron Damasus, leans, on the whole, more on the statements of the Eccles. History of Eusebius, but has also availed himself of another Roman catalogue, which is closely related to the so-called Liberian Catalogue. The most important among the Latin catalogues for the history of the first three centuries is the so-called Catellogus Liberianus, which is found in the collective work of the chronographist of 354, and extends to Liberius. Upon it the so-called Felician Catalogue, as far as Felix IV (died 530), is based, which, in turn, may be regarded as the first edition of the Liber Pontificalis (q.v.). For the bishops from Peter to Pontianus the Catalogus Liberianus substantially followed the chronicles of Hippolytus (beginning of the third century). The Catalogus Liberianus was followed by the Catalogus Leoninus, compiled under Leo the Great (440-461), and other continuations. A thorough and exhaustive work on all papal catalogues is Lipsius's Chronologie der romischen Bischofe (Kiel, 1869). — The earliest history of the popes is the Liber Pontificalis, which was long ascribed to Anastasius, abbot and librarian at Rome (died about 886), who, however, is the author of the last biographies of the work only. It was edited by Busaeus (Mentz, 1602); Fabrotti (Paris, 1649); Bianchini (Rome, 1718 sq., 4 vols.); Muratori (in the three volumes of the Script. Rer. Ital.); Vignoli (Rome, 1724 sq., 3 vols.). — Among the very numerous histories of the popes we quote the following: F. Petrarca, Fite dei Pontifici et Imperatori Romani (Florence, 1478); Panvini, De Vitis Romans Pontificum (ibid. 1626); Sacchi di Palatina, Hist. de Vitis Pontificum Romans (ibid. 1626); Tempesta, Vite Sumum. Pontificum (Rome, 1596); Ciacconi, Vitoe et gesta Romans Poantij: et Cardin. (ibid. 1677, 4 vols.; continued by Pide Cinque and Fabrino, 1787); Palazzi, Gesta Pontif. Romana (Ven. 1687 sq., 5 vols.); Pagi, Breviarium gest. Pont. Romans (6 vols.); Bower, The Lives of the Popes (Lond. 1730, 7 vols.); Bruys, Hist. des Papes (Hague, 1732 sq., 5 vols.); Walch. Gesch. der romischen Papste (Gottingen, 1758); Spittler, Vorlesungen-uber die Geschichte des Papstthums (Hamb. 1828); Smets, Geschichte der Papste (Cologne, 1829,4 vols.); P. Muller, Die romischen Papste (Vienna, 1847-1857, 17 vols.); Artaud de Montor, Hist. des sotuv. Pontifes Romans (Paris, 1848 sq., 8 vols.); Haas, Geschichte der Papste (Tubing. 1859 sq.); Grone, Papst-Gesch. (Ratisbon, 1864). — Among the best works treating only of a part of the history of the papacy are Ranke, Die romischen Papste. ihre Kirche und ihr Staat im 16th u. 17th Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1834 sq., 3, vols.; 6th edit. 1874,4 vols.; translated into English and other languages, and generally regarded as the best among all works on the papacy); Baluze, Vitae Paparum Avinionensiumn (Paris, 1693, 2 vols.); Hofler, Die deutschen Papste (Ratisbon, 1839); Christophe, Histoire de la Papaute pendant le xiv siecle (Par. 1852); Jaffa, Regesta Pontif. Romans (Berlin, 1851; as far as 1198). Special works on the ecclesiastical supremacy claimed by the popes are: Duval, De suprema Rom. Pontif. in Ecclesia potestate; Bellarmine, Depotestate Romans Pontif. (Rome, 1610); Leitam, Impenetrabilis pontificiae dignitatis clypeus; L. Veith, De primatu et infallibilitate Rom, Pontif.; J. a Bennettis, Privilegiorum S. Petri vindicci (Rome, 1756, 6 vols.); Orsi, De irreformabili Romans Ponif. judicio; Scardi, De Supsrena Romans Pontif. auctoritate; Chalco, De Rom. Pontif. (ibid. 1837); Kempeners, De Romans Pontif. prim. (ibid. 1839); Kenrick, The Primacy of the Apostolic See Vindicated (Phila. 1845); Ballerini, De vi ac ratione primatus (Augsb. 1770, 2 vols.); Barruel, Du Pape et ses droits (Par. 1803); Roscovany, De primatu Romans Pont. ejusque juribus (Augsb. 1834); Le Maistre, Du Pape (Par. 1820; one of the principal works from an Ultramontane point of view); Rothensee, Der Primat des Papstes (Mentz, 18301834, 4 vols.); Ellendorf, Der Primat der rom. Papste (Darmstadt, 1841 sq., 2 vols.); Gosselin, Pouvoir du Pope au Moyen Age (Louvain, 1845, 2 vols.; also transl. into German and English); Schulte, Die Stellungder Concilien, Papste und Bischofe vonm historischen und canonistischen Standpuncte (Prague, 1871); Baxmann, Gesch. der. Politik der Papste (Leips. 1870, 2 vols. 8vo); Lanfrey, Hist. Politiqe des Papes (Paris, 1873, new ed.); Wattenbach, Gesch. des romischen Papstthums (Berlin, 1876). See also English Rev. 6:188 sq.; Blackwood's Mag. March, 1868, p. 289 sq.; Amer. Presb. Rev. Jan. 1864, art. i; Kitto, Journ. of Sac. Lit. Jan. 1855; Edinb. Rev. July, 1858, art. i; New-Englander, July. 1869, p. 552; Lond. Qu. Rev. Jan. 1875, art. viii; Brit. Qu. Rev. Jan. 1875, art. i; April, 1875, art. 6 For the infallibility of the pope, (See INFALLIBILITY). (A. J. S.)
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McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Papacy'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/p/papacy.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
