eight synods that Ionorius had been condemned for heresy. In like manner, Rupert of Deutz would not, as he has done, have contrasted the steadfast orthodoxy of the popes with the heretical aberrations of the patriarchs of Constantinople, if he had not shared the general ignorance respecting the sixth council. 2

Accordingly, in the West, as often as cases had to be quoted in which popes had erred or become heretical, people appealed to those of Liberius and Anastasius, sometimes also to that of Marcellinus; never to Honorius. This ignorance appears in a very astonishing way under Clement V. At that time there was on the part of the French a pressing desire for a formal anathema on Boniface VIII. The defenders of this pope contended that as being a dead man who could no longer answer for himself, he was exempt from all human judgment, and therefore even from that of the Roman See. The instance of Honorius would have been very welcome to the agents of the French court; for by means of it they could have proved in the most emphatic way that the Church had certainly sat in judgment on a defunct pope, and had condemned him. The fact, however, had long since vanished from the memories of jurists no less

1 Contra Guibertum Antipapam, Bibl. Patrum Lugd., xviii., 609. 2 De Divinis Offic., 2, 22.

than of theologians; and hence in the long controversy and legal discussion the name of Honorius was never mentioned,

Hence it has come to pass that Platina has even made Honorius a decided opponent of Monothelitism, and he represents Heraclius as banishing Pyrrhus and Cyrus at the suggestion of Honorius. But that towards the close of the sixteenth century the learned Panvinio, whom Cianoni then copied in turn, should allow this to pass unchallenged, is scarcely conceivable.

The fact that Honorius was condemned by the sixth general council was first brought back to the memory of the Western Church by a Greek living in Constantinople, Manuel Kalekas, who in the year 1390 wrote a work against the Byzantines for being separated from the West. The papal nuncio Anton Massanus, a Minorite, brought the book from Constantinople to the papal court in 1421; whereupon Martin V. had it translated by the celebrated Camaldulensian abbot, Ambrose Traversari. From it cardinal Torquemada, 1 who wrote his Summa about the year 1450, first learnt the condemnation of Honorius, which disturbed him greatly; for by no

1 Quetif et Echard, Scriptores O. P., I., 718.

sort of means would it work into his system. 1 Kalekas had made light of the affair in his controversy with the Greeks. He had contented himself with referring to the excuse which Maximus makes for Honorius, without troubling himself with the consideration that the judgment of an oecumenical council must have an authority very different from the evasive answer of a theologian, who knew of no other way of helping his case than to make the secretary answerable for the errors contained in the pope's 2 letter. Now Torquemada was acquainted with the declaration of Hadrian II. from the Acts of the eighth council, to the effect that Honorius had been anathematised for heresy. Nevertheless, he says that we must suppose that the Orientals were misinformed about Honorius, and so had condemned him under a mistake. His sole ground for saying this is, that pope Agatho, in enumerating the Monothelite leaders, has not mentioned Honorius among them.

This attempt to load an oecumenical council with

1 Summa de Ecclesia, 2, 3, ed. Venet., 1560, f., 228. This is the most important work of the Middle Ages on the question of the extent of the papal power.

2 Contra Græcorum errores, Ingolst., 1608, p. 381.

3 "Creditur quod hoc fecerint Orientales ex mala et falsa sinistra "informatione de prælato Honorio decepti."

the charge of a gross error, merely to rescue the honour of one pope, remained, however, on the whole, unobserved, and stood alone at that time. For then, as through the whole of the Middle Ages, the view still prevailed that a pope could certainly apostatise from the faith and become heretical, and in such a case both could and ought to be deposed.

Not until after the middle of the sixteenth century did any one occupy himself seriously with the question of Honorius. The fact of the condemnation was irreconcileable with the system then developed by Baronius, Bellarmine, and others. Attempts were accordingly made to set it aside. It was pretended, that is to say, that the Acts of the sixth council had been falsified by the Greeks of a later age, and all therein that concerned Honorius had been interpolated by them, in order that the disgrace of so many Oriental patriarchs being condemned for heresy might be lessened by the shame of a pope being found in the same predicament. Then it became necessary to declare that the letter of Leo II. was also interpolated. And on this Baronius, Bellarmine, Hosius, Binius, Duval, and the Jesuits Tanner and Gretser determined. But when the Liber Diurnus came to light, the nullity of this attempt was disclosed. Another mode of getting out o. the difficulty

proved still more untenable; this was to deny the condemnation of Honorius at the sixth council, and transfer it to another purely Greek synod (the quinisext1 council of A.D. 692 is apparently the one meant), the Acts of which were then inserted in those of the sixth council. This was the device resorted to by Sylvius Lupus, and the Roman oratorian Marchese, who has set forth this idea in a book of his own.2

That the letters of Honorius were forgeries, or that they had been interpolated, was somewhat more conceivable; at least the supposition demanded no such immense and elaborate apparatus of falsification as Baronius and Bellarmine pictured to themselves, or at any rate to their readers. This mode of escape therefore was chosen by Gravina and Coster; Stapleton also and Wiggers were inclined towards it.

1 [Called quinisext, as being supplementary to the fifth and sixth councils. It is also known as the Trullan, from the Trullus or vaulted hall, in which it was held. The date of it is doubtful; 636, 691, 692 have all been suggested. Harduin places it as late as 706. The two papal legates signed its 102 canons; but pope Sergius I., to the chagrin of the emperor Justinian II., declined to do so. The council was recognised by the East only, where its Acts were quoted as those of the sixth council; and this was the first grave step towards the schism between the East and the West.]

2 Clypeus fortium, sive Vindicia Honorii Papæ. Romæ, 1680. 3 Against endeavours such as these of Bellarmine, Baronius, and others after them,-to set aside well-attested historical facts by