The Calumny against Pope Honorius I.
The
following article is taken, with permission of the publisher, from a
small Catholic newsletter entitled "The Francinta Messenger", dated
June 1994. The author of this article is M. Jean-Andre Perlant, who
died at age 67 on Friday, March 18, 1994 in Le Boucau, France.
Since M. Perlant originally wrote his articles in French, then
translated them into English, there are certain methods of sentence
construction and idiomatic peculiarities which made the original
somewhat difficult to follow for English-language-only readers. We
have taken the liberty of editing the article to make it a bit
clearer.
We hope M. Perlant's article will go far to eliminate any further
attempt to use the alleged, faked, "heresy" of Pope Honorius I to
support the erroneous claims of some misguided Catholics, namely, that it is possible for a true Pope to ever be a heretic, in an attempt to excuse the very real, blatant heresies of Vatican II and the Modernist "popes" who continue to uphold it.
HONORIUS I (625 - 638):
THE SULLIED REPUTATION OF A HOLY
POPE.
St. Robert
Bellarmine ended the sixth chapter of his fourth book about the
spiritual power of the popes (Controversiarum De Summo Pontifice,
Liber Quartus, De Potestate Spirituali, Caput VI) by noting
“...that up to now no supreme
Pontiff has ever been an haeretic, since it certainly cannot be
proven of any of them that he was an haeretic: therefore it is a sign
(from Heaven) that such a thing
cannot happen”.
To give
the most convincing practical proof of this, he studied all the cases
of all the popes who allegedly had succumbed to errors, beginning
with St. Peter and ending with Innocent VIII, the fortieth slandered
pope (whom the enemies of the Church accused of allowing the
Norwegians to celebrate the Eucharist without using any wine at all).
But his
longer historical research has been devoted to everything falsely
pretended about the Monothelist deviation of Honorius I. For, there
has been a crowd of people relentlessly blackening this Pope's
pontifical actions before Bellarmine, afterwards, and up to now. Here
is what Bellarmine says to begin with:
The twenty third (slandered) one is Honorius I
whom Nilus declares to have been a Monothelist . . . In the same
way, the "Magdeburgenses centuries" . . . put him amidst manifest
heretics: Melchior Cano, for example, did this.
St. Robert then argues a long series of pros and cons. He gives all
the details he has found true, and they fill seven large in-quarto
pages. To make our summary clearer, we will divide his answers
between those concerning the substance of Honorius' letters, and
those concerning the proofs of
numberless falsifications and forgeries that caused many people,
especially during the Middle Ages, to believe that Honorius had been
solemnly condemned by the Church.
As St.
Robert reports, all the scandalous stories started with the Sixth
Synod of Constantinople (681-682), e.g. “That synod has condemned
Honorius as an heretic (act. 13) and has
burnt
his
letters”.
Then started the endless publications of these conciliar “actions” by
following councils, scrupulously repeated by a host of other writers,
and even by popes throughout Christendom, even to our present day.
The
burning of Honorius’ correspondence with Sergius, the Patriarch of
Constantinople who triggered the affair, is significant. I personally
find it extremely suspicious that the “judges” should have decided to
burn “pieces of evidence”, [which were,] in fact, the only direct
physical ones that were in existence. St. Robert is thus obliged to
comment upon only two fragments; the rescued parts of the letters
that had escaped combustion. He writes the following analysis:
In
these letters there are not any errors. Honorius confesses, as
far as this affair is concerned that there were in Jesus two
will-powers that operated distinctly. He merely forbids anyone to use
the phrases “only one will-power” or “two will-powers”,
which had never been heard of before that time. But his confessing
the real existence of both powers is conspicuous in his second
letter:
“We must
confess that there are two natures in One Christ, that they are
coupled into natural unity in which they operate in communion with
each other, that they are distinct operators. Each is endowed with
its particular energy: one achieves what God intends, the other
achieves what must be called the will of His flesh, the man's
purpose... They operate concurrently, without any separation or
coalescing. We must teach that human nature is not to be fused into
the Godhead, or inversely, Divine nature into humanity. We have to
profess that both natures wholly retain their autonomy and
differences. . .”
This
proclamation is perfectly Catholic; it quite destroys
Monothelism. Only grave reasons of prudence appear to have caused
Honorius to forbid Sergius to use the phrases “two operations”
or “one operation”. It was precisely the time when the
dreadful heresy [of Monothelism] was being born, and nothing had yet
been decided by the Church about the use of such terminology. These
words had been heard for the first time in the sermons of Cyrus of
Alexandria, who had then taught that there was only one
“operation” in Jesus Christ. He was contradicted by Sophronius,
the bishop of Jerusalem, who insisted that there were two powers
operating. Cyrus had just appealed to Sergius, who referred the
matter to Rome.
The pope
was afraid of what might happen, and, nevertheless, did happen. The
dispute developed into a grievous schism. Honorius immediately
realized that if these words were not used, orthodoxy might be safe.
To reconcile both parties, he aimed at removing the stumbling block;
the very vocables that were the bone of contention. This is why he
wrote in his first letter that the phrase “only one operation”
was to be avoided, so as not to appear to be allowing only one nature
to Christ as the Eutychians did. At the same time the phrase “two
operations” was to be avoided so as not to appear to side with
the Nestorians who claimed that Jesus consisted of two persons.
Honorius
wrote:
“. . . in order that people may not think that we are
Nestorians, that we waddle into this sectarian mud because of the
provoking vocables ‘twin operations’ and, similarly in order that
surprised ears may not deduce from our speaking of one operation that
we profess the devilish nonsense of the Eutychians.”
He goes on
in his second letter teaching how to speak in order to have the
opposite opinions reconciled: “To avoid the scandal of a new
invention, we are not allowed to define that there are two
operations. But instead of the unique operation achieving decisions,
as some will say, we must speak of one person, our Lord Jesus Christ,
truly acting according to His two natures: similarly instead of two
operations, we had better speak of two natures and avoid words
meaning twin processes; we had better speak of humanity and divinity
assumed by one Being, the Godhead's sole Son, and assert that both
natures proceed along their own distinct manners, without separating
from or fusing into each other.”
Why then
should he speak of only one source of voluntariness a few lines
further down?” [I.e., is he stupid enough to contradict himself
in one and the same letter?] For he soon says:
“Therefore we confess that there is only one voluntary origin to our
Lord Jesus Christ's actions’”
I answer
that immediately before writing this passage Honorius had exclusively
dealt with His human nature. He consequently wanted to say: there
have never been conflicting will-powers in Jesus, namely flesh versus
spirit, because the spiritual power of Christ's manhood did not ask
for anything unreasonable. This did Honorius bear in mind which is
obvious if we follow what he explains:
“Therefore we mention only one will-power in Jesus. He did assume our
human nature forsooth, but not the sinners' one. This nature was such
as it existed when first created before sinning; it was not the
nature that became vitiated by sin.”
This way
of reasoning is worthless if we use it to demonstrate that there is
only one will-power in Jesus, both a perfect man and really God. But
it is quite relevant to show that the man in Jesus has never suffered
from opposing impulses, the will of the Flesh and that of His human
spirit. For these conflicting inclinations in today's men are born
from sin. But Christ surely enjoys human nature immaculate.
In any
case, one could object some passages from the Gospel, such as: “I
have not come to do My own will”, and “Not what I want, but
You”. They seem to prove that there are two conflicting
will-powers in Jesus, considered as a man: an evil, selfish one that
refused the Passion, and a second one that did not in the first place
want to do his own selfish will, but fulfill the contrary design
which was God's will. Honorius does not fail to deal with this
objection a little further on. He answers:
“It is
written, He said, ‘I have not come to do my own will, but My Father's
who sent
Me.’
and ‘Not what I, but what You want, Father!’ and other things of the
same tenor. These do not manifest diverging purposes, but the
acceptance of human nature which God has assumed. These words have
been uttered for our sake, in order to afford us a lesson, so that we
may walk in his footsteps. The devoted Master sets an example for his
disciples, so that each of us, in every circumstance, should do God's
will and not our own.”
This
means that Christ has not entertained contrary intentions, so that he
should have had to labor to suppress and mortify one of them. But he
speaks as though he were dragged to and fro by conflicting impelling
powers, to teach us how to mortify our own will-power that is often
tempted to rebel against God.
As usual Bellarmine is very exhaustive about the circumstances of
every case he examines.
Next, we
cover his assertions and proofs that Honorius' letters to Sergius may have been
tampered with by heretics, and then placed into the conciliar
register. He first notes that:
. . .
the supposition would not be rash because pseudo-letters of pope
Vigil and of Manna the Constantinopolitan Patriarch had previously
been introduced into the records of the Fifth General Council. This
has been testified in the 12th and 14th acts of the Sixth General
Council, when the hoax was discovered as the Fathers read over the
acts of the preceding Fifth Synod and found that files containing
fabricated letters had been inserted. There would be nothing
extraordinary if the same kind of forgers had falsified the register
of the Sixth General Council.
But after
having given his own reading of the remainders of the two letters,
Bellarmine supports his interpretation by an incontrovertible
historical proof. He produces the testimony of Saint Maxim who was
Honorius' contemporary; he writes:
Saint
Maxim has actually written a “Dialogue” directed at Pyrrhus who had
succeeded Sergius. This “Dialogue” has been preserved in the
Vatican's Library. St. Maxim stages himself facing heretical Pyrrhus
who cites Honorius as a witness supporting his side. And the saint
personally replies that Honorius had always been Catholic. He
puts forward several pieces of evidence, among which is the statement
of Honorius' secretary to whom the pope had dictated his letters to
Sergius. Maxim says: “The man is still alive and bears witness
that Honorius has never thought of negating two willpowers in Our
Lord Jesus Christ. The secretary asserts that where Honorius seems to
be refusing the duality, one must understand what he means aright: he
thinks of the conflicting tendencies in human nature. They are the
result of sin, but have never existed in Jesus”.
Let us quote
Saint Maxim directly:
“Pyrrhus:
what can you answer about Honorius who, a few years ago stated in the
letters he sent to Sergius that obviously there was but one
will-power in Our Lord Jesus Christ?
“Maxim:
Which version of these letters must be considered as the more
undeniable, the more consistent with truth: either the one by the
secretary who wrote under Honorius' direction, and who is all the
more reliable as he is still alive after illuminating all the western
countries with the splendour of religious integrity, or had we better
confide in what is reported by the citizens of Constantinople who
conveniently utter only what pleases them?
“Pyrrhus:
the more trustworthy interpretation is afforded by the one who wrote
the letters.
“Maxim:
now then, this is what the latter wrote to Emperor Constantine (III)
when Pope John (IV) ordered him to give his own account: ‘You may be
sure that what we have said of the one, unique, will-power in Our
Lord, must not be understood as describing both his natures at once,
the human and the divine one. This applies only to his human nature.
When Sergius announced that some people taught that there were two
will-powers fighting each other in Jesus Christ, we answered that
there were no conflicting inclinations in Him’.”
Lastly it
being quite evident that in his whole letter Honorius insists that
such phrases as “one will-power” or “two will-powers”
must be omitted, how could he forget his decision and deliberately
confess that there exists only one will-power? This demonstrates
that he does not speak of one will-power exerted both by the man and
the God at once, but of the quality of Jesus' human nature alone. The
following lines (infra) will confirm the secretary's testimony. So
we do maintain that no heresy is to be found in Honorius’ letters.
This,
surely, is enough to convince sensible Christians that Honorius has
never been an heretic. But because so much is made of the
condemnation of this disciple of Gregory (Gregorius Magnus, i.e. St.
Gregory the Great) by the so-called Sixth Synod of Constantinople, to
satisfy interested readers' curiosity, let us go on with what
Bellarmine says about it:
No doubt
the enemies of the Roman Church have achieved (this inclusion of)
Honorius in the list of those condemned by the sixth council, as well
as interpolating every charge invented against him in the conciliar
register. That is what I demonstrate first of all through the
testimony of Anastasius the librarian who reports in his “History”
that (that particular) treachery really happened, according to the
description of the Greek Theophanus Isaurus; secondly by reminding
people that it was an almost universal practice among Greeks to
falsify texts.
Here St.
Robert Bellarmine repeats what he has already been revealed about
acts 12 and 14 of the Council. He adds:
St. Leo
the Great in his “Epistle to the Palestinians” (83) already
complained that, not keeping in mind his being a living witness, the
Greeks had altered his “Epistle to Flavian”. Gregory (vol. V,
epistle 14 to Narsis) asserted that the Constantinopolitans did
corrupt the Chalcedonian Synod and that he suspected they did the
same with the Ephesian Council. He adds that the Roman manuscripts
are much more trustworthy than the Grecian ones, “because, as the
Romans are less subtle, they are also less inclined to perfidy”.
A last
example: Nicolas I in his epistle to Michael refers the Emperor to
Hadrian's letter with these words:
“It is
still intact, exactly as it was originally sent by the Apostolic See,
in the hands of the Constantinopolitan clergy, if however, it has not
been tampered with according to the Greeks' habit.”
And he does not say so without a good reason. For
what he quotes from Hadrian's letter to Tharasius in the epistle he
himself sent to Photius, has vanished from the same letter, as it was
read during the Seventh Synod. The Greeks had actually suppressed a
whole passage, because it meant dishonor for Tharasius. Now if the
Greeks did corrupt the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Seventh synods, is there anything
extraordinary about their likewise falsifying the Sixth? All the
more so, because after the council had been regularly concluded, many
bishops traveled back to
Constantinople to edict the so-called “canons of Trullos”.
These bishops seem to have had but one purpose i.e. to blame and
injure the Roman Church.
What
Bellarmine reports is, quite clearly, more than enough to show that
Honorius' conciliar condemnation was faked.
For
further confirmation of this foul play there are many other proofs,
and among them, those shown in my essay about "the old orthodox":
what the Abbes Barruel and Darras discovered during the 19th century.
To show how incredible it is that (modern) Catholic researchers could
have been really unaware of the Greeks' customary fabrications, as
some prominent sedevacantists [and other prominent self-taught
“theologians”] feign to be, I will add what the "protonotarius
apostolicus", Justin Fevre, reports in the reissue of the complete
works of St. Robert Bellarmine (A.D. 1870), which no "expert" can
pretend not to have read. But our sedevacantist [and other
self-taught “theologian”] "periti" are often no better than any
conciliar "peritus" of thirty [now, 47] years ago: they are either
venomous traitors or naive followers of the arch marvelous chief
liar, faithfully repeating calumnies against Christ's vicars without
any hesitation. In a footnote (liber IV, Chapter XI) the
"protonotarius apostolicus" reveals that it is quite certain:
1) that
there were specialised workshops fabricating apocryphal documents
both in
Antioch
and in Constantinople in the surroundings of the churches dedicated
to Saint John and Saint Phocas.
2) that
227 Greek bishops have, without any qualms, signed the text of the
so-called "quintus-sextus" (V - VI) General Council, a wild meeting
between the Fifth and the Sixth regular ones, which Rome has always
considered as a “robbers' synod”, similar to the one that took place
after the real Sixth synod of Constantinople, and prepared the
”canons of Trullos”, well-known because the Eastern Church has used
them as an excuse to allow her priests (popes) to marry.
3) that
the texts of the Sixth Synod have undergone so many mutations and
interpolations that they are teeming with contradictions.
4) that
forgery is patent when one compares the acts of the Sixth Synod with
St. Agatho`s biography in the Pontifical Annals (Liber Pontificalis).
5)
that
Rome
has never admitted any accusation against Honorius.
The letters of Saint Leo II which divulge the condemnation have been
fabricated by Monothelists. This is evident from a confusion of
dates, from the stupidity of the “Pontiff” contradicting St Agatho
and Emperor Constantine Pogonat, and writing to Quiricius Toletanus,
who had been dead for forty years, and to Simplicius, a
Spanish prefect who never existed. If you want more proofs,
consult the ‘Annales de philosophic chretienne’ 1853, second
volume.
Bellarmine
also gives the following reason of internal consistency.
The
Council could not condemn Honorius for any heresy, unless warring
against itself and Agatho`s letter by plainly asserting contradicting
declarations. For in his first letter Agatho, writing as the reigning
pope to the Emperor, expressed the doctrine that was read to the
conciliar Fathers during the 4th session: “This is the original
substance of our faith, the very one that has been maintained in
either tempestuous or halcyon days by the spiritual Mother of your
most serene Empire. She cannot be any other than the Church of
Christ's apostles, that supported by God's grace has never wandered
out of the true path of Tradition, which the years to come will
clearly show; for She has never admitted the corruption of later
heresy: on the contrary she has preserved the Deposit of Faith
immaculate, as she received it at the beginning from Jesus' apostles
who ruled Her. She will keep it unsullied to the end. Indeed She
thus achieves what was divinely promised by our Lord, who said to the
Prince of disciples what has been reported in the Gospels; ‘Peter,
Peter, now Satan has claimed his right to sift you like wheat; but I
have asked for thee that thy faith should not fail; as for thou, when
you are converted, steady thy brethren’ May your Serene Majesty
think that the Lord and Saviour of all, the very essence of our
faith, has promised that Peter's orthodoxy could not fail and has
commanded him to confirm the faith of his brothers; which every one
of the Pontiffs that have preceded me, the minim among them, has
always done carefully, as has been universally acknowledged.”
There you note that Agatho does not only say that Faith has never
failed in St. Peter's See, and cannot fail either, so that the
supreme Pontiff cannot officially decree anything contrary to the
Deposit of Faith, but also that every one of his predecessors, among
whom Honorius is included, has always resisted heresies and steadied
his brothers in the true Faith. And, further below, after enumerating
as heretical the Monothelists Cyrus, Sergius, Pyrrhus, Peter, Paul
and Theodore, he concludes: “Consequently we must use the utmost
energy to rescue and liberate the Holy Divine Church from the errors
of such Doctors, in order that all the members of the hierarchy, of
the clergy, of the Christian population may confess and teach with us
the right orthodox and apostolic doctrine which is founded upon the
rock of St. Peter, the prince of the apostles of our Church, who
through the grace and protection of this self-same Peter remains
unsullied by any error whatsoever.”
This
epistle received unanimous approbation from the Synod. Indeed the Conciliar Fathers approved Agatho enthusiastically in their acts 8 and
18: “These words are not really Agatho's: blessed Peter has spoken
through him.” This is my way of arguing from these data: if
Honorius had actually been a Monothelist, how does Agatho, while
combating the Monothelist heresy, brazenly dare pretend:
1) that none
of his predecessors has ever deviated from Truth.
2) then that
other churches have been smeared by errors of their Prelates
3) and that
eventually
Rome
alone should have remained immaculate ?
On the
other hand if the Council states that Peter has expressed himself
through Agatho, while the latter proclaimed that the Roman pontiffs
have constantly strengthened their brothers' faith, and never
succumbed to any heresy, how then do the Conciliar Fathers dare
anathematize Honorius in almost every synodal act? It is, obviously,
then necessary either that the acts should have been falsified, or
that Agatho's letter should have been counterfeited. In default of
which the Council inflicts upon itself and Agatho a cutting
contradiction, which even heretics never suggested. The second
possibility has nowhere been mentioned and no trace of it has ever
been found. We must then stick to the first possibility.
Then
Bellarmine definitely destroys Nilus' criticism about Agatho’s
message to the Council. Which once done, he considers other
allegations:
On the
third point I answer the Fathers of the seventh Council have only
followed the archives of the sixth. They have merely repeated what
they could read. They were but misled by the forged records.
St Robert
then goes on tackling other false assumptions, among which the case
of Pope Hadrian's document.
On the
fourth proof which is proposed, I answer Pope Hadrian, and the
Council he gathered in Rome, does not directly affirm Honorius to
have been heretical. He merely reports that he has been declared
heretical by the Orientals. He knew quite well that, according to
the antecedent Council that had been convoked by Martin I in Rome,
Honorius had never been condemned by the
Western
Church.
To the
fifth argument I answer that Melchior Cano has erred twice. First,
when he says that Agatho had anathematized Honorius. The condemnation
is nowhere to be found in any of Agatho's letters. Apparently Cano
has been deceived by the "Summa conciliarum". [It is obvious that]
the author of the compendium has indeed added the name of Honorius to
the list of the heretics that Agatho excommunicated despite contrary
evidence, [which is that] Agatho's letters are all entirely copied in
the second volume of the Summa. Moreover Cano errs a second time
when he says that Agatho sent his letter to Council VI. The truth is
that Agatho has directed both letters that are referred to, to the
Emperor of Byzantium.
As for
the sixth statement, I reply to it that if Leo II's letter is
supposed to be a piece of Synod VI, and is quoted as such, this shows
that the epistle has been fabricated by the same forgers that
falsified Synod VI.
About the
seventh way of arguing I answer: I oppose some authors to others, the
majority to the minority, the more ancient to the more modern.
Here he
quotes the names of the authors he relies upon. He concludes thus:
I have
counted Bede among the former ones, in spite of Cano. I have no
doubts about the Britannic Saint's opinion, though Honorius' name
does suddenly appear in Liber I, “De sex aetatibus” among the hierarchs excommunicated by Synod VI.
At the
late period when the copyist was working, this semi-erudite
intellectual [the copyist] probably added Honorius to the list Bede
had transmitted, [since] the name was almost everywhere associated
with Cyrus, Sergius, etc... in the accounts of the Sixth
Constantinopolitan Council.
One
really gathers from Venerable Bede's second book of his History of
the Angles that the author had constantly known that even after
his death Honorius' reputation was reminiscent of holiness (among
contemporary Romans). Bede repeatedly cites him as an example of the
Good Shepherd, i.e. in his Vita Sancti Bortolfi, Abbatis (the
Life of Abbot Saint Bortolfus), where he qualifies Honorius sometimes
as holy (sanctus), sometimes as blessed (beatus). He says among other
things: “Honorius has been a hardy, wise, venerable Pontiff,
steady of purpose, illustrious for his doctrine, of conspicuous
mildness and humility.” And a little further on, 'This holy
pope did not forget Bortolfus, his (spiritual) father, and invested
him with the charge that the latter had wished to get. He moreover
endowed him with the privilege of depending directly upon the Holy
See, so that no bishop could pretend to exert any jurisdictional
power over the above-mentioned monastery.”
This did Venerable Bede write about Honorius. He would never
have done so if he had believed that St. Gregory's disciple had
been excommunicated because of heresy.
(Thus ends St. Robert Bellarmine's,
and our, defense of Pope Honorius I.)
The following
quotation is from the original Douay-Rheims bible, printed in 1582,
and was written by Dr. (Fr.) Gregory Martin and his collaborators.
Now to give thee also
intelligence in particular, most gentle reader, of such things as it
behooveth thee specially to know concerning our Translation: we
translate the old vulgar Latin text (i.e. the Latin Vulgate of St.
Jerome), not the common Greek text, for these causes:
. . . 10. The proof hereof is
evident because most of the ancient Heretics were Grecians, and
therefore the Scriptures in Greek were more corrupted by them, as
the ancient fathers often complain.
Then follows a long
discussion, proving that the Greek texts of the Holy Scriptures
which were either contemporaneous or came after St. Jerome's Latin
Vulgate, had been, very often, tampered with by the various Greek
heretics of the period, and could not be relied upon for accuracy.
This is further
corroboration for St. Robert Bellarmine's flat statements that the
Greeks had falsified the records of the various councils.
Apparently, it was
common knowledge at the time.
Lastly, let us
mention that the opponents of the Doctrine of Infallibility during
the debates at Vatican Council I which defined that doctrine, also
used the specious argument of Pope Honorius I's falsified
"defection" against it, and that argument was set aside as null and
void by that Council.