Most
argue over whether Honorius was or was not a heretic, etc: I want to take a different, more obvious
approach: setting aside the issue of his orthodoxy for a moment, the mere fact
that an entire ecumenical council was perfectly fine with condemning Honorius
itself shows the mindset of the 7th century church was not that of Vatican I. If they had had a Vatican I mindset, or even
anything approximating it, such a notion would have been completely impossible.
The whole assembly would have risen up and demanded the head of anyone
challenging the office of Peter embodied in the Roman Pope (alone), which was
supposedly the cornerstone of the Church! Did this occur? No, the council unanimously condemned Honorius
and later debates ensued. This alone simply proves
they did not have a Vatican I mindset and that alone is enough to demonstrate
the dogma of the papacy is a centuries-long morphing and evolving and expanding
abberation. Romanists simply assume the papal claims of the
ultramontanes and retroactively read them into anything and everything in the
past.
The notes
in the Schaff Set argue forcefully as follows
concerning whether he was a monothelite, and note the ever-evasive trump card
of papal apologetics – when in doubt or heresy, just say “he was speaking as as
private theologian and not as pope!” An argument
so absurd and childish it hardly requires a reply, given the entire supposed
purpose of the office of the papacy!:
“Most
Roman controversialists of recent years have admitted both the fact of Pope
Honorius’s condemnation (which Baronius denies), and the monothelite (and
therefore heretical) character of his epistles, but they are of opinion that
these letters were not his ex cathedrâ utterances
as Doctor Universalis, but mere expressions of the private opinion of the
Pontiff as a theologian. With this matter we have no concern in this
connexion.
I shall therefore say nothing further on
this point but shall simply supply the leading proofs that Honorius was as a
matter of fact condemned by the Sixth Ecumenical Council.
1.
His condemnation is found in the Acts in the xiiith Session,
near the beginning.
2. His two letters were ordered to
be burned at the same session.
3.
In the xvith Session the bishops exclaimed “Anathema to
the heretic Sergius, to the heretic Cyrus, to the heretic Honorius, etc.”
4.
In the decree of faith published at the xviijth Session it
is stated that “the originator of all evil…found a fit tool for his will
in…Honorius, Pope of Old Rome, etc.”
5. The report of the Council to the
Emperor says that “Honorius, formerly bishop of Rome” they had “punished with
exclusion and anathema” because he followed the monothelites.
6. In its letter to Pope Agatho the
Council says it “has slain with anathema Honorius.”
7. The imperial decree speaks of
the “unholy priests who infected the Church and falsely governed” and mentions
among them “Honorius, the Pope of Old Rome, the confirmer of heresy who contradicted
himself.” The Emperor goes on to anathematize “Honorius who was Pope of
Old Rome, who in everything agreed with them, went with them, and strengthened
the heresy.”
8.
Pope Leo II. confirmed the decrees of the Council and expressly says that he
too anathematized Honorius.337
9. That Honorius was anathematized
by the Sixth Council is mentioned in the Trullan Canons (No. j.).
10. So too the Seventh Council
declares its adhesion to the anathema in its decree of faith, and in several
places in the acts the same is said.
11.
Honorius’s name was found in the Roman copy of the Acts. This is evident
from Anastasius’s life of Leo II. (Vita Leonis II.)
12.
The Papal Oath as found in the Liber Diurnus taken
by each new Pope from the fifth to the eleventh century, in the form probably
prescribed by Gregory II., “smites with eternal anathema the originators of the
new heresy, Sergius, etc., together with Honorius, because he assisted the base
assertion of the heretics.”
13. In the lesson for the feast of
St. Leo II. in the Roman Breviary the name of Pope Honorius occurs among those
excommunicated by the Sixth Synod. Upon this we may well hear
Bossuet: “They suppress as far as they can, the Liber Diurnus: they have
erased this from the Roman Breviary. Have they therefore hidden it?
Truth breaks out from all sides, and these things become so much the more
evident, as they are the more studiously put out of sight.”
With such an array of proof no
conservative historian, it would seem, can question the fact that Honorius, the
Pope of Rome, was condemned and anathematized as a heretic by the Sixth
Ecumenical Council.”
If
it was the mind of the 7th century Church that Pope Honorius was only speaking
as a “private theologian” and not as the infallible head, where was any of this
nonsense at the time? It was nowhere, but was in
the mind of the universal church at the time was the certitude of condemning
the bishop of Rome.
Roman
Catholic Reply: Honorius was actually legit, but wasn’t
teaching infallibly!
My
reply: See the circular nonsense of point number 1 above. This brings up another error in the Roman
Catholic system, which is founded on a classical foundationalist epistemology. Thomism, for example, still the “official”
philosophy of the Roman Church, is just such a system, where axiomatic and
self-evident principles cannot be proven, only known to be clearly
self-evident. Thus, the Roman anthropology and epistemology
formally rejects all circular arguments as
fallacies.
Yet
when it comes to the basis of the religion, grounded as it is on “supernatural”
truths over against “natural” truths, the truth of Catholicism is known by the
dogma and definitions of the papacy. The doctrine of the infallibility and
universality of the papacy is known and grounded in the promises made to St.
Peter by Jesus, i.e., Scripture, or revelation. But the
basis for faith in revelation in Scripture in terms of what the canon is, is
said to be the determination of the papal decrees on the canon of
Scripture. Thus, a vicious circle has been found within a
philosophico-reigious scheme that adamantly rejects all circular argumentation
as always fallacious. Setting
aside the problems in Thomism, I have never seen this clear issue addressed. Romanists are quick to chide Protestants and
Orthodox for being circular and arbitrary about having an individual
understanding of Scripture, but when pressed about the bases for their own
faith, wherein all forms of circular arguments are fallacious, the entire
system is found to be circular.
“I
know what’s true based on the papacy, which is based on the Petrine texts,
which the papacy determined is canonical long ago.”
The
folly of the Roman Catholic attempting to solve an epistemic question by
introducing the juridical office of the papacy into the mix is evident. It only moves the problem back a step. What is needed is a different anthropology and
epistemology where paradigmatic questions are allowed to be circular, without
violating normative logical laws. That is
possible in Orthodoxy and its Christology and anthropology and Triadology – but
not in the dogmatic classical foundationalism of Rome. (Jay
Dyer, “5 Simple Arguments Against the Papacy,” in Essays on Theology and Philosophy [Samizdat
Press, 2019], 247-50)