de Toulouse has said, "it is not allowable to examine de novo
decisions in matters of faith"; several instances have occurred in
which these same councils have disagreed in points of fact, where
the discussion turned upon the sense of an author; because, as the
same prelate observes, quoting the popes as his authorities,
"everything determined in councils, not referring to the faith, may be
reviewed and examined de novo." An example of this contrariety was
furnished by the fourth and fifth councils, which differed in their
interpretation of the same authors. The same thing happened in the
case of two popes, about a proposition maintained by certain monks
of Scythia. Pope Hormisdas, understanding it in a bad sense, had
condemned it; but Pope John II, his successor, upon re-examining the
doctrine understood it in a good sense, approved it, and pronounced it
to be orthodox. Would you say that for this reason one of these
popes was a heretic? And must you not consequently acknowledge that,
provided a person condemn the heretical sense which a pope may have
ascribed to a book, he is no heretic because he declines condemning
that book, while he understands it in a sense which it is certain
the pope has not condemned? If this cannot be admitted, one of these
popes must have fallen into error.
I have been anxious to familiarize you with these discrepancies
among Catholics regarding questions of fact, which involve the
understanding of the sense of a writer, showing you father against
father, pope against pope, and council against council, to lead you
from these to other examples of opposition, similar in their nature,
but somewhat more disproportioned in respect of the parties concerned.
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