The Contemporary Review, January 1883: Vol 43, No. 1Various
Science
The Contemporary Review, January 1883: Vol 43, No. 1
Various
Arts -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals; Political science -- Periodicals
The new Bollandists, indeed, do not produce such exhaustive monographs
as their predecessors did; but we cannot join in the verdict of the
writer in the new issue of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," who tells us
that the continuation is much inferior to the original work. Some of
their articles manifest a critical acquaintance with the latest modern
research, as, for instance, their dissertation on the Homerite Martyrs
and the Jewish Homerite kingdom of Southern Arabia, wherein they display
their knowledge of the work done by the great Orientalists of England
and Germany, while in their history of St. Rose, of Lima, A.D. 1617,
they celebrate the only American who was ever canonized by the Roman
Catholic Church, and, at the same time, give us a fearful picture of the
austerities to which fanaticism can lead its victims. Perhaps to some
readers one of the most interesting points about this great work, when
viewed in the light of modern history, will be the complete change of
front which it exhibits on one of the test questions about Papal
Infallibility. One of the great difficulties in the path of this
doctrine is the case of Liberius, Pope in the middle of the fourth
century. He is accused--and to ordinary minds the accusation seems
just--of having signed an Arian formula, of having communicated with the
Arians, and of having anathematized St. Athanasius. He stood firm for a
while, but was exiled by the Emperor. During his absence Felix II. was
chosen Pope. Liberius, after a time was permitted to return; whereupon
the spectacle, so often afterwards repeated, was witnessed of two Popes
competing for the Papal throne. Felix, however he may have fared in
life, has fairly surpassed his opponent in death, since Felix appears in
the Roman Martyrology as a Saint and a Martyr under the date of July
29; while Liberius is not admitted therein even as a Confessor. This
would surely seem to give us every guarantee for the sanctity of Felix,
and the fallibility of Liberius, as the Roman Martyrology of to-day is
guaranteed by a decree of Pope Gregory XIII., issued "under the ring of
the Fisherman." In this decree "all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops,
abbots, and religious orders," are bidden to use this Martyrology
without addition, change, or subtraction; while any one so altering it
is warned that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the
Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. The earlier Bollandists, with this
awful anathema hanging over them, most loyally accepted the Roman
Martyrology, and therefore most vigorously maintained, in the seventh
volume for July, the heresy of Liberius, as well as the orthodoxy and
saintship of Felix. But, as years rolled on, this admission was seen to
be of most dangerous consequence; and so we find, in the sixth volume,
for September, that Felix has become, as he still remains in current
Roman historians, like Alzog, a heretic, a schismatic, and an anti-Pope,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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