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Pope Honorius & Papal infallibility???

While speaking to someone about Catholic belief and practice Honorius was brought up. Interestingly he was bishop of Rome 625 - 634. He was latter condemned by the 6th ecumenical council for being a heretic. I spent some time researching Honorius only to become perplexed. Could a Pope be a heretic? This fellow I was speaking to went on to say that the Papal oath taken up to the eleventh century condemns Honorius as �originators of the new heresy, Sergius (patriarch of Constantinople)...together with Honorius, because he assisted the base asertion of the heretics.� There seems to be a few different approaches to this problem but none to solid, and because of the difference in approaches there seems to be some uncertainty coming from Catholic Apologetics. If the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II condons the actions of the 6th ecumenical consl then is he condoning the condemnation of Honorius? Honorius was writing to another Bishop on matters of Faith & Morals and not privately, does this make it �ex cathedra�? For Honorius said, (according to Steven O�Reilly a fellow Faithful Catholic) �We confess one will in our Lord Jesus Christ...� Does this we confess mean �ex cathedra�? Modern Popes speak ex cathedra with similar and almost the same wording...I know there is an answer I�m just at the limit of where to look for it.

Yours
Br. Odo

[ 08-29-2002: Message edited by: Odo ]

Odo:
There are pages upon pages on Pope Honorius all over the net. You can find lots of thoughful, detailed discussion and lots of argumentative spin - complete with truncated quotes. I don't want ot get into this, but I would like make a remark that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Given that Monotheletism is essentially Monophysitism redux, does the agreed upon Christological Statement of Oriental and Eastern Orthodox not only rehabilitate Honorius, but in fact reveal him to have been a brilliant ecumenist who was over a millenium ahead of his time?

djs

The basis of the Joint Christological Statement with the Oriental Orthodox Churches is the fact that they were NEVER monophysites, and never held that Christ had but one nature. Rather, they were Cyrillians, following the formula of Cyril of Alexandria, who used the term nature and the term person in very imprecise way, but who always affirmed that in the man-God Jesus Christ, full humanity and full divinity were maintained without admixture or confusion. Much of the rejection of Chalcedon by the Oriental Orthodox in the 6th century resulted from the fact that most of the Council's defenders at that time were either crypto or overt diaphysites, whose position really fell within the common understanding of "nestorianism". Since both Chalcedonians and Non-Chalcedonians were in fact affirming the same truth, it was possible to overlook terminological differences and set out a common Christological understanding that reconciles the Cyrillian and the Chalcedonian perspectives.

Monothelitism, on the other hand, is not merely an attempt to express Christological truth with a different mode of expression. Rather, in attempting to reconcile the Cyrillian and the Chalcedonian positions, it went off into new and uncharted territory. Sergeius originally proposed that while there were two persons (hypostases) active in Jesus Christ, they were motivated by a single divine energy. Honorius went farther, and said (in his letter to Sergeius), that rather than a single energy, the two hypostases were motivated by a single divine will. Sergeius liked that, and ran with it.

The problem with this approach is that it subordinates the human will of Christ to the divine will of Christ, removing at a stroke the human nature's freedom of action. If the human nature of Christ is entirely controlled by the divine nature, then the human nature is not fully human, for humans are born with absolute freedom, and the ability to make moral choices. The answer given by the Sixth Council, that there are two natures and two wills, and that they are in perfect communion through the union of the hypostases in the person of Jesus Christ, manages to preserve the fullness of Christ's divinity and the fullness of his humanity, including his free will.

Monothelitism, therefore, really was a heresy in the strict sense, in that it did not merely put forward an alternative formula for expressing a truth commonly held by all, but advanced a proposition that diverged from the Church's deposit of the faith in a substantive manner, and in the process also managed to subvert our understanding both of the relationship of the divine and human in Jesus Christ, and the economy of salvation.

Honorius thus remains condemned.

Dear StuartK:

Your post, I think, misses the mark.

Monothelitism bears an intrinsic connection to Monophysitism; it does not represent a going off into new, uncharted territories, but more an evolution of the words (energy, will) used to characterize “nature”. There are two lines of evidence to support this view. First, at the time of its emergence, the verbal formula of Sergius and Cyrus was extremely effective in reconciling ostensible Monophysites to Orthodox Catholic Church. Moreover, in the present, this connection is explicitly embodied in the Joint Christological statements. These statements are not restricted to clarifying “person” and “nature”, but indeed specifically use the terms “will” and “energy” to illuminate the salient constituents of “nature”

"3. Both families agree that the Hypostasis of the Logos became composite (sunqetoj) by uniting to His divine uncreated nature with its natural will and energy, which He has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, created human nature, which He assumed at the Incarnation and made His own, with its natural will and energy.

4. Both families agree that the natures with their proper energies and wills are united hypostatically and naturally without confusion, without change, without division and without separation, and that they are distinguished in thought alone (th qewria monh)."
http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state02.html

The Statement revolves around how to count: it is agreed by the EO's that the use of “one” to underscore coherent unity of the composition is OK, provided that it is understood as a composition that has the two constituents; it is agreed by the OO's that the use of “two” is OK, provided that the categories are recognized as conceptual constituents of an coherent whole. (This discussion is reminiscent of the so-called wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics, which is, in essence, actually a statement of wave-particle unity.)

So what about Honorius?

Notwithstanding all the opinions on the net, there is very little of the actual letter of Honorius to Sergius, and almost nothing of the letter to Sergius to Honorius. So I am happy to eat the following words once I can get the full text. But, on the basis of available fragments, two things emerge.

First, it does appear that Honorius was ahead of the game in recognizing that semantical nature of the “one/two” issue.

“As to the question relative to this formula, as to the use, namely, of the words one or two he says, explicitly, that he does not wish to give a definition upon it, leaving it to the grammarians”
http://www.mwt.net/~lnpalm/honrius1.htm

Second, you claim that Honorius writes of a “single divine will”. Odo's truncated quote, seems to be the smoking gun. But this statement seems to be in response to the argument of Sergius's that an authentically human will would be in conflict and incoherent with a divine will. Honorius expresses the unity and coherence of the will, pointing out that its human component is that of the pre-fall man. The full sentence reads:

“Whence, also, we confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, since our (human) nature was plainly assumed by the Godhead, and this being faultless, as it was before the Fall.”
http://www.sewanee.edu/Theology/patristicsw/f180/p182a.html

This use of “one” is plainly compatible with the use prescribed in the EO-OO Statement.

The final item in the Joint Statement is:
“10. Both families agree that all the anathemas and condemnations of the past which now divide us should be lifted by the Churches”

It seems entirely appropriate to extend this liting of anathemas to Honorius.

djs

Odo:

Here's something nice from the Newman reader.

http://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section8.html

Given that those defining and ratifying the idea ofd papal infallibility were certainly familiar with the case of Pope Honorius, it is clear that the conditions that need to be fulfilled for an infallible statement were not, in their opinion, met by Honorius's letter.

Specifically on your point, Newman writes:

"... he could not fulfil the above conditions of an ex cathedr� utterance, if he did not actually mean to fulfil them. The question is unlike the question about the Sacraments; external and positive acts, whether material actions or formal words, speak for themselves. Teaching on the other hand has no sacramental visible signs; it is an opus operantis, and mainly a question of intention. "

djs

In the words of the Church Lady, "How conveeeenient". This is precisely the sort of legalistic hair splitting that drives the Orthodox--and me--absolutely bonkers.

Dear StuartK:

Well there's more to Newman's comments than the excerpt I posted, but this excerpt seemed most relevant to Odo's post, which essentially asked if a certain word like "confess" automatically designates an utterance as ex cathedra. The answer is, evidently, no.

It's like finding specifc formulae to certify the ecumencial nature of a council. As you noted in a previous post, there are no such criteria. Does this also drive you bonkers?

djs

The problem, of course, is that Pope Honorius had no idea that he WAS infallible, therefore it never occured to him that there were any criteria for ex Cathedra declarations that he had to make. In fact, the very notion of ex Cathedra pronouncements as defined by Pastor Aeternus wouldn't exist for some 1300 years, so he couldn't possibly have even tried to make one.

At Vatican I, the anti-infalliblists brought up Honorius, but the infalliblist party simply blew them off--they weren't interested, they had all the bases covered, because they controlled the terms of the debate and the way in which infallibility would be defined. And what they did was define the criteria for infallibility in such a way as to nullify all the evidence to the contrary by logical sleight of hand. Matters like that lead me to believe that in the fullness of time, Vatican I will be regarded just as much a Robber's Synod as the First Council of Ephesus. Only question is, "Who's going to be our Cyril of Alexandria?"

The Pope in question spoke to another Bishop of the Holy Catholic Church on a matter of faith and morals. As a Bishop, a Bishop of Rome his mistake was made. It was also written that he had made a mistake that was "hurtful to the soul". I understand that the Pope Honorius did not know he was speaking ex cathedra, but the fact remains he did make a "hurtful" mistake that could mislead souls? So I have to ask...could the current Bishop of Rome be in error when it comes to the moderisms he seems to be allowing? (see SSPX, http://www.cmri.org/cmri.htm etc.) Don't get me wrong I think the Eastern Catholic Churchs are maintianing a good level of Orthodoxy, but the Western Rite (thought you might like the Western Church being called a Rite for a change ha, ha) is under attack and needs a Pope such as St. Pious X to protect the Faith. I ask hard questions, I know, but it's not in vain. I'm learning a lot and thank you all for your time.

[ 09-01-2002: Message edited by: Odo ]

Or less cynically, one could say that the definition was highly conservative, without, however, closing the door on the possibility of a "finality" in the adjudication of, for example, doctrinal disputes.

It does not include every encyclical or bull, and certainly does not include statements not made, and actions not taken. So, Odo, it does not seem to be me to be violative of any Catholic dogma to have the opinion that the present Pope is wrong in his actions or inactions in combating modernism. (I think, however, that Honorius has really gotten a bum rap.)

But, Odo, which is really troubling you, the possibility, in canon law, of an autocratic Papacy, or the reality of a more conciliar, non-autocratic Papacy?

djs

I understand that the term "monophysitism" is imprecise (as it includes the distinct heresey of Eutyches), and that the term miaphysitism is preferred. More importantly, I have discovered but the the use of the former term rather than the latter may be considered as derogatory. I apologize for my incorrect wording in this thread, and especially to anyone personally offended by this wording.

djs