Collective Episcopate, as contrasted with the claims of the Papacy. And the whole of the struggle which issued in the Vatican Assembly of 1870 was a struggle between these two conceptions of spiritual authority.
The extent to which the old Gallican principles prevailed in France of the early nineteenth century may be gathered from Bergier's Theological Dictionary, which was the French popular encyclopedia of theology, and obtained a great circulation.
"Infallibilist—The name sometimes given to those who maintain that the Pope is infallible,—that is to say, that when he addresses to the entire Church a dogmatic decree, a decision on a point of doctrine, it cannot happen that this decision should be false or subject to mistake. This is the ordinary opinion of Ultramontane theologians."[1]
Then after summarising Bossuet's teaching, the article concludes that, since it is an essential function of the pastors of the Church to witness to the universal faith, the witness of the sovereign Pontiff taken by itself cannot produce the same degree of moral certitude which results from a very considerable number of concurrent witnesses. As head of the Universal Church, the sovereign Pontiff is undoubtedly well informed as to the general belief and is its principal witness; but his witness, united to that of a vast multitude of Bishops, possesses quite a different force than when it is alone.
2. There were the Ultramontane writers in France, who contributed vastly to the propagation of Roman ideas.
One of the pioneers of Ultramontane development was Joseph de Maistre. Connected for some time
- ↑ Bergier, Dictionnaire de Théologie (1850).
