under the veil of anonymity. They would allow no opportunity, so the readers were informed, of transferring the discussion from the sphere of objective and scientific investigation into the alien region of personal invective.
The sensation created by its appearance was very great. The Dublin Review,[1] among other expressions, declared that the writers of Janus had excluded all possibility of mistake as to whether they were Catholics. They had "shown that they are just as much and just as little Catholics as are Dean Stanley and Professor Jowett." "Janus is an openly anti-Catholic writer." The Dublin Review laid it down that "the Ultramontane doctrine exhibits certainly most singular harmony with the whole past course of ecclesiastical history"; but it manifested considerable embarrassment in determining what papal utterances there were which were really issued ex cathedra. "There have undoubtedly been very many ex cathedra acts not formally addressed to the whole Church," said the Dublin Review, but omitted to add by what characteristics infallible utterances might be known. Meanwhile Janus was called an almost incredible instance of controversial effrontery.
Döllinger's Dublin critic affirmed that—
"in real truth, through the whole post-Nicene period, Pontifical dogmatic letters issued ex cathedra are no less undeniable and no less obtrusive matters of historical fact than are Ecumenical Councils themselves; they meet the student at every page."
The Dublin Review forms a very low estimate of the intellectual power exhibited in Janus. According
- ↑ Vol. xiv. N. S. (1870), p. 194.
