prove to him the truth ; and perhaps he even did so, though we have no knowledge of the fact."[1]
To Cardinal Bellarmine, Jesuit of the sixteenth century, the persistent refusal of Cyprian to accept the Pope's teachings appeared very grave indeed. Cyprian, says Bellarmine, was not a heretic, because those who say that the Pope can err are not even yet considered manifestly heretics. But whether Cyprian did not commit a mortal sin in disobeying the Pope, Bellarmine is not sure. On the one hand, Cyprian sinned in ignorance. Thinking the Pope in serious error, he was obliged to disobey; for no man ought to go against his conscience—and a Council of eighty Bishops agreed with him. On the other hand, he appears to have mortally sinned, for he disobeyed an apostolic precept, and refused to submit to the judgment of his superior.
Archbishop Kenrick's dogmatic inference from these facts in the Vatican Council was as follows:—
"When Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, held mistaken views as to the rebaptism of heretics upon their return to the Church, and had strenuously defended them against the Roman Pontiff Stephen, Augustine considered him to be justified: because the matter in question had not yet been elucidated by the authority of a General Council. Thus Augustine did not regard as decisive the Roman Pontiff's opinion which had already condemned this error, and by which, according to my opponents, the dispute had been already infallibly determined. Augustine therefore was ignorant of the doctrine of Pontifical Infallibility. Had he acknowledged it, it must have followed that Cyprian was not only indefensible for his conduct, but had actually incurred condemnation for heresy."
- ↑ Augustine, De Baptismo, II. iv. p. 5.
