3. From the writings of St Augustine probably no phrase has been more often quoted in behalf of papal inerrancy than that in which, referring to the Pelagian controversy, he says:—
"Already on this matter two Councils have sent to the Apostolic See, whence also answers have been received. The cause is finished, would that the error were also finished."[1]
In other words, says a Roman writer,[2] Pope Innocent I. has determined the matter. The Pontifical Decree has settled that the truth is on Augustine's side. Could it do so unless it were infallible? To another writer this inference is indisputably clear.[3]
It is, however, more than questionable whether this exposition would satisfy Roman critical writers of to-day. For they do not claim Pope Innocent's reply to the African Bishops as an exercise of Infallibility. Thus Augustine's criticism is no evidence of his belief in Innocent's inerrancy.
"St Augustine and all his century," says a Bishop of the Roman Church, "like the centuries before him, placed the supreme authority, the authority which cannot fail, not in the Pope alone, but in the Pope and the Episcopate."[4]
Nevertheless, the passage was appealed to by the Ultramontanes in the Vatican struggle. They assigned to St Augustine the statement: "Rome has spoken, the cause is finished." This was the form in which Augustine's sentiments were commonly quoted for centuries. Gratry's criticism upon it represents the opposition.
