The question, therefore, arises whether Jerome would not have feared to follow an example which he so describes. Can he who so describes Liberius have believed that he who accepts papal instruction cannot be misguided?
5. Another example is the striking utterance of Pope Gelasius.
"This it is against which the Apostolic See is greatly on its guard, that the glorious confession of the Apostle, since it is the security of the world, should not be defiled by the least error or contagion.[1] For if—which God avert, and we trust cannot happen—such a misfortune should occur, how could we venture to resist any error, or how should we be able to correct the wandering?"
Gelasius teaches here, said Bellarmine, that the Apostolic See cannot err. For since the security of the world depends upon its utterances, if it were to err the whole world would be in error with it.[2]
Bossuet, on the other hand, replied as follows: A Roman Synod addressed to Bishops the question: How could they correct the error of the people if they were in error themselves? This was not an encouragement to think themselves infallible, but a warning to take precautions against being deceived. Similarly Gelasius claims that consciousness of the disastrous results which would attend its deception has deepened the cautiousness of the Roman See. To infer, however, from the character of the results, the impossibility of the occurrence is, says Bossuet, the utterly illogical conclusion that what ought not will not be. The dangerous character of the results which would follow from deception of the Roman See do not prove the impossibility of its occurrence. All they prove is the urgent necessity
