found more than enough. The three following works will suffice. Let any candid man examine 'Turrecremata de Conciliis,' 'Orsi de Eomani Pontificis Auctoritate,' 'Brancatus de Lauræa De Decretis Ecclesiæ.' All that can now be done is to sum up briefly a few of the chief heads, and to mark the outline of the subject.
Although General Councils, apart from the Pontiff, have the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet they are not thereby necessarily infallible: but when directed by their head in the definitions they make, or when confirmed by him, they cannot err.[1]
The decrees of General Councils, made apart from their head, or not confirmed by their head, even though they be true, yet do not impose the obligation of belief or obedience upon the Church.[2]
A Council is not truly general, nor does it represent the Universal Church, if it be apart from its head, or act without him, or without subordination to him: for then it would be a headless body. Therefore, it is by the influx of the head into the body that the Council acts, and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost it acts infallibly, so as to bind all the faithful. Hence, S. Leo the Great says of the Decree of the Council of Chalcedon against Eutyches: "What things the Lord had defined before by our ministry, He confirmed by the irreversible
