anticipation many misconceptions of the doctrine of infallibility. It is hard to believe that some who have written on this subject really meant what they said. Some have called it the "apotheosis"[1] of the Pope. Possibly they did not know Greek. Some have said that he was deified—that is, made to be God. Probably they did not know what they said. Some have said that the decree made the Pontiff to be a Vice-God. If they meant Dei or Christi vicarius, many generations of Christians have said so before them, and we feel it no reproach; if they mean a substitute for God, or an idol, we may charitably doubt their sanity, or not unjustly suspect their truthfulness. Others again have said that to declare the Pontiff to be infallible is to invest him with divine attributes. The Jews said truly, "Who can forgive sins but God only?" And yet our Lord breathed upon his apostles and said,
- ↑ The use of the word deification in this controversy may be said to have come from a source which is not Christian. It first appeared in the correspondence from Berlin in one of our chief journals. The name of the correspondent was no secret; and he must have enjoyed the irony of using a Christian newspaper in England to assail the vicar of the Nazarene. From this beginning it was soon spread. One of the most recent and most flagrant instances is the following:—"The Vatican Council was so far the culminating yet utterly incomplete act, in a drama elaborately arranged, step by step, to finish with the deification of the occupant of the See of Rome." (Times, February 17, 1877.) It is to be feared that this writer did know Latin; and it would be well if editors knew the ridicule cast upon them on the Continent for these malevolent absurdities.
