Bishop Hefele on Pope Honorius [pp. 273-301]

~98 VON HEFELE ON POPE RONORIUS. [April,
Sergius, etc., and with them Honorius... because in this
he has followed them." Of a confirmation of the Papal claim
of infallibility there is nowhere a trace.
Having thus demonstrated the futility of the found ation of
the whole argumentation of M. de Margerie, we might hero
conclude, but it may be worth the trouble to go in to details,
that we may have a complete knowledge of the genuine character of this oj~oscu(e.
1.The gravest charge against Honorius is his position that
"in Christ there is only one will." In this he positively
taught heresy. Now, M. de Margerie would make us believe
that this passage is spurious, interpolated. He has not the
audacity to affirm this outright, but he does all be can to
arouse suspicion against the passage, and would make it appear as if he had got possession of a wholly new element in
the case, j. e. the testimony of Abbot Maximus in the seventh
century (p. 29, 45). This Maximus refers to the assertions of
the Roman Abbot Johannes, (a) that the Greeks had falsified
the text of tbe epistle of Honorius; and (b) that Honorius
spoke only of one human will in Christ, and that good.
As we have seen, the Abbot Johannes, and Maximus
after him, do not in the least deny that Honorius actually nsed
the expression one will; on the contrary, they confirm the position that this expression stands in his epistles; they confirm this, because they attempt to excuse thefaux pas by saying that Honorius was speaking only of the one (good) human
will in Christ, while he said nothing of the divine will, because
Sergins had not alluded to it.
We have already proved that this evasIo~ is groundless;
and only add, that if it had been possible to explain the expression "one will" in the epistle of Honorius as interpolated, his many and zealous defenders would have seized
upon this mode of defense long before M. de Margerie was
born.
2.After Margene made the discovery that the Sixth Gen
eral Coun6il decreed infallibility, he must naturally change,
interpret in suavius, all those statements and words of the
Council ~hich contain an anathema upon the hcretic Hono