Unfehlbarkeit und Geschichte: Studien zur Unfehlbarkeitsdiskussion von Melchior Cano bis zum I. Vatikanischen Konzil by Ulrich Horst (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 633 years of global activity into 867 pithy pages; a prodigious feat of painstaking research coherently formulated and faithfully articulated. WALTER .T. Bn.nsT~1IN St. Jerome's College University of Waterloo, Waterloo Unfehlba1·keit und Geschichte: Studien zur Unfehlbarkeitsdiskussion von Melchior Cano bis zum I. Vatikanischen Konzil. By ULRICH HORST. Walberberger Studien der Albertus-Magnus-Akademie, Theologische Reihe, v. 12. Mainz: Matthias-Griinewald-Verlag, 1982. Pp. xxxiv + 262. DM 44. The Dominican scholar Ulrich Horst has spent over a decade working on the history of the doctrine of papal infallibility. A series of articles and a book, Papst-Konzil-Unfehlbarkeit, which appeared as Vol. 10 in this same series in 1978, have prepared the way for the present publication. The book consists of seven more or less related studies. Four of these treat the infallibility teaching of individuals whose works constitute significant landmarks in the development of the doctrine: Melchior Cano (1509-60); the patristic scholar Pietro Ballerini (1698-1769); the future pope Gregory XVI, Bartolomeo Cappellari, (1765-1846); and Cardinal Filippo Guidi (1815-79) who made an important address at Vatican I. The other three studies are of a summarizing nature. Chapter 2 gives briefly the teachings of a number of Dominican theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries. Chapter 5 describes views of Gallican supporters, principally those who lived in the period 1750-1850. Chapter 7 is an overview which treats the whole development of the teaching on infallibility from the 13th century through Vatican I with extended treatments of St. Thomas and Pietro Olivi (both in dialogue with Brian Tierney) and of the period preceding Vatican I (in dialogue with August Hasler). Although these seven studies were not conceived as a single integrated work, still the author manages to give us a sense of the overall development of the doctrine of infallibility from 1250 to Vatican I by drawing on the fruits of his detailed research (published here and previously) and by the judicious use of secondary sources. The historical development of the teaching on papal infallibility is closely intertwined with that on the primacy. The initial stage of that development took place on the practical plane in the struggle of the Franciscans to secure the establishment of their ideals as conformable to the Gospel. Thus, Bonaventure stressed the presence of the fullness of juridical power in the pope as the source from 634 BOOK REVIEWS which all other Church officials derived their powers. In using this power Pope Honorius III had sanctioned the Franciscan rule; if he had erred in so doing, he would have led the whole Church into error; but this is impossible. In effect, Bonaventure had illustrated in a concrete case the operation of papal infallibility; but he did not name it, specify its specific object, or articulate the conditions of its exercise. St. Thomas did not use the terminology of papal infallibility; yet he evidenced a development culminating in ST II-II, 1, 10, a text which states that the pope is the one to determine the essential articles of faith and that when he does so all are bound to accept his determination inconcussa fide. This is " a first statement of what would soon become the theological idea, and, six centuries later, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pontifical magisterium " (Cougar). Pietro Olivi (1248-98) contributed key distinctions regarding the exercise of binding papal teaching. Most importantly he distinguished two kinds of inerrabilitas. The first is an unconditioned and essential impossibilitas errandi which pertains to the universal Church. The second is an impossibilitas errandi per alterum which pertains to the pope. To the degree that the pope concretizes in an expression the primary inerrabilitas of the universal Church, he is without error. Should he fail to teach the belief of the universal Church, he would lose the inerrabilitas. Thus Olivi initiated not the movement which led to Vatican I (as Tierney claims) but the counterforce which through many centuries combatted an independent papal infallibility. In the 14th and 15th centuries theological discussion on the relationship between pope and council concentrated on the realm of juridical authority. Yet with regard to the exercise of papal infallibility the common...