Fourth Ecumenical Council - Chalcedon (451) · Part 15

Notes.

Hefele.

(Hist. Counc., Vol. III., p. 428.)

That is, the prerogative assigned to the Church of Constantinople is, in spite of the opposition of the Roman legate decreed by the Synod. Thus ended the Council of Chalcedon after it had lasted three weeks.

How it is possible after reading the foregoing proceedings to imagine for an instant that the bishops of this Council considered the rights they were discussing to be of Divine origin, and that the occupant of the See of Rome was, jure divino, supreme over all pontiffs I cannot understand. It is quite possible, of course, to affirm, as some have done, that the acts, as we have them, have been mutilated, but the contention involves not only many difficulties but also no few absurdities; and yet I cannot but think that even this extreme hypothesis is to be preferred to any attempt to reconcile the acts as we now have them with the acceptance on the part of the members of the council of the doctrine of a jure divino Papal Supremacy as it is now held by the Latin Church.