As the Universal Teacher.
2. In the name and with the authority of the Apostles.
3. On a point of Faith or Morals.
4. With the purpose of binding every member of the Church to
accept and believe his decision.
Thus it is clearly seen that from the year 1870 the dogma of _Papal_,
in contra-distinction to _ecclesiastical_ infallibility, has been
defined and raised to an article of faith, the denial of which is
heresy.
The doctrine is at once new and yet not new. It is new in the sense
that up to the time of the Vatican Council it had never been actually
drawn out of the premises that contained it, and set forth before the
faithful in a formal definition. On the other hand, it is not new, but
as old as Christianity, in the sense that it was always contained
implicitly in the deposit of faith. Any body of truth that is living
grows, and unfolds and becomes more clearly understood and more
thoroughly grasped, as time wears on. The entire books of Euclid are
after all but the outcome of a few axioms and accepted definitions.
These axioms help us to build up certain propositions.
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