MARLPIT PRESSIndependent PublisherGeorge Salmon, Pope Honorius, and Papal Infallibility
Pope Honorius is one of the hardest historical cases in the old infallibility controversy because an ecumenical council anathematized him and later popes confirmed the council.
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Why Honorius matters
The case of Honorius differs from examples involving ordinary administration or scientific judgment because it places a pope inside a major doctrinal controversy.
The Sixth Ecumenical Council anathematized Honorius in connection with Monothelitism, and later popes confirmed the council.
Salmon’s use of the case
Salmon uses Honorius to challenge any picture of papal history as a simple sequence of uniformly clear and protected doctrinal interventions.
The case forces defenders of infallibility to specify the character of Honorius’s letters, the nature of his fault, and the scope of the council’s condemnation.
The Catholic distinction
Catholic defenders argue that Honorius did not issue the kind of ex cathedra definition protected by Vatican I. The case can therefore be serious for broader theories of papal teaching authority without being a direct logical counterexample to the narrowly defined dogma.
That distinction is exactly why Honorius remains so useful as a test case: it exposes the need to state the doctrine precisely.
What survives the dispute
Even when the strict Vatican I distinction is granted, Honorius still complicates a triumphalist narrative in which papal doctrinal history is uniformly clear.
Salmon’s strongest historical method is to force each side to identify exactly what claim an episode is supposed to prove or disprove.
Research basis
This note draws on Salmon’s 1888 book, contemporary reception, Catholic replies, Trinity College Dublin and Royal Society biographical material, and the source-critical George Salmon research dossier prepared for the Marlpit Press edition.
- George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church (John Murray, 1888)
- George Salmon’s 1888 preface
- First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus (1870)
- Alfred Plummer, The Churchman (January 1889)
- Jeremiah Murphy, Irish Ecclesiastical Record (1901–1902)
- Catholic Encyclopedia, “Infallibility”
- B. C. Butler, The Church and Infallibility (1954)
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The Infallibility of the Church · George Salmon biography · Christianity & Theology · All research notes