James Likoudis and forgeries

[Trebor135]

In this Amazon.com review of Michael Whelton's "Popes and Patriarchs" (a book I saw recommended by an Eastern Orthodox on CAF), the author states at the end of the third-to-last paragraph (emphasis added):

"Mr. [James] Likoudis has apparently wrote an extensive 'critique' of this book (for which he charges $18.00), but I am not inclined to give it any credence, considering his free use of forgeries in his published work."

I've been looking at "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome" recently, so would like to ask those better informed on such matters here who have read Likoudis's books: does the accusation-as-afterthought bolded above have any truth to it?

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

In this Amazon.com review of Michael Whelton's "Popes and Patriarchs" (a book I saw recommended by an Eastern Orthodox on CAF), the author states at the end of the third-to-last paragraph (emphasis added):

"Mr. [James] Likoudis has apparently wrote an extensive 'critique' of this book (for which he charges $18.00), but I am not inclined to give it any credence, considering his free use of forgeries in his published work."

I've been looking at "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome" recently, so would like to ask those better informed on such matters here who have read Likoudis's books: does the accusation-as-afterthought bolded above have any truth to it?

Since Mr. Thomas C. Hamilton provides no substantiation for the bolded claim, it is currently impossible to verify the accuracy of his statement.

[Trebor135]

Originally Posted by SanctusPeccator

Since Mr. Thomas C. Hamilton provides no substantiation for the bolded claim, it is currently impossible to verify the accuracy of his statement.

Hamilton's words do not allow us to draw definitive conclusions either way--you're entirely correct. But if Likoudis has indeed relied extensively on forged documents in his Catholic apologetics, those knowledgeable in patristics here--if they have read his books--should have at least found something fishy about the "sources" cited by Likoudis.

[Trebor135]

OK, a Google search has turned up an Amazon.com review by Thomas C. Hamilton of James Likoudis's "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome" (in pamphlet form), where Hamilton discusses some of the problems he found in Likoudis's work.

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

Hamilton's words do not allow us to draw definitive conclusions either way--you're entirely correct. But if Likoudis has indeed relied extensively on forged documents in his Catholic apologetics, those knowledgeable in patristics here--if they have read his books--should have at least found something fishy about the "sources" cited by Likoudis.

Hamilton may be referring to James Likoudis' Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism: Containing the 14th century Apologia of Demetrios Kydones for Unity With Rome & the ‘Contra errores Graecorum’ of Saint Thomas Aquinas. At the time St. Thomas composed Contra errores Graecorum, ad Urbanum IV Pontificem Maximum in 1263, he relied upon the florilegium of Eastern patristic citations compiled in Nicholas of Controne's Libellus de fide sanctae Trinitatis that were later mostly proven to be either corrupted and/or spurious. (Contra errores Graecorum is noteworthy for its absence of polemics as Thomas' treatise charitably defended against Greek misconceptions of Catholic doctrine.) As Likoudis has since demonstrated, this inadvertent error does not significantly detract from the work since it can be easily corrected with quotations from authentic texts of the first millennium [ http://credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/thomaqui.htm ]

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

OK, a Google search has turned up an Amazon.com review by Thomas C. Hamilton of James Likoudis's "The Divine Primacy of the Bishop of Rome" (in pamphlet form), where Hamilton discusses some of the problems he found in Likoudis's work.

Mr. Hamiton's review is inaccurate in one important aspect. What is deplorable regarding Pope Honorius I's approach toward the Monothelite heresy was his abysmal failure to recognize the controversy required official evaluation instead of prohibiting discussion on the number of operations in Christ. Pope John IV and Maximus the Confessor both correctly noted Pope Honorius' exclusion of two contrary wills in Christ is strictly confined to the volitional unity of action within the human nature of Our Lord (which is perfectly orthodox). However, Pope Honorius failed to comprehend a single will unique to both the divine nature and the human nature of Our Lord. Pope Leo II officially clarified Pope Honorius' condemnation by the Third Council of Constantinople was to be understood as an act of omission (not censuring Monothelitism) instead of an act of commission (positively advocating Monothelitism).

[Trebor135]

Originally Posted by SanctusPeccator

Mr. Hamiton's review is inaccurate in one important aspect. What is deplorable regarding Pope Honorius I's approach toward the Monothelite heresy was his abysmal failure to recognize the controversy required official evaluation instead of prohibiting discussion on the number of operations in Christ. Pope John IV and Maximus the Confessor both correctly noted Pope Honorius' exclusion of two contrary wills in Christ is strictly confined to the volitional unity of action within the human nature of Our Lord (which is perfectly orthodox). However, Pope Honorius failed to comprehend a single will unique to both the divine nature and the human nature of Our Lord. Pope Leo II officially clarified Pope Honorius' condemnation by the Third Council of Constantinople was to be understood as an act of omission (not censuring Monothelitism) instead of an act of commission (positively advocating Monothelitism).

You may be correct here.

But Hamilton states in that review,

"-Mr. Likoudis cites the witness of St Maximus the Confessor, without noting that there are serious doubts about the authenticity of this text, and without mentioning that when St Maximus was told that the bishop of Rome was about to enter into communion with monothelites, that he expressed his own willingness to break communion with every See, including Rome, to preserve his own Orthodoxy."

Even if this writing by St. Maximus is authentic, his willingness to break communion with Rome must somehow be reconciled with the present Catholic conception of ecclesiology, in which being united with the pope is synonymous with being part of Christ's Church. A modern-day orthodox Catholic bishop could not legitimately contemplate breaking communion with Rome for any reason, could he?

[benjohnson]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

A modern-day orthodox Catholic bishop could not legitimately contemplate breaking communion with Rome for any reason, could he?

I don't know if you consider it the 'modern' age, but the Old Catholic Church took a bishop with them, and they're not in communion with Rome.

I hope it doesn't happen, but from the sidelines, SSPX seems like it could go that way.

[Cavaradossi]

Originally Posted by SanctusPeccator

Mr. Hamiton's review is inaccurate in one important aspect. What is deplorable regarding Pope Honorius I's approach toward the Monothelite heresy was his abysmal failure to recognize the controversy required official evaluation instead of prohibiting discussion on the number of operations in Christ. Pope John IV and Maximus the Confessor both correctly noted Pope Honorius' exclusion of two contrary wills in Christ is strictly confined to the volitional unity of action within the human nature of Our Lord (which is perfectly orthodox). However, Pope Honorius failed to comprehend a single will unique to both the divine nature and the human nature of Our Lord. Pope Leo II officially clarified Pope Honorius' condemnation by the Third Council of Constantinople was to be understood as an act of omission (not censuring Monothelitism) instead of an act of commission (positively advocating Monothelitism).

I have seen this claim before, and it is evidently not one that is incredibly new. It is interesting what the scholar and priest, John Chapman, had to say on the matter in the Catholic Encyclopedia, compiled just one century ago, in this article on Honorius I:

St. Agatho died before the conclusion of the council [the Third Council of Constantinople]. The new pope, Leo II, had naturally no difficulty in giving to the decrees of the council the formal confirmation which the council asked from him, according to custom. The words about Honorius in his letter of confirmation, by which the council gets its ecumenical rank, are necessarily more important than the decree of the council itself: "We anathematize the inventors of the new error, that is, Theodore, Sergius, ...and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted." This appears to express exactly the mind of the council, only that the council avoided suggesting that Honorius disgraced the Roman Church. The last words of the quotation are given above as in the Greek of the letter, because great importance has been attached to them by a large number of Catholic apologists. Pennacchi, followed by Grisar, taught that by these words Leo II explicitly abrogated the condemnation for heresy by the council, and substituted a condemnation for negligence. Nothing, however, could be less explicit. Hefele, with many others before and after him, held that Leo II by the same words explained the sense in which the sentence of Honorius was to be understood. Such a distinction between the pope's view and the council's view is not justified by close examination of the facts. At best such a system of defence was exceedingly precarious, for the milder reading of the Latin is just as likely to be original: "but by profane treachery attempted to pollute its purity". In this form Honorius is certainly not exculpated, yet the pope declares that he did not actually succeed in polluting the immaculate Roman Church. However, in his letter to the Spanish King Erwig, he has: "And with them Honorius, who allowed the unspotted rule of Apostolic tradition, which he received from his predecessors, to be tarnished." To the Spanish bishops he explains his meaning: "With Honorius, who did not, as became the Apostolic authority, extinguish the flame of heretical teaching in its first beginning, but fostered it by his negligence." That is, he did not insist on the "two operations", but agreed with Sergius that the whole matter should be hushed up. Pope Honorius was subsequently included in the lists of heretics anathematized by the Trullan Synod, and by the seventh and eighth ecumenical councils without special remark; also in the oath taken by every new pope from the eighth century to the eleventh in the following words: "Together with Honorius, who added fuel to their wicked assertions" (Liber diurnus, ii, 9). It is clear that no Catholic has the right to defend Pope Honorius. He was a heretic, not in intention, but in fact; and he is to be considered to have been condemned in the sense in which Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who died in Catholic communion, never having resisted the Church, have been condemned. But he was not condemned as a Monothelite, nor was Sergius. And it would be harsh to regard him as a "private heretic", for he admittedly had excellent intentions.

And again from the same article:

A theory put forward by Pennacchi at the time of the Vatican Council attracted an unnecessary amount of attention. He agreed with the Protestants and Gallicans in proclaiming that the letter of Honorius was a definition ex cathedra; that the pope was anathematized by the council as a heretic in the strict sense; but the council, not being infallible apart from papal confirmation, fell in this case into error about a dogmatic fact (in this point Pennacchi was preceded by Turrecremata, Bellarmine, Assemani, and many others), since the letter of Honorius was not worthy of censure. Leo II, in confirming the council, expressly abrogated the censure, according to this view, and substituted a condemnation for negligence only (so also Grisar--see above). There is evidently no ground whatever for any of these assertions.

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

You may be correct here.

But Hamilton states in that review,

"-Mr. Likoudis cites the witness of St Maximus the Confessor, without noting that there are serious doubts about the authenticity of this text, and without mentioning that when St Maximus was told that the bishop of Rome was about to enter into communion with monothelites, that he expressed his own willingness to break communion with every See, including Rome, to preserve his own Orthodoxy."

Even if this writing by St. Maximus is authentic, his willingness to break communion with Rome must somehow be reconciled with the present Catholic conception of ecclesiology, in which being united with the pope is synonymous with being part of Christ's Church. A modern-day orthodox Catholic bishop could not legitimately contemplate breaking communion with Rome for any reason, could he?

First, Mr. Hamilton does not specify what particular work of St. Maximus the Confessor that is being referred to. Second, unaware of any scholarly consensus doubting the authenticity of the Disputatio cum Pyrrho (“Disputation with Pyrrhus”). Third, Mr. Hamilton fails to provide the exact citation and hermeneutical context “that he expressed his own willingness to break communion with every See, including Rome, to preserve his own Orthodoxy” on this controversy.

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Cavaradossi

I have seen this claim before, and it is evidently not one that is incredibly new. It is interesting what the scholar and priest, John Chapman, had to say on the matter in the Catholic Encyclopedia, compiled just one century ago, in this article on Honorius I:

St. Agatho died before the conclusion of the council [the Third Council of Constantinople]. The new pope, Leo II, had naturally no difficulty in giving to the decrees of the council the formal confirmation which the council asked from him, according to custom. The words about Honorius in his letter of confirmation, by which the council gets its ecumenical rank, are necessarily more important than the decree of the council itself: "We anathematize the inventors of the new error, that is, Theodore, Sergius, ...and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted." This appears to express exactly the mind of the council, only that the council avoided suggesting that Honorius disgraced the Roman Church. The last words of the quotation are given above as in the Greek of the letter, because great importance has been attached to them by a large number of Catholic apologists. Pennacchi, followed by Grisar, taught that by these words Leo II explicitly abrogated the condemnation for heresy by the council, and substituted a condemnation for negligence. Nothing, however, could be less explicit. Hefele, with many others before and after him, held that Leo II by the same words explained the sense in which the sentence of Honorius was to be understood. Such a distinction between the pope's view and the council's view is not justified by close examination of the facts. At best such a system of defence was exceedingly precarious, for the milder reading of the Latin is just as likely to be original: "but by profane treachery attempted to pollute its purity". In this form Honorius is certainly not exculpated, yet the pope declares that he did not actually succeed in polluting the immaculate Roman Church. However, in his letter to the Spanish King Erwig, he has: "And with them Honorius, who allowed the unspotted rule of Apostolic tradition, which he received from his predecessors, to be tarnished." To the Spanish bishops he explains his meaning: "With Honorius, who did not, as became the Apostolic authority, extinguish the flame of heretical teaching in its first beginning, but fostered it by his negligence." That is, he did not insist on the "two operations", but agreed with Sergius that the whole matter should be hushed up. Pope Honorius was subsequently included in the lists of heretics anathematized by the Trullan Synod, and by the seventh and eighth ecumenical councils without special remark; also in the oath taken by every new pope from the eighth century to the eleventh in the following words: "Together with Honorius, who added fuel to their wicked assertions" (Liber diurnus, ii, 9). It is clear that no Catholic has the right to defend Pope Honorius. He was a heretic, not in intention, but in fact; and he is to be considered to have been condemned in the sense in which Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, who died in Catholic communion, never having resisted the Church, have been condemned. But he was not condemned as a Monothelite, nor was Sergius. And it would be harsh to regard him as a "private heretic", for he admittedly had excellent intentions.

And again from the same article:

A theory put forward by Pennacchi at the time of the Vatican Council attracted an unnecessary amount of attention. He agreed with the Protestants and Gallicans in proclaiming that the letter of Honorius was a definition ex cathedra; that the pope was anathematized by the council as a heretic in the strict sense; but the council, not being infallible apart from papal confirmation, fell in this case into error about a dogmatic fact (in this point Pennacchi was preceded by Turrecremata, Bellarmine, Assemani, and many others), since the letter of Honorius was not worthy of censure. Leo II, in confirming the council, expressly abrogated the censure, according to this view, and substituted a condemnation for negligence only (so also Grisar--see above). There is evidently no ground whatever for any of these assertions.

Pope Leo II never sought to condone the Third Council of Constantinople's condemnation of Pope Honorius I for heresy. The subsequent letters from Pope Leo II merely elaborated upon the specific reason for Pope Honorius I's condemnation: his inexcusable failure to promptly act against it. In this technical sense, Pope Honorius I is particularly condemned by Pope Leo II as a negligent fautor haereticorum (“abettor of heretics”) rather than as an intentional formalis haereticus (“formal heretic”). It certainly didn't help Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople had deliberately obfuscated the theological controversy in his letters!

[Hadrianus]

The question of Pope Honorius is one of which educated catholic theologians have been aware for centuries. It is rather analogous to that of the Avignon Pope John XXII who held and preached errors concerning the beatific vision. This is why the fathers of the First vatican Council defined the dogma of papal Infallibility in very strict terms. There is an infallibility of the universal magisterium of Pope and bishops, and it would seem an infallibility of the continuous ordinary teaching of the Popes. But any individual papal act in order to possess of its own the strict conditions laid down by Vatican I apply.

As to Likoudis: I have read only one of his works called "The Pope , the Council, and The Mass". It was filled with errors of fact; many of which have subsequently been refuted in the writings of the present Holy Father and of proper theologians. I presume he is a well intentioned layman, but not a serious scholar.

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Hadrianus

As to Likoudis: I have read only one of his works called "The Pope, the Council, and The Mass". It was filled with errors of fact; many of which have subsequently been refuted in the writings of the present Holy Father and of proper theologians. I presume he is a well intentioned layman, but not a serious scholar.

Is that so? Personally acquainted with some knowledgeably orthodox seminary professors and members of the episcopate that would strongly disagree with this claim. Could you kindly provide specific examples of these supposed factual errors?

[Trebor135]

Originally Posted by SanctusPeccator

First, Mr. Hamilton does not specify what particular work of St. Maximus the Confessor that is being referred to. Second, unaware of any scholarly consensus doubting the authenticity of the Disputatio cum Pyrrho (“Disputation with Pyrrhus”). Third, Mr. Hamilton fails to provide the exact citation and hermeneutical context “that he expressed his own willingness to break communion with every See, including Rome, to preserve his own Orthodoxy” on this controversy.

I'm not going to defend Hamilton's aptitude for comprehensive argumentation, but would like to suggest--if you find the time--to read the blog post and combox thread here: "What Would Mr. Newman Do?"

[SanctusPeccator]

Originally Posted by Trebor135

I'm not going to defend Hamilton's aptitude for comprehensive argumentation, but would like to suggest--if you find the time--to read the blog post and combox thread here: "What Would Mr. Newman Do?"

Nor should you feel yourself obligated to defend Hamilton's proper application for argumentation; merely highlighting the lack of appropriate clarification in some of his claims. Appreciate the link to Perry C. Robinson's website, Trebor135.