the Pope publicly
withdraws his 'Judicatum.' While the Council is sitting at Constantinople
he publishes his 'Constitutum,' in which he condemns certain propositions
of Theodore, but spares his person; the same respecting Theodoret; but with
respect to Ibas, he declares his letter was pronounced orthodox by the
Council of Chalcedon. Bossuet goes on: "however this may be, so much is
clear that Vigilius, though invited, declined being present at the Council;
that nevertheless the Council was held without him; that he published a
'Constitutum' in which he disapproved of what Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas
were said to have written against the faith; but decreed that their name
should be spared, because they were considered to have been received by the
fourth Council, or to have died in the communion of the Church, and to be
reserved to the judgment of God. Concerning the letter of Ibas, he
published the following, that, understood in the best and most pious sense,
it was blameless; and concerning the three Chapters generally, he ordered
that after his present declaration Ecclesiastics should move no further
question.

"Such was the decree of Vigilius, issued upon the authority with which he
was invested. And the Council, after his constitution, both raised a
question about the three Chapters, and decided that question was properly
raised concerning the dead, and that the letter of Ibas was manifestly
heretical and Nestorian, and contrary in all things to the faith of
Chalcedon, and that they were altogether accursed, who defended the impious
Theodore of Mopsuestia, or the writings of Theodoret against Cyril, or the
impious letter of Ibas defending the tenets of Nestorius; and who did not
anathematize it, but said it was correct.

"In these latter words they seemed not even to spare Vigilius, although
they did not mention his name. And it is certain their decree was confirmed
by Pelagius the Second, Gregory the Great, and other Roman Pontiffs....
These things prove, that in a matter of the utmost importance, disturbing
the whole Church, and seeming to belong to the faith, the decrees of sacred
Councils prevailed over the decrees of Pontiffs, and that the letter of
Ibas, though defended by a judgment of the Roman Pontiff, could
nevertheless be proscribed as heretical."

Compare with this history the following remark of De Maistre, "that Bishops
separated from the Pope, and in contradiction with him, are superior to
him, is