Vladimir! Do you really think i was arguing Manning was denying his church had antiquity, and that instead it was not obvious that "in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity" was referring to the sense in which he stated it? If i had only quoted the former, and not "It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness," and to the Reformers argument rejecting the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, etc., all of which i was careful to include (rather than engaging in "deceptive editing)," then you would have a case, but as it is, such fomenting slander makes one look like another over zealous reactionary.
“Vladimir! Do you really think i was arguing Manning was denying his church had antiquity,...”
Why did you cut the first sentence from the passage? State the exact reason you did so.
DECEPTION.
The spurious character of the Isidorian decretals had been exposed by the Magdebur Centuriators, and no one with any knowledge of Christian antiquity could retain a doubt of their being a later fabrication. But the growth of the Papal system had been so inseparably associated with these forgeries, that the theologians of the Curia and the Jesuit Order were resolved to defend them and make further use of them for proving the infallibility and monarchy of the Popes.The Jesuit Turrianus composed an elaborate apology for the decretals. Bellarmine acknowledged that without the forgeries of the pseudo-Isidore, and of the later anonymous Dominican writers, it would be impossible to make out even a semblance of traditional evidence; the three leading authors of the new doctrine - St. Thomas, Cajetan, and Melchior Canus had grounded it exclusively on these fictions.
Bellarmine then made copious use of the Isidorian fictions.... But of course the most transparent fictions were welcome to him if they served the great end of supporting the universal monarchy of the Pope.... This dishonesty is shown again in his attempts to get rid of the fact he was perfectly acquainted with, that whole Church, with all universities and theologians of any weight in the sixteenth century, had rejected the Papal system in its two leading principles of absolute monarchy and infallibility......
This explains how it was that in the new edition of the Breviary a whole series of Popes of the first three centuries was introduced, with proper offices and lections, of whom no one knew anything, and who have left no trace behind them, who are found in none of the ancient martyrologies, and were taken no particular notice of in Rome for 1500 years.
The only ante-Nicene Popes in the ancient unreformed Breviaries ere Clement, Urban, Marcus, and Marcellus. But Bellarmine and Baronius introduced into the new Breviary, under Clement VIII., Popes Zephyrinus, Soter, Caius, Pius, Calixtus, Anacletus, Pontianus, and Evaristus, with lections taken from the pseudo-Isidorian decretals. And Cardinal Baronius, the author of the Annals, co-operated in this work, although he had there sopoken with indignation of the fraud of the pseudo-Isidore.
I think it was a good thing for Vladimir to provide the extra sentence he did. After all, it then clearly demonstrates that the sentence:
“It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness”
Should be understood as saying...
“The Catholic Church rests upon the understanding given to her through both supernatural sources and consistent historical sources.”
It doesn’t mean anything like, “The Church decides arbitrarily what is true, to suit her own purposes”
In fact I’d argue the sentence “It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness” rests (no pun intended) on its own merits. The author clearly delineates two sources of knowledge (for the Church) in that sentence. One, a supernatural source, (a “supernatual” form of “awareness”, or here an awareness of the supernatural and the role the supernatural plays in the Church).
Another, a source of “perpetual consciousness”, which can only be interpreted as a source based on a “perpetual” (or consistent) form of “consciousness” (or awareness, here an awareness of history. )
But again, vladimir’s extra quote does make this even clearer, that this was Manning’s intention.
If a Catholic’s opinion of your quote “counts”. (But yeah, it’s only Catholics who refuse to consider another point)
Isn’t it amazing though we (human beings) can STILL argue about what a (relatively) modern work says, actually means, by only reading that work?
But yeah, sola scriptura will never lead to error. < /sarc >