Papal Oath - Connection With The Liber Diurnus

Connection With The Liber Diurnus

The only historical source claimed for this "Papal Oath" is Migne's Patrologia Latina, referring, it can be supposed, to volume 105, columns 40-44. Patrologia Latina, 105, columns 9-188 reproduces, with notes and commentary, the full text of Garnier's 1680 edition of the Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum. The article in The Catholic Encyclopedia on this book states that Garnier's edition "is very inaccurate, and contains arbitrary alterations of the text"; it describes as the first good edition the one published by Eugène de Rozière in 1869. Later editions have been able to take into account not only the oldest surviving manuscript, which is preserved in the Vatican and is described on the website of the Vatican Secret Archives, but also two other manuscripts of slightly later date, which were rediscovered, one in 1889, the other in 1937. The Liber Diurnus Romanorum Pontificum is in fact a "miscellaneous collection of ecclesiastical formularies used in the papal chancery until the 11th century". It then fell into disuse and was soon forgotten and lost, until a manuscript containing it was discovered in the 17th century.

Its rediscovery in the 17th century caused surprise precisely because the text declared acceptance of the condemnations of the Sixth General Council, which were directed also against Pope Honorius I. In the opinion of one writer, the oath had the effect of confirming that an ecumenical council could condemn a Pope for open heresy and that Honorius was justly condemned.