SYLLABUS, literally something taken together, a collection (Late Lat. syllabus), hence a compendium, table or abstract giv ing the heads, outline or scheme of a course of lectures, teaching, etc. The word in the sense of a list or catalogue is used of a col lection of eighty condemned propositions, addressed by order of Pius IX. to all the Catholic episcopate, under the date of the 8th of December 1864. The official title is: "A collection (syl labus) containing the principal errors of our times as noted in the Allocutions, Encyclicals and other Apostolic Letters of our Holy Father Pope Pius IX." Discussion of disputed doctrines began in 1849. All aspects were thoroughly debated by clerical and lay theologians gathered in a commission in 1861. The result of it was the Syllabus, in eighty propositions, arranged under the distinct heads; the propositions are not accompanied by any theological censure, but simply by a reference to the Allocution, Encyclical or Letter from which each had been more or less textually extracted. This was addressed to the episcopate together with a letter from Cardinal Antonelli, and dated the 8th of December 1864, the same date as the Encyclical Quanta cura, from which, however, it re mains quite distinct. Its publication aroused the most violent polemics; what was then called the Ultramontane party was loud in its praise; while the liberals treated it as a declaration of war made by the Church on modern society and civilization. Napo leon III.'s government forbade its publication, and suspended the newspaper l'Univers for having published it. Controversies were equally numerous as to the theological value of the Syllabus. Most Catholics saw in it as many infallible definitions as condemned propositions; others observed that the pope had neither personally signed nor promulgated the collection, but had intentionally separated it from the Encyclical by sending it merely under cover i of a letter from his secretary of state ; they said that it was hastily, and sometimes unfortunately drawn up (cf. prop. 61) ;
they saw in it an act of the pontifical authority, but without any of the marks required in the case of dogmatic definitions ; they concluded, therefore, that each proposition was to be appreciated separately, and in consequence that each was open to theological comment. That such is the true view is proved by the fact that Rome never censured the theologians who, like Newman, took up this position. (The condemned propositions are given in con venient form in Latin and English in Schaff, Creeds of Christen dom, vol. ii., "Greek and Latin Creeds," pp. 213 sqq.) BIBLIOGRAPIW.-The documents from which the propositions of the Syllabus were borrowed have been collected together in the Recueil des allocutions consistoriales, etc., cities dans l'encyclique et le syllabus (Paris, 1865). For the history of the Syllabus: P. Hourat, Le Syllabus, etude documentaire (Paris, i9o4) ; and P. Rinaldi, II Valore del sillabo (Rome, i888). For its theological value: Newman, A Letter Addressed to his Grace the Duke of Norfolk (London, 1875) ; P. Viollet, L'Infallibilite du Pape et le syllabus (Paris, 19°4) ; L. Choupin, Valeur des decisions doctrinales et disciplinaires du Saint Siige (Paris, 1907). See also Mgr. Dupanloup, La Convention du 15 septembre et l'ency clique du 8 dicembre (Paris, i865) ; and for the opposite view, see Trarieux, Le Syllabus et la declaration des droits de l'homme (Paris, 5902).