The Henson Journals

[103]

Wednesday, March 11th, 1931.

The weather became somewhat milder, but not mild enough to get rid of the snow. Ella monopolized the car in order to go to Swallwell, & open a bazaar: so Charles motored me into Durham in his little car, & there I licensed 4 curates, & afterwards gave them tea in my room. Then the Bishop of Jarrow talk business for an hour, after which we went to S. Giles's Church, where I confirmed about 90 persons from 4 parishes.

I finished reading a brightly–written historical romance by Richard Ince, "When Joan was Pope", not a great book, but pleasant. I read again Döllinger's disproof of the famous legend, and it appears quite conclusive. Yet the immense vogue, universal acceptance, and persistence of the legend are extraordinarily suggestive. Nothing, however discreditable to the Papacy was inconceivable to the medieval Churchman: nothing, however shocking, could shake his belief in it. So utterly depersonalized had spiritual authority become, so completely was the individual merged in the institution, which he represented, that no wickedness, in the pontiff could endanger the hold of his Office to the homage of the faithful. Now the wheel has gone full circle. The Office counts for nothing. The individual is everything.

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