Pius VI: Quod Aliquantum

Translator’s note: The National Constituent Assembly of France passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy on July 12, 1790 to subject the French Church to the Revolutionary government. This was the first act of the Revolution to meet with serious resistance. Even before the Constitution, religious orders had been abolished and ecclesiastical property seized by the state; now dioceses were merged or suppressed and the clergy were to be elected by the people, whether Catholic or not. Meanwhile King Louis XVI and Pope Pius VI corresponded to discuss the contents of the Constitution, since the King was under pressure to give his royal assent.

In October, Dominique Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld (the Archbishop of Rouen) and Jean de Dieu-Raymond de Cucé de Boisgelin (the Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence), together with some thirty other bishops, wrote to the Pope with an overview and criticism of the main points of the Constitution. The King finally yielded and gave his assent on December 26. 

The Constitution required all the clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to itself and to the Assembly. Bishoprics and curacies were to be considered vacant until their occupants took the oath. The majority of the clergy refused. Among the minority was the notorious Talleyrand, the bishop of Autun, who had been a leading proponent of the Constitution in the Assembly. 

The Pope gave his definitive reply to Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld and the other bishops on March 10, 1791  in the brief Quod aliquantum translated here. He forcefully condemned the Constitution and the oath and gave principles for resisting the revolutionary incursions upon the Church. This document is important not least because it is cited by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2109) to explain that religious freedom must be limited by respect for the just public order, which is not to be “conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.”

The original text was taken from Recueil des allocutions consistoriales, encycliques et autres lettres apostoliques citées dans l’encyclique et le syllabus du 8 décembre 1864 (Librairie Adrien le Clere & Co.: Paris, 1865), 2nd ed., pp. 44-108. The text can also be found in Italian on the website of the Holy See.


March 10, 1791

BRIEF

Of Our Most Holy Lord Pius VI to His Eminence Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld, to the Illustrious Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, and to the Other Prelates of the French National Assembly, Regarding the Civil Constitution of the French Clergy

PIUS PAPA VI

We now give a reply, beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, which We had been obliged to put off somewhat, on account of the gravity of the matter itself and of the great excess of urgent business, to the letter of October 10 that was given to Us, to which the names of many of your notable colleagues were subscribed. That letter renewed in Us that huge grief, unrelieved by any consolation, which We had already felt from the time when We had heard that your National Assembly, convened to order the affairs of the public economy, had progressed so far in its decrees that it was attacking the Catholic religion; for very many of its members were already conspiring and invading that sanctuary.

From the beginning We judged that We ought to keep silent concerning these heedless men, lest they become more irritated by the voice of truth and rush even further into worse things. We maintained this silence of Ours on the authority of St. Gregory the Great, who says, “Times of vicissitude are to be considered discreetly, lest when the tongue ought to be restrained, words flow out uselessly.”1 Yet We turned Our words to God, and immediately We enjoined public prayers to be said, so that We might bring these new proposers of laws into such a state of mind that they might wish to retreat from the demands of the wisdom of this world and return to the counsels of our religion and persevere in them. In this We followed the example of Susanna, who, as St. Ambrose explains, “did more by staying silent that she would have had she spoken: for, by keeping silent among men, she spoke to God; she spoke with her conscience where her voice was not heard, nor did she seek the judgment of men for herself who had the testimony of the Lord.”2

Furthermore, We did not fail to convene Our brethren, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, in consistory on March 29 of last year, and to make them aware of what those men had already begun to do in your country against the Catholic religion, and once We had communicated to them the sharpness of Our pain, We likewise brought them into the company of Our tears and entreaties.

While We were intent on this, suddenly it came to Our attention that a decree had gone out around the middle of July from the French National Assembly (by whose name We always understand only the prevailing majority) that, while pretending in title to be a civil constitution of the clergy, in truth amounted to disturbing and upending the very sacred dogmas and most secure discipline of the Church. It abolished the rights of this first See, of bishops, priests, regulars of both sexes, and the whole Catholic communion; suppressed sacred rites; seized ecclesiastical incomes and estates, and finally caused such calamities that could not be believed if they were not confirmed by experience itself. When these facts had been related to Us, certainly We could not but recoil at reading them, and the same thing happened to Us as once happened to Our predecessor Gregory the Great, who, when he received a book for recognition from the bishop of Constantinople and scanned the beginning pages, he declared that he found in it the manifest poison of wickedness.3 Hence Our mind had been thrown into the greatest grief, when suddenly toward the end of August the petition of Louis, Our most beloved son in Christ and most Christian king, was announced to Us, by which he zealously urged Us by Our authority to approve, at least per provisionis modum, five articles decreed by that Assembly and already confirmed by his royal sanction. But although We saw that those articles were opposed to the canonical rules, nevertheless We judged that We should reply to the king more mildly, saying that We would put the articles before a congregation of twenty Cardinals for examination, each of whose opinions We busied Ourselves with understanding one by one and considering according to the weight of the matter. Meanwhile by Our familiar letters We exhorted the king to persuade all the bishops of the realm to disclose their sentiments to him candidly, and to propose to Us accurate rationales on which they all agreed for their plans, and to make plain to Us whatever escaped Our notice across such a distance, so that We might not fall into any error of conscience. Yet still no such explanation of yours has reached Us for what has been done, though there have arrived some bishops’ pastoral letters published in print, sermons and warnings full of the evangelical spirit, but these were written singly by their authors, and they do not indicate any consideration of what We ought to do, which this great necessity and extreme danger in which you find yourselves demand. 

Even so, not long ago there came to Us your handwritten exposition on the principles of the constitution of the clergy, which We later received also in print, in whose preamble are found ample extracts from the many decrees of the National Assembly, with many criticisms concerning the invalidity and wickedness of the same. At the same time, a recent letter of the king himself came to Us, in which he asked Our temporary approval of seven articles of the National Assembly, almost identical to those five articles he had sent to Us in August. And in the same letter he indicated that he was constrained to give his sanction to the new executive decree of November 27, by whose order bishops, vicars, parish priests, rectors of seminaries and others carrying out ecclesiastical offices were to swear within the prescribed time before the general council of the municipalities to uphold the constitution, and if they would not do so, they were to be punished with the gravest penalties. Yet as before We already declared that We in no way wish to state Our judgment concerning these articles until at least the majority of the bishops have openly and distinctly told Us what they think, We now also resolutely repeat and confirm this decision. 

While the king himself asked Us, among other things, by Our exhortation to bring metropolitans and bishops to consent to the suppression and division of metropolitan churches and bishoprics, and also to allow, at least provisionally, that the canonical forms henceforth observed by the Church in the erection of new bishoprics now be done by the authority of metropolitans and bishops, and that they should offer the appointment to those presented for the vacant offices according to the new method of election, provided that a consideration of the morals and doctrine of those to be elected not cause any hindrance. From the king’s request it is easily seen that he himself without doubt acknowledges that in such cases the opinions of the bishops must be sought, and that it is obviously appropriate that We decree nothing until We have heard them. Therefore, We desire your advice and your several reasons for your advice, signed by everyone or at least by a great many, and We recognize how, supporting ourselves as if on a weighty monument, We are able to control and moderate Our deliberations, so that a beneficial and equitable judgment from Us emerges for you and the most Christian kingdom. While We await your reply, what you have explained in your letter will help Us in some degree to make a thorough examination of all the articles of the National Assembly.

If We first peruse the assertions of the Council of Sens begun in the year 1527 against the heresies of the Lutherans, certainly what forms the basis and foundation of the national decree that We are discussing cannot be considered free from the note of heresy. For the Council explained as follows:

But after these ignorant men, there arose Marsilius of Padua, whose pestilential book, called the Defensor pacis, was recently brought out with the Lutherans as its agents for the destruction of the Christian people. He, in railing hostilities against the Church and impiously applauding earthly princes, deprives prelates of all exterior jurisdiction, except that which the secular magistrate shall concede them. And all priests, be they simple priests or bishops, archbishops or even the Pope, he asserted are equal in authority by the institution of Christ, and whatever authority one had over the other must arise from the free concession of the lay prince, which he can at will revoke. But really the senseless raving of this deranged heretic is checked by the Sacred Scriptures, from which it is plainly proved that ecclesiastical power does not depend on the will of princes but on the divine law, by which it is granted to the Church to establish laws for the salvation of the faithful and to condemn rebels by legitimate censure. It is also openly proved by the same Scriptures that the power of the Church is not only far greater but also worthier than any lay power. Nevertheless, this Marsilius and the other aforementioned heretics, by raging impiously against the Church, jealously strive to some extent to diminish her authority.4

Furthermore, We remind you of the similar opinion of Benedict XIV of blessed memory, who in his letter of March 4, 1755,5 to the primate, archbishops, and bishops of the kingdom of Poland dealt with the little work printed in Polish but first published in French under the title Principles on the essence, the distinction and the limits of the two powers, spiritual and temporal, a posthumous work of Fr. Laborde of the Oratory, in which the author so subjected the ecclesiastical office to secular dominion, that he declared it belonged to this latter power to examine and judge the external, visible government of the Church. “The impudent writer,” says Benedict XIV, “contrives this wicked and pernicious system, already reprobated by the Apostolic See and expressly condemned as heretical, by fallacious reasonings, words composed to appear pious, and distorted testimonies from Scripture and the Fathers, by which he more easily imposes it on the simple and less cautious.” Therefore he proscribed the book and attached to it the notes captious,false, impious and heretical, and he condemned and forbade the reading, keeping6 and use of it to each and every Christian, even those worthy of specific and individual mention, on pain of automatic excommunication, to be incurred without any further declaration, from which no one could obtain the benefit of absolution but from the reigning Roman Pontiff, except at the point of death.7

And indeed what jurisdiction over the affairs of the Church could ever belong to laymen, such that ecclesiastics themselves could be held subject to their decrees? No Catholic can be ignorant of the fact that Jesus Christ, in instituting His Church, gave to the Apostles and to their successors a power accountable to no other power, which all the most holy Fathers acknowledged with one voice when Hosius and St. Athanasius warned: “Do not involve yourself in ecclesiastical matters, nor send us commands about them, but rather learn this from us: God gave dominion to you, and to us He entrusted ecclesiastical affairs. And just as he who takes your dominion from you resists the design of God, likewise take care lest, if you arrogate ecclesiastical affairs to yourself, you become guilty of a greater crime.”8 And with that in view, St. John Chrysostom cited the deed of Uzzah in order better to show how true this is: “He who supported the Ark that otherwise would have fallen died on the spot, because he usurped an office that did not belong to him. Is it therefore the case that the violated Sabbath and the single touch of the Ark that was about to fall9 provoked God to such indignation that those who had dared to do these things could not obtain even the least pardon, but this man, who corrupts venerable and ineffable dogmas, will have an excuse and obtain pardon? This cannot be; it cannot be, I say.”10 The holy councils decreed the same thing with the consent of your kings even until the grandfather of the present monarch, Louis XV, who declared August 20th, 1731, that he acknowledged “as his first duty to ensure that in the event of a dispute, no doubt would be raised concerning the sacred rights of that power which from God alone has received the right to determine questions of doctrine regarding the faith or the rule of morals; to establish canons or rules of discipline whereby the ministers of the Church and the faithful in the order of religion are governed; to institute her ministers or depose them according to the same rules; to compel the faithful to maintain obedience toward her by imposing on them, according to the canonical order, not only salutary penances but also true spiritual penalties, or judgments, or censures, which the first pastors can bring by their right.”

Yet against so certain a judgment in the Church, this National Assembly arrogates the power of the Church to itself, while it so frequently passes so many things that are hostile to dogma and ecclesiastical discipline, and while it constrains all bishops and clerics by an oath to carry out its decree. But this should come as no surprise to those who readily understand from the very nature of the Assembly that it is concerned with nothing other than the abolition of the Catholic religion and with it the obedience due to kings. With this in mind it is decreed that by right man in society should enjoy every kind of liberty; that is, that he should not be disturbed with regard to religion, and that he should be free to opine, say, write and even publish in print whatever he wants on the subject of religion. It declared that these monstrosities derive and emanate from the equality of men and the liberty of their nature. What more insane idea can be imagined, than that there exists such an equality and liberty among all, that no regard may be given to reason, which is the human race’s principal endowment from nature, and by which it is distinguished from the other animals? When God created man and placed him in a paradise of pleasure, did He not at the same time warn him with the penalty of death if he should eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did He not then, once man had through disobedience rendered himself guilty, add many precepts through Moses? And although He left him in the hand of his own counsel, so that he might merit well or poorly, nevertheless he add commands, and precepts, so that if he wished to keep them, they would preserve him.11

Where, therefore, is that liberty of thinking and acting which the decrees of the Assembly attribute to man in society as an immutable right of his nature? It will be necessary from the opinion of their decrees to contradict the law of the Creator, through Whom we exist, and to Whose liberality we must refer whatever we are and have as a gift. Furthermore, who is now ignorant that men were created, not to live each one for himself, but to live and do good for other men? For in this weakness of nature they need one another’s aid for survival; and for that purpose God gave them both reason and the faculty of speech, so that they could both seek help and give it to those seeking it. Accordingly, led by nature itself, they came together in society and community. Now, since it pertains to man so to use his reason not only to acknowledge his supreme Creator but also to worship Him, adore Him and refer everything to Him, and since it has been necessary for him from the very beginning of his life to be subject to his elders, so that they might govern and instruct him and form his life according to the norm of reason, humanity and religion, certainly from the birth of every single man it is known that this vaunted liberty and equality among men is empty and meaningless. Be subject of necessity.12 Therefore, in order that men might be able to combine into civil society, a form of government had to be constituted, through which those rights of liberty were designated under the laws and the supreme power of the rulers. From this follows what St. Augustine teaches with these words: “To obey its kings is a general pact of a human society.”13 Therefore, this power is to be sought not so much from a social contract14 as from God Himself, the righteous and just Creator. This the Apostle confirmed in his epistle, celebrated above: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation.”15

And here it is appropriate to refer to the Second Council of Tours, held in the year 567, which anathematized not only him who dares to oppose the decrees of the Apostolic See, but also, “which is worse, him who, against what the vessel of election Paul the Apostle promulgated by the assistance of the Holy Spirit, presumes to write something else for any reason, since he himself says by the Holy Spirit, ‘Whoever shall preach aside from what I have preached, let him be anathema.’”16

But to refute the most absurd fiction of such liberty, this also can suffice, if we say that such an opinion was held by the Waldensians and Beguards, who were condemned by Clement V with the approval of the holy ecumenical Council of Vienne.17 It was then followed by the Wycliffites, and finally by Luther with these words: We are free in all things.However, what We have asserted about the obedience owed to legitimate powers We do not wish to be received as if We meant to oppose new civil laws to which the king himself has been able to grant his assent, inasmuch as they pertain to his temporal regime, as if We said them in order that everything might be returned to its original civil state, according to the interpretations of certain slanderers published to inflame hatred against religion. In truth We and you yourselves seek and urge only one thing: that the sacred rights of the Church and of the Apostolic See be preserved unharmed. To this end, let Us now consider this word liberty in another light, and let Us inspect the difference that stands between men who have always been outside the bosom of the Church, such as infidels and Jews, and those who have subjected themselves to the Church herself by receiving the sacrament of baptism. For the former group should not be constrained to profess Catholic obedience; the latter, however, are to be coerced. This difference is explained with the most solid reasons, as is his wont, by St. Thomas Aquinas,18 and many centuries earlier Tertullian explained it in his book Scorpiace against the Gnostics,19 and a few years ago Benedict XIV in his work De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione;20 and in order that the rationale for this position might be even clearer, one ought to read the two very celebrated and much-printed letters of St. Augustine, one to Vincentius and the other to Boniface,21 by which not only ancient but also recent heretics are expressly refuted. Therefore it is very clear that the equality and liberty vaunted by this Assembly results, as We have already proven, in the subversion of the Catholic religion, to which it has therefore refused to acknowledge as dominant in the kingdom, which title it has always possessed. 

If We proceed now to expose the other errors of the National Assembly, We immediately find the abolition of the primacy of the Pope and of his jurisdiction, since it is decreed that “a new bishop shall not be able to resort to the Pope to obtain any confirmation, but he shall write to him as to the head of the universal Church in testimony of the unity of faith and communion which he must retain with him.” A new formula of oath is prescribed, in which the name of the Roman Pontiff is suppressed. Indeed since the elected bishop is bound by oath to the national decrees, in which it is prohibited to request confirmation of the election from the Pope, by that very fact the power of the Pope is absolutely excluded; and in this way the stream is cut off from the spring, the branch from the tree, the people from the first Priest.

Allow Us here to express to you the injuries brought against Our dignity and authority with the words with which St. Gregory the Great complained to the Empress Constantina about John, who had presumed to inaugurate novelties and through pride was calling himself the universal bishop, and asked her not to consent to John’s self-aggrandizement: “If in this case Your Piety in no way despises me, because even if the sins of Gregory (now Pius) are so great that he should suffer such things, there are no sins of the Apostle Peter that merit to suffer these things in Your times. Hence again and again I ask by almighty God, that just as Your predecessors as emperors sought the favor of St. Peter the Apostle, so You also take care to seek and maintain it for Yourself, and let not Our sins diminished among You the honor of him whom we unworthily serve, and who can both now assist You in everything and later remit Your sins.”22

What St. Gregory asked from the authority of Constantina for the honor of his pontifical dignity, We likewise ask from you, lest in your vast kingdom the honor and rights of the Primacy be abolished, and We wish that the merits of Peter be respected, whose heir We are, although unworthy, and who should be honored in the person of Our humility. If, hindered by the force of the another’s power, you are not able to carry this out, you should bolster yourselves with religion and resolve, firmly refraining from the commanded oath. The title usurped by John did less disservice to Gregory that the national decree does from Our rights. For how can it be said that communion with the visible head of the Church is maintained and preserved solely by announcing an election to him, while at the same time denying the authority of him primacy through the bond of an oath? Yet to him is owed, as to a head by its members, the solemn promise of canonical obedience, in order to maintain unity in the Church and to avoid schisms in its mystical body established by Christ the Lord, in which interest what pertains to the Churches of the French can be seen in Martène,23 where just such a formula of oath was in force, in which already in antiquity the bishops of Gaul in their ordinations added to their profession of faith an express clause of their obedience to the Roman Pontiff. 

And here We are, of course, not unaware of, nor do We disguise, what the supporters of the national constitution cite against this from the letter of St. Hormisdas to Epiphanius, patriarch of Constantinople, or rather how much they misuse it. For from that letter it is well known that it was the custom that legates were sent with letters and professions of faith from elected bishops  to the Roman Pontiff, from whom they asked to be admitted in unity and communion with the Apostolic See, and thus to obtain approval for their election. Since Epiphanius neglected to offer such a profession, Hormisdas wrote to him: “We were astonished to find the ancient custom neglected, since, now that harmony among the Churches has been restored, with God’s approval, the full duty of fraternal peace24 was required, especially because it was required not by personal arrogance but by observance of the rules. You, beloved brother, ought to have sent legates to the Apostolic See at the beginning of your pontificate, both so that you might know well what affection We have for you, and so that you might properly fulfill the form of ancient custom.”25

The enemies of the Primacy contend that the word ought there was nothing but urbanity and, if you will, diplomatic exuberance. But from the whole context of the letter, namely from the words harmony among the Churches… that you might properly fulfill the form of ancient custom, who now contends that the word ought, used by pontifical moderation, was not intended regarding the duty of the elected bishop to resort to the Pope to obtain approval? But immediately another papal letter yields an opposite interpretation, namely a letter of St. Leo IX to Peter, bishop of Antioch, who, when he announced to the Pope his election to the episcopate, received the reply26 that the care to announce and display the election he had obtained was very necessary…and that it was most appropriate for you and for “the Church over which you temporarily preside, that you did not delay to do this…but My Humility, thus exalted in the peak of the Apostolic Throne to approve what ought to be approved and condemn what ought to be condemned, gladly approves, praises and confirms Your Most Holy Fraternity’s episcopal promotion, and immediately asks Our common Lord that what you are now called with human mouth you might in truth be before His eyes.” This letter, which came not from the interpretation of a private doctor but from the judgment of a Pope well-known for his holiness and doctrine, leaves no doubt concerning the sense in which We explained the letter of St. Hormisdas, which deservedly should be counted among the more illustrious historical evidences for the confirmation that bishops must seek and obtain from the Roman Pontiff, which the authority of the Council of Trent supports,27 and which We defended in Our response on the nunciatures,28 and which many of you fought for with your outstanding and learned writings.

[After this letter was sent, We found among the letters of St. Pius V, who never wanted to confirm the election of Frederick de Veda as archbishop of Cologne, because had refused to send the profession of faith according to the formula approved by Pius IV (which prescribes that one acknowledge that the Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all the Churches, and that one profess and swear true obedience to the Roman Pontiff as successor of Blessed Peter, prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ). And although Frederick, once elected, sent a declaration of his orthodoxy, and professed that he would shed his blood for the Roman Catholic faith, nevertheless S. Pius, after offering exhortations and warnings, refused to let the obstinacy of Frederic go unpunished, and hence he ordered that he either obey or give up his Church, whereupon Frederick, now put to the test, preferred to abdicate the see of Cologne than to profess the faith in the prescribed form, and through the Pope’s benignity it was permitted him to appear to cede his office voluntarily rather than be expelled against his will. This is all shown in the documents given by Laderchius.29

We add these, following the example of St. Leo, who added several things to his dogmatic epistle to Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, and We think they should be communicated to you, in case what the Gallic bishops Ceretius, Salonius and Veranus desired, you also desire. For these are their words: “If You have compiled a worthwhile page by all your readings through some increase of Your zeal, command with eager piety that it be added to this book.”30]31

But, in order that Our same adversaries might preserve the decrees of this Assembly, they say that they pertain to discipline, which, since it had been changed often on account of the vicissitudes of the times, now in the same way could be changed. But among the decrees themselves, not only the disciplinary ones but also several others combine to overthrow pure and unchangeable dogma, as We have heretofore shown. However, if We are to address discipline, who among Catholics ever affirmed that ecclesiastical discipline can be changed by laymen? Even Pierre de Marca himself acknowledges that “concerning rites, ceremonies, sacraments, the censure, conditions and discipline of clerics, the canons of Council and decrees of the Roman Pontiffs are frequently issued as of material pertaining to themselves; and hardly any constitution of princes can be cited that was enacted purely on the authority of the secular power. We do see public laws follow in these areas but not precede.”32

Then, when in 1560 the Parisian faculty brought in for examination what Francis Grimaudet, the royal advocate, had referred to the Assembly, or the Estates convened at Anjou, among the many propositions that were censured is the following, no. 6: “The second point of religion is in the regulation33 and discipline of priests, which Christian kings and princes have the power of establishing, ordering and, when corrupted, reforming.” This proposition is false, schismatic, destructive of ecclesiastical power, and heretical, and the proofs cited for it are irrelevant.34 Furthermore, it is altogether certain that discipline cannot change at random and arbitrarily. Accordingly, the two foremost lights of the Catholic Church, St. Augustine35 and St. Thomas Aquinas,36 clearly teach that what belongs to discipline should not be changed except out of necessity or great benefit, for a change of custom, even one that helps by its usefulness, disturbs by its novelty. “And they should not be changed,” St. Thomas adds, “unless the common good is recompensed in another area as much as it is damaged in this area.” So far has it been from the Roman Pontiffs that they should ever have corrupted discipline, that rather they have always made it better and milder for the edification of the Church by the authority conferred on them by God, and We grieve what has been done against this by the members of this Assembly, as is easily discovered by comparing each of the articles of their decrees with the discipline of the Church.

But before We touch upon these articles, We consider it worthwhile to say first how often discipline coheres with dogma and conduces to the preservation of its purity, not to mention how little benefit the variations permitted by the Roman Pontiffs, however rarely, have brought, and how briefly they have lasted. Assuredly, the sacred Councils in most cases have separated by anathema the violators of discipline from the communion of the Church. Indeed at the Council in Trullo37 the penalty of excommunication was inflicted on those who consumed the blood of strangled animals: “Then if anyone shall undertake in whatever way to eat the blood of animals, if he is a cleric let him be deposed, but if he is a layman let him be excluded.” In many places the Council of Trent subjects to anathema the assailants of ecclesiastical discipline. For canon 9 of session 13, De Eucharistia, inflicts the penalty of anathema on him who “shall deny that each and every one of the faithful of either sex, when he shall have reached the age of discretion, is bound every year, particularly in Eastertide, to receive communion according to the precept of Holy Mother Church.” In canon 7 of session 22, De Sacrificio Missae, he is placed under anathema who says that “the ceremonies, vestments and external signs that the Catholic Church uses in the celebration of Mass are incitements to impiety rather than services of piety.” In canon 9 of the same session, he likewise is subject to anathema who asserts that “the rite of the Roman Church, in which part of the Canon and the words of consecration are pronounced in a low voice, should be condemned, or that Mass should be celebrated in the vulgar tongue only.” In canon 4 of session 24, De Sacramento Matrimonii, they are struck with anathema who say that “the Church was not able to establish diriment impediments to marriage, or that in establishing them she erred.” In canon 9 of the same session and title, he likewise falls into anathema who says that “clerics in sacred orders or regulars who have solemnly professed chastity can contract matrimony and that once contracted it is valid, notwithstanding the ecclesiastical law or the vow, and that the opposite is nothing but a condemnation of marriage, and that all can contract marriage who do not feel that they have the gift of chastity, even if they have made a vow of it.” In canon 11 of the same session and title, they are equally anathematized who say that “the prohibition of the solemnity of nuptials at certain times of the year is a tyrannical superstition drawn from the superstition of pagans, or who condemns the blessings and other ceremonies that the Church uses in them.” In canon 12 of the same session and title an anathema is imposed on those who say that “matrimonial cases do not belong to ecclesiastical judges.” Afterwards, on January 12, 1661,38 Alexander VII forbade under latae sententiae excommunication a version of the Roman Missal translated into French as “a novelty injurious to the perpetual dignity of the Church and easily productive of disobedience, temerity, boldness, sedition, schism and many other evils.”39 From the declaration of anathema against the opponents of many headings of discipline, We clearly understand that it was always considered by the Church to be connected to dogma, and that it should not be changed simply at any time or by anyone, but by the ecclesiastical power alone, when it is manifest that what was preserved until now had been done wrongly, or when the necessity of acquiring a greater good urges it. 

Now it remains for Us to see how these variations, which it was hoped would be beneficial, are neither useful nor long-lasting. This will easily be clear to you if you recall the example of the use of the chalice, which Pius IV, when Emperor Ferdinand and Albert, duke of Bavaria, strongly asked for it, was finally induced to concede, doubtless so that some bishops having dioceses in Germany could, under certain conditions, permit it. But when more evil than good redounded in the Church from it, St. Pius V considered it necessary at the beginning of his pontificate to revoke this concession, which he immediately executed in his briefs, one dated June 8, 1566, to John, patriarch of Aquileia, and the other dated the following day to Charles, archduke of Austria. And when afterward Urban, bishop of Passau, requested the same indult, St. Pius, replying May 26, 1568, vehemently exhorted him “to retain the most ancient and holy rite of the Catholic Church rather than that which the heretics use…and in this judgment you should firmly and strongly remain, so that you do not allow yourself to be swayed from it by the fear of any loss or danger, even if temporal goods must be lost, even if you must undergo martyrdom. You should value the reward of such constancy more highly than any riches or temporal goods whatsoever. A truly Christian and Catholic man is not to avoid martyrdom, so much so that it is even to be sought out, and accepted from God as a unique benefit, and whoever shall be held worthy to shed his blood for Christ and His most holy sacraments should be considered blessed.”40 Hence St. Leo the Great, writing with decrees concerning certain articles of discipline to the bishops throughout Campania, Picenum, Tuscia and all the provinces, rightly closes his letter: “Therefore Our admonition declares that if any of the brethren shall attempt to oppose these decrees, and shall dare to admit what is prohibited, let him know that he will be removed from his office, and neither will he share in Our communion who did not wish to associate with Our discipline.”41

Now let Us proceed to examine the chapters of the decree of the National Assembly. Among the most serious stands out the suppression of ancient metropolises and several bishoprics, and the division of some and the erection of others. We do not here intend to bring into critical examination what historians somewhat doubtfully relate concerning the old division of the Gallican provinces administered by the civil law, from which We can infer that ecclesiastical metropolises matched them neither in time nor in place. As regards the matter at hand, it is sufficient if We note that the regions of ecclesiastical ministry in no way derive from the division of metropolises constituted in accord with the civil jurisdiction, which is clear from the argument offered by St. Innocent I: “For, as to your question of whether, when provinces are divided by an imperial judgment so that they become two metropolises, likewise two metropolitan bishops should be nominated, it does not seem that the Church of God should change according to the vicissitudes of earthly necessities, and to endure honors or divisions, which the Emperor for his own reasons considers worthwhile. Therefore, it is appropriate to nominate metropolitan bishops according to the ancient custom of provinces.”42 Pierre de Marca illustrates such a letter with famous documents from the practice of the Gallican Church. It will be enough to extract a few words: “The Gallican Church was of the same mind as the Council of Chalcedon and the decree of Innocent, and it considered it unlawful for new bishoprics to be instituted by the order of kings…Therefore it is not true that we recede from the common opinion of the universal Church with an unseemly adulation of princes, as happened to Marco Antonio de Dominis, who erroneously and against the canons themselves asserted the institution of bishoprics by kings. This opinion has been embraced by several more recent writers. The whole manner of arranging these affairs belongs to the Church, as I have said.”43

But, they say, We are asked to approve the decreed division of dioceses, and it should be maturely considered whether We ought to approve it. But the flawed origin from which such divisions and suppressions of Our day derive seems to stand in the way. Furthermore, it should be noted that We are not considering a change of only this or that diocese but the upending of almost all of them throughout the entire kingdom, and so many great churches that are to be removed from their places, since many of them that shone with archepiscopal honor are degraded to the episcopal rank, against which novelty Innocent III inveighed when he thought the patriarch of Antioch worthy of reprehending with these words: “because by some new change you have belittled the superior and in a certain way lessened the great, presuming to make a bishop of an archbishop, or rather to de-archbishop him.”44

Moreover, this novelty in the matter was consider of such great importance by Ivo of Chartres that to avoid it he felt it was necessary to resort to Paschal II and to address him with these words: “That You allow the state of the Churches, which has lasted almost forty years, to remain unchanged, lest on this occasion You incite in the Gallic kingdom the schism that exists in the Germanic kingdom against the Apostolic See.”45 Add to this that fact that, before We arrive at that point, We should ask the bishops, whose rights are being discussed, lest We be accused of violating the laws of justice toward them. How much St. Innocent I detests this can be seen from the following words of his:46 “For who can bear what they have left behind, who more than anyone should be zealous for tranquility, peace and concord? But now, by a perverted custom, innocent priests are thrown out of the sees of their Churches. The first to endure this injustice was John, Our brother and fellow priest and your bishop, since he had been listened to without consideration. No crime was brought forth or heard. And what is this wicked scheme? So that there can be no kind of judgment, others are substituted in the places of living priests, as if those who began with this kind of crime could either consider or execute anything justly. For neither have we ever found any such thing to have been done by our fathers, but rather prohibited, since to no one has permission been given to ordain another to the place of a living bishop, for a spurious ordination cannot take away the honor of the priesthood. Accordingly he can in no way be bishop who is unjustly substituted.” Finally We should ascertain beforehand what those peoples feel who are deprived of the benefit of appealing more quickly and conveniently to their Pastor.

Then there follows another novelty of changed, or rather overturned, discipline, namely that concerning the introduction of a new scheme of the elections of bishops, by which, naturally, the solemn agreement or concordat entered into by Pope Leo X and King Francis I and approved by the general council Lateran V is infringed and violated. In this concordat they promised mutual faith, which had now continuously endured for 250 years, and therefore is consider to be established by right in the law of the kingdom. The parties had agreed on a method of conferring bishoprics, prelatures, monasteries and benefices. But now that this concordat has been set aside, it has been decreed by this Assembly that henceforth bishops shall be elected by some assortment of districts and municipalities. That Assembly seems to have wanted to embrace the false opinions of Luther and Calvin, which the apostate Spalatensis followed in turn. These men asserted that it was a matter of divine law that bishops be elected by the people. It is very easy to detect that this opinion is erroneous if We remember ancient elections. For Moses—let Us begin at the beginning—made Aaron pontiff, and Eleazar after him, without the suffrage or the advice of the people; and Christ our Lord chose first twelve Apostles and then seventy-two disciples without the intervention of the people, and St. Paul made Timothy the bishop of Ephesus, Titus of the island of Crete, and Dionysius the Areopagite of Corinth, whom the Apostle ordained with his own hands.47 St. John gave Polycarp to Smyrna as bishop without any approval of the people,48 and almost innumerable disciples were sent by the judgment of the Apostles alone to absent peoples and infidels to govern by the pastoral office the Churches founded by the Apostles themselves in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.49 That this is the true method of election is proved also by the sacred councils, such as Laodicea I50 and Constantinople IV.51 St. Athanasius created Frumentius the bishop of the Indians in a council of priests, without the knowledge of the people.52 St. Basil in his synod chose Euphronius as bishop of Nicopolis without any request or consent from the citizens and people.53 St. Gregory II ordained St. Boniface bishop in Germany without the Germans’ knowing or thinking anything about it. The Emperor Valentinian himself, when the bishop deferred to him in election of the bishop of Milan, responded, “This business is greater than my powers, but you, who are full of divine grace, and who have received that divine power, will choose better.”54 What Valentinian felt, the French districts should feel and declare all the more, and Catholic magistrates embrace.

Against what has been cited so far arise Luther and Calvin and their followers, who reply with the example of St. Peter, who standing in the midst of his brethren said (there was a mob of almost 120 men), “It is necessary that from among these men, who were assembled with us all the time, another be chosen in the place of the ministry and apostolate from which Judas fell by his transgression.”55 But they arise falsely, for first of all Peter did not leave to the crowd the liberty of elected whomever it wanted, but rather prescribed and designated one of these men who had been gathered with him. Furthermore, Chrysostom removes all restrictions, saying, “What then? Was Peter himself not permitted to choose? Certainly he was permitted, but he abstains lest he seem to show favor.”56 This is strengthened further by other deeds of Peter just afterward, which can be read in the letter of St. Innocent I to Decentius, bishop of Gubbio.57 But after Catholic prelates began to be extruded from their sees by the force of the Arians, whom the Emperor Constantius favored, and their followers set up in those sees (which St. Athanasius denounces58), the necessity of the time required that the people be present in the elections of bishops, so that they might be roused to maintain in his see the bishop that they knew had been elected before them. But the clergy did not on that account lose the right of election, which everyone knows had always pertained to them by peculiar right; nor was it ever acknowledged that the rights of election had been delegated to the people alone. Nor therefore did the Roman Pontiffs every allow their authority to rest idle; for St. Gregory the Great appointed John the subdeacon, who came from Genoa, where there were many Milanese, to investigate their desires concerning Constantius, and if they continued to be favorable to him, John was then to cause him to be consecrated bishop of Milan by his own bishops, with the assent of the pontifical authority.59 Again, in a letter to the various bishops of Dalmatia he ordered by the authority of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, that absolutely no one was to presume to impose hands in the city of Salona without his consent and permission, nor to ordain anyone bishop in that city but whom he said, and if his order were violated, they would be deprived of participation in the Body and Blood of the Lord, and the one whom they ordained would not be considered a bishop.60 Likewise in a letter to Peter, the bishop of Otranto, when the bishops of Brindisi, Lupia and Gallipoli had died, he commands him to betake himself to those cities and to conduct a visitation, and to take care that priests worthy of such a dignity be appointed, who would come to the Pope to receive the gift of consecration.61 Finally in his letter to the Milanese he approves their election of Deusdedit to succeed the deceased bishop Constantius, and he decrees that Deusdedit be ordained solemnly on his authority, provided nothing stood in the way according to the sacred canons.62 St. Nicholas I did not cease to rebuke King Lothair because he strove to elevate to the episcopate in his kingdom men acceptable to him alone, so much so that by his apostolic authority he enjoined him, on pain of divine judgment, that he was to allow no one to be elected in the cities of Trier and Cologne until the Apostolic See had been informed of it.63 Moreover, Innocent III rightly64 reproved the bishop of Penne65 because he had installed himself without warrant on the episcopal throne, before he was called to it or confirmed in it by the Roman Pontiff.66 Similarly he also deposed the bishop Conrad first from the see of Hidesheim, then from that of Würzburg, because he had arrogantly assumed each without consulting the Roman Pontiff.67 St. Bernard humbly requested of Honorius II that he deign to confirm Alberic of Châlons,68 elected by his suffrage, which plainly shows that the holy abbot acknowledged that episcopal elections are of no value without the apostolic approval.

Finally, since discords, tumults and other abuses were continually excited, it was necessary to remove the people from elections and to pass over their desire regarding the person to be elected.

This exclusion of the people, if it was prudently introduced then, when it concerned only the admission of Catholics to the elections, what must be said about the decree of the National Assembly, by whose power, the clergy being neglected, such elections are to be given to the French districts, in which, since they contain Jews, heretics and all manner of heterodox persons, of whom not a small party would take part in episcopal elections, then would result what St. Gregory the Great least desired and could not bear, as he testified in writing to the Milanese: “We by no means offer consent to a man who is elected not by Catholics but rather by Lombards…because the vicar of St. Ambrose is evidently shown to be unworthy if he is ordained having been elected by such people.”69

For thus not only would all disturbances and offenses, long since abolished, be renewed, but also men would be easily chosen as bishops who consider those in the corruption of errors their comrades and teachers, or who at least secretly in their minds cultivate opinions similar to those of the electors, as St. Jerome notes: “The judgment of the people errs sometimes, and in assenting to priests each one favors his own morals, and seeks not so much a good leader as one like himself.”70 But what should be expected from such bishops, who enter otherwise than by the gate,71 or rather what evil against religion is not to be feared, from those who, trapped by the snare of deception, will in no way be able to correct deception in the people?72 Certainly they, no matter what sort of people they are, would have no power of binding and loosing, since they lack a legitimate mission, and they would immediately be declared outside the communion of the Church by this Holy See, which has always done so in these kinds of cases, and she now also declares it by a public edict in all elections of the Ultrajectine bishops.73

But in the decree there is found something which seems to be still worse, namely that the bishops elected by their districts are commanded to go to the metropolitan or to a more senior bishop to obtain confirmation from him, and if he shall decline to give it, it is prescribed that he put the cause for his refusal in writing, and that the excluded men may make an appeal ex abusu to the civil magistrates, who shall judge that judgment of the metropolitans or excluding bishops, with whom the power of judging concerning morals and doctrine resides, and who, as St. Jerome writes,74 were established to restrain the people from error. But so that it may appear more clearly how illegitimate and insufficient this appeal to laymen is, the celebrated example of the emperor Constantine should be recalled. For when many bishops had come to Nicaea to celebrate a council, they thought it was opportune that the emperor should participate also, before whom the Arians might be indicted. But the emperor, having received the petitions that had been offered to him, said, “Since I am but a man, it is not lawful for me to arrogate the investigation of such things to myself, when both those who accuse and those who are accused are priests.”75 Many other examples of this kind could be adduced, but We do not wish to present too much evidence in an obvious matter. And if the contrary example of his son Constantius, certainly an enemy of the Catholic Church, is cited, who did arrogate authority to himself, which his own father confessed he did not possess, it is easy to recognize from the writings of Sts. Athanasius76 and Jerome77 how much they detested those actions.

At length what else did the Assembly wish to do with these decrees than overturn and reduce to nothing the episcopacy itself, as if out of hatred of Him Whose ministers the bishops are? By these decrees there is proclaimed a permanent council of priests, who are to be called vicars, and these are to be sixteen in cities containing 10,000 residents but twelve where the number of inhabitants is smaller. Similarly the bishops are compelled to accept others, namely those who had been priests of suppressed parishes, and these are called vicars pleni juris, the power of which right need not be subject and submissive to the bishops to whom they are attached. As regards the first, even if the power of choosing them is left to the bishops, nevertheless the bishops are prevented from making any act of jurisdiction without the vicars’ assent (except provisionally) and from removing any one of their number from their council, except by the majority vote of the council. What else is this than to want every diocese to be ruled by priests, who overthrow the jurisdiction of bishops? In this way, does it not contradict the doctrine read in the Acts of the Apostles: “The Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the Church of God, which he hath purchased with His own blood”?78 Is not the order of every sacred hierarchy utterly inverted and disturbed? Doubtless presbyters are being equated to bishops, which first the priest Aerius asserted,79 then Wycliffe and Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, whom Calvin finally followed, according to the collection of citations in Benedict XIV’s work on diocesan synods.80

Really presbyters are placed ahead of the bishops, since the latter cannot remove any of the former from the council, or decree anything without a majority vote of the deliberating vicars, as We have said. Yet canons, who compose a legitimately founded chapter, and who constitute a senate of the churches, when they are admitted to discussions cannot themselves vote but can only offer their advice, as Benedict XIV shows concerning the two provincial councils of Bordeaux.81

Furthermore, as regards the vicars of the second kind, who are called pleni juris, it is truly amazing and utterly unheard of that bishops should be bound to offer them duties which they could have just cause for refusing, and that those who have only subsidiary roles and who are acting in the stead of capable men should not even be subject to those whose charge they are carrying out.

But We must progress still further. Since this Assembly has come to establishing laws for governing seminaries, as it made the power of electing vicars from the whole clergy, so also it does not leave to the bishops even the liberty of electing superiors or rectors in seminaries, for it wants this to be done by the bishop together with the vicars by majority vote, and it prohibits the removal of the superiors and rectors once they have taken office except by the consent of the majority of the vicars, as We have said. Who here does not see how greatly the bishops are distrusted, to whom it belongs to have care of the institution and discipline of those who are to be commissioned in the Church and appointed to her service? Yet nothing is more certain and indubitable than that the head and chief administrator of seminaries is the bishop, and although the Council of Trent orders that two canons be appointed to oversee the ecclesiastical discipline of the students,82 nevertheless it leaves their selection to the bishops as the Holy Ghost shall suggest, and the bishops are constrained neither to adhere to their judgments nor to yield to their advice. But now how much faith will the bishops be able to put into the care of those who will have chosen by other people, perhaps bound by a sworn oath to uphold the poisoned decrees of the Assembly?

Finally, to reduce bishops to a state of extreme abjection and to bring them into the contempt of all, it is decreed that every three months, they shall receive a stipend, like those doing mercenary work, such that they are no longer able to relieve the hardships of the needy, who make up the majority of the people, much less maintain their degree of episcopal dignity. This new institution of episcopal congruae83 differs completely from that which had been given to bishops and parish priests in stable estates, which they themselves administered, and whose fruits they received as from the Lord. On that account we find that an estate of land was appointed for the churches, as is read in the capitularies both of Charlemagne84 and of King Lothair.85 The latter says, “We desire that according to the order of Lord, and of our father, one domain and twelve measures of arable land be given there.”86 And since the grants assigned to some domains of the bishoprics did not suffice, they were increased by uniting them to the abbatial estates, as We recall has frequently happened in France even during the time of Our pontificate. But now the means by which the bishops maintain their livelihoods will be in the hands of laymen, who control the treasury, and who are able to defraud them of their income if they oppose the perverse decrees that We have mentioned. Add to this that, once a certain part of the money is assigned to each bishop, none of them will any more be able to adopt a suffragan or a coadjutor, since the fruits of the church will not be able to supply for him what is appropriate to maintain his livelihood and dignity. Assuredly We know that this need arises not rarely in the dioceses, either because of the advanced age of the bishop, or because of his ill health, as a certain Archbishop of Lyon for this cause asked for and received a suffragan from the Pope, and to him a congrua was assigned from the produce of the archepiscopal table.87

Since We have already seen, beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, and greatly wondered that it has there been ordered that the chief articles of ecclesiastical discipline be changed, episcopal sees suppressed, divided, erected, not to mention bishops sacrilegiously elected, and whatever harms result from these things, should We not for the same reasons feel likewise concerning the suppressions of parishes, as you yourselves in your exposition already noted? We cannot but add here that, aside from the duty that was committed to the provincial assemblies of distributing, as it shall seem fit to them, the borders of their parishes, their innumerable suppressions cause in Us the greatest amazement, since the National Assembly had already decreed that in cities or towns in which only six thousand heads are counted, only one parish should be constituted. In what way will one parish priest ever be enough to care for so many people? As regards this matter, it seems opportune to relate here that Cardinal Conrad, delegated by Gregory IX to preside at the Synod of Cologne, interrogated with these words a certain parish priest who was present and who vehemently argued that the friars of the Order of Preachers should not be introduced there: “What is the number of men subject to you in your parish?” When he replied that it was nine thousand, the Cardinal, moved by amazement and anger, said, “Who are you, you wretched man, that you are sufficient give the due care of government to so many thousands? Do you not know, most lost of men, that in that tremendous judgment before the tribunal of Christ, you will have to answer for all of them? And you complain, if you have such vicars [Friars Preacher], who freely relieve your burden, under whose weight you ignorantly shake: therefore, because by this complaint you have judged yourself entirely unworthy of the care of souls, I deprive you of every pastoral benefice.”88 And although there the number was nine thousand but here six thousand souls are committed by the decree of the Assembly to the care of one parish priest, nevertheless who would not say that such a number far exceeds the powers of one parish priest, and that it must necessarily result that many of the parishioners will be deprived of spiritual assistance, for which they will be unable to resort to the regulars, who have already been suppressed?

Now let Us pass to the invasion of ecclesiastical goods, another error of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun condemned in the constitution of John XXII89 and long before in the decretal of Pope St. Boniface I,90 reported by many: “No one may be ignorant that everything that is consecrated to the Lord, whether it be a man or an animal or a field, or anything that shall once be consecrated, shall be holy of holies to the Lord, and belongs to the right of priests. Therefore, everyone will be inexcusable who takes what belongs to God or the Church and ravages it, invades it or takes it away, and he shall be judged sacrilegious and bound to repentance and satisfaction of the Church. And if he will not reform himself, he shall be excommunicated.” Or the Sixth Council of Toledo,91 and Loyse’s note D,92 which explains the text of the Council: “As for what a heinous crime it is for the things given by the faithful with sincere faith to the churches to be taken away or alienated, at the present time there are extant many writings of the most learned men, which for brevity’s sake I prudently omit. I will adduce one only, which I find written in the Eastern constitutions. Nicephorus Phocas completely abolished the grants left to the monasteries and temples and passed a law that the Church not be enriched with immovable goods, giving the pretext that the bishops were poorly spending what they gave to the poor, since in the meantime the soldiers were wanting. The emperor Basil the Younger Porphyrogenitus repealed his temerity and his impious law with another law, which I consider worthy of quotation here. Our rule, which has come from God, since it learned both from the monks, whose piety and virtue are attested, and from many others that the law passed by the lord Nicephorus, who usurped Our rule, concerning the churches of God and the holy buildings, or rather against the churches of God and their holy buildings, has been the cause and root of the present evils and of all this subversion and confusion (as what has been done to injure and contemn not only the churches and the holy buildings but even God Himself), and especially since it discovered that this was in fact the case, for since this law has been observed, nothing in any way good has occurred even to the present day of Our life, but rather no kind of evil whatever has been lacking, ordered by this present golden bull, that the aforementioned law shall cease from the present day, and henceforth shall remain void and of no force, and the laws that have been passed concerning the churches of God and the holy buildings and houses of religion shall take its place and hold force.

This was the ancient and constant desire both of the French nobility and of the people. For in the year 803 they offered Charlemagne the following entreaty:93 “On bended knees we beseech Your Majesty, that henceforth, as until now, the bishops not be harassed with armies, but when You and we go forth in arms, they reside in their own parishes…yet we desire that You and everyone know that we do not seek this because we wish to deprive them of their belongings or of any of their monies, unless it shall please them freely to give us something, or of their churches, but rather we desire to increase for them, if the Lord shall grant it, that they and You and we might be more secure, and, with God Himself as our help, that we might merit to please Him. For we know that the belongings of the Church are consecrated to God; we know that they are all offerings of the faithful and the prices of sins; therefore if anyone takes them away from the churches, to which they have been conferred by the faithful and consecrated to God, without doubt he commits sacrilege. He is blind who does not see this. Therefore, whichever of us gives his belongings to the Church offers and dedicates them to the Lord God and to His saints and to no one else, saying the following and doing thus: for he writes an account of these belongings that he wishes to give to God, and in front of the altar or above it he holds this account in his hand, saying to the priests and guardians of the place, ‘I offer and dedicate to God all the things contained in this list for the remission of my sins and those of my parents and children….’ If someone later takes them from there, what is that but sacrilege? Therefore, if it is theft to take something from a friend, then to defraud or take something from the Church is without doubt sacrilege….Therefore, so that these things may be kept by You and by us, or by Your successors and ours in future times, without any dissimulation, command that they be inserted in the ecclesiastical laws and included in among Your capitula.”

To this the emperor replied:94 “We immediately grant these things just as you requested…For we know that many kingdoms and their kings have fallen because they despoiled the churches and ravaged, alienated or snatched away their belongings, and took them from their bishops and priests and, what is more important, churches…And in order that these may be kept more devoutly throughout future times, We command that no one, either in Our times or in the future, by Us or by Our successors, ever at any time presume to seek or intrude upon or ravage or alienate by any kind of scheme the belongings of the churches without the consent and will of the bishops in whose parishes they are known to be. If any shall do this, either in Our times or in those of Our successors, let him be subject to the penalty for sacrilege, and let him be punished legally as a committer of sacrilege and a murderer or sacrilegious thief by Us and by Our successors and Our judges, and anathematized by our bishops.”

But let whoever takes part in this usurpation read about the vengeance that the Lord took upon Heliodorus and his associates, who tried to steal treasures from the Temple, against whom the Spirit of almighty God gave great evidence of His manifestation, such that those who dared to obey Heliodorus, were turned back and cast by the power of God into destruction and terror. For a horse appeared to them with a fearsome rider and decorated with the best coverings. The horse struck Heliodorus forcefully with its forelegs, and the rider seemed to have armor of gold. Two other youths also appeared, adorned with strength, outstanding in glory, and splendid in dress, who stood around him and from both sides whipped him unremittingly, beating him with many blows. But suddenly Heliodorus fell to the ground, and they took him away, having first covered him with a great darkness, and put him in the saddle. Thus the story is read in the second book of Maccabees,95 and although it concerns monies that did not pertain to the sacrifices and did not properly belong to the Temple, but were reserved in it for the support of orphans, widows and others, nevertheless, because of the violated majesty and holiness of the Temple and the usurpation of others’ property, the Lord inflicted a grave penalty on Heliodorus and his accomplices. Terrified by this example, the emperor Theodosius ceased confiscating a deposit of some widow reserved in the church in Ticinum, as St. Ambrose narrates.96

And here who will ever believe that when the books of the churches and of Catholic clerics are seized and usurped, at the same time estates are preserved for Protestants, who rebelliously attacked Our religion, with agreements cited as the reason? Those agreements with Protestants held good with the National Assembly, but canonical sanctions and the pacts of this Holy See with King Francis I did not hold good? And it pleased them to be obliging in an affair in which the priesthood of God was despoiled. Who does not easily understand that in this occupation of ecclesiastical goods, they had in mind, among other things, the aim that the holy temples be profaned and the ministers of the Church brought into the contempt of everyone, so that others henceforth would be deterred from choosing the Lord’s portion?97 For these goods had hardly begun to be usurped when at once the abolition of divine worship followed, the temples were closed, sacred furnishings removed, and the singing of the Divine Office in churches ordered to cease. Until now France could98 glory that colleges or chapters of secular clerics, already introduced in the sixth century, flourished in her land, as can be seen in Gregory of Tours,99 and is also clear from the other documents cited by Mabillon in his Vetera analecta, and from the Third Council of Orange, held in 538;100 but now France herself is compelled to bewail their abolition, so unjustly and unworthily decreed by the National Assembly. It was the foremost occupation of the canons to render the divine praises together by singing every day in the churches, as the Lives of the Bishops of Metz by Paulus Diaconus, says: “Bishop Chrodegang commanded the clergy, abundantly imbued with the divine law and the Roman style of chant, to preserve the custom and order of the Roman Church.”101 When the emperor Charlemagne sent the work On Sacred Images to Hadrian I to submit it to his examination, the Pope took the opportunity to exhort him that the many churches of France that had declined to accept the tradition of the Apostolic See in chanting the Psalms embrace it with diligence, so that the Church they followed in the gift of faith they should adhere to also in the order of singing psalms. The words of Charlemagne with a long exposition can be read in the work of Dominicus Georgius on the liturgy of the Roman Pontiff.102 Furthermore, the same emperor desired that a schola cantorum be instituted in the monastery of St. Riquier (Centula) after the fashion of the one St. Gregory the Great instituted in Rome, and that in it one hundred boys be provided for, divided into three choirs to assist the monks in singing psalms and chanting.103 And this agrees with what the monk Koloman Sanftl, the librarian in the monastery of St. Emmeram in Ratisbon,104 recently confirmed in his dissertation, dedicated to Us, on the golden and very ancient manuscript codex of the holy Gospels of the same monastery.105

“At first the French and Spanish bishops took great care that a uniform rite in the divine offices was maintained in every province: various decrees on this subject are extant both among the French and among the Spanish. In the first place there is the renowned constitution of the Fourth Council of Toledo (held in 531), whose Fathers, after the exposition of the Catholic faith, considered nothing more important than to establish a uniform manner of chanting the psalms (canon 2).” Thus Mabillon indicates this kind of ancient rite in his disquisition on Gallican chant.106

Therefore, what already in ancient centuries the French Church was so anxious to provide for and fortify, that her clerics in the rank of canon spend their time in the appropriate occupation of their sacred office, and that the faithful, invited by the clerics’ performance of their duty, flock all the more to the churches to contemplate the divine mysteries and to obtain the reconciliation of God’s grace, now the National Assembly with one decree has suddenly removed, overthrown and abolished, with the utmost offense to everyone, in which action it has followed (as in in all the articles of the decree) the dictates of heretics, and in this matter especially the ravings of the Wycliffites, the Magdeburg Centuriators and Calvin, who raged against the antiquity of ecclesiastical chant, and against whom Fr. Martin Gerbert, the abbot of the monastery and the congregation of St. Blaise in the Black Forest, has written copiously.107 When in 1782 We went to Vienna in the cause of religion, he came to Us several times and demonstrated before Us how worthily he had obtained such renown for his name.

But the authors of the decree should consider what was historically and dogmatically declared in the Synod of Arras in 1025 concerning such enemies of psalmody, so that they might be filled with greater shame: “But who doubts that you are agitated by an unclean spirit when you reject what has been brought forth and instituted by the Holy Spirit, namely the practice of chanting psalms in the holy Church, and you accuse it of error almost as a superstition? The clerical order took up this form of rhythmic singing not from absurd and foolish spectacles but from the Fathers of the Old and New Testaments…Hence it is well known that they must be expelled from the bosom of the Church who publicly assert that this office of chanting the psalms in no way pertains to divine worship…Therefore it is clear that such persons do not dissent from their head, that is to say, the Devil, who is the head of all evils, and who understands Sacred Scripture but exerts himself to pervert it by a wicked interpretation.”108 Now if the ornament of the house of God and His worship falls in this kingdom, it must necessarily follow that the number of clerics will decline, and what St. Augustine relates happened to the Jewish nation will result: “Once it began to lack prophets, without doubt it became worse, just at that time when it was hoping it would be better.”109

Now having begun on this route, let Us proceed to the regulars, whose goods the National Assembly arrogated to itself, yet covering its action with a less odious pretext, namely in order to use their fruits, which indeed differs somewhat from true propriety of ownership. But, by the decree published February 13 and confirmed after six days by the royal sanction, all the institutes of regulars were suppressed, and it was prohibited that any others should henceforth be admitted. But how much good these institutes bring to the Church, the Council of Trent deduces from experience itself: “For the holy Synod is not ignorant of how much splendor and benefit arises in the Church of God from monasteries piously established and rightly administered.”110

And certainly all the Father of the Church showered the orders of regulars with the highest praises, among whom St. John Chrysostom, who fought bitterly against their opponents with three whole books.111 And after St. Gregory the Great had warned Marinianus, archbishop of Ravenna, not to vex the monasteries with hardships but to defend them and with all effort assemble the religious there,112 he convoked a council of bishops and priests and in it issued a decree “that no bishop or secular cleric should intrude upon the revenues, belongings or charters of monasteries, or diminish the stores or farms that belong to them in any way or on any occasion, either by a wicked trick or by doing them violence.”

Later, in the thirteenth century, arose William of Saint-Amour, who in his book De periculis novorum temporum devoted himself totally to deterring men from turning to and entering religion, but this book was called in for examination by Pope Alexander IV and declared evilwickedexecrable and abominable.113

Two doctors of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas114 and St. Bonaventure,115 wrote against and refuted the aforementioned William. And since Luther revived the same condemned opinion, he also received condemnation from Pope Leo X.116 Likewise in one of the councils of Rouen in 1581, the bishops were warned to “safeguard their subsidiary regulars and to hold them dear, and to nourish them as assistants, and to consider all injuries and insults done to them as if they had been done to themselves, and to ward them off.”117 The pious wishes of St. Louis IX, the king of France, will always be memorable, whose great concern was that the two sons he had during his expedition to the East, when they reached the age of discretion, be brought up in the enclosure of monasteries, one with the Dominicans, the other with the Minorites, so that they might be instructed in the sacred traditions and literature and be brought to the love of religions, desiring with his whole heart that, informed by wholesome examples and inspired by God, they might in their own times and places enter religion themselves.118 But more recently, the authors of the work called Nouveau traité de diplomatique burst out into these words: “What attention can the declamations merit that were published by an historian of the public ecclesiastical law of France, against the privileges conceded to the monasteries? Privileges, he says, and exemptions that could not be conceded without overturning the hierarchy and violating the rights of the episcopacy, and which were really abuses, and introduced the greatest abuses? What temerity to attack a discipline so ancient and supported by so much authority in Church and in the kingdom!” 

Here let Us not conceal, nor should it seem surprising to anyone, that sometimes in religious orders the spirit of their institutes can become rather lax and languid, and the original rigor prescribed by their discipline is not retained. But are the orders therefore to be abolished? On this matter let us hear what John of Palomar objected to Peter Rayne, an opponent of the regulars, at the Council of Basel. John did not deny that certain things worthy of reform had prevailed among the regulars, yet he added that “although there are at this time many things in the religious that need reform, just as in other states, nevertheless they greatly illuminate the Church with their preaching and teaching, and no prudent man, being in a dark place, extinguishes his lamp because it does not shine well, but if it has slag or dross he tries to improve it as he best can. For it is better if it shines somewhat dimly than if it were entirely extinguished.”119 This opinion evidently is derived from another, which St. Augustine uttered so much earlier: “Is medicine therefore to be neglected because in some people the disease is incurable?”120

For this reason the abolition of the regulars decreed by the National Assembly that approves the fictions of heretics injures the state of public profession of the evangelical counsels; injures a manner of living commended in the Church as consistent with apostolic doctrine; injures those renowned founders whom We venerate on the altars, who established these societies in no wise but by God’s inspiration. But the National Assembly goes further: it ordered in its decree of February 13, 1790, that it in no way recognizes the solemn vows of religious, and consequently it declares that the regular orders and congregations in which they are taken are suppressed in France and remain suppressed, nor can they ever be hereafter restored. What is this other than to lay hands on major and perpetual vows, and to abolish them, which pertain only to papal authority? For major vows, says St. Thomas,121 i.e. vows of continence and so forth, are reserved to the Supreme Pontiff. And since it has to do with a promise to God made for our good, thus in Psalm 75, verse 12, We read, “Vow ye, and pay to the Lord your God,” and in Ecclesiastes, “If thou hast vowed any thing to God, defer not to pay it: for an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth him: but whatsoever thou hast vowed, pay it.”122

Furthermore, since even the Supreme Pontiff himself, persuaded for a time by particular reasons, thinks that he should grant a dispensation of solemn vows, he effects this not by an arbitrary act of his power but by means of a declaration. Nor should it here appear wonderful that Luther should have taught that one ought not repay one’s vows to the Lord God, since he was an apostate and a deserter of his religion. But so that the most thoughtful members of the National Assembly, as they seem to themselves, should escape reprehension and reproach, which they recognized would come upon them from the sight of so many dispersed religious, they took away from the same religious the habit of their profession, lest any appearance remain of their past state, from which they were disturbed, and so that even the very memory of the orders might be erased. Therefore the orders themselves were suppressed, both so that their goods might be invaded and so that nobody might any longer exist who could call people back from error and corruption of morals. This very wicked and pestilential trick is graphically described and condemned by the Council of Sens, which We praised at the beginning: “[The Protestants] grant the liberty of wantonness to monks and others bound by vows; they concede them the faculty of leaving the veil, throwing off the cowl and returning to the world; they permit apostasy, and they strive to weaken the decrees of the Roman Pontiffs, the decretal letters also, and the conciliar canons.”123

To what We have just explained regarding religious vows, it is necessary to add the monstrous judgment given against the holy virgins, ejecting them from their cloisters, as did Luther, who “did not fear to pollute those holy vessels of God, the virgins consecrated to Christ, and to remove those who professed a monastic life from their monasteries and to return to them to the world, or rather to the Devil, whom they had once abjured.”124 Since nuns (the more glorious part of the Catholic flock) frequently avert grave dangers from cities through their prayers, as St. Gregory acknowledged happened at Rome in his time: “if they did not exist, none of us could have survived for so many years in this place, among the swords of the Lombards.”125 And Benedict XIV, speaking of his nuns in Bologna, says, “The city of Bologna, tossed about by so many calamities for years now, could not have stood had not the fervent prayers of our nuns assuaged the enkindled wrath of God.”126 In the meanwhile, the nuns, who in France are now harassed by the greatest disturbances, aroused deep sympathy in Us, when a large group from all the provinces explained their sorrow to Us in a letter, because they were prevented from retaining their rules and keeping their solemn vows, and together they declared they their minds were certain, fixed and determined that they would undergo any severities whatsoever rather than withdraw from their vocation. Accordingly, We could not fail to show you, Our beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, their abundant display of constancy and fortitude and vehemently to ask you to add the spurs of your encouragement and offer as much assistance as you can.

We could proceed to still other things worth noting regarding the decree of the Assembly, since from beginning to end it contains almost nothing that is not to be guarded against and reprehended, and all its sentences are so connected and coherent that hardly any part is free from the suspicion of error. But since We have already declared the greater monstrosities of the errors that are in it, and meanwhile, what We did not expect, in public pamphlets We have read that the bishop of Autun bound himself by his own oath to the words of the decree, We almost died of so great a grief, and We had to pause what We are writing to you. Our affliction increased astonishingly, such that night and day the apple of Our eye did not cease,127 when We saw that bishop detached from the others and separated from his colleagues, one out of all of them, to such an extent that he called God as a witness to his errors. And although he tried to save himself and prove himself innocent in one article touching the restriction of dioceses and the transferals of people to other dioceses, since he wanted to deceive and delude the unsuspecting, he straightaway used an inept comparison, namely that of a whole people, which because of public calamities or other urgent necessity is forced by the civil power to move from one diocese to another. These two examples differ in the extreme: when a people leaves its diocese and transfers to another, the bishop of the diocese to which they go exercises proper and ordinary jurisdiction over the new inhabitants within the boundaries of his diocese—jurisdiction, We say, not sought from the civil power but owed to him by his right. Indeed it is his right that all those who dwell in the diocese belong by reason of domicile and habitation to the bishop in whose diocese they are. If it should happen that the bishop of the diocese from which the people withdraws remains without a laity, it does not ever therefore become the case that a pastor without a flock ceases to be a bishop or that his church loses the title of cathedral, but both the bishop and his church retain their episcopal and cathedral rights, as is the case concerning churches occupied by Turks or other infidels, which are often conferred on titular bishops. On the contrary, where the boundaries of dioceses are changed in such a way that either whole dioceses or parts of them are transferred from the bishop to whom they belong to another, then clearly, since this was not done by legitimate ecclesiastical authority, the bishop from whom either a whole diocese is taken or part broken off cannot desert the flock that had been entrusted to him, and the other bishop, illegitimately increased with a new diocese, lay hands on the other diocese and take up the rule of sheep that are not his. For the canonical mission and jurisdiction that each bishop has is surrounded by definite limits, and the civil authority can never either make it wider or constrict it more narrowly.

Therefore, nothing could have been more foolishly devised than that contrived comparison concerning the transfer of a people to another diocese and the new alteration of dioceses and their borders. For in the first case, the bishop exercises that jurisdiction which he claims by right in his diocese; contrariwise, in the other case, he extends that jurisdiction which by no means pertains to him in another diocese. We have thus found nothing in the oath proffered by the bishop of Autun by which he can in any way defend himself with a Catholic argument from the charge of impiety. Among the conditions which are required for a licit oath, the foremost is that it be true and just. Now where can the truth, where can the justice be, when from the principles already cited above, nothing but what is false and unjust is deduced from them? Nor can the bishop now in any way excuse himself if he says that he acted precipitously and inconsiderately. Did he not proceed to the oath advisedly and deliberately, since he took pains to bolster it with false rationales, and since he already understood the opinions of the other bishops who were eruditely and piously fighting against the decree of the Assembly, and since he could not but have before his eyes then another plainly opposite oath that he had taken in his still recent consecration? Thus in every way it must be said that he fell into voluntary and sacrilegious perjury, which is assuredly opposed to the dogmas of the Church and to her most certain laws.

And here We consider it opportune to recall what occurred in England in the time of King Henry II. He made a quite similar decree, although written in fewer words, by which, abolishing the liberty of the English Church, he arrogated the rights of the primacy in it to himself. When he proposed it he commanded the bishops to swear by the words of the decree, that is, as he called them, by “the ancestral customs of the kingdom.” They, when they obeyed, in taking the oath added the clause “their order being preserved.” But this clause did not please the king, who said, “There is poison hidden in that, and it is captious.” And he commanded that “they promise to observe the customs of the kingdom absolutely and without any addition.” Even though they were struck by this response and overwhelmed with fear, still they were incited to resistance by the archbishop of Canterbury, later a martyr, St. Thomas. And the pontiff comforted them and exhorted them to stand firm in their pastoral office. “But as the most grave disturbances and evils were increasing daily, some bishops besought the archbishop to have pity on them and the clergy and relax his obstinacy, lest he suffer imprisonment and the clergy expulsion. The man of unconquered firmness, and founded on the rock of Christ, and until then neither softened by blandishments nor shaken by terrors, finally, moved by pity for the clergy rather than for himself, separated himself from the bosom of truth and from the heart of his Mother.” After him the other bishops swore the oath, but the archbishop, when he realized his error, was weighed down by the greatest grief and groaned, sighing as he said, “I repent, and gravely horrified by my deviation I judge myself unworthy of anymore approaching Him in the priesthood Whose Church I bargained in such a base transaction: thus I will be silent, sitting in grief until the Dawn from on high shall visit me, and I merit to be absolved by God Himself and by the lord Pope. For now I see that, driven by my sins, the English Church must become a servant, which my predecessor throughout so many and such great dangers that the world knows ruled so prudently, for which they fought so strongly among her enemies, and triumphed so powerfully—that she who before me was a mistress by my wretchedness appears as a servant. I wish I were annihilated so that no eye could see me!”

Thomas quickly sent letters to the Pope and showed him his wound; seeking medicine he asked for absolution, and the Pope recognized that Thomas had taken the oath not of his own will but through a shortsighted piety, and moved by a just pity absolved him by his apostolic authority. Thomas received the pontifical letter as if sent from heaven, and he did not cease to warn to king, now mildly, now firmly, mentioning those things that ought to have slowed the prince who was rushing to harm the Church. Meanwhile the king, having learned that Thomas had broken from his initial promise, wrote to the Pope asking to be granted two things: first, that the customs of the kingdom be approved by Rome, and secondly that the prerogative of apostolic delegation be transferred from the Church of Canterbury to that of York. The Pope rejected the first petition, as can be seen in the letter he sent to Thomas. The second he allowed, provided the integrity of the ecclesiastical order were maintained, and through another apostolic letter written to the bishop of York he commanded that the latter abstain from acts of jurisdiction in the province of Canterbury and that he not have the cross carried before him into it. Afterward Thomas fled to France and thence to Rome and, having been politely received by the Pope, he produced a document containing the royal customs, composed of sixteen chapters, and they were examined and rejected. Finally Thomas returned to England and proceeded undaunted to his agony, and remembering the divine precept, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me,”128 he threw open the doors of the church to the royal guards, and fervently commending himself to God, blessed Mary and the patron saints of his church, he received the wounds to his head and obtained the palm of a glorious martyrdom for the law of God and the liberty of the Church. We have excerpted this from Arfold’s Annales Ecclesiae Anglicanae.129

From all this who would not immediately recognize that the deeds of the National Assembly and of Henry II are extremely similar? From the Assembly have flowed decrees arrogating ecclesiastical authority to itself, and by the same Assembly everyone, chiefly the bishops and other clerics, is compelled to swear an oath, and to itself is transferred the promise that bishops tender to the Roman Pontiff. Ecclesiastical estates are seized, as they were by Henry, and their restitution was demanded by St. Thomas. The most Christian king was forced to give his sanction to the decree. Then a declaration was proposed to the Assembly in which the bishops, distinguishing civil from ecclesiastical law, professed that they desired to acknowledge and fulfill the former, and to reject the latter, which they placed outside the power of the Assembly, following the example of the outstanding Christian soldiers who served Julian the Apostate and whom St. Augustine celebrates with these words: “Julian was an infidel emperor, an apostate, a wicked idolator; the soldiers of Christ served an infidel emperor: when it came to the cause of Christ, they acknowledged only Him Who was in heaven. If ever Julian wanted them to worship idols, or burn incense, they put God before him. But when he said, ‘Form the battle-line, attack that people,’ immediately they obeyed, and they distinguished they eternal Lord from the temporal lord.”130 Nevertheless the National Assembly also rejected this declaration, just as Henry II refused to admit the aforementioned clause “their order being preserved.” From the first chapter to the last, the wicked enterprises of the Assembly and of King Henry clearly agree. But the Assembly has imitated not only Henry the Second but also the Eighth, who, when he had usurped the primacy of the English Church, transferred all its power to Cromwell the Zwinglian and declared him his vicar general in spiritual matters, committing to him the task of visiting all the monasteries of the realm. He caused this tour of his province to be conducted by his associate and in all ways likeminded friend Cranmer, taking every care that this ecclesiastical primacy of the king become settled and that all power that the Church had received from the King of heaven, Christ the Lord, as committed to herself only, be acknowledged to reside in him. These very visitations were conducted through the suppression of the monasteries and the sacrilegious ransacking of ecclesiastical goods, and at the same time he satisfied both his hatred for the Roman Pontiff and his greed for possessing the goods of others. As Henry VIII then pretended that the formula of the oath proposed to the bishops contained nothing other than civil and secular obedience and fidelity, while in fact it included the abolition of papal authority, so now the mighty French Assembly, though attaching to its decree the title “On the Civil Constitution of the Clergy,” in fact abrogated all power of the head of the Church, prohibiting the bishops from having anything to do with Us beyond informing Us of what has already been done and completed without Us. Who would not think that the members of the Assembly then had in mind the decrees of kings Henry II and VIII of England, and proposed them as worthy of adoption for their own constitution? For otherwise how could they have achieved such an imitation of these two kings? The only difference is that the recent men are worse than the earlier. 

But since We have already compared the acts of the two Henrys and those of the National Assembly, let Us proceed now likewise to compare the bishop of Autun with his colleagues, and lest We tire Ourselves by describing everything minutely, it will suffice to examine the Assembly’s decree itself, by whose words he swore without any exception. For thus We will easily judge the difference between his belief and that of the other bishops. The latter, walking righteously in the law of the Lord, displayed great constancy of mind in maintaining the dogma and doctrine of their predecessors, of adhering to the first See of Peter, in exercising and preserving their rights, in opposing novelties, in awaiting Our reply to learn what they should do. The voice of them all was one and their confession one, just as there is one faith and one tradition and discipline. We were astounded when We saw that the bishop of Autun was unmoved by their examples and arguments. Bossuet, the bishop of Meaux, among you a most celebrated and credible author, used a similar comparison before Us, namely of Thomas of Canterbury on the one hand and Thomas Cranmer on the other, which We think worthy of inserting here, so that those who read it may note how similar it is to Ours:

“St. Thomas of Canterbury resisted wicked kings; Thomas Cranmer prostituted his conscience to them and flattered their depraved passions. The former, driven into exile and despoiled of his goods, having suffered persecution both in his property and in his own person, and afflicted in every way, purchased the glorious liberty of saying the truth as he believed it, manfully despising life and its comforts. The latter, in order to please his prince, spent his whole life in shameful dissimulation and never ceased doing things contrary to his faith. One fought even to the point of shedding blood to assert the least of the rights of the Church, and while he defended her prerogatives, both those that Jesus Christ acquired for her by His blood and those that were granted to her by pious kings, he guarded the exterior things of the holy city. The other gave her most intimate treasures to the kings of the land, namely her preaching, her worship, her sacraments, her keys, her authority, her censures and her very faith; at by the end there is nothing that is not subjected to the yoke, and since all ecclesiastical power is at once delivered to the royal throne, no power is left to the Church besides what it pleases the secular authority to grant her. The former, furthermore, always undaunted, and while he lived always pious, showed even more daring and more piety when he was close to death. The latter, always pusillanimous and timid, was even more so when death drew near, and at age sixty-two, for the sake of the remaining part of his miserable life, threw away his faith and his conscience. Therefore his name is held in contempt among men, and the members of his own flock have no way to excuse him except certain contorted and ingenious rationalizations, which are opposed to the facts. But the glory of St. Thomas of Canterbury will last as long as the Church, and his virtues, which France and England eagerly esteemed, will never pass from memory.”131 Thus Bossuet. 

But it is much more wonderful that the bishop of Autun was not overcome by the declaration of the chapter of his cathedral church of December 1 of last year; nor did he blush to incur its blame and to have to be instructed by his clergy, for whom it was his duty to shine by his example and his doctrine. In that declaration the clergy of Autun, supported by the most true principles of the Church, inveighs against the errors of the decree as follows: “The chapter of Autun declares 1. That it formally adheres to the exposition of principles concerning the constitution of the clergy published by the lord bishops deputed to the National Assembly last October 30. It declares 2. without violating its conscience it cannot either directly or indirectly take part in the carrying out of the new constitution proposed to the clergy, and especially in those matters that concern the suppression of cathedral churches, and therefore it will, as before, carry out its sacred canonical duties and satisfy the numerous duties with which its church is burdened until it becomes absolutely impossibly to fulfill them. 3. It declares that it, as the ancient defender of the goods and rights of the episcopate and by virtue of its spiritual jurisdiction, which, when the episcopal see is vacant, devolves to the cathedral churches, it cannot consent to any new circumscription of the diocese of Autun that proceeds from the temporal authority alone.”

Meanwhile We do not wish the bishop of Autun, and with him anyone else who in the meantime may have imitated him by committing perjury, to forget that the bishops who attended the Synod of Ariminum and who subscribed to an ambiguous, captious formula invented by the Arians, by which they were deceived, and terrified by the threats of the emperor Constantius, were warned by the judgment of Pope Liberius that if they persevered in error, they were to be punished with the spiritual vigor of the Catholic Church.132 And by the zeal of St. Hilary of Poitiers, the bishop Saturninus was expelled from the Church of Arles, since he obstinately persisted in the opinion of the Arian bishops.133 Finally, the judgment of Liberius confirmed by St. Damasus was give in a synodical epistle in a council of ninety bishops, that the Easterners too could openly declare that they repent of their error if they wanted to be and to be considered Catholics. “But we believe that those who languish in this struggle should be quickly separated from our communion and the title of bishop removed from them, so that the people might be relieved of their error.”134 It can in no way be denied that the bishop of Autun and his imitators have thrown themselves into the state that came under the judgment of Liberius and Damasus, and therefore, if they do not revoke their oath, they know that they can expect.

What we have to this point examined and thoroughly treated, We have drawn not from Our own mind but from the pure sources of sacred doctrine, as you see. But now We turn to you, Our most dear and beloved Brethren, Our joy and Our crown, although you have not needed the encouragement of any exhortation, since We Ourselves glory in you for your faith in all trials and for your excellent published instructions, and We approve your reasonable dissent from the decree of this Assembly. Nevertheless, because We have arrived at such calamitous state of things, so that even to those who think they stand in the Lord take heed of everything carefully, We exhort you with all possible vigor, Your Excellencies, on account of the office of pastoral care committed to Us, although without any merit of Ours, to preserve the concord of mind among yourselves with all fervor, so that with united zeal, deeds and counsel, with one spirit You might be able, with God’s help, to guard the Catholic religion against the plots and schemes of the new legislators. For as nothing can be more suited for exposing an opening to your adversaries than a disagreement among yourselves, so to shut every entry for them and to avoid every contrivance, nothing is more opportune and effective than the concord and unanimity of your wills. With almost exactly these words St. Pius V, Our predecessor, urged the chapter and canons of the Church of Besançon, which had fallen on similar times. Be therefore of strong and constant mind, and do not abandon your undertaking because of the threat of any dangers, and remember that David responded unafraid to the giant, and Judas Maccabeus replied undaunted to Antiochus—likewise Basil to Valentius, Hilary to Constantius, Ivo of Chartres to King Philip. Now, as belongs to Our duty, We have renewed Our public prayers; We have exhorted the king not to offer his sanction; We have advised the two archbishops who accompanied the king of what they are to do, and in order to disarm and weaken, as much as We could, this so-called third estate, We have ordered the temporary suspension of the exaction of taxes due to Our court by ancient convention and perpetual custom for Our undertakings in France. For this liberality of Ours We have received as a most ungrateful compensation, urged and incited by many members of the Assembly, the rebellion of the Avignonese from the Apostolic See, which We lament and from which We and this Holy See will not cease to call them back. Furthermore, We have restrained Ourselves from declaring the authors of the unfortunate civil constitution of the clergy cut off from the Catholic Church. Finally We have done everything, if somehow by Our leniency and patience We might avoid a deplorable schism and restore peace to you and your nation. But still adhering to the suggestions of paternal charity, which We understood you yourselves proposed for yourselves at the end of your exposition, We ask and beseech you that you explain and declare to Us what you judge We should do to effect the unification of your spirits. We certainly cannot divine this at such a distance, but you who are in the heart of the matter might discover something consonant with Catholic dogma and universal discipline that you could propose to Us for Our deliberation and examination. Finally, let Us pray to God, that He keep such vigilant and wise pastors for Us and for His Church safe and unharmed, and We accompany Our wish with the Apostolic Benediction, which to all of you, Our beloved Sons and Venerable Brethren, from the bottom of Our heart We affectionately impart. 

Given at Rome at St. Peter’s, the tenth day of March 1791, the seventeenth of Our pontificate.


  1. Pastoral Rule III, 14.  ↩︎
  2. On the Duties of the Clergy I, iii, 9. ↩︎
  3. Ep. 66, lib. VI. ↩︎
  4. Labbé, vol. XIX, col. 1154 (ed. Colet). ↩︎
  5. [The text says “March 5, 1752,” but this is wrong.] ↩︎
  6. [Reading retentionem for retectionem.] ↩︎
  7. Ad assiduas, constitution 44 in Bullarium tom. IV, vol. 11 (Mechelen, 1827), pp. 86-89.  ↩︎
  8. St. Athanasius, Historia Arianorum VI, 44. ↩︎
  9. [Reading ruiturae for tuiturae; cf. PG 61, 622.] ↩︎
  10. Commentary on Galatians i. 7.  ↩︎
  11. Ecclus. xv. 15-16. ↩︎
  12. Rom. xiii. 5. ↩︎
  13. Confessions III, 8. ↩︎
  14. [sociali contractu.] ↩︎
  15. Rom. xiii. 1-2. ↩︎
  16. Canon 20 (Labbé VI, 541). [The quotation of St. Paul is approximately Gal. i. 9.] ↩︎
  17. Constitution xxviii, 3.  ↩︎
  18. ST IIaIIae q. 10. a. 8. ↩︎
  19. ii.  ↩︎
  20. III, xvii, 13.  ↩︎
  21. [Epp. 93 and 185.] ↩︎
  22. Ep. 21, lib. V. ↩︎
  23. De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus, tom. II, lib. I, cap. ii, art. 11, 1st ordo, and in Sirmond, Conciliorum Galliae, tom. II, appendix “De antiquis episcoporum promotionum formulis” 13, p. 656. [See also PL 87, 899-902 and PL 129, 1381-1384.] ↩︎
  24. [The text reads fraternitatis ac pacis, but both Labbé and ERPG give fraternae pacis.] ↩︎
  25. Ep. 71 (Labbé V, 665). The same letter is no. 113 in Epistolae Romanorum pontificum genuinae I, p. 913.  ↩︎
  26. Ep. 5 (Labbé XI, 1343).  ↩︎
  27. Session 23, canon 8; session 24, Decree on Reformation 1.  ↩︎
  28. Pius VI, Responsio ad metropolitanos Moguntinum, Trevirensem, Coloniensem, et Salisburgensem super nunciaturis apostolicis (Rome, 1789), ch. VIII, sec. 3, §55 and 56, p. 211. ↩︎
  29. In his continuation of Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici XXXV (Bar-le-Duc, 1880), year 1566, nos. 267-271, pp. 123-126, and year 1567, no. 206, p. 337. ↩︎
  30. Ep. 68.  ↩︎
  31. [These two bracketed paragraphs are in a footnote in the Recueil, but we think it reasonable to introduce them into the text.] ↩︎
  32. De concordia sacerdotii et imperii II, vii, 8 (Paris, 1663), p. 82.  ↩︎
  33. [Reading politia for politica.]  ↩︎
  34. Charles d’Argentré, Collectio judiciorum de novis erroribus, tom. II (Paris, 1728), p. 291. ↩︎
  35. Ep. 54 to Januarius.  ↩︎
  36. ST IaIIae q. 97 a. 2.  ↩︎
  37. Canon 67 (Labbé VII, 1378). ↩︎
  38. [Not January 7 and February 7, as the text says.] ↩︎
  39. Ad aures nostras, constitution 326 in Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum, tom. XVI (Turin, 1869), p. 645.  ↩︎
  40. Certiores Nos fecit, quoted by Laderchius in his continuation of Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici XXXVI (Bar-le-Duc, 1880), year 1568, no. 93, p. 50. ↩︎
  41. Ep. 4. ↩︎
  42. Ep. 24 (PL 20, 548-549). ↩︎
  43. De concordia sacerdotii et imperii II, ix, 4 and 7.  ↩︎
  44. “Episcopare archiepiscopum, imo potius dearchiepiscopare praesumens. Ep. 50, lib. I (PL 214, 45). ↩︎
  45. Ep. 238 (PL 162, 246).  ↩︎
  46. Ep. 7 (PL 20, 503).  ↩︎
  47. Eusebius, Church History III, iv, 6-11. ↩︎
  48. St. Jerome, De viris illustribus xvii.  ↩︎
  49. Eusebius, Church History III, iv, 2-4; St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew xxv (PL 26, 188). ↩︎
  50. Canon 13. ↩︎
  51. Session 10, canon 12.  ↩︎
  52. Rufinus, Historia I, ix (PL 21, 479-480).  ↩︎
  53. Epp. 227 and 228.  ↩︎
  54. Theodoret, Church History IV, vi.  ↩︎
  55. Cf. Acts i. 21, 25. ↩︎
  56. Homily 3 on Acts. ↩︎
  57. Ep. 25, 2 (PL 20, 552).  ↩︎
  58. Cf. Historia Arianorum IV, 31.  ↩︎
  59. Ep. 30, lib. III. ↩︎
  60. Ep. 10, lib. IV.  ↩︎
  61. Ep. 21, lib. VI.  ↩︎
  62. Ep. 4, lib. XI (PL 77, 1122).  ↩︎
  63. Ivo of Chartres, Decretum, part V, ch. 357 (PL 161, 431).  ↩︎
  64. [Reading decenter for recenter.] ↩︎
  65. [Reading Pennensem for Sennensem.] ↩︎
  66. Odorico Rainaldi in his continuation of Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici XX (Bar-le-Duc, 1870), year 1199, no. 19, p. 40.  ↩︎
  67. Albert Krantz, Metropolis sive historia ecclesiastica Saxoniae VII, xvii, 1. ↩︎
  68. Ep. 13 (PL 182, 116-117). ↩︎
  69. Ep. 4, lib. XI (PG 77, 1122).  ↩︎
  70. Against Jovinian I, 34.  ↩︎
  71. Cf. John x. 1.  ↩︎
  72. Pope St. Damasus, Ep. 1 (PL 13, 349). ↩︎
  73. Benedict XIV, Auget pastoralem, Jan. 24, 1741, constitution 11 in Bullarium, tom. I, vol. 1 (Mechelen, 1826), pp. 56-59.  ↩︎
  74. Against the Luciferians 5. ↩︎
  75. Sozomen, Church History I, xvii.  ↩︎
  76. Historia Arianorum 52. ↩︎
  77. Against the Luciferians 19. ↩︎
  78. Acts xx. 28.  ↩︎
  79. [Epiphanius, Panarion 75.] ↩︎
  80. De synodo diocesana XIII, i, 2. ↩︎
  81. Ibid. ii, 6.  ↩︎
  82. Session 23, Decree on Reformation 18.  ↩︎
  83. [sc. portiones. The congrua portio is the minimum income of a cleric.] ↩︎
  84. PL 97, 146. [The Pope quotes Baluzius, Capitularia Regum Francorum, tom. I (Paris, 1677), p. 253. The latter gives 789 as the year of these capitularia, but Migne says 785.]  ↩︎
  85. PL 97, 649. ↩︎
  86. [Reading mansus for mensus and bunuariis for bunnariis.]  ↩︎
  87. Benedict XIV, De synodo dioecesana XIII, xiv, 12.  ↩︎
  88. [There is much confusion about this event. The Cardinal Conrad in question is Conrad of Urach. The synod, often called the “German,” was held in December 1225 in Mainz, not Cologne. The Recueil’s footnote erroneously says 1222. The Pope’s source is Abraham Bzovius, a continuator of Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, year 1225, no. 4. Severin Binius (Labbé XIII, 1100) says, “I do not know by what authority Bzovius in his annals reports that this synod was held at Cologne.” Furthermore, Gregory IX was not elected pope until 1227. Not having access to Bzovius, we cannot provide any further details.] ↩︎
  89. [Cum inter nonnullos.] ↩︎
  90. PL 20, 789. ↩︎
  91. Held in 638, canon 15 (Labbé VI, 1497). ↩︎
  92. Labbé VI, 1502. ↩︎
  93. PL 97, 788-790. ↩︎
  94. PL 97, 790 and 815.  ↩︎
  95. iii. 24-28. ↩︎
  96. On the Duties of the Clergy II, xxix, 150-151. ↩︎
  97. [i.e., the priesthood. See Deut. xviii. 1.] ↩︎
  98. [Reading potuit for potui.] ↩︎
  99. Historia Francorum X, 16. ↩︎
  100. Canon 11 (Labbé V, 298-299).  ↩︎
  101. Gesta Episcoporum Mentensium (PL 95, 720).  ↩︎
  102. De liturgia Romani pontificis in sollemni celebratione missarum II, Dissertation I, vii, 6.  ↩︎
  103. Ibid. 7. ↩︎
  104. [i.e. Regensburg.] ↩︎
  105. Dissertatio in aureum ac pervetustum SS. Evangeliorum codiem MS. monasterii S. Emmerami, Part I, Praeliminaris I, iii-iv. ↩︎
  106. “De cursu Gallicano disquisitio” at the end of his De liturgia Gallicana (Paris, 1729), §5, 49, p. 418.  ↩︎
  107. De cantu et musica sacra, tom. II, lib. IV, ii. ↩︎
  108. Ch. XII, De psallendi officio (Labbé XI, 1181).  ↩︎
  109. De civitate Dei XVIII, 45.  ↩︎
  110. Session 25, Decree on Regulars 1.  ↩︎
  111. Adversus oppugnatores eorum qui ad monasticam vitam inducunt (PG 47, 319-386). ↩︎
  112. Ep. 29, lib. VI. ↩︎
  113. Romanus Pontifex, constitution 35 in Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum tom. III (Turin, 1858), pp. 644-646.  ↩︎
  114. Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et religionem in Opuscula theologica, vol. II, ed. Spiazzi. (Turin: Marietti, 1954), pp. 1-110. ↩︎
  115. Apologia pauperum in Doctoris seraphici Sancti Bonaventurae opera omnia, tom. VIII (Quaracchi, 1882), pp. 233-330. ↩︎
  116. Exsurge Domine, constitution 44 in Bullarum, diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum Romanorum pontificum tom. V (Turin, 1860), p. 752. ↩︎
  117. Ch. 41 (Labbé XXI, 651). ↩︎
  118. Geoffrey of Beaulieu, Vita S. Ludovici, ch. 14, among Historiae Francorum scriptores collected by Duchesne, tom. V, p. 448. ↩︎
  119. Labbé XVII, 1231. ↩︎
  120. Ep. 93, 3. ↩︎
  121. ST IaIIae, q. 88 a. 12. ↩︎
  122. v. 3. ↩︎
  123. Labbé XIX, 1157-1158. ↩︎
  124. Hadrian VI, brief Satis to Frederick, duke of Saxony, against Luther (Labbé XIX, 1064). ↩︎
  125. Ep. 26, lib. VII.  ↩︎
  126. Institutiones Ecclesiasticae (Venice, 1750), XXIX, p. 80.  ↩︎
  127. Cf. Lam. ii. 18.  ↩︎
  128. [Matt. xvi. 24.] ↩︎
  129. Tom. IV, years 1054-1171.  ↩︎
  130. Enarration on Psalm 125 [Vulg. 124], 7.  ↩︎
  131. Histoire des variations des Églises protestantes VII, 114.  ↩︎
  132. Letter of Liberius to the Catholic bishops of Italy, fragment 12 among the historical fragments of St. Hilary (PL 10, 714).  ↩︎
  133. Sulpicius Severus, Sacred History, II, 45 (PL 20, 155).  ↩︎
  134. Ep. 1 (PL 13, 349). ↩︎

The Social Kingship of Christ and the Catholic State

By Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières

Translator’s note: Every year at Pentecost, several thousand pilgrims walk the sixty miles from Paris to Chartres over two and a half days on the Our Lady of Christendom pilgrimage. These pilgrims are motivated by their love for the traditional Mass, which is celebrated in solemn pontifical form in the cathedral at the end of the journey. That Mass was the inspiration for and expression of an integrally Catholic society, one suffused with the faith and ruled by Christ the King. The Chartres pèlerins believe that such a society is possible again. 

The following article is from the livret du pèlerin, the official booklet given to the pilgrims, which contains various prayers, songs, and instructive pieces on what an integral Christian life entails. This translation from the French appears with the permission of the author.


Is the right to religious liberty affirmed by the declaration Dignitatis humanae of Vatican II opposed to the social kingdom of Christ over human societies? Some theologians and even bishops say so, and a good number of the faithful and of pastors seem not to have clear ideas on the subject.

Religious Liberty at Vatican II

The text of the declaration itself, like the explanations of the subsequent Magisterium, is opposed to this hermeneutic of rupture. In paragraph 1 of Dignitatis humanae, it is said that the doctrine put forward “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.” The relator of the document, Bp. De Smedt, during the presentation of the final schema, had himself specified that it dealt with “the duties of the public power toward the true religion.”1

The Catechism of the Catholic Church and Religious Liberty

The Catechism of the Catholic Church treats religious liberty in a section titled “The social duty of religion and the right to religious freedom.”2 Here it specifies that “the duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially.” It asks Christians to “infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which they live.” It affirms “the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies.” The Catechism explicitly refers to the great encyclicals Quanta cura of Pius IX, Immortale Dei of Leo XIII, and Quas primas of Pius XI. It specifies that the right to religious liberty “is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error;” in referring to Pius IX, that it “can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a ‘public order’ conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner;” and finally, that its limits must be determined “according to the requirements of the common good.”

The Teaching of John Paul II and Benedict XVI

The encyclical Veritatis splendor of John Paul II addresses in paragraph 34 the relativist interpretations of Dignitatis humanae that, unfortunately, have largely prevailed. A great traditionalist controversialist was able to write that “this corrected interpretation, by contrast with the so-called ‘spirit of the council’” is “explicitly placed in the perspective and the context of Gregory XVI (Mirari vos), Pius IX (Quanta cura) and Leo XIII (Libertas). The fifty-eight passages of Vatican II, those that are cited and interpreted by the encyclical, no longer cause any dubium.”3

Benedict XVI, in paragraph 55 of the encyclical Caritas in veritate affirms: “Religious freedom does not mean religious indifferentism, nor does it imply that all religions are equal. Discernment is needed regarding the contribution of cultures and religions, especially on the part of those who wield political power, if the social community is to be built up in a spirit of respect for the common good. Such discernment has to be based on the criterion of charity and truth.”

The Social Kingship of Christ: The Temporal Influence of the Incarnation

Faith and reason could expect that the Incarnation of the Son of God would have consequences even in the social order. It is impossible to see how a Catholic could dismiss this temporal influence of the central mystery of Christianity. Men have a social dimension that cannot escape the influence of Christ. Dignitatis humanae tells us that “among the things that concern the good of the Church and indeed the welfare of society here on earth…this certainly is preeminent, namely, that the Church should enjoy that full measure of freedom which her care for the salvation of men requires.”4 Elsewhere, the council and the Catechism ask us to “seek recognition of Sundays and the Church’s holy days as legal holidays”5 and to work so that “public authority should regard it as a sacred duty to recognize, protect and promote their authentic nature, to shield public morality and to favor the prosperity of home life.”6

Is to act in this way not to work for the realization of Christendom? If this work is preceded and accompanied, as it should be, by evangelization, does it not approach—as far as political prudence permits—a “Catholic nation?”

The true notion of religious liberty, affirmed by Dignitatis humanae and specified by the Magisterium after the council, is in no way opposed to the social kingship of Christ.

The Social Kingship of Christ and the Catholic State

Furthermore, we ought not to limit the notion of Christendom exclusively to the form of “the Catholic State.” The historical realization of Christendom clearly presupposes a society in which Catholics are the great majority. We should add also that, if the divine law requires the principle of a social and communal recognition of the true religion, it does not require a particular expression of this recognition (for example in written constitutions or concordats). In a society that does not enjoy a unity of belief in the Catholic faith, the divine law requires that Christians (and men of good will) strive that civil society honor the natural law and that it give to the Church the ability to preach the supernatural order, with all the indirect benefits that that involves.

This does not, therefore, imply a “nostalgia for a Catholic State,” but it does imply that one cannot be satisfied with a “neutral, passive and unengaged” State, for the State could not be neutral as regards the natural law nor indifferent as regards the religious dimension of the men who live in the polity of which it has charge. John Paul II reminded European parliamentarians of the necessity and the benefit of “the acceptance of principles and norms of behaviour which human reason attains or which flow from the authority of the Word of God, which man, individually or collectively, cannot bend to his pleasure or to the fancy of fashion or changing interests.”7 Twenty years later, Benedict XVI affirmed: “Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which must not consider itself omnipotent.”8

Christ the King and Evangelization

There is nothing here that inhibits evangelization. On the contrary, this effort of the prudent Christianization of structures is an important form of Christian charity. “Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development.”9

Fr. Louis-Marie de Blignières is the founder of the Fraternity of St. Vincent Ferrer in France.


  1. Acta Synodalia IV, VI, 719.  ↩︎
  2. CCC 2104-2109. ↩︎
  3. Jean Madiran, Itinéraires, December 1993. ↩︎
  4. Dignitatis humanae, 13. ↩︎
  5. CCC 2188. ↩︎
  6. Gaudium et spes, 52. ↩︎
  7. Speech to the European Parliament, October 11, 1988, §7. ↩︎
  8. Caritas in veritate, 56. ↩︎
  9. John Paul II, Mass of Inauguration, October 22, 1978, §5. ↩︎

Félix Sardá y Salvany on the Word “Integralists”

Editor’s Introduction

The Catalan priest Félix Sardá y Salvany (1841-1916) is most famous for his book Liberalism is a Sin. One of the first mentions of the word “integralism” [or “integrism”] by the Holy See was in response to El proceso del integrismo, an attack on Don Sardá’s book by Canon Celestino de Pazos.[1] Both books had been sent to the Sacred Congregation for the Index, which responded in 1887 that Pazos’s book should be withdrawn from circulation, and praised Fr. Sardá’s book as its “exposition and defense of the sound doctrine therein set forth with solidity, order, and lucidity.”[2] Liberalism is a Sin, become the vade-mecum of the first political movement to be given the name “integralist,” namely the movement founded by the Carlist writer Ramón Nocedal Romea (1842-1907), when he broke with the mainstream of Carlism, because the Carlist claimant to the throne was making what he considered untenable compromises with liberalism.[3] What exactly was meant by calling this movement integralist? In the Manifesto of Burgos, written by Nocedal and signed by a number of Spanish traditionalist newspapers in 1888, which is seen as the beginning of the Integralist party in Spain, reference is made again and again to the “integrity” of the adherence of the signatories to Catholic doctrine and tradition, to “la integridad y pureza de las doctrinas,”and “la integridad de nuestra doctrina y nuestra intransigencia con los errores modernos,”and so on.[4] This is why they were known as integralists: because of their integral adherence to Catholic doctrine, and their intransigent rejection of modern errors. One of the Catholic teachings to which they were particularly insistent in their adherence (since it was under particular attack at the time) was the teaching on the relation of spiritual and temporal power. The Manifesto of Burgos uses the traditional analogy of body and soul to explain the teaching:

As the body to the soul, so must the state be united and subordinated to the Church, the lesser luminary to the greater, the temporal sword to the spiritual sword, according to the terms and conditions that the Church of God lays down, and are established in our traditional laws.[5]

In 1889 El Siglo Futuro, the newspaper edited by Nocedal, printed a talk by Don Sardá entitled “¿Integristas?”.[6]Sardá explains that the name integralists is one that was being given to their movement by its enemies, but he argues that they ought to embrace the name. We are pleased to offer a translation of Don Sardá’s talk below.


Integralists?

A Conference read at the Catholic Academy (before Catholic Youth), of Sabadell by Don Felix Sardá y Salvany, Priest, Counselor of the same and Director of the Revista Popular.

Translated by HHG

The Parrot answered pertly,
As with argument conclusive,—
"You are nothing but a Purist,
Of taste foolishly exclusive."—?
"Thanks for the compliment," quoth Magpie, curtly.
(Iriarte, The Two Parrots and the Magpie)

Integralists? Yes, my dear gentlemen, and I accept the name as an honor. It is about this that I have wished to speak to you here at our beloved Academy—after not being able to speak here for a long time—and have thought it fitting to choose as theme for my familiar Conference the present epithet or sobriquet with which it seems our enemies seek to defame us. Under this name I wish to see you present yourself with saintly loftiness and Christian pride. I assure you that, by the grace of God, this is how I am; I am proud of my faith, of my baptism, of my Catholic education and of my Catholic priesthood and of everything it constitutes. Thanks be to Heaven, regarding my mode of being in the supernatural and Christian order.

Continue reading “Félix Sardá y Salvany on the Word “Integralists””

Domingo de Soto on the two powers

Domingo de Soto (1494—1560) was a prominent Dominican of the 16th century in Spain. One of the foremost Thomist philosophers and theologians of his time, he occupied a chair of theology at the famous University of Salamanca from 1532 to 1545, and then held the principal chair of theology there from 1552 to 1556. In 1545 he was selected by Emperor Charles V as imperial theologian to the Council of Trent, where he labored much in the drawing up of decrees and in answering the principal heresies of that age. He is perhaps best known for his treatise De natura et gratia in three books, which he composed during the Council of Trent and in which he expounded the Thomist doctrine regarding original sin and grace; but he left a great many other able works, including the large and worthy treatise De iustitia et iure in ten books, commentaries upon several of the works of Aristotle, a commentary upon St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, and two volumes of commentary upon the fourth book of Peter Lombard’s Liber Sententiarum. The translation presented here is from this latter work.

Translated by Timothy Wilson


Domingo de Soto, In IV Sent., dist. 25, q. 2, a. 1

QUESTION THE SECOND,

On the Ecclesiastical power, and the exemption of clerics.

ARTICLE I.

Whether the ecclesiastical power is supreme in such wise, that the civil power depends upon it, as its delegate.

We have considered it worthwhile to treat, at the end of this matter of orders, the question of the Ecclesiastical power in respect of the civil, divided into two articles.

The first of which is, whether the Ecclesiastical power is supreme, in such a way, that the civil power depends upon it as its delegate. It is argued from the affirmative part.

Christ instituted the Church as the best commonwealth: but the best commonwealth is that which, after the manner of a kingdom, is governed by one supreme head, as the Philosopher says in the Politics, lib. II: but there cannot be a supreme head in the Church, unless the civil power be wholly subject to the Ecclesiastical, so that the pope is the lord of all, as much temporal as spiritual. Otherwise there would be two heads, which the Philosopher condemns in the Metaphysics, lib. XII. And it is confirmed from Rom 12 and 1 Cor 12, where Paul says, that Christians are all one body consisting of diverse members: and there must be a single head of one body, lest it be monstrous. Jerome declares this with the example of bees, can. In apibus. 7. q. 1.

It is argued secondly. Christ left to his vicar that power which he himself had: but he, even insofar as he is man, not only was Lord of the kingdom of heaven in spiritual things, but also king of temporal things: for he says, in the final chapter of Matthew, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth: for which reason in Apoc 19 he is called the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

Thirdly, it is gathered from Canon law, for in any cause whatsoever, one may appeal from any secular judge to the apostolic see, 11. q. 1. can. Quicumque litem, and the Pope can depose kings: for Pope Zachary deposed the king of the Franks as harmful to the kingdom, 15. q. 6. can. Alius, and Innocent deposed Frederick, dist. 96. can. Duo sunt.[1]

But to the contrary, there is the authority of Pope Pelagius[2] in the same cited can. Duo sunt, where he says: Two there are, emperor Augustus, by which this world is ruled, the sacred authority of the Pontiffs, and the royal power.

Concerning this dispute, as Turrecremata says in lib. 2. cap. 113, there are two diametrically opposed opinions, between which there is a middle opinion, which shall be established as the catholic. For there are those who, out of an enthusiasm and (as they think) a zeal for religion, attempt to extol the apostolic dignity, so that they think the Roman Pontiff to be the supreme judge as much in spiritual as in temporal matters, and thus it pertains to him to institute kings and secular princes, who thus are as his vicars delegate. Augustinus de Ancona partakes of this opinion in his Tractatus de potestate ecclesiastica, whom Sylvester followed, at Papa §2. Panormitanus is also a patron of this opinion, as well as many other jurists. Others, having sunken to the other extreme, withdraw from the Supreme Pontiff absolutely any temporal power; no indeed, in temporal matters they subject him entirely to the civil power, and permit no exemption of clerics to be of divine law. Concerning this latter heresy, we shall speak at greater length in the following article.

To the present question, therefore, a response is made in five conclusions. The first is: the ecclesiastical power and the civil are two and distinct. This assertion is from Pelagius in the cited can. Duo sunt. But because this matter touches upon divine law, it is to be gathered from the testimonies of sacred scripture. For, because (I plead your good indulgence) it has not been granted to the interpreters of the sacred Canons to treat of the divine and natural law with precision, it is no wonder that they prate idly in this present matter. For the sacred Canons which speak of this matter shall have to be elucidated through sacred scripture, from which they are collected. Thus the conclusion is proved: as the Philosopher says in Ethics, lib. II, potencies and arts differ through actions, and actions through the objects and ends whither the actions are directed: but in the mystical Christian body there are two ends, the one natural, whither civil administration tends, namely, the peace and tranquility of the republic: and the other supernatural, which is occupied in the divine consideration, which, as Paul says, neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard: therefore there are diverse powers for pursuing those ends. The reason is that of Hugo, part. 2 de sacramen., where he says, that since there are two lives, the one terrestrial and the other spiritual, in order that both be preserved in justice, and that utility prosper, there is necessary a twofold power for the conservation of justice: one, which presides over terrestrial things to govern the civil life, and the other, which presides over spiritual things to order the spiritual life. Now the same truth is proved, secondly. The ecclesiastical power is the faculty of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, as is clear from Matt 16 and 18, and likewise of the remission of sins, as is had in John 20, and moreover, the power of consecrating the true body and blood of Christ: but this faculty has not been conceded to the civil power: therefore there are two powers. Thirdly, because in order to move men to ends of this sort, there are diverse laws, namely, in respect of the temporal end there are laws entirely human and civil, but in respect of the supernatural end, the supernatural mandates of the sacraments are also used: likewise there are also diverse swords: namely, diverse punishments: for civil punishments are consummated in the death of the body, nor are they extended further: while the ecclesiastical power uses a sword moreover spiritual: namely, excommunication, and other censures. Fourthly, and finally: the spiritual power is referred proximately to souls, and it is incumbent upon it to examine and consider the divine laws, and is concerned with divine worship, and thus it institutes pontiffs and priests, which functions do not belong to kings, but the rights of emperors are to treat, to create praetors, and other magistrates: there are diverse hierarchies, therefore, and thus diverse powers; and moreover, not only in the Mosaic law but also in the law of nature, the priests were different than the other magistrates, and to them was entrusted the summit of religion and divine worship. For as we have demonstrated in dist. 1 q. 2, in every law there was always some supernatural and necessary revelation of faith, which pointed out the necessary worship of God. No indeed, even in the state of nature these two powers would have flourished, although in that case no sacraments would have been necessary. But it is not proper to this place to discuss this further.

But perhaps one might argue to the contrary. The end of the civil commonwealth is, as Aristotle says in the same place, to make the citizens good, and well-instructed: now none is good but he who would be a friend of God, which friendship suffices for eternal life: whence it is gathered, that civil laws suffice for the obtaining of eternal life. And it is confirmed from Matt 22, If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments, where he was speaking of the commandments of nature, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, etc., which if it be true, the end of the civil and ecclesiastical power is one, and not many, and thus there is but one power. But the heretics of this age gather, that the spiritual power, along with the civil, lies with Kings and the civil republic. This heresy, though it is the most recent of all, never heard of before our age, yet is the most pestilential.

It is responded, therefore, that although the commands of the natural and civil law be referred to the order of eternal felicity, still they are not sufficient for obtaining it: for where Aristotle says that it is the purpose of the ruler to make the citizens good, he spoke only of moral goodness, but the moral duties do not suffice for the friendship of God without infused charity, without which no man is either called or is good, nor any work good. For this reason, beyond the natural and civil law, there is required, in the first place, the special help of God, and the laws of the sacraments, which are supernatural: for unless a man be reborn of water and the holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God: and except you eat the flesh of the son of man, it is said, you shall not have life in you. This power, therefore, which Christ committed in the first place to his vicar and through him to the Church, is more exalted than the civil.

But if you should ask again, surely God could have comprehended both through a single power and a single head: namely, that the king (just as has been imagined recently amongst the English) would administer all things pertaining as much to divine worship as to the civil commonwealth, or that the Pope would do both alone? It is responded, that it is not our concern to dispute on the absolute power of God; yet because, as it says in Wis 7, [wisdom] ordereth all things sweetly, and it is the task of wisdom, as Aristotle says in the Metaphysics, to order and govern all things in an orderly and apposite manner according to their ends, it was not seemly to commit such diverse offices to one power alone, for the ecclesiastical and civil administrations are very much different: indeed, the one is administered by secular magistrates, who have wives and children: while the other is appropriate to none but men free from the burden of a wife: for as the Apostle says in 1 Cor 7, he who has a wife seeks how he may please her, and they who are without a wife, seek how they may please God. If, therefore, the same power were to lie with the same supreme governor, it would be impossible for everything not to be jumbled, and thus subject to many perils. For this reason it was necessary that diverse heads be determined for matters so diverse, and that the Church would be as a queen seated at the right hand of the ruler, clothed round about with variety, and that the mystical body of Christ be compacted from various members, as Paul says in 1 Cor 10.

The second conclusion. The spiritual power is more excellent than the civil. Their very names declare this conclusion, as Innocent says in the capit. Solitæ de maior. et obedien. The Pontiff in that place reprehends the Emperor of Constantinople, who, on account of the testimony in 1 Pet 2: Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be to the king as excelling; or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, etc., opined that the royal power was more excellent than all others. He reprehends him, I say, objecting that in that place the Apostle only signifies the excellence of Kings in temporal matters, in respect of dukes and others, who receive those offices from him. But nevertheless, the pontiff prevails in spiritual matters, which are as much worthier than temporal matters, as the soul surpasses the body. And so, just as the soul is that which vivifies the body, and the spirit is the commander of the body: so also the spiritual power ought to be preeminent over temporal things. To this he also joins another and most apt similitude, that God instituted the pontifical and regal authorities as two great lights, namely the Sun and the Moon, for just as the Sun presides over the day, so also the Pontiff over spiritual things: and just as the Moon presides over the night, so also the King over temporal things, which take the likeness of the night. Moreover, just as the Moon receives light from the Sun, so also does the civil power receive light from the spiritual: for the king ought so to rule and govern temporal matters, that they serve spiritual religion.

This is proved secondly from the end of both powers: for as the Philosopher says in the Ethics, lib. I, the order between ends is such as that between faculties and arts, which have them as their set ends. On account of this, the equestrian art is more excellent than the bridle-making art, and the nautical art more excellent than the art of making ships, because the ends of the former are superior to the ends of the latter: and thus the equestrian art commands to the bridle-making art how it ought to fabricate the bridle, and the nautical art to the ship-making art how it ought to make a ship: since therefore the end of the spiritual power is, as we have said, eternal beatitude, and the end of the secular power is the tranquil state of the republic, which is referred to that supernal beatitude, it happens that the ecclesiastical power is higher.

Furthermore, this is proved by the example of Paul in Heb 7, where he proves, that the priest Melchisedech was superior to the secular Abraham, because, as it is read in Gen 14, Melchisedech blessed Abraham, and (says Paul) without doubt he who blesses, is greater than he who is blessed.

The third conclusion. The excellence of the ecclesiastical power, in respect of the civil, is not of this sort, that the pope is the lord of the whole earth in temporal things. We do not speak of a particular kingdom, whether the Supreme Pontiff is truly the temporal King of those cities and provinces of which he holds supreme dominion in temporals, since in these he knows no superior on earth. So much do we not deny this, that we think it pertains to his defense and splendor. But we speak of the universal kingdom of the world, whether the whole world, or the Christian world. This conclusion follows from the first: for if the Pope were supreme lord of all things, there would not be two powers, but one: for then, just as all prelates are subject to the supreme pontiff, and dukes to the king, by the same reason and in the same manner, kings would be subject to the supreme Pontiff, and would depend upon him entirely in the same way: for this reason, just as the ecclesiastical power is one, and the whole civil power one, in like manner then the two would be simultaneously one.

So that this conclusion and those subsequent might be known through their first foundation, it should be noted, that Christ left no other power to his vicar, than that which he himself received insofar as he was man, and redeemer of the world: yet he took up no temporal kingdom, but that precise dominion of temporal things, which was necessary for the end of  redemption. I have said, insofar as he was man: for inasmuch as he was God, it is entirely acknowledged and accepted by all mortals, and not merely Christians, that he is by right of creation the absolute Lord and king of the world. For, as the Psalm has it, the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof: and as it is read in Prov 8, by him kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things. For this reason, John Faber, who in his commentary upon c. de summa Trinitate attempts to show that Christ was a king because he was God, produces nothing of relevance. For we dispute of him insomuch as he was man. But insofar as he was man, he could indeed, if he had wished, have taken up even universal secular dominion of the world. And yet it is the case, as we have asserted, that he did not accept a dominion and kingdom of this sort, but only spiritual, and accepted of temporals only so much as was necessary for that spiritual dominion. For the spiritual kingdom is that which, as we have said above, has eternal life for its proximate end: and the temporal kingdom is that which is concerned with the peaceful status of the Republic. The conclusion is therefore proved, firstly. In the whole of the gospel, there occurs no mention of the temporal kingdom of Christ: it is therefore vain, lest I say temerarious, to assert it: for if a thing of such importance were true, the Evangelists never would have been silent upon it: but they pay heed only to the spiritual kingdom, which is called the kingdom of heaven. For this reason, the protheme of the preaching of John the precursor, and then of Christ, was, as in Matt 3, Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and Matt 5, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and many other things of that sort.

Secondly, it is confirmed by plain reason. Christ, who, since he was God, as David says, had no need of our goods, put on our humanity for that reason and end only, that he might bring about our redemption: for this reason, he preached the faith to us, and instituted laws, and created Apostles and Pontiffs, who would be our shepherds, that they might lead us to that beatitude: therefore, since Christ took up nothing superfluous, and the temporal power of a kingdom, so broadly and absolutely patent in secular kings, was not necessary to him for that end, the consequence is, that he by no means took it up.

But the patrons of the contrary opinion say, that Christ seized royal power of the whole world on account of his outstanding excellence and dignity. Yet reason stands to the contrary, because this pertained not at all to that same excellence of his. For, I ask, what increase of honor would accrue to Christ, since he was God per se, and, insofar as he was man, king also of the kingdom of heaven, if he had taken up temporal dominion and kingdoms, that is, their power? None, certainly. No indeed, how much more loftily is his majesty then commended, that, aside from that which was necessary for his office, he scorned the whole world: for he lived in poverty, and chose for Apostles men abject and humble, and ever preached against the glory and pomp of the world: poverty, and humility, and repudiation of the world he both taught and extolled with praise. Life of this sort, after the fall of Adam, is best, and suffers fewer perils. Whence Paul says, Phil 3, that he considers all these things as dung.

It is argued thirdly. Christ never discharged this office of royal power, no indeed, he always removed himself from the use of the same, which the partisans of the contrary opinion are unable to deny: for as he himself says, John 3: God sent not his son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. And when the adulterous woman was brought before him [in John 8], whose cause he would judge, he passed no sentence as judge, by which he would either condemn or absolve her, but he only explicated the natural and divine law, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And when the coin of the census was offered to him, he refused to judge whether or not the tax was due to Caesar, but left that to their judgment: only commending the natural and divine law, that if something be owed to Caesar, it be rendered to him, just as to God that which is his. And when others came to him, that he would sit as judge between them, he disparaged it as something lesser, saying, Who hath appointed me judge over you? Therefore, if he never discharged the office of King, it happens that he never took up such power: for that power is redundant and vain, which is never reduced to act. Sight or hearing accrue no dignity to man, except on account of their use. For this reason, if Christ was never to use that power, no dignity accrued to him from thence. Moreover, since power is made known through its acts, if the Gospel teaches us that he had neither the use nor the splendor of royal power, it is asserted without foundation that he took it up. For if he had taken it up on account of his dignity, he would have had to make it visible to men through its use. This was so far from his intent, that when the crowds set off to make him King, he withdrew himself from their attempt. A futile device, then, is that charming opinion of some, who say that in Christ there was royal power, but not its use.

Fourthly, it is also argued more evidently. Christ, as we are taught by the evangelical testimony, was naught but king of the Jews: but the king of the Jews was not to be a king of temporal goods, but of a spiritual and sempiternal inheritance: therefore he was not a king in temporals, as are secular kings. This is plainly confirmed from John 18, where, when Christ, who had been accused by them before Pilate of making himself a king, was asked by the governor whether he was a king, he asked him in turn whether he had said so from himself, or whether others had told it of him: as if to ask, of what kingdom he meant it: of that secular kingdom, by which the Romans and other nations rule, or another and higher? And when Pilate responded that he had said it not from himself, but from the relation of the Jewish nation: Christ, conceding that he is the king whom they awaited, adds, that his kingdom is not of this world, that is, of that sort which are temporal and perishable kingdoms. Hence the governor, not understanding that mystery, absolved him of the crime presented. And afterward, as if by a prophetic spirit, he affixed that epitaph to the Cross, Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews.

And if we consult the ancient testimonies of the prophets, they plainly manifest this. For he himself says through the prophet, Psalm 2: But I am appointed king by him (namely, God) over Sion his holy mountain (namely, the Church), preaching his commandments. Behold, he established his kingdom in the preaching only of the faith of the celestial kingdom. This is consonant with Matt 28, where he says: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them, etc., where he affirms, that no other power was given him, than that which pertains to the celestial kingdom. And Jer 23: Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will raise up to David a just branch: and a king shall reign, and shall be wise…In those days shall Juda be saved, that is, there will only be a king in order to save Juda. And Isaias 9: He shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it…from henceforth and forever. Thus David speaks of his offspring, Psalm 144: Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: because it is not brought to an end, as the secular kingdom is, through the elapsing of mortal life, but without interruption endures forever. But the Angel expounded this to Mary, saying: The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father, and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. And of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Some have imagined that he was a king by paternal right: for Joseph descended from David through Solomon, and the blessed Virgin through Mathan; but this is not pertinent. Firstly, because that kingdom was peculiar only to that province: but we speak of a universal kingdom of the whole world. Moreover, that temporal kingdom of David was entirely extinguished in Sedecias, as is written in 4 Kings 24, according to the prophecy of Jer 22. Wherefore Ambrose, in lib. 3 super Lucam says, that although Christ the king descended from Jechonias, to whom it was threatened by the prophet, that none of his offspring was to be king, yet (he says) there is no contradiction: because he did not rule with secular honor, nor sit in the seat of Jechonias, but in the seat of David. No indeed, although Jechonias had sat in the seat of David, yet not in the same seat as Christ: the latter had an eternal kingdom, which sort David himself did not have.

Finally, the same truth is confirmed by the testimony of all the holy fathers, for whom the thing was ever undoubted, that Christ took up no other kingdom, than the spiritual kingdom of heaven. Whence Augustine, lib. 83, q. 61, and wherever else he discusses this matter, says nothing but that Christ was our king, for that he gave to us an example of battling and conquering, by whose leadership we are liberated from Egypt, and brought into the heavenly Jerusalem, as into the land of promise.

But if someone should object to us blessed Thomas, in opusculum 20, lib. 3, cap. 13, where it appears to some that he taught the contrary opinion, it is responded, that it shall be clear to no one reading him attentively that he was of such an opinion. For there he establishes only that Christ was monarch of the whole universe, which he deduces from Psalm 8, Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, and from Malachi, From the rising of the sun to its setting, great is his name. Now these testimonies are understood only of his heavenly kingdom, in respect of which all things are subject to him. Which St. Thomas himself acknowledges, adding, that that dominion and kingdom of Christ is ordered to the salvation of the soul, and to spiritual goods, although it is not excluded from temporals insofar as they are ordered to spiritual things. He does not, therefore, affirm that he was a king in temporals except precisely in the order to spiritual things. And thus to be understood are his final words in II Sent.

But Burgensis, addit. 2 super Matt 1, contrives the contrary opinion, namely, that he was king in temporals, although he admits that it cannot at all be gathered from the testimonies of the prophets, who ascribe only an eternal kingdom to him. But he says, that because the Jews were anticipating him to be a temporal king also, God ordained, that Christ would have the same dignity. Now this conjecture is so tenuous, that it rather confirms our opinion. For that opinion of the Jews was false and erroneous: for aside from the testimonies cited, they had the clear witness of Zacharias, Behold thy king will come to thee, the just and savior: he is poor, and riding upon an ass, by whom they were taught that he would come without royal pomp. It was not fitting, therefore, that Christ take up a temporal kingdom on account of that error.

Let the good reader consult whether I have confirmed this foundation of truth with so many things. We now turn to the confirmation of the third conclusion. And indeed, should Christ have taken up a temporal kingdom: yet it would not immediately follow thence, that he committed an equal power to his vicar, for we could say that such pertained to his power of excellence, just as does his power to institute sacraments, and to confer grace without these, which function he did not commit to the Pope. But since neither did he take up royal power, it is most plain, that neither did he commit it to his vicar.

But furthermore, the same truth shines forth from what Christ says, Matt 20 and Luke 22, You know that the princes of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that are the greater, exercise power upon them. It shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be the greater among you (namely, Peter, who was to be the head of the Church), let him be your minister. Even as the Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many. Which place Bernard introduces, De consideratione lib. 2, and says: “For what else has the Apostle given to you? What I have, he says, I give thee. What is that? One thing I know, it is not gold or silver. Albeit you claim these things to yourself for any other reason: but not by Apostolical right; for he could not give to you that which he had not: that which he had, he gave, as I have said, the solicitude over the church[es].[3] Can it be that he says domination? Hear him. Neither as lording it over the clergy, he says, but being made a pattern of the flock. And lest you think this said in mere humility, and not truth also, it is the words of the Lord in the Gospel, The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent: and he continues, But you not so. It is plain: mastery [dominatus] is forbidden to the Apostles. Go you therefore, venture to seize for yourself, being one who either lords it over the Apostolate, or an Apostle over the mastery. Plainly you are prohibited from one or the other. If you should wish to have both at once, you shall lose both. Do not think yourself excepted from the number of those of whom God speaks thus: They have reigned, but not by me; they have been princes, and I knew not. This is the apostolical pattern: mastery is forbidden, ministry is enjoined.” And below: “Go out into the field (the field is the world): go out not as a master, but as a servant.” Thus Bernard. With Bernard as interpreter, Christ could not have removed this temporal dominion from the apostles in a more splendid manner. Hence it is a fiction to say that the Pope has the power of this dominion without its use. For that a power is vain which cannot be reduced to act, is proven much more efficaciously of this, than of Christ.

Likewise. If he had such a power, the Pope would also be able to usurp the jurisdiction of Princes without injury, and to remove and institute Kings even outside of causes of faith: which the most holy pontiffs, whatever their flatterers should say, certainly have never dared to attempt. Indeed Innocent,[4] in the cited can. Duo sunt, recognized that the two powers of the emperor and the Pope are distinct. Nor does he attribute any power of the Pope over Kings other than that of a pastor, such that he can excommunicate them, and remove them by reason of the faith.[5] And the can. Si imperator says, that the Emperor has the privileges of his power, which he has obtained divinely for the sake of administering the public laws. And in the cap. Per venerabilem. qui filii sunt legitimi, he frankly says, that he does not have power in temporals over the King of France. And whatever others might dream up, he understood that of all Kings. And in can. Cum ad verum, Nicholas expressly says, that neither has the Emperor seized the rights of the pontificate, nor the pontiff the Imperial name: since the mediator of God and man Christ Jesus has divided the offices of both powers with their own proper acts and distinct dignities.

Moreover, these things are more clearly confirmed. The administrations of the ecclesiastical and the civil republic are so different, that the ecclesiastical is impeded most of all by secular business: for this reason all the canon laws admonish the clerical order, not to mix themselves up in secular affairs. Because of this, it was most just, that they be most removed from marriage: for as Paul says, they who have wives, seek how they may please the wife. Certainly for this reason, in the same can., Nicholas says that just as the Emperor ought not to mix himself up in divine affairs, so also the Pope, soldiering for God, ought not to entangle himself in secular business, lest he seem to preside, not over divine things, but secular.

But in order that these things might become even clearer, it is argued, again. Power, as much civil as ecclesiastical, is divinely instituted: for there is no power but from God, as the Apostle says in Rom 13: and those that are, are ordained of God: and therefore, he that resisteth the power whether civil or ecclesiastical, resisteth the ordinance of God. Yet God wisely has appointed these in different ways: for he has granted to each and every republic the civil power through the law of nature, of which he is the author, as we have demonstrated copiously in De iustitia et iure, lib. IV, q. 4. a. 1: for to each and every republic there pertains the governance of itself, as it belongs to all things to preserve themselves: namely, that they rule themselves either by the power of optimates, or of the people, or of a king: for which reason the people voluntarily transfer to the ruler all their authority and power, as is read in l. Quod principi de constitu. principum. ff. But Christ by himself conferred the ecclesiastical power to his vicar. The royal power, therefore, is derived from God through the republic: in which sense the text of Prov 8 is understood, Through me kings reign, and lawgivers decree just things: but the ecclesiastical and evangelical power was committed by Christ to Peter: therefore, the secular dominions of kingdoms were not simply committed either to Peter, or to his successors.

According to these it is then plainly argued. The law of faith does not destroy the law of nature, but perfects it: but kings ruled prior to the coming of Christ by the law of nature and the law of nations, which derive from the eternal law of God: whence it is read in Daniel 2, that the God of heaven gave to Nabuchodonosor power and a kingdom: and Christ responded to Pilate, Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were it were given thee from above: therefore Christ did not change the kingdoms, whence the Apostle says in Romans 13, speaking universally of the potentates even of the infidels, Let every soul be subject to higher powers: to which he urges that tribute be paid. And in 1 Peter 2, Peter commands all Christians to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake, whether to the king, he says, as excelling. And after: Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward: whence it is gathered, that Christians ought to obey even infidel Kings, so long as they rule without peril to the faith and injury to the savior: much more freely, therefore, do the Kings of Christians enjoy their power by themselves independently from the Pope, so long as they inflict no injury upon the faith.

It is therefore an unvarnished invention, to constitute the Pope thus as the ordinary judge of temporal kingdoms, and of kings, just as he is the supreme judge of the things of the church, and its prelates, or as the secular king is the judge of his dukes, and counts, and other vassals. Hence not all jurists hold to that opinion. For Ioannes Andreæ, Hugo, and others think with us. Nor should have Sylvester adhered to the contrary opinion, since blessed Thomas (whose disciple he was), although he was a most studious defender of the Apostolic see, nowhere left such an opinion.

On that account, the aforementioned patrons of this opinion provide even less reason for its probability, saying that the donation made to Sylvester by Constantine (if such existed) or by king Philip, was not a donation, but a restitution. And vice versa, that Sylvester, for the good of peace, gave to Constantine the eastern empire. Likewise that the Pope, if he does not use the administration of temporal goods in the whole Christian world, does so not from a lack of power which he truly has, but for the sake of confirming tranquility and peace with his sons. No wonder, therefore, if others, being more sensible, reject these as trifling nonsense. For if he had simply and absolutely the right of all temporals, he could have the use thereof without injury, which none of them dares to assert.

The fourth conclusion. Not only is the Pope not the lord of temporal kingdoms, no indeed neither is he their superior such that he can institute kings: indeed, someone could perhaps say, that although he is not the lord simply speaking of temporal kingdoms, yet he can in an ordinary way institute kings everywhere, just as he institutes Bishops, although he is not the lord simply speaking of Episcopates, or just as a king institutes dukes and magnates, although he is not simply speaking the lord of their patrimonies: but this conclusion of ours asserts the contrary. Hence he cannot act as judge between kings in an ordinary way absent causes of faith, just as between ecclesiastical prelates, or between dukes. Unless perchance their quarrels incline to the detriment of the faith or of religion: for then he can very rightly do so, not only by way of fraternal correction, as Innocent says, cap. Novit. de iudic., but also with coercive judgement. This is gathered from what was said above: for either power is sufficient of itself, and divinely instituted in a different way, such that any king is, in temporals, made by his commonwealth the supreme judge in his own kingdom. Hence in the same cap. the same Pontiff protests that he does not involve himself in order to usurp the judgment of kings. And Alexander III, cap. Causam. in 2. qui filii sunt legitimi, declares that judgment regarding possessions pertains, not to the church, but to the king.

From these, finally, the consequence is, that though the king were to break out into tyranny: absent injury to the faith, it is incumbent upon, not the Pontiff, but the republic to expel him from the kingdom.

In sum, in the Pope there is no merely temporal power, as there is in kings, except in the lands secularly subjected to him. This is what Cajetan, that loyal defender of the apostolic See, asserted in his Apologia de potestate papæ, cap. 6. And the reason is, that temporal power of this sort is not merely necessary for the government of the church.

Yet for greater clarity and firmness regarding these things, a fifth and likewise catholic conclusion is given against the heresy of those who deny all temporal power to the Pontiff. Any civil power whatsoever, is so subject to the ecclesiastical in the order to spiritual things, that the Pope can, through his own spiritual power, as many times as regard for the faith and religion should require, not only act against kings by means of the buffets of ecclesiastical censures, and coerce them, but also deprive Christian Princes of their temporal goods, and even proceed to their deposition. I have said, through his own spiritual power: because the power of the Pontiff, insofar as he is Pontiff, is not merely temporal, but he uses the temporal as minister of the spiritual. But this conclusion is not the same as the second: the latter only asserted, that the ecclesiastical power is superior. Wherefore perhaps someone would merely conclude, that the secular Prince is bound to measure his laws and acts according to the spiritual end, and to obey the pontiff in spiritual censures. But this [fifth] conclusion asserts moreover, that the Pope can use temporal goods for his end and spiritual purposes, and can coerce Princes by temporal punishments. To elucidate this, it should be noted, that the ecclesiastical power is not only more excellent than the civil, for that its end, which is eternal beatitude, is more perfect and more exalted than civil felicity: but also for the reason that civil felicity is not sufficiently perfect in itself, and thus it is per se ordered and related to celestial beatitude. I wish to say, that there are not two commonwealths, entirely distinct and diverse, neither of which depends upon the other, of which sort are those of the French and the Spanish, or of which sort were the Roman and Athenian, for of these, although one were more excellent and more perfect than another, yet neither was bound to serve the other. I say that the spiritual and civil powers are not to be compared thus: but the civil, whatsoever it be, is referred to the spiritual, which is unique to all Christians, because human felicity is of itself ordered to the divine. They are not as two arts wholly different, namely, as ironworking and woodworking, but as armor-making is ordered to the military art, and ship-making is ordered to the art of navigating: the inferior of which is bound to make arms and ships in such a way, that they not deviate from the end of the superior art, and thus, as the Philosopher says in I Ethic., the superior artisan commands the inferior artisans how they ought to work, because he is the judge of the inferior arts. In like manner, the civil commonwealth is referred to the spiritual: for both are simultaneously bound together into one mystical body, which is composed of both, as Paul luculently declares in Romans 12 and 1 Cor 12; but now in one body, all the members ought to be referred to one head, but spiritual things are not ordered to temporal things, which latter are less perfect, therefore on the contrary, temporals ought to be subject to the judgment of spirituals. Whence the same Apostle, in 1 Cor 2, comparing the temporal faculty to the spiritual, says that the animal man perceiveth not these things which are of the Spirit of God, but the spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man. Nor is this opposed by what we have said above: namely, that the king has supreme power in temporals, because it lies with [the temporal power] to be subordinate to the spiritual in such a way, that it must not deviate from it.

This foundation having been laid down, it is argued thus. For the due government and administration of the spiritual commonwealth, it is necessary that all secular power obey it: therefore, also necessary thereupon, in the spiritual ruler, is the faculty of using temporals, insofar as they are necessary for his end, and thus of coercing princes when it should be needed, even to the point of their deposition, as of members which are now putrid and pestiferous. Now Christ was not lacking in those things which were worthwhile to his church: therefore not only did he take up in himself this sort of temporal power related to the spiritual, but also thereafter committed it to his vicar.

It is argued secondly for the same truth. The chief Pontiff was constituted by Christ as the supreme and universal shepherd of the whole Christian flock: now it is the office of the shepherd to recall to the way errant sheep, of whatever order and dignity they be, and to compel them in any regard: therefore, through that pastoral power, he can use temporals when there is need for it. And Innocent equipped himself with this reason against the Emperor of Constantinople, in the cap. Solitæ de maior. & obedi. in order to coerce him. He says, “To Us in blessed Peter have the sheep of Christ been committed,” with no difference placed between these [sheep] and those: and excepting nothing, as Christ said to Peter, Whatsoever thou shalt bind, etc. And in the same sense must Pope Nicholas be understood, cap. Omnes. 22 distin. where he says, that Christ “committed to blessed Peter, the key-bearer of eternal life, at once the laws of earthly and celestial authority.” By the laws of earthly authority, he means the earthly power of temporal goods and princes, not absolutely, as the authors cited above falsely think, but in the order to spiritual things. And thus is the Gloss to be understood, so that it be in agreement with the truth which it thence collects, that the Pope has both swords: because he can depose kings, as in 15. q. 6. can. Alius, and 96 dist., can. Duo sunt.[6] And with the same moderation should the text of Boniface be taken, in Extravag. Unam sanctam, de maiorit. & obedien. where he says, that the two swords, namely, the spiritual and the temporal, are in the power of the Roman Pontiff. Although, when he ascribes this sense to that word of the apostles in Luke 22, Behold, here are two swords, he does not mean to make such a sense an article of faith: for perhaps there Christ, when he said, He that hath not, let him buy a sword, meant nothing other than the calamity which threatened them. Hence Peter, who, taking it to be about the material sword, cut off the ear of Malchus, was reprehended. Nevertheless, it is still rightly adapted to our proposal. For this reason, kingdoms have never been changed by the pontiff except by reason of the faith: for this reason Pope Stephen transferred the empire from the Greeks to the Germans, as is clear in cap. Venerabilem. de electione, and cap. Licet, de foro competenti. And Innocent IV prohibited to the King of Portugal the administration of the kingdom, as in cap. Grandi. de supplenda negligentia prælatorum libro sexto.

But it is necessary to explain the difference between this conclusion and the two prior ones by way of examples. For however much the king administers the government of the kingdom in other kinds of offenses outside of peril to the faith, nothing falls to the Pope, except by way of fraternal correction. But if, for example, the Christian King were to make laws to the detriment of the faith: namely, laws adverse to the sacraments, or to the Christian religion in any way, or if the Pope were to call a Council, which the King impeded wrongly and contrary to right, or if he were to furnish aid to heretics, and infidels opposing our faith, or to schismatics, or move any other sort of mischief against the Apostolic see or the Church, then the Pope would be able to act against him, not only with the spiritual sword, but with the temporal also.

But you might argue the contrary, firstly. Would it not be enough to hurl at them the fulminations of the spiritual sword, namely, of anathema and other censures? For [the Church] seems to have no other arms: for as Paul says in 1 Cor 10, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are spiritual. It is responded, that the church would not have been sufficiently provided for unless, when she is afflicted in her affairs by secular potentates, and spiritual arms do not suffice, she be able to compel them with the temporal sword also: because otherwise she would not have wholly coercive force, of the sort which is necessary for her.

But again, someone might ask, whether in events of this sort the Pope, omitting the spiritual sword, would be able to employ the temporal? For it seems that he could, because he has both equally. It is responded, that it neither befits him, nor is it licit, unless there were imminent peril, since the ordinary way of the Pontiff is the pastoral rod: while the secular sword is extraordinary. Now the ordinary way ought to precede, nor ought he to use the temporal sword, unless there be urgent need that requires it: namely, when, having attempted spiritual force, he recognizes that these are not sufficient for the matter at hand. No indeed, unless it were in his own lands, of which he is the temporal lord, in order to defend them, but in others it does not befit the Pope to wage war by himself, but when there is a prince of the Church rebellious and injurious to the faith, he ought to present the business of arms to another Prince. For so far is what Paul says true, that the arms of Christian warfare are not carnal. Although the legitimate sense is of the combat which each man sustains against the demons and his own flesh.

But because we have said, that the Pope can abrogate laws which would be harmful to the faith, it should be understood to mean, when they would cause manifest destruction. For that law of Princes, that a testament is not valid unless confirmed by five witnesses, contradicts absolutely no word of sacred scripture in Matthew 18 and John 8, That in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand: for that is understood where the sincerity of the human race flourishes: since, where human trust is so corrupted, it is not repugnant to those words to require more witnesses: because that Evangelical law does not forbid it. Likewise, the law which, in matters of cheating within a half of the just price, does not permit action, as in l. 2. C. de rescinden. venditio. and cap. Cum dilecti and cap. Cum causa de emptione et venditione, is not contrary to justice: because it does not absolve the one cheated in the forum of conscience, but it only intends to put quarrels to rest. But if the King were to make a law, so that a possessor malæ fidei prescribes, that would be both contrary to conscience and the nurse of many frauds and deceits: which would thus have to be abrogated by the pontiff: just as one reads it was abrogated in cap. Vigilanti and cap. ult. de præscriptionibus.

The solution to the first argument, therefore, is gathered from the foregoing. The civil and ecclesiastical power are two and distinct, as has been said: but Christ established only the ecclesiastical under one head of the whole earth: while he left the civil derived from the divine and natural law, so that each kingdom would have its own head: but he willed the civil to subordinated to the ecclesiastical such that its laws would not be opposed to the faith and the law which he himself preached: and in this manner is the Pontiff the unique head of all Christian kings. And that is the sense of Paul when he says, that all Christians are the one mystical body of Christ. For nothing concerns the pope in regard to the infidels, other than to send preachers to them, who convince them of the faith in a legitimate manner and order. But this does not concern the present discussion, nor does the question of whether there is one emperor of the whole world: which we have discussed at length in De iustitia et iure, lib. IV.

To the second, a sufficient response is, that Christ assumed naught but a spiritual kingdom, and of temporals, only so much as was necessary for the former. And this is what the cited sacred testimonies teach.

To the third, finally, it is responded, that that canon, Quicumque litem, 11. q. 1, has been abrogated, as the Gloss says, which it proves with many decrees, such as cap. Si duobus, de appellationibus, and 2 quæstione sexta, can. Non ita, and many others. Indeed, that text is not a sacred determination of the church, but of the emperor Theodosius, who wished to show his great affection toward the Apostolic see. At present there is no need of appealing from civil causes to the church.

But if you should argue: the pope is the judge of all sins: it is responded, that this is true in the spiritual forum, but in the exterior forum he is only the judge of ecclesiastical causes, while civil causes are to be judged by the civil laws; unless no agreement could be reached between kings after all civil laws had been consulted: for then, the Pope could interpose himself by way of fraternal correction, according to the tenor of cap. Novit. extra de iudiciis.


[1] An obvious error; evidently Soto refers here to Innocent IV’s Ad apostolicæ, de sent. et re iud. in 6. — Trans.

[2] Another obvious error; but this error seems to have been somewhat common around that time. One finds a similar attribution of the can. Duo sunt to Pelagius in Turrecremata, Guarnieri, and Marchese, to name a few. Tom. I of the 1578 Venetian edition of Turrecremata’s commentaries on the Decretum of Gratian, in a marginal note, observes that “a more modern codex ascribes this capitulum to Gelasius.” — Trans.

[3] The 1560 edition of de Soto’s commentary, from which we translate, here reads super ecclesiam in his quotation of Bernard; the 1538 Lyon edition, and the 1701 Paris edition, read super Ecclesias. — Trans.

[4] Here de Soto seems once again to misattribute the can. Duo sunt to Pope Innocent IV; cf. supra, note 1. — Trans.

[5] This is the conclusion that may be drawn, not from the can. Duo sunt of Gelasius, but from the cap. Ad apostolicæ of Innocent IV; cf. supra, note 1. — Trans.

[6] Cf. note 5 above. — Trans.

St. Thomas on the Two Powers

Translated by Timothy Wilson


Dubbed the “Common Doctor” of the Church, St. Thomas Aquinas has constantly been upheld by the Church as a model and exemplar for theologians, both in his method and doctrine. The great work for which he is principally known, the Summa theologiæ, became in the centuries after him a standard textbook for theologians and was the subject of a great many Scholastic commentaries (including that of Cardinal Cajetan, a relevant excerpt of which has been translated on The Josias). The insuperable excellence of the Summa, however, has unfortunately obscured for many the excellence of his early Scriptum super Sententiis, his commentary upon the Liber sententiarum of Peter Lombard, which St. Thomas composed as part of the requirement for obtaining his masters in theology. Lombard’s text was the standard textbook used by theology students in high medieval universities, and hence a large portion of the great medieval works of theology are commentaries upon the Sentences. The Summa of St. Thomas, left unfinished at his death, was soon supplemented, through the labors of his disciples, with material from his Sentences commentary.

The text translated here today is taken from St. Thomas’s commentary on the forty-fourth and final distinction of Book II of the Sentences. Here the Lombard discusses the question of whether the power to sin (potentia peccandi) in man is from God, or rather from ourselves, or the devil; he answers that it is from God, and adduces many authorities to prove such. Then he considers the objection that, since it has just been proved that the devil’s power for evil (potestas mali) comes from God, it would seem that we ought not to resist the devil’s power, since according to the Apostle in Romans 13, he who resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. But he responds by clarifying that the Apostle speaks there of the secular power, and that it is the command of God that we obey no power in things that are evil.

St. Thomas’s commentary on the text of distinction 44 begins first with a divisio textus, in which he briefly divides into parts the text of the Lombard, followed by the main bulk of his own composition, in which he proposes questions and articles based upon the material in the text before him. Thus his first quæstio, on the potentia peccandi, divided into three articles; then comes his second quæstio, on obedience, which is divided into three articles as well. Finally there is the expositio textus, in which he comments directly upon the words of the Lombard in dist. 44, and which is the very last portion of his commentary on Book II. It is this expositio textus which we offer today.


St. Thomas, In II Sent., dist. 44, q. 2, a. 3, exp. text.

Exposition of the text.

After what has been said, there occurs a question worthy of consideration, etc. The reason for this order is, that a power is known through its act; wherefore it was necessary first to determine regarding the act of sin, before discussing the powerof sinning; although a power is naturally prior to act.

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Molina on Civil and Ecclesiastical Power


The term “integralist” was originally applied to Catholic anti-liberal and anti-modernist movements in the 19th and early 20th centuries— such as Ramón Nocedal’s party in Spain, and the Sodalitium Pianum, based in Rome. One of the main goals of such movements was to defend traditional Catholic political teaching against liberalism. Liberals have ever pretended (even to themselves) to separate politics with concern for the end of human life, hence their demand for the so-called “separation of Church and state.” In practice, however, they have ever ordered politics to the false and individualistic conception of the human good implicit in liberalism itself. Hence integralists were always particularly opposed to the liberal demand for the separation of Church and state. Integralist movements took various contingent positions on indifferent matters, on which Catholics are free to disagree with them. But on the central points of Catholic political teaching they were merely defending the perennial and infallible teaching of the Church.

It is this essence of the integralist programs that we defend at The Josias. What we mean by integralism is merely this: Political action is naturally and inevitably directed towards what we take to be good for human beings, and ought therefore to be directed towards the true human good, which is a common good. But the common good of human life is twofold: a temporal common good proportioned to human nature, and the eternal common good proportioned to the divine nature in which human beings participate by grace. Hence there are two authorities directing human beings towards these two common goods: a temporal authority and a spiritual authority. The former is subordinate to the later, just as the temporal common good is subordinate to the spiritual common good. On account of the danger of human pride, it is necessary that these two kinds of authority be placed in the hands of different persons—temporal authority in lay hands, and spiritual authority in the hands of bishops.

Integralism in this basic sense has always been taught by the greatest theologians of the Church— from St. Augustine to St. Bernard to St. Thomas. Apart from a few regalist special pleaders it was universally held by the scholastic theologians. In later scholasticism it was held not only by Thomists such as Cajetan, but also by opponents of Thomism. This is shown by the following translation of a passage from the De iustitia et iure of Luis de Molina, S.J. (1535-1600). Molina was the great opponent of Thomists in the controversies on grace and predestination. “I am convinced,” wrote Charles De Koninck, “that in philosophy the most extreme limits of opposition have been reached by Thomism and Molinism.” And yet, so basic to Catholic tradition is the integralist thesis that on this even Thomists and Molinists agree. — The Editors

Translated by Timothy Wilson


Luis de Molina, S.J.
De iustitia et iure, tract. II, disp. xxi
What power is, and regarding the civil and ecclesiastical power

Having explained dominion in general, in order that we might descend to the parts subject to it, it is necessary that we begin from the dominion of jurisdiction—as much because it is more noble, as because knowledge of it conduces to a better understanding of the titles of the dominion of property. It is also the case, that explicating it is a less involved task than that of explaining the dominion of property. But because the dominion of jurisdiction is a certain kind of power, we shall have to begin from the explication of power.

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Cajetan on the soul-body model of the relation of spiritual and temporal authority

Thomas de Vio, O.P., Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534) was one of the most important commentators on the Summa theologiæ of St. Thomas, whose teachings he defended against Scotists, Renaissance Humanists, and Protestant Reformers. In the following passage he explicates St. Thomas’s use of the traditional likeness of the subjection of temporal to spiritual power to the subjection of the body to the soul. Translated by Timothy Wilson.


St. Thomas, ST IIaIIæ, q. 60, a. 6, obj. 3 and ad 3:

Obj. 3: Moreover, spiritual power is distinguished from temporal power. But sometimes prelates having spiritual power involve themselves in those matters which pertain to the secular power. Therefore usurped judgment is not unlawful.

[…]

Ad 3: To the third, it should be said that the secular power is subject to the spiritual power as the body to the soul. And thus judgment is not usurped if a spiritual prelate involves himself in temporal matters so far as concerns those matters in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual, or which are granted to the spiritual power by the secular power.

Commentary of Cardinal Cajetan, in IIamIIæ, q. 60, a. 6

Having omitted the fifth article, the matter of which (as regards subjects) has been discussed in the preceding Book; in the sixth article, in the response to the third objection, note that the Author, assuming from the decretal Solitæ benignitatis, de Maiorit. et Obed. that the temporal power is subject to the spiritual as the body to the soul, assigns two modes in which the spiritual power involves itself in temporal things: the first of which belongs to the spiritual power from its nature; while the second belongs to it from another, namely, from the secular power itself.

Now, for evidence of this assumption, know, from the De anima bk. II [415b8-12; St. Th., In libros de anima, lib. II, lect. vii], that the soul acts upon the body according to three kinds of cause: namely, effectively, because it effects the corporeal motions of the animal; formally, because it is its form; and finally, because the body is for the sake of the soul. And it is similar, proportionally speaking, regarding the spiritual power in respect of the secular power: indeed, it is as its form and mover and end. For it is manifest, that the spiritual is formal in respect of the corporeal: and by this, the power administering of spiritual things is formal in respect of the power administering of secular things, which are corporeal. It is also indubitably clear, that corporeal and temporal things are for the sake of spiritual and eternal things, and are ordered to these as an end. And since a higher end corresponds to a higher agent, moving and directing; the consequence is, that the spiritual power, which is concerned with spiritual things as its first object, moves, acts, and directs the secular power and those things which belong to it to the spiritual end. And from this it is clear that the spiritual power, of its very nature, commands the secular power to the spiritual end: for these are the things in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual. The text intends this specification with the words: so far as concerns those matters in which the secular power is subject to the spiritual. The Author observes by this, that the secular power is not wholly subject to the spiritual power. On account of this, in civil matters one ought rather to obey the governor of the city, and in military matters the general of the army, than the bishop, who should not concern himself with these things except in their order to spiritual things, just as with other temporal matters. But if it should happen that something of these temporal things occurs to the detriment of spiritual salvation, the prelate, administering of these things through prohibitions or precepts for the sake of spiritual salvation, does not move the sickle unto another’s crop, but makes use of his own authority: for as regards these things, all secular powers are subject to the spiritual power. And thus, besides the thing assumed, the first mode by which the spiritual power judges of temporal things is clear.

And the second mode, namely, from the concession of the secular power, is quite sufficiently clear in prelates who have both jurisdictions in many places, as gifts from princes.

Francisco Suárez: The Ecclesiastical power for making laws is more excellent than the civil in its end, origin, and subject

In April we published a translation of Suárez, De legibus, lib. IV, c. ix, on the way in which the civil power is subject to the ecclesiastical. We now publish the preceding chapter of the same book (De legibus, lib. IV, c. viii), which gives the foundation for that teaching— the superior excellence and perfection of spiritual power. The translation is by Timothy Wilson.

CHAPTER VIII.

Whether the Ecclesiastical power for making laws is more excellent than the civil in its end, origin, subject, and other properties.

1. Although this question has been determined in great part in the previous chapters; nevertheless, in order that the excellence of this power be illustrated better, and so that we might answer some difficulties, we have judged it to be opportune in this place. And so firstly we set down as certain, that this Ecclesiastical power in the Evangelical law is far more excellent than the civil power. This truth can readily be shown from the things which we have adduced in chapter 1 of this book, especially the third conclusion, where we have also brought forward the Doctors. It is also the common opinion of the Fathers: Ignatius, Epistola ad Smirnenses: Now I say, honor God as the author and Lord of all, and the Bishop as the Prince of priests, bearing the image of God, and the principality according to God, and the priesthood according to Christ, and after this, it is necessary also to honor the King.[1] Ambrose, De dignitate sacerdotali, cap. 2: The Episcopal honor and loftiness can be equaled by no comparisons. If you compare it with the splendor of kings, and the diadem of princes, they will be so far inferior, as if you compare leaden metal to the brilliance of gold, for indeed I see the necks of kings and of princes bowed to the knees of the priests. These words are referred and approved by Gelasius in the c. Duo sunt, dist. 96. And Innocent [III], in the c. Solitæ, de maiorit. et obedient., compares these two powers to the Sun and the Moon. And, Chrysostom, in De sacerdotio, lib. III, says: The priesthood is so much more excellent than the kingdom, in the same degree as the spirit and the flesh are distant from one another. This opinion he follows, and amplifies, in his Homilia 60 in Matthæum, saying: If the prince be crowned with the diadem, but accedes unworthily, forbid him; you have greater power than he. And he says many similar things in Homiliæ 4 and 5 on the words of Isaiah 6, I have seen the Lord, etc., and in Homilia 3 ad populum, a little ways from the beginning, where, speaking of Flavian, he prefers him to the Emperor, and says that he has a sword, not indeed of iron, but spiritual. And we shall refer many things from the Fathers in the following chapter. But in the aforementioned places, they almost always speak generally of the priestly power according to its entire amplitude, including the power of order, according to which it embraces the power of censuring, of remitting sins, of creating priests, etc., and simultaneously the power of jurisdiction, which also includes the dispensation of the spiritual treasure of the Church, and the power of binding and loosing through censures, and many other things. This power being considered in such universality, it is clearer than day, that it is far more excellent than the civil power. Now here we speak not only in this mode, but also precisely in discussing these powers under the aspect of legislative power. And thus we also say, that the Ecclesiastical power is preeminent, as Pope Boniface clearly says in Extra., Unam sanctam, de maiorit. et obedient. And the reason can be given from what has been said in chapter 1, that this power (even insofar as it is legislative) is of the supernatural order; while the civil power is natural, as has been shown above: therefore the former is more excellent in its being [esse] and substance. And this difference can be established between these two powers, which is sufficiently clear from the things said in chapter 1, and it shall be further explained forthwith. But in order that the excellence of this power be made clearer, there are some other differences which are to be assigned on the part of the causes, and principles, and actions of both powers.

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Francisco Suárez on the Relation of Ecclesiastical and Civil Power

Francisco Suárez, De legibus, lib. IV, c. ix, translated by Timothy Wilson


CHAPTER IX.

Whether the Ecclesiastical power is superior to the civil, such that the latter is subject to the former.

1. Although it has been shown, in the chapter above, that the Ecclesiastical power is more excellent in perfection, it is not immediately inferred, that it is superior in subordination and proper jurisdiction: for one faculty can be less perfect than another, and yet not subject or subordinate to it. And hence there can be a reason for doubt, because this subordination does not follow intrinsically from the greater perfection; nor also can it be shown from a special concession of Christ; therefore it is not granted. The major is clear from the reason given, and can be supported by the example of the old law, in which there was also a priestly and a royal power, and nevertheless the royal was not subject to the priestly; no indeed, that the contrary seems to have been the case, is drawn from III Kings 2, where Solomon deposed Abiathar from the Priesthood; and in his place he set Sadoc; therefore the priestly power then was under the royal power, rather than the contrary. Now the minor is proved, because in the new Testament we do not read that Christ instituted the priesthood and conceded to it this superiority, because Peter, notwithstanding his power, commanded all the faithful to be subject to Princes and Kings, 1 Pet 2, and Paul in Romans 13 pronounces the same regarding every soul. Nor also is it had from tradition: for it can be gathered from the histories, rather, that the Emperors sometimes passed judgment upon the Pontiffs, and deposed them.

Continue reading “Francisco Suárez on the Relation of Ecclesiastical and Civil Power”

FAMULI VESTRÆ PIETATIS

by Pope St. Gelasius I

Introduction
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Introduction

by Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist.

Pope St. Gelasius I’s letter to the Emperor Anastasius I Famuli vestrae pietatis, better known as Duo Sunt,[1] written in 494, is the classical statement of the Church’s teaching on the relation of the authority of pontiffs to the power of worldly rulers. It was to be quoted and paraphrased again and again by later popes. The key passage has been translated numerous times, but until now there have been only two complete translations into English, neither of which is in the public domain.[2] As the context of the letter is particularly important for understanding the meaning of the key passage correctly, we are pleased to offer the following collaborative translation of the whole letter on The Josias.[3]

St. Gelasius’s Life and Times

St. Gelasius reigned from 492-496, when the Roman Empire had collapsed in the West, and Italy was ruled by barbarians, who stood in an ambiguous relationship to the Byzantine emperor—at times recognizing his authority, at other times styling themselves “kings” of Italy. In 476 (conventionally seen as the end of the Empire) Odoacer, who was already in power, had forced Romulus Augustulus to abdicate. In 493, the year after St. Gelasius’s accession to the See of Peter, the Arian Ostrogoth Theodoric the Great killed Odoacer and established his rule in Italy.[4] In the unsettled situation of Italy, the pope was an important source of order for the city of Rome and beyond. Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen have shown how St. Gelasius was a “micro-manager” of the ecclesiastical, social, and political affairs of Rome in a manner reminiscent of St. Gregory the Great a century later.[5]

Gelasius was “a Roman born,” as he himself testifies (§1 below), and the Liber pontificalis notes that he was “of African nationality.”[6] In “The African Gelasius,” writes Hugo Rahner, in the slightly histrionic tone of his book on the liberty of the Church, “the ideals of Augustine and the devotion of Leo for the Roman See were combined with a will of steel and eloquence of style.”[7] Not everyone has been so admiring of Gelasius’s style.[8] Nor has everyone credited him with a will of steel.[9] But it is certainly true that Gelasius was formed in the traditions of St. Augustine and of St. Leo the Great. Dionysius Exiguus, who probably did not know Gelasius personally, but knew many others who had known him, writes of him in glowing terms as an exemplary pastor and scholar.[10]

The Acacian Schism

Although Gelasius was pope for less than five years, a large number of documents from his pontificate have come down to us,[11] as well as several letters thought to have been drafted by him as a deacon under his predecessor Pope Felix II/III (reigned 483-492).[12] Famulae vestrae pietatis is by far the most famous of his letters. It was written in the context of the Acacian Schism, the first major schism between Rome and Constantinople.

The schism had originated in the Emperor Zeno’s attempt to reestablish ecclesial unity with the many Egyptian Christians who had rejected the Council of Chalcedon (451). Chalcedon had condemned the monophysite heresiarch Eutyches, and deposed the Alexandrian patriarch Dioscurus, appointing Proterius in his stead.[13] In 457 the Alexandrian mob elected Timothy the Cat patriarch, and murdered Proterius.[14] Timothy died in 477, and his followers elected his ardent disciple Peter the Hoarse to succeed him.[15]

In 482 Zeno sent out a formula of faith, the Henotikon, to the Egyptians.[16] The document was not heterodox in its Christological statements. But it was unacceptable to Rome from an ecclesiological point of view. Its underlying assumption was that the emperor could define the faith (“Caesaropapism”). Moreover, it was “political theology” in the derogatory sense, seeing the unity of faith as being ordered to the unity of the empire, “the origin and composition, the power and irresistible shield of our empire.”[17] But what was least acceptable to Rome was its cavalier dismissal of Chalcedon, the great triumph of the teaching of Pope Leo. After emphasizing that the only creed is the one defined at Nicea I and Constantinople I, Zeno writes, “But we anathematize anyone who has thought, or thinks, any other opinion, either now or at any time, whether at Chalcedon or at any Synod whatsoever.”[18]

Peter the Hoarse accepted the Henotikon, and Acacius, Patriarch of Constantinople accepted him into communion, and was therefore excommunicated by Pope Felix II/III in 484.[19] This was the beginning of the Acacian Schism, which was to last till 519. Acacius himself died in 489.[20] His successor, Fravitta tried to assure both Pope Felix and Peter the Hoarse that he was in communion with them.[21] In 491 the Emperor Zeno was succeeded by Emperor Anastasius I (491-518), who had monophysite sympathies and continued Zeno’s policy.[22]

Famuli vestræ pietatis

When Gelasius was elected to the See of Peter in 492 he did not write to the  Emperor Anastasius to announce his election, as was customary. But two Romans, Faustus and Irenaeus, having been in Constantinople as part of a legation from Theodoric the Great, brought word to him that the Emperor was offended by his failure to write. This was the occasion of Famuli vestræ pietatis.

Gelasius begins the letter by excusing himself for not having written before and addresses the Emperor patriotically as the Roman princeps. He hints that his desire to supply “something (however little) lacking from the fullness of the Catholic Faith” in Constantinople, by which he means that he wants to bring the schism to an end (§1). He then clarifies his right to do this by explaining the relation of his “sacred authority” to the “royal power” of the Emperor— this is the celebrated locus classicus for the relation of lay and clerical authority (§2). He further explicates this by laying out the primacy of the Apostolic See—the “firm foundation” laid by God (§3). He then tries to persuade the Emperor to end the schism, by having Acacius’s name deleted from the diptychs, the lists of names prayed for in the Divine Liturgy (a sign of ecclesial communion). Acacius was in Communion with heretics and should be condemned with them. (§§4-9). He rebuffs the objection that removing Acacius from the diptychs would cause a rebellion at Constantinople, and urges the emperor that he is even more bound to combat heresy than he would be bound to combat offenses against temporal laws (§§10-11). Finally, he defends himself against the charge of arrogance, by turning the accusation against those who, contrary to the tradition of the Fathers, refuse to submit to the Apostolic See (§12).

Auctoritas and Potestas

“For there are two, O emperor Augustus, by which the world is principally ruled: the sacred authority (auctoritas) of pontiffs and the royal power (potestas).” This famous line was to be cited in favor of rival medieval theories of the relation of the two: curialists cited it in favor of papal supremacy while their opponents cited it to prove imperial or royal autonomy.[23] More recently, it has been cited by Whig Thomists in favor of American-style “religious freedom.”[24] Its meaning continues to be debated among historians.

The modern debate has tended to focus on the meaning of the terms auctoritas and potestas. Erich Caspar argued that auctoritas meant something like moral influence, whereas potestas meant coercive power:

In Roman constitutional law there was a clear distinction between the conceptually and morally superior auctoritas, founded on tradition and social standing, which the senate, for example, enjoyed, and a potestas equipped with executive power, which in republican times belonged only to the people and was delegated to their officials only for a set period of office.[25]

Caspar approached things from a typically modern understanding of power dynamics, but a similar reading of the auctoritas and potestas distinction has been given by authors less in thrall to Realpolitik. Allan Cotrell notes that some see potestas as “the mere ability to use force without legitimate authority.’”[26] Michael Hanby has recently argued for such a view.[27] According to Hanby auctoritas “possesses no extrinsic force,” but compels “by its own self-evidence.”[28] To the extent that it is not bound and guided by auctoritas, potestas is “an indeterminate force, the brute strength to realize arbitrary possibilities.”[29]

Readings such as Hanby’s cannot, however, be sustained. As Walter Ullmann showed, the popes of the fifth century saw themselves as having the authority to enact laws backed up by sanctions.[30] That is, their auctoritas did possess an extrinsic as well as an intrinsic force. But it is clear also that Gelasius does not see the emperor’s potestas as mere brute force—he sees it also as a moral authority that binds the consciences of subjects: “inasmuch as it pertains to the order of public discipline, even the bishops themselves obey your laws, knowing that rule [imperium] has been bestowed to you from on high” (§2). Auctoritas and potestas are more similar than such authors think. Caspar himself seems to admit as much, when he goes on to argue that Gelasius’s letter was meant to bring the two concepts closer together:

What was new and important was that Gelasius I now defined the state’s potestas and papal auctoritas (which functioned as potestas ligandi et solvendi) as ‘the two things… through which this world is ruled,’ and thereby put them on the same level as commensurable magnitudes in the same conceptual category.[31]

Ullmann argued for a different interpretation of the auctoritas-potestas distinction. According to him, auctoritas meant sovereign authority, whereas potestas meant delegated authority:

Auctoritas is the faculty of shaping things creatively and in a binding manner, whilst potestas is the power to execute what the auctoritas has laid down. The Roman senate had auctoritas, the Roman magistrate had potestas. The antithesis between auctoritas and potestas stated already by Augustus himself, shows the ‘outstanding charismatic political authority’ which his auctoritas contained. It was sacred, since everything connected with Roman emperorship was sacred emanating as it did from his divinity. It was therefore all the easier to transfer these characteristically Roman ideas to the function of the Pope and to his auctoritas.[32]

While Ullmann is essentially right about how Gelasius saw his relation the emperor, he is wrong to put so much weight on the semantic distinction between auctoritas and potestas. Ernst Stein and Aloysius K. Ziegler showed convincingly that Gelasius did not mean to make any semantic distinction between auctoritas and potestas at all. For reasons of style he did not wish to use the same word twice in the same sentence, and therefore he used synonyms. In his damning review essay on Caspar, Stein points out that in Tractate IV, written only two years after Famuli vestræ pietatis, Gelasius writes of “both powers” (potestas utraque), showing that he was quite willing to use potestas to refer to the pontifical auctoritas.[33] Ziegler, for his part, looks at the letters of Felix II/III, drafted by Gelasius as a deacon, and finds conclusive evidence for Stein’s thesis in Felix’s Epistle XV:

These things, most reverent Emperor, I do not wrest from you as vicar of the blessed Peter, by the authority of the apostolic power as it were [auctoritate velut apostolicae potestatis], but I confidently implore you as an anxious father desiring that the welfare and prosperity of my most clement son endure long.[34]

Perhaps Epistle XV is using the two terms in slightly different senses, but it is clear that it sees both as belonging to the Apostolic See.[35]

Gelasius’s Integralism

George Demacopoulos has recently argued that the scholarly focus on the semantic distinction between auctoritas and potestas is regrettable, since with “that singular focus, scholars have failed to acknowledge many of the other significant moves that Gelasius makes in the letter.”[36] On that I think he is right. He is wrong, however, to fault Caspar and Ullmann (especially the later) for reading Gelasius too much in the light of the subsequent development of the papacy.[37] Demacopoulos argues on historical-critical grounds, but it is hard not to see his approach as being motivated by Greek Orthodox suspicion of Catholic teaching on the papacy. Even from a purely historical perspective, it is helpful to look at the developments to which a teaching gives rise to understand it better. As St. John Henry Newman put it, the principle that “the stream is clearest near the spring” does not apply to the development of a teaching or belief, “which on the contrary is more equable, and purer, and stronger, when its bed has become deep, and broad, and full.”[38] And, of course, this is all the more true if it is a question of interpreting the authoritative teachings of the Church. Since the bishops of Rome teach under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, their pronouncements can only be adequately understood in the light of later developments. Thus Gelasius ought to be read in the light of the authoritative teachings of St. Gregory VII, Innocent III, and Boniface VIII.

It is, therefore, all the more significant that, despite his methodological shortcomings, Demacopoulos ultimately comes to a reading of Gelasius very close to Ullmann’s. He argues, namely, that Gelasius is indeed teaching a certain subordination of the imperial under the pontifical power:

Among Gelasius’ impressive rhetorical demonstrations is his transformation of the argument for the divine derivation of imperial authority into an argument for the subordination of the emperor to the priesthood. […] Noting that imperial governance is a beneficium from God for which the emperor will be accountable, Gelasius quickly notes that he too will personally be required to render an account before God for whether or not Anastasius properly administers the imperial beneficium. In other words, Gelasius boldly inserts himself into the ruling/responsibility paradigm to imply that his own responsibility (and, therefore, his own authority) was superior to that of the emperor. The emperor, of course, retains a certain responsibility for the Roman population, but above that hierarchical paradigm exists another, more exalted layer, placing the pope between the emperor and God.[39]

The “hierarchical paradigm” to which Demacopoulos refers is founded on a teleological understanding of society and authority. No one grasped this more firmly than Walter Ullmann. That is why, despite his exaggeration of the auctoritas-potestas distinction, I still think Ullmann the best reader of Gelasius.

“Gelasius,” Ullman argues, “bequeathed to all Papal generations a set of ideas based upon an interpretation of history in the light of Christian teleology.”[40] This Christian teleology sees the Church as a body with many members who have distinct functions related to the single spiritual end of communion with God. The members of this body belong to it with all that they are: “Christianity seizes the whole of man and cannot, by its very nature, be confined to certain departmental limits.”[41] The Christian Body therefore “is not merely a pneumatic or sacramental or spiritual body, but also an organic, concrete and earthy society.”[42] In this visible society there are certain functions which are immediately directed to its end, what Gelasius calls “the distribution of the venerable mysteries,” (infra §2) and there are others which are mediately directed to its end—everything, for example, that serves the preservation of bodily life. It is essential that those “temporal” functions remain mediately ordered to the final end: “in the Christian corpus the administration of the temporal things should be undertaken, in order to bring about the realization of the purpose of the corpus.”[43] In other words, “in a Christian society all human actions have an essentially religious ingredient.”[44] What Gelasius is doing therefore, is not clarifying the relation of church and state (as Whig Thomists suppose), but rather the relation of clerical and lay power within the one Christian body. In the Henotikon Zeno had implicitly presented himself as the head of the whole Christian mundus, but Gelasius is teaching his successor that he is not qualified for headship:

[Since] in a Christian society, of which the emperor through baptism is a member, every human action has a definite purpose and in so far has an essential religious ingredient, the emperors should submit their governmental actions to the ecclesiastical superiors.[45]

Turning to Tractate IV, Ullmann shows that Gelasius saw the purpose of the royal power in the Christian world as the care of temporal matters, so that clerics “are not distracted by the pursuit of these carnal matters.”[46] Thus, Ullmann concludes,

The direction of [the] royal power by those who are, within the corporate union of Christians, qualified to do so, is as necessary as the direction of the whole body corporate. In this way this body will fulfil the purpose for which it was founded. The material or corporeal or temporal element in this body demands the guidance, that is orientation and government, by the spiritual or sacramental element of this self-same body.[47]

R.W. Dyson has shown in detail how this Gelasian teaching on the relation of the temporal to the spiritual was based on premises which he found in his North African tradition: in St. Augustine’s proportioning of spiritual and carnal needs onto the offices of bishops and Roman officials. Augustine had not followed those principles through to their ultimate conclusions, but it was an easy step for Gelasius to take, since it is obvious that spiritual goods exceed bodily ones.[48]

The same point was made earlier by Hugo Rahner:

What Augustine regarded as a lofty ideal, Gelasius made tangible: the ideal of the state as the Church’s helper, of two powers in peaceful collaboration “ruling the world”. Gelasius’ genius lay in the fact that he did not declare that the two powers deriving directly from God, Creator and Savior, should exist side by side, an impossible situation and one repugnant to God’s will, but rather that they should be hierarchically ordered, like soul and body, the spiritual superior to the material, because only in subordination is the material power’s true worth maintained.[49]

The functional division of the two powers is not a division into separate spheres that never overlap. While Gelasius sees the purpose of the emperor as being primarily the regulation of temporal affairs, he is also emphatic that the emperor must use imperial force to help the Church more directly in the preservation of the faith from charity. In Famuli vestræ pietatis he argues that, because Anastasius curbs popular tumults arising from secular causes, so much more should he restrain heretics and thereby “lead them back into the Catholic and Apostolic communion” (§10). He is essentially calling for the emperor to act as the bracchium sæculare of the Church:

If anyone perhaps were to attempt something against public laws (perish the thought!), for no reason would you have been able to suffer it. Do you not reckon it to concern your conscience that the people subject to you should be driven back from the pure and sincere devotion of Divinity? (§10)

Far from being a Whig avant la lettre, Gelasius was in fact what we would now call an integralist.

FAMULI VESTRÆ PIETATIS

Translated by HHG et al.

Pope St. Gelasius I to the Emperor Anastasius.

§ 1 Your Piety’s servants, my sons, the master Faustus and Irenaeus, illustrious men, and their companions who exercise the public office of legate, when they returned to the City, said that Your Clemency asked why I did not send my greeting to you in written form. Not, I confess, by my design; but since those who had been dispatched a little while ago from the regions of the East had spread [word] throughout the whole City that they had been denied permission of seeing me by your commands, I thought that I ought to refrain from [writing] letters, lest I be judged burdensome rather than dutiful. You see, therefore, that it came not from my dissembling, but rather from proper caution, lest I inflict annoyance on one minded to reject me. But when I learned that the benevolence of Your Serenity had, as indicated above, expected a word from my humility, then I truly recognized that I would not unjustly be blamed if I remained silent. For, glorious son, I as a Roman born love, honor, and accept you as the Roman Prince. And as a Christian I desire to have knowledge according to the truth with one who has zeal for God. And as the Vicar of the Apostolic See (of whatever quality), whenever I see something (however little) lacking from the fullness of the Catholic Faith, I attempt to supply it by moderate and timely suggestions. For the dispensing of the divine word has been enjoined on me: «woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel» (1 Cor 9:16). Because, if the vessel of election, blessed Paul the Apostle, is afraid and cries out, how much more urgently must I fear if in my preaching I omit anything from the ministry of preaching which has been divinely inspired and handed down by the piety of the fathers.

§ 2 I pray your Piety not to judge [my] duty toward the divine plan as arrogance. Far be it from the Roman Prince, I beg, that he judge the truth that he senses in his heart to be an injury. For there are two, O emperor Augustus, by which the world is principally ruled: the sacred authority of pontiffs and the royal power. Among which how much heavier is the burden of priests, such that they will have to render an account to the Lord at the time of judgment even for those very kings. For you know, O most merciful son, that although by dignity you preside over the human race, nevertheless you devoutly bow your neck to the leaders of divine matters, and from them you await the causes of your salvation, and you recognize that, in partaking of the celestial sacraments, and being disposed to them (as is appropriate), you must be submitted to the order of religion rather than rule over it. Therefore you know that in these matters you depend on their judgement, not willing to force them to your will. For if, inasmuch as it pertains to the order of public discipline, even the bishops themselves obey your laws, knowing that rule [imperium] has been bestowed to you from on high, lest they seem in mundane things to oppose the eminent sentence; with what passion, I ask, does it become you to obey those, who have been assigned for the distribution of the venerable mysteries? Just as the danger does not fall upon pontiffs lightly, to have been silent on behalf of the cult of the Divinity, which is fitting; thus there is no slight peril to those who (perish the thought!) when they ought to obey, look askance. And if it is settled that the faithful submit their hearts to all the priests in general who pass on divine things rightly, how much more must they submit to the prelate of that See, whom the highest Divinity willed also to be preëminent above all priests, and which the piety of the universal Church subsequently celebrated.

§ 3 Clearly, wherever Your Piety turns, no one at all has been able to raise himself to the privilege or confession of that one, whom the voice of Christ has put over all, who has been always confessed and venerated by the Church, and has the first devotion. Those things which have been constituted by divine judgement can be attacked by human presumption, but they cannot be conquered by any power. And if only boldness would not be so pernicious against those struggling, as those things which have been fixed by the very founder of sacred religion cannot be dislodged by any force: the foundation of God stands firm (2 Tim 2:19). For is religion, when it is infested by some [persons], able to be overcome by novelties? Does it not rather remain unconquered by the thing supposed to be able to defeat it? And I ask you therefore, may they desist, who under your aegis run about headlong seeking the disruption of the church, which is not permitted: or at least that these should in no way achieve those things which they wickedly desire, and not keep their measure before God and men.

§ 4 For this reason, before God, I beg, adjure, and exhort your piety purely and earnestly that you not receive my request disdainfully: I say again: I ask that you hear me beseeching you now in this life rather than (later) accusing you—perish the thought!—before the divine tribunal. Nor is it hidden from me, O Emperor Augustus, what the devotion of Your Piety has been in private life. You always chose to be a participator of the eternal promise. Wherefore, I pray you, be not angry with me, if I love you so much that I want you to have that reign, which you have temporarily, forever, and that you who rule the age, might be able to rule with Christ. Certainly, by your laws, Emperor, you do not allow anything to perish, nor do you allow any damage to be done to the Roman name. Surely then it is not true, Excellent Prince, who desires not only the present benefits of Christ but also the future ones, that you would suffer anyone under your aegis to bring loss to religion, to truth, to the sincerity of the Catholic Communion, and to the Faith? By what faith (I ask you) will you ask reward of him there, whose loss you do not prohibit here?

§ 5 Be they not heavy, I pray thee, those things that are said for your eternal salvation. You have read it written: «the wounds of a friend are better than the kisses of an enemy» (Prov. 27:8). I ask your piety to receive what I say into your mind in the same sentiment in which I say it. No one should deceive Your Piety. What the Scriptures witness figuratively through the prophet is true: «One is my dove, one is my perfect one» (Cant. 6:8), one is the Christian faith, which is Catholic. But that faith is truly Catholic, which is divided by a sincere, pure, and unspotted communion from all the perfidious and their successors and associates. Otherwise there would not be the divinely commanded distinction, but a deplorable muddle. Nor would there be any reason left, if we allow this contagion in anyone, not to open wide the gate to all the heresies. For who in one thing offends, is guilty of all (James 2:10); and: who despises little things shall little by little fall (Sirach 19:1)

§ 6 This is what the Apostolic See vigorously guards against, that since the pure root is the glorious confession of the Apostle, it might not be soiled by any fissure of perversity, nor by any direct contagion. For if something like that were to happen (which God forbid, and which we trust is impossible), how could we dare to resist any error, or from whence could we request the correction to those in error? Moreover, if Your Piety denies that the people of a single city can be brought together in peace, what would we do with the whole world, if (God forbid) it were to be deceived by our prevarication? If the whole world has been set right, despising the profane traditions of its fathers, how could the people of a single city not be converted if the preaching of the faith persevere. Therefore, glorious Emperor, do I not will the peace, I who would embrace it even if it came at the price of my blood? But, I prithee, let us hold in our mind of what sort the peace ought to be; not any kind, but a truly Christian peace. For how can there be a true peace where chaste charity is lacking? But how charity ought to be, the Apostle evidently preaches for us, who says, Charity is from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith (1 Tim. 1:5). How, I pray thee, shall it be from a pure heart, if it is poisoned by an external contagion? How shall it be from a good conscience, if it is commingled with depraved and evil things? How shall it be from an unfeigned faith if it remains united with the perfidious? While these things have often been said by us, it is nevertheless necessary to repeat them incessantly, and not to be silent as long as the name of “peace” continues to be put forward as an excuse; it is not for us (as the is enviously asserted) to make “peace”, but we nevertheless teach that we want that true peace, which is the only peace, apart from which none other can be shown.

§ 7 Certainly if the dogma of Eutyches, against which the caution of the Apostolic See vigilantly watches, is believed to be consistent with the saving Catholic faith, then it ought to be brought forward plainly and asserted and supported with as much force as possible, for then it will be possible to show not only how inimical it is to the Christian faith itself, but also how many and how deadly are the heresies it contains in its dregs. But if rather (as we are confident you will) you judge that this dogma should be excluded from Catholic minds, I ask you why you do not also suppress the contagion of those who have been shown to be contaminated by it? As the Apostle says: Are only those who do things that ought not to be done guilty, and not also they that consent to them that do them? (cf. Rom 1:32). Accordingly, just as one cannot accept a participant in perversity without equally approving of the perversity, so too, one cannot refute perversity while admitting an accomplice and partisan of perversity.

§ 8 Certainly, by your laws, accomplices of crimes and harbourers of thieves are judged to be bound equally by the same punishment; nor is he considered to have no part in a crime, who, though he did not do it himself, nevertheless accepts the familiarity and the alliance of the doer. Accordingly, when the Council of Chalcedon, celebrated for the Catholic and Apostolic faith and the true communion, condemned Eutyches, the progenitor of those detestable ravings, it did not leave it at that, but likewise also struck down his consort Dioscorus and the rest. In this way, therefore, just as in the case of every heresy there is no ambiguity about what has always been done or what is being done: their successors Timothy [the Cat], Peter [the Hoarse], and the other Peter, the Antiochian, have been cut out— not individually by councils called again to deal with them singly, but once and for all as a consequence of the regular acts of the synod. Therefore, as it has not been clear that even those who were their correspondents and accomplices are all bound with a similar strictness, and are by right wholly separated from the Catholic and Apostolic communion, We hereby declare that Acacius, too, is to be removed from communion with Us, since he preferred to cast in his lot with perfidy rather than to remain in the authentic Catholic and Apostolic communion (though for almost three years he has been authoritatively advised by letters of the Apostolic See, lest it should come to this). But after he went over to another communion, nothing was possible except that he should be at once cut off from association with the Apostolic See, lest on his account, if We delayed even a little, We also should seem to have come into contact with the perfidious. But when he was struck with such a blow, did he come to his senses, did he promise correction, did he emend his error? Would he have been coerced by more lenient treatment, when even harsh blows left no impression? While he tarries in his perfidy and damnation, it is both impossible to use his name in the liturgy of the church, and unnecessary to tolerate any external contact with him. Wherefore he will be led in good faith away from the heretical communion into which he has mixed himself, or there will be no choice but to drive him away with them.

§ 9 But if the bishops of the East murmur, that the Apostolic See did not apply such judgments to them, as if they had either convinced the Apostolic See that Peter [the Hoarse] was to be accepted as legitimate, or had not yet been fully complicit in this unheard-of acceptation: just as they cannot demonstrate that he was free of heretical depravity, neither can they in anyway excuse themselves, being in communion with heretics. If perhaps they should add that they all with one voice reported the reception of Peter [the Hoarse] by Acacius to the Apostolic See, then by the same token they know how he responded to them. But the authority of the Apostolic See— that in all Christian ages it has been set over the universal Church— is confirmed both by a series of canons of the Fathers, and by manifold tradition. But even hence, whether anyone should prevail to usurp anything for himself against the ordinances of the Synod of Nicaea, this can be shown to the college of the one communion, not to the opinion of external society. If anyone has confidence amongst them, let him go out into the midst, and disprove and instruct the Apostolic See concerning each part. Therefore let his name [Acacius] be removed from our midst, which works the separation of churches far from Catholic communion, in order that sincere peace of faith and of communion should be repaired, and unity: and then let it competently and legitimately be investigated which of us either has risen up or struggles to rise up against venerable antiquity. And then shall appear who by modest intention guards the form and tradition of the elders, and who irreverently leaping beyond these, reckons himself able to become equal by robbery.

§ 10 But if it is proposed to me that the character [persona] of the Constantinopolitan people makes it impossible (it is said) that the name of scandal, that is Acacius, be removed; I am silent, because with both the heretic Macedonius formerly having been driven out, and Nestorius recently having been thrown out, the Constantinopolitan people have elected to remain Catholic rather than be retained by affection for their condemned greater prelates. I am silent, because those who had been baptized by these very same condemned prelates, remaining in the Catholic faith, are disturbed by no agitation. I am silent, because for ludicrous things the authority of Your Piety now restrains popular tumults; and thus much more for the necessary salvation of their souls the multitude of the Constantinopolitan city obeys you, if you princes should lead them back unto the Catholic and Apostolic communion. For, Emperor Augustus, if anyone perhaps were to attempt something against public laws (perish the thought!), for no reason would you have been able to suffer it. Do you not reckon it to concern your conscience that the people subject to you should be driven back from the pure and sincere devotion of Divinity? Finally, if the mind of the people of one city is not reckoned to be offended if divine things (as the matter demands) are corrected— how much more does it hold that, lest divine things should be offended, we ought not (nor can we) strike the pious faith of all those of the Catholic name?

§ 11 And nevertheless these same ones demand that they should be healed by our will. Therefore they allow that they can be cured by competent remedies: otherwise (Heaven forfend!) by crossing over into their ruin, we can perish with them, whereas we cannot save them. Now here I leave to your conscience under divine judgement what must rather be done: whether, as We desire, we should return all at once unto certain life; or, as those demand, we should tend unto manifest death.

§ 12 But still they strain to call the Apostolic See proud and arrogant for furnishing them with medicines. The quality of the languishing often has this: that they should accuse rather the medics calling them back to healthful things by fitting observations, than that they themselves should consent to depose or reprove their noxious appetites. If we are proud, because we minister fitting remedies of souls, what are those to be called who resist? If we are proud who say that obedience must be given to paternal decrees, by what name should those be called who oppose them? If we are puffed up, who desire that the divine cult should be served with pure and unblemished tenor; let them say how those who think even against divinity should be named. Thus also do the rest, who are in error, reckon us, because we do not consent to their insanity. Nevertheless, truth herself indicates where the spirit of pride really stands and fights.

[1] Sometimes also as Ad Anastasium, Epistle XII (Thiel), or Epistle VIII (Migne).

[2] Matthew Briel, trans. in: George E. Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 173-180; Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I (492-496) (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), pp. 73-80.

[3] The translation was made by numerous online friends of The Josias in a shared google spreadsheet. The style is therefore uneven. For technical reasons we used Migne’s edition in PL 59, col. 41-47, but we have corrected it in some places with reference to Thiel’s critical edition: Andreas Thiel, ed., Epistolae Romanorum pontificum genuinae et quae ad eos scriptae sunt: a S. Hilaro usque ad Pelagium II., vol. 1 (Braunsberg: E. Peter, 1867), pp. 349-358. For the paragraph numbering we have followed Thiel.

[4] For an account of the period, see: Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), chs. 9-10.

[5] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, Introduction.

[6] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, p. 71.

[7] Hugo Rahner, S.J., Church and State in Early Christianity, trans. Leo Donald Davis, S.J. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1961), p. 151. As Rahner notes, his book was originally written at a time “when the struggle between Church and state in Nazi Germany was at its height” (p. xi), which goes someway in explaining its tone.

[8] Bronwen Neil and Pauline Allen call it “sententious and pompous” and complain that it is repetitive and overburdens subordinate clauses: The Letters of Gelasius I, p. 67.

[9] George Demacopoulos portrays him as an ineffectual blusterer The Invention of Peter, ch. 3.

[10] See: Aloysius K. Ziegler, “Pope Gelasius I and His Teaching on the Relation of Church and State,” in: The Catholic Historical Review 27.4 (1942), pp. 412-437, at pp. 416-417.

[11] Thiel’s edition contains 43 letters, 49 fragments, and six tractates, filling over 300 pages: Thiel, Epistolae, vol. 1, pp. 285-618.

[12] See: Mario Spinelli, s.v. “Gelasius I,” in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 3rd ed., vol. IV, eds. Walter Kasper, et al. (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), col. 401-402.

[13] Dioscurus had (verbally) agreed with Eutyches that there was only one nature in Christ. In Alexandria this was held to be the orthodox position, since St. Cyril of Alexandria had used the formula μία φύσις το θεο λόγου σεσαρκωμένη (“one incarnate nature of God the Logos”). Chalcedon, however, defined that Christ was in two natures (ν δύο φύσεσιν). It is now generally held that the disagreement is based on an equivocal use of the word φύσις (nature). See: Theresia Hainthaler, s.v. “Monophysitismus,” in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, vol. VII, (1998), col. 418-421; W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement: Chapters in the History of the Church in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).

[14] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, p. 155.

[15] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement,, p. 174.

[16] For the story of the Henotikon see: Ibid., pp. 174-183.

[17] Zeno, Henotikon, in: The Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, trans. Michael Whitby (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000), III,14; pp. 147-149, at p. 147.

[18] Zeno, Henotikon, p. 149.

[19] One of the orthodox “Sleepless Monks” was able to pin the pope’s excommunication to Acacius’s vestments during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy: Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, pp. 182-183.

[20] Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement,, p. 190.

[21] Neil and Allen, trans., The Letters of Gelasius I, pp. 37-38.

[22] Rahner, Church and State, pp. 154-155.

[23] See: Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), p. 10; Robert Louis Benson, “The Gelasian Doctrine: Uses And Transformations,” in: George Makdisi, et al., eds., La notion d’autorité au Moyen Age: Islam, Byzance, Occident: Colloques internationaux de La Napoule, session des 23-26 octobre 1978 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1982), pp. 13-44.

[24] See: John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), especially pp. 202-203; George Weigel, “Catholicism and Democracy: Parsing the Other Twentieth-Century Revolution,” in: Michael Novak, William Brailsford, and Cornelis Heesters, eds. A Free Society Reader: Principles for the New Millennium (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), pp. 141-165, at pp. 150-151. Cf. my critique of the Whig Thomists: “Integralism and Gelasian Dyarchy,” in: The Josias, March 3, 2016: https://thejosias.com/2016/03/03/integralism-and-gelasian-dyarchy (accessed March 28, 2020), part 4.

[25] Erich Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft, vol. 2 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1933), p. 67 (translation my own).

[26] Alan Cottrell, “Auctoritas and Potestas: A Reevaluation of the Correspondence of Gelasius I on Papal-Imperial Relations,” in: Medieval Studies 55 (1993), pp. 95-109, at p. 96. (This is not Cottrell’s own view).

[27] Michael Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” in: First Things 301.4 (2020), pp. 43-50. Hanby does not explicitly mention Gelasius, but it is clear that the Gelasian teaching is in the background of his discussion of auctoritas and potestas, especially since he quotes Walter Ullmann’s interpretation of Gelasius (p. 45).

[28] Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 45.

[29] Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 45.

[30] Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1962), pp. 12-13, note 5.

[31] Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums, p. 66.

[32] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 21.

[33] Ernst Stein, “La Période Byzantine de la Papauté,” in: The Catholic Historical Review 21.2 (1935), pp. 129-163, at p. 135. Hanby complains about me: “Waldstein does not think philosophically about the distinction between auctoritas and potestas, which he treats more or less synonymously” (Hanby, “For and Against Integralism,” p. 47). I wonder if he would make the same complaint about St. Gelasius in Tractate IV.

[34] Ziegler, “Pope Gelasius I and His Teaching,” p. 432, note 66; the quotation from Felix can be found in: Thiel, Epistolae, vol. 1, p. 272; translation in: Jeffrey Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476-752 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 62.

[35] In the light of the subsequent development of Church teaching one could save something like Erich Caspar’s interpretation as follows: The relationship between the spiritual and temporal powers in temporal matters would be modeled on the relationship between the senate and the magistrates in the Republic. Auctoritas would mean moral authority. Potestas would be coercive force, prescinding from whether it is united to moral authority or not. So it would be wrong to see potestas as mere violence but violence would be included as well as rightly ordered force. The pope would have both auctoritas and potestas in the spiritual order. In the temporal order he would exercise auctorias, and his auctoritas would guarantee the right order of the potestas of temporal rulers. See: Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy (Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae, 2020), p. 72.

[36] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, p. 90.

[37] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, pp. 8-9.

[38] John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, 8th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, and co., 1891), p. 40.

[39] Demacopoulos, The Invention of Peter, pp. 90-91; cf. Ullmann’s similar argument in The Growth of Papal Government, pp. 23-26.

[40] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 28.

[41] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 11.

[42] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 3.

[43] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 12.

[44] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 20.

[45] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 22.

[46] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 24.

[47] Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government, p. 28.

[48] Robert W. Dyson, St. Augustine of Hippo: The Christian Transformation of Political Philosophy (London: Continuum, 2005), ch. 5.

[49] Rahner, Church and State, p. 157.